| |
| “READ out the names!” and Burke sat back, | |
| And Kelly dropped his head. | |
| While Shea—they call him Scholar Jack— | |
| Went down the list of the dead. | |
| Officers, seamen, gunners, marines, | 5 |
| The crews of the gig and yawl, | |
| The bearded man and the lad in his teens, | |
| Carpenters, coal passers—all. | |
| Then, knocking the ashes from out his pipe, | |
| Said Burke in an offhand way: | 10 |
| “We’re all in that dead man’s list by Cripe! | |
| Kelly and Burke and Shea.” | |
| “Well, here’s to the Maine, and I’m sorry for Spain,” | |
| Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. | |
| |
| “Wherever there’s Kellys there’s trouble,” said Burke, | 15 |
| “Wherever fighting’s the game, | |
| Or a spice of danger in grown man’s work,” | |
| Said Kelly “you’ll find my name.” | |
| “And do we fall short,” said Burke, getting mad, | |
| “When it’s touch and go for life?” | 20 |
| Said Shea, “It’s thirty-odd years, bedad, | |
| Since I charged to drum and fife | |
| Up Marye’s Heights, and my old canteen | |
| Stopped a rebel ball on its way; | |
| There were blossoms of blood on our sprigs of green— | 25 |
| Kelly and Burke and Shea— | |
| And the dead didn’t brag.” “Well, here’s to the flag!” | |
| Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. | |
| |
| “I wish ’twas in Ireland, for there’s the place,” | |
| Said Burke, “that we’d die by right, | 30 |
| In the cradle of our soldier race, | |
| After one good, stand-up fight. | |
| My grandfather fell on Vinegar Hill, | |
| And fighting was not his trade; | |
| But his rusty pike’s in the cabin still, | 35 |
| With Hessian blood on the blade.” | |
| “Aye, aye,” said Kelly, “the pikes were great | |
| When the word was ‘clear the way!’ | |
| We were thick on the roll in ninety-eight— | |
| Kelly and Burke and Shea.” | 40 |
| “Well, here’s to the pike and the sword and the like!” | |
| Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. | |
| |
| And Shea, the scholar, with rising joy, | |
| Said, “We were at Ramillies, | |
| We left our bones Fontenoy | 45 |
| And up in the Pyrenees. | |
| Before Dunkirk, on Landen’s plain, | |
| Cremona, Lille and Ghent, | |
| We’re all over Austria, France and Spain, | |
| Wherever they pitched a tent. | 50 |
| We’ve died for England, from Waterloo | |
| To Egypt and Dargai; | |
| And still there’s enough for a corps or crew, | |
| Kelly and Burke and Shea.” | |
| “Well, here is to good honest fighting blood!” | 55 |
| Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. | |
| |
| “Oh, the fighting races don’t die out, | |
| If they seldom die in bed, | |
| For love is first in their hearts, no doubt,” | |
| Said Burke; then Kelly said: | 60 |
| “When Michael, the Irish Archangel, stands, | |
| The angel with the sword, | |
| And the battle-dead from a hundred lands | |
| Are ranged in one big horde, | |
| Our line, that for Gabriel’s trumpet waits, | 65 |
| Will stretch three deep that day, | |
| From Jehosaphat to the Golden Gates— | |
| Kelly and Burke and Shea.” | |
| “Well, here’s thank God for the race and the sod!” | |
| Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. | 70 |
| |
