Tom Kettle

“ Free brain, free brawn, is given us, then sweep we from our way
These shamers of our mother, this idle, noisome spume.
For, lo! an army gathers around a standard clean;
I gird me dinted armour, and press to touch the throng.
Hark! Hark! The minstrels' war-hymn in very strength serene,
My harp is harsh of utterance, yet take a pupil's song.
Then stout heart join our battle! who hail an eastern sun,
Our toil shall set this people upon earth's purest height. ”

“ A genial cynic, a pleasant pessimist, an earnest trifler, he was made up of contradictions. A fellow of infinite jest--and infinite sadness. His prototypes were Hamlet or the Melancholy Jacques. Among the delightful essays he has left us in that charming little book, The Day's Burden, is one entitled "A new way of misunderstanding Hamlet." He was himself a veritable Hamlet in this twentieth century Ireland. One may ask, did he quite understand himself? Master of paradox, enunciator of enigma, he was a paradox and an enigma in, and to, himself. ”

“ We ain't no saints or scholars much, but fightin' men and clean,
We've paid the price, and three times thrice for Wearin' o' the Green.
We held our hand out frank and fair, and half forgot Parnell,
For Ireland's hope and England's too--and it's yours to save or sell.
For it's Paddy this, and Paddy that, "Who'll stop the Uhlan blade?"
But Tommy Fitz from Malahide, and Monaghan's McGlade,
When the ranks are set for judgment, lads, and the roses droop and fade,
It's "Ireland in the firin' line!" when the price of God is paid. ”

“ And tired men sigh with mud for couch and floor,
Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead,
Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor,
But for a dream, born in a herdsman's shed,
And for the secret Scripture of the poor.
the field, before Guillemont, Somme,
September 4, 1916.
ON LEAVING IRELAND
(JULY 14, 1916)
The pathos of departure is indubitable.
I never felt my own essay "On saying Good-Bye" so profoundly aux tréfonds du coeur. The sun was a clear globe of blood which we caught hanging over Ben Edar, with a trail of pure blood vibrating to us across the waves. ”

“ Paying the price of the dreams that cannot sleep.
The altar is set; we uplift again the chalice;
The priest is in purple; the bell booms to the sacrifice.
The trumpets summon to death, and Ireland rallies--
Tool or free? We have paid, and over-paid, the price.
Word of the Tsar! And Russia rises to vision,
Poland and Ireland--thus, my lords, was an augured fate.
The days draw in, and the ways narrow down to decision--
Will they chaffer, and cheapen, and ruin, or yield to be great?
Written in Belgium, August, 1914
A SONG OF THE IRISH ARMIES
A wind blew out of the Prussian plain ”

“ He crowded into thirty-six years of life far more than most men achieve in twice that span. Now the orator is silent, the brilliant wit has ceased to sparkle, the skilful pen will ply no more. Tom Kettle knows at last the answer to the riddle that baffled him, the Riddle of the Universe. ”

“ Mary's nuns, whose stainless gift is Heaven's chaliced ray,
Let us twine a wreath of science, let us play our play,
Ere we fight the fight of ages, one sweet prelude-day.
* * * * *
The stranger heard and mocked us from the usurped throne,
Reeled in his scornful laughter, eater of hearts, blood-blown. ”

“ You said, and it was done, my lords,
Yours was the law, and yours the land.
You clove the priest, you robbed the shrine,
With spoil of Paul and Peter fat,
Brimmed altar-cups with altar-wine
To toast your new Magnificat.
The poor, who are the lords of death,
To you were mud in foundered ways ”

“ From hate for hate endured,
We share the liberty
Our lavish blood assured.
One place, one dream, one doom,
One task and toil assigned,
Union of plough and loom
Have bound us and shall bind.
The wounds of labour healed,
Life rescued and made fair--
There lies the battlefield
Of Ulster's holy war.
TO IRELAND
Men so worthy
Suffered for Thee,
Men so poor can die;
Then come gather
All, or rather
Those who ask not why.
WAR POEMS
PADDY
(After Mr. Kipling)
I went into the talkin' shop to see about the Bill ”

“ Ye know not warp or weaver, yet neither swerve or sigh,
The eater of hearts shall wither, the drinker of blood shall die.
I have set you labour, work it; I will give you increase,
For first is winter-ploughing, after, my guerdon, peace;
Ye shall pluck strength from sorrow, ripe when the sorrows cease;
Ye shall win strength and wisdom to break the stranger's rule,
But if ye slink and babble ye are but as the fools,
Ye are but as the stranger, fit for the thorny schools."
A SONG OF VENGEANCE
FOR COMMANDANT SCHEEPERS
(Murdered January 18, 1902)
It is done inexpiably ”

“ Thro' poets' books, and how the streaming torch
Of suns greater than Sirius has failed,
And as I shambled out the menial's door
I heard new feet sound in the statued porch
And salutations I had heard before.
WHEN OTHERS SEE US AS WE SEE OURSELVES! ”

“ You shall know, when they wind you in your shroud.
Innsbruck, 18th July, 1904.
THE MONKS
A translation from EMILE VERHAEREN.
Dedicated to Father Benedict, 1905.
I do invoke you here, Monks Apostolical,
Fountains of dawn, torches of faith, wrought candlesticks;
Stars shedding day across the ages mystical;
Builders whose walls for scutcheon bear the Crucifix.
Hermits who sat on white, high mountains for a throne;
Hewn marble quick with will, and strength, and angry truth ”