Songs of the Army of the Night Part 6

O we will fight, fight on for you till Your anguish is past, The wronged ones righted, the tyrants still.- Though G.o.d has not saved you, yet we will, At the last, at the last, Ireland, Ireland!

O we will love you in warmth and light And the happy day, When you have forgotten the terrible night, Standing proud and beautiful bright For ever and aye, Ireland, Ireland!

TO CHARLES PARNELL.

One thing we praise you for that is past praise- The dauntless eyes that faced the rain and night, The hand that never wearied in the fight, Till, through the dark's despair, the dawn's delays, It rose, that vision of forgotten days, Ireland, a nation in her right and might, As fearless of the lightning as the Light,- Freedom, the noon-tide sun that s.h.i.+nes and stays!

O brave, O pure, O hater of the wrong, (The wrong that is as one with England's name, Tyranny with cant of liberty, and shame With boast of righteousness), to you belong Trust for the hate that blinds our foes like flame, Love for the hope that makes our hearts so strong!

AN "a.s.sa.s.sIN."

. . . They caught them at the bend. He and his son Sat in the car, revolvers in their laps.

From either side the stone-walled wintry road There flashed thin fire-streaks in the rainy dusk.

The father swayed and fell, shot through the chest.

The son was up, but one more fire-streak leaped Close from the pitch-black of a thick-set bush Not five yards from him, and lit all the face Of him whose sweetheart walked the Dublin streets For l.u.s.t of him who gave one yell and fell Flat on the stony road, a sweltering corse.

Then they came out, the men who did this thing, And looked upon their hatred's retribution, While heedlessly the rattling car fled on.

Grey-haired old wolf, your letch for peasants' blood, For peasants' sweat turned gold and silver and bronze, Is done, is done, for ever and ever is done!

O foul young fox, no more young girls' fresh lips Shall bruise and bleed to cool your lecher's l.u.s.t.

Slowly from out the great high terraced clouds The round moon sailed. The dead were left alone.

I talked with one of those who did this thing, A coughing half-starved lad, mere skin and bone.

I said: "They found upon those dead men, gold.

Why did you not take it?" Then with proud-raised head, He looked at me and said: "_Sorr_, _we're not thaves_!"

_Brother_, _from up the maimed and mangled earth_, _Strewn with our flesh and bones_, _wet with our blood_, _Let that great word go up to unjust heaven_ _And smite the cheek of the devil they've called_ "_G.o.d_!"

"HOLY RUSSIA."

Crouched in the terrible land, The circle of pitiless ice, With frozen b.l.o.o.d.y feet And her pestilential summer's Fever-throb in her brow, Look, in her deep slow eyes The mists of her sleep of faith Stir, and a gleam of light, The ray of a blood-red sun, Beams out into the dusk.

From far away, from the west, From the east, from the south, there come Faint sweet breaths of the breeze Of plenteous warmth and light.

And she moves, and around her neck She feels the iron-scaled Snake Whose fangs suck at the heart Hid by her tattered dress, By her lean and hanging teat.

Russia, O land of faith, O realm of the ageless Slav, O oppressed one of eternity, This darkest hour is the hour, The hour of the coming dawn!

Europe the rank, the corrupt, Lies stretched out at your feet.

Turkey, India, lo all, East and south, it is yours!

Years, years ago a nation, {44} Oppressed as you are oppressed, Burst her bonds and leaped out, A volcanic sea-wave of fire, Quenched at last but in blood, Though not before the red spray Dashed the Pyramids, the Escurial, Rome and your own grey Kremlin.

That was the great sea-wave Of a nation that disbelieved, Of a nation that had not faith!

_What shall the sea-wave be_ _Of this race of eternal belief_, _This nation of a pa.s.sionate faith_?

PeRE-LA-CHAISE. {45} (_Paris_.)

I stood in Pere-la-Chaise. The putrid city, Paris, the harlot of the nations, lay, The bug-bright thing that knows not love nor pity, Flas.h.i.+ng her bare shame to the summer's day.

Here where I stand, they slew you, brothers, whom h.e.l.l's wrongs unutterable had made as mad.

The rifle-shots re-echoed in his tomb, The gilded scoundrel's who had been so glad.

O Morny, O blood-sucker of thy race!

O brain, O hand that wrought out empire that The l.u.s.t in one for power, for tinsel place, Might rest; one lecher's hungry heart grow fat,-

Is it for nothing, now and evermore, O you whose sin in life had death in ease, The murder of your victims beats the door Wherein your careless carrion lies at peace?

AUX TERNES. {46} (_Paris_.)

SHE.-"_Up and down_, _up and down_, _From early eve to early day_.

_Life is quicker in the town_; _When you've leisure_, _anyway_!

"_Down and up_, _down and up_!

_O will no one stop and speak_?

_I would really like to sup_, _And my limbs are heavy and weak_.

"_What's my price_, _sir_? _I'm no Jew_.

_If with me you wish to sleep_, _'Tis five francs_, _sir_. _Surely you_ _Will admit that that is cheap_?"

HE.-"Christ, if you are not stone blind, Stone deaf also, you know it is Christian towns leave far behind Sodom and those other cities.

"Bid your Father strike this town, Wipe it utterly away!

Weary, hungry, up and down From early eve to early day?

"Magdalen knew nought like this; She had food and roof above; Seven devils, too, did she possess; This poor soul had but one-love!

"O my sister, take me, kill me!

I am one of those who once Only cared to feast and fill me On these robbed and murdered ones.

"Kill me? Nay, but love me; listen.

I have too a gospel word, Fit to make still, dull eyes glisten, And, like Christ's, it brings a sword!

"No, Christ is not deaf nor blind; He's but dust in Syrian ground, And his Father has declined To a parson's phrase, a sound.

"Not by such, then, but by _us_ These h.e.l.l-wrongs must be redressed.

Take this morsel venomous; Nourish it within your breast.

"You must live on, live and hate; Conquer wrath, despair and pain; For "we bid you hope" and wait Till the Red Flag flies again: