Lyra Frivola Part 6

Let detractors contend that your means and your end are the end and the means of the vulture-- Such an altruist plan must betoken the man who is bent on diffusion of culture.

Be it yours to a.s.suage for inadequate wage our unseemly contentions and quarrels, Be it yours to maintain your respectable reign in the sphere of Political Morals; And, relying no more on the shedding of gore or the rule of torpedoes and sabres, Make beneficent plots for dividing in lots the domains of your paralyzed neighbours!

THE ARREST (1881)

Come hither, Terence Mulligan, and sit upon the floor, And list a tale of woe that's worse than all you heard before: Of all the wrongs the Saxon's done since Erin's sh.o.r.es he trod The blackest harm he's wrought us now--sure Doolan's put in quod!

It was the Saxon minister, he said unto himself, I'll never have a moment's peace till Doolan's on the shelf-- So bid them make a warrant out and send it by the mail, To put that daring patriot in dark Kilmainham gaol.

The minions of authority, that doc.u.ment they wrote, And Mr Buckshot took the thing upon the Dublin boat: Och! sorra much he feared the waves, incessantly that roar, For deeper flows the sea of blood he shed on Ireland's sh.o.r.e!

But the hero slept unconscious still--tis kilt he was with work, Haranguing of the mult.i.tudes in Waterford and Cork,-- Till Buckshot and the polis came and rang the front door bell Disturbing of his slumbers sweet in Morrison's Hotel.

Then out and spake brave Morrison--"Get up, yer sowl, and run!"

(O bright shall s.h.i.+ne on History's page the name of Morrison!) "To see the light of Erin quenched I never could endure: Slip on your boots--I'll let yez out upon the kitchen doore!"

But proudly flashed the patriot's eye and he sternly answered--"No!

I'll never turn a craven back upon my country's foe: Doolan aboo, for Liberty! . . . and anyhow" (says he) "The Government's locked the kitchen-door and taken away the key."

They seized him and they fettered him, those minions of the Law, ('Twas Pat the Boots was looking on, and told me what he saw)-- But sorra step that Uncrowned King would leave the place, until A ten per cent reduction he had got upon his bill.

Had I been there with odds to aid--say twenty men to one-- It stirs my heart to think upon the deeds I might have done!

I wouldn't then be telling you the melancholy tale How Ireland's pride imprisoned lies in dark Kilmainham gaol.

Yet weep not, Erin, for thy son! 'tis he that's doing well, For Ireland's thousands feed him there within his dungeon cell,-- And if by chance he eats too much and his health begins to fail, The Government then will let him out from black Kilmainham gaol!

"THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN"

(1890)

Oh, wanst I was a tinant, an' I wisht I was one stilt, With my cow an' pig an' praties, an' my cabin on the hill!

'Twas plinty then I had to drink an' plinty too to ate, And the childer had employment on the Ponsonby estate.

It was in Tipperary town, as down the street I went, I met with Mr Blarnigan, that sits in Parliament: 'Tis he that has the eloquence! An' "Pay no rint," says he, "For that's the way you'll get your land, an' set the country free."

I'd paid my rint--sure, 'twas rejuiced--before the rows began, An' the agent that was in it was a dacent kind of man; But parties kem by moonlight now, and tould me I must not, And if I paid it any more they'd surely have me shot.

The agent said he'd take the half of all the rint I owed, Because he'd be unwilling for to put me on the road: I said, "I thank your honour, and in glory may you be!

But that is not the way," says I, "to set ould Ireland free."

They kem an' put me out of that, and left me there forlorn, Beside the empty ruins of the house where I was born: I'm indepindent now myself, and have no work to do, Until the day when Ireland is indepindent too.

"A day will come," says Blarnigan, "when tyranny's o'erthrown-- Just hould the rint a year or so, and all the land's your own!"

Well, 'tis not for the likes of me to question what they say, But it's starved we'll be before we see that great and glorious day!

This fighting against tyranny's a splendid kind of thrade, For thim that goes to London for't, and gets their tickets paid!

I'm loafing on the road myself, an' sorra know I know What way I'll live the winter through, an' where on earth I'll go.

Oh, wanst I was a tinant, an' I wisht I was one still, With my cow an' pig an' praties, an' my cabin on the hill!

Now it's to New York City that I'll have to cross the sea, And all because I held my rint to set the counthry free.

THE PATRIOTS "POME" (1890)

Ye shanties so airy of New Tipperary, With walls and with floors of the national mud, Where the home of the freeman mocks Tyranny's demon, And the landlord and agent are nipped in the bud!

No Saxon may venture those precincts to enter, He is barred from their portals by Liberty's ban, And we boycott each other, each patriot brother, And safely deride the Emergency Man.

Though the comfort exterior, perhaps, is inferior To the homes you have left, on a casual view-- With its excellent moral no person can quarrel, Morality's always the weapon for you.

'Tis a duty you owe to your country's condition, For her, to relinquish your homes and your pelf: Were I placed (as I'm not) in a similar position, I have no doubt at all I should do so myself.

It is dastards alone who are ready to grovel, And make themselves footb.a.l.l.s for landlords to kick, It is better by far to be free in a hovel Than to owe for your rent in a palace of brick!

When the Saxon invader has rows with his tenants, It's absurd to a.s.sert that it's _nihil ad rem_ To inflict on yourselves a gratuitous penance, For it irritates him and encourages them.

And it's always a mark of the National Party-- Which their logical shrewdness distinctively shows-- That each member is ready, with cheerfulness hearty, When his face he would punish, to cut off his nose.

So we still turn our backs on the gifts of the Saxon-- Yes, Freedom itself, if they give it, contemn: We would willingly have it from Parnell and Davitt, But we'd sooner be slaves than accept it from them!

MR MORLEY'S APOLOGY (1893)

We statesmen of Erin, Archbishops, M.P.'s, and Leaders of National Thought, Pray explain to your friends that I'm anxious to please, if I do not succeed as I ought!

When I sympathize quite with their notions of right, it is hard, as I'm sure you'll agree, That an agent should come with a dynamite bomb, which perhaps was intended for me!

My views on the tenants evicted for debt are identical wholly with yours, And the fact that they're not in possession as yet no statesman more deeply deplores: I approve of explosives--they're often a link which our union may serve to complete-- But they're dangerous too, as I venture to think, when employed in a populous street.

I planned the Commission; I packed it with men opposed to the payment of rent; No landlord had ever evicted again if they only had done what I meant: It "adjourned," as I know, in a fortnight or so, and it did not do much while it sat, But I was not to blame if we failed in our aim-- for I could not antic.i.p.ate that.

'Tis a shame, I agree, that I cannot set free all persons who kill the police; That patriots leal who in dynamite deal I can only in sections release: But I think you must see that a statesman like me has a character moral at stake, And must simulate doubt as to letting them out, for my Saxon const.i.tuents' sake.

For their sentiments move in the narrowest groove-- be thankful you are not like them!

Mere murder's an act which they seldom approve, and are even inclined to condemn: When the patriot blows up his friends or his foes, those prejudiced Saxons among, It is reckoned a flaw in his notion of law, and he is not unfrequently hung.

Then explain to your friends that their means and their ends I wholly and fully approve, Though at times what I feel I am forced to conceal, and to partly dissemble my love, And the Saxon, I hope, may develop the scope of his narrow and obsolete view-- He will alter in time his conception of crime, on a longer acquaintance with You.