And those that were good shall be happy: they shall sit in a golden chair;

They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of

comets' hair;

They shall find real saints to draw from

and Paul;

Magdalene, Peter,

They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all!

And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame;

And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for

fame,

But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate

star,

Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as
They are!

"CLEARED"

(In memory of the Parnell Commission) neto

HELP for a patriot distressed, a spotless spirit hurt,
Help for an honourable clan sore trampled in the dirt!
From Queenstown Bay to Donegal, Oh listen to my song,
The honourable gentlemen have suffered grievous wrong.

Their noble names were mentioned - Oh the burning black
disgrace! -

By a brutal Saxon paper in an Irish shooting-case;
They sat upon it for a year, then steeled their heart to brave

it,

And "coruscating innocence" the learned Judges gave it.

Bear witness, Heaven, of that grim crime beneath the surgeon's knife,

The honourable gentlemen deplored the loss of life!

Bear witness of those chanting choirs that burk and shirk and snigger,

No man laid hand upon the knife or finger to the trigger!

Cleared in the face of all mankind beneath the winking skies, Like phoenixes from Phoenix Park (and what lay there) they rise!

Go shout it to the emerald seas give word to Erin now, Her honourable gentlemen are cleared and this is how:

They only paid the Moonlighter his cattle-hocking price, They only helped the murderer with counsel's best advice, But sure it keeps their honour white the learned Court believes

They never give a piece of plate to murderers and thieves.

They never told the ramping crowd to card a woman's hide, They never marked a man for death what fault of theirs he died?

They only said "intimidate," and talked and went awayBy God, the boys that did the work were braver men than they!

Their sin it was that fed the fire small blame to them that

The boys get drunk on rhetoric, and madden at a wordThey knew whom they were talking at, if they were Irish too, The gentlemen that lied in Court, they knew, and well they

knew.

They only took the Judas-gold from Fenians out of jail, They only fawned for dollars on the blood-dyed Clan-na-Gael. If black is black or white is white, in black and white it's

down,

They're only traitors to the Queen and rebels to the Crown.

"Cleared," honourable gentlemen! Be thankful it's no

more:

The widow's curse is on your house, the dead are at your door.

On you the shame of open shame, on you from North to South

The hand of every honest man flat-heeled across your mouth.

"Less black than we were painted"? — Faith, no word of black was said;

The lightest touch was human blood, and that, you know, runs red.

It's sticking to your fist to-day for all your sneer and scoff, And by the Judge's well-weighed word you cannot wipe it off.

Hold up those hands of innocence

together,

go, scare your sheep

The blundering, tripping tups that bleat behind the old bell

wether;

And if they snuff the taint and break to find another pen,
Tell them it's tar that glistens so, and daub them yours

again!

"The charge is old"? As old as Cain-as fresh as

yesterday;

Old as the Ten Commandments

away?

have ye talked those laws

If words are words, or death is death, or powder sends the

ball,

You spoke the words that sped the shot the curse be on you all.

"Our friends believe"? Of course they do

women may;

But have they seen the shrieking soul ripped from the quiver

ing clay?

They! — If their own front door is shut, they'll swear the

whole world's warm;

What do they know of dread of death or hanging fear of harm?

The secret half a county keeps, the whisper in the lane,

The shriek that tells the shot went home behind the broken

pane,

The dry blood crisping in the sun that scares the honest bees, And shows the boys have heard your talk—what do they know of these?

Black terror on the country-side by word and whisper bred, The mangled stallion's scream at night, the tail-cropped heifer's low.

Who set the whisper going first? You know, and well you know!

My soul! I'd sooner lie in jail for murder plain and straight, Pure crime I'd done with my own hand for money, lust, or

hate,

Than take a seat in Parliament by fellow-felons cheered, While one of those "not provens " proved me cleared as you are cleared.

Cleared you that "lost" the League accounts

guard our honour still,

go,

Go, help to make our country's laws that broke God's law

at will

One hand stuck out behind the back, to signal "strike

again ";

The other on your dress-shirt-front to show your heart is clane.

If black is black or white is white, in black and white it's down,

You're only traitors to the Queen and rebels to the Crown. If print is print or words are words, the learned Court perpends:

We are not ruled by murderers, but only by their friends.

THE BALLAD OF EAST AND WEST

1889

OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain

shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment

Seat:

But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor

Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth!

Kamal is out with twenty men to raise the Borderside,
And he has lifted the Colonel's mare that is the Colonel's pride:
He has lifted her out of the stable-door between the dawn and

the day,

And turned the calkins upon her feet, and ridden her far away. Then up and spoke the Colonel's son that led a troop of the

Guides:

"Is there never a man of all my men can say where Kamal hides?"

Then up and spoke Mohammed Khan, the son of the Ressaldar:

"If ye know the track of the morning-mist, ye know where his pickets are.