We cannot
undertake to cancel the names of these men from our calendar. We are no
more ashamed of them than the constitutional England of modern times is
ashamed of her Langtons and De Montforts, her Sidneys and Hampdens. Our
attitude in their regard goes beyond the reach of prose, and no adequate
poetry comes to my mind. The Irish poets have recently been so busy
compiling catalogues of crime, profanity, and mania for the Abbey
Theatre that they have not had time to attend to politics; and in
attempting to suggest the spirit that must inform the settlement between
Ireland and England, if out of it is to spring the authentic flower of
loyalty, I am reluctantly compelled to fall back on a weaker brother,
not of the craft:
Bond, from the toil of hate we may not cease:
Free, we are free to be your friend.
But when you make your banquet, and we come,
Soldier with equal soldier must we sit,
Closing a battle, not forgetting it.
This mate and mother of valiant rebels dead
Must come with all her history or her head.
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