"We wasted the land from Cork to Louth; we trampled our fallen foes.
"But Conn O'Neill put on me a slight before the Gaelic lords,
"And I betrayed him in the night to the red O'Donnell swords.
"I am no thrall to any man, no vassal to any king.
"I owe no vow to any clan, nor faith to any thing.
"Traitor—but not for fear or gold, but the fire in my own dark brain;
"For the coins I loot from the broken hold I throw to the winds again.
"And I am true to myself alone, through pride and the traitor's part.
"I would give my life to shield your throne, or rip from your breast, the heart.
"For a look or a word, scarce thought or heard, I follow a fading fire.
"Past bead and bell and the hangman's cell, like a harp-call of desire.
"I may not see the road I ride for the witch-fire lamps that gleam;
"But phantoms glide at my bridle-side, and I follow a nameless Dream."
The Black Prince shuddered and shook his head, then crossed himself amain:
"Go, in God's name, and never," he said, "ride in my sight again."
The starlight silvered my bridle-rein; the moonlight burned my lance
As I rode back from the wars again through the pleasant hills of France,
As I rode to tell Lord Amory of the dark Fitzgerald line
If the Black Prince dies, it needs must be by another hand than mine.
Skulls and Dust
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The Persian slaughtered the Apis Bull;
(Ammon-Ra is a darksome king.)
And the brain fermented beneath his skull.
(Egypt's curse is a deathly thing.)
He rode on the desert raider's track;
(Ammon-Ra is a darksome king.)
No man of his gleaming hosts came back.
And the dust winds drifted sombre and black.
(Egypt's curse is a deathly thing.)
The eons passed on the desert land;
(Ammon-Ra is a darksome king.)
And a stranger trod the shifting sand.
(Egypt's curse is a deathly thing.)
His idle hand disturbed the dead;
(Ammon-Ra is a darksome king.)
Till he found Cambysses' skull of dread
Whence the frenzied brain so long had fled,
That once held terrible visions red.
(Egypt's curse is a deathly thing.)
And an asp crawled from the dust inside
(Ammon-Ra is a darksome king.)
And the stranger fell and gibbered and died.
(Egypt's curse is a deathly thing.)
Song at Midnight
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I heard an old gibbet that crowned a bare hill
Creaking a song in the midnight chill;
And I shivered to hear that grisly refrain
That moaned in the night through the fog and the rain.
“Oh, where are the men who came to me
“And danced all night on the gallows tree?
“Gallant and peasant, man and maid,
“Many have walked in that long parade.
“My chains are broken and red with rust,
“My wood is sealed with the moldy crust.
“Have men forgotten their debt to me,
“That they come no more to the gallows tree?”
The drear wind moaned for a dark refrain,
And a raven called in the drifting rain:
“Oh, where are the feasts that awaited me
“Long, long ago on the gibbet tree?”
A slow-worm spoke from the gallows foot:
“Death is spoils for a crow to loot.
“The winds and the rain they worked their will,
“The kites and the ravens have had their fill,
“But last of all when the chains broke free,
“The fruit of the gallows came to me.
“Men and their works, so swiftly past,
“Come to a feast for the worms at last.
“Here I have gnawed on this marrow good,
“Where now I gnaw on this crumbling wood.
“For men and their works are a feast for me—
“The bones, and the noose, and the gallows tree.”
A Song of Cheer
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The lords of Greenwich sallied forth
The men, also the maids;
The dames had cut and combed their hair,
The men wore theirs in braids.
They came unto a comrade's room,
They laid on him their hands
Said they, "Oh fiend, oh cringing wretch!
"Behold the traitor stands!"
They punched him thrice upon the nose,
They blacked his gleaming eye;
They nailed his trousers to the wall
And left him there to die.
But people came and cut him down
And gave him other pants.
"And tell us now," the people said
"How this thing came to chance?"
"Alas for me!" the wretch replied,
"My sinful lust for gold!
"My former friends are down on me—
I wrote a book that sold!"
A Song of College
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Now is chapel gathered, now the seats are full,
Now the goodly president upon his hind legs rises
Launching on a discourse for the great god Bull,
Praising wealth and civic pride and other things he prizes.
While the chapel listens, smug and belly full
And the organ chants a ditty to the great god Bull.
Now the goodly resident waving arms in air
Blesses all the godly men who’ve strewn our land with roses.
O’er his shoulder hordes of ghosts nod and smirk and stare
As his words place chaplets fair on their Jewish noses.
And they smirk and they stare, each a chaplet on his skull,
Testifying power of the great god Bull.
Now the faculty arises to bray across the hall,
Each with high and weighty problems to present before their classes;
Was it wine or apple brandy Noah guzzled to his fall?
Shall we advocate striped trousers for the masses?
Each and every student falls silent then to mull
On the glory and the wisdom of the great god Bull.
And now they rise with deference and to their class rooms go
With sawdust, smoke and hokum to cram each empty skull,
And the teachers serve manure into hands sedate and slow
And all of them burn incense to the great god Bull.