



Produced by Al Haines.




[Illustration: Cover]




[Illustration: T. M. Kettle]




                            POEMS & PARODIES


                                   BY
                              T. M. KETTLE



                                 DUBLIN
                            THE TALBOT PRESS
                                  1916




                               Printed by
                   The Educational Company of Ireland
                                   at
                            THE TALBOT PRESS
                         89 Talbot St., Dublin




                               TOM KETTLE

                               1880-1916


Two simple words, charged now for some of us with sad and infinite
memories.  It is not the death of the Professor, nor of the soldier, nor
of the politician--nor even of the poet or the essayist--that causes the
heart-ache that we feel.  It is the loss of that rare, charming,
wondrous personality summed up in those two simple words, TOM KETTLE.

A genial cynic, a pleasant pessimist, an earnest trifler, he was made up
of contradictions.  A fellow of infinite jest--and infinite sadness.
His prototypes were Hamlet or the Melancholy Jacques.  Among the
delightful essays he has left us in that charming little book, _The
Day's Burden_, is one entitled "A new way of misunderstanding _Hamlet_."
He was himself a veritable Hamlet in this twentieth century Ireland.
One may ask, did he quite understand himself?  Master of paradox,
enunciator of enigma, he was a paradox and an enigma in, and to,
himself.  Shall we seek now to pluck out the heart of his mystery?  The
lines are hackneyed beyond hope, but in this instance they apply in
truth.

The personality of Kettle had in it something subtle; something
essential yet elusive; something not to be defined.  He was a great
talker in the Johnsonian sense.  As a story-teller, it was not so much
the point of his tale that counted as his telling of it.  The
divagations from the text in which he loved to indulge were the delight
of his auditors.  With truth it may be said that his rich humour, his
brilliant, mordant wit, caused his listeners to hang upon his words.
And his outlook was so wide, his soul so big, his mind so broad, and a
deep love of humanity so permeated him that his talk, or one might more
fittingly say, his discourse, was educating and uplifting. But he was a
man of moods, descending from heights of Homeric humour to the depths of
a divine despair.  Those privileged to hear him thus expounding will
cherish the memory while they live.  We, too, as it were, have "seen
Shelley plain."  He charmed, he fascinated.  This, in truth, describes
him for his spell wrought even on those who actually disliked him.

In the numerous notices printed of him since he died much has been
written of the promise of his career.  More appropriate it would be to
write of his performance.  He crowded into thirty-six years of life far
more than most men achieve in twice that span.  Now the orator is
silent, the brilliant wit has ceased to sparkle, the skilful pen will
ply no more.  Tom Kettle knows at last the answer to the riddle that
baffled him, the Riddle of the Universe.

Well may we mourn--

    _For Lycidas is dead;_
    _Young Lycidas: dead ere his prime,_
    _And hath not left his peer._

    WILLIAM DAWSON.




                                CONTENTS


                                PERSONAL

Dedication Sonnet: To my Wife
To my daughter Betty, the gift of God
On Leaving Ireland
Epigram


                              EARLY POEMS

To Young Ireland
Sowing
Dreams and Duty
A Song of Vengeance


                              TRANSLATIONS

1At Achensee, Tirol`_
1The Monks`_


                             MISCELLANEOUS

The Lady of Life
When others see us as we see ourselves
Ennui
Ballad Autumnal
The Lost Ball


                               POLITICAL

Parnell
The House of Lords: An Epitaph
Reason in Rhyme
Asquith in Dublin
Ulster
To Ireland


                               WAR POEMS

Paddy
Sergeant Mike O'Leary
A Nation's Freedom
A Song of the Irish Armies




Permission to reprint several of the poems in this Volume has been
kindly granted by the proprietors of the _Daily Chronicle, Freeman's
Journal, Cork Examiner,_ Messrs. MAUNSEL & Co., Ltd.. and THE TALBOT
PRESS




                                PERSONAL


    "Memorial I would have
   ... a constant presence
    with those that love me"



                           DEDICATION SONNET


                               TO MY WIFE

    "Not the sea, only, wrecks the hopes of men,
    Look deeper, there is shipwreck everywhere,"
    So mourned the exquisite Roman's rich despair,
    Too high in death for that ignoble pen.
    Nero, his wrecker, is amply wrecked since then,
    And all that Rome's a whiff of charnel air;
    But to subdue Petronius' mal-de-mer
    Have we found drugs?  I pray you, What? and When?

    Shipwreck, one grieves to say, retains its vogue:
    Or let the keel win on in stouter fashion,
    And look! your golden lie of Tir-na-n'Og
    Is sunset and waste waters, chill and ashen--
    Faith lasts?  Nay, since I knew your yielded eyes,
    I am content with sight.... of Paradise.




                         TO MY DAUGHTER BETTY,
                            THE GIFT OF GOD

                          (ELIZABETH DOROTHY)

    In wiser days, my darling rosebud, blown
    To beauty proud as was your mother's prime,
    In that desired, delayed, incredible time,
    You'll ask why I abandoned you, my own,
    And the dear heart that was your baby throne,
    To dice with death.  And oh! they'll give you rhyme
    And reason: some will call the thing sublime,
    And some decry it in a knowing tone.
    So here, while the mad guns curse overhead,
    And tired men sigh with mud for couch and floor,
    Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead,
    Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor,
    But for a dream, born in a herdsman's shed,
    And for the secret Scripture of the poor.

    the field, before Guillemont, Somme,
    September 4, 1916.




                           ON LEAVING IRELAND

                            (JULY 14, 1916)

The pathos of departure is indubitable.

I never felt my own essay "On saying Good-Bye" so profoundly _aux
trefonds du coeur_.  The sun was a clear globe of blood which we caught
hanging over Ben Edar, with a trail of pure blood vibrating to us across
the waves.  It dropped into darkness before we left the deck. Some lines
came to me, suggested by a friend who thought the mood cynical.

    As the sun died in blood, and hill and sea
    Grew to an altar, red with mystery,
    One came who knew me (it may be over-much)
    Seeking the cynical and staining touch,
    But I, against the great sun's burial
    Thought only of bayonet-flash and bugle-call,
    And saw him as God's eye upon the deep,
    Closed in the dream in which no women weep,
    And knew that even I shall fall on sleep.




                                EPIGRAM

    If grief, like fire, smoked up against our sight,
    The Earth were scarfed in eternal night.




                              EARLY POEMS



                            TO YOUNG IRELAND

                           (WRITTEN IN 1899)

    Dead! art thou dead or sleepest, in this blank, twilight time,
    When hearts are sere and pithless?  Land of the sword and lyre!
    Thy waxen lips are silent, thy brow is bound with rime,
    Hast thou late wed with winter, child of earth's primal fire?

    The sheathed blade rusts foully, through bitter, barren years,
    And harp and pen are bond slaves, thralls to thy children's
            shame.
    We garner cockle harvests, vain words and little fleers.
    From waste lands sown with rancour, search them with proving
            flame!

    We droop'd, stark sons of warfare, we blushed and slunk from
            day,
    While Love and Truth and Honour died in mere fretful fume.
    Free brain, free brawn, is given us, then sweep we from our way
    These shamers of our mother, this idle, noisome spume.

    For, lo! an army gathers around a standard clean;
    I gird me dinted armour, and press to touch the throng.
    Hark!  Hark!  The minstrels' war-hymn in very strength serene,
    My harp is harsh of utterance, yet take a pupil's song.

    Then stout heart join our battle! who hail an eastern sun,
    Our toil shall set this people upon earth's purest height.
    Then faint heart join our battle! and if our sands be run,
    At least we caoin a swan-lay upon the edge of night.




                                 SOWING

                           (WRITTEN IN 1899)

    One mocked: "Thy brain is mad with wine;
    The fairies spin the threads of night,
    And pour their vials of sour blight
    About the roots of health, yet thine
    And thou, ye garner into verse
    Bright flowers to trick a solemn hearse:
    The cowslip, maiden-love of spring,
    The burning incense of the rose,
    The austere lily, her that blows
    By winter's marge--each gracious thing
    Past or unborn.  Weak, trusting fool!
    Old Time shall file thee in his school."

    "I know not Time, his last or first;
    With master hands I despoil all
    His hoarded sweetness and his gall.
    I crush the aeons for my thirst,
    And so am mad.  Pencils of fire
    Limn visions of soul-large desire.

    In Faith I cast on frozen ground
    An obscure life of sweat and tears;
    In the far Autumn of the years
    Men reap full harvests, springing round,
    And judge them gifts of kindly chance,
    My deed laughs through each mellow lance."




                            DREAMS AND DUTY

    Life is an inconstant April laughing into May,
    Weeping with the aftergust of March storms laid away,
    Light o' love!  Her mood is gracious, fondling sunbeams stray
    Out across the cloud-smoke purple of her cloud robes gray.
    Let us dream among the daisies, troll a roundelay
    Where the gorse gold is lavished, and the lilies pray,
    Mary's nuns, whose stainless gift is Heaven's chaliced ray,
    Let us twine a wreath of science, let us play our play,
    Ere we fight the fight of ages, one sweet prelude-day.

                     *      *      *      *      *

    The stranger heard and mocked us from the usurped throne,
    Reeled in his scornful laughter, eater of hearts, blood-blown.
    But the Lord God heard and heeded, therefore we do not moan;
    For He has whispered to us, 'The secret shuttles fly,
    Ye know not warp or weaver, yet neither swerve or sigh,
    The eater of hearts shall wither, the drinker of blood shall
            die.
    I have set you labour, work it; I will give you increase,
    For first is winter-ploughing, after, my guerdon, peace;
    Ye shall pluck strength from sorrow, ripe when the sorrows
            cease;
    Ye shall win strength and wisdom to break the stranger's rule,
    But if ye slink and babble ye are but as the fools,
    Ye are but as the stranger, fit for the thorny schools."




                          A SONG OF VENGEANCE

                        FOR COMMANDANT SCHEEPERS
                      (Murdered January 18, 1902)

    It is done inexpiably; thrust him deep in shameful clay,
    Charge his name with every foulness, rule the world's ear as you
            may--
    But the shadow at your banquet that you cannot put away!

    Weak you thought him, sickness-vanquished, given to your eager
            hate.
    So you played him and you slew him with your feline shows of
            state,
    Weak--and lo! the sanctifying touch of death has made him great.

    As a seed that broadening splits the rock on which a palace
            stands,
    As a trickling breach that godlike parts one land in hostile
            lands,
    Is the memory of Scheepers and his slaying at your hands.

    Hill and plain and stream shall guard it, town and fireside,
            phrase and song;
    Young men's unsubdued aspiring, old men's striving wise and
            strong;
    And though Hope die, Hatred may not for remembrance of his
            wrong.

    Murdered leader--may God fold you in the mercy of His temple,
    Sleep as sleep our unborn children, bravest hero and example--
    Float the flag or sink for ever, your red eric shall be ample.




                              TRANSLATIONS



                           AT ACHENSEE, TIROL

              (From the German of A. Pickler.--Died, 1893)

    The old path up, the wood's ranked gloomy legions,
      The lap and the rustle of the lake behind,
    And, roused by these, from Death's more timely regions
      The old thoughts fluttering in a lonely mind;

    About my way the pine-stems thick and thicker
      Huddle, the mossed stone drips abundantly,
    And, thro' the screen of woven branches, flicker
      The bright and heaving waves of Achensee.

    Pinewood and primrose scents, the air has mixt them;
      Poised butterflies, a shining sun-bathed fleet,
    Sky's blue, gaunt granite jags, and buoyed betwixt them,
      The cloud-fleece flushing with the day's defeat.

    The spell is on me, nor can aught deliver;
      Slowly my spirit fails from life and light,
    And Past and Future like a pauseless river,
      Slide darkly down into a darker night.

    The red glow wans, the blackbird's trill and quaver
      Dies in the sudden gloom, the broad world sleeps;
    And, mixed with moon-fire flakes, the billows waver,
      As though dead hands tossed vainly in their deeps.

    I think of the high dead, and that all-daring
      First bard whom Orcus' self might not withstand,
    I think of his vast love, and fruitless faring,
      To pluck one rose from Proserpine's hand.

    The Past is an ill riddle, over-subtle,
      The Thing-to-Be a rumour of a cloud,
    Would know the last weft of Fate's whirring shuttle?
      You _shall_ know, when they wind you in your shroud.

    Innsbruck, 18th July, 1904.




                               THE MONKS

                  A translation from EMILE VERHAEREN.
                  Dedicated to Father Benedict, 1905.

    I do invoke you here, Monks Apostolical,
    Fountains of dawn, torches of faith, wrought candlesticks;
    Stars shedding day across the ages mystical;
    Builders whose walls for scutcheon bear the Crucifix.

    Hermits who sat on white, high mountains for a throne;
    Hewn marble quick with will, and strength, and angry truth;
    Preachers with arms uplift and long sleeves loosely blown
    Over bowed heads, and hearts gnawn of the sateless tooth.

    Windows athrob with dawn, rich with all Eastern dyes;
    Vases of chastity whose fulness might not cease;
    Mirrors whose depths enfold, as lakes the dreaming skies,
    Hills where our dreams have breath, fair valleys brimmed with
            peace.

    Seers whose souls, foreknowing death's enfranchisement,
    Walked secretly where walks the mere flesh of no feet;
    Titans whose breath was more than squadroned argument;
    Kings strange to Rome set up in Rome's imperial seat.

    Swords hung above the pride of kings and emperors;
    Lords of a prouder crown and a more grievious loss;
    Warriors whose flag was spread in more tremendous wars,
    Slayers of heresy with great blows of the Cross.

    Arches and aqueducts of Christian sanctity,
    Pillars of silver, channels pouring from the East
    Rivers of grace at which the peoples thirstily
    Have drunk, and quaffed desire for the unending Feast.

    Tocsins with war and wounds in your most sombre roll;
    Clarions whose proud, full throats salute the captain Christ;
    Towers of the sun, whose crosses wear an aureole
    Litten of that far Sun Who was the Sacrificed.




                             MISCELLANEOUS



                            THE LADY OF LIFE

    I sat with her, and spoke right goldenly
      Of love and beauty, and because her hair
      Brushed me, I plucked down Sirius like a pear,
    To braid it, and had laughter for my fee;
    Yea, suing her to heavier slavery.
      Had all but plucked the fruitage of her lips,
      When, lo! inked clouds and absolute eclipse,
    Courteous, but unmistakable ennui.

    Then did I mind me of the sorrow wailed
      Thro' poets' books, and how the streaming torch
    Of suns greater than Sirius has failed,
    And as I shambled out the menial's door
      I heard new feet sound in the statued porch
    And salutations I had heard before.




                WHEN OTHERS SEE US AS WE SEE OURSELVES!

    Day, with his blotting trumpet, overthrew
      My city of dream, and, with his marshalled spears,
      My thought that had the unperforming years
    Amended and laid the base of heaven true;
    But pitying, signed me priest with