Page:Songs, Legends, and Ballads.djvu/137

Rh Irishmen! You who have kept the peace—
 * Look on these forms diseased and broken:

Believe, if you can, that their late release,
 * When their lives are sapped, is a good-will token.

Their hearts are the bait on England's hook;
 * For this are they dragged from her hopeless prison;

She reads her doom in the Nations' book—
 * She fears the day that has darkly risen;

She reaches her hand for Ireland's aid—
 * Ireland, scourged, contemned, derided;

She begs from the beggar her hate has made;
 * She seeks for the strength her guile divided.

She offers a bribe—ah, God above!
 * Behold the price of the desecration:

The hearts she has tortured for Irish love
 * She brings as a bribe to the Irish nation!