Page:The Tricolour, Poems of the Irish Revolution.djvu/16

 And Idealism was shot down because it dared to dream greater dreams than were allowed to small nationalities.

On Easter Monday Sheehy-Skeffington, the pacifist, was murdered secretly and without trial. Thus Peace was shot down by a lunatic, because it got in the way of militarism.

So the bright flag fell from the high place where it had floated free. Yet what a tricolour were these three—Labour, Idealism, and Pacifism—how proudly it flew, so distinct in its colours, so perfect in its union, preaching its lesson for Easter to the people! At Easter, the time of Resurrection, not of Death. Yet out of Death comes Resurrection. Who will take it upon himself to crucify Labour, since Christ was the Son of a carpenter; Idealism, for Christ was an idealist; Peace, for did not Christ our Lord say “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God”?

of poverty and misery from some dark corner of the slums she had hurried at the