Page:The ways of war - Kettle - 1917.pdf/26

 Christianity, Europe—that was what he died for. "He carried his pack for Ireland and Europe. Now pack-carrying is over. He has held the line." Or, as he says in his last poem to his little daughter, he 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."

That was the dream that haunted his soul, that impelled him to the last sacrifice, and what a sacrifice! What he gave, he gave well—all his gifts, his passionate freedom-loving heart, his "winged and ravening intellect," intimate ties of home and friendship and motherland, his career, and better than career—the chance of fulfilling his hopes for Ireland—he sacrificed all that "makes life a great and beautiful adventure." And now that he has died ... "in the waste and the wreckage paying the price of the dreams that cannot sleep," let not anyone commit that last treachery of travestying his ideals and aspirations.

In his final letter to his brother, written the day before he was killed, he outlined the things for which, had he lived, he would have worked—

"If I live I mean to spend the rest of my life working for perpetual peace. I have seen war, and faced modern artillery, and I know what an outrage it is against simple men."

And in another letter, written to me some weeks