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272 THE GOLDEN TREJSURr OF |
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To spare his blood, while tombless still our slaughtered
kin implore "Graves and revenge" from Gobbin cliffs and
Carrick's bloody shore !'
Pity ! could we "forget, forgive," if we were clods of clay,
Our martyred priests, our banished chiefs, our race in dark decay,
And, worse than all—you know it, priest—the daughters of our land —
With wrongs we blushed to name until the sword was in our hand ?
Pity ! well, if you needs must whine, let pity have its way —
Pity for all our comrades true, far from our side today:
The prison-bound who rot in chains, the faithful dead who poured
Their blood 'neath Temple's lawless axe or Parson's ruffian sword.
They smote us with the swearer's oath and with the
murderer's knife; We in the open field will fight fairly for land and
life; But, by the dead and all their wrongs, and by out
hopes to-day, One of us twain shall fight their last, or be it we or
they.
1 The scene of the massacre of the unoffending inhabitants of Island Magee by the garrison of Carrickfergus. |
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