The Bismarck, Rector’s where I enter not—
The music all is changed—and where
No faces that we knew are there,
And where we are forgot.
MALACHY DEGAN
Malachy, you stand a referee to judge
Under a torrent of blue light
The naked pugilists who fight,
Grim faces with a smudge
Of blood, or on the sliding arms or backs,
There on a platform roped, in palls
Of smoke to the roof of Tattersall’s,
And where the iterant cracks
Of matches struck for lights prick through the hum
Of voices over toned by cries
Of “Finish him,” “Look at his glassy eyes,”
“That sounded like a drum.”
When the timekeeper’s gong went clang! clang!
And a hush came over us, as then
Bath robes slipped off, the fighting men
Out of their corners sprang,
And in between the tangled arms and legs,
And clinches which you break, you glide
Red-haired, athletic, watchful eyed,
And like a lager keg’s
Round fulness is your chest, your arms all bare,
Coatless, a figure memorable.
You should not be forgotten—well
And if it be to dare
The censure of a taste American
To celebrate your courage, wit,
I write you down what here is writ:
A referee, a man!
A judge who loved the game and whose decree
Had no taint on it, was more pure
Than much of our judicature,
Of every knavery free.
And what is here to shock or shake such nerves
As children’s are, delicate women’s?
There goes the short hook of Fitzsimmons,
And Thorne a moment swerves,