to fall back on a weaker brother, not of the craft:
Bond, from the toil of hate we may not cease:
Free, we are free to be your friend.
But when you make your banquet, and we come,
Soldier with equal soldier must we sit,
Closing a battle, not forgetting it.
This mate and mother of valiant rebels dead
Must come with all her history or her head.
We keep the past for pride.
Nor war nor peace shall strike our poets dumb:
No rawest squad of all Death's volunteers,
No simplest man who died
To tear your flag down, in the bitter years,
But shall have praise, and three times thrice again,
When, at that table, men shall drink with men.
As political poetry, this may be open to amendment; as poetic politics, it is sound, decisive, and answerable.
THE END
THE NORTHUMBERLAND PRESS, THORNTON STREET, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE