"KELLY AND BURKE AND SHEA."
At the last banquet of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, in New York, President Roosevelt, the guest of the evening, asked Joseph I.C. Clarke, the president of the "Friendly Sons," to recite "The Fighting Race."
Mr. Clarke wrote this poem at the time of the blowing-up of the Maine. Looking over the list of dead and wounded, he remarked to his wife: "They are all there, as usual—the Irish. Yes, here we've Kelly and Burke and Shea——"
Within two hours he had finished the verses which are now recognized as a lasting tribute to the fighting qualities of the Irishman. The poem makes a point; it also expresses the conviction and the wistful pride of the old veteran.
Mr. Clarke was born in Kingstown, Ireland, July 31, 1846, and came to the United States in 1868. The greater part of his life has been spent in newspaper offices—on the New York Herald, 1870-1883; magazine editor of the New York Journal, 1883-1895; editor of the Criterion, 1898-1900; Sunday editor New York Herald, 1903-1905. He is now engaged in writing plays, work which has taken intervals of his time for a number of years.
THE FIGHTING RACE.
BY JOSEPH I.C. CLARKE.
"Read out the names!" and Burke sat back,
And Kelly dropped his head,
While Shea—they call him Scholar Jack—
Went down the list of dead.
Officers, seamen, gunners, marines,
The crews of the gig and yawl,
The bearded man and the lad in his 'teens,
Carpenters, coal-passers—all.
Then, knocking the ashes from out his pipe,
Said Burke in an offhand way:
"We're all in that dead man's list, by Cripe!
Kelly and Burke and Shea."
"Well, here's to the Maine, and I'm sorry for Spain,"
Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.