How could you dream they’d listen That have an ear alone For those new comrades they have found Lord Edward and Wolfe Tone, Or meddle with our give and take That converse bone to bone. THE ROSE TREE “O words are lightly spoken” Said Pearse to Connolly, “Maybe a breath of politic words Has withered our Rose Tree; Or maybe but a wind that blows Across the bitter sea.” “It needs to be but watered,” James Connolly replied, “To make the green come out again And spread on every side, And shake the blossom from the bud To be the garden’s pride.” “But where can we draw water” Said Pearse to Connolly, “When all the wells are parched away? O plain as plain can be There’s nothing but our own red blood Can make a right Rose Tree.” ON A POLITICAL PRISONER She that but little patience knew, From childhood on, had now so much A grey gull lost its fear and flew Down to her cell and there alit, And there endured her fingers touch And from her fingers ate its bit. Did she in touching that lone wing Recall the years before her mind Became a bitter, an abstract thing, Her thought some popular enmity: Blind and leader of the blind Drinking the foul ditch where they lie? When long ago I saw her ride Under Ben Bulban to the meet, The beauty of her country-side With all youth’s lonely wildness stirred, She seemed to have grown clean and sweet Like any rock-bred, sea-borne bird: Sea-borne, or balanced on the air When first it sprang out of the nest Upon some lofty rock to stare Upon the cloudy canopy, While under its storm-beaten breast Cried out the hollows of the sea. THE LEADERS OF THE CROWD They must to keep their certainty accuse All that are different of a base intent; Pull down established honour; hawk for news Whatever their loose phantasy invent And murmur it with bated breath, as though The abounding gutter had been Helicon Or calumny a song. How can they know Truth flourishes where the student’s lamp has shone, And there alone, that have no solitude? So the crowd come they care not what may come. They have loud music, hope every day renewed And heartier loves; that lamp is from the tomb. TOWARDS BREAK OF DAY Was it the double of my dream The woman that by me lay Dreamed, or did we halve a dream Under the first cold gleam of day? I thought “there is a waterfall Upon Ben Bulban side, That all my childhood counted dear; Were I to travel far and wide I could not find a thing so dear.” My memories had magnified So many times childish delight. I would have touched it like a child But knew my finger could but have touched Cold stone and water. I grew wild Even accusing heaven because It had set down among its laws: Nothing that we love over-much Is ponderable to our touch.