the counthry free.

THE PATRIOTS "POME" (1890)

Ye shanties so airy of New Tipperary,
With walls and with floors of the national mud,
Where the home of the freeman mocks Tyranny's demon,
And the landlord and agent are nipped in the bud!

No Saxon may venture those precincts to enter,
He is barred from their portals by Liberty's ban,
And we boycott each other, each patriot brother,
And safely deride the Emergency Man.

Though the comfort exterior, perhaps, is inferior
To the homes you have left, on a casual view--
With its excellent moral no person can quarrel,
Morality's always the weapon for you.

'Tis a duty you owe to your country's condition,
For her, to relinquish your homes and your pelf:
Were I placed (as I'm not) in a similar position,
I have no doubt at all I should do so myself.

It is dastards alone who are ready to grovel,
And make themselves footballs for landlords to kick,
It is better by far to be free in a hovel
Than to owe for your rent in a palace of brick!

When the Saxon invader has rows with his tenants,
It's absurd to assert that it's _nihil ad rem_
To inflict on yourselves a gratuitous penance,
For it irritates him and encourages them.

And it's always a mark of the National Party--
Which their logical shrewdness distinctively shows--
That each member is ready, with cheerfulness hearty,
When his face he would punish, to cut off his nose.

So we still turn our backs on the gifts of the Saxon--
Yes, Freedom itself, if they give it, contemn:
We would willingly have it from Parnell and Davitt,
But we'd sooner be slaves than accept it from them!

MR MORLEY'S APOLOGY (1893)

We statesmen of Erin, Archbishops, M.P.'s,
and Leaders of National Thought,
Pray explain to your friends that I'm anxious
to please, if I do not succeed as I ought!
When I sympathize quite with their notions of right,
it is hard, as I'm sure you'll agree,
That an agent should come with a dynamite bomb,
which perhaps was intended for me!

My views on the tenants evicted for debt
are identical wholly with yours,
And the fact that they're not in possession
as yet no statesman more deeply deplores:
I approve of explosives--they're often a link
which our union may serve to complete--
But they're dangerous too, as I venture to think,
when e