1867 (Joseph Mary Plunkett) @ ELCore.Net

1867

All our best ye have branded
When the people were choosing them,
When ’twas Death they demanded
Ye laughed! Ye were losing them.
But the blood that ye spilt in the night
Crieth loudly to God,
And their name hath the strength and the might
Of a sword for the sod.

In the days of our doom and our dread
Ye were cruel and callous,
Grim Death with our fighters ye fed
Through the jaws of the gallows;
But a blasting and blight was the fee
For which ye had bartered them,
And we smite with the sword that from ye
We had gained when ye martyred them!

http://poetry.elcore.net/CatholicPoets/Plunkett/Plunkett37.html
Created March 19, 2001; not revised.