Odysseus: In Memory Of Arthur Griffith
You had the prose of logic and of scorn,
And words to sledge an iron argument,
And yet you could draw down the outland birds
To perch beside the ravens of your thought
The dreams whereby a people challenges
Its dooms, its bounds. You were the one who knew
What sacred resistance is in men
That are almost broken; how, from resistance used,
A strength is born, a stormy, bright-eyed strength
Like Homer's Iris, messenger of the gods,
Coming before the ships the enemy
Has flung the fire upon. Our own, our native strength
You mustered up. But I will never say this,
Walking beside you, or looking on you,
With your strong brow, and chin was like a targe,
And eyes that were so kindly of us all.