<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">Ireland</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="subhead"><em>The Dreamers:</em> --</p><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">Outpost</span> of Europe, watcher of the seas,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Bulwark to part the dark Atlantic tide,</p><p class="line">Still in the sunset lost Hesperides</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Raise peak on peak, and purple galleys glide,</p><p class="line">Kings for their oarsmen, queens for garnishing,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Gleam of their gold that sets the west afire,</p><p class="line">Till the night falls, that knows not any thing,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And the new day brings back the old desire.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="subhead"><em>The Mediterraneans:</em> --</p><p class="line">We are your seamen, seamen from the south:</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">We sought and found you ere the Tyrian sailed,</p><p class="line">Steered with glad shouting through the harbormouth,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Parted the woods, and left you half unveiled</p><p class="line">Ours, ours, that ventured through the forest-bars,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Saw the brown spate and sweetness of the glen,</p><p class="line">And the great breasts domed up against the stars,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Held you and loved you; we were first of men.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="subhead"><em>The Northmen:</em> --</p><p class="line">These were thy clansmen, dark with sun and toil,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">These knew the Atlas, these the desert knew,</p><p class="line">Builders of homesteads, thirsty for the soil,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Green lands and droughtless, carpeted with dew.</p><p class="line">We that came after, racing prow to prow,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Men of the grey lands, narrowing to the pole,</p><p class="line">Strangers and fair-haired -- none are strangers now;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">We gave our heart's blood; you gave us back a soul.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="subhead"><em>The Fighting Line:</em> --</p><p class="line">Heart's blood of our blood, is the throb so weak,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Ireland, our Ireland, lost beyond the seas?</p><p class="line">Thousands of living, nay dead men, rise and speak,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">From Flanders on to the ancestral Cyclades.</p><p class="line">These are from Ireland, these to Ireland calling,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Look to the sunrise, shaft on shaft unfurled,</p><p class="line">Look to the light once more on Valmy falling,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Where France in arms first clarioned the world.</p></div><p class="byline">-- G. A. J. C.</p></body></html> · Great War