Served Him Right
[An Irish girl, hearing that her brother Pat had been killed in the Royal Irish, fighting against the Mahdi, said: “It served Pat right. He had no business going out there to fight those poor creatures (the Arabs). May God strengthen the Mahdi.”—London Graphic.]
I HAVE no tears for brother Pat,
Though stark he lies, and stiff and gory,
On the Egyptian desert, that
He might assist in England’s glory.
The foes he fought were not his own,
Nor his the tyrant’s cause he aided;
Then why should I his fate bemoan?
O brother, faithless and degraded!
He saw how Saxon laws at home
Had crushed his sires and banned his brothers,
Why should he cross the ocean’s foam
To place that hated yoke on others?
The Arabs slew him in a fight
For all by brave and free men cherished—
Ay, for the cause of truth and right,
For which his kith and kin had perished.
No Arab chief in Ninety-eight
Placed foot on Erin’s shore as foeman;
They lent no spears to swell the hate
Of Hessian hound and Orange yeoman.
But those who wrapt our homes in flame
And trod us down like dumb-brute cattle—
It was for them—oh, burning shame!
My brother gave his life in battle.
Sure, every memory of late
Must from his wretched heart have vanished;
Our hills and valleys desolate,
Our ruined homes, our people banished.
And yet, God knows, he learned in youth
The gloomy story of his sireland—
Drank in at mother’s knees the truth
That England is the scourge of Ireland.
I cannot weep for brother Pat—
I hate the hellish cause he died for;
False traitor to the freedom that
His brothers strove, his sisters sighed for;
E’en when in tearful dreams I see
The parching sands drift blood-stained o’er him,
My grief is changed to anger. He
Was treacherous to the land that bore him!