An Address to SlavesJ
Helots of Ireland! Bow down to the stranger;
Bondsmen and serfs! bend the sycophant knee;
Forget the brave hearts who have faced every danger,
Death, dungeon, and exile that ye might be free!
Be Emmet forgotten, Tone’s story unspoken;
Let the green shamrocks wither above their lone graves,
Or should the last sleep of such heroes be broken
Let it be by the shouts that proclaim ye are slaves.
Aye, shout! Though oppression stalks over the old land;
Though thousands are leaving your desolate isle.
Aye, shout! Till your cheers tell the world ye have sold land,
Faith, honor, and truth, for a Prince’s false smile.
The iron has entered your souls, and forever
May it brand you as craven and false to your race;
May the years that roll by bring oblivion never
To cloak your dishonor or shroud your disgrace.
Shout, shout, puny slaves, though each banner that dances
Round the path of the Prince is the alien red,
Crack your throats, though the gleam of yon glittering lances
Is dimmed by the blood of your innocent dead.
Kiss the ground at his feet, though the soldiers that guard him,
Your fathers and kinsmen have ruthlessly slain,
Be dogs to the last, and like mongrels reward him,
By coating in slime every link of your chain.
But cowardly serfs, in your crouching remember
The people and ye are no longer the same,
And every heart where one flickering ember
Of manhood’s ablaze has contempt for your shame.
Then go, join the ranks of the knaves who have bartered
God’s birthright of freedom for titles and gold.
The heart of the nation beats still for the martyred,
Though their glory and cause be unsung and untold.
When ye, abject hounds, and your cheers shall have perished,
When the Prince and his courtiers shall sleep in the grave,
Their name and their fame and their work shall be cherished
While one Irish bosom is faithful and brave.
In honorless tombs all their foes will be rotten,
When the cause that they died for, triumphant and grand,
Shines out, o’er the tombstones of princes forgotten,
In the sunrise of Liberty bathing our land.