`'Sh, 'sh,' said Mr Henchy. `Now, Joe!'
Mr Hynes hesitated a little longer. Then amid the silence he took off his hat, laid it on the table and
stood up. He seemed to be rehearsing the piece in his mind. After a rather long pause he announced:
THE DEATH OF PARNELL
6th October, 1891
He cleared his throat once or twice and then began to recite:
He is dead. Our Uncrowned King is dead.
O, Erin, mourn with grief and woe
For he lies dead whom the
fell gang
Of modern hypocrites laid low.
He lies slain by the coward hounds
He raised to glory from the mire;
And Erin's hopes and Erin's dreams
Perish
upon her monarch's pyre.
In palace, cabin or in cot
The Irish heart where'er it be
Is bowed with woe - for he is gone
Who would
have wrought her destiny.
He would have had his Erin famed,
The green flag gloriously unfurled,
Her statesmen, bards, and warriors
raised
Before the nations of the World.
He dreamed (alas, 'twas but a dream!)
Of Liberty: but as he strove
To clutch that idol, treachery
Sundered
him from the thing he loved.
Shame on the coward, caitiff hands
That smote their Lord or with a loss
Betrayed him to the rabble-rout
Of
fawning priests - no friends of his.
May everlasting shame consume
The memory of those who tried
To befoul and smear the exalted name
Of
one who spurned them in his pride.
He fell as fall the mighty ones,
Nobly undaunted to the last,
And death has now united him
With Erin's
heroes of the past.
No sound of strife disturb his sleep!
Calmly he rests: no human pain
Or high ambition spurs him now
The
peaks of glory to attain.
They had their way: they laid him low.
But Erin, list, his spirit may
Rise, like the Phoenix from the flames,
When
breaks the dawning of the day,
The day that brings us Freedom's reign.
And on that day may Erin well
Pledge in the cup she lifts to Joy
One
grief - the memory of Parnell.
Mr Hynes sat down again on the table. When he had finished his recitation there was a silence and
then a burst of clapping: even Mr Lyons clapped. The applause continued for a little time. When it had
ceased all the auditors drank from their bottles in silence.
Pok! The cork flew out of Mr Hynes' bottle, but Mr Hynes remained sitting flushed and bareheaded on
the table. He did not seem to have heard the invitation.
`Good man, Joel' said Mr O'Connor, taking out his cigarette papers and pouch the better to hide his emotion.
`What do you think of that, Crofton?' cried Mr Henchy. `Isn't that fine? What?'
Mr Crofton said that it was a very fine piece of writing.