|
We stood on the shoulders of giants |
|
Like atlas with the burden of faith |
|
We clasped our hands in praise |
|
Of a conqueror's right to tyranny |
|
This is a language that has not passed |
|
Our lips in one thousand years |
|
So heretics I call to you |
|
Partisans stand as one |
|
Rebels raise your voices |
|
If not then all is lost |
|
This is the death of the Republic and make no mistake |
|
The senate is lost and Zeus is laughing |
|
So Mars God of war can you hurl a lightning bolt |
|
To smash the temple of the blind |
|
The Tiber is over flowing with the blood of innocent men |
|
And so we stood, among thieves, liars and murderers |
|
Whose names shall live in eternal rest and infamy |
|
Disgraced kings enshrined with their pious men |
|
Who ruled us all with the bloodied spear of destiny |
|
You knew my name before I was born |
|
You knew my death from the moment it passed my lips |
|
This is the death of the Republic |
|
Dead and gone with Pearse in the grave |
|
Haunted to the end by the ghosts of Connolly's army |
|
Skeletal fingers on the trigger of Collins' demise |
|
And Parnell's dreams are turned to nothing but dust |
|
"And I say to my people's masters: beware, beware of the |
|
thing that is coming, beware of the risen people, who shall |
|
take what we would not give. |
|
Did ye think to conquer the people, or that law is stronger |
|
than life and than men's desire to be free?" |
|
[Padraig Pearse, "The Rebell"] |