Tom Clarke of Ireland

Tom Clarke Of Ireland

(Executed at Dawn on May 3rd, 1916)

“If ever you go to the Town of Dungannon”

Many year in the torture of the soul Kept in the waking nuance of the dark Your ghost of freedom pacing that cramped cell, Fed on pain and silence hope, Tom Clarke.

To the battered ship of freedom, you gave sail; For without your oar our ship could not embark — Though Ireland’s cause had brought you weak and pale — You gave it course and destiny Tom Clarke.

On that Saturday, you still would not relent — Though the day was lost, the cause was never so; In tears, recalled the gaols, those long years spent, And now Kilmainham loomed, where you would go.

There’s your “King of the Fenians, President”? They mocked, as they stripped you to the street; But the pride in you heart gave full consent To the gruesome fate that you marched off to meet.

O did you ever dream, or even think That on that charter, where you name was writ, The blood you gave would soon become the ink By which a Nation’s covenant was lit?

From a gaol, that your sad years came to know, In a dawn more suited to the soaring lark, You walked to death through fields of “Easter Snow” And gave your life for Freedom, Tom Clarke.

And gave your life for Ireland, Tom Clarke.

— © Frank Callery, March 2016.