The Rating of Poets • The Rating of Poems
Poem by Rudyard Kipling
«Cleared»
(In Memory of the Parnell Commission)
Help for a patriot distressed,
a spotless spirit hurt,
Help for an honourable clan
sore trampled in the dirt!
From Queenstown Bay to Donegal,
oh, listen to my song,
The honourable gentlemen
have suffered grievous wrong.
Their noble names were mentioned –
oh, the burning black disgrace! –
By a brutal Saxon paper
in an Irish shooting-case;
They sat upon it for a year,
then steeled their heart to brave it,
And “coruscating innocence”
the learned Judges gave it.
Bear witness, Heaven, of that grim crime
beneath the surgeon’s knife,
The “honourable gentlemen”
deplored the loss of life!
Bear witness of those chanting choirs
that burke and shirk and snigger,
No man laid hand upon the knife
or finger to the trigger!
Cleared in the face of all mankind
beneath the winking skies,
Like phœnixes from Phœnix Park
(and what lay there) they rise!
Go shout it to the emerald seas –
give word to Erin now,
Her honourable gentlemen
are cleared – and this is how: –
They only paid the Moonlighter
his cattle-hocking price,
They only helped the murderer
with counsel’s best advice,
But – sure it keeps their honour white –
the learned Court believes
They never give a piece of plate
to murderers and thieves.
They never told the ramping crowd
to card a woman’s hide,
They never marked a man for death –
what fault of theirs he died? –
They only said “intimidate,”
and talked and went away –
By God, the boys that did the work
were braver men than they!
Their sin it was that fed the fire –
small blame to them that heard –
The boys get drunk on rhetoric,
and madden at a word –
They knew whom they were talking at,
if they were Irish too,
The gentlemen that lied in Court,
they knew, and well they knew!
They only took the Judas-gold
from Fenians out of jail,
They only fawned for dollars
on the blood-dyed Clan-na-Gael.
If black is black or white is white,
in black and white it’s down,
They’re only traitors to the Queen
and rebels to the Crown.
“Cleared”, honourable gentlemen!
Be thankful it’s no more: –
The widow’s curse is on your house,
the dead are at your door.
On you the shame of open shame;
on you from North to South
The hand of every honest man
flat-heeled across your mouth.
“Less black than we were painted”? –
Faith, no word of black was said;
The lightest touch was human blood,
and that, you know, runs red.
It’s sticking to your fist to-day
for all your sneer and scoff,
And by the Judge’s well-weighed word
you cannot wipe it off.
Hold up those hands of innocence –
go, scare your sheep together,
The blundering, tripping tups that bleat
behind the old bell-wether;
And if they snuff the taint and break
to find another pen,
Tell them it’s tar that glistens so,
and daub them yours again!
“The charge is old”? – As old as Cain –
as fresh as yesterday;
Old as the Ten Commandments –
have ye talked those laws away?
If words are words, or death is death,
or powder sends the ball,
You spoke the words that sped the shot –
the curse be on you all!
“Our friends believe”? – Of course they do –
as sheltered women may;
But have they seen the shrieking soul
ripped from the quivering clay?
They! – If their own front door is shut,
they’ll swear the whole world’s warm;
What do they know of dread of death
or hanging fear of harm?
The secret half a county keeps,
the whisper in the lane,
The shriek that tells the shot went home
behind the broken pane,
The dry blood crisping in the sun
that scares the honest bees,
And shows the boys have heard your talk –
what do they know of these?
But you – you know – ay, ten times more;
the secrets of the dead,
Black terror on the country-side
by word and whisper bred,
The mangled stallion’s scream at night,
the tail-cropped heifer’s low.
Who set the whisper going first?
You know, and well you know!
My soul! I’d sooner lie in jail
for murder plain and straight,
Pure crime I’d done with my own hand
for money, lust, or hate,
Than take a seat in Parliament
by fellow-felons cheered,
While one of those “not provens”
proved me cleared as you are cleared.
Cleared – you that “lost” the League accounts –
go, guard our honour still,
Go, help to make our country’s laws
that broke God’s law at will –
One hand stuck out behind the back,
to signal “strike again”;
The other on your dress-shirt-front
to show your heart is clane.
If black is black or white is white,
in black and white it’s down,
You’re only traitors to the Queen
and rebels to the Crown.
If print is print or words are words,
the learned Court perpends: –
We are not ruled by murderers,
but only – by their friends.
1890
Rudyard Kipling
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