1916: The Eoghan Rua Variations

Do threascair an saol is shéid an ghaoth mar smál
Alastrann, Caesar, 's an méid sin a bhí 'na bpáirt;
tá an Teamhair 'na féar, is féach an Traoi mar tá,
is na Sasanaigh féin do b'fhéidir go bhfaighidís bás.
Eoghan Rua O'Suilleabhain (1748-82)

1
On Easter Monday I was still en route
from Drumcondra to the GPO when I overheard a dispute
between a starch-shirt cuckoo
and a meadow pipit, the pipit singing even as it flew
between its perch on a wicker-covered carboy
and the nest it had improvised near a clump of gorse
from strands of linen spun by Henry Joy
and the mane of a stalking horse.
The cuckoo that had shouldered out the hoi polloi
showing not a hint of remorse.
Now the world's been brought low. The wind's heavy with soot.
Alexander and Caesar. All their retinue.
We've seen Tara buried in grass, Troy trampled underfoot.
The English? Their days are numbered, too.

2
Of the nine hundred Mauser rifles Erskine Childers and the boys
unloaded from the Asgard in Howth, most were deployed
to the Volunteers. Childers traced "Howth" to its source
in the Old Norse,
the Vikings being among the first to beat their ploughshares
into swords. On account of his opposition to it, the headstrong
O'Rahilly was simply not made aware
of the impending dingdong
even though the blacksmiths on Mountjoy Square
had been going at it hammer and tongs.
The wind blows ash now the world's completely destroyed.
Alexander. Caesar. Each leading a mighty force.
Tara's overgrown. Look at the cut of Troy.
With the English, things may eventually take their course.

3
At Jacob's Biscuit Factory, Thomas MacDonagh sends up a flare
through the arrowroot-scented air.
On Stephen's Green, meanwhile, the English try to wrong-
foot us by launching a two-pronged
attack on our trenches. "The more we're spurned,
Roger Casement once opined, "The more we're engrossed."
His submarine shaking from stem to stern
as it hugged the Kerry coast.
"The least stone," he went on, "The least stone in a cairn
is entitled to make one boast."
The whole world is laid waste. Cinders flying through the air.
Caesar and Alexander and their battle-throngs.
There's hardly a trace of Tara. Troy's barely there.
The English themselves will shortly be moving along.

4
Rather than adjourn to a gin palace for which so many yearned
Joseph Mary Plunkett has adjourned
to the GPO, where The O'Rahilly's now doing his utmost
to shove himself from pillar to post
in his newfound zeal to throw off the English yoke
and settle our old score.
On Sackville Street, a girl who seemed to be about to choke
has coughed up something from her very core.
She wipes her mouth on her jute cloak
and reloads her grandfather's four bore.
The sky is full of coal dust. The old order's overturned.
Caesar and Alexander. Their massed hosts.
Tara was burned. Troy was burned.
One of these days the English will give up the ghost.

5
I've watched Countess Markievicz striding through the oaks
where our aspirations turn out to be pigs in pokes.
This rifle was used against the Muslim sepoys in Cawnpore
before being turned on the Boers 
but that its firing pin
is sticking is a sign of a more general morass
in which we founder. The thin
red line at Balaclava is testimony less to the officer class
than the rank and file. The din
of the sacking of Sackville Street. Looters. Broken glass.
The world laid waste. The wind heavy with smoke.
Alexander the Great. Great Caesar. Their assorted corps.
Tara is buried under grass. Even Troy's defences broke.
In the case of the English, much the same lies in store.

6
MacDonagh's tapping out some rhythmic verse on a biscuit tin.
In Cawnpore, the sepoys were each sewn into a pig skin
before being hanged en masse.
On Stephen's Green we got a whiff of that chlorine gas
with its distinctive pepper-pineapple smell.
The meadow pipit was shaking from stern to stem
as she pointed to the shell
of the cuckoo's egg she'd been condemned
to billet. As a dead horse's belly swells
it pushes a sniper out of his nest. Into murder and mayhem.
The wind all smut and smoor. The world spins
out of control. Alexander and Caesar. Their gangs under grass
like Tara of the Kings. Have you seen the shape Troy's in?
As for the English, that cup too will pass.

7
Daniel O'Connell. O'Donovan Rossa. Charles Stewart Parnell.
Patrick Pearse is sounding his own death knell
as that gob of phlegm
shines on the pavement in Sackville street. A little gem.
On Stephen's Green, one rare moment of mirth
comes with the daily ceasefire in which a keeper feeds the dank
ducks on their dank pond. For ourselves, there's a dearth
of humour. "Leave your jewels in the bank,"
the Countess told the girls. "The only thing worth
wearing's a revolver." It seems she shot one officer point-blank.
The whole world's foundering. A smoke trail
tells of the fates of Caesar, Alexander. Those who kissed their hems.
Tara's ploughed under. Troy eventually fell.
Surely the English will get what's coming to them?

8
The dead horse's swollen belly has now so tightened its girth
it looks as if it might give birth
to a replica of itself. In an effort to outflank
us the English have banged out a tank
from the smoke-boxes of two locomotives. The men with a hand
on the tiller were so familiar with Tory Sound
they thought nothing of taking command
of the Asgard. To be renowned on Tory is to be world-renowned.
From a burst sandbag a skein of sand
winds as it's unwound.
The air tastes of grit. The world offers no safe berth.
Tsar Alexander. The Kaiser. Their serried ranks.
Tara is debased. You see how deep Troy lies beneath the earth.
The very English will sink as all those sank.

9
Those who can't afford a uniform may wear a blue armband
from which the meadow pipit filches a single strand
to bind its nest. The rest of us are bound
by honour alone. The English pound
the GPO while we ourselves meet brute strength with brute
determination. The pipit interweaves wondrous blue
and that workaday sandbag jute.
That the O'Rahilly was the last to know of the impending to-do
but first to execute the plan of attack is ever so slightly skewed.
The world's topsy-turvy, though. This dust's the dust that
fanned
Caesar and Alexander as each gained ground.
Tara's under pasture. At Troy, it's clear how things stand.
For the English, perhaps, their time will come around.

Paul Muldoon’s latest collection is One Thousand Things Worth Knowing (Faber and Faber). His awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the TS Eliot Prize, the Irish Times Poetry Prize and Griffin International Prize for Excellence in Poetry