Pardon, old fathers, if you still remain

Somewhere in ear-shot for the story’s end,

Old Dublin merchant “free of the ten and four”

Or trading out of Galway into Spain;

Old country scholar, Robert Emmet’s friend,

A hundred-year-old memory to the poor;

Merchant and scholar who have left me blood

That has not passed through any huckster’s loin,

Soldiers that gave, whatever die was cast:

A Butler or an Armstrong that withstood

Beside the brackish waters of the Boyne

James and his Irish when the Dutchman crossed;

Old merchant skipper that leaped overboard

After a ragged hat in Biscay Bay;

You most of all, silent and fierce old man,

Because the daily spectacle that stirred

My fancy, and set my boyish lips to say,

“Only the wasteful virtues earn the sun”;

Pardon that for a barren passion’s sake,

Although I have come close on forty-nine,

I have no child, I have nothing but a book,

Nothing but that to prove your blood and mine.

…

While I, from that reed-throated whisperer

Who comes at need, although not now as once

A clear articulation in the air,

But inwardly, surmise companions

Beyond the fling of the dull ass’s hoof

- Ben Jonson’s phrase—and find when June is come

At Kyle-na-no under that ancient roof

A sterner conscience and a friendlier home,

I can forgive even that wrong of wrongs,

Those undreamt accidents that have made me

- Seeing that Fame has perished this long while.

Being but a part of ancient ceremony—

Notorious, till all my priceless things

Are but a post the passing dogs defile.