Classic Poem

" READ OUT the names! " and Burke sat back,
And Kelly drooped his head,
While Shea — they called him Scholar Jack —
Went down the list of the dead.
Officers, seamen, gunners, marines,
The crews of the gig and yawl,
The bearded man and the lad in his teens,
Carpenters, coal passers — all.
Then, knocking the ashes from out his pipe,
Said Burke in an offhand way:
" We're all in that dead man's list, by cripe!
Kelly and Burke and Shea. "
" Well, here's to the Maine, and I'm sorry for Spain, "
Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.

" Wherever there's Kellys there's trouble, " said Burke.
" Wherever fighting's the game,
Or a spice of danger in grown man's work, "
Said Kelly, " you'll find my name. "
" And do we fall short, " said Burke, getting mad,
" When it's touch and go for life? "
Said Shea, " It's thirty-odd years, bedad,
Since I charged to drum and fife
Up Marye's Heights, and my old canteen
Stopped a rebel ball on its way;
There were blossoms of blood on our sprigs of green —
Kelly and Burke and Shea —
And the dead didn't brag. " " Well, here's to the flag! "
Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.

" I wish 'twas in Ireland, for there's the place, "
Said Burke, " that we'd die by right,
In the cradle of our soldier race,
After one good stand-up fight.
My grandfather fell on Vinegar Hill,
And fighting was not his trade;
But his rusty pike's in the cabin still,
With Hessian blood on the blade. "
" Aye, aye, " said Kelly, " the pikes were great
When the word was " clear the way!"
We were thick on the roll in ninety-eight —
Kelly and Burke and Shea. "
" Well, here's to the pike and the sword and the like! "
Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.

And Shea, the scholar, with rising joy,
Said, " We were at Ramillies;
We left our bones at Fontenoy
And up in the Pyrenees;
Before Dunkirk, on Landen's plain,
Cremona, Lille, and Ghent;
We're all over Austria, France and Spain,
Wherever they pitched a tent.
We've died for England from Waterloo
To Egypt and Dargai;
And still there's enough for a corps or crew,
Kelly and Burke and Shea. "
" Well, here's to good honest fighting blood! "
Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.

" Oh, the fighting races don't die out,
If they seldom die in bed,
For love is first in their hearts, no doubt, "
Said Burke; then Kelly said:
" When Michael, the Irish Archangel, stands,
The Angel with the sword,
And the battle dead from a hundred lands
Are ranged in one big horde,
Our line, that for Gabriel's trumpet waits,
Will stretch three deep that day,
From Jehoshaphat to the Golden Gates —
Kelly and Burke and Shea. "
" Well, here's thank God for the race and the sod! "
Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.