Poets From Ireland

"I make not my division of the hours By dials, clocks, or waking birds’ acclaim, Nor measure seasons by the reigning flowers, The spring’s green glories, or the autumn’s flame. To me thy absence winter is, and night, Thy presence spring, and the meridian day. From thee I draw my darkness and my light, Now swart eclipse, now more than heavenly ray. Thy coming warmeth all my soul like fire, And through my heartstrings melodies do run, As poets fabled the Memnonian lyre Hymned acclamation to the rising sun. My heart hums music in thy influence set: So winds put harps Aeolian on the fret."

"The rude rebuffs of bay-besieging winds But make the anchored ships towards them turn, So thy unkindness unto me but finds My love tow’rds thee with keener ardour burn; As myrrh incised bleeds odoriferous gum, I am become a poet through my wrong, For through the sad-mouthed heart-wounds in me come These earthly echoes of celestial song. My thoughts as birds make flutter in my heart, Poor muffled choristers! whose sad refrain Gives sorrow sleep, and bids that woe depart Whose heavy burden weighs upon my strain. Imprisoned larks pipe sweeter than when free, And I, enslaved, have learnt to sing for thee."

"O my Dark Rosaleen, Do not sigh, do not weep! The priests are on the ocean green, They march along the deep. There’s wine from the royal Pope, Upon the ocean green; And Spanish ale shall give you hope, My Dark Rosaleen! My own Rosaleen! Shall glad your heart, shall give you hope, Shall give you health, and help, and hope, My Dark Rosaleen!Over hills, and thro’ dales, Have I roam’d for your sake; All yesterday I sail’d with sails On river and on lake. The Erne, at its highest flood, I dash’d across unseen, For there was lightning in my blood, My dark Rosaleen! My own Rosaleen! O, there was lightning in my blood, Red lightning lighten’d thro’ my blood, My Dark Rosaleen!All day long, in unrest, To and fro do I move. The very soul within my breast Is wasted for you, love! The heart in my bosom faints To think of you, my Queen, My life of life, my saint of saints, My Dark Rosaleen! My own Rosaleen! To hear your sweet and sad complaints, My life, my love, my saint of saints, My Dark Rosaleen!Woe and pain, pain and woe, Are my lot, night and noon, To see your bright face clouded so, Like to the mournful moon. But yet will I rear your throne Again in golden sheen; ’Tis you shall reign, shall reign alone, My Dark Rosaleen! My own Rosaleen! ’Tis you shall have the golden throne, ’Tis you shall reign, and reign alone, My Dark Rosaleen!Over dews, over sands, Will I fly, for your weal: Your holy delicate white hands Shall girdle me with steel. At home, in your emerald bowers, From morning’s dawn till e’en, You’ll pray for me, my flower of flowers, My Dark Rosaleen! My fond Rosaleen! You’ll think of me thro’ daylight hours, My virgin flower, my flower of flowers, My Dark Rosaleen!I could scale the blue air, I could plough the high hills, O, I could kneel all night in prayer, To heal your many ills! And one beamy smile from you Would float like light between My toils and me, my own, my true, My Dark Rosaleen! My fond Rosaleen! Would give me life and soul anew, A second life, a soul anew, My Dark Rosaleen!O, the Erne shall run red, With redundance of blood, The earth shall rock beneath our tread, And flames wrap hill and wood, And gun-peal and slogan-cry Wake many a glen serene, Ere you shall fade, ere you shall die, My Dark Rosaleen! My own Rosaleen! The Judgement Hour must first be nigh, Ere you can fade, ere you can die, My Dark Rosaleen!"

"Solomon, where is thy throne? It is gone in the wind. Babylon, where is thy might? It is gone in the wind. Like the swift shadows of noon, like the dreams of the blind, Vanish the glories and pomps of the earth in the wind.Man, canst thou build upon aught in the pride of thy mind? Wisdom will teach thee that nothing can tarry behind: Tho’ there be thousand bright actions embalm’d and enshrined, Myriads and millions of brighter are snow in the wind.Solomon, where is thy throne? It is gone in the wind. Babylon, where is thy might? It is gone in the wind. All that the genius of man hath achieved or design’d Waits but its hour to be dealt with as dust by the wind.Say what is pleasure? A phantom, a mask undefined: Science? An almond whereof we can pierce but the rind: Honour and affluence? Firmans that Fortune hath sign’d, Only to glitter and pass on the wings of the wind.Solomon, where is thy throne? It is gone in the wind. Babylon, where is thy might? It is gone in the wind. Who is the fortunate? He who in anguish hath pined! He shall rejoice when his relics are dust in the wind.Mortal, be careful with what thy best hopes are entwined: Woe to the miners for Truth, where the lampless have mined! Woe to the seekers on earth for what none ever find! They and their trust shall be scatter’d like leaves to the wind!Solomon, where is thy throne? It is gone in the wind. Babylon, where is thy might? It is gone in the wind. Happy in death are they only whose hearts have consign’d All earth’s affections and longings and cares to the wind.Pity thou, reader, the madness of poor humankind Raving of knowledge—and Satan so busy to blind! Raving of glory, like me; for the garlands I bind, Garlands of song, are but gather’d—and strewn in the wind.Solomon, where is thy throne? It is gone in the wind. Babylon, where is thy might? It is gone in the wind. I, Abul-Namez, must rest; for my fire is declined, And I hear voices from Hades like bells on the wind."

"In Siberia’s wastes The ice-wind’s breath Woundeth like the toothèd steel; Lost Siberia doth reveal Only blight and death.Blight and death alone. No Summer shines. Night is interblent with Day. In Siberia’s wastes alway The blood blackens, the heart pines.In Siberia’s wastes No tears are shed, For they freeze within the brain. Naught is felt but dullest pain, Pain acute, yet dead;Pain as in a dream, When years go by Funeral-paced, yet fugitive, When man lives, and doth not live, Doth not live—nor die.In Siberia’s wastes Are sands and rocks. Nothing blooms of green or soft, But the snow-peaks rise aloft And the gaunt ice-blocks.And the exile there Is one with those; They are part, and he is part, For the sands are in his heart, And the killing snows.Therefore, in those wastes None curse the Czar. Each man’s tongue is cloven by The North Blast, who heweth nigh With sharp scymitar.And such doom each drees, Till, hunger-gnawn, And cold-slain, he at length sinks there, Yet scarce more a corpse than ere His last breath was drawn."

"Traverse not the globe for lore! The sternest But the surest teacher is the heart; Studying that and that alone, thou learnest Best and soonest whence and what thou art.Time, not travel, 'tis which gives us ready Speech, experience, prudence, tact, and wit: Far more light the lamp that bideth steady Than the wandering lantern doth emit.Moor, Chinese, Egyptian, Russian, Roman, Tread one common down-hill path of doom; Everywhere the names are man and woman, Everywhere the old sad sins find room.Evil angels tempt us in all places. What but sands or snows hath earth to give? Dream not, friend, of deserts and oases; But look inwards, and begin to live."

"Roll forth, my song, like the rushing river, That sweeps along to the mighty sea; God will inspire me while I deliver My soul of thee!Tell thou the world, when my bones lie whitening Amid the last homes of youth and eld, That once there was one whose veins ran lightning No eye beheld.Tell how his boyhood was one drear night-hour, How shone for him, through his griefs and gloom, No star of all heaven sends to light our Path to the tomb.Roll on, my song, and to after ages Tell how, disdaining all earth can give, He would have taught men, from wisdom’s pages, The way to live.And tell how trampled, derided, hated, And worn by weakness, disease, and wrong, He fled for shelter to God, who mated His soul with song.—With song which alway, sublime or vapid, Flow’d like a rill in the morning beam, Perchance not deep, but intense and rapid: A mountain stream.Tell how this Nameless, condemn’d for years long To herd with demons from hell beneath, Saw things that made him, with groans and tears, long For even death.Go on to tell how, with genius wasted, Betray’d in friendship, befool’d in love, With spirit shipwreck’d, and young hopes blasted, He still, still strove;Till, spent with toil, dreeing death for others (And some whose hands should have wrought for him, If children live not for sires and mothers), His mind grew dim;And he fell far through that pit abysmal, The gulf and grave of Maginn and Burns, And pawn’d his soul for the devil’s dismal Stock of returns.But yet redeem’d it in days of darkness, And shapes and signs of the final wrath, When death, in hideous and ghastly starkness, Stood on his path.And tell how now, amid wreck and sorrow, And want, and sickness, and houseless nights, He bides in calmness the silent morrow, That no ray lights.And lives he still, then? Yes! Old and hoary At thirty-nine, from despair and woe, He lives, enduring what future story Will never know.Him grant a grave to, ye pitying noble, Deep in your bosoms: there let him dwell! He, too, had tears for all souls in trouble, Here and in hell."

"To this khan, and from this khan How many pilgrims came and went too! In this khan, and by this khan What arts were spent, what hearts were rent too! To this khan and from this khan (Which, for penance, man is sent to) Many a van and caravan Crowded came, and shrouded went too. Christian man and Mussulman, Guebre, heathen, Jew, and Gentoo, To this khan, and from this khan, Weeping came, and sleeping went too. A riddle this since time began, Which many a sage his mind hath bent to: All came, all went; but never man Knew whence they came, or where they went to!"

"I see thee ever in my dreams, Karaman! Thy hundred hills, thy thousand streams, Karaman, O Karaman! As when thy gold-bright morning gleams, As when the deepening sunset seams With lines of light thy hills and streams, Karaman! So thou loomest on my dreams, Karaman! On all my dreams, my homesick dreams, Karaman, O Karaman!The hot bright plains, the sun, the skies, Karaman! Seem death-black marble to mine eyes, Karaman, O Karaman! I turn from summer’s blooms and dyes; Yet in my dreams thou dost arise In welcome glory to mine eyes, Karaman! In thee my life of life yet lies, Karaman! Thou still art holy in mine eyes, Karaman, O Karaman!Ere my fighting years were come, Karaman! Troops were few in Erzerome, Karaman, O Karaman! Their fiercest came from Erzerome, They came from Ukhbar’s palace dome, They dragg’d me forth from thee, my home, Karaman! Thee, my own, my mountain home, Karaman! In life and death, my spirit’s home, Karaman, O Karaman!O none of all my sisters ten, Karaman! Loved like me my fellow-men, Karaman, O Karaman! I was mild as milk till then, I was soft as silk till then; Now my breast is as a den, Karaman! Foul with blood and bones of men, Karaman! With blood and bones of slaughter’d men, Karaman, O Karaman!My boyhood’s feelings newly born, Karaman! Wither’d like young flowers uptorn, Karaman, O Karaman! And in their stead sprang weed and thorn; What once I loved now moves my scorn: My burning eyes are dried to horn, Karaman! I hate the blessèd light of morn, Karaman! It maddens me, the face of morn, Karaman, O Karaman!The Spahi wears a tyrant’s chains, Karaman! But bondage worse than this remains, Karaman, O Karaman! His heart is black with million stains: Thereon, as on Kaf’s blasted plains, Shall nevermore fall dews and rains, Karaman! Save poison-dews and bloody rains, Karaman! Hell’s poison-dews and bloody rains, Karaman, O Karaman!But life at worst must end ere long, Karaman! Azrael avengeth every wrong, Karaman, O Karaman! Of late my thoughts rove more among Thy fields; o’ershadowing fancies throng My mind, and texts of bodeful song, Karaman! Azrael is terrible and strong, Karaman! His lightning sword smites all ere long, Karaman, O Karaman!There ’s care to-night in Ukhbar’s halls, Karaman! There ’s hope, too, for his trodden thralls, Karaman, O Karaman! What lights flash red along yon walls? Hark! hark! the muster-trumpet calls! I see the sheen of spears and shawls, Karaman! The foe! the foe!—they scale the walls, Karaman! To-night Muràd or Ukhbar falls, Karaman, O Karaman!"

"THE WAILHere we meet, we three, at length, Amrah, Osman, Perizad: Shorn of all our grace and strength, Poor, and old, and very sad. We have lived, but live no more; Life has lost its gloss for us, Since the days we spent of yore Boating down the Bosphorus! La’ laha, il Allah! The Bosphorus, the Bosphorus! Old time brought home no loss for us; We felt full of health and heart Upon the foamy Bosphorus!La’ laha, il Allah! Days indeed! A shepherd’s tent Served us then for house and fold; All to whom we gave or lent, Paid us back a thousandfold. Troublous years, by myriads wail’d, Rarely had a cross for us, Never, when we gaily sail’d Singing down the Bosphorus. La’ laha, il Allah! The Bosphorus, the Bosphorus! There never came a cross for us, While we daily, gaily sail’d Adown the meadowy Bosphorus.La’ laha, il Allah! Blithe as birds we flew along, Laugh’d and quaff’d and stared about; Wine and roses, mirth and song, Were what most we cared about. Fame we left for quacks to seek, Gold was dust and dross for us, While we lived from week to week Boating down the Bosphorus. La’ laha, il Allah! The Bosphorus, the Bosphorus! And gold was dust and dross for us, While we lived from week to week Boating down the Bosphorus.La’ laha, il Allah! Friends we were, and would have shared Purses, had we twenty full. If we spent, or if we spared, Still our funds were plentiful. Save the hours we pass’d apart, Time brought home no loss for us; We felt full of hope and heart While we clove the Bosphorus. La’ laha, il Allah! The Bosphorus, the Bosphorus! For life has lost its gloss for us Since the days we spent of yore Upon the pleasant Bosphorus!La’ laha, il Allah! Ah! for youth’s delirious hours, Man pays well in after-days, When quenched hopes and palsied powers Mock his love-and-laughter days. Thorns and thistles on our path Took the place of moss for us, Till false fortune’s tempest-wrath Drove us from the Bosphorus. La’ laha, il Allah! The Bosphorus, the Bosphorus! When thorns took place of moss for us, Gone was all! Our hearts were graves Deep, deeper than the Bosphorus.La’ laha, il Allah! Gone is all! In one abyss Lie health, youth, and merriment! All we’ve learnt amounts to this: Life’s a sad experiment! What it is we trebly feel Pondering what it was for us, When our shallop’s bounding keel Clove the joyous Bosphorus. La’ laha, il Allah! The Bosphorus, the Bosphorus! We wail for what life was for us, When our shallop’s bounding keel Clove the joyous Bosphorus!THE WARNINGLa’ laha, il Allah! Pleasure tempts, yet man has none Save himself t’ accuse, if her Temptings prove, when all is done, Lures hung out by Lucifer. Guard your fire in youth, O friends! Manhood’s is but phosphorus, And bad luck attends and ends Boatings down the Bosphorus! La’ laha, il Allah! The Bosphorus, the Bosphorus! Youth’s fire soon wanes to phosphorus, And slight luck or grace attends Your boaters down the Bosphorus!"

"Veil not thy mirror, sweet Amine, Till night shall also veil each star! Thou seest a twofold marvel there: The only face so fair as thine, The only eyes that, near or far, Can gaze on thine without despair."

"Take a blessing from my heart to the land of my birth, And the fair hills of Eiré, O! And to all that yet survive of Eibhear’s tribe on earth, On the fair hills of Eiré, O! In that land so delightful the wild thrush’s lay, Seems to pour a lament forth for Eiré’s decay. Alas, alas! why pine I a thousand miles away From the fair hills of Eiré, O!The soil is rich and soft, the air is mild and bland, Of the fair hills of Eiré, O! Her barest rock is greener to me than this rude land; O the fair hills of Eiré, O! Her woods are tall and straight, grove rising over grove; Trees flourish in her glens below and on her heights above; Ah, in heart and in soul I shall ever, ever love The fair hills of Eiré, O!A noble tribe, moreover, are the now hapless Gael, On the fair hills of Eiré, O! A tribe in battle’s hour unused to shrink or fail On the fair hills of Eiré, O! For this is my lament in bitterness outpour’d To see them slain or scatter’d by the Saxon sword: O woe of woes to see a foreign spoiler horde On the fair hills of Eiré, O!Broad and tall rise the cruachs in the golden morning glow On the fair hills of Eiré, O! O’er her smooth grass for ever sweet cream and honey flow, On the fair hills of Eiré, O! Oh, I long, I am pining, again to behold The land that belongs to the brave Gael of old. Far dearer to my heart than a gift of gems or gold Are the fair hills of Eiré, O!The dewdrops lie bright mid the grass and yellow corn On the fair hills of Eiré, O! The sweet-scented apples blush redly in the morn On the fair hills of Eiré, O! The water-cress and sorrel fill the vales below, The streamlets are hush’d till the evening breezes blow, While the waves of the Suir, noble river! ever flow Neath the fair hills of Eiré, O!A fruitful clime is Eiré’s, through valley, meadow, plain, And the fair hills of Eiré, O! The very bread of life is in the yellow grain On the fair hills of Eiré, O! Far dearer unto me than the tones music yields Is the lowing of the kine and the calves in her fields, In the sunlight that shone long ago on the shields Of the Gaels, on the fair hills of Eiré, O!"

"’Twas the dream of a God, And the mould of His hand, That you shook ’neath His stroke, That you trembled and broke To this beautiful land.Here He loosed from His hold A brown tumult of wings, Till the wind on the sea Bore the strange melody Of an island that sings.He made you all fair, You in purple and gold, You in silver and green, Till no eye that has seen Without love can behold.I have left you behind In the path of the past, With the white breath of flowers, With the best of God’s hours, I have left you at last."

"I want to go to the Leinster hills, To the Dublin hills by the rocky shore. I want to climb to Ben-Edar's heights— I want to be home once more."

"Youth’s bright palace Is overthrown, With its diamond sceptre And golden throne; As a time-worn stone Its turrets are humbled— All hath crumbled But grief alone!Whither, O whither Have fled away The dreams and hopes Of my early day? Ruin’d and grey Are the towers I builded; And the beams that gilded— Ah, where are they?Once this world Was fresh and bright, With its golden noon And its starry night: Glad and light, By mountain and river, Have I bless’d the Giver With hush’d delight.Youth’s illusions One by one Have pass’d like clouds That the sun look’d on. While morning shone, How purple their fringes! How ashy their tinges When that was gone!As fire-flies fade When the nights are damp— As meteors are quench’d In a stagnant swamp— Thus Charlemagne’s camp Where the Paladins rally, And the Diamond valley, And the Wonderful Lamp,And all the wonders Of Ganges and Nile, And Haroun’s rambles, And Crusoe’s isle, And Princes who smile On the Genii’s daughters ’Neath the Orient waters Full many a mile,And all that the pen Of Fancy can write Must vanish in manhood’s Misty light; Squire and Knight, And damosel’s glances, Sunny romances, So pure and bright!These have vanish’d, And what remains? Life’s budding garlands Have turn’d to chains— Its beams and rains Feed but docks and thistles, And sorrow whistles O’er desert plains."

"The pillar towers of Ireland, how wondrously they stand By the lakes and rushing rivers through the valleys of our land; In mystic file, through the isle, they lift their heads sublime, These gray old pillar temples, these conquerors of time!"

"The cherished traditions of a people, however extravagant they may appear, are in every instance valuable sources of information. No matter what amount of error may have been heaped upon them in their downward course through ages—no matter what incrustations may have formed around them—still like the statue in the block of marble the original form of truth is there, and requires only the discriminating hands of the historian to reveal."

"Knocknagow is the national Irish novel. To love the "Homes of Tipperary" is to love what is purest and strongest and raciest and best in Ireland. There is awkwardness in many of Kickham's chapters, but what strength in the best! Matt the Thresher is for Ireland as much a national figure as for England any in Copperfield; and the rural scene has the richness, often, of Blackmore's self. In the figure of the honoured piper, there is a touch of the authentic, traditional pride that runs, a golden thread through the rustic homespun."

"He gave us what still the best known of all Irish novels by dint, not of art, but of love and sincerity. Knocknagow never will die, unless the Irish nation dies."

"Only poor labouring men! And when was Ireland ever formidable to her oppressor without them? Could emancipation have been won without them? Did not their example shame the "respectable" classes, and even the priests themselves, into doing their duty? Was it not the labouring men who made the O'Connell meetings monster meetings, and their shillings that swelled the O'Connell treasury... For if ever a successful blow is to be struck for the poor old country, it is the hand of the toiler that will strike it."

"I was a beardless stripling then, but proud as any lord; And well I might—in my right hand I grasped a freeman's sword; And though an humble peasant's son, proud squires and noble peers Would greet me as a comrade—we were The Volunteers."

"Charles J. Kickham was the finest intellect in the Fenian Movement, either in Ireland or America, although his defective sight and hearing prevented the demonstration of that fact in public. One would have to know him personally and to see his work in council to realize the superiority of his mind over those of his colleagues and contemporaries."

"The ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone, and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them, and to have believed in them, and sometimes, just to have accompanied them, for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone."

"...one of the powerful dynamics of leadership is being visible. One of the vulnerabilities of being visible is that when you’re visible, you can be seen; and when you can be seen, you can be touched; and when you can be touched, you can be hurt."

"Against every member of the Company's higher staff, so far as I can see are not merely alleged, but have been sworn to and published in Iquitos."

"Nevertheless the Barbadians were all engaged by Arana as "agricultural labourers" or "labourers", and if Arana gave them to Colombian "criminals", whose "properties" he has since entirely acquired, and whose system he has maintained, if not indeed developed. I cannot see but that he is responsible quite as much as these Colombian "ruffians", and to the British Government he is solely responsible for the use to which he has put the labourers recruited in a British Colony."

"And the charming Lizardo Arana tells me in Iquitos I shall find "such splendid Indians" here, and he feels sure the result of my journey to the Putumayo will be more capital for the Company! Yes, more capital punishment if I had my way. I swear to God, I'd hang every one of the band of wretches with my own hands if I had the power, and do it with the greatest pleasure. I have never shot game with any pleasure, have indeed abandoned all shooting for that reason, that I dislike the thought of taking life. I have never given life to anyone myself, and my celibacy makes me frugal of human life, but I'd shoot or exterminate these infamous scoundrels more gladly than I should shoot a crocodile or kill a snake."

"I should dearly love to see these things with my own eyes - to be able to record the methods used there in this "commercial" and "industrial reclamation" of the Indians, but how can I? The Commission will hardly go to Matanzas, they say, or to Abisinia, the roads are long and full of water. To me, personally, it would be a real pleasure, but I am gravely alarmed for the results - the possible results. It might mean the murder of the Barbados men, under our eyes almost. Of course, it would be the "cannibals" or the "Savages" who had done it, or it would be the "injured husband" or something of that kind. No evidence possible of a crime. Besides, these men have never been punished for the most awful offences against humanity. Not one. They have been here for years committing the most hellish crimes, as we all now believe, and they were openly denounced in Iquitos three years ago, with many witnesses walking the streets of that capital asking to be brought before a court. And what followed? Nothing, absolutely nothing. They have either retired with a small fortune like Mr Rodriguez of Iquitos, or are still active agents of the Company, drawing very handsome incomes from their sections. Barnes says this man, Velarde, who is not worth £5 a year to any house of business, gets, he believes, fully £600 a year, and he has 4 or 5 "wives" free, a house built by the Indians, everything save European supplies, levied by crime from the surrounding defenseless population."

"This Company has not got the means of paying for anything in its Provedura or Store, and yet it daily imposes onerous tasks (apart altogether from rubber collection) on the surrounding people. And they perform these tasks, patient, humble beings, with smiles and compliments and gentle speech to their oppressors. From building these huge houses (this one is fully 45 yards long and as strong as an old three-decker) ckearing great tracts of forest, making plantations of yucca, mealy, sugar canes, &c., constructing roads and bridges at great labour, for these men to more easily get at them - to supplying them with "wives", with food, with game from the chase, often with their own food just for their own pressing wants, with labour to meet every conceivable form of demand. All this the Indians supply for absolutely no remuneration of any kind, this entirely in addition to the India rubber which is the keystone of the arch."

"That every word of Nordenskiöld's letter to the Anti-Slavery Society is true I am quite convinced. The entire Indian population is enslaved in the montaña and whereon the devil plant, the rubber tree, grows and can be tapped. The wilder the Indian the wickeder the slavery. Where he becomes 'civilised' and can read and write and study "cuenta" [accounts] with his "patron" then he ceases to be an Indian and becomes a "Peruvian" and himself an enslaver. As to the laws - all these South American republics have excellent laws on paper - and no sense of equity in the man behind the paper. The laws are beautiful and simple books - a fool could turn the leaves and apply them - an honest fool would make an ideal judge."

"It was a grey afternoon. The windows gave on to the Thames, and against the grey sky the warehouses on the southern bank were, through the gathering mist, lined in an outline of darker grey and black, the tall chimneys uplifted above them. The tide was out, and beside the distant quayside some coal-barges lay tilted on the sleek mud of the river-bottom, with their sides washed by the silver waters that raced seaward. Against this picture, looking outward before the window curtains, stood Roger Casement, a figure of perplexity, and the apparent dejection which he always wore so proud, as though he had assumed the sorrows of the world."

"In any inclusive study of the roots of modern British socialism and internationalism, Casement’s collaboration with E.D. Morel should be cited as a critical conjuncture in a tradition of English radicalism and the struggle for the fairer distribution of land."

"Roger looked wonderfully tall and dignified and noble as he stood in the dock. He seemed to be looking away over the heads of the judges and advocates and sightseers, away to Ireland – probably his mind’s eye was fixed on some well-known spot such as Fair Head or Murlough Bay – certainly he had no look of one who was conscious of his awful and sordid surroundings…"

"During the several years that the Arana syndicates have been controlling the Putumayo, and using the government forces in the furtherance of their lawless ends against either Colombian settlers or native Indians the local value of the services rendered by this so-called trading company to the Peruvian Government must have amounted to many thousands of pounds in the matters of passage and victualling alone. The agreement no doubt worked to the satisfaction of both parties. Messrs. Arana and Co (it is really absurd to use the name of the ineffectual London Company at any stage of the business) obtained the military help and prestige of Peru in attacking, murdering and pillaging the Colombian settlers on the Cara-Paraná in securing their rubber and enslaving fresh tribes of Indians, while the government through 'this patriotic action' of the Aranas extended the frontiers of the 'national territory' and became possed of regions to which it had not any moral or lawful claim."

"The evidence against the Arana brothers was indeed overwhelming, and had the slightest desire existed in Iquitos to find out the precise truth or to stop the excesses on the Indians the time for action was then when the charges were first made, and publicly made in Iquitos, with a host of witnesses at hand proclaiming their desire to be interrogated and when even Indians themselves, with the scars and wheals of flagellations upon them were actually brought from the Putumayo so that the authorities might examine for themselves these victims of the crimes denounced.""

"But now that I was in Barbados, with nothing to do and with no responsibility save that of recuperating from my attack of yellow fever, I stumbled upon the one man in all the world who had set himself the task of aiding the unfortunate Weetoto Indians to escape from the abominable overlordship of the Peruvian employees of a British rubber-collecting company. Sir Roger Casement was the man. It seems strange that the generous, honest, high-principled person should have died the death of a traitor during the World War. That he was slightly unbalanced I fully believe, but I am certain that he was as sincere and as honest as a man who ever breathed. There is no doubt, of course, as to his attempt to aid the Germans - which was merely his idea of aiding Ireland. But all that came later. The World War was not to come for another three years when I met Casement, quite casually, at a bar in Bridgetown."

"Casement’s belief in solidarity and cooperation between all the people of the world is fundamentally republican. It is a principle that is often ignored or diminished by the opponents and detractors of Irish republicanism. We’re not ‘Little Irelanders’. Our vision is fundamentally internationalist. We stand with struggling people of the world – and we are confident in the fact that they stand with Ireland too. In our own day and age – we reiterate our call for a global response to the current health pandemic. A global pandemic requires a global remedy. We face an enormous responsibility. No-one is safe until everyone is safe. No-one is free until we’re all equal. That is where Casement would have stood."

"if you ever attempt to 'Sir Roger' me again I'll enter into an alliance with the Aranas and Pablo Zumaeta to cut you off someday in the woods of St. James' Park, and convert you into a rubber worker to our joint profit"

"Crippen is caught too! but what a farce it seems - a whole world shaken by the pursuit of a man who killed his wife - and here are lots and lots of gentlemen I meet daily at dinner who not only kill their wives, but burn other people's wives alive - or cut their arms and legs off and pull the babies from their breasts to throw in the river or leave to starve in the forest - or dash their brains out against trees. Why should civilisation stand aghast at the crime of a Crippen and turn wearily away when the poor Indians of the Putumayo, or the Bantu of the Congo, turn bloodstained, appalling hands and terrified eyes to those who alone can aid?"

"Throughout the greater part of the Amazon region, where the rubber trade flourishes, a system of dealing prevails which is not tolerated in civilised communities. In so far as it affects a labouring man or an individual who sells his labour, it is termed peonage, and is repressed by drastic measures in some parts of the New World. It consists in getting the person working for you into your debt and keeping him there; and in lieu of other means of discharging this obligation he is forced to work for his creditor upon what are practically the latter’s terms, and under varying forms of bodily constraint. In the Amazon Valley this method of dealing has been expanded until it embraces, not only the Indian workman, but is often made to apply to those who are themselves the employers of this kind of labour. By accumulated obligations contracted in this way, one trader will pledge his business until it and himself become practically the property of the creditor. His business is merged, and he himself becomes an employee, and often finds it very hard to escape from the responsibilities he has thus contracted."

"The true criminal is the government of Peru, far off, uncaring. Arana has been free to erect the individual acts of lawless squatters, Colombians and Peruvians, into a system of robbery under arms. The Government of Peru has stood by passive, and when called on for help (as with David Serrano and Gonzalez) ready to kill too, and extend the frontier of Peru, and get more revenue-bearing territory. The two have gone hand-in-hand, Arana, the arch criminal and the administration of the Department of Loreto.""

"There is not, so far as I am aware, any specific act of cruelty or torture attributed to these [indigenous] people even by the very men who have so cruelly wronged them for years, and who so richly deserve torture. When the Indians have killed these so-called white men, they have simply slain them outright, and think what this killing has meant to them - the rescue of wife and children, of all that was dear to them. The muchachos have been brutalisied, and made to behead and shooting, to flog and outrage. They are only another instance of the hopeless obedience of these people. What the white man orders they are only too prone to execute..."

"Perhaps a greater defence than their spears and blow-pipes even had been more ruthlessly destroyed. Their old people, both women and men, respected for character and ability to wisely advise, had been marked from the first as dangerous, and in the early stages of the occupation were done to death. Their crime had been the giving of 'bad advice.' To warn the more credulous or less experienced against the white enslaver and to exhort the Indian to flee or to resist rather than consent to work rubber for the new-comers had brought about their doom. I met no old Indian man or woman, and few had got beyond middle age. The Barbados men assured me that when they first came to the region in the beginning of 1905 old people were still to be found, vigorous and highly respected, but these had all disappeared, so far as I could gather, before my coming."

"I think the whole gang - Arana & President and Prefect & all - are liars and rogues. No offer Arana makes is to be trusted. If I had the money myself I'd buy the rogue out and go out to the Putumayo on a well armed yacht with a party of good shots and have some of the best big game shooting in the world. Why the devil men should go to Africa to shoot 4,000 head head of harmless gazelle or antelope with such fine beasts as Normand, Aguero, Fonseca to stalk - I can't imagine. I wonder if Roosevelt would take the thing up? Also I rather regret now I gave you the blow pipe and poisoned arrows - as I think the big Indian lad might attend next board meeting of the [Peruvian Amazon] Company with me - and exemplify on Arana and McQuibban how the poison arrow works."

"Of the persistent mutilation by government soldiers, there can be no shadow of a doubt, should the system maintain forced labor on this scale, i believe the entire population will be extinct in thirty years."

"Infamous, infamous shameful system."

"When up in those lonely Congo forests where I found Leopold I also found myself – the incorrigible Irishman."

"On Sunday evening, natives brought me a mutilated lad, who's right hand had been hacked of quite recently, the cold thread was a century of lalu longa, a Belgian trading society, when i asked why they had not appealed to their commissar, i heard from them, well it is the commissar, it is the Bula Matari, who does these things to us."

"In 1887 i spend several months on the upper Congo, and i traveled over some of the grounds i now revisit in the absence of 10 years, the country was thickly populated, frequent and populous towns, but many of the inhabitants have been killed by the government, man and woman."

"Tackling Leopold in Africa has set in motion a big movement – it must be a movement of human liberation all the world over."