‘On Behalf of Some Irishmen not Followers of Tradition’ by George William Russell

THEY call us aliens, we are told,
Because our wayward visions stray
From that dim banner they unfold,
The dreams of worn-out yesterday.
The sum of all the past is theirs,        
The creeds, the deeds, the fame, the name,
Whose death-created glory flares
And dims the spark of living flame.

They weave the necromancer’s spell,
And burst the graves where martyrs slept,        
Their ancient story to retell,
Renewing tears the dead have wept.
And they would have us join their dirge,
This worship of an extinct fire
In which they drift beyond the verge        
Where races all outworn expire.
The worship of the dead is not
A worship that our hearts allow,
Though every famous shade were wrought
With woven thorns above the brow.        
We fling our answer back in scorn:
“We are less children of this clime
Than of some nation yet unborn
Or empire in the womb of time.

We hold the Ireland in the heart        
More than the land our eyes have seen,
And love the goal for which we start
More than the tale of what has been.”
The generations as they rise
May live the life men lived before,        
Still hold the thought once held as wise,
Go in and out by the same door.
We leave the easy peace it brings:
The few we are shall still unite
In fealty to unseen kings        
Or unimaginable light.
We would no Irish sign efface,
But yet our lips would gladlier hail
The firstborn of the Coming Race
Than the last splendour of the Gael.        
No blazoned banner we unfold—
One charge alone we give to youth,
Against the sceptred myth to hold
The golden heresy of truth.