THREE SONGS TO THE ONE BURDEN
 
 THE Roaring Tinker if you like,
 But Mannion is my name,
 And I beat up the common sort
 And think it is no shame.
 The common breeds the common,
 A lout begets a lout,
 So when I take on half a score
 I knock their heads about.
 From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen.
 All Mannions come from Manannan,
 Though rich on every shore
 He never lay behind four walls
 He had such character,
 Nor ever made an iron red
 Nor soldered pot or pan;
 His roaring and his ranting
 Best please a wandering man.
 From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen.
 Could Crazy Jane put off old age
 And ranting time renew,
 Could that old god rise up again
 We'd drink a can or two,
 And out and lay our leadership
 On country and on town,
 Throw likely couples into bed
 And knock the others down.
 From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen.
 
 II
 My name is Henry Middleton,
 I have a small demesne,
 A small forgotten house that's set
 On a storm-bitten green.
 I scrub its floors and make my bed,
 I cook and change my plate,
 The post and garden-boy alone
 Have keys to my old gate.
 From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen.
 Though I have locked my gate on them,
 I pity all the young,
 I know what devil's trade they learn
 From those they live among,
 Their drink, their pitch-and-toss by day,
 Their robbery by night;
 The wisdom of the people's gone,
 How can the young go straight?
 From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen.
 When every Sunday afternoon
 On the Green Lands I walk
 And wear a coat in fashion.
 Memories of the talk
 Of henwives and of queer old men
 Brace me and make me strong;
 There's not a pilot on the perch
 Knows I have lived so long.
 From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen.
 
 III
 Come gather round me, players all:
 Come praise Nineteen-Sixteen,
 Those from the pit and gallery
 Or from the painted scene
 That fought in the Post Office
 Or round the City Hall,
 praise every man that came again,
 Praise every man that fell.
 From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen.
 Who was the first man shot that day?
 The player Connolly,
 Close to the City Hall he died;
 Catriage and voice had he;
 He lacked those years that go with skill,
 But later might have been
 A famous, a brilliant figure
 Before the painted scene.
 From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen.
 Some had no thought of victory
 But had gone out to die
 That Ireland's mind be greater,
 Her heart mount up on high;
 And yet who knows what's yet to come?
 For patrick pearse had said
 That in every generation
 Must Ireland's blood be shed.
 From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen.