Page:Yeats Responsibilities 1916.djvu/22

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
6
THE GREY ROCK

But never made a poorer song
That you might have a heavier purse,
Nor gave loud service to a cause
That you might have a troop of friends.
You kept the Muses' sterner laws,
And unrelenting faced your ends,
And therefore earned the right and yet
Dowson and Johnson most I praise—
To troop with those the world's forgot,
And copy their proud steady gaze.

'The Danish troop was driven out
Between the dawn and dusk' she said;
'Although the event was long in doubt,
Although the King of Ireland's dead
And half the kings, before sundown
All was accomplished.'

'When this day
Murrough, the King of Ireland's son,
Foot after foot was giving way,