. . . They caught him at the bend. He and his son <br />Sat in the car, revolvers in their laps. <br />From either side the stone-walled wintry road <br />There flashed thin fire-streaks in the rainy dusk. <br />The father swayed and fell, shot through the chest. <br />The son was up, but one more fire-streak leaped <br />Close from the pitch-black of a thick-set bush <br />Not five yards further and lit all the face <br />Of him whose sweetheart walked the Dublin streets <br />For lust of him who gave one yell and fell <br />Flat on the stony road a sweltering corse. <br />Then they came out, the men who did this thing, <br />And looked upon their hatred's retribution, <br />While heedlessly the rattling car fled on. <br />Grey-haired old Wolf, your letch for peasants' blood, <br />For peasants' sweat turned gold and silver and bronze, <br />Is done for ever, for ever and ever is done! <br />O foul young Fox, no more young girls' fresh lips <br />Shall bruise and bleed to cool your lecher's lust. <br />Slowly from out the great high-terraced clouds <br />The round moon sailed. The dead were left alone. <br />* * * * * <br />I talked with one of those who did this thing, <br />A coughing half-starved lad, mere skin and bone. <br />I said: 'They found upon those dead men gold. <br />Why did you not take it?' Then with proud-raised head, <br />He looked at me and said: 'Sorr, we're not thaves!' <br />Brother, from up the maimed and mangled earth, <br />Strewn with our flesh and bones, wet with our blood, <br />Let that great Word go up to unjust heaven <br />And smite the cheek of the Devil they've called 'God!'<br /><br />Francis William Lauderdale Adams<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/an-assassin/
