Of the Irish, Paris <br />THE Lombards having gone back to their land, <br />We, who might never flock to native land <br />Except like birds that fly like fugitives, <br />Desperately, in a wind across the sea, <br />We drew our brood to their forsaken nest. <br />The Lombards’ halls became the Irelanders', <br />And charity was craved for us 'twas given <br />In names of Almantza and Namur, <br />Cremona, Barcelona, Charleroi <br />Fields that our soldiers bled on for a cause <br />Not ours, under command not ours. <br /> <br />Our order broken, they who were our brood <br />Knew not themselves the heirs of noted masters, <br />Of Columbanus and Erigena: <br />We strove towards no high reach of speculation, <br />Towards no delivery of gestated dogma, <br />No resolution of age-long dispute. <br />Only to have a priest beside the hedges, <br />Baptizing, marrying, <br />Offering Mass within some clod-built chapel, <br />And to the dying the last sacrament <br />Conveying, no more we strove to do <br />We, all bare exiles, soldiers, scholars, priests.<br /><br />Padraic Colum<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-old-college/
