“FOR ANY GOOD CAUSE AT ALL.” The Ballad of Sir Kevin O’Keane To C. C.

SIR Kevin O’Keane was an Irish knight, Who never felt sorry or sad. He had dreams of delight by day and by night, And his friends all thought him mad. Kevin was born when Patrick came, And for sixteen hundred years The sound of his name was a roaring flame— He’d a yell that would split your ears. He had hair as red as a sunset bright And a thirst not thin or small, And his soul’s delight was a smashing fight For any good cause at all. He harried Sitric at Malahide, And he drove him into the sea, And he sighed, “Great Danes I could never abide: They never agreed with me.” For Grace O’Malley he grasped a skean, And to Essex himself he said, “My black colleen is a greater queen Though she may not take your red.” When Sarsfield swore by the Boyne’s red tide, “Change kings and we’ll fight again,” Sir Kevin replied, though his wounds were wide, With an oath and a deep Amen! At Gettysburgh’s fray he charged with Lee, When Meagher he met with Meade. “On the bars,” said he, “if we can’t agree, We can strike for the stars at need.” ’Twas much the same in Paardeburg’s snare, When he came on a Galway Blake, “Though with Cronje I fare in his lion’s lair, I spare you for Connaught’s sake.” Sir Kevin O’Keane is in joyous mood, And alive and strong to-day; And “There never was good from Luther’s brood” Is a thing that he’ll often say. He is drinking deep of an old delight, And the cry that the lost years call Is ever the might of a smashing fight For any good cause at all.