"KELLY AND BURKE AND SHEA."
Reading edition
At the last banquet of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, in New York, President Roosevelt, the guest of the evening, asked Joseph I.C. Clarke, the president of the "Friendly Sons," to recite "The Fighting Race."
Mr. Clarke wrote this poem at the time of the blowing-up of the Maine. Looking over the list of dead and wounded, he remarked to his wife: "They are all there, as usual—the Irish. Yes, here we've Kelly and Burke and Shea——"
Within two hours he had finished the verses which are now recognized as a lasting tribute to the fighting qualities of the Irishman. The poem makes a point; it also expresses the conviction and the wistful pride of the old veteran.
Mr. Clarke was born in Kingstown, Ireland, July 31, 1846, and came to the United States in 1868. The greater part of his life has been spent in newspaper offices—on the New York Herald, 1870-1883; magazine editor of the New York Journal, 1883-1895; editor of the Criterion, 1898-1900; Sunday editor New York Herald, 1903-1905. He is now engaged in writing plays, work which has taken intervals of his time for a number of years.
THE FIGHTING RACE.
BY JOSEPH I.C. CLARKE.
"Read out the names!" and Burke sat back, And Kelly dropped his head, While Shea—they call him Scholar Jack— Went down the list of dead. Officers, seamen, gunners, marines, The crews of the gig and yawl, The bearded man and the lad in his 'teens, Carpenters, coal-passers—all. Then, knocking the ashes from out his pipe, Said Burke in an offhand way: "We're all in that dead man's list, by Cripe! Kelly and Burke and Shea." "Well, here's to the Maine, and I'm sorry for Spain," Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. "Wherever there's Kellys there's trouble," said Burke. "Wherever fighting's the game, Or a spice of danger in grown man's work," Said Kelly, "you'll find my name." "And do we fall short," said Burke, getting mad. "When it's touch and go for life?" Said Shea, "It's thirty-odd years, bedad, Since I charged, to drum and fife, Up Marye's Heights, and my old canteen Stopped a rebel ball on its way. There were blossoms of blood on our sprigs of green— Kelly and Burke and Shea— And the dead didn't brag." "Well, here's to the flag!" Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. "I wish 'twas in Ireland, for there's the place," Said Burke, "that we'd die by right, In the cradle of our soldier race, After one good stand-up fight. My grandfather fell on Vinegar Hill, And fighting was not his trade; But his rusty pike's in the cabin still. With Hessian blood on the blade." "Aye, aye," said Kelly, "the pikes were great When the word was 'Clear the way!' We were thick on the roll in Ninety-eight— Kelly and Burke and Shea." "Well, here's to the pike and the sword and the like!" Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. And Shea, the scholar, with rising joy. Said, "We were at Ramillies, We left our bones at Fontenoy And up in the Pyrenees. Before Dunkirk, on Landen's plain, Cremona, Lille, and Ghent, We're all over Austria, France, and Spain, Wherever they pitched a tent. We've died for England, from Waterloo To Egypt and Dargai; And still there's enough for a corps or a crew, Kelly and Burke and Shea." "Well, here's to good honest fighting blood!" Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. "Oh, the fighting races don't die out. If they seldom die in bed. For love is first in their hearts, no doubt," Said Burke; then Kelly said, "When Michael, the Irish Archangel, stands, The angel with the sword, And the battle-dead from a hundred lands Are ranged in one big horde, Our line, that for Gabriel's trumpet waits, Will stretch three deep that day. From Jehosaphat to the Golden Gates— Kelly and Burke and Shea." "Well, here's thank God for the race and the sod!" Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.