Roger Casement by William Butler Yeats
(After reading `The Forged Casement Diaries' by Dr. Maloney)
I say that Roger Casement Did what he had to do. He died upon the gallows, But that is nothing new.
Afraid they might be beaten Before the bench of Time, They turned a trick by forgery And blackened his good name.
A perjurer stood ready To prove their forgery true; They gave it out to all the world, And that is something new;
For Spring Rice had to whisper it, Being their Ambassador, And then the speakers got it And writers by the score.
Come Tom and Dick, come all the troop That cried it far and wide, Come from the forger and his desk, Desert the perjurer's side;
Come speak your bit in public That some amends be made To this most gallant gentleman That is in quicklime laid.
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