Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition

The Fool (Author: Pádraic H. Pearse)

p.334

1. 1] Since the wise men have not spoken, I speak that am only a fool;
   2] A fool that hath loved his folly,
   3] Yea, more than the wise men their books or their counting houses or their quiet homes,
   4] Or their fame in men's mouths;
   5] A fool that in all his days hath done never a prudent thing,
   6] Never hath counted the cost, nor recked if another reaped
   7] The fruit of his mighty sowing, content to scatter the seed;
   8] A fool that is unrepentant, and that soon at the end of all
   9] Shall laugh in his lonely heart as the ripe ears fall to the reaping-hooks
   10] And the poor are filled that were empty,
   11] Tho' he go hungry.
2. 12] I have squandered the splendid years that the Lord God gave to my youth
   13] In attempting impossible things, deeming them alone worth the toil.

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   14] Was it folly or grace? Not men shall judge me, but God.
3. 15] I have squandered the splendid years:
   16] Lord, if I had the years I would squander them over again,
   17] Aye, fling them from me !
   18] For this I have heard in my heart, that a man shall scatter, not hoard,
   19] Shall do the deed of to-day, nor take thought of to-morrow's teen,
   20] Shall not bargain or huxter with God ; or was it a jest of Christ's
   21] And is this my sin before men, to have taken Him at His word?
4. 22] The lawyers have sat in council, the men with the keen, long faces,
   23] And said, ‘This man is a fool,’ and others have said, ‘He blasphemeth;’
   24] And the wise have pitied the fool that hath striven to give a life
   25] In the world of time and space among the bulks of actual things,
   26] To a dream that was dreamed in the heart, and that only the heart could hold.

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p.336

5. 27] O wise men, riddle me this: what if the dream come true?
   28] What if the dream come true? and if millions unborn shall dwell
   29] In the house that I shaped in my heart, the noble house of my thought?
   30] Lord, I have staked my soul, I have staked the lives of my kin
   31] On the truth of Thy dreadful word. Do not remember my failures,
   32] But remember this my faith
6. 33] And so I speak.
   34] Yea, ere my hot youth pass, I speak to my people and say:
   35] Ye shall be foolish as I; ye shall scatter, not save;
   36] Ye shall venture your all, lest ye lose what is more than all;
   37] Ye shall call for a miracle, taking Christ at His word.
   38] And for this I will answer, O people, answer here and hereafter,
   39] O people that I have loved, shall we not answer together?