The Wake

Unlike pilate we can't wash our hands
For it was one of our relative in the black and tans
From prisons and assylums happily we came
In the name of the king for a shilling that day
We did as we willed when we came out to play
Women and children in carts over cliffs
Their men swinging dead whilst taking the air
And if you think this is cardboard or a play for today
Unhappily for you, in your name it's done today
Poverty and ignorance, the fire, the hearth
Too many in cemeteries, too many in dreams
Over the sea in the eye of a man there's greed
For he laughs as you kill as you sow his seed
Too many lie sleeping in eire's clean earth,
Too many lie sleeping in england's red earth
And if you think this is cardboard or a play for today
Unhappily for you, in your name it's done today.