Shelley leaving Dublin

For Paul O Brien

I went down among the mob

and shouted loudly as I could but no-one heard.

I chased all through the drunken neighbourhoods

past huts that leaned like rotten teeth but they took no  heed.

Though I rained my pamphlets down from balconies

and dropped my address in their hoods,

no seething wind blew up to show that they had understood.

Perhaps they could not read. Perhaps I hadn’t spelt the proper words.

I swallowed more than claret

dining at this crow-shat city’s

tables of fireside enlightenment

to speak out on their behalf,

but won neither shillings nor commitment,

though raised many the fatherly chuckle,

the patronising laugh: ‘When you get old

you’ll sup and puff like us,

you’ll make no dent in God

or nature’s given world

by raising such a fuss’.

I pleaded in sheets of letters to the London set

for public words and an Irish vote in parliament.

But men whose minds fired

on the incandescence of the French events

and, in the dawning rage of sans culottes,

saw the chrysalis of nearly perfect love,

have flown from youth and with it all that’s news.

Some even hymn the church, the generals, the government,

stand side by side with Castlereagh,

praise aristocratic shite as sugared cake.

And so I’ve failed.

The many headed monster’s still sleeping

deep within it’s sightless cave.

I need retreat and confess I’m more than slightly burnt.

But this I’ve learnt: I was not wrong

To plant the flag of fire among the mob,

but one man’s voice is not enough,

one cry, however like the nightingales,

dies amidst the clamour, cut off.

Minds like mine must seek proliferation.

Therefore, I pro- pose an association.