The Land is not settled Poem by Thomas McCarthy

The land is not yet half settled
After our years of pandemonium:
This time it is almost too late
To sing with full heart a parting hymn,
Or indulge in the usual fickle
Humour of things. It is too late

To bolt the door of Ireland.
A penny candle struggles in the wind,
A corpse from the West rises
To face me. What was a house now stands
As a ghost from the Assizes.
Believe me, I tried to understand

All the signals we received from Berlin.
Little did they know, in our autonomous
Region all the gold was gorse,
And all investment was story-telling.
Blackbirds in the oak trees are trembling still
Where all our demons hurriedly went in.