Roger Casement

(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.