From “A Wreath for Tom Moore’s Statue”

By Patrick Kavanagh

They put a wreath upon the dead

For the dead will wear the cap of any racket,

The corpse will not put his elbows through his jacket

Or contradict the words some liar has said.

The corpse can be fitted out to deceive –

Fake thoughts, fake love, fake ideal,

And rogues can sell its guaranteed appeal,

Guaranteed to work and never come alive.

The poet would not stay poetical

And his humility was far from being pliable,

Voluptuary to-morrow, to-day ascetical,

His morning gentleness was the evening’s rage.

But here we give you death, the old reliable

Whose white blood cannot blot the respectable page.
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