Roger Casement
After reading `The Forged Casement Diaries' by Dr. Maloney
Roger Casement - context Summary
Response to Casement's Execution
Yeats's short poem defends Roger Casement after his 1916 execution, protesting how forged diaries and public smears were used to justify his hanging. The speaker accuses authorities and the press of collusion, naming a forger and a perjurer and urging witnesses and writers to recant. It ends by calling for public amends to restore Casement’s honor, asserting that his death was not the only injustice done to him.
Read Complete AnalysesI 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.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.