THE CURSE OF TROTSKY
Two things I cursed are gone out of the world
DeValera's sealed green Catholic arcadia,
Small frail redout of revenant Gaels: epigones
Mocking the past in a foreign tongue, faith-maddened pride
— Green shawls, gold kilts and all-devouring clericy,
Peasants and priests against "the filthy modern tide"!
On the rocks from which they cast raw millions on the sea.
One thing I cursed is gone out of the world
Cain-Stalin's closed, plague-stricken, ghost-infested land,
Dead at the core; burlesquing class society,
Awash with lies, all forgery and contraband;
A continent afloat in a lapping sea of blood,
As savage as old Muscovy or Samarkand:
A mutant horror in the place where Hope had stood
Two things I cursed are gone out of the world.
Alas, that curses have more force than fond desire:
Look what succeeds to rule by commissar and friar!