The Rhythm Of Time, By Bobby Sands

TODAY is All-Ireland Poetry Day, coincidentally the anniversary of the day that the 1981 H-Blocks Hunger Strike ended. To mark the occasion we are reproducing perhaps the most famous poem to emerge from that titanic struggle between the Irish republican political prisoners and the might of the British prison regime, the British Government and all the powerful forces ranged against them.

The Rhythm Of Time

By Bobby Sands

There’s an inner thing in every man,

Do you know this thing my friend?

It has withstood the blows of a million years,

And will do so to the end.

It was born when time did not exist,

And it grew up out of life,

It cut down evil’s strangling vines,

Like a slashing searing knife.

It lit fires when fires were not,

And burnt the mind of man,

Tempering leadened hearts to steel,

From the time that time began.

It wept by the waters of Babylon,

And when all men were a loss,

It screeched in writhing agony,

And it hung bleeding from the Cross.

It died in Rome by lion and sword,

And in defiant cruel array,

When the deathly word was ‘Spartacus’

Along the Appian Way.

It marched with Wat the Tyler’s poor,

And frightened lord and king,

And it was emblazoned in their deathly stare,

As e’er a living thing.

It smiled in holy innocence,

Before conquistadors of old,

So meek and tame and unaware,

Of the deathly power of gold.

It burst forth through pitiful Paris streets,

And stormed the old Bastille,

And marched upon the serpent’s head,

And crushed it ‘neath its heel.

It died in blood on Buffalo Plains,

And starved by moons of rain,

Its heart was buried in Wounded Knee,

But it will come to rise again.

It screamed aloud by Kerry lakes,

As it was knelt upon the ground,

And it died in great defiance,

As they coldly shot it down.

It is found in every light of hope,

It knows no bounds nor space

It has risen in red and black and white,

It is there in every race.

It lies in the hearts of heroes dead,

It screams in tyrants’ eyes,

It has reached the peak of mountains high,

It comes searing ‘cross the skies.

It lights the dark of this prison cell,

It thunders forth its might,

It is ‘the undauntable thought’, my friend,

That thought that says ‘I’m right!’

Rithim an Ama

Le Bobby Sands (Gabriel Rosenstock a chuir i nGaeilge)

Reproduced by kind permission of the Bobby Sands Trust

Tá guth i gcroí an duine,

An eol duit cad é féin?

Is ann dó ó thús ama,

Beidh sé linn go deireadh ré.

Rugadh é sularbh ann don domhan,

De phréamh na beatha é,

Ghearr sé anuas féithleoga an oilc

Le scian ghéar.

D’adhain sé tine sa dorchadas

A chuir lasair faoinár gcroí,

Dhein cruach de luaidhe na hintinne

Go síoraí.

Chaoin sé cois uiscí na Bablóine

Is nuair a bhí an dóchas gann

Scréach sé as corp réabtha

A bhí céasta ar Chrann.

Chuir an leon is an claíomh chun báis é

Sa tSean-Róimh fadó,

Ach ba chlos an focal Spartacus

Gan aon agó.

Le Wat Tyler sea do mháirseáil sé,

Chuir sceimhle ar thiarna is ar rí

Sceimhle a sheas ina súile

Mar mharbh-lí.

Aoibh air, naofa saonta,

Roimh an Conquistador,

Ceansa is neamheolach

Ar chumhacht an óir.

Réab sé trí shráideanna Pháras

Is d’ionsaigh an sean-Bhastille,

Shatail ar chloigeann na nathrach

gur fhág sé í gan bhrí.

Leagadh é ar Mhá na mBuabhall,

D’fhulaing ocras is plá,

Cuireadh a chroí i nGlúin Leonta -

Ach tiocfaidh a lá.

Ba chlos a liú thar lochanna Chiarraí

Is é ar a dhá ghlúin,

Is maraíodh é, a dhorn san aer,

Le croí fuar.

Is faightear é i lóchrann dóchais,

Níl teorainn lena réim,

I gcroí gach treibh is cine

Faoin ngréin.

Scréach na laochra ar lár

I súile na dtíoránach,

Ag réabadh trí na spéartha

Go dtí na beanna arda.

Soilsíonn an cillín uaigneach seo

Lena dhóchas, lena neart,

An smaoineamh úd, dochloíte

An chóir! An ceart!

The original version can be ordered direct as a poster at www.bobbysandstrust.com