When Michael Ryan in that forest glade

(Armed and flak-jacketed, his camouflage

Not disentangled quite from leafy shade)

Let out the first spurt of his huge discharge,

He invoked Emptiness: in these dull days

Prince of this land and Regent (for the King

Must brood in exile on our ancient ways

And the green woods of their meandering).

Now, as the echoes die, I hear a man

My countrymen once dreamt of wind his horn –

A note of warning from a vanished wood;

He, gentle yet pugnacious, jovial

And stubbornly enduring, gave up all

His right and fortune to the common good.