You stepped your steps, and the music marched, and the torches tossed
As you filled your streets with your comic Pentecost,
And the little English went by and the lights grew dim;
We, dumb in the shouting crowd, we thought of Him.
Of Him, too great for our souls and ways,
Too great for laughter or love, praise or dispraise,
Of Him, and the wintry swords, and the closing gloom —
Of Him going forth alone to His lonely doom.
No shouts, my Dublin then! Not a light nor a cry —
You kept them all till now, when the little English go by!