Lent 2016

....

Too long a sacrifice 
Can make a stone of the voter. 
O when may it suffice? 
That is a Tribunal's part, our part 
To murmur scandal upon scandal, 
As an owner names his horses 
When control at last has come 
On spending that had run wild. 
What is it but respite? 
No, no, not respite but return; 
Was it needless austerity after all? 
For the Troika may keep faith 
For all that was done and said. 
We know their deficit reduction; enough 
To know they reduced and are dead; 
And what if excess of fiscal space 
Bewildered them till they lost? 
I write it out in a verse - 
Haughey and Reynolds 
And Ahern and Martin 
Now and in time to be, 
Wherever the green jersey is worn, 
Are changed, changed utterly: 
A terrible beauty is born.