A Broadside: No. 10. Seventh and Last Year of the Set

A Broadside: No. 10. Seventh and Last Year of the Set

Ireland

Cuala Press

A Broadside

Irish Literary Revival

The Gaelic Revival

PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY E. C. YEATS AT THE CUALA PRESS, CHURCHTOWN, DUNDRUM, COUNTY DUBLIN. SUBSCRIPTION TWELVE SHILLINGS A YEAR POST FREE.
300 copies only.

The woodcut on page [3] has the caption: "THE OLD CAR DRIVER. Signed by Jack B. Yeats.

E.C. Yeats

Jack B. Yeats

Cuala Press

March, 1915

ON THE LOVE OF JESUS
O my dear Jesus, how late have I known thee,
My treasons depraved me and bereft me of sight,
I wandered through places most heinous, abjuring,
The rules of salvation and the maxims of light.
And if I could from my sins bewail,
And truly repent and spend my days
In loving thee and be sincere,
To praise thee and adore.
Now, my sweet Saviour, receive and renew me,
Through thy mercy and graces with zeal I implore.

Who but a traitor could forsake and disown thee,
If he considered daily how dearly he was bought?
In thy painful agony that tortured thee extremely
When sorrow did seize thee, and really then brought,
Thy precious blood through every pore,
Of they tender body to start by force,
And trickling down in clotted gore,
On the ground to be seen,
In streams then congealing and thou bathed all over,
In the purple raiment which veiled then the green.

Now I'll trace thee, my Jesus through the stages succeeding
And ponder still serious how great was thy love,
For those that disown thee, and look so disdainfully,
On they sufferings painful though pleasing above.
Oh! what heart so hard in vice,
Could not but feel for thee when tied
And dragged along like a lamb so mild,
To be slaughtered by those,
Who seiz' d thee in the garden; and hauled thee so hasty
To Annias and Caiaphas their charge to disclose.

There thou wert abused and cruelly maltreated,
After scoffing thee inhumanly and defiling thy face,
From thence removed thee to Pilate and Herod,
Shouting without ceasing, nor pitying thy case,
No tongue could e'er express,
The excessive pains which thee oppressed
When thou wast bound to a pillar fast
By thy tyrannic foes.
And those miscreants so hateful beating thee without reprieve,
Till they cut thee severely, they flayed thee so close.

All you lovers of Jesus I pray now behold him,
With his purple blood streaming from his new naked sores,
His body quite weary and really exhausted,
They loosed him then scornfully to draw again his gores.
Then they pressed on his head a wreath,
Of sharp long thorns that caused much pain;
And fixed in his hands a rod or cane,
In his face then they spewed,
Their phlegm, which so basely destroyed all his beauty,
And yet to salute him they rudely then bowed.

After disgorging their thick phlegms so nauseous,
In the face of my darling, they all then agreed,
To nail him most barbarous on a long tree with scorn,
And then to exalt him his heart's blood to bleed;
That hard weed they did procure
Which he did bear on his painful wounds,
To Calvary's Mount, and he in swoon,
Falling on the roads,
And those tigers still tearing and beating him with clubs and pikes
And piercing him severely with sharp-pointed goads.

When his journey was over, in this doleful situation,
They fastened him with gross nails to the load he did bear,
And raised him with ropes as a show to spectator
And he for those slaying him offering his prayers,
They pierced his heart with a lance by force,
And made in his side so wide a wound,
That his precious blood then gushed in gores,
To save and restore,
Those creatures who forsake him for vain things which deceive,
Now, dear Jesus, receive me; I'll forsake thee no more.

Broadside