Liberty Hall
NEW LIBERTY HALL
Higher than county lark
Can fly, a speck that sings,
Sixteen-floored Liberty Hall
Goes up through scaffoldings
In memory of Larkin,
Shot Connolly. With cap
On simple head, hallmark
Of sweat, new capitalists
Rent out expensive suites
Of glassier offices,
Babel’d above our streets,
The unemployed may scoff, but
Workers must skimp and scrape
To own so fine a skyscraper,
Beyond the dream of Gandon,
Shaming the Custom House
The giant crane, the gantries.
Labour is now accustomed
To higher living. Railing
Is gone that I leaned against
To watch that figure, tall and lean,
Jim Larkin, shouting, railing.
Why should he give a damn
That day for English grammar,
Arm-waving, eloquent?
On top, a green pagoda
Has glorified cement,
Umbrella’d the sun. Go, da,
And shiver in your tenement.
Austin Clarke