Coercion - Hold the Rent.
Hold the Rent
by Fanny Parnell
Hold the Rent is a poem by Fanny Parnell (1848-1882), an Irish nationalist and poet who was the sister of Charles Stewart Parnell, a prominent Irish politician and leader of the Home Rule movement. The poem was written in 1881, during the Irish Land War, a period of agrarian unrest and resistance against British landlords and their agents. The poem urges the tenant farmers of Ireland to withhold their rent payments as a form of protest against the Coercion Act, a law that gave the British government sweeping powers to arrest and imprison anyone suspected of involvement in the Land League, an organization that campaigned for land reform and tenant rights.
The poem was described by Michael Davitt, the secretary of the Land League, as the Marseillaise of the Irish peasantry, a reference to the French revolutionary anthem. The poem was also quoted at the trial of the Land League leadership as evidence of conspiracy to violence, although a full reading of the poem reveals that it advocates political resistance rather than physical force.
"To the Tenant Farmers of Ireland"
HUSH! your time is coming, boys! peace, be still, O stormy hearts!
Seize the wolfdog in his spring—stay the falcon as he darts;
Close the fevered lips that call—vainly call to earth and sky;
Curb the arm that aches to choke down your foe's black throat the lie;
Hold your peace, and hold your hands, and hold your rents when all is tried, boys;
Only through an empty pocket you shall pierce the Briton's side, boys.
Hold the rent and hold the crops, boys!
Pass the word from town to town;
Take away the props, boys,
So you'll pull Coercion down.
Keep the law, oh, keep it well—keep it as your rulers do;
Be not righteous overmuch,—when they break It, so can you!
As they rend their pledge and bond, rend you too their legal thongs;
When they crush your chartered rights, tread you down your chartered wrongs;
Help them on, and help them aye, help them as true brethren should, boys;
All that's right and good for them, sure for you it's right and good boys.
Hold the rent and hold the crops, boys;
Pass the word from town to town;
Pull away the props, boys,
So you'll pull Coercion down.
Ah, for you they'll tear and toss Magna Charta to the winds,
Law of man nor law of God e'er their throttling fingers binds;
Hear their ragings! as of old, when the just judge found no flaw,
"Whom the law condemneth not, he shall perish without law!"
Hold your peace and hold your hands,—not a finger on them lay, boys!
Let the pike and rifle stand,—we have found a better way, boys.
Hold the rent and hold the crops, boys;
Pass the word from town to town;
Take away the props, boys,
So you'll pull Coercion down.
Let them try once more the plan, erst so potent in its spells;
Let them fill their prison-pens, let them fill their torture-cells,
Tread your manhood's birthright down, hound you in like beasts of prey,
"Squelch you, ay, by Heav'n, like rats, crawling in the mammoth's way!" *
Might is Right, and Force is God,—well the lesson they have taught, boys,
Wait! you'll pay them back anon, in the coin their hands have wrought, boys.
Hold the rent and hold the crops, boys,
Pass the word from town to town;
Take away the props, boys,
So you'll pull Coercion down.
While one brave heart gasps unheard, stifled 'neath their panther grip,
While one woman's scalding tears, vainly for the lost one drip,
While one jail a victim holds, while one hearthstone mourns a gap;
Up and shout the shibboleth, that can make the fetters snap!
Never heed the perjured Whig, never heed for cant or curse, boys;
No Coercion e'er coerced better than an empty purse, boys.
Hold the rent, pay no rent, boys,
Pass the word from town to town;
When their money's spent, boys,
Then you'll pull the landlords down.
Fanny Parnell