Malachy Degan

Malachy, you stand a referee to judge
Under a torrent of blue light
The naked pugilists who fight,
Grim faces with a smudge

Of blood, or on the sliding arms or backs,
There on a platform roped, in palls
Of smoke to the roof of Tattersall’s,
And where the iterant cracks

Of matches struck for lights prick through the hum
Of voices over toned by cries
Of “Finish him,” “Look at his glassy eyes,”
“That sounded like a drum.”

When the timekeeper’s gong went clang! clang!
And a hush came over us, as then
Bath robes slipped off, the fighting men
Out of their corners sprang,

And in between the tangled arms and legs,
And clinches which you break, you glide
Red-haired, athletic, watchful eyed,
And like a lager keg’s
Round fulness is your chest, your arms all bare,
Coatless, a figure memorable.
You should not be forgotten--well
And if it be to dare

The censure of a taste American
To celebrate your courage, wit,
I write you down what here is writ:
A referee, a man!

A judge who loved the game and whose decree
Had no taint on it, was more pure
Than much of our judicature,
Of every knavery free.

And what is here to shock or shake such nerves
As children’s are, delicate women’s?
There goes the short hook of Fitzsimmons,
And Thorne a moment swerves,

Then topples over, and lies quiet while
You count from one slowly to nine.
And Thorne lies there without a sign
Of life, but with a smile

After a time gets up, and reels across
The ring to his own corner, there
Flops wobbly in his corner’s chair,
And wonders at his loss.

While full ten thousand cheer, and watch you shake
The master hand, the general’s.
Such was our sport at Tattersall’s
Before the Puritan rake

Combed through the city. Now the sport is dead,
And you are dust these several years.
And we who drift to stale careers,
And live along and tread

The old deserted ways we loved and knew,
Ask sometimes how it was a cough
Could seize upon you, take you off--
A lad as strong as you?