The 'voice of sanity' is getting hoarse. - Seamus Heaney

The dotted line my father's ashplant made
On Sandymount Strand
Is something else the tide won't wash away.

That was their way, their heathenish hope; deep in their hearts they remembered hell.

But when dawn broke and day crept in
over each empty, blood-spattered bench,
the floor of the mead-hall where they had feasted
would be slick with slaughter. And so they died,
faithful retainers, and my following dwindled.