It breaks my heart to think of your failures,
for you were not a bad man, just hopeless.
The lost Party, those lethal social forces
that broke your will broke others less poor.
Talent is a muscle that needs constant exercise
and Ireland was your disagreeable milieu —
all the end-of-term banter of the Dail
couldn't hide that truth. But look at Picasso:
he was a bullish, besieged Stalinist,
yet he worked and worked and worked.
Every butterfly of an idea he embraced became art;
and every false move he made used material
more permanent and beautiful than the Dail.