LAST LINES, 1916 The beauty of the world hath made me sad, This beauty that will pass; Sometimes my heart hath shaken with great joy To see a leaping squirrel in a tree, Or a red ladybird upon a stalk, Or little rabbits in a field at evening, Lit by a slanting sun, Or some green hill where shadows drifted by, Some quiet hill where mountainy man hath sown And soon shall reap near to the gate of Heaven; Or children with bare feet upon the sands Of some ebbed sea, or playing on the streets Of little towns in Connacht, Things young and happy. And then my heart has told me: These will pass, Will pass and change, will die and be no more, Things bright and green , things young and happy; And I have gone upon my way Sorrowful. I have no treasure trove The wealth of fame is gone Even the very joys of love Have vanished and left me alone. Gold I haven't piled Nothing of this I leave behind My wish to be remembered by a child By something said which pleased his mind. Nior cruinniodh liomsa or - I have not garnered gold. -- Dublin-born Padraig Pearse, English and Gaelic-speaking schoolteacher-poet, spent his summers in a small cottage in a place called Rosmuc in Connemara 21 miles SE of Clifden, Galway, where he did most of his writing. As a champion of the clandestine Irish Republican Brotherhood he was later executed for his part in the Easter Rising of 1916 by firing squad. On the eve of his execution, Pearse remembered the beauty of his beloved world. At his trial, the president of the court remarked, "I have had to condemn to death one of the finest characters I have ever come across."