THE MOTHER by Padraic Pearse (1879-1916)

 "I do not grudge them; Lord, I do not grudge
 My two strong sons that I have seen go out
 To break their strength and die, they and a few,
 In bloody protest for a glorious thing.
 They shall be spoken of among their people,
 The generations shall remember them,
 And call them blessed;
 But I will speak their names to my own heart
 In the long nights;
 The little names that were familiar once
 Round my dead hearth.
 Lord, thou art hard on mothers:
 We suffer in their coming and their going;
 And tho' I grudge them not, I weary, weary
  Of the long sorrow -- And yet I have my joy:
 My sons were faithful, and they fought."

He wrote this poem for his mother just before he and his brother went out to fight in the Rising of 1916.
Pearse and fourteen other leaders, including his brother Willie, were court-martialled and executed by firing squad 
after the Easter Rebellion.