Came across this website while searching this poem and my O'Rourke family tree. This poem was handed down from my O'Rourke relations along with other family documents. I recent bought a 1893 copy of T.D. Sullivan's poems, but this poem is not amongst them.
Note this version has another two verses, and the title is just "O'Rourke's Request" Can any one can tell me the publications it came from?


O'Rourke's Request
(Brian O'Ruairc - Prince of Breffni, AD1589)

You ask me what defence is mine?
Here! midst your armed bands,
You only mock the prisoner, who is helpless in your hands!
What would defence avail of me,
Though good it be and true,
Here in the heart of London town, with judges such as you?
You gravely talk about my "crime!"
I own no crime at all;
The deeds you blame I'd do again should such a chance befall.
You say I've helped the foreign foes,
Who war against our Queen -
Well, challenged so, I'll proudly show what has my helping been:
On that wild day, when near our coast
the stately ships of Spain,
Caught in a fierce and sudden storm for shelter sought in vain;
When, wrenched and torn 'midst mountain waves
some foundered in the deep,
And others broke on sunken reefs and headlands rough and steep –
I heard the cry that off my land
where breakers rise and roar
The sailors from a wrecking ship were striving for the shore.
I hurried to the frightful scene,
my generous people too,
Men, women, and children came, with kindly deed to do.
We saw them clutching spars and planks,
that soon were washed away,
Saw some bleeding on the rocks, low moaning where they lay;
Some cast ashore, and back again dragged by the refluant wave,
When one grip from a friendly hand would have sufficed to save.
We rushed into the raging surf, watched every chance; and when
They rose and rolled within our reach, we grasped the drowning men.
We took them to our hearths and homes, and bade them there remain
'Till they might leave with hope to reach their native land again.
This is the "treason" you have charged! Well, treason let it be,
One word of sorrow for this fault, you'll never hear from me.
I'll only say, although you hate my race and creed and name,
Were your folk in that dreadful plight I would have done the same.
Oh, you would bring me to your Queen, low at her foot to kneel,
Crave mercy from her stony heart, and urge some mean appeal!.
I answer No! my knees will bend and prayers of mine arise
To but one Queen, the Queen of Heaven, high throned above the skies.
And now you ask my dying wish? My last and sole request
Is that the scaffold built for me be fronted to the West,
Of my dear country far away one glimpse I cannot see
Whenever and however high you raise the gallow tree;
Yet would I wish my last fond look should seek that distant shore;
So turn my face to Ireland Sirs, of you I ask no more.

Timothy Daniel Sullivan 1827 – 1914