Ghost-bereft :: :: University of Virginia Library

Wid the warmth on the shore, and the light on the say. Ay bedad, they think wrong:
How'd they tell that these days they ne'er see do be all cruel lonesome and long?
So the shine of the sun, where they says to themselves we'll be sittin' content,
Shuts us out of their minds in a manner, as if it was bound to purvent
Harm from happenin' us here; and it's aisy forgettin' your folks for a while,
If you dread them no mischief, but, faith, if you do, every step seems a mile
That you tread beyond reach, wid the fear in your heart like the tug of a tether
To choke you back home. And the childer know well when we're gettin' bad weather,
It's the hard times on Achill, wid mists on the say, and polthogues on the land,

And the blasts risin' up in your face like a wall you can't touch wid your hand,
When the turf's melted down in the bog, and the praties washed out of the earth,
And the floor's like a beach wid the tide flowin' in, and a lough on the hearth,
And the win' fit to reive off th' ould thatch like dry leaves off the roof of a wood,
Till all's flooded and flittered, and nothin' you've left that's a thraneen of good.
So the childer'll be fretted to hear the storm risin', wherever they are—
Some folk says wid the Saints, and it's maybe no lie, but that's terrible far—
And they'll think how it's home agin, lendin' a hand here, by rights they should be.
Sure now Norah's the greatest opinion at all of her mother and me;

If she knew we were perished and starved, and herself livin' happy apart,
All the say's waves rolled over her head wouldn't drown the grief out of her heart.