Ghost-bereft :: :: University of Virginia Library

So she's gone from me sight. Sure me head does be quare, and there's times I forget,
But there's more I remember; and wonderin' I be they're all lost on me yet.
What's come over this country at all? When I'm goin' the lane or the street,
I may look in a dozen of faces, but never an ould one I meet.
And there's none calls ‘Red-Nob’ to me. Whiles when I'm passin', the spalpeens about,
‘Here's the cracked one,’ are yellin'. I wouldn't be cross if 'twas ‘Red-Nob’ they'd shout:
'Twas red gold, Hughey said. And sure, anyway, now it's as white as the frost.
But you see, all the while 'twas me sister Hugh wanted: and then she got lost

When our river run wild. I ne'er touched her; she tripped; and I knew he'd be drowned
If I called him. . . . But sometimes I think more than aught else I'm missin' the sound
Of our river that used to be sayin': What matter? For many's the strame
I go by, but the sorra a one makes an offer at sayin' that same,
Only sighin' and moanin' so lonesome and dreary it puts me in dread. . . .
'Tis the rest 'twould be now to me ould black heart, ochone, and me ould white head,
If some night through the dark in the meadows I'd hear it beginning to call:
Ah what matter? Sure what should it matter? What matter, what matter at all?