Ghost-bereft :: :: University of Virginia Library

I hear the folks sayin' down yonder I've little enough to do,
To be wishin' away the fine weather, ere the summer's rightly through.
Says Widdy Rourke: ‘He's astray in his mind since they lost the little colleen,
So it's strange he talks.’ But themselves are strange, or they'd know the way it's been.
For, arrah now, is it aught else but the fau't of this weary fine weather
Laves the Inish all desolit and lone, when the young ones troop off it together?
After the harvestin' work they go in the fields that are rep and mown
Far off on I dunno what townland—I'd as lief 'twas all wet bog and stone.
And always the saison they quit, the long days such a shinin' 'ill keep,

The dark of the night scarce holds room for a bit of a dream in your sleep,
Ere the cocks 'ill be crowin', and the hole in the wall's like an eye blinkin' in,
And you wake and forgit she's away, and next minyit remimber agin.
But the sorra a step they set back while the summer sun's in the skies,
So its heat has a heart of cold, and its light flares the dark in our eyes,
For lost we are, missin' the young and the strong that have left us behind,
Wee imps wid no wit to heed aught, and ould fools that have grieved ourselves blind;
Till there's scarce a fut stirrin' on Achill can better than totter or creep,
And och then but the lonesome road runs long, ay, ay, and the hill lifts steep.