Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee: Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of; William Carleton, Volume ThreeCarleton, William
General
Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee: Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of; William Carleton, Volume Three
Carleton, William
Ireland -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
“Colleen bawn! (fair, or fair-haired girl)--Colleen bawn!” he exclaimed;
“she's lyin' low that was my colleen bawn! Oh, will ye hould your
tongues, an' let me think of what has happened me? She's gone: Mary,
avourneen, isn't she gone from us? I'm alone, an' I'll be always lonely.
Who have I now to comfort me? I know I have good childhre, neighbors;
but none o' them, all of them, if they wor ten times as many, isn't
aqual to her that's in the grave. Her hands won't be about me--there was
tindherness in their very touch. An', of a Sunday mornin', how she'd tie
an my handkerchy, for I never could rightly tie it an myself, the knot
was ever an' always too many for me; but, och, och, she'd tie it an so
snug an' purty wid her own hands, that I didn't look the same man! The
same song was her favorite, Here's your healths; an' sure it's the first
time ever we wor together that she wasn't wid us: but now, avillish,
your voice is gone--you're silent and lonely in the grave; an' why
shouldn't I be sarry for the wife o' my heart that never angered me?
Why shouldn't I? Ay, Mary, asthore, machree, good right you have to cry
afther her; she was the kind mother to you; her heart was fixed in you;
there's her fatures on your face; her very eyes, an' fair hair, too, an'
I'll love you, achora, ten times more nor ever, for her sake. Another
favorite song of hers, God rest her, was 'Brian O'Lynn.' Troth an' I'll
sing it, so I will, for if she was livin' she'd like it.
'Och, Brian O'Lynn, he had milk an' male,
A two-lugged porringer wanfcin' a tail.'
Oh, my head's through other! The sarra one o' me I bleeve, but's out o'
the words, or, as they say, there's a hole in the ballad. Send round
the punch will ye? By the hole o' my coat, Parra Gastha, I'll whale you
wid-in an inch of your life, if you don't Shrink. Send round the
punch, Dan; an' give us a song, Parra Gastha. Arrah, Paddy, do you
remimber--ha, ha, ha--upon my credit, I'll never forget it, the fun we
had catchin' Father Soolaghan's horse, the day he gave his shirt to the
sick man in the ditch. The Lord rest his sowl in glory--ha, ha, ha--I'll
never forget it. Paddy, the song, you thief?”
“No, but tell them about that, Misther Connell.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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