J. M. Synge

My arms are round you, and I lean Against you, while the lark Sings over us, and golden lights, and green Shadows are on your bark. There’ll come a season when you’ll stretch Black boards to cover me: Then in Mount Jerome I will lie, poor wretch, With worms eternally.

I asked if I got sick and died, would you With my black funeral go walking too, If you’d stand close to hear them talk or pray While I’m let down in that steep bank of clay. And, No, you said, for if you saw a crew Of living idiots pressing round that new Oak coffin--they alive, I dead beneath That board--you’d rave and rend them with your teeth.

Beside a chapel I’d a room looked down, Where all the women from the farms and town, On Holy-days and Sundays used to pass To marriages, and christenings, and to Mass. Then I sat lonely watching score and score, Till I turned jealous of the Lord next door.... Now by this window, where there’s none can see, The Lord God’s jealous of yourself and me.

Still south I went and west and south again, Through Wicklow from the morning till the night, And far from cities, and the sights of men, Lived with the sunshine, and the moon’s delight. I knew the stars, the flowers, and the birds, The grey and wintry sides of many glens, And did but half remember human words, In converse with the mountains, moors, and fens.

With little money in a great city

There’s snow in every street Where I go up and down, And there’s no woman, man, or dog That knows me in the town. I know each shop, and all These Jews, and Russian Poles, For I go walking night and noon To spare my sack of coals.

You’ve plucked a curlew, drawn a hen, Washed the shirts of seven men, You’ve stuffed my pillow, stretched the sheet, And filled the pan to wash your feet, You’ve cooped the pullets, wound the clock, And rinsed the young men’s drinking crock; And now we’ll dance to jigs and reels, Nailed boots chasing girls’ naked heels, Until your father’ll start to snore, And Jude, now you’re married, will stretch on the floor.

Bring Kateen-beug and Maurya Jude To dance in Beg-Innish, And when the lads (they’re in Dunquin) Have sold their crabs and fish, Wave fawny shawls and call them in, And call the little girls who spin, And seven weavers from Dunquin, To dance in Beg-Innish. I’ll play you jigs, and Maurice Kean, Where nets are laid to dry, I’ve silken strings would draw a dance From girls are lame or shy; Four strings I’ve brought from Spain and France To make your long men skip and prance, Till stars look out to see the dance Where nets are laid to dry. We’ll have no priest or peeler in To dance in Beg-Innish; But we’ll have drink from M’riarty Jim Rowed round while gannets fish, A keg with porter to the brim, That every lad may have his whim, Till we up sails with M’riarty Jim And sail from Beg-Innish.