There’s some things that run on in your mind like a thread that’s onevenly spun
Down your coat-sleeve; for, afther these years, I ’most see him stand clear in the sun;
But now, be worse luck, I can tell what I couldn’t ha’ tould that day--
The notion he had in his head, whin he said it an’ turned away.
To be ould--sure, considh’rin’ the time ye’ll be growin’ so before your own eyes,
It’s quare how whinever ye think o’t it seems like a sort o’ surprise;
My belief’s that if people were sevinty the very first day they were born,
They’d never git used to it rightly, and if, be odd chance, some fine morn
The ouldest ould man in the counthry would find whin he wakened that he
Was a slip of a lad, he’d just feel it the nathur’lest thing that could be.
So it’s noways too sthrange if wan’s sometimes forgittin’ awhile how things stand,
Like the ould chap at Ballynagraile, whin his mind was tuk up wid our Band.
V
But the marchin’ around, an’ the tunes, an’ the thricks that the young fellows play,
’Tisn’t thim ye think badly o’ missin’, at laste on’y wanst in a way;
For, as far as I know be experience, ye’ll mostly be plased nigh as well
If the childher ’ve their bit o’ divarsion the same as ye had yoursel’;
An’ your legs get so stiff of an evenin’, that afther your day’s work is done
Ye’re contint wid the full o’ your pipe at the door, and a sight o’ the fun.
It’s your work, your day’s work; that’s the mischief. It’s little enough I knew,
Whin the sun had me scorched to the bone, or the win’ maybe perished right thro’,
In the field or the bog, as might chance, an’ I’d think to meself I could wish
Nought betther than never agin to be loadin’ a cart or a kish--
It’s little I knew; for, sure, now, whin I couldn’t to save o’ me soul
So much just as carry a creel to our heap from the next bog-hole,
The two eyes I’d give out o’ me head to be peltin’ away at it still,
Mowin’ a meadow, or cuttin’ the turf, ay, or ploughin’ up hill.
For I hate to be hearin’ the lads turnin’ out whin the dawn blinks in,
And I lyin’ there like a log wid the sorra a job to begin,
Barrin’ helpin’ to ait up the praties, an’ they none too plenty perhaps;
Sure, the pig’s worther keepin’, poor baste, for it’s fatter he gits on his scraps.
So at home be the hearth-stone I stick, or I creep up an’ down be the wall,
An’ the day feels as long as a week, an’ there seems no sinse in it all.