Sure now, Quality’s quare in their ways; when me cousin ran off to inlist,
Troth, the bawls of his mother an’ sisthers were fit to ha’ frighted the best;
An’ last winther whin Norah Macabe had heard tell that her sweetheart was dhrowned,
It’s her scrames ’ud ha’ terrified nations--ye’d hear thim a good mile o’ ground.
But Miss Honor, as still and as quiet she turned back be the way that she came,
Down the aisle, past the pews wid the people set starin’ in rows just the same;
An’ right out to the shine o’ the sun, that should never ha’ lit on her head
Till she walked wid a ring on her hand, an’ the girls sthrewin’ flowers where she’d thread.
So she passed thro’ the yard, where the folk all kep’ whisht as the dead in their graves,
Not a sound in the world save the flutther o’ win’ thro’ the ever-green laves,
An’ a lark somewhere singin’ like wild up above in the high light alone;
Till the carriage dhruv off from the gate, an’ we heard the wheels grate on the stone.
Thin ould Molly O’Rourke, that stood by wid her head in her raggety cloak:
‘Now, the Saints may purtect her,’ sez she, ‘for the heart of the crathur is broke.’
X
An’ sure maybe ould Molly was right; I dunno, for they tuk her away,
To disthract of her mind, so they said, to some counthries far over the say;
Some most curious onnathural place, where I’m tould the sun’s scorchin’ an’ hot
All the year, an’ the people is mostly ould naygurs as black as the pot,
An’ a sthrame thro’ it full o’ thim bastes o’ great reptiles that swally ye whole,
Wid the desolit deserts around, where ye’ll see ne’er the sight of a soul;
Worser land than the blackest o’ bogs, just as bare as the palm o’ your hand,
Savin’ whiles barbarocious big imiges stuck in the midst o’ the sand,
An’ gazabos o’ stones stuffed wid bones of the hayjus ould haythins inside--
Ay, in Aygypt--belike that’s the name. But, at all evints, there she died.