The way of it? Our picket was ridin’ in be the wall of the little white town,
That’s stuck like a blaiched wasps’ nest in the gap where the ridge of the hills breaks down,
And the big flat plain spreads out and about, you might say ’twas a bog gone dhry,
Lookin’ nathural enough till you notice, pricked up ’gin the light in the sky,
Their two thin towers, like an ould snail’s horns be the shell of their haythin dome,
Peerin’ out of a purpose to put you in mind where you’ve thravelled from home.
We were ridin’ too close; I remember along on the white of the wall
The front men’s helmets went bob, bob, bob, in blue shadow, sthretched won’erful tall,
For the sunbames were raichin’ their furthest aslant from the edge of the day,
Where the light ran, dhrained over the earth, like a wave turnin’ back to the say,
All hot gold. Howane’er, when we past where their straight-archin’ door opened black,
Wid the dust-thracks they thramp into roads glamin’ in at it, off went a crack,
And ere ever an echo got rappin’ the hills, or the smoke riz to float,
’Twas a plunge, and a thud, and Jack Connolly down wid him, shot in the throat.
V
So be raison of we two bein’ neighbours, they bid me mind Jack while they went
To make out what the mischief at all the rapscallion that potted him meant;
Some ould objic’ wisped up in his rags head and fut, the crow’s notice to quit,
Wid a quare carabine ’ud scarce fright e’er a bird who’d a scrumption of wit.
But ’twas able enough for that job, and be hanged to it; Jack’s business was done,
As you couldn’t misdoubt. All the west swam clear fire round the smooth, redhot sun,
Dropped down steady as a shell thro’ still wather, but ’twouldn’t be sunk out of sight,
Ere the lad had got finished wid dyin’, and gone beyond darkness and light.
And between whiles ’twas divil a much could I do to be helpin’ him; just
Keep beside him, and dhrive the black fly-buzz, and lift up his head from the dust,
And hear tell had he aught in his mind. But, och man, if his heart was to break,
Every whisper of voice he had in him was kilt, not a word could he spake.
Sure now that was conthrary. An instant before ’twas no odds what he said,
And he’d laughed, and he’d gabbed on galore, any blathers come into his head;
But wid on’y a minit to hold all his speech in for ever and a day,
Just one breath of a word like a hand raichin’ worlds’ worlds an’ years’ years away,
’Tis sthruck dumb he was, same as his crathur of a baste that stood watchin’ us there,
Wid big eyes shinin’ fright, and snuff-snuffin’ the throuble up out of the air.