BOER BALLADS IN IRELAND
Yesterday I asked a woman on the Echtge hills, if any of her neighbours had gone to the war. She said: 'No; but I know a great many that went to America when the war began—even boys that had business to do at home; they were afraid of being brought away by the Press.' On another part of the Echtge hills, where a rumour had come that the police were to be sent to the war, an old woman said to a policeman I know: 'When you go out there, don't be killing the people of my religion.' He said: 'The Boers are not of your religion'; but she said: 'They are; I know they must be Catholics, or the English would not be against them.' Others on that wild range think that this is the beginning of the great war that will end in the final rout of the enemies of Ireland. Old prophecies say this war is to come at the meeting of these centuries; and there is an old Irish verse which seems to allude to this, and which has been thus translated:—
'When the Lion shall lose its strength,
And the bracket Thistle begin to pine,
The Harp shall sound sweet, sweet, at length,
Between the eight and the nine.'
Lonely Echtge still keeps old prophecies and old songs and some of the old speech, and but few newspapers are seen there; but on the lowland, sympathy with the Boers, and prophecies of their victory, are put into the doggerel English verse that must be poor in form, because a ballad, more than another song, must have a long tradition of folk-thought and folk-expression behind it; and in Ireland this tradition does not belong to the English language. Even the beautiful air of 'The Wearing of the Green' cannot give poetic charm to such verses as these, which, like the others that follow, have been sung and sold by ballad-singers in market-towns and at fairs, and at country race-meetings, during the last year:—
'Oh! Paddy dear, and did ye hear
The news that's going round?
No cheers for brave Paul Kruger
Must be heard on Irish ground.
No more the English tourist at
Killarney will be seen,
Unless you join the pirate's cause,
And chant "God save the Queen."'
Or this other, sung during the siege of Ladysmith:—
'And I met with White the General,
And he's looking thin enough;
And he says the boys in Ladysmith
Are running short of stuff.
Faith, the dishes need no washing,
Now they're left so nice and clean;
Oh! it's anything but pleasant
To be starving for the Queen!'
The defender of Ladysmith is treated with greater courtesy than some other generals, for, in spite of sympathy with the besiegers, the singer says:—
'But if he gave in to-morrow,
I would not think it right
To throw the least disparagement
On a man like General White.
He is making a bold resistance,
As great as could be made,
Against their deadly Mauser rifles,
And their tremendous cannonade.'
The 'Song of the Transvaal Irish Brigade' has more literary quality:—
'The Cross swings low; the morn is near—
Now, comrades, fill up high;
The cannon's voice will ring out clear
When morning lights the sky.
A toast we'll drink together, boys,
Ere dawns the battle's grey,
A toast to Ireland, dear old Ireland!
Ireland far away!
Ireland far away! Ireland far away!
Health to Ireland, strength to Ireland!
Ireland, boys, hurrah!
'Who told us that her cause was dead?
Who bade us bend the knee?
The slaves! Again she lifts her head—
Again she dares be free!
With gun in hand, we take our stand,
For Ireland in the fray:
We fight for Ireland, dear old Ireland!
Ireland far away!
Ireland far away! Ireland far away!
We fight for Ireland, die for Ireland—
Ireland, boys, hurrah!
'Oh, mother of the wounded breast!
Oh, mother of the tears!
The sons you loved, and trusted best,
Have grasped their battle spears.
From Shannon, Lagan, Liffey, Lee,
On Afric's soil to-day,
We strike for Ireland, brave old Ireland!
Ireland far away!
Ireland far away! Ireland far away!
We smite for Ireland, brave old Ireland!
Ireland, boys, hurrah!'
'The Irish Boy,' which is sung to the air of 'The Minstrel Boy,' is also in honour of the Irish Brigade:—
'While the Irish boy is on the shore,
He'll help to crush the stranger;
He'll sweep them hence for evermore,
And free thy land from danger.
And then he'll pray to God above,
That his courage ne'er shall falter,
To guard him to the land he loves—
To Ireland o'er the water.'
Mayo is the county to which John MacBride, the leader of the Irish Brigade, belongs; but I heard of a ballad-singer at Ballindereen, near my Galway home, the other day, whose refrain was:—
'And Erin watches from afar, with joy and hope and pride,
Her sons who strike for liberty, led on by John MacBride!'
At Galway Railway Station, whence the Connaught Rangers set out for the war, I have heard that wives, saying good-bye, begged their husbands 'not to be too hard on the Boers.' Anyhow, a 'Mother's lament for her son gone to the war,' that was sung at Galway Races the other day, shows more impartiality than most of the ballads:—
'When the battle rages fiercely, our boys are in the van;
How I do wish the blows they struck were for dear Ireland!
But duty calls, they must obey, and fight against the Boer,
And many a cheerful Irish lad will fall to rise no more.
'I wish my boy was home again! Oh! how I'd welcome him,
With sorrow I'm broken-hearted, my eyes are growing dim;
The war is dark and cruel, but whoever wins the fight,
I pray to save my noble lad, and God defend the right!'
But it is the small farmers of Ireland who look with special sympathy on their fellows in the Transvaal. They give them a warning:—
'England sends her grabbers,
From far across the sea,
To rob you of your friends and home,
Likewise your liberty.'
And the Boers say in answer:—
'When we came to this country,
'Twas but a barren plain;
But the honest hand of labour
Was rewarded for its pain.
We found the precious metal,
And of it we have great store;
But Britain came to rob us
As she often done before.
As she thought to do before,
As she thought to do before;
But Britain comes to rob us,
As she often done before.'
'Those Boers can't be blamed, as you might understand;
They are trying to free their own native land,
Where they toil night and day by the sweat of their brow,
Like the farmers in Ireland that follow the plough.
Farewell to Old Ireland, we are now going away,
To fight the brave Boers in South Africa;
To fight those poor farmers we are not inclined:
God be with you, Old Ireland, we are leaving behind.'
Some verses—'The Boer's Prayer'—that I have not seen on a ballad-sheet, but in a weekly paper, give better expression to this feeling of farmer sympathy:—
'My back is to the wall;
Lo! here I stand.
O Lord, whate'er befall,
I love this land!
'This land that I have tilled,
This land is mine;
Would, Lord, that Thou hadst willed,
This heart were Thine!
'This land to us Thou gave
In days of old;
They seek to make a grave
Or field of gold!
'To us, O Lord, Thy hand,
Put forth to save!
Give us, O Lord, this land
Or give a grave!'
'A New Song for the Boers' says:—
'Hark! to the curses ringing
From all smitten lands;
In sob and wail, they tell the tale
Of England's blood-red hands.
'And wheresoe'er her standard flings
Forth its folds of shame,
A people's cries to heaven arise
For vengeance on her name!'
But for passionate expression, one cannot, as I have already said, look to the comparatively new and artificial English ballad form; one must go to the Irish, with its long tradition. Here is a poem, 'The Curse of the Boers on England,' which I have translated literally from the Irish:—
'O God, we call to Thee,
This hour and this day,
Look down on this England
That has come down in our midst.
'O God, we call to Thee,
This day and this hour,
Look down on England,
And her cold, cold heart.
'It is she was a Queen,
A Queen without sorrow;
But we will take from her,
Quietly, her Crown.
'That Queen that was beautiful
Will be tormented and darkened,
For she will get her reward
In that day, and her wage.
'Her wage for the blood
She poured out on the streams;
Blood of the white man,
Blood of the black man.
'Her wage for those hearts
That she broke in the end;
Hearts of the white man,
Hearts of the black man.
'Her wage for the bones
That are whitening to-day;
Bones of the white man,
Bones of the black man.
'Her wage for the hunger
That she put on foot;
Her wage for the fever,
That is an old tale with her.
'Her wage for the white villages
She has left without men;
Her wage for the brave men
She has put to the sword.
'Her wage for the orphans
She has left under pain;
Her wage for the exiles
She has spent with wandering.
'For the people of India
(Pitiful is their case);
For the people of Africa
She has put to death.
'For the people of Ireland,
Nailed to the cross;
Wage for each people
Her hand has destroyed.
'Her wage for the thousands
She deceived and she broke;
Her wage for the thousands
Finding death at this hour.
'O Lord, let there fall
Straight down on her head
The curse of the peoples
That have fallen with us.
'The curse of the mean,
And the curse of the small,
The curse of the weak,
And the curse of the low.
'The Lord does not listen
To the curse of the strong,
But He will listen
To sighs and to tears.
'He will always listen
To the crying of the poor,
And the crying of thousands
Is abroad to-night.
'That crying will rise up
To God that is above;
It is not long till every curse
Comes to His ears.
'The crying will be put away;
Tears will be put away,
When they come to God,
These prayers to His kingdom.
'He will make for England
Strong chains, very heavy;
He will pay her wages
With strong, heavy chains.
1901.