MOIRA O’NEILL
171. The Rachray Man
Och, what was it got me at all that time
To promise I’d marry a Rachray man?
An’ now he’ll not listen to rason or rhyme,
He’s striving to hurry me all that he can.
‘Come on, an’ ye be to come on!’ say he,
‘Ye’re bound for the Island to live wi’ me.’
See Rachray Island beyont in the bay,
And the dear knows what they be doin’ out there
But fishin’ and fightin’ and tearin’ away,
An’ who’s to hinder, an’ what do they care?
The goodness can tell what ’ud happen to me
When Rachray ’ud have me, anee, anee!
I might have took Pether from over the hill,
A dacent poacher, the kind, poor boy:
Could I keep the ould places about me still
I’d never set foot out of sweet Ballyvoy.
My sorra on Rachray, the could sea-caves,
An’ blackneck divers, an’ weary ould waves!
I’ll never win back now, whatever may fall,
So give me good luck, for ye’ll see me no more;
Sure an Island man is the mischief an’ all—
An’ me that was never married before!
Oh think o’ my fate when ye dance at a fair,
In Rachray, there’s no Christianity there.
172. The Grand Match
Dennis was hearty when Dennis was young,
High was his step in the jig that he sprung,
He had the looks an’ the sootherin’ tongue—
An’ he wanted a girl wid a fortune.
Nannie was grey-eyed an’ Nannie was tall,
Fair was the face hid inunder her shawl,
Troth! an’ he liked her the best o’ them all—
But she’d not a traneen to her fortune.
He be to look out for a likelier match,
So he married a girl that was counted a catch,
An’ as ugly as need be, the dark little patch—
But that was a trifle, he told her.
She brought him her good-lookin’ gold to admire,
She brought him her good-lookin’ cows to his byre,
But far from good-lookin’ she sat by his fire—
An’ paid him that ‘thrifle’ he tould her.
He met pretty Nan when a month had gone by,
An’ he thought, like a fool, to get round her he’d try;
Wid a smile on her lip an’ a spark in her eye,
She said, ‘How is the woman that owns ye?’
Och, never be tellin’ the life that he’s led!
Sure, many’s the night that he’ll wish himself dead,
For the sake of two eyes in a pretty girl’s head,—
An’ the tongue of the woman that owns him.