The Midnight Court

I liked to walk in the river meadows
In the thick of the dew and the morning shadows,
At the edge of the woods in a deep defile
At peace with myself in the first sunshine.
When I looked at Lough Graney my heart grew bright,
Ploughed lands and green in the morning light,
Mountains in rows with crimson borders
Peering above their neighbours’ shoulders.
The heart that never had known relief
In a lonesome old man distraught with grief,
Without money or home or friends or ease,
Would quicken to glimpse beyond the trees
The ducks sail by on a mistless bay
And a swan before them lead the way;
A speckled trout that in their track
Splashed in the air with arching back;
The grey of the lake and the waves around
That foamed at its edge with a hollow sound.
Birds in the trees sang merry and loud;
A fawn flashed out of the shadowy wood;
The horns rang out with the huntsman’s cry
And the belling of hounds while the fox slipped by.

Yesterday morning the sky was clear,
The sun fell hot on river and mere,
Its horses fresh and with gamesome eye
Harnessed again to assail the sky;
The leaves were thick upon every bough
And ferns and grass were thick below,
Sheltering bowers of herbs and flowers
That would comfort a man in his dreariest hours.
Longing for sleep bore down my head,
And in the grass I scooped a bed
With a hollow behind to house my back,         

A prop for my head and my limbs stretched slack.
What more could one ask? I covered my face
To avert the flies as I dozed a space,
But my mind in dreams was filled with grief
And I tossed and groaned as I sought relief.

I had only begun when I felt a shock,
And all the landscape seemed to rock;
A north wind made my senses tingle
And thunder crackled along the shingle.
As I looked up—as I thought, awake—
I seemed to see at the edge of the lake
As ugly a brute as man could see
In the shape of woman approaching me;
For, if I calculated right,
She must have been twenty feet in height,
With yards and yards of hairy cloak
Trailing behind her in the muck.
There never was seen such a freak of nature;
Without a single presentable feature;
Her grinning jaws with the fangs stuck out
Would be cause sufficient to start a rout,
And in a hand like a weaver’s beam
She raised a staff that it might be seen
She was coming on a legal errand,
For nailed to the staff was a bailiff’s warrant.

She cried in a voice with a brassy ring:
“Get up out of that, you lazy thing!
That a man like you could think ’tis fitting
To lie in a ditch while the court is sitting!
A decenter court than e’er you knew,
And far too good for the likes of you.
Justice and Mercy hand in hand

Sit in the courts of Fairyland.
Let Ireland think when her trouble’s ended
Of those by whom she was befriended.
In Moy Graney palace twelve days and nights
They’ve sat discussing your wrongs and rights.
All mourned that follow in his train,
Like the king himself, that in his reign
Such unimaginable disaster
Should follow your people, man and master.
Old stock uprooted on every hand
Without claim to rent or law or land;
Nothing to see in a land defiled
Where the flowers were plucked but the weeds and wild;
The best of your breed in foreign places,
And upstart rogues with impudent faces,
Planning with all their guile and spleen
To pick the bones of the Irish clean.
But worst of all those bad reports
Was that truth was darkened in their courts,
And nothing to back a poor man’s case
But whispers, intrigue and the lust for place;
The lawyer’s craft and the rich man’s might,
Cozening, favour, greed and spite;
Maddened with jobs and bribes and malice,
Anarchy loose on cot and palace.

“ ’Twas all discussed, and along with the rest
There were women in scores who came to attest—
’ A plea that concerns yourself as well—
That the youth of the country’s gone to hell,
And men’s increase is a sort of crime,
Which only happened within our time;
Nothing but weeds for want of tillage
Since famine and war assailed the village,

And a flighty king and emigration—
And what have you done to restore the nation?
Shame on you without chick nor child
With women in thousands running wild!
The blossoming tree and the young green shoot,
The strap that would sleep with any old root,
The little white saint at the altar rail,
And the proud, cold girl like a ship in sail—-
What matter to you if their beauty founder,
If belly and breast will never be rounder,
If, ready and glad to be mother and wife,
They drop unplucked from the boughs of life?

“And having considered all reports,
They agreed that in place of the English courts,
They should select a judge by lot
Who’d hold enquiry on the spot.
Then Eevul, Queen of the Grey Rock,
Who rules all Munster herd and flock,
Arose, and offered to do her share
By putting an end to injustice there.
She took an oath to the council then
To judge the women and the men,
Stand by the poor though all ignore them
And humble the pride of the rich before them;
Make might without right conceal its face
And use her might to give right its place.
Her favour money will not buy,
No lawyer will pull the truth awry,
The smoothest perjurer will not dare
To make a show of falsehood there.
The court is sitting today in Feakle,
So off with you now as quick as you’re able!
Come on, I say, and give no back-chat,


Or I’ll take my stick and knock you flat.”
With the crook of her staff she hooked my cape,
And we went at a speed to make Christians gape
Away through the glens in one wild rush
Till we stood in Moinmoy by the ruined church.

Then I saw with an awesome feeling
A building aglow from floor to ceiling,
Lighted within by guttering torches
Among massive walls and echoing arches.
The Queen of the Fairies sat alone
At the end of the hall on a gilded throne,
While keeping back the thronged beholders
Was a great array of guns and soldiers.
I stared at it all, the lighted hall,
Crammed with faces from wall to wall,
And a young woman with downcast eye,
Attractive, good—looking and shy,
With long and sweeping golden locks
Who was standing alone in the witness box.
The cut of her spoke of some disgrace;
I saw misfortune in her face;
Her tearful eyes were red and hot,
And her passions bubbled as in a pot;
But whatever on earth it was provoked her
She was silent, all but the sobs that choked her.
You could see from the way the speaking failed her
She’d sooner death than the thing that ailed her,
But, unable to express her meaning,
She wrung her hands and pursued her grieving
While all we could do was stand and gaze
Till sobs gave place to a broken phrase,
And bit by bit she mastered her sorrows,
And dried her eyes, and spoke as follows—

“Yourself is the woman we’re glad to see,
Eevul, Queen of Carriglee,
Our moon at night, our morning light,
Our comfort in the teeth of spite;
Mistress of the host of delight,
Munster and Ireland stand in your sight.
My chief complaint and principal grief,
The thing that gives me no relief,
Sweeps me from harbour in my mind
And blows me like smoke on every wind
Is all the girls whose charms miscarry
Throughout the land and who’ll never marry;
Bitter old maids without house or home,
Put on one side through no fault of their own.
I know myself from the things I’ve seen
Enough and to spare of the sort I mean,
And to give an example, here am I
While the tide is flowing, left high and dry.
Wouldn’t you think I must be a fright,
To be shelved before I get started right;
Heartsick, bitter, dour and wan,
Unable to sleep for the want of a man?
But how can I lie in a lukewarm bed
With all the thoughts that come into my head?
Indeed, ’tis time that somebody stated
The way that the women are situated,
For if men go on their path to destruction
There will nothing be left to us but abduction.
Their appetite wakes with age and blindness
When you’d let them cover you only from kindness
And offer it up for the wrongs you’d done
In hopes of reward in the life to come:
And if one of them weds in the heat of youth
When the first down is on his mouth
 
It isn’t some woman of his own sort,
Well-shaped, well-mannered or well-taught;
Some mettlesome girl who studied behavior,
To sit and stand and amuse a neighbour,
But some pious old prude or dour defamer
Who sweated the couple of pounds that shame her.
There you have it! It has me melted,
And makes me feel that the world’s demented:
A county’s choice for brains and muscle,
Fond of a lark and not scared of a tussle,
Decent and merry and sober and steady,
Good—looking, gamesome, rakish and ready;
A boy in the blush of his youthful vigour,
With a gracious flush and a passable figure
Finds a fortune the best attraction
And sires himself off on some bitter extraction;
Some fretful old maid with her heels in the dung,
Pious airs and venomous tongue,
Vicious and envious, nagging and whining,
Snoozing and snivelling, plotting, contriving—
Eell to her soul, an unmannerly sow
With a pair of bow legs and hair like tow
Went off this morning to the altar
And here am I still without hope of the halter!
Couldn’t some man love me as well?
Amn’t I plump and sound as a bell?
Lips for kissing and teeth for smiling,
Blossomy skin and forehead shining?
My eyes are blue and my hair is thick
And coils in streams about my neck—
A man who’s looking for a wife,
Here’s a face that will keep for life!
Hand and arm and neck and breast,
Each is better than the rest.


Look at that waist! My legs are long,
Limber as willows and light and strong.
There’s bottom and belly that claim attention,
And the best concealed that I needn’t mention.
I’m the sort a natural man desires,
Not a freak or a death-on-wires,
A sloven that comes to life in flashes,
A creature of moods with her heels in the ashes,
Or a sluggard stewing in her own grease,
But a good-looking girl that’s bound to please.
If I was as slow as some I know
To stand up for my rights and my dress a show,
Some brainless, illbred, country mope
You could understand if I lost hope;
But ask the first you meet by chance:
Hurling match or race or dance,
Pattern or party, market or fair,
Whatever it was, was I not there?
And didn’t I make a good impression
Turning up in the height of fashion?
My hair was washed and combed and powdered,
My coif like snow and stiffly laundered;
I’d a little white hood with ribbons and ruff
On a spotted dress of the finest stuff,
And facings to show off the line
Of a cardinal cloak the colour of wine;
A cambric apron filled with showers
Of fruit and birds and trees and flowers;
Neatly-fitting, expensive shoes
With the highest of heels pegged up with screws;
Silken gloves, and myself in spangles
Of brooches, buckles, rings and bangles.
And you mustn’t imagine I was shy,
The sort that slinks with a downcast eye,

Solitary, lonesome, cold and wild,
Like a mountainy girl or an only child.
I tossed my cap at the crowds of the races
And kept my head in the toughest places.
Am I not always on the watch
At bonfire, dance or hurling match,
Or outside the chapel after Mass
To coax a smile from fellows that pass?
But I’m wasting my time on a wildgoose-chase,
And my Spirit’s broken—and that’s my case!
After all my shaping, sulks and passions
All my aping of styles and fashions,
All the times that my cards were spread
And my hands were read and my cup was read;
Every old rhyme, pishrogue and rune,
Crescent, full moon and harvest moon,
Whit and All Souls and the First of May,
I’ve nothing to show for all they say.
Every night when I went to bed
I’d a stocking of apples beneath my head;
I fasted three canonical hours

To try and come round the heavenly powers;
I washed my shift where the stream was deep
To hear a lover’s voice in sleep;
Often I swept the woodstack bare,
Burned bits of my frock, my nails, my hair,
Up the chimney stuck the flail,
Slept with a spade without avail;
Hid my wool in the lime-kiln late
And my distaff behind the churchyard gate;
I had flax on the road to halt coach or carriage
And haycocks stuffed with heads of cabbage,
And night and day on the proper occasions
Invoked Old Nick and all his legions;

But ’twas all no good and I’m broken-hearted
For here I’m back at the place I started;
And this is the cause of all my tears
I am fast in the rope of the rushing years,
With age and need in lessening span,
And death beyond, and no hopes of a man.
But whatever misfortunes God may send
May He spare me at least that lonesome end,
Nor leave me at last to cross alone
Without chick nor child when my looks are gone
As an old maid counting the things I lack
Scowling thresholds that warn me back!
God, by the lightning and the thunder,
The thought of it makes me ripe for murder!
Every idiot in the country
With a man of her own has the right to insult-me.
Sal’ has a slob with a well-stocked farm,
And Molly goes round on a husband’s arm,
There’s Min and Margery leaping with glee
And never done with their jokes at me.
And the bounce of Sue! and Kitty and Anne
Have children in droves and a proper man,
And all with their kind can mix and mingle
While I go savage and sour and single.

“Now I know in my heart that I’ve been too quiet
With a remedy there though I scorned to try it
In the matter of draughts and poisonous weeds
And medicine men and darksome deeds
That I know would fetch me a sweetheart plighted
Who’d love me, whether or not invited.
Oh, I see ’tis the thing that most prevails
And I’ll give it a trial if all fruit fails—
A powerful aid to the making of splices

Is powdered herbs on apples in slices.
A girl I know had the neighbours yapping
When she caught the best match in the county napping,
And ’twas she that told me under a vow
That from Shrove to All Souls—and she’s married now—
She was eating hay like a horse by the pail
With bog-roots burned and stuped in ale—
I’ve waited too long and was too resigned,
And nothing you say can change my mind;
I’ll give you a chance to help me first
And I’m off after that to do my worst.”

2

Then up there jumps from a neighbouring chair
A little old man with a spiteful air,
Staggering legs and panting breath,
And a look in his eye like poison and death;
And this apparition stumps up the hall
And says to the girl in the hearing of all:
“Damnation take you, you bastard’s bitch,
Got by a tinkerman under a ditch!
No wonder the seasons are all upsot,
Nor every beating Ireland got;

Decline in decency and manners,
And the cows gone dry and the price of bonhams!
Mavrone! what more can we expect
With Doll and M011 and the way they’re decked?
You slut of ill-fame, allow your‘ betters
To tell the court how you learned your letters!
Your seed and breed for'all your brag
Were tramps to a man with rag and bag;
I knew your da and what passed for his wife,
And he shouldered his traps to the end of his life, 
An aimless lout without friend or neighbour,
Knowledge or niceness, wit or favour:
The breeches he wore were riddled with holes
And his boots without a tack of the soles.
Believe me, friends, if you sold at a fair,
Himself and his wife, his kids and gear,
When the costs were met, by the Holy Martyr,
You’d still go short for a glass of porter.
But the devil’s child has the devil’s cheek—
You that never owned cow nor sheep,
With buckles and brogues and rings to order—
You that were reared in the reek of solder!
However the rest of the world is gypped
I knew you when you went half-stripped;
And I’d venture a guess that in what you lack
A shift would still astonish your back;
And, shy as you seem, an inquisitive gent
Might study the same with your full consent.
Bosom and back are tightly laced,
Or is it the stays that gives you the waist?
Oh, all can see the way you shine,
But your looks are no concern of mine.
Now tell us the truth and don’t be shy
How long are you eating your dinner dry?
A meal of spuds without butter or milk,
And dirt in layers beneath the silk.
Bragging and gab are yours by right,
But I know too where you sleep at night,
And blanket or quilt you never saw
But a strip of old mat and a bundle of straw,
In a hovel of mud without a seat,
And slime that settles about your feet,
A carpet of weeds from door to wall
And hens inscribing their tracks on all;

The rafters in with a broken back
And brown rain lashing through every crack—
’Twas there you learned to look so nice,
But now may we ask how you came by the price?
We all admired the way you spoke,
But whisper, treasure, who paid for the cloak?
A sparrow with you would die of hunger-—
How did you come by all the grandeur,
All the tassels and all the lace—
Would you have us believe they were got in grace?
The frock made a hole in somebody’s pocket,
And it wasn’t you that paid for the jacket;
But assuming that and the rest no news,
How the hell did you come by the shoes?

“Your worship, ’tis women’s sinful pride
And that alone has the world destroyed.
Every young man that’s ripe for marriage
Is hooked like this by some tricky baggage,
And no one is secure, for a friend of my own,
As nice a boy as ever I’ve known
That lives from me only a perch or two—
God help himl—married misfortune too.

It breaks my heart when she passes by
With her saucy looks and head held high,
Cows to pasture and fields of wheat,
And money to spare—and all deceit!
Well-fitted to rear a tinker’s clan,
She waggles her hips at every man,
With her brazen face and bullock’s hide,
And such airs and graces, and mad with pride.
And—that God may judge me!—on1y I hate
A scandalous tongue, I could relate
Things of that woman’s previous state

As one with whom every man could mate
In any convenient field or gate
As the chance might come to him early or late!
But now, of course, we must all forget
Her galloping days and the pace she set;
The race she ran in Ibrackane,
In Manishmore and Teermaclane,
With young and old of the meanest rabble
Of Ennis, Clareabbey and Quin astraddle!
Toughs from Tradree out on a fling,
And Cratlee cutthroats sure to swing;
But still I’d say ’twas the neighbours’ spite,
And the girl did nOthing but what was right,
But the devil‘take her and all she showed!
I found her myself on the public road,
On the naked earth with a bare backside
And a Garus turf-cutter astride!
Is it any wonder my heart is failing,
That I feel that the end of the world is nearing,
When, ploughed and sown to all men’s knowledge,
She can manage the child to arrive with marriage,
And even then, put to the pinch,
Begrudges Charity an inch;
For, counting from the final prayer
With the candles quenchedand the altar bare
To the day when her offspring takes the air
Is a full nine months with a week to Spare?

“But you see the troubles a man takes on!
From the minute he marries his peace is gone;
Forever in fear of a neighbour’s sneer—
And my own experience cost me dear.
I lived alone as happy as Larry ’
Till I took it into my head to marry,

Tilling my fields with an easy mind,
Going wherever I felt inclined,
Welcomed by all as a man of price,
Always ready with good advice.
The neighbours listened—they couldn’t refuse
For I’d money and stock to uphold my views—
Everything came at my beck and call
Till a woman appeared and destroyed it all:
A beautiful girl with ripening bosom,
Cheeks as bright as apple-blossom,
Hair that glimmered and foamed in the wind,
And a face that blazed with the light behind;
A tinkling laugh and a modest carriage
And a twinkling eye that was ripe for marriage.
I goggled and gaped like one born mindless
Till I took her face for a form of kindness,
Though that wasn’t quite what the Lord intended
For He marked me down like a man offended
For a vengeance that wouldn’t be easy mended
With my folly exposed and my comfort ended.

“Not to detain you here all day
I married the girl without more delay,
And took my share in the fun that followed.
There was plenty for all and nothing borrowed.
Be fair to me now! There was no one slighted;
The beggarmen took the road delighted;
The clerk and mummers were elated;
The priest went home with his pocket weighted.
The lamps were lit, the guests arrived;
The supper was ready, the drink was plied;
The fiddles were flayed, and, the night advancing,
The neighbours joined in the sport and dancing.

“A pity to God I didn’t smother
When first I took the milk from my mother,
Or any day I ever broke bread

Before I brought that woman to bed!
For though everyone talked of her carouses
As a scratching post of the publichouses
That as sure as ever the glasses would jingle
Flattened herself to married and single,
Admitting no modesty to mention,
I never believed but ’twas all invention.
They added, in view of the life she led,
I might take to the roads and beg my bread,
But I took it for talk and hardly minded—
Sure, a man like me could never be blinded!—
And I smiled and nodded and off I tripped
Till my wedding night when I saw her stripped,
And knew too late that this was no libel
Spread in the pub by some jealous rival—
By God, ’twas a fact, and well-supported:
I was a father before I started!

“So there I was in the cold daylight,
A family man after one short night!
The women around me, scolding, preaching,
The wife in bed and the baby screeching.
I stirred the milk as the kettle boiled
Making a bottle to give the child;
All the old hags at the hob were cooing
As if they believed it was all my doing—-
Flattery worse than ever you heard:
‘Glory and praise to our blessed Lord,
Though he came in a hurry, the poor little creature,
He’s the spit of his da in every feature.

Sal, will you look at the cut of that lip!
There’s fingers for you! Feel his grip!
Would you measure the legs and the rolls of fat!
Was there ever a seven month child like that?’
And they traced away with great preciseness
My matchless face in the baby’s likeness; .
The same snub nose and frolicsome air,
And the way I laugh and the way I stare;
And they swore that never from head to toe
Was a child that resembled his father so.
But they wouldn’t let me go near the wonder—-
‘Sure, a draught would blow the poor child asunder!’
All of them out to blind me further—
‘The least little breath would be noonday murder!’
Malice and lies! So I took the floor,
Mad with rage and I cursed and swore,
And bade them all to leave my sight.
They shrank away with faces white,
And moaned as they handed me the baby:
‘Don’t crush him now! Can’t you handle him easy?
The least thing hurts them. Treat him kindly!
Some fall she got brought it on untimely.
Don’t lift his head but leave him lying!
Poor innocent scrap,and to think he’s dying!
If he lives at all till the end of day
Till the priest can come ‘tis the most we’ll pray!’

"I off with the rags and set him free,
And studied him well as he lay on my knee.
That too, by God, was nothing but lies
For he staggered myself with his kicks and cries.
A pair of shoulders like my own,
Legs like sausages, hair fullgrown;
His ears stuck out and his nails were long,

His hands and wrists and elbows strong;
His eyes were bright, his nostrils wide,
And the knee-caps showing beneath his hide—
A champion, begod, a powerful whelp,
As healthy and hearty as myself!

“Young woman, I’ve made my case entire.
Justice is all that I require.
Once consider the terrible life
We lead from the minute we take a wife,
And you’ll find and see that marriage must stop
And the men unmarried must be let off.
And, child of grace, don’t think of the race;
Plenty will follow to take our place;
There are ways and means to make lovers agree
Without making a show of men like me.
There’s no excuse for all the exploiters;
Cornerboys, clerks and priests and pipers—-
Idle fellows that leave you broke I
With the jars of malt and the beer they soak,
When the Mother of God herself could breed
Without asking the views of clerk or creed.
Healthy and happy, wholesome and sound,
The come-by-twilight sort abound;
No one assumes but their lungs are ample,
And their hearts as sound as the best example.
When did Nature display unkindness
To the bastard child in disease or blindness?
Are they not handsomer, better—bred
Than many that come of a lawful bed?

“I needn’t go far to look for proof
For I’ve one of the sort beneath my roof—
Let him come here for all to view!

Look at him now! You see ’tis true.
Agreed, we don’t know his father’s name,
But his mother admires him just the same,
And if in all things else he shines
Who cares for his baptismal lines?
He isn’t a dwarf or an old man’s error,
A paralytic or walking terror,
He isn’t a hunchback or a cripple
But a lightsome, laughing gay young divil.
’Tis easy to see he’s no flash in the pan;
No sleepy, good—natured, respectable man,
Without sinew or bone or belly or bust,
Or venom or vice or love or lust,
Buckled and braced in every limb
Spouted the seed that flowered in him:
For back and leg and chest and height
Prove him to all in the teeth of spite
A child begotten in fear and wonder
In the blood’s millrace and the body’s thunder.

“Down with marriage! It’s out of date;
It exhausts the stock and cripples the state.
The priest has failed with whip and blinker
Now give a chance to Tom the Tinker,
And mix and mash in Nature’s can
The tinker and the gentleman!
Let lovers in every lane extended
Struggle and strain as God intended
And locked in frenzy bring to birth
The morning glory of the earth;
The starry litter, girl and boy
Who’ll see the world once more with joy.
Clouds will break and skies will brighten,
Mountains bloom and spirits lighten,

And men and women praise your might,
You who restore the old delight.”

3

The girl had listened without dissembling,
Then up she started, hot and trembling,
And answered him with eyes alight
And a voice that shook with squalls of spite:
“By the Crown of the Rock, I thought in time
Of your age and folly and known decline,
And the manners I owe to people and place
Or I’d dye my nails in your ugly face;
Scatter your guts and tan your hide
And ferry your soul to the other side.
I’d honour you much if I gave the lie
To an impudent speech that needs no reply;
’Tis enough if I tell the sort of life
You led your unfortunate, decent wife.

“This girl was poor, she hadn’t a home,
Or a single thing she could call her own,
Drifting about in the saddest of lives,
Doing‘odd jobs for other men’s wives,
As if for drudgery created,
Begging a crust from women she hated.
He pretended her troubles were over;
Married to him she’d live in clover;
The cows she milked would be her own,
The feather bed and the decent home,
The stack of turf, the lamp to light,
The good earth wall of a winter’s night,
Flax and wool to weave and wind,

The womanly things for which she pined.

Even his friends could not have said
That his looks were such that she lost her head.
How else would he come by such a wife
But that ease was the alms she asked of life?
What possible use could she have at night
For dourness, dropsy, bother and blight,
A basket of bones with thighs of lead,
Knees absconded from the dead,
Fire-speckled shanks and temples whitening,
Looking like one that was struck by lightning?
Is there living a girl who could grow fat
Tied to a travelling corpse like that
Who twice a year wouldn’t find a wish
To see what was she, flesh or fish
But dragged the clothes about his head
Like a wintry wind to a woman in bed?

“Now was it too much to expect as right
A little attention once a night?
From all I know she was never accounted
A woman too modest to be mounted.
Gentle, good-humoured and Godfearing
Why should we think she’d deny her rearing?
Whatever the lengths his fancy ran
She wouldn’t take fright from a mettlesome man,
And would sooner a boy would be aged a score
Than himself on the job for a week or more;
And an allnight dance or Mass at morning,
Fiddle or flute or choir or organ,
She’d sooner the tune that boy would play
As midnight struck or at break of day.
Damn it, you know we’re all the same,
A woman nine months in terror and pain,
The minute that Death has lost the game-—

Good morrow my love, and she’s off again!
And how could one who longed to please
Feel with a fellow who’d sooner freeze
Than warm himself in a natural way
From All Souls Night to St. Brigid’s day?
You’d all agree ’twas a terrible fate-—
Sixty winters on his pate,
A starved old gelding, blind and lamed
And a twenty year old with her parts untamed.
It wasn’t her fault if things went wrong,
She closed her eyes and held her tongue;
She was no ignorant girl from school
To whine for her mother and play the fool
But a competent bedmate smooth and warm
Who cushioned him like a sheaf of corn.
Line by line she bade him linger
With gummy lips and groping finger,
Gripping his thighs in a wild embrace
Rubbing her brush from knee to waist
Stripping him bare to the cold night air,
Everything done with love and care.
But she’d nothing to show for all her labour;
There wasn’t a jump in the old deceiver,
And all I could say would give no notion
Of that poor distracted girl’s emotion,
Her knees cocked up and the bedposts shaking,
Chattering teeth and sinews aching,
While she sobbed and tossed through a joyless night
And gave it up with the morning light.

“I think you’ll agree from the little I’ve said
A man like this must be off his head
To live like a monk to the end of his life
Muddle his marriage and blame his wife.

The talk about women comes well from him,
Without hope in body or help in limb;
If the creature that found him such a sell
Has a lover today she deserves him well:
A benefit Nature never denies
To anything born that swims or flies;
Tell me of one that ever went empty
And died of want in the midst of plenty.
In all the wonders west and east
Where will you hear of a breed of beast
That will turn away from fern and hay
To feed on briars and roots and clay?
You silly old fool, you can’t reply
And give us at least one reason why
If your supper is there when you come back late
You’ve such talk of someone that used the plate. 7 !
Will it lessen your store, will you sigh for more
If twenty millions cleaned it before?
You must think that women are all like you
To believe they’ll go dry for a man or two; 7
You might as well drink the ocean up . .
Or empty the Shannon with a cup.
Ah, you must see that you’re half insane;
Try cold compresses, avoid all strain,
And stop complaining about the neighbours,
If every one of them owed her favours,
Men by the hundred beneath her shawl !
Would take nothing from you in the heel of all. i

“If your jealousy even was based on fact
In some hardy young whelp that could keep her packed;
Covetous, quarrelsome, keen on scoring,
Or some hairy old villain hardened with whoring;
A vigorous pusher, a rank outsider,

A jockey of note or a gentleman rider—
But a man disposed in the wrong direction
With a poor mouth shown on a sham erection!

“But oye, my heart will grow grey hairs
Brooding forever on idle cares,
Has the Catholic Church a glimmer of sense
That the priests won’t come to the girls’ defense?
Is it any wonder the way I moan,
Out of my mind for a man of my own
While there’s men around can afford one well
But shun a girl as they shun Hell.
The full of a fair of primest beef,
Warranted to afford relief;
Cherry-red cheeks and bull-like voices
And bellies dripping with fat in slices;
Backs erect and huge hind-quarters,
Hot—blooded men, the best of partners,
Freshness and charm, youth and good looks
And nothing to ease their mind but books!
The best-fed men that travel the country,
With beef and mutton, game and poultry,
Whiskey and wine forever in stock,
Sides of bacon and beds of flock.
Mostly they’re hardy under the hood,
And we know like ourselves they’re flesh and blood.
I wouldn’t ask much of the old campaigners,
Good-for-nothings and born complainers
But petticoat-tossers aloof and idle
And fillies gone wild for bit and bridle!

“Of course I admit that some, more sprightly,
Would like to repent, and I’d treat them lightly.
A pardon and a job for life

To every priest that takes a wife!
For many a good man’s chance miscarries
If you scuttle the ship for the crooks it carries;
And though some as we know were always savage,
Gnashing their teeth at the thought of marriage,
And, modest beyond the needs of merit,
Invoked hellofire on girls of spirit,
Yet some who took to their pastoral labours
Made very good priests and the best of neighbours.
Many a girl filled byre and stall
And furnished her house through a clerical call.
Everyone’s heard some priest extolled
For the lonesome women that he consoled;
People I’ve known throughout the county
Have nothing but praise for the curate’s bounty,
Or uphold the canon to lasting fame I
For the children he reared in another man’s name;
But I hate to think of their lonely lives, ,
The passions they waste on middle-aged wives
While the girls they’d choose if the choice was theirs
Go by the wall and comb grey hairs.

“I leave it to you, O Nut of Knowledge,
The girls at home and the boys in college,
You cannot persuade me it’s a crime
If they make love while they still have time,
But you who for learning have no rival,
Tell us the teachings of the Bible;
Where are we taught to pervert our senses
And make our natural needs offences?
To fly from lust as in Saint Paul
Doesn’t mean flight from life and all,
But to leave home and friends behind
And stick to one who pleased one’s mind.

But I’m at it again! I’ll keep my place;
It isn’t for me to judge the case,
When you, a spirit born and queen
Remember the texts and what they mean,
With apt quotations well-supplied
From the prophets who took the woman’s side,
And the words of Christ that were never belied
Who chose for His Mother an earthly bride.

“But oye, what use are pishrogue and spell
To one like myself in the fires of Hell?
What chance can there be for girls like me
With husbands for only one in three?
When there’s famine abroad the need advises
To look after yourself as chance arises,
And since crops are thin and weeds are plenty,
And the young without heart and Ireland empty,
And to fill it again is a hopeless job,
Get me some old fellow to sit by the hob;
Tie him down there as best you can—
And leave it to me to make him a man.”

4

The day crept in and the lights grew pale,
The girl sat down as she ended her tale;
The princess rose with face aglow
And her voice when she spoke was grave and slow.
“Oyez!” said the clerk to quell the riot,
And wielded his mace till all were quiet,
Then from her lips as we sat hushed
Speech like a rainbow glory gushed.
“My child,” she said, “I will not deny
That you’ve reason enough to scold and cry,
And, as a woman, I can’t but grieve

To see girls like you, and Moll and Maeve,
With your dues diminished and favours gone,
And none to enjoy a likely man
But misers sucking a lonely bone
Or hairy old harpies living alone.
I do enact according then
That all the present unmarried men
Shall be arrested by the guard,
Detained inside the chapel yard
And stripped and tied beside the gate
Until you decide upon their fate.
Those that you find whom the years have thwarted
With masculine parts that were never exerted
To the palpable loss of some woman’s employment,
The thrill of the milk and their own enjoyment;
Who, having the chance of wife and home
Went wild and took to the hills to roam,
Are only a burden on the earth
So give it to them for all you’re worth.
Roast or pickle them, some reflection
Will frame a suitable correction,
But this you can choose at your own tribunal,
And whatever you do will have my approval.
Fully grown men too old to function
As I say you can punish without compunction;
Nothing you do can have consequences
For middle-aged men with failing senses,
And, whatever is lost or whatever survives,
We need never suppose will affect their wives——
Young men, of course, are another affair;
They still are of use, so strike with care!

“There are poor men working in rain and sleet,
Out of their minds with the troubles they meet,

 
But, men in name and in deed according,
They quarry their women at night and morning——
A fine traditional consolation!—
And these I would keep in circulation.
In the matter of priests a change is due,
And I think I may say it’s coming, too.
Any day now it may be revealed
That the cardinals have it signed and sealed,
And we’ll hear no more of the ban on marriage
Before the priests go entirely savage.
Then the cry of the blood in the body’s fire
You can quicken or quell to your heart’s desire,
But anyone else of woman born,
Flay him alive if he won’t reform!
Abolish wherever my judgment reaches
The nancy boy and the flapper in breeches,
And when their rule is utterly ended
We can see the world that the Lord intended.

“The rest of the work must only wait.
I’m due elsewhere and already late;
I’ve business afoot that I must attend
Though you and I are far from the end,
For I’ll sit next month and God help the men
If they haven’t improved their ways by then!
But mostly those who sin from pride
With women whose names they do not hide,
Who keep their tally of ruined lives
In whispers, nudges, winks and gibes.
Was ever vanity more misplaced
Than in married women and girls disgraced?
It isn’t desire that gives the thrust,
The smoking blood and the ache of lust,
Weakness of love and the body’s blindness

But to punish the fools who show them kindness.
Thousands are born without a name
That braggarts may boast of their mothers’ Shame—
Men lost to Nature through conceit,
And their manhood killed by their own deceit,
For ’tis sure that however their wives may weep
It’s never because they go short of sleep.”

I’d listened to every word she uttered,
And then as she stopped my midriff fluttered;
I was took with a sort of sudden reeling
Till my feet seemed resting on the ceiling;
People and place went rcund and round,
And her words came bacl as a blur of sound.
Then the bailiff strode along the aisle
And reached for me with an ugly smile;
She nipped my ear as if in sport ,
And dragged me up before the court.
Then the girl who’d complained of how she was slighted,
Spotted my face and sprang up, excited.
“Is it you?” says she. “Of all the old crocks!
I’m waiting for years to comb your locks.
You had your chance and you missed your shot,
And devil’s cure to you now you’re caught!
Will anyone here speak in your favour
Or even think you worth the labour?
What little affair would you care to mention
Or what girl did you honour with your attention?
We’ll all agree that the man’s no beauty, 
But, damn it, he’s clearly fit for duty.
I know, he’s ill-made and ugly as hell,
But he’d match some poo: misfortunate well.
I’d sooner him pale and not quite so fat,
But the hump’s no harm; I’d make nothing of that

For it isn’t a thing you’d notice much
Or one that goes with the puritan touch.
You’ll find bandy legs on men of vigour
And arms like pegs on a frolicsome figure.
Of course there must be some shameful reason
That kept him single out of season.
He’s welcome at the country houses'
And at the villagers’ carouses,
Called in wherever the fun is going,
And fiddles being tuned and whiskey flowing—
I’ll never believe there’s truth in a name:
A wonder the Merrymans stand the shame!
The doggedest devil that tramps the hill
With grey in his hair and a virgin still!
Leave me alone to settle the savage!
You can spare your breath to cool your porridge!
The truth of it’s plain upon your forehead;
You’re thirty at least and still unmarried!
Listen to me, O Fount of Luck,
This fellow’s the worst that ever I struck.
All the spite I have locked inside
Won’t let me at peace till I’ve tanned his hide.
Can’t ye all help me? Catch him! Mind him!
Winnie, girl, run and get ropes to bind him!
Where are you, Annie, or are you blind?
Sally, tie up his hands behind!
Molly and Maeve, you fools what ails you?
Isn’t it soon the courage fails you?
Hand me the rope till I give him a crack;
I’ll earth it up in the small of his back.
That, young man, is the place to hurt you;
I’ll teach you to respect your virtue!
Steady now, till we give him a sample!
Women alive, he’s a grand example!


Set to it now and we’ll nourish him well!
One good clout and ye’ll hear him yell!
Tan him the more the more he’ll yell
Till we teach his friends good manners as well.
And as this is the law to restore the nation
We’ll write the date as a great occasion—
‘The First of January, Seventeen Eighty— ”

And while I stood there, stripped and crazy,
Knowing that nothing could save my skin,
She opened her book, immersed her pen,
And wrote it down with careful art,

As the girls all sighed for the fun to start.
And then I shivered and gave a shake,
Opened my eyes, and was wide awake.
 
 
Bryan Merryman( ? —1805)


Source: O'Connor, Frank (tr); Kings, Lords, & Commons: An Anthology
from the Irish; 1962; London; Macmillan & Co; p.136-166