IT'S my fear that my wake won't be quiet, <br />Nor my wake house a silent place : <br />For who would keep back the hundreds <br />Who would touch my breast and my face? <br /> <br />For the good men were always my friends, <br />From Galway back into Clare; <br />In strength, in sport, and in spending, <br />I was foremost at the fair; <br /> <br />In music, in song, and in friendship, <br />In contests by night and by day, <br />By all who knew it was given to me <br />That I bore the branch away. <br /> <br />Now let Manus Joyce, my friend <br />(If he be at all in the place), <br />Make smooth the boards of the coffin <br />They will put above my face. <br /> <br />The old men will have their stories <br />Of all the deeds in my days, <br />And the young men will stand by the coffin, <br />And be sure and clear in my praise. <br /> <br />But the girls will stay near the door, <br />And they'll have but little to say: <br />They'll bend their heads, the young girls, <br />And for a while they will pray. <br /> <br />And, going home in the dawning, <br />They'll be quiet with the boys; <br />The girls will walk together, <br />And seldom they'll lift the voice; <br /> <br />And then, between daybreak and dark, <br />And between the hill and the sea, <br />Three women, come down from the mountain, <br />Will raise the keen over me. <br /> <br />But 'tis my grief that I will not hear <br />When the cuckoo cries in Glenart, <br />That the wind that lifts when the sails are loosed, <br />Will never lift my heart.<br /><br />Padraic Colum<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-connachtman/
