Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Ireland: Vol. V. 1876–79.

Duhallow

Duhallow

By James Clarence Mangan (1803–1849)

FAR away from my friends,

On the chill hills of Galway,

My heart droops and bends,

And my spirit pines alway,—

’T is as not when I roved

With the wild rakes of Mallow,—

All is here unbeloved,

And I sigh for Duhallow.

My sweetheart was cold,

Or in sooth I ’d have wept her,—

Ah, that love should grow old

And decline from his sceptre,

While the heart’s feelings yet

Seem so tender and callow!

But I deeplier regret

My lost home in Duhallow!

My steed is no more,

And my hounds roam unyelling;

Grass waves at the door

Of my dark-windowed dwelling.

Through sunshine and storm

Corrach’s acres lie fallow;

Would Heaven I were warm

Once again in Duhallow!

In the blackness of night,

In the depth of disaster,

My heart were more light

Could I call myself master

Of Corrach once more

Than if here I might wallow

In gold thick as gore

Far away from Duhallow!

I loved Italy’s show

In the years of my greenness,

Till I saw the deep woe,

The debasement, the meanness,

That rot that bright land!

I have since grown less shallow,

And would now rather stand

In a bog in Duhallow!

This place I ’m in here,

On the gray hills of Galway,

I like for its cheer

Well enough in a small way;

But the men are all short,

And the women all sallow;

Give M’Quillan his quart

Of brown ale in Duhallow.

My sporting days o’er,

And my love-days gone after,

Not earth could restore

Me my old life and laughter.

Burns now my breast’s flame

Like a dim wick of tallow,

Yet I love thee the same

As at twenty, Duhallow!

But my hopes, like my rhymes,

Are consumed and expended;

What ’s the use of old times

When our time is now ended?

Drop the talk! Death will come

For the debt that we all owe,

And the grave is a home

Quite as old as Duhallow!