Free As I Rode by Granard Moat by Benedict Kiely Page A

win’ is risin’ an’ it’s comin’ on to sleet,
    It’s spittin’ down the chimley on the greeshig at me feet,
    It’s whistlin’ at the windy, an’ it’s roarin’ roun’ the barn,
    There’ll be piles of snow the morra on more than Mullagharn;
    But I’m for tacklin’ Sarah Ann; no matter if the snow
    Is iverywhere shebowin; when the morra comes I’ll go.
    THE RUNAWAY
[ A Sequel to ‘Sarah Ann’ ]
    I towl yez afore about marryin’
    How the notion come intil me head;
    I wos livin’ in dhurt an’ amdasbut
    I wos pushioned with tay an’ white bread.
    I wos puddlin’ at shirts in a bucket,
    I wos baffled with sarvints an’ fowl,
    An’ wan night with me feet in the ashes
    I rusted – I did, be my sowl.
    Sarah Ann, sure yez heerd about her too,
    But yez didn’t hear more nor the half;
    She’s a fessend oul’ thing, but her father
    Wee Robert he’s tarble well-aff.
    But, boys, when I mentioned the fortune,
    Ye’d a thought when the argymint riz
    That he hadn’t the nails for to scratch with,
    He’s as mane as get-out, so he is.
    Well, he cooled in the skin he got hot in,
    He got lave, the crookedoul’ cowlt,
    No fault till his daughter, I left her
    But I foun’ meself still in a howlt.
    Sure the bread that I baked wos like concrete,
    An’ the butther – now I wud consate,
    The man that can ate his own butther
    There’s nawthin’ that man cudn’t ate.
    I’d a litther of pigs to sit up wi’,
    An’ pigs is like Christians – man, dear,
    Ye’d a thought they wor sthrivin’ to tell me
    ‘We’re lost for a wumman up here.’
    Calves died on me, too, in the spring-time,
    The kettle got foundered in rain,
    Hens clocked, or they took the disordher,
    An’ me heart warmed till Sarah agane.
    So I went, an’ if Robert wos hasky,
    Sarah Ann wos as nice as cud be,
    She done well, for who wud she get now?
    Deil a wan if she didn’t get me.
    But her father had still lik a coolness,
    Not wan word of welkim he dhrapt
    Nor he nivir sayed what he wud give her,
    He wos dotin’, she sayed – he wos apt!
    I got full in the June fair of Carmin,
    I rid home, an’ I met Sarah Ann,
    – The thurf wos near ridy for clampin’
    An’ a wumman can give a good han’ –
    Sez I, ‘Wull ye come for a half-wan?
    Ye’ll not. Well, listen to this.
    Yon hirplin gazaybo, yir father,
    He’ll say nether ay, naw nor yis.’
    So sez I, I’ll not stan’ it no longer,
    Ye can take me or lave me, an’ min’
    Here’s the cowlt can take me in the seddle,
    With you an’ yir bardhix behin’.
    So come on now, or stan’ there for iver,
    Come on now, quet scratchin’ your chin,
    It’s a runaway, that’s what we’ll make it,
    Till Tamson’s up there in Cloghfin.’
    Sure I knowed she wud come, sure I knowed it.
    Is it hir? Boys, she just made a bowlt,
    Got a shawl an’ whusked it about her,
    Got stredlegs behin’ on the cowlt.
    Ay, stredlegs, for that’s the way weemin
    Bees ridin’ the horses all now;
    But heth, ’Twos an odd-lukin’ runaway,
    For the cowlt had to walk like a cow.
    Oul’ Tamson wos gled for to see us,
    A‘dacent, he done what wos right,
    He sent for the dhrink an’ the neighbours,
    We had dancin’ an’ tay the whole night.
    We got dhrunk, an’ we fell till the fightin’,
    Be me sang oul’ John’s purty tyugh,
    It wos prime how he leathered all roun’ him
    An’ him jist as full as a shugh.
    Big Jim ketched a howlt o’ me whuskers,
    Sez I, ‘Ye can thry yirself, Jim,’
    But me bowl Sarah Ann with a potstick
    She soon lif her thrademark on him.
    ‘Ye unsignified ghost!’ sez his mother,
    An’ with that jist before he cud wink
    She ketched Sarah Ann be the thrapple
    An’ whammeld her right in the sink.
    When weemin gets wicked they’re tarra,
    Ye’ll not intherfair if yir wise,
    For ten townlans wudn’t settle
    The birl that two weemin can rise.
    It wos nearly been that up in Tamson’s,
    We fought from the fire till the dure,
    We fought – if ye’sdsay it wos