Sarah Ann     {in memory of Sam Russell, dear friend}

 

Ah’ll change me ways o’ goin’, for me head is gettin’ grey

Ah’m tormented washin’ dishes an’ makin’ drops of tae

The kitchen’s like a midden an’ the parlour’s like a sty

There’s half a foot of clabber in the street out by.

Ah’ll go down again tomorra on me ceili to the Cross

For I’ll have to get a woman or the place’ll go to loss.

 

Ah’ve foddered all the cattle and there’s nothing after that

But clockin’ round the ashes, with an auld tom-cat

My very ears is buzzin’ from the time I lit the lamp

An’ the place is like a grave-yard, bar the wan ‘d give a stamp

So often I be’s thinkin’ and continuin’ of a plan

Of how to make a match agane, with Robert’s Sarah Ann.

 

Ah used ta make Wee Robert’s av a Sunday after prayers

Sarah Ann would fetch the kettle to the parlour up the stairs

An’ once a week for sortin I’d be chappin’ at her dure

There wasn’t wan would answer it but her, ye may be sure

An’ then, for all was goin’ well, I got a neighbour man

An’ tuk him down to spake for me an’ ax for Sarah Ann.

 

Did ye ever know Wee Robert, well he’s nothin’ but a wart

A ne’er-begone aul divil wi’ a wee black heart

A crookit crabbit cratur that is neither well nor sick

Sittin’ girnin’ in the chimley corner or goin’ hoppin’ on a stick.

Sure ye mind the girl-for-hirin’ that went shoutin’ thru the fair

‘Ah wintered in Wee Roberts – I can summer anywhere‘.

 

 

But all the same Wee Robert has a shap an’ farm o’ land

Here, you’d think he’d do it dacent when it came to Sarah Ann

She bid me ask a hundred, an’ we worked him up an’ down

The divil the hate he’d give us, but a cow an’ twenty pound

I pushed for twenty more for by, to help to build the byre

But ye might as well be talkin’ to the stones behind the fire.

 

So says I till John, me neighbour, ‘Sure we’re only wastin’ time

Just let him keep his mollie, I can do without her prime.

Just let him keep his daughter, the hungry-lookin cur

There’s just as chancy wimin in the countryside as her.’

Man, he let a big trevaillye an’ he sent us both, ye know

But Sarah busted cryin’ for she seen we meaned to go.

 

Aye, she fell then to the cryin’ – for ye know, she isn’t young

She’s nearly past her market, but she’s civil wi’ her tongue

That’s half a year, or thereby, an’ here I’m sittin’ yit

Ah’ll go down agane tomarra, an’ I’ll do it while I’m fit

She’s a snug well-doin’ woman, no better in Tyrone

An’ down I’ll go tomarra, for I’m far too long me lone.

 

This night the wind is rising an’ it’s goin’ on to sleet

It’s whistlin’ down the chimley at the greesaig at me feet

It’s hissin’ at the windey an’ it’s roarin’ round the barn

There’ll be piles of snow the marra, on more than Mullaghhorn

But I’m for tacklin’ Saran Ann, no matter iv the snow

Is everywhere she-blowin’.  When the marra comes, I’ll go!