[00:00.00] 作词 : Raftery
[00:06.83]That Sunday, on my oath, the rain was a heavy overcoat
[00:09.58]On a poor poet, and when the rain began
[00:12.73]In fleeces of water to buckleap like a goat
[00:15.76]I was only a walking penance reaching Kiltartan;
[00:19.69]And there, so suddenly that my cold spine
[00:23.49]Broke out on the arch of my back in a rainbow,
[00:26.62]This woman surged out of the day with so much sunlight
[00:29.57]I was nailed there like a scarecrow,
[00:32.61]But I found my tongue and the breath to balance it
[00:35.96]And I said: “If I bow to you with this hump of rain
[00:37.95]I’ll fall on my collarbone, but look, I’ll chance it,
[00:41.14]And after falling, bow again.”
[00:43.93]She laughed, ah, she was gracious, and softly she said to me,
[00:50.36]“For all your lovely talking I go marketing with an ass,
[00:54.10]I’m no hill-queen, alas, or Ireland, that grass widow,
[00:56.85]So hurry on, sweet Raftery, or you’ll keep me late for Mass!”
[01:03.00]When we left the dark evening at last outside her door,
[01:06.34]She lighted a lamp though a gaming company
[01:09.53]Could have sighted each trump by the light of her unshawled poll,
[01:12.80]And indeed she welcomed me
[01:14.46]With a big quart bottle and I mooned there over glasses
[01:17.81]Till she took that bird, the phoenix, from the spit;
[01:20.60]And, “Raftery,” says she, “a feast is no bad dowry,
[01:23.48]Sit down now and taste it!”
[01:26.38]When I praised Ballylea before it was only for the mountains
[01:29.34]Where I broke horses and ran wild,
[01:31.73]And for its seven crooked smoky houses
[01:35.23]Where seven crones are tied
[01:37.87]All day to the listening top of a half door,
[01:39.92]And nothing to be heard or seen
[01:42.62]But the drowsy dropping of water
[01:45.36]And a gander on the green.
[01:47.26]But, Boys! I was blind as a kitten till last Sunday,
[01:52.09]This town is earth’s very navel!
[01:55.58]Seven palaces are thatched there of a Monday,
[01:58.97]And O the seven queens whose pale
[02:04.08]Proud faces with their seven glimmering sisters,
[02:07.61]The Pleiads, light the evening where they stroll,
[02:11.50]And one can find the well by their wet footprints,
[02:14.14]And make one’s soul;
[02:17.04]For Mary Hynes, rising, gathers up there
[02:19.94]Her ripening body from all the love stories;
[02:24.37]And rinsing herself at morning, shakes her hair
[02:27.67]And stirs the old gay books in libraries;
[02:32.16]And I’ll wager now that my song is ended,
[02:36.29]Loughrea, that old dead city where the weavers
[02:40.38]Have pined at the mouldering looms since Helen broke the thread,
[02:44.82]Will be piled again with silver fleeces:
[02:47.95]O the new coats and big horses! The raving and the ribbons!
[02:52.46]And Ballylea in hubbub and uproar!
[02:54.90]And may Raftery be dead if he’s not there to ruffle it
[02:58.54]On his own mare, Shank’s mare, that never needs a spur.
[03:03.82]But ah, Sweet Light, though your face coins
[03:07.66]My heart’s very metals, isn’t it folly without a pardon
[03:12.49]For Raftery to sing so that men, east and west, come
[03:16.48]Spying on your vegetable garden?
[03:21.11]We could be so quiet in your chimney corner–
[03:25.31]Yet how could a poet hold you any more than the sun,
[03:28.05]Burning in the big bright hazy heart of harvest,
[03:31.29]Could be tied in a henrun?
[03:34.98]Bless your poet then and let him go!
[03:39.80]He’ll never stack a haggard with his breath:
[03:43.11]His thatch of words will not keep rain or snow
[03:46.45]Out of the house, or keep back death.
[03:50.78]But Raftery, rising, curses as he sees you
[03:54.47]Stir the fire and wash delph,
[03:56.91]That he was bred a poet whose selfish trade it is
[04:03.69]To keep no beauty to himself.