The Book of Irish Ballads

THE WAKE OF THE ABSENT.

BY GERALD GRIFFIN.

[It is a custom among the peasantry in some parts of Ireland, when any member of a family has been lost at sea (or in any other way which renders the performance of the customary funeral rite impossible), to celebrate the "wake," exactly in the same way, as if the corpse were actually present.] 
The dismal yew, and cypress tall,
  Waive o'er the churchyard lone,
Where rest our friends and fathers all,
  Beneath the funeral stone.
Unvexed in holy ground they sleep,
  Oh early lost!  o'er thee
No sorrowing friend shall ever weep,
  Nor stranger bend the knee,
                    Mo Cuma! [1]  lorn am I!
Hoarse dashing rolls the salt-sea wave,
Over our perished darling's grave--

The winds the sullen deep that tore,
  His death-song chanted loud,
The weeds that line the clifted shore
  Were all his burial shroud.
For friendly wail and holy dirge,
  And long lament of love,
Around him roared the angry surge,
  The curlew screamed above,
                    Mo Cuma!  lorn am I!
My grief would turn to rapture now,
Might I but touch that pallid brow.

The stream-born bubbles soonest burst
  That earliest left the source:
Buds earliest blown are faded first,
  In nature's wonted course!
With guarded pace her seasons creep,
  By slow decay expire;
The young above the aged weep,
  The son above the sire:
                    Mo Cuma!  lorn am I!
That death a backward course should hold,
To smite the young, and spare the old.

Notes

  1. Mo Cuma!   Mo Chuma--My grief, or, Woe is me!--Ed.

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MacCarthy, Denis Florence (1817-1882), ed. The Book of Irish Ballads. Dublin: James Duffy, 1869.

The above published source is public domain under the terms of
Title 17, United States Code, Section 304(b).
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Published in 2000 by Dennis McCarthy
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