“The Market Square"

“The Market Square"

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WHO that on memory’s pinion ranging

Flies to his own life’s sunny source

Nor owns the world forever changing

Aye, ever changing for the worse;

But yesterday all in joy and gladness

Friends, health and sunshine, all were there

Now all alike are fled, and sadness

Broods silence o’er the Market Square.

This kingdom of a sept departed,

This happy hunting ground of youth,

Where none were false or hollow-hearted

And cheeks robustic vouched for truth,

A place of universal game was

Where never entered old world care,

The Pig Market its ancient name was,

But now folks call it Market Square.

Now as if old days sunchase shadow

And the sun in shadow to turn yield,

Across our own Miss Faucett’s meadow

And onward through the Barley Field;

Where oft we charged in youthful volley

The Bohernasupian to his lair

Or slow retreating for his volley

Sought shelter in the Market Square.

No longer luck’ess carts destroying

For weigh-de-buckede is fed,

The rioters are now enjoying

The world’s own ups and down instead.

The clans who worried round the rockman

Now struggle for a crumb elsewhere,

And Mick, the artificial cock-man

Befowls no more the Market Square.

Ah, where are all these sturdy fellows

Who erstwhile played at pitch-and-jug?

Where old “web” Moran pied his bellows

Or sipped refreshment from his mug;

Where “Birdie” Gill her chickens mustered

To deal them out their simple fare,

As round her skirts they shrieking clustered

From all parts of the Market Square.

What cared we then for wind or weather?

Bad was more welcome far than good,

Then would the clansmen club together

To build huge waterdams of mud.

To plaster each his fellow creatures,

To be led homeward by the hair,

With sorrow stamped on every feature

In patches of the Market Square.

Some have crossed the Atlantic ’mid wave

To struggle for life’s crust,

Another in an Irish grave laid

His bones have mingled into dust.

Ah, where are all those happy faces?

I ask and each echo answers “Where?”

God only know where now the race is,

That once possessed the Market Square.

                 Rev. M. J. Smyth,

                                                    Ballina, 1893.