The Foresaken Soldier
Source: The Stone Fiddle by Paddy Tunney
Location: New Edition, page 181 / 182
When I rose like a Russian that morning,
No cross on my forehead I signed.
For the thought that my true-love had left me,
It drove me clean out of my mind.
I reached for a scythe that hung high in the hawthorn,
Fell to her with file and a clue sharping-stone,
And stripped to the waist in the cornfield,
I cut half the harvest alone.
My feet are too long without leather;
My pockets much longer want gold.
I envy the old mountain wether,
For his love tales need never be told.
They say that this heartache all winter will tarry,
And lead to the tomb before next Easter day.
And the boys that I hurled with will carry
My corpse to its rest in the clay.
If I were stretched prone with the fever,
Or seven years under the ground,
And you came to my tomb love and called me,
I would rise from the dead with one bound.
My sorrow that death didn’t stike down my father
‘Fore he drove me to drink and the king’s own armie.
In the boneyard my hard bed is waiting.
O my darling, have pity on me!