Home Kathleen Faragher The House on the Hill

The House on the Hill

by Bernadette Weyde
3.3K views

Ay! the farmhouse is shuttered an’ empty,
An’ the wans that lived theer is all gone;
No smook from the chimley goes curlin’,
For the days o’ that li’l crof’ is done.

 

No dog barks a half-warnin’ welcome;
No cat comes an’ stroogs roun’ me feet;
Norra cow nor a sheep in the fiel’s up;
Neither chickens nor ducks on the street.

 

An’ the win’ gives a sigh in the rowans,
An’ a pang strikes me through to me breas’,
For times goes – an’ th’owl things is passin’,
Yet th’owl things an’ th’owl ways seemed the bes’.

 

Now the river runs sad in the glen theer,
An’ the birds gives theer li’l lonely trills;
While Barrule seems to look down with sorra
On the tholtans spread over them hills.


stroogs – strokes
tholtans – ruined dwellings

(source: from This Purple-Misted Isle, Manx Poems by Kathleen Faragher (1957); photograph © Sam Hudson)

You may also like