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)
