Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, DRIMIN DONN DILIS (THE DEAR BROWN COW), by JOHN WALSH (1835-1881)


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

DRIMIN DONN DILIS (THE DEAR BROWN COW), by                    
First Line: Oh! Drimin donn dilis! The landlord has come
Last Line: With a blight on his life, and a brand on his brow.
Subject(s): Cows; Ireland - Famine


OH! Drimin donn dilis! the landlord has come,
Like a foul blast of death has he swept o'er our home;
He has withered our roof-tree -- beneath the cold sky,
Poor, houseless and homeless, to-night must we lie.

My heart it is cold as the white winter's snow;
My brain is on fire, and my blood's in a glow.
Oh! Drimin donn dilis! 'tis hard to forgive
When a robber denies us the right we should live.

With my health and my strength, with hard labour and toil,
I dried the wet marsh and I tilled the harsh soil;
I moiled the long day through, from morn till even,
And I thought in my heart I'd a foretaste of Heaven.

The Summer shone round us above and below,
The beautiful Summer that makes the flowers blow:
Oh! 'tis hard to forget it, and think I must bear
That strangers shall reap the reward of my care.

Your limbs they were plump then -- your coat it was silk,
And never was wanted the mether of milk;
For freely it came in the calm Summer's noon,
While you munched to the time of the old milking croon.

How often you left the green side of the hill,
To stretch in the shade, and to drink of the rill!
And often I freed you before the grey dawn,
From your snug little pen at the edge of the bawn.

But they racked and they ground me with tax and with rent,
Till my heart it was sore, and my life-blood was spent:
To-day they have finished, and on the wide world,
With the mocking of fiends from my home was I hurled.

I knelt down three times for to utter a prayer,
But my heart it was seared, and the words were not there;
Oh! wild were the thoughts through my dizzy head came,
Like the rushing of wind through a forest of flame.

I bid you, old comrade, a long last farewell;
For the gaunt hand of famine has clutched us too well;
It severed the master and you, my good cow,
With a blight on his life, and a brand on his brow.





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