The hamlet Ballytullagh, small and old, Lay negligently cluster'd in a fold Of Tullagh Hill, amid the crags and moor; A windy dwelling-place, rough, lonesome, poor; So low and weather stain'd the walls, the thatch So dusk of hue, or spread with mossy patch, A stranger journeying on the distant road Might hardly guess that human hearts abode In those wild fields, save when a smoky wreath Distinguish'd from huge rocks, above, beneath Its huddled roofs. A lane goes up the hill, Cross'd, at one elbow, by a crystal rill, Between the stepping-stones gay tripping o'er In shallow brightness on its gravelly floor, From crags above, with falls and rocky urns, Through sward below, in deep deliberate turns, Where each fine evening brought the boys to play At football, or with @3camuns@1 drive away The whizzing @3nagg@1; a crooked lane and steep, Older than broad highways, you find it creep, Fenced in with stooping thorn-trees, bramble-brakes, Tall edge-stones, gleaming, gay as spotted snakes, With gold and silver lichen; till it bends Between two rock-based rough-built gable ends, To form the street, if one may call it street, Where ducks and pigs in filthy forum meet; A scrambling, careless, tatter'd place, no doubt; Each cottage rude within-doors as without; All rude and poor; some wretched—black and bare And doleful as the cavern of Despair. And yet, when crops were good, nor oatmeal high, A famine or a fever-time gone by, The touch of simple pleasures, even here, In rustic sight and sound the heart could cheer. With voice of breezes moving o'er the hills, Wild birds and four-foot creatures, falling rills, Mingled the hum of huswife's wheel, cock-crow, The whetted scythe, or cattle's evening low, Or laugh of children. Herding went the boy, The sturdy diggers wrought with spade and loy, The tether'd she-goat browsed the rock's green ledge, The clothes were spread to dry on sloping hedge, The colleens did their broidery in the shade Of leafy bush or gown-skirt overhead, Or wash'd and @3beetled@1 by the shallow brook, Or sung their ballads round the chimney-nook. NOTES @3camuns@1, sticks bent at one end. @3nagg@1, wooden ball. @3beetling@1, thumping clothes with a truncheon (beetle) @3loy@1, a half-spade. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BONNIE BLUE FLAG by ANNIE CHAMBERS KETCHUM A BALLAD OF TREES AND THE MASTER by SIDNEY LANIER LOUISA MAY ALCOTT by LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON TO HIS DEAD BODY by SIEGFRIED SASSOON |