Classic Poem

I T'S William Dander tells the crack of Billy McIlvane,
 Though every man and child from Portglenone to Cushendall
Kenned Billy well and worthy, since the time he was a wean
 Till the day they took him coffined from Ahoghill Orange Hall.
For Dander says he beat the heathen god upon the fife,
 And every Twelfth the lodges had him aye in great request;
It was wonderful to hear him, but it took away his life,
 And the tune was never made could pay a man to spoil his chest.

But Dander says the fifing never hurted him at all,
 'Twas the wetting, and the damp and cold, and getting chilled at night;
He says that Billy told him when he took too sick to crawl
 How misfortunate a thing it was, and wanted it told right.
'Twas one of Billy's ways to go round showing how to play
 To a wheen of fellows living all about the country side,
And they had him at lint-pullings, and at Orange Balls for pay,
 For 'twas well-beknown his fifing beat all fiddling far and wide.

He was used to coming home at any hour you'd see the stars,
 From every art in ten townlands and mostly all his lone,
So he'd play the fife for company, and fight King William's wars,
 And study all the queer old days behind King William's throne.
But Billy was no luny—he was there when God made brains—
 A bogle couldn't scare him—he heard tell of them before,
And he never thought of fairies only sporting with the weans,
 May-eve at hanging May-flowers for a charm at every door.

But after this thing happened him it give his head a twist;
 Stepping home one night by ghost-light to the tune of Colleen dhas ,
When he came to Tullygarley brig the Braid was all a mist,
 And speech came from the thick of it forbidding him to pass.
With a voice that wasn't mortal in a mist—and nothing more—
 Thinks Billy “There are times to run, and them that can't run, prays;
I'm afeard it is a woman,” and he either prayed or swore,
 “I'm afeard it's not the welcome sort that dresses up in stays.”

By this the mist was clearing off, and Billy looking down
 Sees standing in the flood, or swimming—sorrow one knows which—
The loveliest kind of female between that and Limerick town,
 With the general look and beauty of an Irish water-witch,
Says she, “Billy, I am lonesome.” “Well,” says Billy, “I'm afeard
 I haven't seen your family lately,” speaking quite polite;
“If you like, Mem,” he kept talking, picking up and feeling cheered
 To see such melting eyes, “I'll post a letter if you'll write.”

“Och, Billy, that's not it at all. I want to have a friend;
 If you'll come down to the waterside and listen for awhile
I'll try and make you sensible how far my powers extend,
 And how much we'd help each other,” and with that she give a smile.
So down went Billy on the bank, just trusting to his luck,
 And she led him to a quiet place near where the waters meet.
She could swim without a ripple, floating easy as a duck,
 But he never found out whether it was with a tail or feet.

She kept him and conversed him till the glinting of the dawn,
 And trysted him for that night week at Lisnafillan Green,
And through that year all round the Maine and Braid she led him on,
 With tales of queer outlandish things and words of love between.
She must have had a notion of him, seeing all she did,
 And what she told him, how he lived in ages long ago,
A harper to King Brian, and far more his wit kept hid,
 Since people just would laugh, he said, at what they didn't know.

He said her name was Moira, and she once had great renown,
 And mighty proud she made him with a serpent ring of fate,
But what he set most store by was a fife she brought him down
 From where it lay below the Boyne since James went out of date.
The music Billy made with it was past belief to hear
 You'd thought the stars were singing when you heard him in the dark,
And I've known old David Herbison, the poet, say “Ay, dear,
 I'd just as soon hear Billy as a blackbird or a lark.”

But Billy's music died away; the silver notes had rest,
 And Dander promised solemnly they'd never sound again;
That he'd take the fife in friendliness, was Billy's last request,
 And fling it in the water where the Braid flows in the Maine.
And William Dander did it when the moon was sinking low,
 And a mist swept up the river with a lamentation sore;
The tongue was past man's knowledge, but the meaning seemed to go—
 “Oh, Billy, you're my darling, but I'll never see you more!”