Ah’ll change me ways o’ goin’, for am going bald an’ grey
Ah’m tormented washin’ dishes an’ makin’ drops of tae
The kitchen’s like a midden an’ the parlour’s like a sty
There’s half a ton of clabber in the street out by.
Ah’ll go down again tomorra on me ceili to the Cross
For I’ll have to get a woman or the place’ll go to loss.
I’ve foddered all the cattle, and there’s nothing after that
But clockin’ round the ashes, with the auld tom-cat
My very ears is buzzin’ from the time I lit the lamp
An’ the place is like a grave-yard, bar the wan ’d give a stamp
So often I be’s thinkin’ and continuin’ of a plan
Of how to make a match agane, with Robert’s Sarah Ann.
Ah used ta make Wee Robert’s av a Sunday after prayers
Sarah Ann would fetch the kettle to the parlour up the stairs
An’ once a week for sortin I’d be chappin’ at her dure
There wasn’t wan would answer it but her, ye may be sure
An’ then, for all was goin’ well, I got a neighbour man
An’ tuk him down to spake for me an’ ax for Sarah Ann.
Did ye ever know Wee Robert, well he’s nothin’ but a wart
A ne’er-begone aul divil wi’ a wee black heart
A crookit crabbit cratur that is neither well nor sick
Sittin’ girnin’ in the chimley or goin’ hoppin’ on a stick.
Sure ye mind the girl-for-hirin’ that went shoutin’ thru the fair
‘Ah wintered in Wee Roberts – I can summer anywhere’.
But all the same Wee Robert has a shap an’ farm o’ land
Here, you’d think he’d do it dacent when it came to Sarah Ann
She bid me ask a hundred, an’ we worked him up an’ down
The divil the hate he’d give us, but a cow an’ twenty pound
I pushed for twenty more for by, to help to build the byre
But ye might as well be talkin’ to the stones behind the fire.
So says I till John, me neighbour, ‘Sure we’re only wastin’ time
Just let him keep his mollie, I can do without her prime.
Just let him keep his daughter, the hungry-lookin cur
There’s just as chancy wimin in the countryside as her.’
Man, he let a big trevaillye an’ he sent us both, ye know
But Sarah busted cryin’ for she seen we meaned to go.
Aye, she fell then to the cryin’ – for ye know, she isn’t young
She’s nearly past her market, but she’s civil wi’ her tongue
That’s half a year, or thereby, an’ here I’m sittin’ yit
Ah’ll go down again tomarra and ah’ll do it while I’m fit
She’s a snug, well-doing woman, no better in Tyrone
An’ down I’ll go tomarra, for I’m far too long me lone.
This night the wind is rising an’ it’s goin’ on to sleet
It’s whistlin’ down the chimley at the greesaig at me feet
It’s hissin’ at the windey an’ it’s roarin’ round the barn
There’ll be piles of snow the marra, on more than Mullaghhorn
But I’m for tacklin’ Saran Ann, no matter iv the snow
Is everywhere she-blowin’. When the marra comes, I’ll go!