Thramping Down to Sligo - Sligo Poets

  Sligo Champion 12 April 1913
   THRAMPIN’ DOWN TO SLIGO.

Thrampin’ down to Sligo with my peddler’s
            cart,
There’s Dublin left behind me and the
            plains of Kildare,
Thrampin down to Sligo and the ways
            of my heart
Where Maurya’s waitin for me in her
            grey-streaked hair;
Just the same dear woman that I kissed
            by Loch Gill
Thirty-seven years ago, and my Maurya
            still.

I’m sick of Dublin city with its noise and
            its fret,
I’m sick of sellin’ vanithees my wares
            by the road,
For down beyond the Shannon the black-
            thorn bushes set
Their little blossoms out to say that Spring
            is abroad;
And one old thrush I’m knowin’ these five
            years and more
Is settin’ up her nest beside my own cabin
            door.

My little donkey’s tired, and I am tired,
            too,
When sixty years are on you what joy
            is there in life
But to rest beside the things you know are
            always thrue,
And what to man is thruer than his home
            and his wife!–
So I’m thrampin’ down to Sligo, to my own
            heart’s share
Where Maurya’s waitin for me in her grey-
            streaked hair.

The nights are sweet about me and the
            dawns rain grey
And every step I go is over good Irish
            sod–
‘Were you ever in America?’ a man said
            yestherday,
‘Begor, I never was,’ said I, ‘I thank
            my God;’
So I’m thrampin down to Sligo where the
            sea winds race
And there’s welcome waitin’ for me in my
            Maurya’s face.

                                  Teresa Brayton.