Padraic Colum

8 December 1881 – 11 January 1972 / County Longford

A Rann Of Exile

NOR right, nor left, nor any road I see a comrade face,
Nor word to lift the heart in me I hear in any place;
They leave me, who pass by me, to my loneliness and
care,
Without a house to draw my step nor a fire that I might share!

Ochone, before our people knew the scatt'ring of the
dearth,
Before they saw potatoes rot and melt black in the earth,
I might have stood in Connacht, on the top of Cruchmaelinn,
And all around me I would see the hundreds of my
kin.
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