A Lament For Fair-Haired Donough That Was Hanged In Galway

O fair-haired Donough, it is not the gallows was fit for you;

But to be going to the barn, to be threshing out the straw; 

To be turning the plough to the right hand and to the left,

To be putting the red side of the soil upper-most.

O fair-haired Donough, O dear brother,

It is well I know who it was took you away from me;

Drinking from the cup, putting a light to the pipe,

And walking in the dew in the cover of the night.

O Michael Malley, O scourge of misfortune!

My brother was no calf of a vagabond cow;

But a well-shaped boy on a height or a hillside,

To knock a low pleasant sound out of a hurling-stick.

And fair-haired Donough, is not that the pity,

You that would carry well a spur or a boot;

I would put clothes in the fashion on you from cloth that would be lasting;

I would send you out like a gentleman's son.