Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FAN FITZGERL by ALFRED PERCEVAL GRAVES

First Line: WIRRA, WIRRA! OLOGONE %CAN'T YE LAVE A LAD ALONE
Wirra, wirra! ologone!
Can't ye lave a lad alone,
Till he's proved there's no tradition left of any other girl-
Not even Trojan Helen,
In beauty all excellin'-
Who's been up to half the divlement of Fan Fitzgerl.


Wid her brows of silky black
Arched above for the attack,
Her eyes they dart such azure death on poor admirin' man;
Masther Cupid, point your arrows,
From this out, agin the sparrows,
For your bested at Love's archery by young Miss Fan.


See what showers of goolden thread
Lift and fall upon her head,
The likes of such a trammel-net at say was niver spread
For, whin accurately reckoned,
'Twas computed that each second
Of her curls has cot a Kerryman and kilt him dead.


Now mintion, if ye will,
Brandon Mount and Hungry Hill,
Or Ma'g'llicuddy's Reeks renowned for cripplin' all they can;
Still the countryside confisses
None of all its precipices
Cause a quarther so much carnage as the nose of Fan.


But your shatthered hearts suppose
Safely steered apast her nose,
She's a current and a reef beyant to wreck them rovin' ships.
My maning it is simple;
For that current is her dimple,
And the cruel reef 'twill coax ye to 's her coral lips.


I might inform ye further
Of her bosom's snowy murther,
And an ankle ambuscadin' through her gown's delightful whirl;
But what need, when all the village
Has forsook its peaceful tillage,
And flown to war and pillage all for Fan Fitzgerl!




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