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The Old Poacher's Song

from An Ownerless Corner of Earth by Francy Devine

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about

(words Connell, music Devine)

lyrics

Oh, grant me an ownerless corner of earth,
Or pick me a hillock of stones,
Or gather the wind-wafted leaves of the trees
To cover me Socialist bones
Though small is the debt that humanity owes
To this shrunken remainder of me,
Yet, yet I deserve that my litter at last
From the taint of the thief shall be free.

In boyhood I quaffed with a passionate love
The breath of the mountain and moor
And hated the greed of the covetous lord
Who fenced out the weak and the poor,
And later, through covert and pheasant-stocked glade
I swept like the blast from the north,
I broke every law that the land robbers made
And laughed at the strength they put forth.

The books of the schoolmen to me were unknown
But, teacher-less, well could I see
That soldiers were pampered and judges were prone
To trample the brave and the free.
The wild roving creatures of forest and fen
Provided the lesson I craved
Of food dispossessed they were helpless as men
And so were destroyed or enslaved.

I longed for a country by nobody owned
I sighed for a state without law
I dreamed all day of a people full grown
And lived for the goal I foresaw.
So grant me an ownerless corner of earth
Or pick me a hillock of stones,
Or gather the wind-wafted leaves of the trees
To cover me socialist bones.

credits

from An Ownerless Corner of Earth, released February 27, 2020
Steve Byrne, bouzouki, mandolin and guitar; Paul Anderson, fiddle; Mark Dunlop, whistle; Treasa Harkin, box

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Francy Devine Howth, Ireland

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