Matty

verse 1 Matty walked out on a frozen night Making for the pub, shoulders hunched up tight Head down on the railroad track And his old cow Delia sad lowing him back He met with a dark and staggering man And as he passed him by shouted back at him "Hey Matty, can't you see what's become of me In this country of the blind! The house I have left is dead to me To my rhyming and my poetry All I've got is the beat of the stagger Heading down the Curragh line!" verse 2 But Matty passed on as quick as he could He couldn't stand such a drunken man sober All he wanted was the lights of the bar The Nightingale, the Wild Rover When he came in they were sighing "Look who's back, Did they throw you out of Jack's With your spoutin' and your swearin' We don't want to hear about Bunker Hayden But maybe you'll sing us the Girls of Kinkane" Instrumental verse 3 The Fear an Tí eyed him steadily As he handed him a pint of porter "You must have seen the bishop's ghost tonight To put the dry look back in your eye!" But Matty would not be taken in By their jibin' and their regalin' He found himself a fresh-blown crew And fell in with their sportin' and their balin' verse 4 As he was going home, on the very same spot He met with his dark familiar He seen him coming back down the line He was bright and strange and fine As he passed him by, Matty threw out his arms Trying to grab hold of his likeness In the morning all the found was his frozen corpse At the butt of the Curragh line At the wake they were lashing out the drops of brandy The aul-fashioned habit In the church they were lashing down pounds and fivers So Matty would be fine in the old by and by