I found an old man kneeling by a new-made mound;
His hands clasped in an attitude of prayer;
Silent and motionless; his head was bare;
His snowy locks wind-blown. With sad eyes raised
To the far sky, as one entranced by gazed.

He seemed to see his loved one in the sky,
So long he looked with rapt and eager eye.
At last the streams of sorrow ‘gan to race
Adown the care-made furrows of his face.

Faster and faster fell the flood of tears
Upon the new-made grave. Unto my ears
Came heart-wrung sobs. Convulsed with grief he lay,
And kissed and hugged the cold and lifeless clay.

I turned away my head – I could not brook
Upon a scene so sorrowful to look.
When next I gazed upon the new-made mound,
Gone was the mourner. Silence reigned around.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

I went and knelt upon the tear-wet sod,
And offered up an earnest prayer to God
For the mourned one, and for him whose deep grief.
Found in that luxury of tears relief.

MICHAEL MULLIN – ‘THE BARD OF FOREMASS’

Foremass Lower, Sixmilecross, Co. Tyrone.