Said Hanrahan
By P.J. Hartigan, ‘John O’Brien’
‘We’ll all be rooned,’
said Hanrahan
In accents most forlorn
Outside the church ere
Mass began
One frosty Sunday morn.
The congregation stood
about,
Coat-collars to the
ears,
And talked of stock and
crops and drought
As it had done for
years.
‘It’s lookin’ crook,’
said Daniel Croke;
‘Bedad, it’s cruke, me
lad,
For never since the
banks went broke
Has seasons been so
bad.’
‘It’s dry, all right,’
said young O’Neil,
With which astute
remark
He squatted down upon
his heel
And chewed a piece of
bark.
And so around the
chorus ran,
‘It’s keepin’ dry, no
doubt.’
‘We’ll all be rooned,’
said Hanrahan,
‘Before the year is
out.
‘The crops are done; ye’ll
have your work
To save one bag of
grain;
From here way out to
Back-o’-Bourke
They’re singin’ out for
rain.
‘They’re singin’ out
for rain,’ he said,
‘And all the tanks are
dry.’
The congregation
scratched its head
And gazed around the
sky.
‘There won’t be grass,
in any case,
Enough to feed an ass;
There’s not a blade on
Casey’s place
As I came down to Mass.’
If rain don’t come this
month,’ said Dan,
And cleared his throat
to speak –
‘We’ll all be rooned,’
said Hanrahan,
‘If rain don’t come
this week.’
A heavy silence seemed
to steal
On all at this remark;
And each man squatted
on his heel,
And chewed a piece of
bark.
‘We want an inch of
rain, we do,’
O’Neil observed at
last;
But Croke ‘maintained’
we wanted two
To put the danger past.
‘If we don’t get three
inches, man,
Or four to break this
drought,
We’ll all be rooned,’
said Hanrahan,
‘Before the year is
out.’
In God’s good time down
came the rain;
And all the afternoon
On iron roof and
window-pane
It drummed a homely
tune.
And through the night
it pattered still,
And lightsome, gladsome
elves
On dripping spout and
window-sill
Kept talking to themselves.
It pelted, all day
long,
A-singing at its work,
Till every heart took
up the song
Way out to Back-o’-Bourke.
And every creek a
banker ran,
And dams filled
overtop;
‘We’ll all be rooned,’
said Hanrahan,
‘If this rain doesn’t
stop.’
And stop it did, in God’s
good time:
And spring came in to
fold
A mantle o’er the hills
sublime
Of green and pink and
gold.
And days went by on
dancing feet,
With harvest-hopes
immense,
And laughing eyes
beheld the wheat
Nid-nodding o’er the
fence.
And oh, the smiles on
every face,
As happy lad and lass
Through grass knee-deep
on Casey’s place
Went riding down to
Mass.
While round the church
in clothes genteel
Discoursed the men of
mark,
And each man squatted
on his heel,
And chewed his piece of
bark.
‘There’ll be bushfires
for sure, me man,
There will, without a
doubt;
We’ll all be rooned,’
said Hanrahan,
‘Before the year is
out.’