A Rann Of Exile

By Padraic Colum

NOR right, nor left, nor any road I see a comrade face,

Nor word to lift the heart in me I hear in any place;

They leave me, who pass by me, to my loneliness and

care,

Without a house to draw my step nor a fire that I might share!

Ochone, before our people knew the scatt'ring of the

dearth,

Before they saw potatoes rot and melt black in the earth,

I might have stood in Connacht, on the top of Cruchmaelinn,

And all around me I would see the hundreds of my

kin.