I KNEW SOMEONE HAD DIED
(A manchester-Irish Ballad)
I went into the hospital
To see my father there,
With pain, and more, primordial,
An athmosphere of prayer.
I went into the hospital
My mother at my side,
And then my tears began to fall:
I knew someone had died.
Yet still we saw him wave in bed,
Though feeble sick and old,
And still I knew someone was dead,
My sorrows manifold.
We went in to the hospital,
Mv mother feeble too,
To see my dying father fall:
I saw the sun shine through.
I saw my father lying prone,
Sad wishes, sorrowful,
And sinking fast, mo bron, mo bron
His hand reached out to pull.
His hand reached out to grasp and hold
In hopeless supplication,
And her hand too she could unfold,
In voiceless peroration
As they reached out to one another,
Not one of us now cried,
Nor spoke my father or my mother:
I knew someone had died.
A wishful dreaming scene it was,
And a fearsome wish for sure:
That he was dying there, no less,
While she walked through the door.
For she'd been dead for twenty days,
My mother by my side;
My father lived, and she decayed:
I knew someone had died.
We went into the hospital,
My father at my side,
The tears, our tears like raid did fall
For her who had just died.
But my wish came true, and still I seek
My father at my side:
Too soon he died, in the seventh week
From the day my mother died.
I went into the hospital
And no one by my side,
And then my tears like rain did fall:
I knew someone had died.
1989
