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
