I'm currently reading Nobody Ever Says Thank You, a biography of the English football manager Brian Clough, who died in 2004 and whose managing career stretched from the mid-sixties to the mid-nineties. He was particularly famous for taking unsuccessful teams, reviving their fortunes, and making them champions. He was also known for his outspokenness and his complex personality. The film The Damned United (starring Michael Sheen) is a heavily fictionalised account of one particular phase in his career.
I was very interested in soccer in my teens. Occasionally I think of reviving my interest; whenever I watch a soccer game on television, I become quite gripped.
But the main reason I read the book was because I had seen The Damned United, and because I absolutely love the title. It is taken from a piece of advice given to Clough by his mentor, who advised him that nobody ever said "Thank you" in the world of football management.
At five hundred pages long, it's quite an undertaking to read, and I've only browsed it in the past. (I found it on a book exchange shelf-- but I'd already been impressed by its title before I happened to discover it there.) Now I'm reading it all the way through.
This is partly because Clough is such an interesting figure, but it's partly because I'm so drawn to the world it describes-- especially at the beginning. It's a world of ice-bitten and waterlogged playing fields, windswept training grounds, cold dressing rooms, cups of Oxo (an incredibly potent beef extract drink), dour Yorkshiremen, verbal sparring, fish and chips, and so on. I don't find that atmosphere depressing-- I find it bracing.
But, reading the book, I realize there's another reason I'm enjoying it. The long litany of football results that forms much of the narrative is very appealing. I like the structure, the repetition (with variation), the sturdy framework-- 1-0 against Liverpool at Anfield, 2-1 against Wolverhampton at home, 3-3 against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge....there is a soothing poetry to it, not so different to the swash of the tide on the beach.
There is a mysterious connection between repetition and the sublime. This is very obvious when we think of the liturgy, the rosary, and the other repetitive aspects of Catholicism (and of all organised religion). The imagination is stirred by the thought of all the Masses celebrated through history, all the Masses celebrated today, the succession of bishops, the slow development of doctrine, the collision of time and timelessness this brings about.
The same applies to other areas of life-- cinema, for instance. What is playing at the local multiplex? Something is playing, right now. And some of the movies playing right now will enter into popular culture, and some may even enter into the cultural memory of society.
Football is the same. Although Brian Clough is dead now, and all the players he managed have long retired, Leeds United and Nottingham Forest and Derby County are still playing week in, week out-- rising up and down the tables, being promoted, being relegated, winning trophies, spending years in the wilderness (a delicious phrase). Football clubs have their own folklore, their own pantheons and legends, their own collective memory-- each of which forms a part of the sport's collective memory, which itself forms a part of a country's collective memory. There's something very exciting about that. At least, I find it exciting.
If you are so inclined, you can buy the latest issue (pictured) of Ireland's Own magazine, which features an article I wrote on strange sports. Have you heard of cluster ballooning? Underwater hockey? The Eton Wall Game? They all feature in my article.
It's the second article I've had in that magazine recently-- I had an obituary of the Irish folk musician Danny Doyle in a September issue.
I hope to have future articles in the coming months!
Here is a delightful poem by Francis Thompson (1859-1907), most famous as the writer of "The Hound of Heaven":
To a Snowflake
What heart could have thought you? --
Past our devisal
(O filigree petal!)
Fashioned so purely,
Fragilely, surely,
From what Paradisal
Imagineless metal,
Too costly for cost?
Who hammered you, wrought you,
From argentine vapor? --
"God was my shaper.
Passing surmisal,
He hammered, He wrought me,
From curled silver vapor,
To lust of His mind --
Thou could'st not have thought me!
So purely, so palely,
Tinily, surely,
Mightily, frailly,
Insculped and embossed,
With His hammer of wind,
And His graver of frost."
I like this poem for many reasons. First off, I love snow. I wrote a whole blog post about my love of snow, here.
Secondly, I like the tripping metre. Lines like "Fragilely, surely", "So purely, so palely", and "Mightily, fraily" evoke the swirl of snowflakes in the wind.
Finally, I like the use of somewhat exotic words, such as "argentine" and "devisal". I like it when poets (and writers) use exotic words, and I think it's a shame that they often steer clear of them, out of fear of purple prose-- or, indeed, purple poetry.
Today, of course, we tend to use "snowflake" in a different context-- as an epithet for somebody who is too narrow-skinned or sensitive. (Sometimes it is expanded to "special snowflake".)
This usage began with conservatives mocking liberals who saw racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. etc. everywhere. With tiresome predictability, it was soon re-appropriated by liberals, who accused conservatives of being "snowflakes" when they complained of being called sexist, racist, homophobic, etc. Now everybody calls everybody else a snowflake.
All that is polemic, and serves a purpose. However, it's a shame that the term has become so pejorative.
Why should the term "special snowflake" be reserved for such combative uses?
Everybody is a special snowflake. There, I said it.
It may not be the case that no two snowflakes are alike, but it's certainly the case that no two people are completely alike. And this is a very inspiring thought.
Why should people be so different? I can easily imagine a world where everybody was interested in the same things, loved the same music and movies and books, had the same politics, enjoyed the same activities, wanted exactly the same things out of life, and got excited about the same ideas.
It would be a world with a lot less conflict, perhaps. But it would be much duller.
I like to ponder the diversity of mankind because it's so triumphantly anti-reductionist. It's not the case that everybody wants the same things out of life. It's not even true in the case of bad people, never mind good people. There are bad people who want money, there are bad people who want power, there are bad people who want prestige, and there are bad people who are utterly idealistic-- and willing to do the most evil things for the sake of those ideals.
To move from the depths of wickedness to the great mass of humanity, however, we see that the multiplicity of human motivations is staggering. How often do historians find themselves puzzling over the purposes of the great men in human history? Someone like Winston Churchill, for instance? or Otto Von Bismarck? Or Thomas Jefferson?
Why are all ideologies so prone to fissures, schisms and tensions?
Since my father's death, and even before his death, I have been pondering the similarities and differences between our views of the world. He was a Catholic, like me. He was broadly a conservative and a traditionalist, like me. He was a romantic, like me. But every now and again, he would say something which made me realize that, in many respects, his view of the world was completely different to mine. For instance, he was much more of an essentialist in his view of nationality and ethnicity. He believed very strongly that such-and-such a people had such-and-such a character, and that this was hardwired into them-- whereas I am very sceptical of this, and correspondingly more fearful that peoples are in danger of losing their distinctiveness. My father (who actually campaigned against Ireland joining the EEC, which became the EU) was opposed to the European project because he thought it was doomed to failure, that the peoples of Europe were too different to weld into a unity. I'm quite the opposite-- I'm opposed because I'm afraid the project might, in fact, succeed in this very objective. (Although I believe my father would also have opposed this, too.)
As we know ourselves, sometimes it is very hard to put our own motivations and ideals into words. Certainly this is what fuels a lot of my own writing, and thinking, and reading. I have a very specific vision of my own, but trying to actually articulate it can be immensely difficult.
I don't think I'm special in this regard. I think I'm very ordinary.
Or rather, I think everybody is special. A special snowflake.
Over the weekend, I came across some letters and other documents written by my grandfather. He generated a huge amount of writing in his lifetime, but (to the best of my knowledge, and to my great regret), most of it has been lost.
He was a community activist, a member of the Worker's Party (which was both an Irish nationalist and a socialist party), and at one time a member of the IRA (this was long before the Troubles in Northern Ireland had broken out).
As a result of my father's death and funeral, the death and funeral of another family member, and various other family events, I've been hearing a lot of family stories, including stories about my grandfather and my father.
Much of my knowledge of my grandfather comes from my father's memoirs, which remain unpublished, and every word of which I typed from manuscript.
He seems to have been quite a character, the protagonist of many a comic story.
He was a mechanically-minded person, and he once invented a control panel using which (or so he hoped) he could control all the lights and appliances in the house from one central point.
So delighted was he with this invention, that he gathered his entire family around to witness its ceremonial turning-on. However, as soon as he hit the first button, all the lights in the street went out-- and stayed out for several days, apparently.
There are several stories about his fondness for fake séances, one of which involves a member of the Irish army-- a strapping fellow in a greatcoat-- running back home to jump into bed with his mother.
I don't remember him that well. He died in 1991, a little after the outbreak of the first Gulf War, when I was thirteen. It was my first real experience of death.
I remember him as a white-haired, patriarchal figure, who lived with my aunt and was always watching television. He looked like a rugged Samuel Beckett. He had a rather stern demeanour, but a wicked sense of humour-- I remember how devastasted I was, one Christmas, when I handed him a small gift-wrapped cylinder and he said: "I hope it's not a pen!". (He hurried to reassure me when he saw my face fall, however.)
Like my father, he was very political and very idealistic. However, the differences are also very striking.
I learned to my great surprise, only last week, that my grandfather (despite being an Irish nationalist) had little regard for the Irish language, and thought that too much effort had been devoted to preserving it. I'm getting this information second-hand, so I can't be sure, but it seems reliable enough.
And it fits with my knowledge of him. He seems to have been a much more hard-headed, pragmatic character than my father. His public-spiritedness was focused, more than anything else, on bread-and-butter issues, and on helping out particular individuals.
That's admirable in itself. But why be a nationalist at all, in that case?
I'm not sure what my grandfather's religious views were. I've heard different things. The impression I get is that he was somewhat anti-clerical.
The picture I get-- peering into the murk of the past-- is that the progression (or regression!) from my grandfather to myself is one of increasing conservatism, traditionalism and mysticism-- a trajectory which is quite the opposite of Irish society over the same time.
When I read my grandfather's letters, I get the impression of a man who was very business-like, very down-to-earth, very practical-minded. The lyricism which is never far from the surface, in all my father's writings, is nowhere in evidence. (Having said that, I've heard that he wrote at least one patriotic ballad, and I only have a few documents from his hand.) Somehow, I get the impression he had little interest in literature, poetry, or the life of the imagination.
My father had a more poetic temperament than my grandfather. But he was still a lot more practically-minded than I am-- observant, analytical, very interested in subjects (such as economics and city planning) which seem unbearably prosaic to me.
Where did my father get his devotion to the Irish language, I wonder? He never learned to speak it, but he did help to set up an Irish language school in our community-- the one I attended. Without having attended that, I wouldn't have even the middling grasp of Irish that I do.
My father was a convinced Catholic, but he never went to Mass. He might go to the Celebration of the Lord's Passion on Good Friday, but that was about it. And yet there was no doubt at all about where he stood, when it came to religion and to Catholicism. (I was very glad he received the Last Rites at the end.)
The sweep of social and cultural history is very interesting to me, and family history is a current within that. My grandfather and my father were both men who pursued ideals, who made a solid contribution to the life of their times. I think I would be doing well to emulate them even in a very small way.
An interesting discussion I've had elsewhere, with a reader of this very blog, leads me to address this question: should a national culture be founded on Catholicism, or even on Christianity?
The very title of this blog, Irish Papist, reflects two of its main interests: Irishness, and Catholicism.
My Catholicism is the centre of my life, and the most important part of it. But the subject of Ireland and Irishness is also of absorbing interest to me.
Can we simply equate the two? Is Irish Catholicism the same thing as Irishness? Does Irish Catholicism contain everything good about Irishness? Should our vision of Irishness be explicitly Catholic?
My answer to that is "No". Here I depart from many of my Catholic integralist friends.
I accept the Second Vatican Council as an authoritative act of the Magisterium. Its document on religious freedom, Dignitas Humanae, tells us:
In all his activity a man is bound to follow his conscience in order that he may come to God, the end and purpose of life. It follows that he is not to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his conscience. Nor, on the other hand, is he to be restrained from acting in accordance with his conscience, especially in matters religious. The reason is that the exercise of religion, of its very nature, consists before all else in those internal, voluntary and free acts whereby man sets the course of his life directly toward God. No merely human power can either command or prohibit acts of this kind.
I think reason tells us the same thing. The only adequate reason for adhering to a religion is because you believe it is true. Adhering to a religion for any other reason-- tribalism, a reaction against the modern world, social conservatism, aesthetics, etc.-- is only adopting a pose, striking an attitude.
If Faith is a "junior partner" to patriotism, or conservatism, or social justice, or anything else, than the Faith is always going to give way when it comes to a conflict between them. You cannot serve two masters.
And we can see this in the manner in which so many Irish left-wing nationalists ultimately rejected Catholicism when it came into conflict with their own particular brand of nationalism. (Many people in this tradition-- Sinn Féin, especially-- have ultimately rejected nationalism, as well. But they still use the term, just as they still used the term "Catholic" long after they had apostasized.)
As well as this, if we accept the primacy of conscience, then it must be expected that many people will find themselves unable, in all good conscience, to accept the Catholic faith. Should our vision of Irishness exclude them? Should it exclude Protestants and Jews and Muslims and well-intentioned agnostics and atheists?
Personally, I have no place in my vision of Irishness for those who are anti-Catholic, anti-religious, anti-clerical, and anti-traditional. After all, such people are on a journey of nihilism which logically leads them to reject national loyalties, too.
I think it's perfectly fine for Irishness to demand a respect for our Catholic history and traditions, from those who cannot in good conscience affirm the Catholic creed.
I don't believe anybody is less Irish for not being a Catholic. I don't even believe anyone is less Irish for being an atheist. But I do think somebody is less Irish for being anti-Catholic and anti-religious.
(Of course, as a Catholic, I wish every single person in Ireland was also a believing Catholic.)
I also think it was perfectly legitimate for the Irish Constitution to recognize the "special position" of the Catholic Church as the religion of the vast majority of Irish people, as it did until 1973. I believe it was perfectly legitimate for Ireland to ban alcohol sales on Good Friday, to have the Angelus bells broadcast on the state broadcaster, to censor blasphemous books and films, etc.
One needn't have been a believing Catholic to support all these things, nor do I think they constituted oppression of other religions, or of the non-religious.
Robert Briscoe, an adherent of the Jewish faith who was Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1956-57, and again in 1961-62, famously said that, the more Catholic the Irish people became, the more he liked it. Michael Medved, an American talk radio host who is also an Orthodox Jew, has said the same thing about America and Evangelical Christianity. Surely most religious people would rather live in a country whose laws and customs were influenced by religion, even if it was not their own religion-- as long as that religion was not actually imposed on them, and the free exercise of their own religion was not impeded.
Ultimately, I believe we must distinguish clearly between religious faith and national culture. They are two different things. They can be deeply intertwined, but they should not be equated with one another. Both suffer, in the long run, when that happens.
My blogging has been rather light lately. To fill the gap, here are some of my recent Facebook posts. I hope you find them amusing and intriguing-- or, at least, not insufferably boring or irritating.
(Yes, I know. Facebook is evil. But it's a good outlet for one's random thoughts.)
As you'll see, I've recently been trying to write some of my Facebook posts bilingually-- in Irish, followed by English. My written Irish is terrible, and it's quite embarrassing to expose this fact in public. But I've come to the conclusion that it's better to use bad Irish than not to use it at all. The Irish language is far too important to be left to those who can speak and write it.
For a long time I've been a ferocious critic of political
correctness. I imagine people who see me in the street think: "There
goes Maolsheachlann Ó Ceallaigh, the ferocious critic of political
correctness." However, more recently I've been troubled by a kind of
contradiction in my own thought.
This is it: I tend to believe
that taboo, reverence, and piety are good things in themselves. Don't
get me wrong, I wish all those things were directed towards their proper
objects, but even IN THEMSELVES they seem admirable to me.
And all those things are abundantly present in political correctness.
People who trip themselves up constantly trying to use the correct
epithets are, in a sense, showing a sort of piety, a sort of reverence.
It's misdirected but it's real. And I don't have the slightest problem
against censorship on the grounds of public morals; I think Mary
Whitehouse was a hero.
But isn't this just what the PC brigade are
pushing for, according to their own lights?
My gorge still rises
at political correctness, don't get me wrong. And I still consider it a
mortal enemy. But there is a little part of my mind that asks: "Are you
being completely consistent here? Shouldn't you acknowledge a healthy
impulse even in your enemy, "to honour as you strike him down' "?
Perhaps Nietzsche was onto something when he said "you may have enemies
you hate, but not enemies you despise."
(I would like to think this is the most pompous Facebook post ever.)
* * * * * * *
Rinne
é an rún cúpla lá ó shoin gan achmainn grinn ar bith a bheith agam as
seo amach. D'eirigh mé as an rún sin, ach measaim fós gur smaoineamh
maith é. Táim braon don t-íoróin agus don síor-magadh a bhfuil í ngach
áit inniú. Uaireanta is mian liom clócha agus róba a caitheamh an t-ám
ar fad, fiú san ollmhargadh, agus fíliocht a labhairt in ionad prós.
A few days ago I made the resolution to be completely humourless. I've
given it up already, but I still think it's a good idea. I'm so sick of
irony and the perpetual levity that's everywhere these days. Sometimes I
feel the urge to wear a cloak and robe all the time, even in the
supermarket, and to speak in poetry instead of prose.
* * * * * * * *
I
was just looking at the English poetry shelves. I was surprised at the
paucity of English poets whose surnames begin with "Y". There were a few
poets called Young but none of them were particularly good. (I do like
"Night Thoughts" by Edward Young, though I admit that is a niche
interest.) The Y section in the English poetry shelves is a narrow and
undistinguished stretch.
I contend there are no major ENGLISH poets whose names begin with Y. Yeats was Irish, of course.
* * * * * * *
"One
might safely say that no people ever liked stench or starvation as
such, but only some peculiar pleasures entangled with them. Not so feels
the sensitive Gudge... Gudge has succeeded in persuading himself that
slums and stinks are really very nice things; that the habit of sleeping
fourteen in a room is what has made our England great; and that the
smell of open drains is absolutely essential to the rearing of a Viking
breed." G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World (1910)
"I have seen too much of slums to go into Chestertonian raptures about them." George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier (1937)
* * * * * * * *
Chuaigh mé ar turas chuig an Royal Irish Academy inné, turas
eagraithe ag leabharlann UCD, áit a bhfuil mé fostaithe. Bhí an
smaoineamh céinne agam is a mbíonn agam go h-iondúil, agus mé ag
éisteacht le daoine ag obair at son institiúidí a bhfuil ag plé le
oidhreacht agus stair na hÉireann. Tá an cuma orthu go bhfuil suim acu
san oidhreacht mar rud stairiúl, rud marbh. Ach is beag an suim a bhfuil
agam san oidhreacht mar iarsma. Bím í gconaí ag smaoineamh: conas a
feidir linn beocht nua a thabhairt don
oidhreacht? Mar shampla, tá taispeantais acu mar gheall at Thomas Moore,
file a raibh clú oll-mhór ar in Éireann uair amhain. Ní leor diomsa
breatnaigh ar file mar sin mar abhair acadiúl. Sé an cheist domsa: cén
fáth nach bhfuil suim againn inniu í Thomas Moore, no file at bith
beagnach, agus conas is feidir an suim sin a spreagadh?
I went on a work field trip to the Royal Irish Academy yesterday. As
always, when listening to people whose work involves cultural heritage, I
find myself wondering why they are content to regard it as something
historical. I have very little interest in heritage as something
historical. To me the question is, how can we give it life? For
instance, they had an exhibition on Thomas Moore, an Irish poet who was
once phenomenally popular in Ireland. I can't take this as simply a
matter of historical interest. To me the question is, why don't we read
Thomas Moore (or pretty much any poet) today? And what can we do about
it?
* * * * * * * *
Bhí
mé ag féachaint arís ar an scannán The Jane Austen Book Club aréir.
Chonaic mé cheana féin é, roinnt blianta ó shoin. Níl gean mór agam ar
úrscealta Jane Austen, ach is íontach an rud é scannáin a fheiscint a
bhfuil comh daríre sin faoin léitheoireacht agus an tábhacht agus an
sult a bfhuil ag baint leis.
I watched The Jane Austen Book Club
last night. I saw it before, a few years ago. I'm not mad about Jane
Austen's novels, but it's wonderful to see a film that takes reading,
and the pleasures and importance of reading, so seriously.
* * * * * * * *
I was travelling within Ireland at the weekend. As always, when I
travel through Ireland, I'm struck by the fact that virtually every
playing field you pass outside Dublin has Gaelic sports goalposts (used
by both hurling and Gaelic football) instead of soccer or rugby
goalposts. Even though I don't actually like Gaelic games much, purely
as sports, this gives me great pleasure-- the same pleasure I take in
going to America and seeing how they care far more about baseball, basketball and American football than soccer, cricket, rugby, etc.
And here's something else that strikes me. The Gaelic Athletic
Association, which organizes these sports, was only founded in 1884 and
the games were only really codified around then. The impetus behind this
was a very explicit cultural nationalism-- for a long, long time there
was a ban on members of the GAA playing foreign games. I think this is
important because we are so often told that cultural protectionism is
futile, or that traditions can't be invented and have to come into being
of their own accord. Obviously not true when you see the legacy of the
GAA in Ireland.
* * * * * *
I am reading a biography of Archbishop John Charles McQuaid
(Archbishop of Dublin 1940-1972) by John Cooney. The book is very
hostile to McQuaid, but the facts are interesting. McQuaid established
what is now the Irish Film Institute, as a Catholic film club. He
strongly supported the abolition of the law which required female
teachers to give up their jobs when they got married. And (according to
Cooney) he persuaded the President of UCD to move UCD from the city
centre to Belfield, south of the city. So McQuaid has had an influence on my life every day for the last seventeen years or so.
I don't agree with everything he did. He organized a (not very
successful) boycott of a soccer match between Ireland and Yugoslavia in
1952, held in Dublin, as a protest against Yugoslavia's imprisonment of a
Catholic bishop. Personally I think politics should be kept out of
sport. Always. I think the USA was wrong to boycott the Moscow Olympics
in 1980. The American football players who dishonoured the flag and
anthem to protest police brutality were wrong. The boycott of South
African teams during apartheid was wrong. Sport should be kept free of
politics.
* * * * * * *
What's a capitalist's favourite dessert? PROFIT-eroles!
* * * * * * *
Language is so wonderful. I was reading a description of the 1980 Wes
Carpenter film, The Fog, which I've loved since I was a kid. The film
was described as "a gem". That's the perfect word: "The Fog" has never
really attained the status of a classic, nor does it quite deserve it.
And "minor classic" doesn't really work, because a classic is a classic
is a classic. But it IS a gem. Why should that word fit so perfectly? I
don't know, but it does, partly because of the way the word is used in
practice. Partly, I think, because a gem is something small and not
necessarily valuable, but still noted for its allure.
I don't often buy magazine. I used to buy Empire and Total Film magazine, in my twenties and early thirties. I would also buy DVD Monthly which was my favourite of the lot (mostly because a retrospective review is more interesting than a first-take review). I enjoyed reading them, and I'm actually feeling nostalgic about them as I write this. But I eventually stopped because I got tired of their excessive focus on action and superhero films-- not to mention their pandering to celebrity culture.
I had a subscription to First Things magazine for several years. It was always a pleasant occasion when it arrived-- I would sit down to read it with a muffin and a cup of coffee. I had to cancel it for reasons of economy, though.
Sometimes I buy Ireland's Own, which more or reflects my own ideal of Irishness, and which has published some of my own articles. (Indeed, I have another in the pipeline.)
But generally, I don't buy magazines.
However, I do like to read magazines. A magazine has something that a book (generally) lacks: a community of voices, and a taste of the particular historical moment that it appeared. I enjoy reading back issues of periodicals in the library. Currently I am reading through the archive of Comhar, an Irish language periodical which has been published since at least the forties. And recently, I found a few copies of The Oldie on the book exchange outside the library. Which is, after all that preamble, the subject of this blog post.
In the July 2018 issue, I came across a very moving item in its editorial pages. I hope they won't mind me transcribing it, and indeed, it would seem contrary to its spirit if they did. It describes how the novelist Teresa Waugh met a ninety-eight-year-old woman named Patricia O'Brien in a nursing home, and learned that she had been a poet all her life, but only in her late nineties had she managed to finish poems:
Several times, she politely asked Teresa to find a publisher for her work-- and for one poem, "This Time, Next Time" in particular.
"She dictated the poem for me to take home and print in large letters, which I did. When I last saw her, she was very ill, and, I feared, on her deathbed."
"She clasped my hand and asked to promise to go on trying to get the poem published after her death. I had told her that, although I could promise nothing, I would try. She was thrilled."
The article goes on to describe how O'Brien passed away that April, a day after Teresa Waugh last met her. Waugh says of the lady: "She had an intense love of poetry and could recite reams of it by heart to her dying day."
Here is the poem O'Brien most wanted to have published. It's no a masterpiece by any means, but it is quite haunting, and reminiscent of Christina Rossetti (which endears it to me).
This Time, Next Time...
All in a ring, they sang together
This time, next time, sometime, never.
Laughing girls who dropped together
This time, next time, sometime, never.
This time, next time, sometime, never,
Sang the lovebird from the tree,
"Surely my love will come to me
This time, next time, perhaps never",
Sang the lovebird from the tree.
Golden days in gilded weather.
"My love, my love has come to me
And we shall dance and sing together,
Constant and true in all our weather,
This time, glad time", joyfully
Sang the lovebird from the tree.
This time, next time, sometime, never
My love, my love has gone from me,
Dropped through a hole in the world has he
Out of time to eternity,
And never again to come to me,
And never again to come to me.
