Saturday, October 6, 2012

What did Father Gilligan find on waking up?

Father Gilligan finds that he has slept through the night
and failed in his duty to one of his flock that had sent for him the night before. 
Here's paragraphs six and seven from "The Ballad of Father Gilligan," by
Yeats:


Upon the time of sparrow-chirp
When the
moths came once more.
The old priest Peter Gilligan
Stood upright on
the floor.

‘Mavrone, mavrone! the man has died
While I slept
on the chair’;
He roused his horse out of its sleep,
And rode with
little care.


The moths in Ireland come again in the
morning, and the sparrows chirp.  Father Gilligan wakes up, startled that he has slept
through the night, and jumps up.  He yells that he has missed the man's death, prepares
his horse, and rides as fast as he can to the home of the man that sent for him the
previous night, before he fell asleep while praying. 


Of
course, the Father arrives at the house, and discovers that God, in his mercy, has sent
an angel in his place to administer the Last Rites to the dying
man. 

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