Brendan Behan

The laughing boy

't was on an* August morning, all in the morning hours
I went to take the warming air all in the month of flowers
And there I saw a maiden and heard her mournful cry:
Oh, what will mend my broken heart? I've lost my laughing boy!

So strong, so wild, so brave he was, I'll mourn his loss too sore
when thinking that we'll hear the laugh or springing step no more
Ah, curse the time, and sad the loss my heart to crucify,
that an Irish son with a rebel gun shot down my laughing boy!

Oh, had he died by Pearse's side or in the G.P.O.**
killed by an English bullet from the rifle of the foe,
or forcibly fed while Ashe lay dead in the dungeons of Mountjoy,
I'd have cried with pride at the way he died, my own dear laughing boy.

My pristine love, can ageless love do more than tell to you:
Go raibh míle maith agat*** for all you tried to do
For all you did and would have done my enemies to destroy
I'll prize your name and guard your fame, my own dear laughing boy!


*Man beachte, daß B.B. hier kein genaues Datum gesetzt hat - keine Ahnung, wer daraus den "18. November" gemacht hat.
**Nein, kein finsterer Folterkeller der G.P.U., sondern das Hauptpostamt [general post office] von Dublin, wo 1916 der stümperhafte "Osteraufstand" begann.
***Irisch für "Dankeschön".

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