ANTIETAM’S BLOODY LANE

The old woman from County Cork keens
For her sons who fell and broke
In a foreign place called Bloody Lane,
Boy-os who died in blood mud in Maryland
And will not be waked in their mother’s parlor
Nor have the priest say the Sanctus Sanctus
Sanctus for their wedding Masses.
Some of the women will allow themselves anyway
To believe the Irish boys still live, have gone west
To gold and glory. Soon enough, over steeped tea
They promise the lads will send for them.
Soon enough, they will all be together
In Chicago, in Philadelphia, those odd
Sounding pieces of heaven.

Bloody Lane, men of too much mercy named it.
Bloody it is, and a wretched fine place for a brawl.
Picked at and primped as you never were
In life for your Wake, you get your ride
To a grave in the forgetting ground, the dry
Cold ground the Never Ending Ladies will keep
To work off days of Purgatory.
Better to fight with the other lads for a cause
You’d an inkling of and nothing more.
Better to go, as the Union Sergeant said,
Where you’ll all be safe from Chicago’s bitter cold
And a bed as empty as the English heart.

Bloody it is, the lane in Antietam,
And dark enough you could find
Your soul if you’re looking to.
The sons of the sons of your uncles’ sons
Will play the pipes of an evening for Bloody Lane
And for Gettysburg and for the end of you, you lads
Of County Cork and Kerry and old Mayo.