Penni Mclaren Walker Travelling Man
Travelling man, do you live alone? Do you look at the stars do you wonder of home?
Travelling man, are you thinking of me, when we walked on the beaches, down by the sea?
His hair was the black of a cormorant’s wing His eyes were as blue as the songbird that sings
With echoes of song that would dance on the breeze With a voice that could charm the thrush from the trees.
Winters were bitter, the wind blew so cold but he still spent his days walking the road
By night he would rest and sing to the moon the air would stop still just to hear his sweet tune
Spring brought the sun and he woke with the day Work came from farmers he met on his way
He courted the girls till their Fathers came home Leaving them sighing he left with the dawn
He worked with the fishermen, by the shoreline he sat on the quay drinking brandy and wine
From Lough Eske he went to the wild of Corveen He would dance in the firelight down by the sea
He met a young woman who fell for his charms He held her so close she was locked in his arms
They danced in the waves and her love overflowed but Autumn was beckoning back to the road
Her eyes shone with tears as she waved him farewell, her heart it was lost in the travellers spell
She took up her shawl and she locked up the door and she vowed she would ne’ er see the traveller no more
But her heart would not mend so she roamed the byways, she prayed she would find him by ‘end of the day
At last in the twilight she heard a voice sing, a man with the hair black as cormorants wing.
He gazed in her eyes t’was the sound of her sigh the love of this woman he could not deny
And now they will wander by valleys and hill, on the roadways of Erin, they are travellers still
