Deserter's Lamentation, The

DESCRIPTION: Thinking about the past won't help so "let us be merry before we go" "Now hope all ending, And death befriending, His last ending, my cares are done ... My griefs are over -- my glass runs low"
AUTHOR: John Philpot Curran (1750-1817)
EARLIEST DATE: 1965 (OLochlainn-MoreIrishStreetBallads)
KEYWORDS: desertion death drink nonballad
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (2 citations):
OLochlainn-MoreIrishStreetBallads 87A, "The Deserter's Meditation" (1 text, 1 tune)
OBoyle-TheIrishSongTradition, p. 27, "The Deserter's Meditation" (1 fragment)
ST OLcM087A (Full)
NOTES [121 words]: John Philpot Curran was famous mostly as a defender of the rebel leaders of 1798, including Napper Tandy and Wolfe Tone (though he did not like it at all when his daughter took up with Robert Emmet). He also served in parliament.
His poetry is now mostly obscure. Except for this. Granger's Index to Poetry lists four citations, under three different names ("The Deserter's Lamentation," "The Deserter," "Let Us Be Merry Before We Go"), and I observe that O Lochlainn has it under a fourth title. Clearly this particular poem was well-traveled.
Hylands-Mammoth-Hibernian-Songster does print one other Curran piece, "Dear Erin, How Sweetly," which it considers so important that it even includes the music (pp. 121-122). - RBW
Last updated in version 6.1
File: OLcM087A

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