The Ballad of Father Gilligan

The tired priest. W. B. Yeats wrote this ballad. Old Father Peter Gilligan is worn out: half his people are sick or dead. One evening a poor man sends for him again; the man is dying. The priest groans that he gets no rest, then at once asks God to forgive him: 'My body spake, not I!' He means: it was my tired body complaining, not my heart.

Asleep in the chair. He kneels by his chair to pray and falls asleep. The 'moth-hour' is dusk, when moths come out. The poem says the moth-hour went and came again: a full day has passed. These lines show the passage of time.

Too late? He wakes in horror: the man must have died without him. He rides hard to the house, 'with little care' for himself or the rough road. The wife opens the door and says he came already, and the man died as merry as a bird. Before he understands, the priest feels grief and self-blame.

God's pity. Father Gilligan kneels in wonder and thanks God. God, who cares for the planets, took pity on 'the least of things', a tired old priest asleep in a chair, and sent an angel in his place. (The book prints 'angles': a misprint for angels.)

A word from the poem. 'Mavrone' is an Irish cry meaning 'my grief!'