The Midnight Court

• Part 1
• The poet is just minding his business, enjoying nature:
• Beside the water I often walk / Through fields where the dew is thick as chalk; / With the woods and the mountains just in sight / I hang around for the dawn to light. / Loch Graney lifts my soul with joy-- / Such land! Such country! What a sky!
• My boy doesn't know what's about to hit him. A 20 foot tall, ghastly woman approaches him and presents him with a warrant to appear in court:
• "Get up!" she snarled, "You lazy lout; / A nice, bloody thing: you're stretched in state / While the Court's convened and thousands wait. / And this is no court where the law is bent / Like the courts of graft that you frequent, / But one that is run by the pure of heart / Where Virtue, Justice, Right take part.
• We learn why this woman is so angry with the poet:
• The Court considered the country's crisis, / And what do you think its main advise is-- / That unless there is a spurt in procreation / We can bid goodbye to the Irish nation; / It's growing smaller year by year-- / And don't pretend that's not your affair. / Between death and war and ruin and pillage / The land is like a deserted village; / Our best are banished, but you, you slob, / Have you ever hammered a single job? / What use are you to us, you cissy? / We have thousands of women who'd keep you busy,
• A maid takes the witness stand:
• There was the Queen, looking kind and mild / As she sat on the bench and sweetly smiled; / Hundreds of grim, gigantic guards / Were stationed at every couple of yards, / And, packed as tight as a sardine, / was the biggest crowd I have ever seen. / Then appeared a majestic maid, / Slender, silky, soft, and sad, / With skin as tanned as the golden sand / And she took her place on the witness-stand.
• The maid begins her testimony:
• The reason I'm senseless and almost insane, / The thing that has taken and torn me in twain / And has pricked me with pangs and has plagued me with pain-- / Is the number of women, old and young, / For whom no wedding bells have rung, / Who become in time mere hags and crones / Without man or money to warm their bones.
• The maid argues that she is fine AF:
• How is it my beauty no passion awakes? / Don't tell me I haven't whatever it takes! / My mouth is sweet and my teeth are flashing, / My face is never in need of washing, / My eyes are green and my hair's undyed / With waves as big as the ocean's tide. / And that's not a half, not a tenth, of my treasure: / I'm built with an eye to the maximum pleasure.
• She does not have much time:
• You'd think by now I've had some success, / But no -- I'm still at the same address, / And what's worse -- I haven't that youthful vigour / And soon I'll be losing my girlish figure; / The years won't wait; And I'm afraid / I'll die a miserable old maid.
• She threatens to turn to witchcraft. Girl is desperate:
• I've waited like this till I'm sick and sore / So damned if I'm waiting any more, / And if you and your court can't help me now / I'll get me a man -- and I don't care how."
• Part 2
• Part 1 is a banger. This guy is getting destroyed in court. But not so fast. Part 2 is a banger as well. An old josser, out of nowhere and uncalled upon, takes the stand in the man's defense:
• Then up there sprung, as if he'd been stung, / A wizened old josser, and down he flung / His cap in rage, and danced on it, / Till people thought he'd thrown a fit; / And though not officially called to reply / He looked at the girl, and then let fly:
• The witness explains he has heard many tales about this girl, which he was willing to forgive, until his first hand experience of her debauchery:
• But I'd still have allowed her a second chance / And blamed it on youthful extravagence / Were it not that I saw with my own two eyes / On the roadway -- naked to the skies -- / Herself and a lout from the Durrus bogs / Going hammer and tongs like a couple of dogs.
• Nine months after satisfying her queue, she has a child:
• Until she bore a squalling brat / Was just nine months--and barely that.
• Now, the man gives his own story, having himself undone by marriage:
• What more could I want? I thought I knew: / So I married--and landed in a stew.
• He regrets even being born:
• A pity indeed that I wasn't drowned / At birth, or at least before I found / The urge to marry that old crock / And make myself a laughing-stock.
• He learns on his wedding night that his new bride is pregnant:
• I said it was gossip that couldn't be proved-- / Until her corset was removed, / And I saw that they hadn't exaggerated-- / For, contrary to the orthodoxy, / Someone had made me a father by proxy!
• Everyone tries to claim the baby looks like the him, but he knows he's not the father:
• And one was saying as she smiled: / 'The blessings of God be on the child! / Though he's come a wee bit premature / You can see the da in him for sure;
• The witness seeks relief from the court as well:
• Your worship, there's my tale in brief / and it's up to you to prescribe relief, / We need your help and firm decision, / To save us from our wives' derision. / Revise the law of married couples / And grant the single man his scruples;
• Children born out of wedlock are better anyways:
• Besides, there's holy precedent / For births that aren't exactly meant / And nothing living can exceed / The top-class quality of that breed.
• He presents his own illegitimate son as evidence:
• To prove to you all that I'm far from wrong / I brought my specimen along: / He's tough and tawny and full of fight, / Has Your Worship ever seen such a sight?
• His final call to free love:
• And so, Your Worship, keep no more / A law that myriads deplore, / Remove unreal impediments / From tinkers, tramps, and titled gents; / Let the proletariat / Mate with the aristocrat, / Proclaim the news throughout the land / That love is free and no longer banned,