Allie Morgan – Writer & Cancer Survivor

A ballad I wrote last year inspired by Patrick Kavanagh’s ‘Raglan Road’, hope you enjoy!

There was a girl that I once knew,

I never could recall,

If she held my hand in the way

That I clasped hers so small.

 

I walk the streets we used to roam,

I never shed a tear,

For although she’s gone and lost to the world,

I feel her presence near.

 

It was on this street I saw her first,

A marvel to my eyes;

The saddest face I had e’er conceived,

Beheld the sweet sunrise.

 

She told me stories of her youth,

Of running ‘cross the sand,

Of escapes from murderous pirates

And the grasp of her brother’s hand.

 

But of the present, she never did speak,

In its uncertain way,

She held no control over what was to be,

And so in it, she could not stay.

 

The spirits of the past called to her and

She allowed herself to glide

Back to the home she knew so well,

And there she’d stay and hide.

 

I could not stop her leaving me,

She was too eager to go,

And now only a ghost remains

Of the girl I used to know.

 

When I walk this street with its dim lights,

I crave her tender kiss

And the constant furrow in her brow

That with a smile, she’d dismiss.

 

There was a girl that I once knew,

But she is gone from here,

I pray wherever she may be,

Another holds her dear.

©Alice Morgan 2012