REH Word of the Week: spalpeens
Posted by Barbara Barrett on July 12th, 2010
noun
1. an itinerant seasonal labourer; a rascal or layabout
[Origin: Irish Gaelic spailpin itinerant labourer]
HOWARD’S USAGE:
There’s an isle far away on the breast of the sea,
A gem that is set in the stars of the bay,
And it lives in the hearts of the wanderers who stray,
(And begob it’s too good for such spalpeens as ye!)
Oh the sorrow on them that have sailed from its swards!
On the thoughts that they think and the sighs that they sigh!
Is it liquor alone that is dimming their eye?
(With the graft that they get from misvotin’ the wards.)
[from Untitled (“There’s an isle far away on the breast of the sea“); for the complete poem see The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, p. 624]
Posted in REH Poetry, Word of the Week |
