ROBERT QUIGGINS' LINE OF HAULAGE
It is Robert Quiggin's line of haulage,
and he walks, mud-gripped, its splintery tracks
to the sawmill at the creek.
He is not, this day, his purposeful self.
In Terra Nova's sun-confident hall
a small litho, never, by Robert Quiggin, much remarked,
slipped its nail this morning;
it fled to pieces upon straightgrained planks
once turned and sized
in Robert Quiggin's mill.
A town's providence rides this mill,
and a man's.
Robert Quiggin sings low to himself as he goes:
| Hemmayd gys y keyll, |
We'll away to the wood, |
| Dooyrt Juan y Thalloo |
Says Jack of the Land. |
| Hemmayd gys y keyll, |
We'll away to the wood, |
| Dooyrt ooilley unnane. |
Says every one. |
| Cre nee mayd ayns shen? |
What shall we do there? |
| Dooyrt ooilley unnane. |
Says every one. |
| Helg mayd yn dreain.. |
We will hunt the wren... |
The song comes from a deep lead of time.
It seems this is known to me
but not to Robert Quiggin –
he had the song from his father,
though not its meaning.
His father would speak, in such rare times,
of the old North Quay,
and the folk of the Manx country
in with their spread of eggs and greens
and a round of gossip in the old tongue.
The litho on the swamp gum floor
sights up Market Hill from Clarendon on the Quay,
and this, too, is the provenance
of Robert Quiggin's father,
for Robert himself, infant and sea-bound,
took none of old Douglas away.
Cre'n aght yiow mayd sheese eh?
|
How shall we get him down? |
| Lesh maidjyn as claghyn |
With sticks and stones. |
| T'eh marroo, t'eh marroo. |
He is dead, he is dead. |
| Cre'n aght yiow mayd thie eh? |
How shall we get him home? |
| Nee mayd cairt failley... |
We will hire a cart... |
Down the tramhaul Robert Quiggin goes,
down to Quiggin and Moore's by the creek,
the largest mill in the land.
The ‘Dart' rubs at the wharf, and the ‘Wellington',
loading for New Zealand.
Robert Quiggin stands by Studdert's store
gazing on commerce with a pride
that is his right.
Well-tempered, progressive,
he matters -
why, he has pondered parliament.
He is not much given to the past.
But ever Manxmen hold
that a knife, bladed hard in the mastpole,
draws a fair, following wind,
and never a sailing of the Quiggin fleet
sets its spread of canvas without.
And well they know, the folk of old Douglas,
that a fractured frame on the floor
that once was whole upon a wall
means a sure and a soon dying.
| T'eh eeit, t'eh eeit. |
He is eat, he is eat. |
| Sooillyn son ny doail, |
The eyes for the blind, |
| I lurgyn son ny croobee, |
The legs for the lame |
| Scrobban son ny moght, |
The pluck for the poor |
| Crauyn son ny moddee... |
The bones for the dogs... |
It is not for Robert Quiggin the picture falls,
nor for those who are here.
But he looks to the north, to the great sea-miles
where they lie strewn,
those who loved and gathered close upon the Quay,
to the lumber towns of Canada,
to the mines, the dories,
to the many strange and fretful homes,
and he here,
the farthest flung.
He probes the sea-miles, knows it futile,
knows his scission vast, opaque, final.
And he cannot know
for whom the picture falls.
| Yn dreain, yn dreain, |
The wren, the wren, |
| Ree eeanllee ooilley, |
the king of all birds, |
| Ta shin er tayrtyn, |
We have caught, |
| Laa'l Steoaln, sy connee... |
Stephen's Feastday, in the furze... |
A careless candle; the big house burns;
a carpet of tar imprisons the ash.
The fountain moves to the park by the river;
few ponder its provenance.
The waterwheel that sparked engines
to light the dead house – a marvel –
languishes through the years
and is gone.
Robert Quiggin, great man of this town,
dissolves in the acid of time.
©
Pete Hay |
