John Millington Synge (1871-1909). A Question. Andrew Macphail, comp. 1916. The Book of Sorrow

Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916.

XV. Protest
A Question

By John Millington Synge (1871–1909)


I ASK’D if I got sick and died, would you
With my black funeral go walking too,
If you’d stand close to hear them talk or pray
While I’m let down in that steep bank of clay.

And, No, you said, for if you saw a crew	5
Of living idiots pressing round that new
Oak coffin—they alive, I dead beneath
That board—you’d rave and rend them with your teeth.