The Village Hall

by Gabriel Fitzmaurice

The old Hall with its shaky stage
Was good enough for us —
Bill Horan and Eileen Manaher
Wholly marvellous

As they called up here before us
A world of their own,
The magic I have grown to love,
The farce I loved, outgrown.

The queue outside the musty Hall,
The key turned in the lock,
The stampede to the benches,
The fizz, the sweets, clove rock;

And then the silence as the play
Took us in its spell,
Local folk turned Gods and Queens
In this miracle.

The Hall is old, not worth repair,
They’ll knock it, buld anew;
My boy and girl will taste in there
The magic that I knew;

They’ll find the things a village finds
In the local Hall —
That as Eileen becomes a Queen
We’re not ourselves at all