Derek Mahon - Ecclesiastes lyrics

God, you could grow to love it, God-fearing, God- chosen purist little puritan that, for all your wiles and smiles, you are (the dank churches, the empty streets, the shipyard silence, the tied-up swings) and shelter your cold heart from the heat of the world, from woman-inquisition, from the bright eyes of children. Yes you could wear black, drink water, nourish a fierce zeal with locusts and wild honey, and not feel called upon to understand and forgive but only to speak with a bleak afflatus, and love the January rains when they darken the dark doors and sink hard into the Antrim hills, the bog-meadows, the heaped graves of your fathers. Bury that red bandana and stick, that banjo, this is your country, close one eye and be king. Your people await you, their heavy washing flaps for you in the housing estates a credulous people. God, you could do it, God help you, stand on a corner stiff with rhetoric, promising nothing under the sun.