T. A. Daly
Reading edition
Thomas Augustine Daly was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 28, 1871. He attended Villanova College and Fordham University (1889), leaving there at the end of his sophomore year to become a newspaper man. Since 1891 he has been on the staff of various Philadelphia journals, writing reviews, editorials, travel-notes and, most of all, running the columns in which his much-quoted verse originally appeared.
Canzoni (1906) and Carmina (1909) contain the best known of Daly’s varied dialect verse. Although he has written in 134half a dozen different idioms including “straight” English (vide Songs of Wedlock, 1916), his half-humorous, half-pathetic interpretations of the Irish and Italian immigrants are his forte.
Seldom descending to caricature, Daly exhibits the features and foibles of his characters without exploiting them; even the lightest passages in McAroni Ballads (1919) are done with delicacy and a not too sentimental appreciation.
THE SONG OF THE THRUSH
Ah! the May was grand this mornin’!
Shure, how could I feel forlorn in
Such a land, when tree and flower tossed their kisses to the breeze?
Could an Irish heart be quiet
While the Spring was runnin’ riot,
An’ the birds of free America were singin’ in the trees?
In the songs that they were singin’
No familiar note was ringin’,
But I strove to imitate them an’ I whistled like a lad.
Oh, my heart was warm to love them
For the very newness of them—
For the ould songs that they helped me to forget—an’ I was glad.
So I mocked the feathered choir
To my hungry heart’s desire,
An’ I gloried in the comradeship that made their joy my own.
Till a new note sounded, stillin’
All the rest. A thrush was trillin’!
135Ah! the thrush I left behind me in the fields about Athlone!
Where, upon the whitethorn swayin’,
He was minstrel of the Mayin’,
In my days of love an’ laughter that the years have laid at rest;
Here again his notes were ringin’!
But I’d lost the heart for singin’—
Ah! the song I could not answer was the one I knew the best.
MIA CARLOTTA
Giuseppe, da barber, ees greata for “mash,”
He gotta da bigga, da blacka mustache,
Good clo’es an’ good styla an’ playnta good cash.
W’enevra Giuseppe ees walk on da street,
Da peopla dey talka, “how nobby! how neat!
How softa da handa, how smalla da feet.”
He raisa hees hat an’ he shaka hees curls,
An’ smila weeth teetha so shiny like pearls;
O! many da heart of da seelly young girls
He gotta.
Yes, playnta he gotta—
But notta
Carlotta!
136Giuseppe, da barber, he maka da eye,
An’ lika de steam engine puffa an’ sigh,
For catcha Carlotta w’en she ees go by.
Carlotta she walka weeth nose in da air,
An’ look through Giuseppe weeth far-away stare,
As eef she no see dere ees som’body dere.
Giuseppe, da barber, he gotta da cash,
He gotta da clo’es an’ da bigga mustache,
He gotta da seelly young girls for da “mash,”
But notta—
You bat my life, notta—
Carlotta.
I gotta!
BETWEEN TWO LOVES
I gotta lov’ for Angela,
I lov’ Carlotta, too.
I no can marry both o’ dem,
So w’at I gona do?
O! Angela ees pretta girl,
She gotta hair so black, so curl,
An’ teeth so white as anytheeng.
An’ O! she gotta voice to seeng,
Dat mak’ your hearta feel eet must
Jump up an’ dance or eet weell bust.
137An’ alla time she seeng, her eyes
Dey smila like Italia’s skies,
An’ makin’ flirtin’ looks at you—
But dat ees all w’at she can do.
Carlotta ees no gotta song,
But she ees twice so big an’ strong
As Angela, an’ she no look
So beautiful—but she can cook.
You oughta see her carry wood!
I tal you w’at, eet do you good.
When she ees be som’body’s wife
She worka hard, you bat my life!
She never gattin’ tired, too—
But dat ees all w’at she can do.
O! my! I weesh dat Angela
Was strong for carry wood,
Or else Carlotta gotta song
An’ looka pretta good.
I gotta lov’ for Angela,
I lov’ Carlotta, too.
I no can marry both o’ dem,
So w’at I gona do?