Let us Be Merry Before We Go

( The Deserter)

Let Us Be Merry Before We Go

(JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN — 1750-1817)

If sadly thinking, with spirits sinking, Could, more than drinking, my cares compose, A cure for sorrow from sighs I'd borrow, And hope to-morrow would end my woes.

But as in wailing there's nought availing, And Death unfailing will strike the blow, Then for that reason, and for a season, Let us be merry before we go !

To joy a stranger, a wayworn ranger, In ev'ry danger my course I've run ; Now hope all ending, and death befriending, His last aid lending, my cares are done.

No more a rover, or hapless lover, My griefs are over my glass runs low ; Then for that reason, and for a season, Let us be merry before we go !

Also known as The Deserter’s Meditation By John Philpot Curran (1750–1817)

Among the many attractions of the Munster Circuit, he always considered, as one of the greatest, the frequent opportunities it, gave him of visiting and spending some happy hours with two of his oldest and dearest friends (once his college fellow-students), the Rev. Thomas Crawford, of Lismore, and the Rev. Richard Cary, of Clonmel; both of them persons unknown to fame, but both so estimable, as men, and scholars, and companions, that his taste and affections were perpetually recalling him to the charms of their society.

Upon one of these journeys, and about this period, as Mr. Curran was travelling upon an unfrequented road, he perceived a man in a soldier's dress, sitting by the roadside, and apparently much exhausted by fatigue and agitation. He invited him to take a seat in his chaise, and soon discovered that he was a deserter. Having stopped at a small inn for refreshment, Mr. Curran observed to the soldier, that he had committed an offence of which the penalty was death, and that his chance of escaping it was but small : " Tell me then," continued he, " whether you feel disposed to pass th'e little remnant of life that is left you in penitence and fasting, or whether you would prefer to drown your sorrow in a merry glass?" The following is the deserter's answer, which Mr Curran, in composing it, adapted to a plaintive Irish air.