The Wake Of 'Jack Will Bill' Poem by Francis Duggan

It's been more than fifty years as i remember
And many Autumn leaves gone with the flooded rill
Since i first saw the face of a dead person
The silent remains of old 'Jack Will Bill'.

I recall that evening i walked through the fields of Lisnaboy upper
With my aunty Mary and my uncle Dan
To Jack Will Bill's son's farmhouse where the wake was
For to pay our last respects to the old man.

His friends and neighbours around his corpse assembled
All sad faced they gazed on the face of death
In Lisnaboy he farmed his fields and raised his children
And in Lisnaboy he drew his final breath.

Eyes closed in death he lay upon his death bed
A ghostly figure he looked pale and gray
His hands joined on his chest as if in prayer
And all signs of life from him had gone away.

Between his stiff bent fingers was a black rosary bead
And of all of life's cares and sufferings he was free
And between the spells of silence in the wake room
They said a decade of the rosary.

Dressed for his coffin in a dark brown habit
By Cullen church his final resting place
We sat around the waking room in silence
Gazing on his pale and lifeless wrinkled face.

A tearful old lady wearing a black shawl
Whispered to another 'he now is with the angels up above'
He was a saint a fly he would not harm
And his soul was full of kindness, warmth and love.

As we walked home through the moonlit fields in the early morning
The freshening winds blew with a rainy chill
And my aunty said 'the countless stars were shining'
For to light the way to God for Jack Will Bill.