SONG: THE SCHOLAR...Thom Moore (tune is from an Irish Reel of the same name)

The train from Sligo moves too slow
as it brings her from the school below;
she wants to be here faster than
the train from Sligo ever can,
and wonders where the passing time goes,
creeping by her window, my, oh, my!
it's taking longer than it ever did before.
Eyes wide as silver dollars,
can't think why but she's the scholar;
hold on, it seems too long
to learn what right from what is wrong.
School-books and fancy collars,
might not care to be a scholar,
"Hold on," her daddy tells her;
"learn to sing your song."

The train to Sligo moves too fast
when holidays are gone at last,
and winter nights are long again:
"Please, promise me, you'll write me then?
It's two long weeks till I come home—
I can't help feeling all alone.
If someone doesn't write me soon,
I'll simply blow away."
Eyes wide as silver dollars,
can't think why but she's the scholar;
hold on, it seems too long
to learn what right from what is wrong.
School-books and fancy collars,
might not care to be a scholar,
"Hold on," her daddy tells her;
"learn to sing your song."

Thom Moore wrote this one because he felt guilty about sending his young daughter off to a boarding school where things were not going well for her.

Spaw