How M’ginnis Went Missing
How M’ginnis Went Missing - meaning Summary
Ironic Drowning in Dream
This poem narrates the disappearance and likely drowning of M’Ginnis, a man from Tallangatta who falls asleep by the flooded Murray River with a bottle in hand. The town assumes drunken slumber; the poem gently traces the ironic contrast between his dream of an Irish wake and the real, deadly rush of logs and water that carries him away. It mixes dark humor and pastoral detail to register loss and fatal carelessness.
Read Complete AnalysesLet us cease our idle chatter, Let the tears bedew our cheek, For a man from Tallangatta Has been missing for a week. Where the roaring flooded Murray Covered all the lower land, There he started in a hurry, With a bottle in his hand. And his fate is hid for ever, But the public seem to think That he slumbered by the river, ‘Neath the influence of drink. And they scarcely seem to wonder That the river, wide and deep, Never woke him with its thunder, Never stirred him in his sleep. As the crashing logs came sweeping, And their tumult filled the air, Then M’Ginnis murmured, sleeping, ”Tis a wake in ould Kildare.’ So the river rose and found him Sleeping softly by the stream, And the cruel waters drowned him Ere he wakened from his dream. And the blossom-tufted wattle, Blooming brightly on the lea, Saw M’Ginnis and the bottle Going drifting out to sea.
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