Mullaney verse: 'Sixty Years' (c.1916) + 'Seventy Years' (c.1926) — bachelor-cousin meditations on mortality
Family papers — Michael R. Mullaney verse manuscripts · private family-papers manuscript (later digitized into docx form by descendant) · c1916
date confidence: estimated
Summary
Two short hand-composed devotional/mortality verses by **Michael R. Mullaney** (the Walkerville bachelor-cousin of Agnes Kelly Murphy, b. ~1856 Michigan, d. 19 May 1929 Walkerville). ## SIXTY YEARS (composed c.1916, age 60) > A half a hundred years and ten, > Have o'er me flown in lands of men: > And still I know not how or when, > Death seeks for me from out his den. > > The screen I see is thick and black. > Pierced by dim light through a slender crack, > But Power will ever leave a track, > When human forms to earth goes back. > > I hope, and must, in faith to cling, > Most humbly thank our glorious King. > For all we have and everything, > May all mankind God's praises sing. > > — Michael Mullaney ## SEVENTY YEARS (added 10 years later, c.1926, age 70) > When Sixty Years looked down the [height], > No decade more with me held sway: > But end of chain flew in last night, > "Plus three score years to Ten," They say. > > I hope old Time will swing more time, > And not forget to sharp his scythe: > And down a weed he often view. > As o'er Life field he steal and glide. > > — Michael R. Mullaney Then a marginal note: *"Since I first wrote this, I altered one of the original lines. M.R.M. Composed item [sp?] is me years ago. A.R.M"* ## STYLE + CONTEXT Self-taught verse, irregular meter, deeply Catholic (the "our glorious King" reference to God). Reads as the literary product of a 19th-century Irish-emigrant bachelor with a year-or-two of formal schooling (matches the 1908 Patrick J. Murphy asylum-form's similar literacy profile for the same generation of Beara-and-Michigan-cohort emigrants). The "Plus three score years to Ten" allusion is to the King James Bible's Psalm 90:10 ("the days of our years are threescore years and ten"). ## SIGNIFICANCE Unusual artifact for the archive — most of the family material is letters, obits, civil records. These two poems are the **only known specimen of original creative writing by a family member of Mike's generation** that survives in manuscript form. Worth preserving and quoting at length in the book's "voices of the Butte cousins" passages. The age 60 and age 70 markers definitively establish Mike's birth year as **c. 1856** (corroborates the 1929 obit's "age 73" at death = b. 1856).
People
- Michael R. Mullaney (b. ~1856 Michigan; d. 19 May 1929 Walkerville; Chatham cousin; letter-writer)(as printed: Michael Mullaney / Michael R. Mullaney / M.R.M.)role: author · family confidence: 95 certain
age: 60 and 70 · born: ~1856
Places
- Walkerville, Montana (primary)
- Butte, Montana (primary)
Themes
Story threads
Tags
- source_primary_family
- direct_family
- book_chapter_material
Related sources
- 1929-05-20 — The Montana Standard, p.7 — OLD-TIME BUTTE RESIDENT PASSES — Michael Mullaney Dies at Walkerville; Funeral Not Arranged
- 1925-03-31 — Family letters — Michael R. Mullaney to Agnes Kelly Murphy — Mullaney to Agnes Kelly Murphy, 31 Mar 1925 — Walkerville; reports tragic death of nephew Jimmie; mentions Aunt Agnes Brennan, Nellie Dennison, Maggie Devitt of Crofton BC
- c1925-1929-01-25 — Family letters — Michael R. Mullaney to Agnes Kelly Murphy — Mullaney to Agnes Kelly Murphy, Jan 25-27 (c.1925-29) — Walkerville; thanks for buffalo robe and magnifying glass; mentions Melda, Maggie, Jen, Winifred
Open questions
- The marginal "A.R.M" signature beside the M.R.M markers — a typo, or a different signatory (e.g., Mike's nephew or Agnes Rose Mullaney = an unidentified relative)?
- Does the original handwritten manuscript still exist in family papers? If so, paleographic comparison with the 1925 letter manuscripts would confirm authorship.