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WHAT THE SHUILER SAID AS SHE LAY BY THE FIRE IN THE FARMER'S HOUSE

I'm glad to lie on a sack of leaves
By a wasted fire and take my ease.

For the wind would strip me bare as a tree—
The wind would blow old age upon me.

And I'm dazed with the wind, the rain, and the
cold.

If I had only the good red gold

To buy me the comfort of a roof,

And under the thatch the brown of the smoke!

I'd lie up in my painted room

Until my hired girl would come;

And when the sun had warmed my walls

I'd rise up in my silks and shawls,

And break my fast before the fire.
And I'd watch them that had to sweat
And shiver for shelter and what they ate.
The farmer digging in the fields;
The beggars going from gate to gate;
The horses striving with their loads,
And all the sights upon the roads.

I'd live my lone without clan or care,
And none about me to crave a share.
The young have mocking, impudent ways,
And I'd never let them a-nigh my place.
And a child has often a pitiful face.

What the Shuiler Said

I'd give the rambling fiddler rest,
And for me he would play his best.

And he'd have something to tell of me
From the Moat of Granard down to the sea!
And, though I'd keep distant, I'd let in
Old women who would card and spin
And clash with me, and I'd hear it said,
"Mór who used to carry her head
As if she was a lady bred—

Has little enough in her house, they say-
And such-a-one's child I saw on the way
Scaring crows from a crop, and glad to get,
In a warmer house, the bit to eat.

O! none are safe, and none secure,

And it's well for some whose bit is sure!"

II

I'd never grudge them the weight of their lands

If I had only the good red gold

To huggle between my breast and hands!

A CONNACHTMAN

It's my fear that my wake won't be quiet,
Nor my wake-house a silent place:
For who would keep back the hundreds
Who would touch my breast and my face?

For the good men were always my friends,
From Galway back into Clare.

In strength, in sport, and in spending,
I was foremost at the fair.

In music, in song, and in friendship,
In contests by night and by day,
By all who knew it was given to me
That I bore the branch away.

Now let Manus Joyce, my friend
(If he be at all in the place),
Make smooth the boards of the coffin
They will put above my face.

The old men will have their stories
Of all the deeds in my days,

And the young men will stand by the coffin
And be sure and clear in my praise.

A Connachtman

But the girls will stay near the door,
And they'll have but little to say:
They'll bend their heads, the young girls,
And for a while they will pray.

And, going home in the dawning,
They'll be quiet with the boys:
The girls will walk together,

And seldom they'll lift the voice.

And then, between daybreak and dark,

And between the hill and the sea,

13

Three Women, come down from the Mountain, Will raise the Keen over me.

But 'tis my grief that I will not hear

When the cuckoo cries in Glenart,

That the wind that lifts when the sails are loosed Will never lift my heart.

AN OLD WOMAN OF THE ROADS

O, To have a little house!

To own the hearth and stool and all!
The heaped up sods upon the fire,
The pile of turf against the wall!

To have a clock with weights and chains
And pendulum swinging up and down!
A dresser filled with shining delph,
Speckled and white and blue and brown!

I could be busy all the day

Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor,
And fixing on their shelf again

My white and blue and speckled store!

I could be quiet there at night
Beside the fire and by myself,
Sure of a bed and loth to leave

The ticking clock and the shining delph!

Och! but I'm weary of mist and dark,

And roads where there's never a house nor bush, And tired I am of bog and road,

And the crying wind and the lonesome hush!

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