INTERIOR

THE little moths are creeping
Across the cottage pane;

On the floor the chickens gather,
And they make talk and complain.

And she sits by the fire

Who has reared so many men;
Her voice is low like the chickens'
With the things she says again.

66

The sons that come back do be restless, They search for the thing to say;

Then they take thought like the swallows, And the morrow brings them away.

In the old, old days, upon Innish,

The fields were lucky and bright,
And if you lay down you'd be covered
By the grass of one soft night."

She speaks and the chickens gather,
And they make talk and complain,
While the little moths are creeping
Across the cottage pane.

THREE SPINNING SONGS

I

(A young girl sings:)

THE Lannan Shee

Watched the young man Brian

Cross over the stile towards his father's door, And she said, "No help,

For now he'll see

His byre, his bawn and his threshing floor! And oh, the swallows

Forget all wonders

When walls with the nests rise up once more." My strand is knit.

"Out of the dream

Of me, into

The round of his labor he will grow;

To spread his fields.

In the winds of Spring,

And tramp the heavy glebe and sow;

And cut and clamp

And rear the turf

Until the season when they mow."
My wheel runs smooth.

66 And while he toils

In field and bog

He will be anxious in his mind

About the thatch

Of barn and rick

Against the reiving autumn wind,

And how to make

His gap and gate

Secure against the thieving kind."

My wool is fine.

"He has gone back,

And I'll see no more

Mine image in his deepening eyes;

Then I'll lean above

The Well of the Bride,

And with my beauty peace will rise!

O autumn star

In a hidden lake,

Fill up my heart and make me wise!"

My quick brown wheel!

"The women bring

Their pitchers here

At the time when the stir of the house is o'er;

They'll see my face

In the well-water,

And they'll never lift their vessels more.

For each will say,

'How beautiful

Three Spinning Songs

Why should I labor any more!

Indeed I come

Of a race so fair

"Twere waste to labor any more!'" My thread is spun.

II

33

(An elder girl sings:)

One came before her and said beseeching,

"I have fortune and I have lands,

And if you will share in the goods of my household

All my treasure 's at your commands."

But she said to him, "The goods you proffer
Are far from my mind as the silk of the sea!
The arms of him, my young love, round me
Is all the treasure that's true for me!"

"Proud you are then, proud of your beauty,
But beauty's a flower will soon decay;
The fairest flowers they bloom in the Summer,
They bloom one summer and they fade away."

My heart is sad, then, for the little flower

That must so wither where fair it grew

He who has my heart in keeping,

I would he had my body too."

III

(An old woman sings:)

There was an oul' trooper went riding by
On the road to Carricknabauna,
And sorrow is better to sing than cry
On the way to Carricknabauna!
And as the oul' trooper went riding on
He heard this sung by a crone, a crone
On the road to Carricknabauna!

66

I'd spread my cloak for you, young lad,
Were it only the breadth of a farthen',
And if your mind was as good as your word
In troth, it's you I'd rather!

In dread of any jealousy,
And before we go any farther,

Carry me up to the top of the hill
And show me Carricknabauna!"

"Carricknabauna, Carricknabauna, Would you show me Carricknabauna? I lost a horse at Cruckmoylinn—

At the Cross of Bunratty I dropped a limbBut I left my youth on the crown of the hill Over by Carricknabauna!"

Girls, young girls, the rush-light is done.
What will I do till my thread is spun?