Kitteen
BY
Margaret Kennedy
I sat beside the ingle-nook,
The fire was glowing;
The pot was bubbling on the hook,
The wind was blowing.
In the shadows of the room
Ghosts were hiding;
From the furthest, deepest gloom
They came gliding.
At the back of me I knew
Crowds were creeping.
Through the house the storm-wind blew,
Flames went leaping,
Awful shadows on the wall
Set me screaming.
Close at hand came Someone’s call:
“Sure she’s dreaming!
What have you seen?
Kitteen!
Tell us, what have you seen?”
In the brown bog by the lake
There are stacks of drying peat;
When by chance that way I take,
Past I run with flying feet;
For once when, wandering carelessly,
I came into that lonely place,
I watched a peat stack close to me
And saw it had a wrinkled face!
All old women sitting round,
Each one in a long brown cloak;
They gazed and gazed upon the ground
With eyes like stones, and never spoke.
Then I turned my back and fled
Up our hill, with stumbling feet;
In a doorway Someone said:
“She’s as white as any sheet!
What did you see?
Kitteen machree!
Tell us, what did you see?”