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 loath 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 or bush,
And tired I am of bog and road,
And the crying wind and the lonesome hush!
And I am praying to God on high,
And I am praying Him night and day,
For a little house—a house of my own—
Out of the wind’s and the rain’s way.
A Cradle Song.
(“Wild Earth and other Poems.” Macmillan.)
PADRAIC COLUM
O, men from the fields!
Come softly within.
Tread softly, softly,
O men coming in.
Mavourneen is going
From me and from you,
Where Mary will fold him
With mantle of blue
From reek of the smoke
And cold of the floor,
And peering of things
Across the half-door.