SHAWN BRUIN
You are too cross.
BRIDGET BRUIN
The young side with the young.
MAURTEEN BRUIN
She quarrels with my wife a bit at times,
And is too deep just now in the old book!
But do not blame her greatly; she will grow
As quiet as a puff-ball in a tree
When but the moons of marriage dawn and die
For half a score of times.
FATHER HART
Their hearts are wild
As be the hearts of birds, till children come.
BRIDGET BRUIN
She would not mind the griddle, milk the cow,
Or even lay the knives and spread the cloth.
FATHER HART
I never saw her read a book before;
What may it be?
MAURTEEN BRUIN
I do not rightly know;
It has been in the thatch for fifty years.
My father told me my grandfather wrote it,
Killed a red heifer and bound it with the hide.
But draw your chair this way—supper is spread;
And little good he got out of the book,
Because it filled his house with roaming bards,
And roaming ballad-makers and the like,
And wasted all his goods.—Here is the wine:
The griddle bread's beside you, Father Hart.
Colleen, what have you got there in the book
That you must leave the bread to cool? Had I,
Or had my father, read or written books
There were no stocking stuffed with golden guineas
To come, when I am dead, to Shawn and you.
FATHER HART
You should not fill your head with foolish dreams.
What are you reading?
MARIE BRUIN
How a Princess Edane,
A daughter of a King of Ireland, heard
A voice singing on a May Eve like this,
And followed, half awake and half asleep,
Until she came into the Land of Faëry,
Where nobody gets old and godly and grave,
Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise,
Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue;
And she is still there, busied with a dance,
Deep in the dewy shadow of a wood,
Or where stars walk upon a mountain-top.
MAURTEEN BRUIN
Persuade the colleen to put by the book:
My grandfather would mutter just such things,
And he was no judge of a dog or horse,
And any idle boy could blarney him:
Just speak your mind.