THE CHILD. Ah, but you love this fireside. Do you love me?
FATHER HART. When the Almighty puts so great a share
Of His own ageless youth into a creature,
To look is but to love.
THE CHILD. But you love Him?
BRIDGET. She is blaspheming.
THE CHILD. And do you love me too
MARY. I do not know.
THE CHILD. You love that young man there,
Yet I could make you ride upon the winds,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame.
MARY. Queen of Angels and kind saints defend us!
Some dreadful thing will happen. A while ago
She took away the blessed quicken wood.
FATHER HART. You fear because of her unmeasured prattle;
She knows no better. Child, how old are you?
THE CHILD. When winter sleep is abroad my hair grows thin,
My feet unsteady. When the leaves awaken
My mother carries me in her golden arms;
I'll soon put on my womanhood and marry
The spirits of wood and water, but who can tell
When I was born for the first time? I think
I am much older than the eagle cock
That blinks and blinks on Ballygawley Hill,
And he is the oldest thing under the moon.