THE DEVIL'S BAG
I saw the Devil walking down the lane
Behind our house.—There was a heavy bag
Strapped tightly on his shoulders, and the rain
Sizzled when it hit him. He picked a rag
Up from the ground and put it in his sack,
And grinned and rubbed his hands. There was a thing
Moving inside the bag upon his back—
It must have been a soul! I saw it fling
And twist about inside, and not a hole
Or cranny for escape. Oh, it was sad.
I cried, and shouted out, "Let out that soul!"
But he turned round, and, sure, his face went mad,
And twisted up and down, and he said "Hell!"
And ran away…. Oh, mammy! I'm not well.
In 1916 Mr. Stephens published a threnody, Green Branches, which illustrates still another side of his literary powers. There is organ-like music in these noble lines. The sting of bitterness is drawn from death, and sorrow changes into a solemn rapture.
In commenting on Synge's poem, The Curse, I spoke of the delight the Irish have in hyperbolic curses; an excellent illustration of this may be found in Mr. Stephens' latest volume, Reincarnations. There is no doubt that the poet as well as his imaginary imprecator found real pleasure in the production of the following ejaculations:
RIGHTEOUS ANGER
The lanky hank of a she in the inn over there
Nearly killed me for asking the loan of a glass of beer;
May the devil grip the whey-faced slut by the hair,
And beat bad manners out of her skin for a year.
That parboiled imp, with the hardest jaw you will see
On virtue's path, and a voice that would rasp the dead,
Came roaring and raging the minute she looked at me,
And threw me out of the house on the back of my head!
If I asked her master he'd give me a cask a day;
But she, with the beer at hand, not a gill would arrange!
May she marry a ghost and bear him a kitten, and may
The High King of Glory permit her to get the mange.
Padraic Colum has followed the suggestion of Synge, and made deep excavations for the foundations of his poetry. It grows up out of the soil like a hardy plant; and while it cannot be called major work, it has a wholesome, healthy earthiness. It is realistic in a different way from the town eclogues of James Stephens; it is not merely in the country, it is agricultural. His most important book is Wild Earth, published in Dublin in 1901, republished with additions in New York in 1916. The smell of the earth is pungent in such poems as The Plougher and The Drover; while his masterpiece, An Old Woman of the Roads, voices the primeval and universal longing for the safe shelter of a home. I wonder what those who believe in the abolition of private property are going to do with this natural, human passion? Private property is not the result of an artificial social code—it is the result of an instinct. The first three stanzas of this poem indicate its quality, expressing the all but inexpressible love of women for each stick of furniture and every household article.
O, to have a little house!
To own the hearth and stool and all!
The heaped up sods upon the fire,
The pile of turf against the wall!