| Padraic Colum (1881–1972). Anthology of Irish Verse. 1922. |
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| 54. The Counsels of O’Riordan, the Rann Maker |
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| By T. D. O'Bolger |
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| THE choirs of Heaven are tokened in a harp-string, | |
| A pigeon’s egg is as crafty as the stars. | |
| My heart is shaken by the crying of the lap-wing, | |
| And yet the world is full of foolish wars. | |
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| There’s gold on the whin-bush every summer morning. | 5 |
| There’s struggling discourse in the grunting of a pig: | |
| Yet churls will be scheming, and churls will be scorning, | |
| And half the dim world is ruled by thimble-rig. | |
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| The luck of God is in two strangers meeting, | |
| But the gates of Hell are in the city street | 10 |
| For him whose soul is not in his own keeping | |
| And love a silver string upon his feet. | |
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| My heart is the seed of time, my veins are star-dust, | |
| My spirit is the axle of God’s dream. | |
| Why should my august soul be worn or care-tost?… | 15 |
| Lo, God is but a lamp, and I his gleam. | |
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| There’s little to be known, and that not kindly, | |
| But an ant will burrow through a five-inch wall; | |
| There’s nothing rises up or falls down blindly: | |
| That’s a poor share of wisdom, but it’s all. | 20 |
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