| |
(Connemara. Spring, 1898.)
“’TIS my bitter grief,” she said. | |
| (The western light ebbed, streaming back | |
| Across the ocean-strand that laid | |
| Its frost of foam and rust of wrack | |
| To rim her doorway square and black. | 5 |
| Beyond the sill a brooding shade, | |
| Unruffled by the sunset’s wraith | |
| Where from the hearth it glimmered red, | |
| Thronged all her little house with night. | |
| One day that brought her cureless scathe | 10 |
| Had sorrow touched her comely head | |
| With sudden snow there set in sight, | |
| The seamew’s wing and merle’s wing mixt | |
| Above kind eyes, and sad and bright, | |
| With folded crease of care betwixt.) | 15 |
| “’Tis my grief: too young and old | |
| Were they all to understand, | |
| When the hunger came and cold; | |
| Though I told them, oft I told, | |
| How the blight was on the land, | 20 |
| And the people’s crops around | |
| Lay black-rotted in the ground, | |
| And the good turf gone to loss | |
| In the summer’s teeming rain. | |
| But my talk was all in vain. | 25 |
| God forgive me, I’d be cross, | |
| For the children had me vexed, | |
| When it’s asking me they’d keep | |
| From one morning to the next: | |
| Would I give them ne’er a bit? | 30 |
| Troth and would I. Deep and steep | |
| I’d have climbed, dear hearts, for it, | |
| Or gone barefoot ten score mile. | |
| But I’d naught, mavrone, I’d naught. | |
| And belike the creatures thought | 35 |
| I had plenty all the while. | |
| “So I’d bid them go to sleep, | |
| Or I’d bid them run and play, | |
| But, poor souls, the live-long day | |
| They’d do nothing else than sit | 40 |
| Crouching close about the fire | |
| I was pestered keeping lit | |
| With the driftwood off the shore; | |
| For thin branches, light and small, | |
| Are the best I can drag higher | 45 |
| Through this shingle to the door, | |
| Now I’ve no one any more | |
| To be lending me a hand. | |
| “But the trouble of my trouble, | |
| Whatsoever may befall, | 50 |
| Day and night I ne’er forget, | |
| Was my mother there, bent double | |
| Till she looked no size at all | |
| In her little old grey shawl, | |
| With her heart, well knew I, set | 55 |
| On her evening cup of tea; | |
| ’Deed those times she missed it sore. | |
| When I’d ne’er a grain to wet, | |
| Though a word she wouldn’t say. | |
| “So, when sunsetting was past, | 60 |
| She’d come creeping o’er the floor, | |
| And reach down her cup and plate | |
| Dinny brought her from Belfast— | |
| They be shining yonder yet— | |
| And she’d leave them standing ready. | 65 |
| For a sign to show ’twas late. | |
| Then she’d sit again and wait, | |
| Like a lad whose net is cast, | |
| With the little trick she’d planned; | |
| Ah, she’d watch me long and steady, | 70 |
| And I’d dread to stir or speak, | |
| But I’d see her how, at last, | |
| Very sorrowful she’d take | |
| And fetch back the empty cup, | |
| Making shift to hang it up | 75 |
| With her old hand all ashake; | |
| Maybe thinking in her mind | |
| I’d turned thankless and unkind— | |
| Sure my heart came nigh to break. | |
| “Many a time I wished to God | 80 |
| Not so much that He’d contrive | |
| For the creatures’ bit and sup, | |
| Since the blight’s upon the land, | |
| Scarce a spud left, scarce a sod, | |
| Till the folks can hardly live, | 85 |
| And I wouldn’t ask Him aught | |
| That He mightn’t have to give— | |
| But I wished they would be let | |
| Have the sense to understand, | |
| So that less they’d grieve and fret, | 90 |
| And be sure I grudged them naught. | |
| ’Tis my bitter grief,” she said. | |
| (The listening neighbour duly sought | |
| To speak some witless, kindly word, | |
| That wooeth hope, when hope lies dead. | 95 |
| Perhaps she heeded not nor heard, | |
| So far she looked across the strand | |
| And past the lone fields of the sea | |
| Where light down fading paths was fled.) | |
| “’Tis my heart’s long grief,” said she, | 100 |
| “For they ne’er could understand.” | |
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