Part 2
Och! small blame to thim all if we’d never seen sight of a one o’ thim more, Wid the waves thumpin’ thuds where they fell, like the butt-ends o’ beams on a door; An’ the black hollows whirlin’ between, an’ the dhrift flyin’ over thim thick, ’S if the Divil had melted down Hell, an’ was stirrin’ it up wid a stick. But it happint the wave that they met wid was flounderin’ sthraight to the strand, An’ just swep’ thim up nate on its way, till it set thim down safe where the sand Isn’t wet twice a twelvemonth, no hurt on thim all, on’y dhrippin’ an’ dazed. And one come to his feet nigh me door, where that mornin’ me heifer had grazed. An’, bedad! ’twas himself, Misther Denis, stood blinkin’ an’ shakin’ the wet From his hair: ‘Hullo, Connor!’ sez he, ‘is it you, man?’ He’d never forget One he’d known. But I’d hardly got hould of his hand, an’ was wishin’ him joy, Whin, worse luck, he looked round an’ he spied Widdy Sullivan’s imp of a boy, That a wave had tuk off of his feet, an’ was floatin’ away from the beach, And he screechin’ an’ sthretchin’ his arms to be saved, but no help was in reach. An’ as soon as the young master he seen it, he caught his hand out o’ me own: ‘Now, stand clear, man,’ sez he, ‘would ye have me be lavin’ the lad there to dhrown?’ An’ wid that he throd knee-deep in foam-swirls. Ochone! but he gev us the slip, Runnin’ sheer down the black throat o’ Death, an’ he just afther ’scapin’ its grip. For the wild says come flappin’ an’ boomin’ an’ smotherin’ o’er him, an’ back In the lap o’ their ragin’ they swep’ him as light as a wisp o’ brown wrack. An’ they poundin’ the rocks like sledge-hammers, an’ clatterin’ the shingle like chains; Ne’er the live sowl they’d let from their hould till they’d choked him or bet out his brains, Sure an’ certin. And in swung a wave wid its welthers o’ wather that lept Wid the roar of a lion as it come, an’ hissed low like a snake as it crept To its edge, where it tossed thim, the both o’ thim. Och! an’ the little spalpeen Misther Denis had gript be the collar, he jumped up the first thing we seen, While young master lay still--not a stir--he was stunned wid a crack on the head-- Just a flutter o’ life at his heart--but it’s kilt he was, kilt on us dead.
XV
An’ so that was the end of it all. An’ the sorrowful end tubbe sure, Whin our luck was turned back into throuble no power in creation could cure. There he lay, ’twixt the sod an’ the foam, wid the spray flingin’ sparkles in the sun, For the storm had throoped off in a hurry, contint wid what mischief was done, An’ the last o’ the day in the west from a chink o’ clear gold on the rim Sent low rays slantin’ red o’er the fall o’ the say to the white face of him That was still as the image asleep o’ the lad we’d remimbered so long; Never oulder a day in those years. An’ ourselves standin’ round in a throng Kep’ a clack like the gulls overhead that were flickerin’ the light wid their wings, And as much wit in one as the other. Och! sure there’s no grief but it brings Friends to thravel its road. For while yet we were feelin’ his hands stiff’nin’ could, An’ were sayin’ the fine winsome lad, an’ the heart-break it was to behould, Comes ould Peggy, the housekeeper, throttin’ to say that th’ ould master had woke, And had sent her to thry was there news. News? It seemed like the Divil’s own joke. An’ what ailed him to wake? He’d a right to ha’ slep’, wid that news at his door, Till the world’s end. ‘Is’t news ye’d be afther?’ sez Mick. ‘Ay, there’s news here galore; But it’s news that I wouldn’t be tellin’ while e’er I’ve a tongue in me head; I’d as lief stick a knife in his heart, an’ he lyin’ asleep on his bed.’ An’ sez Gallaher: ‘Musha, what need to be tellin’ him yet? Better send For his Riverence beyant that consoles ye whin throuble’s past hopin’ to mend. An’ till thin there might some one step up an’ let on nothing’d happint below, To contint him.’ An’ we all thought the same, an’ yet no one was wishful to go; For we feared he might somehow get hould o’ the truth. Then me brother, sez he: ‘Sure here’s Pat, it’s colloguin’ a dale wid th’ ould master he is’--manin’ me-- ‘He’s the man to be sendin’; forby he’ll tell lies be the dozen as fast As a dog throts, will Pat.’ So they talked till they had me persuaded at last; And I thrapesed off up to the House. God forgive me, each step that I wint, I was schemin’ the quarest onthruths I could throuble me mind to invint.
XVI
But I tould him the sorra a one, as ye’ll see; ’twas no doin’ o’ mine. For whin into his room I was come, that seemed dark, passin’ out o’ the shine O’ the sunset just glimmerin’ around yet, th’ ould master laned up where he lay Afther takin’ a bit of a rest on the bed, for the most o’ that day He’d been creepin’ about to get everythin’ readied up dacint ’gin e’er The young master was home. Goodness help him, it’s time he’d enough an’ to spare; No more need to be hurryin’ for that than for Doomsday, if on’y he’d guessed-- I was sayin’, whin I’d knocked at his door, an’ slipped in to decaive him me best, It’s beyant an’ forby me his eyes kep’ on gazin’ an’ shinin’; I thought Mayhap some one was follyin’ behind me, but whin I looked round I seen nought, Ne’er a sowl save meself, that I dunna believe he tuk heed on at all. An’ sez he: ‘Och, thin, Denis, me lad, so ye’re here? Why, the step in the hall Sounded strange-like; and I to be listenin’, an’ never to think it was you. But, in troth, till ye stood in me sight, I’d no aisier believe me luck true Than if sthraight ye were come from the Dead. For the time, lad, wint wonderful slow, An’ it seems like the lenth o’ me life since ye left us this great while ago; An’ sure only to look down a long lenth o’ time sthrikes the could to your heart, Let alone whin the days sthretch away, each like each, an’ nought keeps thim apart Save the nights, when ye sleep scarce enough for a dhrame that as soon as ye wake Sets ye grievin’. Thim whiles there’s no end to the notions an ould body’ll take-- And I larned, livin’ lonesome, ’twas ould I had grown. If I tould ye the half O’ what all I was vexed wid supposin’ an’ dhreadin’, ye couldn’t but laugh. On’y one thing I’ve settled, no laughin’ about it, but certin an’ sure: I’ll not lose ye that long, lad, agin, for it’s more than me mind can endure. True enough, ye’re but young in your life, and it’s best maybe’s waitin’ unknown Worlds away from our bit of an Inish; all’s one, ye’ll ne’er quit it alone, For there’s plenty no younger than me must be rovin’ as ould as they are-- It’s together we’ll go, you and I, lad, next time that ye’re thravellin’ so far. Ay, together,’ sez he. An’ wid that come two wails o’ the wind, an’ between Sthruck a cry that was wailed by no win’; ’twas the girls below raisin’ a keen; But he laned his head back lookin’ plased an’ contint; an’ they kep’ keenin’ on. They were keenin’ for more than they meant all the while, for th’ ould master was gone.
XVII
So I’d sorra a hand in the matter meself, I may truly declare. ’Twas th’ Almighty’s own notion that night to decaive him, if decaivin’ it were. So whatever misfortins th’ ould master experienced, I hould in a way He’d the bettermost sort o’ bad luck--an’ that’s somethin’--because ye may say His worst throuble as good as ne’er chanced him; ne’er come to his hearin’ or sight, And a hurt that ye feel unbeknownst, as the sayin’ is, is apt to be light. An’ bedad he’s well out of it all; it’s ourselves have the raison to grieve While the say meets the shore for what happint this Inish that black Holy Eve. But I’ll whisht; for I’m thinkin’ when things have determined to run to the bad, There’s no use in discoorsin’ an’ frettin’ save on’y to dhrive yourself mad; Since the storms, or the blight, or the rint comes agin one wherever one goes, Till one takes the last turnin’. An’ thin if it’s true, as some people suppose, Better luck follows thim that are lavin’ than thim that are bidin’ behind-- Sure it’s off ye’ll slip one o’ these days, an’ what need to be throublin’ your mind?
WALLED OUT OR, ESCHATOLOGY IN A BOG
Οὐκ ὄναρ ἀλλ’ ὕπαρ ἐσθλὸν ὅ τοι τετελεσμένον ἔσται;
WALLED OUT OR, ESCHATOLOGY IN A BOG
I
In last September it was, whin the weather’ll be mostly grand, Wid the sunshine turnin’ the colour o’ corn all over the land, An’ the two young gintlemen came to shoot wid their guns an’ their dogs, A-thrampin’ just for divarsion about the hills an’ the bogs. And I thramped afther thim, tho’ it’s little divarsion I had, Carryin’ the baskits an’ all; but sure it’s meself was glad To earn the shillin’s at sunset, an’ iligant loonch be the way; Mate, an’ bread, an’ a dhrop to dhrink--ye needed no more that day. For, tho’ ’twas thick o’ the harvest, down here the bogs an’ the hills Lave on’y narrow slips o’ fields for the furrows an’ pratie dhrills; Terrible quick they’re raped an’ dug; but what should the farmer do? If there’s on’y work for wan, he can’t find wages for two.
II
An’ wanst we were restin’ a bit in the sun on the smooth hillside, Where the grass felt warm to your hand as the fleece of a sheep, for wide As ye’d look overhead an’ around, ’twas all a-blaze and a-glow, An’ the blue was blinkin’ up from the blackest bog-holes below; An’ the scent o’ the bogmint was sthrong on the air, an’ never a sound But the plover’s pipe that ye’ll seldom miss by a lone bit o’ ground. An’ he laned--Misther Pierce--on his elbow, an’ stared at the sky as he smoked, Till just in an idle way he sthretched out his hand an’ sthroked The feathers o’ wan of the snipe that was kilt an’ lay close by on the grass; An’ there was the death in the crathur’s eyes like a breath upon glass. An’ sez he: ‘It’s quare to think that a hole ye might bore wid a pin ’Ill be wide enough to let such a power o’ darkness in On such a power o’ light; an’ it’s quarer to think,’ sez he, ‘That wan o’ these days the like is bound to happen to you an’ me.’ Thin Misther Barry, he sez: ‘Musha, how’s wan to know but there’s light On t’ other side o’ the dark, as the day comes afther the night?’ An’ ‘Och,’ sez Misther Pierce, ‘what more’s our knowin’--save the mark-- Than guessin’ which way the chances run, an’ thinks I they run to the dark; Or else agin now some glint of a bame’d ha’ come slithered an’ slid; Sure light’s not aisy to hide, an’ what for should it be hid?’ Up he stood wid a sort o’ laugh; ‘If on light,’ sez he, ‘ye’re set, Let’s make the most o’ this same, as it’s all that we’re like to get.’
III
Thim were his words, as I minded well, for often afore an’ sin’ The ’dintical thought ’ud bother me head that seemed to bother him thin; An’ many’s the time I’d be wond’rin’ whatever it all might mane, The sky, an’ the lan’, an’ the bastes, an’ the rest o’ thim plain as plain, And all behind an’ beyant thim a big black shadow let fall; Ye’ll sthrain the sight out of your eyes, but there it stands like a wall. ‘An’ there,’ sez I to meself, ‘we’re goin’ wherever we go, But where we’ll be whin we git there it’s never a know I know.’ Thin whiles I thought I was maybe a sthookawn to throuble me mind Wid sthrivin’ to comprehind onnathural things o’ the kind; An’ Quality, now, that have larnin’, might know the rights o’ the case, But ignorant wans like me had betther lave it in pace.
IV
Priest, tubbe sure, an’ Parson, accordin’ to what they say, The whole matther’s plain as a pikestaff an’ clear as the day, An’ to hear thim talk of a world beyant ye’d think at the laste They’d been dead an’ buried half their lives, an’ had thramped it from west to aist; An’ who’s for above, an’ who’s for below they’ve as pat as if they could tell The name of every saint in Heaven an’ every divil in Hell. But cock up the likes of thimselves to be settlin’ it all to their taste-- I sez, and the wife she sez I’m no more nor a haythin baste-- For mighty few o’ thim’s rael Quality, musha, they’re mostly a pack O’ playbians, each wid a tag to his name an’ a long black coat to his back; An’ it’s on’y romancin’ they are belike; a man must stick be his trade, An’ _they_ git their livin’ by lettin’ on they know how wan’s sowl is made. And in chapel or church they’re bound to know somethin’ for sure, good or bad, Or where’d be the sinse o’ their preachin’ an’ prayers an’ hymns an’ howlin’ like mad? So who’d go mindin’ o’ thim? barrin’ women, in coorse, an’ wanes, That believe ’most aught ye tell thim, if they don’t understand what it manes-- Bedad, if it worn’t the nathur o’ women to want the wit, Parson an’ Priest I’m a-thinkin’ might shut up their shop an’ quit. But, och, it’s lost an’ disthracted the crathurs ’ud be widout Their bit o’ divarsion on Sundays whin all o’ thim gits about, Cluth’rin’ an’ plutth’rin’ together like hins, an’ a-roostin’ in rows, An’ meetin’ their frins an’ their neighbours, an’ wearin’ their dacint clothes. An’ sure it’s quare that the clergy can’t ever agree to keep Be tellin’ the same thrue story, sin’ they know such a won’erful heap; For many a thing Priest tells ye that Parson sez is a lie, An’ which has a right to be wrong, the divil a much know I, For all the differ I see ’twixt the pair o’ thim’d fit in a nut: Wan for the Union, an’ wan for the League, an’ both o’ thim bitther as sut. But Misther Pierce, that’s a gintleman born, an’ has college larnin’ and all, There he was starin’ no wiser than me where the shadow stands like a wall.
V
An’ soon afther thin, it so happint, things grew so conthráry an’ bad, I fell to wond’rin’ a dale if beyant there’s aught betther at all to be had; For the blacker this ould world looks, an’ the more ye’re bothered an’ vexed, The more ye’ll be cravin’ an’ longin’ for somethin’ else in the next; While whinever there’s little that ails ye, an’ all goes slither as grase, Ye don’t so much as considher, bedad, if there’s e’er such a place. The same as a man comin’ home from his work of a winther’s night, Whin the wind’s like ice, an’ the snow an’ the rain have him perished outright, His heart’ll be set on a good turf blaze up the chimney roarin’ an’ red, That’ll put the life in him agin afore he goes to his bed; Tho’ on summer evenin’s, whin soft as silk was every breath that wint, He’d never have axed for a fire, but turned to his sleep contint.
VI
The first thing that wint agin us, an’ sure we were rale annoyed, Was when Smithson, he that’s steward at the Big House, he tuk an’ desthroyed Rexy, our little white dog, that we’d rared from no more than a pup, For a matther o’ four or five year, an’ had kep’ him an’ petted him up. Huntin’ the sheep? If ye’d seen him ye’d know they were tellin’ a lie, Him that wasn’t the size of a rabbit, an’ wouldn’t ha’ hurted a fly. And the frinliest baste, morebetoken, ye’d find in a long day’s walk, An’ knowin’ an’ sinsible, too, as many a wan that can talk. I might come home early or late, yet afore I was heard or seen, He’d be off like a shot an’ meet me a dozen perch down the boreen;[1] An’ whiles ye’d be kilt wid laughin’, that quare wor his ways an’ his thricks-- But there he lay stone dead be the gate at the back o’ Hourigan’s ricks; For it’s creepin’ home the crathur was in hopes to die near his frins, On’y he couldn’t creep no furdher wid the leg of him smashed into splins. An’ och, but the house was lonesome whin we’d buried him down be the dyke, An’ the childer bawled thimselves sick, for they thought that there wasn’t his like; An’ just this night, comin’ up to the door, I was thinkin’ I’d give a dale For the sound of his bark, an’ the pat of his paws, an’ the wag of his tail.
[1] A narrow lane with high banks.
VII
An’ thin the winther began, on a suddint it seemed, for the trees Were flamin’ like fire in the wood whin it tuk to perish an’ freeze; An’ thro’ your bones like a knife wint the win’ that come keenin’ around, An’ afther that wid the pours o’ rain we were fairly dhrowned. For the wather’d be runnin’ in sthrames beneath the step at the door, An’ t’ould thatch that’s thick wid holes let it dhrip in pools on the floor, Till sorra the fire ’ud burn, wid the peat-sods no betther than mud, Since the stacks thimselves outside seemed meltin’ away in the flood. But the worst of it was those times, that, what wid the wet an’ the frost, Ne’er a hand’s turn could be done in the fields, so wan’s wages were lost. Many’s the week I could scarce git a job from wan end to the other, An’ many’s the night they wint hungry to bed, both childher an’ mother-- An’, begorra, the hardest day’s work a man ever did is to sit Wid his hands before him at home, whin the childher haven’t a bit. Thin the wife tuk sick, an’ was mortial bad, an’ cravin’ a dhrink as she lay, An’ I couldn’t so much as git her, the crathur, a sup o’ tay; An’ the floor was says o’ mud, an’ the house a smother o’ smoke, Till between thim all, begorra, me heart it was fairly broke.
VIII
But I mind wan Sathurday’s night, whin we just were starved wid the could, Me mother, she that we keep, an’ that’s growin’ terrible ould, All of a heap she was crouched be the hearth that was black as your grave, For clane gone out was the fire; and her ould head never ’ud lave Thrimblin’ on like a dhrop o’ rain that’s ready to fall from the row, The faster it thrimbles an’ thrimbles the sooner it is to go. And her poor ould hands were thrimblin’ as she sthretched thim out for the hate, For she’d gone too blind to see that there wasn’t a spark in the grate; Nor bit nor sup she’d had but a crust o’ dhry bread that day, ’Cause our praties had rotted on us, an’ we’d had to throw thim away; An’ I knowed she was vexed, for, sure, it’s but doatin’ she is afther all, And ’ill fret like a child whin she feels that her slice is cut skimpy an’ small; But other whiles she’d be grievin’ that we’d not got quit of her yet, An’ misdoubtin’ we grudged away from the childher each morsel she’d get. An’ watchin’ her sittin’ there, an’ rememb’rin’ the life she’d led, For me father dhrank, an’ she’d throuble enough to keep the pack of us fed, An’ never the comfort she’d now, an’ she grown feeble an’ blind-- I couldn’t but think ’twas a cruel bad job for such as she if behind The blackness over beyant there was nought but could for the could, An’ dark for the dark--no new world at all to make amends for the ould. Tho’ in troth it ’ud have to be the quarest world ye could name That ’ud make it worth wan’s while to ha’ lived in the likes o’ this same.
IX
But the dhrame I dhreamt that night was as sthrange as sthrange, for thin I thought I had come to a place whose aquil I never was in, An’ nobody’d tould me ’twas out o’ this world, yet as soon as I came Just o’ meself I knew it, as people will in a dhrame. An’ it looked an iligant counthry, an’ all in a glimmerin’ green, The colour o’ leaves in the spring, wid a thrimble o’ mist between; An’ the smell o’ the spring was in it, but the light that sthramed over all Was liker the shine of a sunset whin leaves are beginnin’ to fall.
X
An’ two were talkin’ together, that must ha’ been standin’ near, Tho’ out o’ me sight they kep’; an’ their voices were pleasant to hear. An’ wan o’ them sez to the other: ‘It’s this I don’t undherstand, The sinse o’ this wall built yonder around an’ about the land’-- An’, sure, as he spoke I saw where it glimpsed thro’ the boughs close by-- ‘For,’ sez he, ‘it hides our world, as the thruth is hid be a lie, From every sowl that’s alive on the weary earth below, Till ne’er such a place there might be at all, for aught they can know. But grand it ’ud be some mornin’ to make it melt off like the haze, An’ lave thim a sight o’ this land that they’re comin’ to wan o’ these days. For look ye at Ireland, now, where they’re just in a desperit state, Wid the people sleepin’ on mud, an’ wantin’ the morsel to ait; If they knew there was betther in store, I dunno what harm could be in ’t, Or what it ’ud do but hearten thim up, an’ keep thim a bit contint.’
XI