Poems

MARY

You have still some way, But I can put you on the trodden path Your servants take when they are marketing. But first sit down and rest yourself awhile, For my old fathers served your fathers, lady, Longer than books can tell--and it were strange If you and yours should not be welcome here.

CATHLEEN

And it were stranger still were I ungrateful For such kind welcome--but I must be gone, For the night's gathering in.

SHEMUS

It is a long while Since I've set eyes on bread or on what buys it.

CATHLEEN

So you are starving even in this wood, Where I had thought I would find nothing changed. But that's a dream, for the old worm o' the world Can eat its way into what place it pleases.

(She gives money.)

TEIG

Beautiful lady, give me something too; I fell but now, being weak with hunger and thirst And lay upon the threshold like a log.

CATHLEEN

I gave