Venice masks

Wednesday, 12 October 2016

An Old Woman of the Roads - Padraic Colum

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!

To have a clock with weights and chains
    And pendulum swinging up and down!
A dresser filled with shining delph,
    Speckled and white and blue and brown!

I could be busy all the day
    Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor,
And fixing on their shelf again
    My white and blue and speckled store!

I could be quiet there at night
    Beside the fire and by myself,
Sure of a bed and loth to leave
    The ticking clock and the shining delph!

Och! but I'm weary of mist and dark,
    And roads where there's never a house nor bush,
And tired I am of bog and road,
    And the crying wind and the lonesome hush!

And I am praying to God on high,
    And I am praying Him night and day,
For a little house—a house of my own—
    Out of the wind's and the rain's way.

Padraic Colum (1881 – 1972) Ireland
Source: A Puffin Book of Verse, compiled by Eleanor Graham, Penguin, 1953

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