Padraic Colum.

b.1881

950   An Old Woman of the Roads

O’ TO have a little house!
   To own the hearth and stool and all!
The heap’d-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 with 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 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 or 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.