Chapter 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.