Page:Edna St. Vincent Millay - A Few Figs from Thistles.djvu/21

 THE SINGING-WOMAN

But there comes to birth no common spawn From the love of a priest for a leprechaun, And you never have seen and you never will see Such things as the things that swaddled me! After all's said and after all's done, What should I be but a harlot and a nun?

In through the bushes, on any foggy day, My Da would come a-swishing of the drops away, With a prayer for my death and a groan for my birth, A-mumbling of his beads for all that he was worth. And there sit my Ma, her knees beneath her chin, A-looking in his face and a-drinking of it in, And a-marking in the moss some funny little saying That would mean just the opposite of all that he was praying!

He taught me the holy-talk of Vesper and of Matin, He heard me my Greek and he heard me my Latin, He blessed me and crossed me to keep my soul from evil, And we watched him out of sight, and we conjured up the devil! 17