Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/1158

 PADRAIC COLUM

950 An Old Woman of the Roads r jTo own the hearth and stool and all' The heap'd-up sods upon the fire, The pile of turf against the wall'

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��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 and loth to leave

The ticking clock and the shining dclph'

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.

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