Chapter XI

Thin t’ other: ‘Mind you, there’s many that’s new to this place,’ sez he,
‘Comes axin’ the same as yourself. But considher the way it ’ud be.
For whin wanst we downed wid the wall, an’ nothin’ was left to pervint
The poor folks yonder beholdin’ the grandeur we’ve here fornint,
An’ nearer a dale, belike, than they’d ever ha’ thought or believed,
Who are the fools that ’ud stay any more where they’re throubled an’ grieved,
An’ wouldn’t be off wid thim here? Why, now, whin there’s nought but a vast
O’ shadow an’ blackness afore him who looks to his death an’ past
Why, even so, there’s a few comes in that life wid its weary work
Has dhruv intirely mad, till they lept to their ends in the dark.
‘An’ in Ireland, sure, this instant, there’s crowds o’ thim sailin’ bound
Off to the States an’ ’Sthralia, that’s half o’ the whole world round,
Miles an’ miles thro’ the waves an’ storms, an’ whin they’ve got there, bedad,
No such won’erful lands, but just where their livin’s aisier had.
An’ it’s mostly the young folks go, so the ould do be frettin’ sore,
For thim that are gone they doubt ’ill come home in their time no more;
An’ dhreary as e’er the long winther’s night is the lonesome summer’s day,
Whin there’s never a stir in the house, an’ the childher are over the say.
‘And, arrah now, wouldn’t it be the worst day that ould Ireland has known,
Whin she’d waken an’ find all the people had quitted an’ left her alone?
Never a voice to be heard, or a hover o’ smoke to be spied,
An’ sorra a sowl to set fut on the green o’ the grass far an’ wide,
Till the roads ran lone thro’ the lan’ as the sthrame that most desolit flows,
An’ the bastes, sthrayed away in the fields, grew as wild as the kites an’ the crows,
An’ no wan to care what became o’ the counthry left starin’ an’ stark--
But that’s how ’twould happen if ever we let thim look clear thro’ the dark.’

XII

An’ the other, sez he: ‘Thrue for ye; but what seems sthrange to me yet
Is the notions they’ve learned down yonder in spite o’ this screen ye’ve set;
For there’s many hears tell of a pleasant place where a man ’ill go whin he dies,
An’ some be that certin sure, ye’d think they’d seen it all wid their eyes.’

XIII

‘The raison o’ that,’ sez he, ‘is, we wouldn’t let thim despair,
Cliver an’ clane, any more than we’d show thim the whole of it clear;
So wanst in a while we’ve given to some poor crathur o’ thim
A glimpse at this place, but on’y lapt up in a mist like an’ dim.
An’ as soon as it slips from their sight ’tis dhrowned in the darkness deep,
Till sometimes they doubt afther all if ’twas aught but a dhrame in their sleep.
An’ the rest spy nothin’ at all, but they hear from the folks that do,
An’ they wish it so bad that often they believe they believe it’s thrue.
‘But suppose, now, wan that was hungry could watch unbeknownst thro’ a chink
Where some had a faste preparin’, the finest ye ever could think,
If he thought he’d a chance o’ the thrate, sure it’s quiet an’ still he’d wait,
For fear if he came ere they called they’d be puttin’ him out of it sthraight.’

XIV

That’s all their discoorse I remember, for thin, as sure as I’m born,
It was Rexy’s bark that I heard--no other baste’s, I’ll be sworn:
And I couldn’t tell ye the pleasure I tuk in’t, for somehow the sound
Seemed givin’ a nathural feel to whatever I seen around.
And I just was thinkin’: ‘It’s mad wid joy, poor Rexy, he’d be if he knew
There was wan of us come from th’ ould place at home’--whin, och wirrasthrew,
All in a minute I opened me eyes where I lay on the floor,
An’ the child was keenin’ away, an’ the wind moanin’ under the door,
An’ the puddle was freezed by the hearth, that hadn’t a spark to show,
An’ outside in the could daylight the air was a-flutther wid snow,
An’ the black bank sthraked wid white like the bars on a magpie’s wing--
For sorra a word o’ thruth was in’t, an’ I’d nought but dhramed the thing.