The Mockers and other Verses :: :: University of Virginia Library

The edge of Autumn 'twas, when very drear
And lone and strange for her the great world grew
One sudden morning, why, she hardly knew,
Being simpler than to see the reasons clear
That could not let her rest where many a year
Her days had lingered by, and barred the door
Fast of the little house against her, tried
In vain, for she must trespass there no more;
As if another roof, now, far or near,
Was hers indeed, or any place to bide
On the wide earth's floor.

Howbeit away she wandered, lost, alone,
With never a wish in life her steps to guide
Down lanes that tangled through the countryside,

Where leaves even so were turned adrift and strown
On listless journeyings, and the bare fields, mown
Or reaped, lay still; but hedgerows in the sun
Seemed studded thick with jewels, berry and nut,
She lacked the eyes to heed; since sorrow had spun
A shrouding mist, till skies that clearest shone
Looked dim to her, thinking how the door was shut
And her good days done.

The lads and she had oft enough whilere
Gone gathering in the hedges high and low
On golden morns, when long and long ago
Young colleens laughed. Why should an old crone care
To grope for blackberries that none could share?
And in their little houses folk were kind,
That would not say her nay if a crust of bread
Was with them: seldom need she peer half blind

'Twixt frosted briars, content with sorry fare,
Since wizened fruit belated, sour and red
She could only find.

But when November's Eve the haunted night
Brought near, that bids across a threshold dire
Exiles of home, for whose return the fire
Is kindled, and by faithful hands in sight
The board left ready, grieved she was outright
That in their old hearth's glow she could not set
The seat and spread the meal that memory shows:
Mayhap they'll be misdoubting I forget,
My grief! she sighed, or grudge the sod to light;
When ne'er a one of them, a one, God knows,
But I'm mourning yet.

Then after soon, a glimmering hope spied she
In that harm's self: for year by year had sped
Her All Souls' night, nor ever brought home her Dead,

That ever she watched with hungered heart to see.
For none of them made much, dear hearts, of me:
They scarce would travel back that far while naught
I ailed; but, ah, these times, she said, 'tis well
They know the way I am left, and like as aught
Noreen would come, or Mick. Though long it be,
If mother herself remembers—who can tell?—
She might have the thought.

So through that gloaming, slow, with halting feet,
She climbed the hill where winds the steep boreen,
Deep-sunken and sheltered furze-shagged banks between,
And at a half-door begged a sod of peat.
The woman of the house did blithely greet
This poor old woman of no house at all,
Who round the turn a stone's throw farther went
With thrice her asking 'neath her sleet-drenched shawl,

Till under writhen boughs that well nigh meet
She found a hollow fit for her intent,
Where the bank stands tall.

Therein her three black sods aslant she leant
And lit, and while the clear blue smoke uncurled,
Her store outspread. Her one hope in the world
So wrought her that in reckless wise she had spent
In the town her hoarded pennies, wholly bent
Those guests to feast aright. Herself might fast,
But for the lads she had brought the speckled cake.
'Twas the dull fire-blink, yet, please God, 'twould last
To light them back. They'd know her best she meant;
And if they came, sure 'would be for the sake
Of the old times past.

More oft than in the smoke a quick spark dies
Her hopes were quenched; for ever a step she heard
If wind or wing amongst the branches stirred,
And night's wide house seemed full of calls and cries,
That crept to her from afar. But fear likewise
Kept watch, a phantom threating other scathe
Than daily peril, against the feeble and old
Resurgent: fear it was lest all her faith
That any help could reach her 'neath these skies
Must dwindle o'er the sill of dawning cold,
An evanished wraith.

Gript in their chill blasts, still with grudging grief
She felt the dark hours wane toward morning-tide,
When she must see her dreams had surely died
And left her desolate. That sole dread in chief,
Prevailing, made her vigil all too brief,

Because anon she heart-bereft should hear
The shrill cocks hailing back her weary day,
Of friends forlorn, forlorn of any cheer,
With goalless path again as fallen leaf;
Fell summons that her cherished hope would slay,
And but change her fear.