| A ONE-LEGGED, one-armed, one-eyed man, | |
| A bundle of rags upon a crutch, | |
| Stumbled on windy Cruachan | |
| Cursing the wind. It was as much | |
| As the one sturdy leg could do | 5 |
| To keep him upright while he cursed. | |
| He had counted, where long years ago | |
| Queen Maeve’s nine Maines had been nursed, | |
| A pair of lapwings, one old sheep, | |
| And not a house to the plain’s edge, | 10 |
| When close to his right hand a heap | |
| Of grey stones and a rocky ledge | |
| Reminded him that he could make, | |
| If he but shifted a few stones, | |
| A shelter till the daylight broke. | 15 |
| But while he fumbled with the stones | |
| They toppled over; ‘Were it not | |
| I have a lucky wooden shin | |
| I had been hurt’; and toppling brought | |
| Before his eyes, where stones had been, | 20 |
| A dark deep hole in the rock’s face. | |
| He gave a gasp and thought to run, | |
| Being certain it was no right place | |
| But the Hell Mouth at Cruachan | |
| That’s stuffed with all that’s old and bad, | 25 |
| And yet stood still, because inside | |
| He had seen a red-haired jolly lad | |
| In some outlandish coat beside | |
| A ladle and a tub of beer, | |
| Plainly no phantom by his look. | 30 |
| So with a laugh at his own fear | |
| He crawled into that pleasant nook. | |
| Young Red-head stretched himself to yawn | |
| And murmured, ‘May God curse the night | |
| That’s grown uneasy near the dawn | 35 |
| So that it seems even I sleep light; | |
| And who are you that wakens me? | |
| Has one of Maeve’s nine brawling sons | |
| Grown tired of his own company? | |
| But let him keep his grave for once | 40 |
| I have to find the sleep I have lost.’ | |
| And then at last being wide awake, | |
| ‘I took you for a brawling ghost, | |
| Say what you please, but from daybreak | |
| I’ll sleep another century.’ | 45 |
| The beggar deaf to all but hope | |
| Went down upon a hand and knee | |
| And took the wooden ladle up | |
| And would have dipped it in the beer | |
| But the other pushed his hand aside, | 50 |
| ‘Before you have dipped it in the beer | |
| That sacred Goban brewed,’ he cried, | |
| ‘I’d have assurance that you are able | |
| To value beer—I will have no fool | |
| Dipping his nose into my ladle | 55 |
| Because he has stumbled on this hole | |
| In the bad hour before the dawn. | |
| If you but drink that beer and say | |
| I will sleep until the winter’s gone, | |
| Or maybe, to Midsummer Day | 60 |
| You will sleep that length; and at the first | |
| I waited so for that or this— | |
| Because the weather was a-cursed | |
| Or I had no woman there to kiss, | |
| And slept for half a year or so; | 65 |
| But year by year I found that less | |
| Gave me such pleasure I’d forgo | |
| Even a half hour’s nothingness, | |
| And when at one year’s end I found | |
| I had not waked a single minute, | 70 |
| I chose this burrow under ground. | |
| I will sleep away all Time within it: | |
| My sleep were now nine centuries | |
| But for those mornings when I find | |
| The lapwing at their foolish cries | 75 |
| And the sheep bleating at the wind | |
| As when I also played the fool.’ | |
| The beggar in a rage began | |
| Upon his hunkers in the hole, | |
| ‘It’s plain that you are no right man | 80 |
| To mock at everything I love | |
| As if it were not worth the doing. | |
| I’d have a merry life enough | |
| If a good Easter wind were blowing, | |
| And though the winter wind is bad | 85 |
| I should not be too down in the mouth | |
| For anything you did or said | |
| If but this wind were in the south.’ | |
| But the other cried, ‘You long for spring | |
| Or that the wind would shift a point | 90 |
| And do not know that you would bring, | |
| If time were suppler in the joint, | |
| Neither the spring nor the south wind | |
| But the hour when you shall pass away | |
| And leave no smoking wick behind, | 95 |
| For all life longs for the Last Day | |
| And there’s no man but cocks his ear | |
| To know when Michael’s trumpet cries | |
| That flesh and bone may disappear, | |
| And souls as if they were but sighs, | 100 |
| And there be nothing but God left; | |
| But I alone being blessed keep | |
| Like some old rabbit to my cleft | |
| And wait Him in a drunken sleep.’ | |
| |
| He dipped his ladle in the tub | 105 |
| And drank and yawned and stretched him out. | |
| The other shouted, ‘You would rob | |
| My life of every pleasant thought | |
| And every comfortable thing | |
| And so take that and that.’ Thereon | 110 |
| He gave him a great pummelling, | |
| But might have pummelled at a stone | |
| For all the sleeper knew or cared; | |
| And after heaped the stones again | |
| And cursed and prayed, and prayed and cursed: | 115 |
| ‘Oh God if he got loose!’ And then | |
| In fury and in panic fled | |
| From the Hell Mouth at Cruachan | |
| And gave God thanks that overhead | |
| The clouds were brightening with the dawn. | 120 |
