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Home  »  The New Poetry  »  Old Men Complaining

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

Old Men Complaining

By Padraic Colum

First Old Man
HE threw his crutched stick down: there came

Into his face the anger flame,

And he spoke viciously of one

Who thwarted him—his son’s son.

He turned his head away.—“I hate

Absurdity of language, prate

From growing fellows. We’d not stay

About the house the whole of a day

When we were young,

Keeping no job and giving tongue!

“Not us in troth! We would not come

For bit or sup, but stay from home

If we gave answers, or we’d creep

Back to the house, and in we’d peep

Just like a corncrake.

“My grandson and his comrades take

A piece of coal from you, from me

A log, or sod of turf, maybe;

And in some empty place they’ll light

A fire, and stay there all night,

A wisp of lads! Now understand

The blades of grass under my hand

Would be destroyed by company!

There’s no good company: we go

With what is lowest to the low!

He stays up late, and how can he

Rise early? Sure he lags in bed,

And she is worn to a thread

With calling him—his grandmother.

She’s an old woman, and she must make

Stir when the birds are half awake

In dread he’d lose this job like the other!”

Second Old Man
“They brought yon fellow over here,

And set him up for an overseer:

Though men from work are turned away

That thick-necked fellow draws full pay—

Three pounds a week.… They let burn down

The timber yard behind the town

Where work was good; though firemen stand

In boots and brasses big and grand

The crow of a cock away from the place.

And with the yard they let burn too

The clock in the tower, the clock I knew

As well as I know the look in my face.”

Third Old Man
“The fellow you spoke of has broken his bounds—

He came to skulk inside of these grounds:

Behind the bushes he lay down

And stretched full hours in the sun.

He rises now, and like a crane

He looks abroad. He’s off again:

Three pounds a week, and still he owes

Money in every street he goes,

Hundreds of pounds where we’d not get

The second shilling of a debt.”

First Old Man
“Old age has every impediment

Vexation and discontent;

The rich have more than we: for bit

The cut of bread, and over it

The scrape of hog’s lard, and for sup

Warm water in a cup.

But different sorts of feeding breaks

The body more than fasting does

With pains and aches.

“I’m not too badly off, for I

Have pipe and tobacco, a place to lie,

A nook to myself; but from my hand

Is taken the strength to back command—

I’m broken, and there’s gone from me

The privilege of authority.”

I heard them speak—

The old men heavy on the sod,

Letting their angers come

Between them and the thought of God.