FATHER HART Colleen, they are the children of the fiend, And they have power until the end of Time, When God shall fight with them a great pitched battle And hack them into pieces.
MARIE BRUIN He will smile, Father, perhaps, and open His great door, And call the pretty and kind into His house.
FATHER HART Did but the lawless angels see that door, They would fall, slain by everlasting peace; And when such angels knock upon our doors Who goes with them must drive through the same storm.
(_A knock at the door._ MAIRE BRUIN _opens it and then goes to the dresser and fills a porringer with milk and hands it through the door, and takes it back empty and closes the door._)
MARIE BRUIN A little queer old woman cloaked in green, Who came to beg a porringer of milk.
BRIDGET BRUIN The good people go asking milk and fire Upon May Eve--Woe on the house that gives, For they have power upon it for a year. I knew you would bring evil on the house.
MARIE BRUIN Both the tongue and face were strange.
MAURTEEN BRUIN Some strangers came last week to Clover Hill; She must be one of them.
MAURTEEN BRUIN The priest will keep all harm out of the house.
FATHER HART The cross will keep all harm out of the house While it hangs there.
MAURTEEN BRUIN Come, sit beside me, colleen, And put away your dreams of discontent, For I would have you light up my last days Like the good glow of the turf, and when I die I will make you the wealthiest hereabout: For hid away where nobody can find I have a stocking full of yellow guineas.
BRIDGET BRUIN You are the fool of every pretty face, And I must pinch and pare that my son's wife May have all kinds of ribbons for her head.
MAURTEEN BRUIN Do not be cross; she is a right good girl! The butter is by your elbow, Father Hart. My colleen, have not Fate and Time and Change Done well for me and for old Bridget there? We have a hundred acres of good land, And sit beside each other at the fire, The wise priest of our parish to our right, And you and our dear son to left of us. To sit beside the board and drink good wine And watch the turf smoke coiling from the fire And feel content and wisdom in your heart, This is the best of life; when we are young We long to tread a way none trod before, But find the excellent old way through love And through the care of children to the hour For bidding Fate and Time and Change good-bye.