I
Often I thought, only a stone’s throw
From him at Riversdale, of that old man
Still seeking his perfection, still in the throes
Of verse, yet every word at his command,
Or wheeled along the garden in a Bath chair,
Wild with impatience for a better couplet
To link divided rhyme. But I was chary
Of seeing that house, his study, the bedroom wall
On which he knocked at morning for his cup
Of tea—hedge-walking tramp with empty wallet,
Stories of the Great Cholera, bedraggled,
Woeful as Raftery beneath the ragged
Thorn. Donkeying the little roads of Sligo,
Had he not seen them in childhood, the wry-necked, the sly go
Past, later heard in the sitting room at Coole
Of spells that twitched the muslin from the cooler,
Bewitched the cream? He told us of rapscallions
Who had swiven too quickly, never given a rap,
When Crazy Jane dirtied her petticoat,
Respectable journeymen who bedded a coat
Beneath her in a dyke, poor Tom at Cruahane
Dancing in glee when miles of daylight crew
With genderings, best in the open air
As Wordsworth said.
Last ruffle in what eyrie?
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