drank.
My womb carried him about,
My vitals he sucked,
My heart he filled.
He was my life,
'Tis death to have him taken from me.
My strength has ebbed,
My speech is silenced,
My eyes are blinded.

Then another woman said:

It is my son you take from me.
I did not do the evil,
But kill me--me!
Kill not my son!
My breasts are sapless,
My eyes are wet,
My hands shake,
My poor body totters.
My husband has no son,
And I no strength.
My life is like death.
O my own son, O God!
My youth without reward,
My birthless sicknesses
Without requital until Doom.
My breasts are silent,
My heart is wrung.

Then said another woman:

Ye are seeking to kill one,
Ye are killing many.
Infants ye slay,
The fathers ye wound,
The mothers ye kill.
Hell with your deed is full,
Heaven is shut,
Ye have spilt the blood of guiltless innocents.

And yet another woman said:

O Christ, come to me!
With my son take my soul quickly!
O great Mary, Mother of God's Son,
What shall I do without my son?
For Thy Son my spirit and sense are killed.
I am become a crazy woman for my son.
After the piteous slaughter
My heart is a clot of blood
From this day till Doom.

SONGS OF NATURE

KING AND HERMIT

Marvan, brother of King Guare of Connaught in the seventh
century, had renounced the life of a warrior-prince for that
of a hermit. The king endeavoured to persuade his brother to
return to his court, when the following colloquy took place
between them.

GUARE

Why, hermit Marvan, sleepest thou not
Upon a feather quilt?
Why rather sleepest thou abroad
Upon a pitchpine floor?

MARVAN

I have a shieling in the wood,
None knows it save my God:
An ash-tree on the hither side, a hazel-bush beyond,
A huge old tree encompasses it.

Two heath-clad doorposts for support,
And a lintel of honeysuckle:
The forest around its narrowness sheds
Its mast upon fat swine.

The size of my shieling tiny, not too tiny,
Many are its familiar paths:
From its gable a sweet strain sings
A she-bird in her cloak of the ousel's hue.

The stags of Oakridge leap
Into the river of clear banks:
Thence red Roiny can be seen,
Glorious Muckraw and Moinmoy.[14]

A hiding