James Stephens

WHAT TOMAS AN BUILE SAID IN A PUB

I saw God. Do you doubt it?

Do you dare to doubt it?

I saw the Almighty Man. His hand

Was resting on a mountain, and

He looked upon the World and all about it:

I saw Him plainer than you see me now,

You mustn’t doubt it.

He was not satisfied;

His look was all dissatisfied.

His beard swung on a wind far out of sight

Behind the world’s curve, and there was light

Most fearful from His forehead, and He sighed,

“That star went always wrong, and from the start

I was dissatisfied.”

He lifted up His hand—

I say He heaved a dreadful hand

Over the spinning Earth, then I said: “Stay—

313You must not strike it, God; I’m in the way;

And I will never move from where I stand.”

He said, “Dear child, I feared that you were dead,”

And stayed His hand.

BESSIE BOBTAIL

As down the street she wambled slow,

She had not got a place to go:

She had not got a place to fall

And rest herself—no place at all.

She stumped along and wagged her pate

And said a thing was desperate.

Her face was screwed and wrinkled tight

Just like a nut—and, left and right,

On either side she wagged her head

And said a thing; and what she said

Was desperate as any word

That ever yet a person heard.

I walked behind her for a while

And watched the people nudge and smile.

But ever as she went she said,

As left and right she swung her head,

—“Oh, God He knows,” and “God He knows:”

And surely God Almighty knows.

HATE

My enemy came high,

And I

Stared fiercely in his face.

My lips went writhing back in a grimace,

And stern I watched him with a narrow eye.

Then, as I turned away, my enemy,

314That bitter heart and savage, said to me:

“Some day, when this is past,

When all the arrows that we have are cast,

We may ask one another why we hate,

And fail to find a story to relate.

It may seem to us then a mystery

That we could hate each other.”

Thus said he,

And did not turn away,

Waiting to hear what I might have to say.

But I fled quickly, fearing if I stayed

I might have kissed him as I would a maid.

THE WASTE PLACES

I

As a naked man I go

Through the desert sore afraid,

Holding up my head although

I’m as frightened as a maid.

The couching lion there I saw

From barren rocks lift up his eye;

He parts the cactus with his paw,

He stares at me as I go by.

He would follow on my trace

If he knew I was afraid,

If he knew my hardy face

Hides the terrors of a maid.

In the night he rises and

He stretches forth, he snuffs the air;

He roars and leaps along the sand,

He creeps and watches everywhere.

315His burning eyes, his eyes of bale,

Through the darkness I can see;

He lashes fiercely with his tail,

He would love to spring at me.

I am the lion in his lair;

I am the fear that frightens me;

I am the desert of despair

And the nights of agony.

Night or day, whate’er befall,

I must walk that desert land,

Until I can dare to call

The lion out to lick my hand.

II

As a naked man I tread

The gloomy forests, ring on ring,

Where the sun that’s overhead

Cannot see what’s happening.

There I go: the deepest shade,

The deepest silence pressing me;

And my heart is more afraid

Than a maiden’s heart would be.

Every day I have to run

Underneath the demon tree,

Where the ancient wrong is done

While I shrink in agony.

There the demon held a maid

In his arms, and as she, daft,

Screamed again in fear, he laid

His lips upon her lips and laughed.

316And she beckoned me to run,

And she called for help to me,

And the ancient wrong was done

Which is done eternally.

I am the maiden and the fear;

I am the sunless shade, the strife;

I the demon lips, the sneer

Showing under every life.

I must tread that gloomy way

Until I shall dare to run

And bear the demon with his prey

From the forest to the sun.

HAWKS

And as we walked the grass was faintly stirred;

We did not speak—there was no need to speak.

Above our heads there flew a little bird,

A silent one who feared that we might seek

Her hard-hid nest.

Poor little frightened one!

If we had found your nest that sunny day

We would have passed it by; we would have gone

And never looked or frightened you away.

O little bird! there’s many have a nest,

A hard-found, open place, with many a foe;

And hunger and despair and little rest,

And more to fear than you can know.

Shield the nests where’er they be,

On the ground or on the tree;

Guard the poor from treachery.

317

DARK WINGS

Sing while you may, O bird upon the tree!

Although on high, wide-winged above the day,

Chill evening broadens to immensity,

Sing while you may.

On thee, wide-hovering too, intent to slay,

The hawk’s slant pinion buoys him terribly—

Thus near the end is of thy happy lay.

The day and thou and miserable me

Dark wings shall cover up and hide away

Where no song stirs of bird or memory:

Sing while you may.