A Few Figs from Thistles | Page 4

on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a
stable--
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay
on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing,
and the dawn came soon.
We were very tired, we were very merry--
We had gone back and
forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,

From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went
wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful
of gold.
We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth
all night on the ferry.
We hailed, "Good morrow, mother!" to a

shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of
us read;
And she wept, "God bless you!" for the apples and pears,

And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.
Thursday
And if I loved you Wednesday,
Well, what is that to you?
I do not
love you Thursday--
So much is true.
And why you come complaining
Is more than I can see.
I loved you
Wednesday,--yes--but what
Is that to me?
To the Not Impossible Him
How shall I know, unless I go
To Cairo and Cathay,
Whether or not
this blessed spot
Is blest in every way?
Now it may be, the flower for me
Is this beneath my nose;
How
shall I tell, unless I smell
The Carthaginian rose?
The fabric of my faithful love
No power shall dim or ravel
Whilst I
stay here,--but oh, my dear,
If I should ever travel!
Macdougal Street
As I went walking up and down to take the evening air,
(Sweet to
meet upon the street, why must I be so shy?)
I saw him lay his hand
upon her torn black hair;
("Little dirty Latin child, let the lady by!")
The women squatting on the stoops were slovenly and fat,
(Lay me
out in organdie, lay me out in lawn!)
And everywhere I stepped there
was a baby or a cat;
(Lord God in Heaven, will it never be dawn?)
The fruit-carts and clam-carts were ribald as a fair,
(Pink nets and wet
shells trodden under heel)
She had haggled from the fruit-man of his
rotting ware;
(I shall never get to sleep, the way I feel!)

He walked like a king through the filth and the clutter,
(Sweet to meet
upon the street, why did you glance me by?) But he caught the quaint
Italian quip she flung him from the gutter; (What can there be to cry
about that I should lie and cry?)
He laid his darling hand upon her little black head,
(I wish I were a
ragged child with ear-rings in my ears!) And he said she was a baggage
to have said what she had said; (Truly I shall be ill unless I stop these
tears!)
The Singing-Woman from the Wood's Edge
What should I be but a prophet and a liar,
Whose mother was a
leprechaun, whose father was a friar?
Teethed on a crucifix and
cradled under water,
What should I be but the fiend's god-daughter?
And who should be my playmates but the adder and the frog,
That
was got beneath a furze-bush and born in a bog?
And what should be
my singing, that was christened at an altar, But Aves and Credos and
Psalms out of the Psalter?
You will see such webs on the wet grass, maybe,
As a pixie-mother
weaves for her baby,
You will find such flame at the wave's weedy
ebb
As flashes in the meshes of a mer-mother's web,
But there comes to birth no common spawn
From the love of a priest
for a leprechaun,
And you never have seen and you never will see

Such things as the things that swaddled me!
After all's said and after all's done,
What should I be but a harlot and
a nun?
In through the bushes, on any foggy day,
My Da would come
a-swishing of the drops away,
With a prayer for my death and a groan
for my birth,
A-mumbling of his beads for all that he was worth.

And there'd sit my Ma, with her knees beneath her chin,
A-looking in
his face and a-drinking of it in,
And a-marking in the moss some
funny little saying
That would mean just the opposite of all that he
was praying!
He taught me the holy-talk of Vesper and of Matin,
He heard me my
Greek and he heard me my Latin,
He blessed me and crossed me to
keep my soul from evil,
And we watched him out of sight, and we
conjured up the devil!
Oh, the things I haven't seen and the things I haven't known. What with
hedges and ditches till after I was grown,
And yanked both ways by
my mother and my father,
With a "Which would you better?" and a
"Which would you rather?"
With him for a sire and her for a dam,
What should I be but just what
I am?
She Is Overheard Singing
Oh, Prue she has a patient