William Butler Yeats

 p.52

The Hour Before Dawn

1. A one-legged, one-armed, one-eyed man,
   A bundle of rags upon a crutch,
   Stumbled on windy Cruachan
   Cursing the wind. It was as much
   As the one sturdy leg could do
   To keep him upright while he cursed.
   He had counted, where long years ago
   Queen Maeve's nine Maines had been nursed,
   A pair of lapwings, one old sheep
   And not a house to the plain's edge,
   When close to his right hand a heap
   Of grey stones and a rocky ledge
   Reminded him that he could make,
   If he but shifted a few stones,
   A shelter till the daylight broke. p.53
   But while he fumbled with the stones
   They toppled over; 'Were it not
   I have a lucky wooden shin
   I had been hurt'; and toppling brought
   Before his eyes, where stones had been,
   A dark deep hole in the rock's face.
   He gave a gasp and thought to run,
   Being certain it was no right place
   But the Hell Mouth at Cruachan
   That's stuffed with all that's old and bad,
   And yet stood still, because inside
   He had seen a red-haired jolly lad
   In some outlandish coat beside
   A ladle and a tub of beer,
   Plainly no phantom by his look.
   So with a laugh at his own fear
   He crawled into that pleasant nook.
   Young Red-head stretched himself to yawn p.54
   And murmured, 'May God curse the night
   That's grown uneasy near the dawn
   So that it seems even I sleep light;
   And who are you that wakens me?
   Has one of Maeve's nine brawling sons
   Grown tired of his own company?
   But let him keep his grave for once
   I have to find the sleep I have lost.'
   And then at last being wide awake,
   'I took you for a brawling ghost,
   Say what you please, but from daybreak
   I'll sleep another century.'
   The beggar deaf to all but hope
   Went down upon a hand and knee
   And took the wooden ladle up
   And would have dipped it in the beer
   But the other pushed his hand aside,
   'Before you have dipped it in the beer
   That sacred Goban brewed,' he cried,
   'I'd have assurance that you are able
   To value beer—I will have no fool p.55
   Dipping his nose into my ladle
   Because he has stumbled on this hole
   In the bad hour before the dawn.
   If you but drink that beer and say
   I will sleep until the winter's gone,
   Or maybe, to Midsummer Day
   You will sleep that length; and at the first
   I waited so for that or this—
   Because the weather was a-cursed
   Or I had no woman there to kiss,
   And slept for half a year or so;
   But year by year I found that less
   Gave me such pleasure I'd forgo
   Even a half hour's nothingness,
   And when at one year's end I found
   I had not waked a single minute,
   I chose this burrow under ground.
   I will sleep away all Time within it:
   My sleep were now nine centuries
   But for those mornings when I find
   The lapwing at their foolish cries
   And the sheep bleating at the wind p.56
   As when I also played the fool.'
   The beggar in a rage began
   Upon his hunkers in the hole,
   'It's plain that you are no right man
   To mock at everything I love
   As if it were not worth the doing.
   I'd have a merry life enough
   If a good Easter wind were blowing,
   And though the winter wind is bad
   I should not be too down in the mouth
   For anything you did or said
   If but this wind were in the south.'
   But the other cried, 'You long for spring
   Or that the wind would shift a point
   And do not know that you would bring,
   If time were suppler in the joint,
   Neither the spring nor the south wind
   But the hour when you shall pass away
   And leave no smoking wick behind,
   For all life longs for the Last Day p.57
   And there's no man but cocks his ear
   To know when Michael's trumpet cries
   That flesh and bone may disappear,
   And souls as if they were but sighs,
   And there be nothing but God left;
   But I alone being blessed keep
   Like some old rabbit to my cleft
   And wait Him in a drunken sleep.'
3. He dipped his ladle in the tub
   And drank and yawned and stretched him out.
   The other shouted, 'You would rob
   My life of every pleasant thought
   And every comfortable thing
   And so take that and that.' Thereon
   He gave him a great pummelling,
   But might have pummelled at a stone
   For all the sleeper knew or cared;
   And after heaped the stones again
   And cursed and prayed, and prayed and cursed: p.58
   'Oh God if he got loose!' And then
   In fury and in panic fled
   From the Hell Mouth at Cruachan
   And gave God thanks that overhead
   The clouds were brightening with the dawn.

@incollection{E910001-016,
  author 	 = {William Butler Yeats},
  title 	 = {The Hour Before Dawn},
  editor 	 = {William Butler Yeats},
  booktitle 	 = {Responsibilities and other Poems},
  publisher 	 = {The Macmillan Company},
  address 	 = {New York},
  date 	 = {1916},
  pages 	 = {52–58}
}
 E910001-016.bib