An’ the scent o’ the bogmint was sthrong on the air, an’ never a sound
     But the plover’s pipe that ye’ll seldom miss by a lone bit o’ ground. 
     An’ he laned—­Misther Pierce—­on his elbow, an’ stared at the sky
                as he smoked,
     Till just in an idle way he sthretched out his hand an’ sthroked
     The feathers o’ wan of the snipe that was kilt an’ lay close by on
                the grass;
     An’ there was the death in the crathur’s eyes like a breath upon
                glass.

     An’ sez he, “It’s quare to think that a hole ye might bore wid a pin
     ‘Ill be wide enough to let such a power o’ darkness in
     On such a power o’ light; an’ it’s quarer to think,” sez he,
     “That wan o’ these days the like is bound to happen to you an’ me.” 
     Thin Misther Barry, he sez:  “Musha, how’s wan to know but there’s
                light
     On t’other side o’ the dark, as the day comes afther the night?”
     An’ “Och,” says Misther Pierce, “what more’s our knowin’—­save the
                mark—­
     Than guessin’ which way the chances run, an’ thinks I they run to
                the dark;
     Or else agin now some glint of a bame’d ha’ come slithered an’ slid;
     Sure light’s not aisy to hide, an’ what for should it be hid?”
     Up he stood with a sort o’ laugh:  “If on light,” sez he, “ye’re set,
     Let’s make the most o’ this same, as it’s all that we’re like to get.”

     Thim were his words, as I minded well, for often afore an’ sin,
     The ’dintical thought ’ud bother me head that seemed to bother him
                thin;
     An’ many’s the time I’d be wond’rin’ whatever it all might mane,
     The sky, an’ the lan’, an’ the bastes, an’ the rest o’ thim plain as
                plain,
     And all behind an’ beyant thim a big black shadow let fall;
     Ye’ll sthrain the sight out of your eyes, but there it stands like a
                wall.

     “An’ there,” sez I to meself, “we’re goin’ wherever we go,
     But where we’ll be whin we git there it’s never a know I know.” 
     Thin whiles I thought I was maybe a sthookawn to throuble me mind

     Wid sthrivin’ to comprehind onnathural things o’ the kind;
     An’ Quality, now, that have larnin’, might know the rights o’ the
                case,
     But ignorant wans like me had betther lave it in pace.

     Priest, tubbe sure, an’ Parson, accordin’ to what they say,
     The whole matther’s plain as a pikestaff an’ clear as the day,
     An’ to hear thim talk of a world beyant, ye’d think at the laste
     They’d been dead an’ buried half their lives, an’ had thramped it
                from west to aist;
     An’ who’s for above an’ who’s for below they’ve as pat as if they
                could tell
     The name of every saint in heaven an’ every divil in hell. 
     But cock up the lives of thimselves to be settlin’ it all to their
                taste—­
     I sez, and the wife she sez I’m no more nor a haythin baste—­