The Hour Before Dawn

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 Maeves nine Maines had been nursed,     A pair of lapwings, one old sheep,     And not a house to the plains 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.     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 rocks face.     He gave a gasp and thought to run,     Being certain it was no right place     But the Hell Mouth at Cruachan     Thats stuffed with all thats 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     And murmured, May God curse the night     Thats grown uneasy near the dawn     So that it seems even I sleep light;     And who are you that wakens me?     Has one of Maeves 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     Ill 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,     Id have assurance that you are able     To value beer, I will have no fool     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 winters 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 Id forgo     Even a half hours nothingness,     And when at one years 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     As when I also played the fool.     The beggar in a rage began     Upon his hunkers in the hole,     Its plain that you are no right man     To mock at everything I love     As if it were not worth the doing.     Id 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     And theres no man but cocks his ear     To know when Michaels 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.     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:     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.