An Old Woman of the Roads

Thinking still of how wonderful a first house is, and how much Alison and AJ's new home reminds me of those good feelings, and the hard but satisfying work that they must have endured. 

This is one of my favorite poems and I keep thinking of it since I got Alison's pictures, so I'll share it.

An Old Woman of the Roads
by Padraic Colum

Oh, to have a little house,
To own the hearth and stool and all-
The heaped-up sods upon the fire,
The pile of turf against the wall!

To have a clock with weights and chains,
And pendulum swinging up and down!
A dresser filled with shining delph,
Specked and white and blue and brown!

I could be busy all the day
Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor,
And fixing on their shelf again
My white and blue speckled store.

I could be quiet there at night
Beside the fire and by myself,
Sure of a bed, and loth to leave
The ticking clock and shining delph.

Och! but I'm weary of the mist and dark,
And roads where there's never a house or bush,
And I'm tired of bog and road,
And the crying wind and the lonesome hush.

And I am praying to God on high,
And I am praying Him night and day,
For a little house - a house of my own -
Out of the wind's and the rain's way.