Look at him now, the son,
And the churchyard twist in his foot,
Standing there by his mother's door,
As if he had taken root!
She crossed a grave, they say,
On a black day in spring,
And bore him in the seventh month —
A poor, misshapen thing.
Kneeling down in the dark
She travailed without a cry,
And gave him the mothering kiss
Between the earth and the sky.
He licks cuckoo-spittle, they say,
And eats the dung of the roads,
Mocking the journeymen
As they pass by with their loads.
Look at his little face —
As grey as wool is grey —
And the cast in his green eye,
So wild and far away.
Does he see Magh-meala?
Is his breath human breath?
Are his thoughts of the hidden things
Untouched by time and death?
Hanging there by the half-door,
Dangling his devil's foot,
Stock-still on the threshold,
As if he had taken root!