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Title: On Ballyteigue Bay
Author: Cale Young Rice [
More Titles by Rice]
I've heard the sea-dead three nights come keening
And crying to my door.
Why will they affright me with their threening
Forevermore!
O have they no grave in the salt sea-places
To lay them in?
Do they know, do they know--with their cold dead faces!--
Know ... my sin?
There's blood on my soul. The Lord cannot wipe it
Away with His own blood.
I've beaten my breast with blows that stripe it,
And burned His Rood
With kisses that shrivel my lips--that shrivel
To sin on the air.
But the night and the storm cry on me evil.
Does He not care?
There's blood on my soul: but then ... she should never
Have said it was his--the child--
And hers--for she knew I'd never forgive her ...
I grew so wild
There was just one thing to be done--to kill her:
Just one--no more.
I took the keen steel ... one stroke would still her ...
I counted four.
And she fell--fell down on the kelp--none near her.
But when she lay so fair
I kissed her ... because I knew I should fear her,
And smoothed her hair;
And shut her two eyes that fixed me fearless
Of death and pain.
And the blood on my hand I wiped off tearless--
And that on my brain.
And I buried her quickly. The thorn-trees cover
Her grave with spines. I pray
That each in its fall will prick her and shove her
To colder clay.
But ... yonder! ... she's up! and moans in the heather
A whimpering thing!
I'll bury her deeper in Autumn weather ...
Or Winter ... or Spring.
And then if she comes with them still to call me
Each night, I'll tell her loud
He was mine! and laugh when they try to pall me
With sea and shroud.
And I'll swear not to care for Christ or Devil.
They'll skitter back
To the waves, at that, and be gone with their revel....
God spare me the rack!
[The end]
Cale Young Rice's poem: On Ballyteigue Bay
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