The Ballad Of Downal Baun
The moon-cradle's rocking and rocking,
Where a cloud and a cloud goes by:
Silently rocking and rocking,
The moon-cradle out in the sky.
The hound's in his loop by the fire,
The bond-woman spins at the door;
One rides on a horse through the court-yard:
The sword-sheath drops on the floor.
I
MY grandfather, Downal Baun,
Had the dream that comes three times:
He dreamt it first when, a servant-boy,
He lay by the nets and the lines,
In the house of Fargal More,
And by Fargal's ash-strewn fire,
When Downal had herded the kine in the waste,
And had foddered them all in the byre;
And he dreamt the dream when he lay
Under sails that were spread to the main,
When he took his rest amid dusky seas,
On the deck of a ship of Spain;
And the dream came to him beneath
The roof he had raised in his pride,
When beside him there lay and dreamt of her kin,
His strange and far-brought bride.
He had dreamt three times of the treasure
That fills a broken tale
The hoard of the folk who had raised the mounds,
Who had brewed the Heather Ale;
And he knew by the thrice-come dream
He could win that hoard by right,
If he drew it out of the lake by a rush
Upon Saint Brighid's Night,
By rushes strung to the yoke of an ox
That had never a hair of white!
II
So Downal, the silent man,
Went to many a far-off fair,
And he bought him an ox no man could say
Was white by a single hair;
And he came to the edge of the lake
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poem by Padraic Colum
Added by Poetry Lover
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