C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
Father Gilligan
T
Was weary night and day;
For half his flock were in their beds,
Or under green sods lay.
At the moth-hour of eve,
Another poor man sent for him,
And he began to grieve.
For people die and die;”
And after cried he, “God forgive!
My body spake, not I!”
He knelt, prayed, fell asleep;
And the moth-hour went from the fields,
And stars began to peep.
And leaves shook in the wind;
And God covered the world with shade,
And whispered to mankind.
When the moths came once more,
The old priest Peter Gilligan
Stood upright on the floor.
While I slept on the chair;”
He roused his horse out of its sleep,
And rode with little care.
By rocky lake and fen;
The sick man’s wife opened the door:
“Father! you come again!”—
“He died an hour ago.”
The old priest Peter Gilligan
In grief swayed to and fro.—
As merry as a bird.”
The old priest Peter Gilligan
He knelt him at that word:—
For souls who tire and bleed,
Sent one of his great angels down
To help me in my need.
With planets in his care,
Had pity on the least of things
Asleep upon a chair.”