AN OLD WOMAN OF THE ROADS

  

AN OLD WOMAN OF THE ROADS

An Old Woman of the Roads is a famous poem by the Irish poet Padraic Colum, one of the pioneers of the Irish Literary Renaissance.

Born on 8^th December 1881 at Longford, Ireland, he expired on 11^th January 1972, at Enfield, United States.

The poem under review reminds one of thousands of men and women who spend their lifetime on roads because they have no self-owned houses wherein, they can live a comfortable life.

It is one thing to be without a house in your youth but quite another when you are old and your physical vitality is almost drained. Vagabonds, tramps and other such characters have a considerable ingrained liking for a wandering life day after day, night after night.  They face all sorts of hardships, even legal assaults, yet continue to live open spaces. In a poem that I once read; a vagabond looked at the bright side of his life. Being houseless, he was free from many cares and worries that are the fate of a householder.  

A house being a basic necessity of every human being, the question arises, why should any citizen be houseless? Who is responsible for this pitiable condition which causes a lot of pain and misery to such unfortunate citizens, especially in inclement weathers of extreme heat and cold, rains and storms?  Obviously, the answer is the country whose citizens they are.

Padraic Colum’s poem shows that the woman in question, is now old; she has passed her long life on the roads, where she did not have to engage herself in activities like clearing and sweeping hearth and floor; fixing on their shelf again her white and blue and speckled store, and be quiet at night beside the fire and by herself.  

   Contented as she is, she is not asking for a big house but a little one. In her old age, she is weary of mist and dark, and roads where there’s never a house or bush.

Strangely enough, she is not asking the powers that be to give her a little house of her own. She is praying to God on High, night and day, for a little house, out of the wind’s and the rain’s way.

The full text of Padraic Colum’s poem reads as follows:

O, TO have a little house!

To own the hearth and stool and all!

The heap’d-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,

Speckled with 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 and 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 the shining delph!

 

Och ! but I’m weary of mist and dark,

And roads where there’s never a house or bush,

And tired I am 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 rain’s way.

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12^th October 2020                                                      G. R. KANWAL