THE HABIT by JOSEPH FRANCIS CARLIN MACDONNELL

Dear knows, 'tis long since Brian lay
Bedfast, as by himself;
While candles warmed his habit, gray
As brown on broken delph.

For thirty years have gone with him
Since first his Katie dressed
In decent black she might not trim
With jet across the breast.

Yet she, with both his ring and name,
Soon doffed her shoulder cape,
Lit up her weeds with lawn, and came
To chapel in her shape.

The while, for all a neighbour's grin,
She took a crown's St. George
From which a gallant bosom-pin
Was fashioned at the forge.

And when her years put on the tints
Of living harvest leaves,
'Tis she came out in colored prints
And Kilmacthomas weaves.

Nor might the parish wonder should
She yet be bravely gowned
In finery that surely would
Be silky to the sound.

"Ay, faith! The hour is far away,"
Said one to me, "when Kate's
Unmindful garb shall be as gray
As blue on broken plates."

"For when she aired her habit out
On a bush the other morn,
Unshadowed ravens fled the clout
Like crows from haunted corn!"

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