With THE StTorY TELLERS

In winter when the nights were long,
Around some neighbor’s fire we’d throng;
Where gossips learned in ancient lore,
Into our ears would nightly pour
Strange legends, that might well surprise
More grown up persons and more wise.
Till in the dark returning home,

When ghosts and pookas love to roam;
We'd fancy any cry the wail,

They mentiond in the fairy tale.

Will o’ the Wisp

Once Bill Murnane was on his way,
To Hayes’s house where he used stay,
And hastened through the bog:

Although the hour was pretty late,
He saw a light inside the gate,
Though bothered with the fog.
He followed the light for quite a way,
For Will o’ the Wisp led him astray,
Halfway to Cromwell Hill;
The luring light would make him see
Steep banks, where ditches ought to be,
And he kept following still.
Though ’twasn’t Hayes’s house he saw,
But Johnny Power’s near the old rath;
About which Bill could easily quote
Many a stirring anecdote.

But after he had climbed the hill
When just beside the moat;

He plainly heard the words: “’Tis Bill!
Or else I am a goat.”

These words did so alarm Bill
He wouldn’t recognize the hill.

60.