better than to be going from place to place drinking _uisge
beatha_.'

And there is a little sadness in the verses he made in some house, when
a stranger asked who he was:--

'I am Raftery the poet, full of hope and love; with eyes without
light, with gentleness without misery.

'Going west on my journey with the light of my heart; weak and
tired to the end of my road.

'I am now, and my back to a wall, playing music to empty pockets.'

'He was a thin man,' I am told by one who knew him, 'not very tall, with
a long frieze coat and corduroy trousers. He was very strong; and he
told my father there was never any man he wrestled with but he could
throw him, and that he could lie on his back and throw up a bag with
four hundred of wheat in it, and take it up again. He couldn't see a
stim; but he would walk all the roads, and give the right turn, without
ever touching the wall. My father was wondering at him one time they
were out together; and he said: "Wait till we come to the turn to
Athenry, and don't tell me of it, and see if I don't make it out right."
And sure enough, when they came to it, he gave the right turn, and just
in the middle.' This is explained by what another man tells me:--'There
was a blind piper with him one time in Gort, and they set out together
to go to Ballylee, and it was late, and they couldn't find the stile
that led down there, near Early's house. And they would have stopped
there till somebody would come by, but Raftery said he'd go back to Gort
and step it again; and so he did, turned back a mile to Gort, and