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diff --git a/36865-8.txt b/36865-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4cc015e --- /dev/null +++ b/36865-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3948 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Responsibilities, by William Butler Yeats + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Responsibilities + and other poems + +Author: William Butler Yeats + +Illustrator: Thomas Sturge Moore + +Release Date: July 27, 2011 [EBook #36865] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RESPONSIBILITIES *** + + + + +Produced by Meredith Bach, David Garcia and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +[Illustration: (front cover)] + + +RESPONSIBILITIES AND OTHER POEMS + + +[Illustration] + + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS + ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO + + MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED + LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA + MELBOURNE + + THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. + TORONTO + + + + + + +RESPONSIBILITIES AND OTHER POEMS + +BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS + + + =New York= + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + 1916 + + _All rights reserved_ + + + + Copyright, 1911 + By WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS + + Copyright, 1904, 1908, and 1912 + By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + + Copyright, 1916 + By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1916. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + +RESPONSIBILITIES, 1912-1914-- + + Introductory Rhymes 1 + The Grey Rock 3 + The Two Kings 11 + To a Wealthy Man 29 + September 1913 32 + To a Friend whose Work has come to Nothing 34 + Paudeen 35 + To a Shade 36 + When Helen Lived 39 + The Attack on 'The Playboy of the Western World,' 1907 40 + The Three Beggars 41 + The Three Hermits 45 + Beggar to Beggar cried 47 + The Well and the Tree 49 + Running to Paradise 50 + The Hour before Dawn 52 + The Player Queen 59 + The Realists 61 + The Witch 62 + The Peacock 63 + The Mountain Tomb 64 + To a Child dancing in the Wind 66 + A Memory of Youth 68 + Fallen Majesty 70 + Friends 71 + The Cold Heaven 73 + That the Night come 75 + An Appointment 76 + The Magi 77 + The Dolls 78 + A Coat 80 + Closing Rhymes 81 + +FROM THE GREEN HELMET AND OTHER POEMS, 1909-1912-- + + His Dream 85 + A Woman Homer sung 87 + The Consolation 89 + No Second Troy 91 + Reconciliation 92 + King and No King 94 + Peace 96 + Against Unworthy Praise 97 + The Fascination of What's Difficult 99 + A Drinking Song 101 + The Coming of Wisdom with Time 102 + On hearing that the Students of our New University + have joined the Ancient Order of Hibernians 103 + To a Poet 104 + The Mask 105 + Upon a House shaken by the Land Agitation 106 + At the Abbey Theatre 108 + These are the Clouds 110 + At Galway Races 112 + A Friend's Illness 113 + All Things can tempt me 114 + The Young Man's Song 115 + +THE HOUR-GLASS--1912 117 + +NOTES 181 + + + + + '_In dreams begins responsibility._' + + _Old Play._ + + + '_How am I fallen from myself, for a long time now_ + _I have not seen the Prince of Chang in my dreams._' + + _Khoung-fou-tseu._ + + + + +RESPONSIBILITIES + + + + + _Pardon, old fathers, if you still remain_ + _Somewhere in ear-shot for the story's end,_ + _Old Dublin merchant 'free of ten and four'_ + _Or trading out of Galway into Spain;_ + _And country scholar, Robert Emmet's friend,_ + _A hundred-year-old memory to the poor;_ + _Traders or soldiers who have left me blood_ + _That has not passed through any huxter's loin,_ + _Pardon, and you that did not weigh the cost,_ + _Old Butlers when you took to horse and stood_ + _Beside the brackish waters of the Boyne_ + _Till your bad master blenched and all was lost;_ + _You merchant skipper that leaped overboard_ + _After a ragged hat in Biscay Bay,_ + _You most of all, silent and fierce old man_ + _Because you were the spectacle that stirred_ + _My fancy, and set my boyish lips to say_ + _'Only the wasteful virtues earn the sun';_ + _Pardon that for a barren passion's sake,_ + _Although I have come close on forty-nine_ + _I have no child, I have nothing but a book,_ + _Nothing but that to prove your blood and mine._ + + +_January 1914._ + + + + +THE GREY ROCK + + + _Poets with whom I learned my trade,_ + _Companions of the Cheshire Cheese,_ + _Here's an old story I've re-made,_ + _Imagining 'twould better please_ + _Your ears than stories now in fashion,_ + _Though you may think I waste my breath_ + _Pretending that there can be passion_ + _That has more life in it than death,_ + _And though at bottling of your wine_ + _The bow-legged Goban had no say;_ + _The moral's yours because it's mine._ + + When cups went round at close of day-- + Is not that how good stories run?-- + Somewhere within some hollow hill, + If books speak truth in Slievenamon, + But let that be, the gods were still + And sleepy, having had their meal, + And smoky torches made a glare + On painted pillars, on a deal + Of fiddles and of flutes hung there + By the ancient holy hands that brought them + From murmuring Murias, on cups-- + Old Goban hammered them and wrought them, + And put his pattern round their tops + To hold the wine they buy of him. + But from the juice that made them wise + All those had lifted up the dim + Imaginations of their eyes, + For one that was like woman made + Before their sleepy eyelids ran + And trembling with her passion said, + 'Come out and dig for a dead man, + Who's burrowing somewhere in the ground, + And mock him to his face and then + Hollo him on with horse and hound, + For he is the worst of all dead men.' + + _We should be dazed and terror struck,_ + _If we but saw in dreams that room,_ + _Those wine-drenched eyes, and curse our luck_ + _That emptied all our days to come._ + _I knew a woman none could please,_ + _Because she dreamed when but a child_ + _Of men and women made like these;_ + _And after, when her blood ran wild,_ + _Had ravelled her own story out,_ + _And said, 'In two or in three years_ + _I need must marry some poor lout,'_ + _And having said it burst in tears._ + _Since, tavern comrades, you have died,_ + _Maybe your images have stood,_ + _Mere bone and muscle thrown aside,_ + _Before that roomful or as good._ + _You had to face your ends when young--_ + _'Twas wine or women, or some curse--_ + _But never made a poorer song_ + _That you might have a heavier purse,_ + _Nor gave loud service to a cause_ + _That you might have a troop of friends._ + _You kept the Muses' sterner laws,_ + _And unrepenting faced your ends,_ + _And therefore earned the right--and yet_ + _Dowson and Johnson most I praise--_ + _To troop with those the world's forgot,_ + _And copy their proud steady gaze._ + + 'The Danish troop was driven out + Between the dawn and dusk,' she said; + 'Although the event was long in doubt, + Although the King of Ireland's dead + And half the kings, before sundown + All was accomplished.' + + 'When this day + Murrough, the King of Ireland's son, + Foot after foot was giving way, + He and his best troops back to back + Had perished there, but the Danes ran, + Stricken with panic from the attack, + The shouting of an unseen man; + And being thankful Murrough found, + Led by a footsole dipped in blood + That had made prints upon the ground, + Where by old thorn trees that man stood; + And though when he gazed here and there, + He had but gazed on thorn trees, spoke, + "Who is the friend that seems but air + And yet could give so fine a stroke?" + Thereon a young man met his eye, + Who said, "Because she held me in + Her love, and would not have me die, + Rock-nurtured Aoife took a pin, + And pushing it into my shirt, + Promised that for a pin's sake, + No man should see to do me hurt; + But there it's gone; I will not take + The fortune that had been my shame + Seeing, King's son, what wounds you have." + 'Twas roundly spoke, but when night came + He had betrayed me to his grave, + For he and the King's son were dead. + I'd promised him two hundred years, + And when for all I'd done or said-- + And these immortal eyes shed tears-- + He claimed his country's need was most, + I'd save his life, yet for the sake + Of a new friend he has turned a ghost. + What does he care if my heart break? + I call for spade and horse and hound + That we may harry him.' Thereon + She cast herself upon the ground + And rent her clothes and made her moan: + 'Why are they faithless when their might + Is from the holy shades that rove + The grey rock and the windy light? + Why should the faithfullest heart most love + The bitter sweetness of false faces? + Why must the lasting love what passes, + Why are the gods by men betrayed!' + + But thereon every god stood up + With a slow smile and without sound, + And stretching forth his arm and cup + To where she moaned upon the ground, + Suddenly drenched her to the skin; + And she with Goban's wine adrip, + No more remembering what had been, + Stared at the gods with laughing lip. + + _I have kept my faith, though faith was tried,_ + _To that rock-born, rock-wandering foot,_ + _And the world's altered since you died,_ + _And I am in no good repute_ + _With the loud host before the sea,_ + _That think sword strokes were better meant_ + _Than lover's music--let that be,_ + _So that the wandering foot's content._ + + + + +THE TWO KINGS + + + King Eochaid came at sundown to a wood + Westward of Tara. Hurrying to his queen + He had out-ridden his war-wasted men + That with empounded cattle trod the mire; + And where beech trees had mixed a pale green light + With the ground-ivy's blue, he saw a stag + Whiter than curds, its eyes the tint of the sea. + Because it stood upon his path and seemed + More hands in height than any stag in the world + He sat with tightened rein and loosened mouth + Upon his trembling horse, then drove the spur; + But the stag stooped and ran at him, and passed, + Rending the horse's flank. King Eochaid reeled + Then drew his sword to hold its levelled point + Against the stag. When horn and steel were met + The horn resounded as though it had been silver, + A sweet, miraculous, terrifying sound. + Horn locked in sword, they tugged and struggled there + As though a stag and unicorn were met + In Africa on Mountain of the Moon, + Until at last the double horns, drawn backward, + Butted below the single and so pierced + The entrails of the horse. Dropping his sword + King Eochaid seized the horns in his strong hands + And stared into the sea-green eye, and so + Hither and thither to and fro they trod + Till all the place was beaten into mire. + The strong thigh and the agile thigh were met, + The hands that gathered up the might of the world, + And hoof and horn that had sucked in their speed + Amid the elaborate wilderness of the air. + Through bush they plunged and over ivied root, + And where the stone struck fire, while in the leaves + A squirrel whinnied and a bird screamed out; + But when at last he forced those sinewy flanks + Against a beech bole, he threw down the beast + And knelt above it with drawn knife. On the instant + It vanished like a shadow, and a cry + So mournful that it seemed the cry of one + Who had lost some unimaginable treasure + Wandered between the blue and the green leaf + And climbed into the air, crumbling away, + Till all had seemed a shadow or a vision + But for the trodden mire, the pool of blood, + The disembowelled horse. + + King Eochaid ran, + Toward peopled Tara, nor stood to draw his breath + Until he came before the painted wall, + The posts of polished yew, circled with bronze, + Of the great door; but though the hanging lamps + Showed their faint light through the unshuttered windows, + Nor door, nor mouth, nor slipper made a noise, + Nor on the ancient beaten paths, that wound + From well-side or from plough-land, was there noise; + And there had been no sound of living thing + Before him or behind, but that far-off + On the horizon edge bellowed the herds. + Knowing that silence brings no good to kings, + And mocks returning victory, he passed + Between the pillars with a beating heart + And saw where in the midst of the great hall + Pale-faced, alone upon a bench, Edain + Sat upright with a sword before her feet. + Her hands on either side had gripped the bench, + Her eyes were cold and steady, her lips tight. + Some passion had made her stone. Hearing a foot + She started and then knew whose foot it was; + But when he thought to take her in his arms + She motioned him afar, and rose and spoke: + 'I have sent among the fields or to the woods + The fighting men and servants of this house, + For I would have your judgment upon one + Who is self-accused. If she be innocent + She would not look in any known man's face + Till judgment has been given, and if guilty, + Will never look again on known man's face.' + And at these words he paled, as she had paled, + Knowing that he should find upon her lips + The meaning of that monstrous day. + + Then she: + 'You brought me where your brother Ardan sat + Always in his one seat, and bid me care him + Through that strange illness that had fixed him there, + And should he die to heap his burial mound + And carve his name in Ogham.' Eochaid said, + 'He lives?' 'He lives and is a healthy man.' + 'While I have him and you it matters little + What man you have lost, what evil you have found.' + 'I bid them make his bed under this roof + And carried him his food with my own hands, + And so the weeks passed by. But when I said + "What is this trouble?" he would answer nothing, + Though always at my words his trouble grew; + And I but asked the more, till he cried out, + Weary of many questions: "There are things + That make the heart akin to the dumb stone." + Then I replied: "Although you hide a secret, + Hopeless and dear, or terrible to think on, + Speak it, that I may send through the wide world + For medicine." Thereon he cried aloud: + "Day after day you question me, and I, + Because there is such a storm amid my thoughts + I shall be carried in the gust, command, + Forbid, beseech and waste my breath." Then I, + "Although the thing that you have hid were evil, + The speaking of it could be no great wrong, + And evil must it be, if done 'twere worse + Than mound and stone that keep all virtue in, + And loosen on us dreams that waste our life, + Shadows and shows that can but turn the brain." + But finding him still silent I stooped down + And whispering that none but he should hear, + Said: "If a woman has put this on you, + My men, whether it please her or displease, + And though they have to cross the Loughlan waters + And take her in the middle of armed men, + Shall make her look upon her handiwork, + That she may quench the rick she has fired; and though + She may have worn silk clothes, or worn a crown, + She'll not be proud, knowing within her heart + That our sufficient portion of the world + Is that we give, although it be brief giving, + Happiness to children and to men." + Then he, driven by his thought beyond his thought, + And speaking what he would not though he would, + Sighed: "You, even you yourself, could work the cure!" + And at those words I rose and I went out + And for nine days he had food from other hands, + And for nine days my mind went whirling round + The one disastrous zodiac, muttering + That the immedicable mound's beyond + Our questioning, beyond our pity even. + But when nine days had gone I stood again + Before his chair and bending down my head + Told him, that when Orion rose, and all + The women of his household were asleep, + To go--for hope would give his limbs the power-- + To an old empty woodman's house that's hidden + Close to a clump of beech trees in the wood + Westward of Tara, there to await a friend + That could, as he had told her, work his cure + And would be no harsh friend. + + When night had deepened, + I groped my way through boughs, and over roots, + Till oak and hazel ceased and beech began, + And found the house, a sputtering torch within, + And stretched out sleeping on a pile of skins + Ardan, and though I called to him and tried + To shake him out of sleep, I could not rouse him. + I waited till the night was on the turn, + Then fearing that some labourer, on his way + To plough or pasture-land, might see me there, + Went out. + + Among the ivy-covered rocks, + As on the blue light of a sword, a man + Who had unnatural majesty, and eyes + Like the eyes of some great kite scouring the woods, + Stood on my path. Trembling from head to foot + I gazed at him like grouse upon a kite; + But with a voice that had unnatural music, + "A weary wooing and a long," he said, + "Speaking of love through other lips and looking + Under the eyelids of another, for it was my craft + That put a passion in the sleeper there, + And when I had got my will and drawn you here, + Where I may speak to you alone, my craft + Sucked up the passion out of him again + And left mere sleep. He'll wake when the sun wakes, + Push out his vigorous limbs and rub his eyes, + And wonder what has ailed him these twelve months." + I cowered back upon the wall in terror, + But that sweet-sounding voice ran on: "Woman, + I was your husband when you rode the air, + Danced in the whirling foam and in the dust, + In days you have not kept in memory, + Being betrayed into a cradle, and I come + That I may claim you as my wife again." + I was no longer terrified, his voice + Had half awakened some old memory, + Yet answered him: "I am King Eochaid's wife + And with him have found every happiness + Women can find." With a most masterful voice, + That made the body seem as it were a string + Under a bow, he cried: "What happiness + Can lovers have that know their happiness + Must end at the dumb stone? But where we build + Our sudden palaces in the still air + Pleasure itself can bring no weariness, + Nor can time waste the cheek, nor is there foot + That has grown weary of the whirling dance, + Nor an unlaughing mouth, but mine that mourns, + Among those mouths that sing their sweethearts' praise, + Your empty bed." "How should I love," I answered, + "Were it not that when the dawn has lit my bed + And shown my husband sleeping there, I have sighed, + 'Your strength and nobleness will pass away.' + Or how should love be worth its pains were it not + That when he has fallen asleep within my arms, + Being wearied out, I love in man the child? + What can they know of love that do not know + She builds her nest upon a narrow ledge + Above a windy precipice?" Then he: + "Seeing that when you come to the death-bed + You must return, whether you would or no, + This human life blotted from memory, + Why must I live some thirty, forty years, + Alone with all this useless happiness?" + Thereon he seized me in his arms, but I + Thrust him away with both my hands and cried, + "Never will I believe there is any change + Can blot out of my memory this life + Sweetened by death, but if I could believe + That were a double hunger in my lips + For what is doubly brief." + + And now the shape, + My hands were pressed to, vanished suddenly. + I staggered, but a beech tree stayed my fall, + And clinging to it I could hear the cocks + Crow upon Tara.' + + King Eochaid bowed his head + And thanked her for her kindness to his brother, + For that she promised, and for that refused. + + Thereon the bellowing of the empounded herds + Rose round the walls, and through the bronze-ringed door + Jostled and shouted those war-wasted men, + And in the midst King Eochaid's brother stood. + He'd heard that din on the horizon's edge + And ridden towards it, being ignorant. + + + + +TO A WEALTHY MAN WHO PROMISED A SECOND SUBSCRIPTION TO THE DUBLIN +MUNICIPAL GALLERY IF IT WERE PROVED THE PEOPLE WANTED PICTURES + + + You gave but will not give again + Until enough of Paudeen's pence + By Biddy's halfpennies have lain + To be 'some sort of evidence,' + Before you'll put your guineas down, + That things it were a pride to give + Are what the blind and ignorant town + Imagines best to make it thrive. + What cared Duke Ercole, that bid + His mummers to the market place, + What th' onion-sellers thought or did + So that his Plautus set the pace + For the Italian comedies? + And Guidobaldo, when he made + That grammar school of courtesies + Where wit and beauty learned their trade + Upon Urbino's windy hill, + Had sent no runners to and fro + That he might learn the shepherds' will. + And when they drove out Cosimo, + Indifferent how the rancour ran, + He gave the hours they had set free + To Michelozzo's latest plan + For the San Marco Library, + Whence turbulent Italy should draw + Delight in Art whose end is peace, + In logic and in natural law + By sucking at the dugs of Greece. + + Your open hand but shows our loss, + For he knew better how to live. + Let Paudeens play at pitch and toss, + Look up in the sun's eye and give + What the exultant heart calls good + That some new day may breed the best + Because you gave, not what they would + But the right twigs for an eagle's nest! + + +_December 1912._ + + + + +SEPTEMBER 1913 + + + What need you, being come to sense, + But fumble in a greasy till + And add the halfpence to the pence + And prayer to shivering prayer, until + You have dried the marrow from the bone; + For men were born to pray and save: + Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, + It's with O'Leary in the grave. + + Yet they were of a different kind + The names that stilled your childish play, + They have gone about the world like wind, + But little time had they to pray + For whom the hangman's rope was spun, + And what, God help us, could they save: + Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, + It's with O'Leary in the grave. + + Was it for this the wild geese spread + The grey wing upon every tide; + For this that all that blood was shed, + For this Edward Fitzgerald died, + And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone, + All that delirium of the brave; + Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, + It's with O'Leary in the grave. + + Yet could we turn the years again, + And call those exiles as they were, + In all their loneliness and pain + You'd cry 'some woman's yellow hair + Has maddened every mother's son': + They weighed so lightly what they gave, + But let them be, they're dead and gone, + They're with O'Leary in the grave. + + + + +TO A FRIEND WHOSE WORK HAS COME TO NOTHING + + + Now all the truth is out, + Be secret and take defeat + From any brazen throat, + For how can you compete, + Being honour bred, with one + Who, were it proved he lies, + Were neither shamed in his own + Nor in his neighbours' eyes? + Bred to a harder thing + Than Triumph, turn away + And like a laughing string + Whereon mad fingers play + Amid a place of stone, + Be secret and exult, + Because of all things known + That is most difficult. + + + + +PAUDEEN + + + Indignant at the fumbling wits, the obscure spite + Of our old Paudeen in his shop, I stumbled blind + Among the stones and thorn trees, under morning light; + Until a curlew cried and in the luminous wind + A curlew answered; and suddenly thereupon I thought + That on the lonely height where all are in God's eye, + There cannot be, confusion of our sound forgot, + A single soul that lacks a sweet crystaline cry. + + + + +TO A SHADE + + + If you have revisited the town, thin Shade, + Whether to look upon your monument + (I wonder if the builder has been paid) + Or happier thoughted when the day is spent + To drink of that salt breath out of the sea + When grey gulls flit about instead of men, + And the gaunt houses put on majesty: + Let these content you and be gone again; + For they are at their old tricks yet. + + A man + Of your own passionate serving kind who had brought + In his full hands what, had they only known, + Had given their children's children loftier thought, + Sweeter emotion, working in their veins + Like gentle blood, has been driven from the place, + And insult heaped upon him for his pains + And for his open-handedness, disgrace; + An old foul mouth that slandered you had set + The pack upon him. + + Go, unquiet wanderer, + And gather the Glasnevin coverlet + About your head till the dust stops your ear, + The time for you to taste of that salt breath + And listen at the corners has not come; + You had enough of sorrow before death-- + Away, away! You are safer in the tomb. + + +_September 29th, 1914._ + + + + +WHEN HELEN LIVED + + + We have cried in our despair + That men desert, + For some trivial affair + Or noisy, insolent sport, + Beauty that we have won + From bitterest hours; + Yet we, had we walked within + Those topless towers + Where Helen walked with her boy, + Had given but as the rest + Of the men and women of Troy, + A word and a jest. + + + + +THE ATTACK ON 'THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD,' 1907 + + + Once, when midnight smote the air, + Eunuchs ran through Hell and met + From thoroughfare to thoroughfare, + While that great Juan galloped by; + And like these to rail and sweat + Staring upon his sinewy thigh. + + + + +THE THREE BEGGARS + + + _'Though to my feathers in the wet,_ + _I have stood here from break of day,_ + _I have not found a thing to eat_ + _For only rubbish comes my way._ + _Am I to live on lebeen-lone?'_ + _Muttered the old crane of Gort._ + _'For all my pains on lebeen-lone.'_ + + King Guari walked amid his court + The palace-yard and river-side + And there to three old beggars said: + 'You that have wandered far and wide + Can ravel out what's in my head. + Do men who least desire get most, + Or get the most who most desire?' + A beggar said: 'They get the most + Whom man or devil cannot tire, + And what could make their muscles taut + Unless desire had made them so.' + But Guari laughed with secret thought, + 'If that be true as it seems true, + One of you three is a rich man, + For he shall have a thousand pounds + Who is first asleep, if but he can + Sleep before the third noon sounds.' + And thereon merry as a bird, + With his old thoughts King Guari went + From river-side and palace-yard + And left them to their argument. + 'And if I win,' one beggar said, + 'Though I am old I shall persuade + A pretty girl to share my bed'; + The second: 'I shall learn a trade'; + The third: 'I'll hurry to the course + Among the other gentlemen, + And lay it all upon a horse'; + The second: 'I have thought again: + A farmer has more dignity.' + One to another sighed and cried: + The exorbitant dreams of beggary, + That idleness had borne to pride, + Sang through their teeth from noon to noon; + And when the second twilight brought + The frenzy of the beggars' moon + They closed their blood-shot eyes for naught. + One beggar cried: 'You're shamming sleep.' + And thereupon their anger grew + Till they were whirling in a heap. + + They'd mauled and bitten the night through + Or sat upon their heels to rail, + And when old Guari came and stood + Before the three to end this tale, + They were commingling lice and blood. + 'Time's up,' he cried, and all the three + With blood-shot eyes upon him stared. + 'Time's up,' he cried, and all the three + Fell down upon the dust and snored. + + _'Maybe I shall be lucky yet,_ + _Now they are silent,' said the crane._ + _'Though to my feathers in the wet_ + _I've stood as I were made of stone_ + _And seen the rubbish run about,_ + _It's certain there are trout somewhere_ + _And maybe I shall take a trout_ + _If but I do not seem to care.'_ + + + + +THE THREE HERMITS + + + Three old hermits took the air + By a cold and desolate sea, + First was muttering a prayer, + Second rummaged for a flea; + On a windy stone, the third, + Giddy with his hundredth year, + Sang unnoticed like a bird. + 'Though the Door of Death is near + And what waits behind the door, + Three times in a single day + I, though upright on the shore, + Fall asleep when I should pray.' + So the first but now the second, + 'We're but given what we have earned + When all thoughts and deeds are reckoned, + So it's plain to be discerned + That the shades of holy men, + Who have failed being weak of will, + Pass the Door of Birth again, + And are plagued by crowds, until + They've the passion to escape.' + Moaned the other, 'They are thrown + Into some most fearful shape.' + But the second mocked his moan: + 'They are not changed to anything, + Having loved God once, but maybe, + To a poet or a king + Or a witty lovely lady.' + While he'd rummaged rags and hair, + Caught and cracked his flea, the third, + Giddy with his hundredth year + Sang unnoticed like a bird. + + + + +BEGGAR TO BEGGAR CRIED + + + 'Time to put off the world and go somewhere + And find my health again in the sea air,' + Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck, + 'And make my soul before my pate is bare.' + + 'And get a comfortable wife and house + To rid me of the devil in my shoes,' + Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck, + 'And the worse devil that is between my thighs.' + + 'And though I'd marry with a comely lass, + She need not be too comely--let it pass,' + Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck, + 'But there's a devil in a looking-glass.' + + 'Nor should she be too rich, because the rich + Are driven by wealth as beggars by the itch,' + Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck, + 'And cannot have a humorous happy speech.' + + 'And there I'll grow respected at my ease, + And hear amid the garden's nightly peace,' + Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck, + 'The wind-blown clamor of the barnacle-geese.' + + + + +THE WELL AND THE TREE + + + 'The Man that I praise,' + Cries out the empty well, + 'Lives all his days + Where a hand on the bell + Can call the milch-cows + To the comfortable door of his house. + Who but an idiot would praise + Dry stones in a well?' + + 'The Man that I praise,' + Cries out the leafless tree, + 'Has married and stays + By an old hearth, and he + On naught has set store + But children and dogs on the floor. + Who but an idiot would praise + A withered tree?' + + + + +RUNNING TO PARADISE + + + As I came over Windy Gap + They threw a halfpenny into my cap, + For I am running to Paradise; + And all that I need do is to wish + And somebody puts his hand in the dish + To throw me a bit of salted fish: + And there the king _is_ but as the beggar. + + My brother Mourteen is worn out + With skelping his big brawling lout, + And I am running to Paradise; + A poor life do what he can, + And though he keep a dog and a gun, + A serving maid and a serving man: + And there the king _is_ but as the beggar. + + Poor men have grown to be rich men, + And rich men grown to be poor again, + And I am running to Paradise; + And many a darling wit's grown dull + That tossed a bare heel when at school, + Now it has filled an old sock full: + And there the king _is_ but as the beggar. + + The wind is old and still at play + While I must hurry upon my way, + For I am running to Paradise; + Yet never have I lit on a friend + To take my fancy like the wind + That nobody can buy or bind: + And there the king _is_ but as the beggar. + + + + +THE HOUR BEFORE DAWN + + + A one-legged, one-armed, one-eyed man, + A bundle of rags upon a crutch, + Stumbled on windy Cruachan + Cursing the wind. It was as much + As the one sturdy leg could do + To keep him upright while he cursed. + He had counted, where long years ago + Queen Maeve's nine Maines had been nursed, + A pair of lapwings, one old sheep + And not a house to the plain's edge, + When close to his right hand a heap + Of grey stones and a rocky ledge + Reminded him that he could make, + If he but shifted a few stones, + A shelter till the daylight broke. + But while he fumbled with the stones + They toppled over; 'Were it not + I have a lucky wooden shin + I had been hurt'; and toppling brought + Before his eyes, where stones had been, + A dark deep hole in the rock's face. + He gave a gasp and thought to run, + Being certain it was no right place + But the Hell Mouth at Cruachan + That's stuffed with all that's old and bad, + And yet stood still, because inside + He had seen a red-haired jolly lad + In some outlandish coat beside + A ladle and a tub of beer, + Plainly no phantom by his look. + So with a laugh at his own fear + He crawled into that pleasant nook. + Young Red-head stretched himself to yawn + And murmured, 'May God curse the night + That's grown uneasy near the dawn + So that it seems even I sleep light; + And who are you that wakens me? + Has one of Maeve's nine brawling sons + Grown tired of his own company? + But let him keep his grave for once + I have to find the sleep I have lost.' + And then at last being wide awake, + 'I took you for a brawling ghost, + Say what you please, but from day-break + I'll sleep another century.' + The beggar deaf to all but hope + Went down upon a hand and knee + And took the wooden ladle up + And would have dipped it in the beer + But the other pushed his hand aside, + 'Before you have dipped it in the beer + That sacred Goban brewed,' he cried, + 'I'd have assurance that you are able + To value beer--I will have no fool + Dipping his nose into my ladle + Because he has stumbled on this hole + In the bad hour before the dawn. + If you but drink that beer and say + I will sleep until the winter's gone, + Or maybe, to Midsummer Day + You will sleep that length; and at the first + I waited so for that or this-- + Because the weather was a-cursed + Or I had no woman there to kiss, + And slept for half a year or so; + But year by year I found that less + Gave me such pleasure I'd forgo + Even a half hour's nothingness, + And when at one year's end I found + I had not waked a single minute, + I chose this burrow under ground. + I will sleep away all Time within it: + My sleep were now nine centuries + But for those mornings when I find + The lapwing at their foolish cries + And the sheep bleating at the wind + As when I also played the fool.' + The beggar in a rage began + Upon his hunkers in the hole, + 'It's plain that you are no right man + To mock at everything I love + As if it were not worth the doing. + I'd have a merry life enough + If a good Easter wind were blowing, + And though the winter wind is bad + I should not be too down in the mouth + For anything you did or said + If but this wind were in the south.' + But the other cried, 'You long for spring + Or that the wind would shift a point + And do not know that you would bring, + If time were suppler in the joint, + Neither the spring nor the south wind + But the hour when you shall pass away + And leave no smoking wick behind, + For all life longs for the Last Day + And there's no man but cocks his ear + To know when Michael's trumpet cries + That flesh and bone may disappear, + And souls as if they were but sighs, + And there be nothing but God left; + But I alone being blessed keep + Like some old rabbit to my cleft + And wait Him in a drunken sleep.' + + He dipped his ladle in the tub + And drank and yawned and stretched him out. + The other shouted, 'You would rob + My life of every pleasant thought + And every comfortable thing + And so take that and that.' Thereon + He gave him a great pummelling, + But might have pummelled at a stone + For all the sleeper knew or cared; + And after heaped the stones again + And cursed and prayed, and prayed and cursed: + 'Oh God if he got loose!' And then + In fury and in panic fled + From the Hell Mouth at Cruachan + And gave God thanks that overhead + The clouds were brightening with the dawn. + + + + +THE PLAYER QUEEN + +(_Song from an Unfinished Play_) + + + My mother dandled me and sang, + 'How young it is, how young!' + And made a golden cradle + That on a willow swung. + + 'He went away,' my mother sang, + 'When I was brought to bed,' + And all the while her needle pulled + The gold and silver thread. + + She pulled the thread and bit the thread + And made a golden gown, + And wept because she had dreamt that I + Was born to wear a crown. + + 'When she was got,' my mother sang, + 'I heard a sea-mew cry, + And saw a flake of the yellow foam + That dropped upon my thigh.' + + How therefore could she help but braid + The gold into my hair, + And dream that I should carry + The golden top of care? + + + + +THE REALISTS + + + Hope that you may understand! + What can books of men that wive + In a dragon-guarded land, + Paintings of the dolphin-drawn + Sea-nymphs in their pearly waggons + Do, but awake a hope to live + That had gone + With the dragons? + + + + +I + +THE WITCH + + + Toil, and grow rich, + What's that but to lie + With a foul witch + And after, drained dry, + To be brought + To the chamber where + Lies one long sought + With despair. + + + + +II + +THE PEACOCK + + + What's riches to him + That has made a great peacock + With the pride of his eye? + The wind-beaten, stone-grey, + And desolate Three-rock + Would nourish his whim. + Live he or die + Amid wet rocks and heather, + His ghost will be gay + Adding feather to feather + For the pride of his eye. + + + + +THE MOUNTAIN TOMB + + + Pour wine and dance if Manhood still have pride, + Bring roses if the rose be yet in bloom; + The cataract smokes upon the mountain side, + Our Father Rosicross is in his tomb. + + Pull down the blinds, bring fiddle and clarionet + That there be no foot silent in the room + Nor mouth from kissing, nor from wine unwet; + Our Father Rosicross is in his tomb. + + In vain, in vain; the cataract still cries + The everlasting taper lights the gloom; + All wisdom shut into his onyx eyes + Our Father Rosicross sleeps in his tomb. + + + + +TO A CHILD DANCING IN THE WIND + + +I + + + Dance there upon the shore; + What need have you to care + For wind or water's roar? + And tumble out your hair + That the salt drops have wet; + Being young you have not known + The fool's triumph, nor yet + Love lost as soon as won, + Nor the best labourer dead + And all the sheaves to bind. + What need have you to dread + The monstrous crying of wind? + + +II + + + Has no one said those daring + Kind eyes should be more learn'd? + Or warned you how despairing + The moths are when they are burned, + I could have warned you, but you are young, + So we speak a different tongue. + + O you will take whatever's offered + And dream that all the world's a friend, + Suffer as your mother suffered, + Be as broken in the end. + But I am old and you are young, + And I speak a barbarous tongue. + + + + +A MEMORY OF YOUTH + + + The moments passed as at a play, + I had the wisdom love brings forth; + I had my share of mother wit + And yet for all that I could say, + And though I had her praise for it, + A cloud blown from the cut-throat north + Suddenly hid love's moon away. + + Believing every word I said + I praised her body and her mind + Till pride had made her eyes grow bright, + And pleasure made her cheeks grow red, + And vanity her footfall light, + Yet we, for all that praise, could find + Nothing but darkness overhead. + + We sat as silent as a stone, + We knew, though she'd not said a word, + That even the best of love must die, + And had been savagely undone + Were it not that love upon the cry + Of a most ridiculous little bird + Tore from the clouds his marvellous moon. + + + + +FALLEN MAJESTY + + + Although crowds gathered once if she but showed her face, + And even old men's eyes grew dim, this hand alone, + Like some last courtier at a gypsy camping place, + Babbling of fallen majesty, records what's gone. + + The lineaments, a heart that laughter has made sweet, + These, these remain, but I record what's gone. A crowd + Will gather, and not know it walks the very street + Whereon a thing once walked that seemed a burning cloud. + + + + +FRIENDS + + + Now must I these three praise-- + Three women that have wrought + What joy is in my days; + One that no passing thought, + Nor those unpassing cares, + No, not in these fifteen + Many times troubled years, + Could ever come between + Heart and delighted heart; + And one because her hand + Had strength that could unbind + What none can understand, + What none can have and thrive, + Youth's dreamy load, till she + So changed me that I live + Labouring in ecstasy. + And what of her that took + All till my youth was gone + With scarce a pitying look? + How should I praise that one? + When day begins to break + I count my good and bad, + Being wakeful for her sake, + Remembering what she had, + What eagle look still shows, + While up from my heart's root + So great a sweetness flows + I shake from head to foot. + + + + +THE COLD HEAVEN + + + Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting Heaven + That seemed as though ice burned and was but the more ice, + And thereupon imagination and heart were driven + So wild that every casual thought of that and this + Vanished, and left but memories, that should be out of season + With the hot blood of youth, of love crossed long ago; + And I took all the blame out of all sense and reason, + Until I cried and trembled and rocked to and fro, + Riddled with light. Ah! when the ghost begins to quicken, + Confusion of the death-bed over, is it sent + Out naked on the roads, as the books say, and stricken + By the injustice of the skies for punishment? + + + + +THAT THE NIGHT COME + + + She lived in storm and strife, + Her soul had such desire + For what proud death may bring + That it could not endure + The common good of life, + But lived as 'twere a king + That packed his marriage day + With banneret and pennon, + Trumpet and kettledrum, + And the outrageous cannon, + To bundle time away + That the night come. + + + + +AN APPOINTMENT + + + Being out of heart with government + I took a broken root to fling + Where the proud, wayward squirrel went, + Taking delight that he could spring; + And he, with that low whinnying sound + That is like laughter, sprang again + And so to the other tree at a bound. + Nor the tame will, nor timid brain, + Bred that fierce tooth and cleanly limb + And threw him up to laugh on the bough; + No government appointed him. + + + + +I + +THE MAGI + + + Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye, + In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones + Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky + With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones, + And all their helms of silver hovering side by side, + And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more, + Being by Calvary's turbulence unsatisfied, + The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor. + + + + +II + +THE DOLLS + + + A doll in the doll-maker's house + Looks at the cradle and balls: + 'That is an insult to us.' + But the oldest of all the dolls + Who had seen, being kept for show, + Generations of his sort, + Out-screams the whole shelf: 'Although + There's not a man can report + Evil of this place, + The man and the woman bring + Hither to our disgrace, + A noisy and filthy thing.' + Hearing him groan and stretch + The doll-maker's wife is aware + Her husband has heard the wretch, + And crouched by the arm of his chair, + She murmurs into his ear, + Head upon shoulder leant: + 'My dear, my dear, oh dear, + It was an accident.' + + + + +A COAT + + + I made my song a coat + Covered with embroideries + Out of old mythologies + From heel to throat; + But the fools caught it, + Wore it in the world's eye + As though they'd wrought it. + Song, let them take it + For there's more enterprise + In walking naked. + + + + + * * * * * + + + _While I, from that reed-throated whisperer_ + _Who comes at need, although not now as once_ + _A clear articulation in the air_ + _But inwardly, surmise companions_ + _Beyond the fling of the dull ass's hoof,_ + _--Ben Jonson's phrase--and find when June is come_ + _At Kyle-na-no under that ancient roof_ + _A sterner conscience and a friendlier home,_ + _I can forgive even that wrong of wrongs,_ + _Those undreamt accidents that have made me_ + _--Seeing that Fame has perished this long while_ + _Being but a part of ancient ceremony--_ + _Notorious, till all my priceless things_ + _Are but a post the passing dogs defile._ + + + + +FROM THE GREEN HELMET AND OTHER POEMS + + + + +HIS DREAM + + + I swayed upon the gaudy stern + The butt end of a steering oar, + And everywhere that I could turn + Men ran upon the shore. + + And though I would have hushed the crowd + There was no mother's son but said, + 'What is the figure in a shroud + Upon a gaudy bed?' + + And fishes bubbling to the brim + Cried out upon that thing beneath, + --It had such dignity of limb-- + By the sweet name of Death. + + Though I'd my finger on my lip, + What could I but take up the song? + And fish and crowd and gaudy ship + Cried out the whole night long, + + Crying amid the glittering sea, + Naming it with ecstatic breath, + Because it had such dignity + By the sweet name of Death. + + + + +A WOMAN HOMER SUNG + + + If any man drew near + When I was young, + I thought, 'He holds her dear,' + And shook with hate and fear. + But oh, 'twas bitter wrong + If he could pass her by + With an indifferent eye. + + Whereon I wrote and wrought, + And now, being grey, + I dream that I have brought + To such a pitch my thought + That coming time can say, + 'He shadowed in a glass + What thing her body was.' + + For she had fiery blood + When I was young, + And trod so sweetly proud + As 'twere upon a cloud, + A woman Homer sung, + That life and letters seem + But an heroic dream. + + + + +THE CONSOLATION + + + I had this thought awhile ago, + 'My darling cannot understand + What I have done, or what would do + In this blind bitter land.' + + And I grew weary of the sun + Until my thoughts cleared up again, + Remembering that the best I have done + Was done to make it plain; + + That every year I have cried, 'At length + My darling understands it all, + Because I have come into my strength, + And words obey my call.' + + That had she done so who can say + What would have shaken from the sieve? + I might have thrown poor words away + And been content to live. + + + + +NO SECOND TROY + + + Why should I blame her that she filled my days + With misery, or that she would of late + Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways, + Or hurled the little streets upon the great, + Had they but courage equal to desire? + What could have made her peaceful with a mind + That nobleness made simple as a fire, + With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind + That is not natural in an age like this, + Being high and solitary and most stern? + Why, what could she have done being what she is? + Was there another Troy for her to burn? + + + + +RECONCILIATION + + + Some may have blamed you that you took away + The verses that could move them on the day + When, the ears being deafened, the sight of the eyes blind + With lightning you went from me, and I could find + Nothing to make a song about but kings, + Helmets, and swords, and half-forgotten things + That were like memories of you--but now + We'll out, for the world lives as long ago; + And while we're in our laughing, weeping fit, + Hurl helmets, crowns, and swords into the pit. + But, dear, cling close to me; since you were gone, + My barren thoughts have chilled me to the bone. + + + + +KING AND NO KING + + + 'Would it were anything but merely voice!' + The No King cried who after that was King, + Because he had not heard of anything + That balanced with a word is more than noise; + Yet Old Romance being kind, let him prevail + Somewhere or somehow that I have forgot, + Though he'd but cannon--Whereas we that had thought + To have lit upon as clean and sweet a tale + Have been defeated by that pledge you gave + In momentary anger long ago; + And I that have not your faith, how shall I know + That in the blinding light beyond the grave + We'll find so good a thing as that we have lost? + The hourly kindness, the day's common speech, + The habitual content of each with each + When neither soul nor body has been crossed. + + + + +PEACE + + + Ah, that Time could touch a form + That could show what Homer's age + Bred to be a hero's wage. + 'Were not all her life but storm, + Would not painters paint a form + Of such noble lines,' I said, + 'Such a delicate high head, + All that sternness amid charm, + All that sweetness amid strength?' + Ah, but peace that comes at length, + Came when Time had touched her form. + + + + +AGAINST UNWORTHY PRAISE + + + O heart, be at peace, because + Nor knave nor dolt can break + What's not for their applause, + Being for a woman's sake. + Enough if the work has seemed, + So did she your strength renew, + A dream that a lion had dreamed + Till the wilderness cried aloud, + A secret between you two, + Between the proud and the proud. + + What, still you would have their praise! + But here's a haughtier text, + The labyrinth of her days + That her own strangeness perplexed; + And how what her dreaming gave + Earned slander, ingratitude, + From self-same dolt and knave; + Aye, and worse wrong than these, + Yet she, singing upon her road, + Half lion, half child, is at peace. + + + + +THE FASCINATION OF WHAT'S DIFFICULT + + + The fascination of what's difficult + Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent + Spontaneous joy and natural content + Out of my heart. There's something ails our colt + That must, as if it had not holy blood, + Nor on an Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud, + Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt + As though it dragged road metal. My curse on plays + That have to be set up in fifty ways, + On the day's war with every knave and dolt, + Theatre business, management of men. + I swear before the dawn comes round again + I'll find the stable and pull out the bolt. + + + + +A DRINKING SONG + + + Wine comes in at the mouth + And love comes in at the eye; + That's all we shall know for truth + Before we grow old and die. + I lift the glass to my mouth, + I look at you, and I sigh. + + + + +THE COMING OF WISDOM WITH TIME + + + Though leaves are many, the root is one; + Through all the lying days of my youth + I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun; + Now I may wither into the truth. + + + + +ON HEARING THAT THE STUDENTS OF OUR NEW UNIVERSITY HAVE JOINED THE +ANCIENT ORDER OF HIBERNIANS AND THE AGITATION AGAINST IMMORAL LITERATURE + + + Where, where but here have Pride and Truth, + That long to give themselves for wage, + To shake their wicked sides at youth + Restraining reckless middle-age. + + + + +TO A POET, WHO WOULD HAVE ME PRAISE CERTAIN BAD POETS, IMITATORS OF HIS +AND MINE + + + You say, as I have often given tongue + In praise of what another's said or sung, + 'Twere politic to do the like by these; + But have you known a dog to praise his fleas? + + + + +THE MASK + + + 'Put off that mask of burning gold + With emerald eyes.' + 'O no, my dear, you make so bold + To find if hearts be wild and wise, + And yet not cold.' + + 'I would but find what's there to find, + Love or deceit.' + 'It was the mask engaged your mind, + And after set your heart to beat, + Not what's behind.' + + 'But lest you are my enemy, + I must enquire.' + 'O no, my dear, let all that be, + What matter, so there is but fire + In you, in me?' + + + + +UPON A HOUSE SHAKEN BY THE LAND AGITATION + + + How should the world be luckier if this house, + Where passion and precision have been one + Time out of mind, became too ruinous + To breed the lidless eye that loves the sun? + And the sweet laughing eagle thoughts that grow + Where wings have memory of wings, and all + That comes of the best knit to the best? Although + Mean roof-trees were the sturdier for its fall, + How should their luck run high enough to reach + The gifts that govern men, and after these + To gradual Time's last gift, a written speech + Wrought of high laughter, loveliness and ease? + + + + +AT THE ABBEY THEATRE + +(_Imitated from Ronsard_) + + + Dear Craoibhin Aoibhin, look into our case. + When we are high and airy hundreds say + That if we hold that flight they'll leave the place, + While those same hundreds mock another day + Because we have made our art of common things, + So bitterly, you'd dream they longed to look + All their lives through into some drift of wings. + You've dandled them and fed them from the book + And know them to the bone; impart to us-- + We'll keep the secret--a new trick to please. + Is there a bridle for this Proteus + That turns and changes like his draughty seas? + Or is there none, most popular of men, + But when they mock us that we mock again? + + + + +THESE ARE THE CLOUDS + + + These are the clouds about the fallen sun, + The majesty that shuts his burning eye; + The weak lay hand on what the strong has done, + Till that be tumbled that was lifted high + And discord follow upon unison, + And all things at one common level lie. + And therefore, friend, if your great race were run + And these things came, so much the more thereby + Have you made greatness your companion, + Although it be for children that you sigh: + These are the clouds about the fallen sun, + The majesty that shuts his burning eye. + + + + +AT GALWAY RACES + + + There where the course is, + Delight makes all of the one mind, + The riders upon the galloping horses, + The crowd that closes in behind: + We, too, had good attendance once, + Hearers and hearteners of the work; + Aye, horsemen for companions, + Before the merchant and the clerk + Breathed on the world with timid breath. + Sing on: sometime, and at some new moon, + We'll learn that sleeping is not death, + Hearing the whole earth change its tune, + Its flesh being wild, and it again + Crying aloud as the race course is, + And we find hearteners among men + That ride upon horses. + + + + +A FRIEND'S ILLNESS + + + Sickness brought me this + Thought, in that scale of his: + Why should I be dismayed + Though flame had burned the whole + World, as it were a coal, + Now I have seen it weighed + Against a soul? + + + + +ALL THINGS CAN TEMPT ME + + + All things can tempt me from this craft of verse: + One time it was a woman's face, or worse-- + The seeming needs of my fool-driven land; + Now nothing but comes readier to the hand + Than this accustomed toil. When I was young, + I had not given a penny for a song + Did not the poet sing it with such airs + That one believed he had a sword upstairs; + Yet would be now, could I but have my wish, + Colder and dumber and deafer than a fish. + + + + +THE YOUNG MAN'S SONG + + + I whispered, 'I am too young,' + And then, 'I am old enough;' + Wherefore I threw a penny + To find out if I might love. + 'Go and love, go and love, young man, + If the lady be young and fair.' + Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny, + I am looped in the loops of her hair. + + Oh, love is the crooked thing, + There is nobody wise enough + To find out all that is in it, + For he would be thinking of love + Till the stars had run away, + And the shadows eaten the moon. + Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny, + One cannot begin it too soon. + + + + + * * * * * + + + + +THE HOUR-GLASS + +NEW VERSION--1912 + + + + +THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY + + + WISE MAN. + BRIDGET, his wife. + TEIGUE, a fool. + ANGEL. + Children and Pupils. + + +_Pupils come in and stand before the stage curtain, which is still +closed. One pupil carries a book._ + +FIRST PUPIL + +He said we might choose the subject for the lesson. + +SECOND PUPIL + +There is none of us wise enough to do that. + +THIRD PUPIL + +It would need a great deal of wisdom to know what it is we want to know. + +FOURTH PUPIL + +I will question him. + +FIFTH PUPIL + +You? + +FOURTH PUPIL + +Last night I dreamt that some one came and told me to question him. +I was to say to him, 'You were wrong to say there is no God and no +soul--maybe, if there is not much of either, there is yet some tatters, +some tag on the wind--so to speak--some rag upon a bush, some bob-tail +of a god.' I will argue with him,--nonsense though it be--according to +my dream, and you will see how well I can argue, and what thoughts I have. + + +FIRST PUPIL + +I'd as soon listen to dried peas in a bladder, as listen to your thoughts. + + [_Fool comes in._ + +FOOL + +Give me a penny. + +SECOND PUPIL + +Let us choose a subject by chance. Here is his big book. Let us turn +over the pages slowly. Let one of us put down his finger without looking. +The passage his finger lights on will be the subject for the lesson. + +FOOL + +Give me a penny. + +THIRD PUPIL + +(_Taking up book_) How heavy it is. + +FOURTH PUPIL + +Spread it on Teigue's back, and then we can all stand round and see the +choice. + +SECOND PUPIL + +Make him spread out his arms. + +FOURTH PUPIL + +Down on your knees. Hunch up your back. Spread your arms out now, and +look like a golden eagle in a church. Keep still, keep still. + +FOOL + +Give me a penny. + +THIRD PUPIL + +Is that the right cry for an eagle cock? + +SECOND PUPIL + +I'll turn the pages--you close your eyes and put your finger down. + +THIRD PUPIL + +That's it, and then he cannot blame us for the choice. + +FIRST PUPIL + +There, I have chosen. Fool, keep still--and if what's wise is strange +and sounds like nonsense, we've made a good choice. + +FIFTH PUPIL + +The Master has come. + +FOOL + +Will anybody give a penny to a fool? + + [_One of the pupils draws back the stage curtain showing the Master + sitting at his desk. There is an hour-glass upon his desk or in + a bracket on the wall. One pupil puts the book before him._ + +FIRST PUPIL + +We have chosen the passage for the lesson, Master. 'There are two +living countries, one visible and one invisible, and when it is summer +there, it is winter here, and when it is November with us, it is +lambing-time there.' + +WISE MAN + +That passage, that passage! what mischief has there been since yesterday? + +FIRST PUPIL + +None, Master. + +WISE MAN + +Oh yes, there has; some craziness has fallen from the wind, or risen +from the graves of old men, and made you choose that subject. + +FOURTH PUPIL + +I knew that it was folly, but they would have it. + +THIRD PUPIL + +Had we not better say we picked it by chance? + +SECOND PUPIL + +No; he would say we were children still. + +FIRST PUPIL + +I have found a sentence under that one that says--as though to show it +had a hidden meaning--a beggar wrote it upon the walls of Babylon. + +WISE MAN + +Then find some beggar and ask him what it means, for I will have nothing +to do with it. + +FOURTH PUPIL + +Come, Teigue, what is the old book's meaning when it says that there are +sheep that drop their lambs in November? + +FOOL + +To be sure--everybody knows, everybody in the world knows, when it is +Spring with us, the trees are withering there, when it is Summer with +us, the snow is falling there, and have I not myself heard the lambs +that are there all bleating on a cold November day--to be sure, does not +everybody with an intellect know that; and maybe when it's night with +us, it is day with them, for many a time I have seen the roads lighted +before me. + +WISE MAN + +The beggar who wrote that on Babylon wall meant that there is a +spiritual kingdom that cannot be seen or known till the faculties +whereby we master the kingdom of this world wither away, like green +things in winter. A monkish thought, the most mischievous thought that +ever passed out of a man's mouth. + +FIRST PUPIL + +If he meant all that, I will take an oath that he was spindle-shanked, +and cross-eyed, and had a lousy itching shoulder, and that his heart was +crosser than his eyes, and that he wrote it out of malice. + +SECOND PUPIL + +Let's come away and find a better subject. + +FOURTH PUPIL + +And maybe now you'll let me choose. + +FIRST PUPIL + +Come. + +WISE MAN + + Were it but true 'twould alter everything + Until the stream of the world had changed its course, + And that and all our thoughts had run + Into some cloudy thunderous spring + They dream to be its source-- + Aye, to some frenzy of the mind; + And all that we have done would be undone, + Our speculation but as the wind. + + [_A pause._ + + I have dreamed it twice. + +FIRST PUPIL + + Something has troubled him. + + [_Pupils go out._ + +WISE MAN + + Twice have I dreamed it in a morning dream, + Now nothing serves my pupils but to come + With a like thought. Reason is growing dim; + A moment more and Frenzy will beat his drum + And laugh aloud and scream; + And I must dance in the dream. + No, no, but it is like a hawk, a hawk of the air, + It has swooped down--and this swoop makes the third-- + And what can I, but tremble like a bird? + +FOOL + +Give me a penny. + +WISE MAN + +That I should dream it twice, and after that, that they should pick it out. + +FOOL + +Won't you give me a penny? + +WISE MAN + +What do you want? What can it matter to you whether the words I am +reading are wisdom or sheer folly? + +FOOL + +Such a great, wise teacher will not refuse a penny to a fool. + +WISE MAN + +Seeing that everybody is a fool when he is asleep and dreaming, why do +you call me wise? + +FOOL + +O, I know,--I know, I know what I have seen. + +WISE MAN + +Well, to see rightly is the whole of wisdom, whatever dream be with us. + +FOOL + +When I went by Kilcluan, where the bells used to be ringing at the break +of every day, I could hear nothing but the people snoring in their houses. +When I went by Tubbervanach, where the young men used to be climbing the +hill to the blessed well, they were sitting at the cross-roads playing +cards. When I went by Carrigoras, where the friars used to be fasting +and serving the poor, I saw them drinking wine and obeying their wives. +And when I asked what misfortune had brought all these changes, they +said it was no misfortune, but that it was the wisdom they had learned +from your teaching. + +WISE MAN + +And you too have called me wise--you would be paid for that good opinion +doubtless--Run to the kitchen, my wife will give you food and drink. + +FOOL + +That's foolish advice for a wise man to give. + +WISE MAN + +Why, Fool? + +FOOL + +What is eaten is gone--I want pennies for my bag. I must buy bacon in +the shops, and nuts in the market, and strong drink for the time the sun +is weak, and snares to catch the rabbits and the hares, and a big pot to +cook them in. + +WISE MAN + +I have more to think about than giving pennies to your like, so run away. + +FOOL + +Give me a penny and I will bring you luck. The fishermen let me sleep +among their nets in the loft because I bring them luck; and in the +summer time, the wild creatures let me sleep near their nests and their +holes. It is lucky even to look at me, but it is much more lucky to give +me a penny. If I was not lucky I would starve. + +WISE MAN + +What are the shears for? + +FOOL + +I won't tell you. If I told you, you would drive them away. + +WISE MAN + +Drive them away! Who would I drive away? + +FOOL + +I won't tell you. + +WISE MAN + +Not if I give you a penny? + +FOOL + +No. + +WISE MAN + +Not if I give you two pennies? + +FOOL + +You will be very lucky if you give me two pennies, but I won't tell you. + +WISE MAN + +Three pennies? + +FOOL + +Four, and I will tell you. + +WISE MAN + +Very well--four, but from this out I will not call you Teigue the Fool. + +FOOL + +Let me come close to you, where nobody will hear me; but first you must +promise not to drive them away. (_Wise Man nods._) Every day men go out +dressed in black and spread great black nets over the hills, great black +nets. + +WISE MAN + +A strange place that to fish in. + +FOOL + +They spread them out on the hills that they may catch the feet of the +angels; but every morning just before the dawn, I go out and cut the +nets with the shears and the angels fly away. + +WISE MAN + +(_Speaking with excitement_) Ah, now I know that you are Teigue the +Fool. You say that I am wise, and yet I say, there are no angels. + +FOOL + +I have seen plenty of angels. + +WISE MAN + +No, no, you have not. + +FOOL + +They are plenty if you but look about you. They are like the blades +of grass. + +WISE MAN + +They are plenty as the blades of grass--I heard that phrase when I was +but a child and was told folly. + +FOOL + +When one gets quiet. When one is so quiet that there is not a thought in +one's head maybe, there is something that wakes up inside one, something +happy and quiet, and then all in a minute one can smell summer flowers, +and tall people go by, happy and laughing, but they will not let us look +at their faces. Oh no, it is not right that we should look at their faces. + +WISE MAN + +You have fallen asleep upon a hill, yet, even those that used to dream +of angels dream now of other things. + +FOOL + +I saw one but a moment ago--that is because I am lucky. It was coming +behind me, but it was not laughing. + +WISE MAN + +There's nothing but what men can see when they are awake. Nothing, nothing. + +FOOL + +I knew you would drive them away. + +WISE MAN + + Pardon me, Fool, + I had forgotten who I spoke to. + Well, there are your four pennies--Fool you are called, + And all day long they cry, 'Come hither, Fool.' + + [_The Fool goes close to him._ + + Or else it's, 'Fool, be gone.' + + [_The Fool goes further off._ + + Or, 'Fool, stand there.' + + [_The Fool straightens himself up._ + + Or, 'Fool, go sit in the corner.' + + [_The Fool sits in the corner._ + + And all the while + What were they all but fools before I came? + What are they now, but mirrors that seem men, + Because of my image? Fool, hold up your head. + + [_Fool does so._ + + What foolish stories they have told of the ghosts + That fumbled with the clothes upon the bed, + Or creaked and shuffled in the corridor, + Or else, if they were pious bred, + Of angels from the skies, + That coming through the door, + Or, it may be, standing there, + Would solidly out stare + The steadiest eyes with their unnatural eyes, + Aye, on a man's own floor. + + [_An angel has come in. It should be played by a man if a + man can be found with the right voice, and may wear a + little golden domino and a halo made of metal. Or the + whole face may be a beautiful mask, in which case the + last sentence on page 136 should not be spoken._ + + Yet it is strange, the strangest thing I have known, + That I should still be haunted by the notion + That there's a crisis of the spirit wherein + We get new sight, and that they know some trick + To turn our thoughts for their own ends to frenzy. + Why do you put your finger to your lip, + And creep away? + + [_Fool goes out._ + + (_Wise Man sees Angel._) What are you? Who are you? + I think I saw some like you in my dreams, + When but a child. That thing about your head,-- + That brightness in your hair--that flowery branch; + But I have done with dreams, I have done with dreams. + +ANGEL + + I am the crafty one that you have called. + +WISE MAN + + How that I called? + +ANGEL + + I am the messenger. + +WISE MAN + + What message could you bring to one like me? + +ANGEL (_turning the hour-glass_) + + That you will die when the last grain of sand + Has fallen through this glass. + +WISE MAN + + I have a wife. + Children and pupils that I cannot leave: + Why must I die, my time is far away? + +ANGEL + + You have to die because no soul has passed + The heavenly threshold since you have opened school, + But grass grows there, and rust upon the hinge; + And they are lonely that must keep the watch. + +WISE MAN + + And whither shall I go when I am dead? + +ANGEL + + You have denied there is a purgatory, + Therefore that gate is closed; you have denied + There is a heaven, and so that gate is closed. + +WISE MAN + + Where then? For I have said there is no hell. + +ANGEL + + Hell is the place of those who have denied; + They find there what they planted and what dug, + A Lake of Spaces, and a Wood of Nothing, + And wander there and drift, and never cease + Wailing for substance. + +WISE MAN + + Pardon me, blessed Angel, + I have denied and taught the like to others. + But how could I believe before my sight + Had come to me? + +ANGEL + + It is too late for pardon. + +WISE MAN + + Had I but met your gaze as now I met it-- + But how can you that live but where we go + In the uncertainty of dizzy dreams + Know why we doubt? Parting, sickness and death, + The rotting of the grass, tempest and drouth, + These are the messengers that came to me. + Why are you silent? You carry in your hands + God's pardon, and you will not give it me. + Why are you silent? Were I not afraid, + I'd kiss your hands--no, no, the hem of your dress. + +ANGEL + + Only when all the world has testified, + May soul confound it, crying out in joy, + And laughing on its lonely precipice. + What's dearth and death and sickness to the soul + That knows no virtue but itself? Nor could it, + So trembling with delight and mother-naked, + Live unabashed if the arguing world stood by. + +WISE MAN + + It is as hard for you to understand + Why we have doubted, as it is for us + To banish doubt--what folly have I said? + There can be nothing that you do not know: + Give me a year--a month--a week--a day, + I would undo what I have done--an hour-- + Give me until the sand has run in the glass. + +ANGEL + + Though you may not undo what you have done, + I have this power--if you but find one soul, + Before the sands have fallen, that still believes, + One fish to lie and spawn among the stones + Till the great fisher's net is full again, + You may, the purgatorial fire being passed, + Spring to your peace. + + [_Pupils sing in the distance._ + + 'Who stole your wits away + And where are they gone?' + +WISE MAN + + My pupils come, + Before you have begun to climb the sky + I shall have found that soul. They say they doubt, + But what their mothers dinned into their ears + Cannot have been so lightly rooted up; + Besides, I can disprove what I once proved-- + And yet give me some thought, some argument, + More mighty than my own. + +ANGEL + + Farewell--farewell, + For I am weary of the weight of time. + + [_Angel goes out. Wise Man makes a step to follow and pauses. + Some of his pupils come in at the other side of the stage._ + +FIRST PUPIL + + Master, master, you must choose the subject. + + [_Enter other pupils with Fool, about whom they dance; all + the pupils may have little cushions on which presently + they seat themselves._ + +SECOND PUPIL + + Here is a subject--where have the Fool's wits gone? (_singing_) + 'Who dragged your wits away + Where no one knows? + Or have they run off + On their own pair of shoes?' + +FOOL + +Give me a penny. + +FIRST PUPIL + + The Master will find your wits, + +SECOND PUPIL + + And when they are found, you must not beg for pennies. + +THIRD PUPIL + + They are hidden somewhere in the badger's hole, + But you must carry an old candle end + If you would find them. + +FOURTH PUPIL + + They are up above the clouds. + +FOOL + +Give me a penny, give me a penny. + +FIRST PUPIL (_singing_) + + 'I'll find your wits again, + Come, for I saw them roll, + To where old badger mumbles + In the black hole.' + +SECOND PUPIL (_singing_) + + 'No, but an angel stole them + The night that you were born, + And now they are but a rag, + On the moon's horn.' + +WISE MAN + +Be silent. + +FIRST PUPIL + + Can you not see that he is troubled? + + [_All the pupils are seated._ + +WISE MAN + + What do you think of when alone at night? + Do not the things your mothers spoke about, + Before they took the candle from the bedside, + Rush up into the mind and master it, + Till you believe in them against your will? + +SECOND PUPIL (_to first pupil_) + + You answer for us. + +THIRD PUPIL (_in a whisper to first pupil_) + + Be careful what you say; + If he persuades you to an argument, + He will but turn us all to mockery. + +FIRST PUPIL + + We had no minds until you made them for us; + Our bodies only were our mothers' work. + +WISE MAN + + You answer with incredible things. It is certain + That there is one,--though it may be but one-- + Believes in God and in some heaven and hell-- + In all those things we put into our prayers. + +FIRST PUPIL + + We thought those things before our minds were born, + But that was long ago--we are not children. + +WISE MAN + + You are afraid to tell me what you think + Because I am hot and angry when I am crossed. + I do not blame you for it; but have no fear, + For if there's one that sat on smiling there, + As though my arguments were sweet as milk + Yet found them bitter, I will thank him for it, + If he but speak his mind. + +FIRST PUPIL + + There is no one, Master, + There is not one but found them sweet as milk. + +WISE MAN + + The things that have been told us in our childhood + Are not so fragile. + +SECOND PUPIL + + We are no longer children. + +THIRD PUPIL + + We all believe in you and in what you have taught. + +OTHER PUPILS + + All, all, all, all, in you, nothing but you. + +WISE MAN + + I have deceived you--where shall I go for words-- + I have no thoughts--my mind has been swept bare. + The messengers that stand in the fiery cloud, + Fling themselves out, if we but dare to question, + And after that, the Babylonian moon + Blots all away. + +FIRST PUPIL (_to other pupils_) + + I take his words to mean + That visionaries, and martyrs when they are raised + Above translunary things, and there enlightened, + As the contention is, may lose the light, + And flounder in their speech when the eyes open. + +SECOND PUPIL + + How well he imitates their trick of speech. + +THIRD PUPIL + + Their air of mystery. + +FOURTH PUPIL + + Their empty gaze, + As though they'd looked upon some winged thing, + And would not condescend to mankind after. + +FIRST PUPIL + + Master, we have all learnt that truth is learnt + When the intellect's deliberate and cold, + As it were a polished mirror that reflects + An unchanged world; and not when the steel melts, + Bubbling and hissing, till there's naught but fume. + +WISE MAN + + When it is melted, when it all fumes up, + They walk, as when beside those three in the furnace + The form of the fourth. + +FIRST PUPIL + + Master, there's none among us + That has not heard your mockery of these, + Or thoughts like these, and we have not forgot. + +WISE MAN + + Something incredible has happened--some one has come + Suddenly like a grey hawk out of the air, + And all that I declared untrue is true. + +FIRST PUPIL (_to other pupils_) + + You'd think the way he says it, that he felt it. + There's not a mummer to compare with him. + He's something like a man. + +SECOND PUPIL + + Give us some proof. + +WISE MAN + + What proof have I to give, but that an angel + An instant ago was standing on that spot. + + [_The pupils rise._ + +THIRD PUPIL + + You dreamed it. + +WISE MAN + + I was awake as I am now. + +FIRST PUPIL (_to the others_) + + I may be dreaming now for all I know. + He wants to show we have no certain proof + Of anything in the world. + +SECOND PUPIL + + There is this proof + That shows we are awake--we have all one world + While every dreamer has a world of his own, + And sees what no one else can. + +THIRD PUPIL + + Teigue sees angels. + So when the Master says he has seen an angel, + He may have seen one. + +FIRST PUPIL + + Both may still be dreamers; + Unless it's proved the angels were alike. + +SECOND PUPIL + + What sort are the angels, Teigue? + +THIRD PUPIL + + That will prove nothing, + Unless we are sure prolonged obedience + Has made one angel like another angel + As they were eggs. + +FIRST PUPIL + + The Master's silent now: + For he has found that to dispute with us-- + Seeing that he has taught us what we know-- + Is but to reason with himself. Let us away, + And find if there is one believer left. + +WISE MAN + + Yes, yes. Find me but one that still believes + The things that we were told when we were children. + +THIRD PUPIL + + He'll mock and maul him. + +FOURTH PUPIL + + From the first I knew + He wanted somebody to argue with. + + [_They go._ + +WISE MAN + + I have no reason left. All dark, all dark! + + [_Pupils return laughing. They push forward fourth pupil._ + +FIRST PUPIL + + Here, Master, is the very man you want. + He said, when we were studying the book, + That maybe after all the monks were right, + And you mistaken, and if we but gave him time, + He'd prove that it was so. + +FOURTH PUPIL + + I never said it. + +WISE MAN + + Dear friend, dear friend, do you believe in God? + +FOURTH PUPIL + + Master, they have invented this to mock me. + +WISE MAN + + You are afraid of me. + +FOURTH PUPIL + + They know well, Master, + That all I said was but to make them argue. + They've pushed me in to make a mock of me, + Because they knew I could take either side + And beat them at it. + +WISE MAN + + If you believe in God, + You are my soul's one friend. + + [_Pupils laugh._ + + Mistress or wife + Can give us but our good or evil luck + Amid the howling world, but you shall give + Eternity, and those sweet-throated things + That drift above the moon. + + [_The pupils look at one another and are silent._ + +SECOND PUPIL + + How strange he is. + +WISE MAN + + The angel that stood there upon that spot, + Said that my soul was lost unless I found out + One that believed. + +FOURTH PUPIL + + Cease mocking at me, Master, + For I am certain that there is no God + Nor immortality, and they that said it + Made a fantastic tale from a starved dream + To plague our hearts. Will that content you, Master? + +WISE MAN + + The giddy glass is emptier every moment, + And you stand there, debating, laughing and wrangling. + Out of my sight! Out of my sight, I say. + + [_He drives them out._ + + I'll call my wife, for what can women do, + That carry us in the darkness of their bodies, + But mock the reason that lets nothing grow + Unless it grow in light. Bridget, Bridget. + A woman never ceases to believe, + Say what we will. Bridget, come quickly, Bridget. + + [_Bridget comes in wearing her apron. Her sleeves turned up + from her arms, which are covered with flour._ + + Wife, what do you believe in? Tell me the truth, + And not--as is the habit with you all-- + Something you think will please me. Do you pray? + Sometimes when you're alone in the house, do you pray? + +BRIDGET + +Prayers--no, you taught me to leave them off long ago. At first I was +sorry, but I am glad now, for I am sleepy in the evenings. + +WISE MAN + +Do you believe in God? + +BRIDGET + +Oh, a good wife only believes in what her husband tells her. + +WISE MAN + + But sometimes, when the children are asleep + And I am in the school, do you not think + About the Martyrs and the saints and the angels, + And all the things that you believed in once? + +BRIDGET + +I think about nothing--sometimes I wonder if the linen is bleaching +white, or I go out to see if the crows are picking up the chickens' food. + +WISE MAN + + My God,--my God! I will go out myself. + My pupils said that they would find a man + Whose faith I never shook--they may have found him. + Therefore I will go out--but if I go, + The glass will let the sands run out unseen. + I cannot go--I cannot leave the glass. + Go call my pupils--I can explain all now, + Only when all our hold on life is troubled, + Only in spiritual terror can the Truth + Come through the broken mind--as the pease burst + Out of a broken pease-cod. + + [_He clutches Bridget as she is going._ + + Say to them, + That Nature would lack all in her most need, + Could not the soul find truth as in a flash, + Upon the battle-field, or in the midst + Of overwhelming waves, and say to them-- + But no, they would but answer as I bid. + +BRIDGET + +You want somebody to get up an argument with. + +WISE MAN + + Look out and see if there is any one + There in the street--I cannot leave the glass, + For somebody might shake it, and the sand + If it were shaken might run down on the instant. + +BRIDGET + +I don't understand a word you are saying. There's a crowd of people +talking to your pupils. + +WISE MAN + + Go out and find if they have found a man + Who did not understand me when I taught, + Or did not listen. + +BRIDGET + +It is a hard thing to be married to a man of learning that must always +be having arguments. + + [_She goes out._ + +WISE MAN + + Strange that I should be blind to the great secret, + And that so simple a man might write it out + Upon a blade of grass or bit of rush + With naught but berry juice, and laugh to himself + Writing it out, because it was so simple. + + [_Enter Bridget followed by the Fool._ + +FOOL + +Give me something; give me a penny to buy bacon in the shops and nuts in +the market, and strong drink for the time when the sun is weak. + +BRIDGET + +I have no pennies. (_To Wise Man_) Your pupils cannot find anybody to +argue with you. There's nobody in the whole country with belief enough +for a lover's oath. Can't you be quiet now, and not always wanting to +have arguments? It must be terrible to have a mind like that. + +WISE MAN + +Then I am lost indeed. + +BRIDGET + +Leave me alone now, I have to make the bread for you and the children. + + [_She goes into kitchen._ + +WISE MAN + +Children, children! + + +BRIDGET + +Your father wants you, run to him. + + [_Children run in._ + +WISE MAN + + Come to me, children. Do not be afraid. + I want to know if you believe in Heaven, + God or the soul--no, do not tell me yet; + You need not be afraid I shall be angry, + Say what you please--so that it is your thought-- + I wanted you to know before you spoke, + That I shall not be angry. + +FIRST CHILD + +We have not forgotten, Father. + +SECOND CHILD + +Oh no, Father. + +BOTH CHILDREN + +(_As if repeating a lesson_) There is nothing we cannot see, nothing we +cannot touch. + +FIRST CHILD + +Foolish people used to say that there was, but you have taught us better. + +WISE MAN + + Go to your mother, go--yet do not go. + What can she say? If I am dumb you are lost; + And yet, because the sands are running out, + I have but a moment to show it all in. Children, + The sap would die out of the blades of grass + Had they a doubt. They understand it all, + Being the fingers of God's certainty, + Yet can but make their sign into the air; + But could they find their tongues they'd show it all; + But what am I to say that am but one, + When they are millions and they will not speak-- + + [_Children have run out._ + + But they are gone; what made them run away? + + [_The Fool comes in with a dandelion._ + + Look at me, tell me if my face is changed, + Is there a notch of the fiend's nail upon it + Already? Is it terrible to sight? + Because the moment's near. + + [_Going to glass._ + + I dare not look, + I dare not know the moment when they come. + No, no, I dare not. (_Covers glass._) + Will there be a footfall, + Or will there be a sort of rending sound, + Or else a cracking, as though an iron claw + Had gripped the threshold stone? + + [_Fool has begun to blow the dandelion._ + + What are you doing? + +FOOL + +Wait a minute--four--five--six-- + +WISE MAN + +What are you doing that for? + +FOOL + +I am blowing the dandelion to find out what hour it is. + +WISE MAN + + You have heard everything, and that is why + You'd find what hour it is--you'd find that out, + That you may look upon a fleet of devils + Dragging my soul away. You shall not stop, + I will have no one here when they come in, + I will have no one sitting there--no one-- + And yet--and yet--there is something strange about you. + I half remember something. What is it? + Do you believe in God and in the soul? + +FOOL + +So you ask me now. I thought when you were asking your pupils, 'Will he +ask Teigue the Fool? Yes, he will, he will; no, he will not--yes, he +will.' But Teigue will say nothing. Teigue will say nothing. + +WISE MAN + +Tell me quickly. + +FOOL + +I said, 'Teigue knows everything, not even the green-eyed cats and the +hares that milk the cows have Teigue's wisdom'; but Teigue will not speak, +he says nothing. + +WISE MAN + + Speak, speak, for underneath the cover there + The sand is running from the upper glass, + And when the last grain's through, I shall be lost. + +FOOL + +I will not speak. I will not tell you what is in my mind. I will not +tell you what is in my bag. You might steal away my thoughts. I met a +bodach on the road yesterday, and he said, 'Teigue, tell me how many +pennies are in your bag; I will wager three pennies that there are +not twenty pennies in your bag; let me put in my hand and count them.' +But I gripped the bag the tighter, and when I go to sleep at night I +hide the bag where nobody knows. + +WISE MAN + + There's but one pinch of sand, and I am lost + If you are not he I seek. + +FOOL + +O, what a lot the Fool knows, but he says nothing. + +WISE MAN + + Yes, I remember now. You spoke of angels. + You said but now that you had seen an angel. + You are the one I seek, and I am saved. + +FOOL + +Oh no. How could poor Teigue see angels? Oh, Teigue tells one tale here, +another there, and everybody gives him pennies. If Teigue had not his +tales he would starve. + + [_He breaks away and goes out._ + +WISE MAN + + The last hope is gone, + And now that it's too late I see it all, + We perish into God and sink away + Into reality--the rest's a dream. + + [_The Fool comes back._ + +FOOL + +There was one there--there by the threshold stone, waiting there; and he +said, 'Go in, Teigue, and tell him everything that he asks you. He will +give you a penny if you tell him.' + +WISE MAN + + I know enough, that know God's will prevails. + +FOOL + +Waiting till the moment had come--That is what the one out there was +saying, but I might tell you what you asked. That is what he was saying. + +WISE MAN + + Be silent. May God's will prevail on the instant, + Although His will be my eternal pain. + I have no question: + It is enough, I know what fixed the station + Of star and cloud. + And knowing all, I cry + That what so God has willed + On the instant be fulfilled, + Though that be my damnation. + The stream of the world has changed its course, + And with the stream my thoughts have run + Into some cloudy thunderous spring + That is its mountain source-- + Aye, to some frenzy of the mind, + For all that we have done's undone, + Our speculation but as the wind. + + [_He dies._ + +FOOL + +Wise man--Wise man, wake up and I will tell you everything for a penny. +It is I, poor Teigue the Fool. Why don't you wake up, and say, 'There +is a penny for you, Teigue'? No, no, you will say nothing. You and I, +we are the two fools, we know everything, but we will not speak. + + [_Angel enters holding a casket._ + +O, look what has come from his mouth! O, look what has come from his +mouth--the white butterfly! He is dead, and I have taken his soul in my +hands; but I know why you open the lid of that golden box. I must give +it to you. There then, (_he puts butterfly in casket_) he has gone +through his pains, and you will open the lid in the Garden of Paradise. +(_He closes curtain and remains outside it._) He is gone, he is gone, +he is gone, but come in, everybody in the world, and look at me. + + 'I hear the wind a blow + I hear the grass a grow, + And all that I know, I know.' + But I will not speak, I will run away. + + [_He goes out._ + + + + + * * * * * + + + + +NOTES + + +PREFATORY POEM + +'Free of the ten and four' is an error I cannot now correct, without +more rewriting than I have a mind for. Some merchant in Villon, I forget +the reference, was 'free of the ten and four.' Irish merchants exempted +from certain duties by the Irish Parliament were, unless memory deceives +me again for I am writing away from books, 'free of the eight and six.' + + +POEMS BEGINNING WITH THAT 'TO A WEALTHY MAN' AND ENDING WITH THAT +'TO A SHADE' + +During the thirty years or so during which I have been reading Irish +newspapers, three public controversies have stirred my imagination. The +first was the Parnell controversy. There were reasons to justify a man's +joining either party, but there were none to justify, on one side or +on the other, lying accusations forgetful of past service, a frenzy of +detraction. And another was the dispute over 'The Playboy.' There were +reasons for opposing as for supporting that violent, laughing thing, +but none for the lies, for the unscrupulous rhetoric spread against +it in Ireland, and from Ireland to America. The third prepared for the +Corporation's refusal of a building for Sir Hugh Lane's famous collection +of pictures. + +One could respect the argument that Dublin, with much poverty and many +slums, could not afford the £22,000 the building was to cost the city, +but not the minds that used it. One frenzied man compared the pictures +to Troy horse which 'destroyed a city,' and innumerable correspondents +described Sir Hugh Lane and those who had subscribed many thousands to +give Dublin paintings by Corot, Manet, Monet, Degas, and Renoir, as +'self-seekers,' 'self-advertisers,' 'picture-dealers,' 'log-rolling +cranks and faddists,' and one clerical paper told 'picture-dealer Lane' +to take himself and his pictures out of that. A member of the Corporation +said there were Irish artists who could paint as good if they had a +mind to, and another described a half-hour in the temporary gallery in +Harcourt Street as the most dismal of his life. Some one else asked +instead of these eccentric pictures to be given pictures 'like those +beautiful productions displayed in the windows of our city picture +shops.' Another thought that we would all be more patriotic if we +devoted our energy to fighting the Insurance Act. Another would not +hang them in his kitchen, while yet another described the vogue of +French impressionist painting as having gone to such a length among +'log-rolling enthusiasts' that they even admired 'works that were +rejected from the Salon forty years ago by the finest critics in the +world.' + +The first serious opposition began in the _Irish Catholic_, the chief +Dublin clerical paper, and Mr. William Murphy, the organiser of the +recent lock-out and Mr. Healy's financial supporter in his attack upon +Parnell, a man of great influence, brought to its support a few days +later his newspapers _The Evening Herald_ and _The Irish Independent_, +the most popular of Irish daily papers. He replied to my poem 'To a +Wealthy Man' (I was thinking of a very different wealthy man) from what +he described as 'Paudeen's point of view,' and 'Paudeen's point of view' +it was. The enthusiasm for 'Sir Hugh Lane's Corots'--one paper spelled +the name repeatedly 'Crot'--being but 'an exotic fashion,' waited 'some +satirist like Gilbert' who 'killed the ęsthetic craze,' and as for the +rest 'there were no greater humbugs in the world than art critics and +so-called experts.' As the first avowed reason for opposition, the +necessities of the poor got but a few lines, not so many certainly as the +objection of various persons to supply Sir Hugh Lane with 'a monument +at the city's expense,' and as the gallery was supported by Mr. James +Larkin, the chief Labour leader, and important slum workers, I assume +that the purpose of the opposition was not exclusively charitable. + +These controversies, political, literary, and artistic, have showed that +neither religion nor politics can of itself create minds with enough +receptivity to become wise, or just and generous enough to make a +nation. Other cities have been as stupid--Samuel Butler laughs at +shocked Montreal for hiding the Discobolus in a cellar--but Dublin is +the capital of a nation, and an ancient race has nowhere else to look +for an education. Goethe in _Wilhelm Meister_ describes a saintly and +naturally gracious woman, who getting into a quarrel over some trumpery +detail of religious observance, grows--she and all her little religious +community--angry and vindictive. In Ireland I am constantly reminded of +that fable of the futility of all discipline that is not of the whole +being. Religious Ireland--and the pious Protestants of my childhood were +signal examples--thinks of divine things as a round of duties separated +from life and not as an element that may be discovered in all circumstance +and emotion, while political Ireland sees the good citizen but as a man +who holds to certain opinions and not as a man of good will. Against all +this we have but a few educated men and the remnants of an old traditional +culture among the poor. Both were stronger forty years ago, before the +rise of our new middle class which showed as its first public event, +during the nine years of the Parnellite split, how base at moments of +excitement are minds without culture. 1914. + +'Romantic Ireland's dead and gone' sounds old-fashioned now. It seemed +true in 1913, but I did not foresee 1916. The late Dublin Rebellion, +whatever one can say of its wisdom, will long be remembered for its +heroism. 'They weighed so lightly what they gave,' and gave too in some +cases without hope of success. July 1916. + + +THE DOLLS + +The fable for this poem came into my head while I was giving some +lectures in Dublin. I had noticed once again how all thought among us is +frozen into 'something other than human life.' After I had made the poem, +I looked up one day into the blue of the sky, and suddenly imagined, as +if lost in the blue of the sky, stiff figures in procession. I remembered +that they were the habitual image suggested by blue sky, and looking for +a second fable called them 'The Magi', complimentary forms to those +enraged dolls. + + +THE HOUR-GLASS + +A friend suggested to me the subject of this play, an Irish folk-tale +from Lady Wilde's _Ancient Legends_. I have for years struggled with +something which is charming in the naive legend but a platitude on the +stage. I did not discover till a year ago that if the wise man humbled +himself to the fool and received salvation as his reward, so much more +powerful are pictures than words, no explanatory dialogue could set the +matter right. I was faintly pleased when I converted a music-hall singer +and kept him going to Mass for six weeks, so little responsibility does +one feel for those to whom one has never been introduced; but I was +always ashamed when I saw any friend of my own in the theatre. Now I +have made my philosopher accept God's will, whatever it is, and find his +courage again, and helped by the elaboration of verse, have so changed +the fable that it is not false to my own thoughts of the world. + + * * * * * + +Printed in the United States of America. + + * * * * * + + + The following pages contain advertisements of + books by the same author or on kindred subjects. + + + * * * * * + + + + +BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS + + +Reveries Over Childhood and Youth _$2.00_ + +In this book the celebrated Irish author gives us his reminiscences of +his childhood and youth. The memories are written, as is to be expected, +in charming prose. They have the appeal invariably attached to the +account of a sensitive childhood. + + +The Hour Glass and Other Plays _$1.25_ + +"The Hour Glass" is one of Mr. Yeats' noble and effective plays, and +with the other plays in the volume, make a small, but none the less +representative collection. + + +Stories of Red Hanrahan _$1.25_ + +These tales belong to the realm of pure lyrical expression. They are +mysterious and shadowy, full of infinite subtleties and old wisdom of +folklore, and sad with the gray wistful Celtic sadness. + +"Lovers of Mr. Yeats's suggestive and delicate writing will find him at +his best in this volume."--_Springfield Republican._ + + +Ideas of Good and Evil _$1.50_ + +Essays on art and life, wherein are set forth much of Yeats' philosophy, +his love of beauty, his hope for Ireland and for Irish artistic +achievement. + + +The Celtic Twilight _$1.50_ + +A collection of tales from Irish life and of Irish fancy, retold from +peasants' stories with no additions except an occasional comment. + + * * * * * + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + * * * * * + + +The Cutting of an Agate + + _12mo, $1.50_ + +"Mr. Yeats is probably the most important as well as the most widely +known of the men concerned directly in the so-called Celtic renaissance. +More than this, he stands among the few men to be reckoned with in +modern poetry."--_New York Herald._ + + +The Green Helmet and Other Poems + + _Decorated cloth, 12mo, $1.25_ + +The initial piece in this volume is a deliciously conceived heroic +farce, quaint in humor and sprightly in action. It tells of the +difficulty in which two simple Irish folk find themselves when they +enter into an agreement with an apparition of the sea, who demands that +they knock off his head and who maintains that after they have done that +he will knock off theirs. There is a real meaning in the play which it +will not take the thoughtful reader long to discover. Besides this there +are a number of shorter poems, notably one in which Mr. Yeats answers +the critics of "The Playboy of the Western World." + + +Lyrical and Dramatic Poems + +In Two Volumes + + _Vol. I. Lyrical Poems, $1.75 Leather, $2.25_ + + _Vol. II. Plays (Revised), $2.00 Leather, $2.25_ + +The two-volume edition of the Irish poet's works included everything he +has done in verse up to the present time. The first volume contains his +lyrics; the second includes all of his five dramas in verse: "The +Countess Cathleen," "The Land of Heart's Desire," "The King's Threshold," +"On Baile's Strand," and "The Shadowy Waters." + + * * * * * + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + + * * * * * + + +The Quest + +By JOHN G. NEIHARDT + +Author of "The Song of Hugh Glass" + +Here are brought together the more important of Mr. Neihardt's poems. +For some years there have been those--and prominent critics, too--who +have quite emphatically maintained that there is no greater American +poet than Mr. Neihardt, that in him are found those essentials which +make for true art--a feeling for words, a lyric power of the first +quality, an understanding of rhythm. Here, for example, is the comment +of the _Boston Transcript_ on the book just preceding this, _The Song of +Hugh Glass:_ "In this poem Mr. Neihardt touches life, power, beauty, +spirit; the tremendous and impressive forces of nature.... The genius of +American poetry is finding itself in such a poem as this.... The poem +is powerfully poetic.... It is a big, sweeping thing blazing a pathway +across the frontiers of our national life." + + +Californians + +By ROBINSON JEFFERS + +California is now to have its part in the poetry revival. Robinson +Jeffers is a new poet, a man whose name is as yet unknown but whose work +is of such outstanding character that once it is read he is sure of +acceptance by those who have admired the writings of such men as John G. +Neihardt, Edgar Lee Masters, Edwin Arlington Robinson and Thomas Walsh. +Virtually all of the poems in this first collection have their setting +in California, most of them in the Monterey peninsula, and they realize +the scenery of the great State with vividness and richness of detail. +The author's main source of inspiration has been the varying aspects of +nature. + + * * * * * + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + * * * * * + + +Poems of the Great War + +By J. W. CUNLIFFE + +Here are brought together under the editorship of Dr. Cunliffe some of +the more notable poems which have dealt with the great war. Among the +writers represented are Rupert Brooke, John Masefield, Lincoln Colcord, +William Benet, Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, Hermann Hagedorn, Alfred Noyes, +Rabindranath Tagore, Walter De La Mare, Vachel Lindsay and Owen Seaman. + + +The New Poetry: An Anthology + +Edited by HARRIET MONROE and ALICE CORBIN HENDERSON, Editors of _Poetry_ + +Probably few people are following as closely the poetry of to-day as +are the editors of the _Poetry Magazine_ of Chicago. They are eminently +fitted, therefore, to prepare such a volume as this, which is intended +to represent the work that is being done by the leading poets of the +land. Here, between the covers of one book, are brought together poems +by a great many different writers, all of whom may be said to be +responsible in a measure for the revival of interest in poetry in this +country. + + +The Story of Eleusis + +By LOUIS V. LEDOUX + +This is a lyrical drama, in the Greek manner, dealing with the story of +Persephone. Mr. Ledoux has constructed such a play as might well have +held the attention of the assembled mystę at Eleusis. It is Greek. +Better than this, it is also human. 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