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<pre>

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems, by W. B. 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: Poems

Author: W. B. Yeats

Release Date: February 14, 2012 [EBook #38877]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

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</pre>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i"></a></span></p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii"></a></span></p>

<h1>POEMS</h1>

<div class="bbox center p6">
<p class="center u">EVERY IRISHMAN'S LIBRARY</p>

<p class="center"><i>Cr. 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d. net each. With Frontispieces.</i></p>

<p class="center">LIST OF VOLUMES</p>

<div class="center">
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Volumes">
<tr><td align="right">1.</td><td align="left">Thomas Davis. <span class="smcap">Selections from his Prose and Poetry.</span> Edited by <span class="smcap">T.W. Rolleston</span>, M.A. (Dublin).</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">2.</td><td align="left">Wild Sports of the West. By <span class="smcap">W.H. Maxwell</span>. Edited by the <span class="smcap">Earl of Dunraven</span>.</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">3.</td><td align="left">Legends of Saints and Sinners from the Irish. Edited by <span class="smcap">Douglas Hyde</span>, LL.D. (Dublin).</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">4.</td><td align="left">The Book of Irish Humour. Edited by <span class="smcap">Charles L. Graves</span>, M.A. (Oxon.).</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">5.</td><td align="left">Irish Orators and Oratory. With an Introduction by Professor <span class="smcap">T.M. Kettle</span>, M.P.</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">6.</td><td align="left">The Book of Irish Poetry. Edited by <span class="smcap">Alfred Perceval Graves</span>, M.A. (Dublin).</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">7.</td><td align="left">Standish O'Grady. <span class="smcap">Selected Essays and Passages.</span> Edited by <span class="smcap">Ernest A. Boyd</span>.</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">8.</td><td align="left">Recollections of Jonah Barrington. Edited by <span class="smcap">George A. Birmingham</span>.</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">9.</td><td align="left">Poems of Sir Samuel Ferguson. Edited by <span class="smcap">Alfred Perceval Graves</span>, M.A.</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">10.</td><td align="left">Carleton's Stories of Irish Life. With an Introduction by <span class="smcap">Darrell Figgis</span>.</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">11.</td><td align="left">The Collegians. By <span class="smcap">Gerald Griffin</span>. With Introduction by <span class="smcap">Padraic Colum</span>.</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">12.</td><td align="left">Maria Edgeworth: <span class="smcap">Selections from her Works</span>. With an Introduction by <span class="smcap">Malcolm Cotter Seton</span>, M.A.</td></tr>
</table></div>
<hr class="tb" />

<p class="center">T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., LONDON</p>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii"></a></span></p>


<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
<img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" width="500" height="639" alt="Signature: WB Yeats" />
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv"></a></span></p>



<h1 class="p6">POEMS</h1>

<p class="center">BY</p>

<h3>W.B. YEATS</h3>

<p class="center p6">LONDON<br />
T. FISHER UNWIN LTD.<br />
ADELPHI TERRACE
</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v"></a></span></p>


<p class="p6">"The Wanderings of Oisin" was published with
the lyrics now collected under the title "Crossways"
in 1888, "The Countess Cathleen" with the lyrics
now collected under the title "The Rose" in 1892,
and "The Land of Heart's Desire" by itself in 1894.
They were revised and reprinted in one volume in
1895, again revised and reprinted in 1899, and again
reprinted in 1901, 1904, 1908, 1912, 1913, 1919,
and 1920.</p>

<p class="center">(<i>All rights reserved</i>)</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi"></a><br /><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">vii</a></span></p>




<h2 class="p6"><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2>


<p>During the last year I have spent much time altering
"The Countess Cathleen" and "The Land of Heart's
Desire" that they might be a part of the repertory of
the Abbey Theatre. I had written them before I had
any practical experience, and I knew from the performance
of the one in Dublin in 1899 and of the
other in London in 1894 that they were full of
defects. But in their new shape&mdash;and each play has
been twice played during the winter&mdash;they have given
me some pleasure, and are, I think, easier to play
effectively than my later plays, depending less upon
the players and more upon the producer, both having
been imagined more for variety of stage-picture than
variety of mood in the player. It was, indeed,
the first performance of "The Countess Cathleen,"
when our stage-pictures were made out of poor conventional
scenery and hired costumes, that set me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">viii</a></span>
writing plays where all would depend upon the
player. The first two scenes are wholly new, and
though I have left the old end in the body of this
book I have given in the notes an end less difficult
to producer and audience, and there are slight
alterations elsewhere in the poem. "The Land of
Heart's Desire," besides some mending in the details,
has been thrown back in time because the metrical
speech would have sounded unreal if spoken in a
country cottage now that we have so many dialect
comedies. The shades of Mrs. Fallan and Mrs.
Dillane and of Dan Bourke and the Tramp would
have seemed too boisterous or too vivid for shades
made cold and distant with the artifice of verse.</p>

<p>I have not again retouched the lyric poems of my
youth, fearing some stupidity in my middle years, but
have changed two or three pages that I always knew
to be wrong in "The Wanderings of Usheen."</p>

<p class="right">W.B. YEATS.</p>

<p><i>June, 1912.</i></p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">ix</a></span></p>




<h2 class="p6"><a name="PREFACE_TO_THE_THIRD_EDITION" id="PREFACE_TO_THE_THIRD_EDITION"></a>PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION</h2>


<p>I have added some passages to "The Land of
Heart's Desire," and a new scene of some little
length, besides passages here and there, to "The
Countess Cathleen." The goddess has never come
to me with her hands so full that I have not found
many waste places after I had planted all that she
had brought me. The present version of "The
Countess Cathleen" is not quite the version adopted
by the Irish Literary Theatre a couple of years ago,
for our stage and scenery were capable of little;
and it may differ more from any stage version
I make in future, for it seems that my people of the
waters and my unhappy dead, in the third act, cannot
keep their supernatural essence, but must put on too
much of our mortality, in any ordinary theatre. I am
told that I must abandon a meaning or two and make
my merchants carry away the treasure themselves.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">x</a></span>
The act was written long ago, when I had seen so
few plays that I took pleasure in stage effects.
Indeed, I am not yet certain that a wealthy theatre
could not shape it to an impressive pageantry, or
that a theatre without any wealth could not lift it out
of pageantry into the mind, with a dim curtain, and
some dimly lighted players, and the beautiful voices
that should be as important in poetical as in musical
drama. The Elizabethan stage was so little imprisoned
in material circumstance that the Elizabethan imagination
was not strained by god or spirit, nor even
by Echo herself&mdash;no, not even when she answered, as
in "The Duchess of Malfi," in clear, loud words
which were not the words that had been spoken to
her. We have made a prison-house of paint and
canvas, where we have as little freedom as under our
own roofs, for there is no freedom in a house that has
been made with hands. All art moves in the cave of
the Chimæra, or in the garden of the Hesperides, or
in the more silent house of the gods, and neither
cave, nor garden, nor house can show itself clearly
but to the mind's eye.</p>

<p>Besides rewriting a lyric or two, I have much
enlarged the note on "The Countess Cathleen," as
there has been some discussion in Ireland about the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">xi</a></span>
origin of the story, but the other notes are as they
have always been. They are short enough, but I do
not think that anybody who knows modern poetry
will find obscurities in this book. In any case, I
must leave my myths and symbols to explain themselves
as the years go by and one poems lights up
another, and the stories that friends, and one friend
in particular, have gathered for me, or that I have
gathered myself in many cottages, find their way into
the light. I would, if I could, add to that majestic
heraldry of the poets, that great and complicated
inheritance of images which written literature has
substituted for the greater and more complex inheritance
of spoken tradition, some new heraldic
images, gathered from the lips of the common people.
Christianity and the old nature faith have lain down
side by side in the cottages, and I would proclaim
that peace as loudly as I can among the kingdoms of
poetry, where there is no peace that is not joyous, no
battle that does not give life instead of death; I may
even try to persuade others, in more sober prose, that
there can be no language more worthy of poetry and
of the meditation of the soul than that which has
been made, or can be made, out of a subtlety of
desire, an emotion of sacrifice, a delight in order, that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">xii</a></span>
are perhaps Christian, and myths and images that
mirror the energies of woods and streams, and of
their wild creatures. Has any part of that majestic
heraldry of the poets had a very different fountain?
Is it not the ritual of the marriage of heaven and
earth?</p>

<p>These details may seem to many unnecessary; but
after all one writes poetry for a few careful readers
and for a few friends, who will not consider such
details unnecessary. When Cimabue had the cry
it was, it seems, worth thinking of those that run;
but to-day, when they can write as well as read, one
can sit with one's companions under the hedgerow
contentedly. If one writes well and has the patience,
somebody will come from among the runners and
read what one has written quickly, and go away
quickly, and write out as much as he can remember
in the language of the highway.</p>

<p class="right">W.B. YEATS.</p>

<p><i>January, 1901.</i></p>

<p class="center"><sup>*</sup><sub>*</sub><sup>*</sup></p>

<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">xiii</a></span></p>




<h2 class="p6"><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>



<div class="center">
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of contents">
<tr><td></td><td></td><td align="right">PAGE</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" colspan="2"><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_COUNTESS_CATHLEEN">The Countess Cathleen</a></span></td><td align="right">1</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" colspan="2"><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_ROSE">The Rose</a></span>&mdash;</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#TO_THE_ROSE_UPON_THE_ROOD_OF_TIME">To the Rose upon the Rood of Time</a></td><td align="right">109</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#FERGUS_AND_THE_DRUID">Fergus and the Druid</a></td><td align="right">111</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_DEATH_OF_CUCHULAIN">The Death of Cuchulain</a></td><td align="right">114</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_ROSE_OF_THE_WORLD">The Rose of the World</a></td><td align="right">119</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_ROSE_OF_PEACE">The Rose of Peace</a></td><td align="right">120</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_ROSE_OF_BATTLE">The Rose of Battle</a></td><td align="right">121</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#A_FAERY_SONG">A Faery Song</a></td><td align="right">123</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_LAKE_ISLE_OF_INNISFREE">The Lake Isle of Innisfree</a></td><td align="right">124</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#A_CRADLE_SONG">A Cradle Song</a></td><td align="right">125</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_PITY_OF_LOVE">The Pity of Love</a></td><td align="right">126</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_SORROW_OF_LOVE">The Sorrow of Love</a></td><td align="right">127</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#WHEN_YOU_ARE_OLD">When You are Old</a></td><td align="right">128</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_WHITE_BIRDS">The White Birds</a></td><td align="right">129</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#A_DREAM_OF_DEATH">A Dream of Death</a></td><td align="right">131</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#A_DREAM_OF_A_BLESSED_SPIRIT">A Dream of a Blessed Spirit</a></td><td align="right">132</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#WHO_GOES_WITH_FERGUS">Who goes with Fergus</a></td><td align="right">133</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_MAN_WHO_DREAMED_OF_FAERYLAND">The Man who Dreamed of Faeryland</a></td><td align="right">134</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_DEDICATION_TO_A_BOOK_OF_STORIES_SELECTED_FROM_THE_IRISH_NOVELISTS">The Dedication to a Book of Stories selected from the Irish Novelists</a></td><td align="right">137</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_LAMENTATION_OF_THE_OLD_PENSIONER">The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner</a></td><td align="left">139<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">xiv</a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_BALLAD_OF_FATHER_GILLIGAN">The Ballad of Father Gilligan</a></td><td align="right">140</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_TWO_TREES">The Two Trees</a></td><td align="right">143</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#TO_IRELAND_IN_THE_COMING_TIMES">To Ireland in the Coming Times</a></td><td align="right">145</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" colspan="2"><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_LAND_OF_HEARTS_DESIRE">The Land of Heart's Desire</a></span></td><td align="right">149</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" colspan="2"><span class="smcap"><a href="#CROSSWAYS">Crossways</a></span>&mdash;</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_SONG_OF_THE_HAPPY_SHEPHERD">The Song of the Happy Shepherd</a></td><td align="right">197</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_SAD_SHEPHERD">The Sad Shepherd</a></td><td align="right">200</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_CLOAK_THE_BOAT_AND_THE_SHOES">The Cloak, The Boat, and the Shoes</a></td><td align="right">202</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#ANASHUYA_AND_VIJAYA">Anashuya and Vijaya</a></td><td align="right">203</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_INDIAN_UPON_GOD">The Indian upon God</a></td><td align="right">209</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_INDIAN_TO_HIS_LOVE">The Indian to his Love</a></td><td align="right">211</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_FALLING_OF_THE_LEAVES">The Falling of the Leaves</a></td><td align="right">213</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#EPHEMERA">Ephemera</a></td><td align="right">214</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_MADNESS_OF_KING_GOLL">The Madness of King Goll</a></td><td align="right">216</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_STOLEN_CHILD">The Stolen Child</a></td><td align="right">220</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#TO_AN_ISLE_IN_THE_WATER">To an Isle in the Water</a></td><td align="right">223</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#DOWN_BY_THE_SALLEY_GARDENS">Down by the Salley Gardens</a></td><td align="right">224</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_MEDITATION_OF_THE_OLD_FISHERMAN">The Meditation of the Old Fisherman</a></td><td align="right">225</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_BALLAD_OF_FATHER_OHART">The Ballad of Father O'Hart</a></td><td align="right">226</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_BALLAD_OF_MOLL_MAGEE">The Ballad of Moll Magee</a></td><td align="right">229</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_BALLAD_OF_THE_FOXHUNTER">The Ballad of the Foxhunter</a></td><td align="right">232</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" colspan="2"><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_WANDERINGS_OF_USHEEN">The Wanderings of Usheen</a></span></td><td align="right">235</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" colspan="2"><span class="smcap"><a href="#GLOSSARY_AND_NOTES">Glossary and Notes</a></span></td><td align="right">299</td></tr>
</table></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">xv</a></span></p>


<p class="center p6"><i>TO SOME I HAVE TALKED WITH
BY THE FIRE</i></p>


<p>
<i>While I wrought out these fitful Danaan rhymes,<br />
My heart would brim with dreams about the times<br />
When we bent down above the fading coals;<br />
And talked of the dark folk, who live in souls<br />
Of passionate men, like bats in the dead trees;<br />
And of the wayward twilight companies,<br />
Who sigh with mingled sorrow and content,<br />
Because their blossoming dreams have never bent<br />
Under the fruit of evil and of good:<br />
And of the embattled flaming multitude<br />
Who rise, wing above wing, flame above flame,<br />
And, like a storm, cry the Ineffable Name,<br />
And with the clashing of their sword blades make<br />
A rapturous music, till the morning break,<br />
And the white hush end all, but the loud beat<br />
Of their long wings, the flash of their white feet.</i><br />
</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi"></a><br />
<a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a></span></p>



<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a></span></p>
<h2 class="p6"><a name="THE_COUNTESS_CATHLEEN" id="THE_COUNTESS_CATHLEEN"></a>THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN</h2>


<p class="center">"The sorrowful are dumb for thee"</p>

<p class="right"><i>Lament of Morion Shehone for Miss Mary Bourke</i></p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a></span></p>


<p class="center p6">TO<br />

MAUD GONNE</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a><br />
<a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a></span></p>



<div class="center p6">
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="characters">
<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Shemus Rua</span></td><td align="right">A Peasant</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Mary</span></td><td align="right">His Wife</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Teig</span></td><td align="right">His Son</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Aleel</span></td><td align="right">A Poet</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Countess Cathleen</span></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Oona</span></td><td align="right">Her Foster Mother</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Two Demons disguised as Merchants</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Peasants, Servants, Angelical Beings</td></tr>
</table></div>

<hr class="tb" />

<p class="center"><i>The Scene is laid in Ireland and in old times</i></p>
<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a><br />
<a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a></span></p>



<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">9</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a></span></p>
<h2><a name="SCENE_I" id="SCENE_I"></a>SCENE I</h2>


<p class="exposition"><span class="smcap">Scene.</span>&mdash;<i>A room with lighted fire, and a door into the open
air, through which one sees, perhaps, the trees of a wood,
and these trees should be painted in flat colour upon a
gold or diapered sky. The walls are of one colour. The
scent should have the effect of missal painting.</i> <span class="smcap">Mary</span>, a<i>
woman of forty years or so, is grinding a quern</i>.</p>


<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">What can have made the grey hen flutter so?</p>

<p class="direction">(TEIG, <i>a boy of fourteen, is coming in with turf,
which he lays beside the hearth</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech">They say that now the land is famine struck<br />
The graves are walking.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11.5em;">There is something that the hen hears.</span></p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">10</a></span>And that is not the worst; at Tubber-vanach<br />
A woman met a man with ears spread out,<br />
And they moved up and down like a bat's wing.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">What can have kept your father all this while?</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech">Two nights ago, at Carrick-orus churchyard,<br />
A herdsman met a man who had no mouth,<br />
Nor eyes, nor ears; his face a wall of flesh;<br />
He saw him plainly by the light of the moon.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">Look out, and tell me if your father's coming.</p>

<p class="direction">(TEIG <i>goes to door</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech">Mother!</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">What is it?</span></p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">In the bush beyond,</span><br />
There are two birds&mdash;if you can call them birds&mdash;<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">11</a></span>I could not see them rightly for the leaves.<br />
But they've the shape and colour of horned owls<br />
And I'm half certain they've a human face.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">Mother of God, defend us!</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 13.5em;">They're looking at me.</span><br />
What is the good of praying? father says.<br />
God and the Mother of God have dropped asleep.<br />
What do they care, he says, though the whole land<br />
Squeal like a rabbit under a weasel's tooth?</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">You'll bring misfortune with your blasphemies<br />
Upon your father, or yourself, or me.<br />
I would to God he were home&mdash;ah, there he is.</p>

<p class="direction">(SHEMUS <i>comes in</i>.)</p>

<p class="speech">What was it kept you in the wood? You know<br />
I cannot get all sorts of accidents<br />
Out of my mind till you are home again.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech">I'm in no mood to listen to your clatter.<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">12</a></span>Although I tramped the woods for half a day,<br />
I've taken nothing, for the very rats,<br />
Badgers, and hedgehogs seem to have died of drought,<br />
And there was scarce a wind in the parched leaves.</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech">Then you have brought no dinner.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 17em;">After that</span><br />
I sat among the beggars at the cross-roads,<br />
And held a hollow hand among the others.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">What, did you beg?</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">I had no chance to beg,</span><br />
For when the beggars saw me they cried out<br />
They would not have another share their alms,<br />
And hunted me away with sticks and stones.</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech">You said that you would bring us food or money.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">13</a></span>What's in the house?</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">A bit of mouldy bread.</span></p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">There's flour enough to make another loaf.</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech">And when that's gone?</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11.5em;">There is the hen in the coop.</span></p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech">My curse upon the beggars, my curse upon them!</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech">And the last penny gone.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 13em;">When the hen's gone,</span><br />
What can we do but live on sorrel and dock,<br />
And dandelion, till our mouths are green?</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">God, that to this hour's found bit and sup,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">14</a></span>Will cater for us still.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 13em;">His kitchen's bare.</span><br />
There were five doors that I looked through this day<br />
And saw the dead and not a soul to wake them.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">Maybe He'd have us die because He knows,<br />
When the ear is stopped and when the eye is stopped,<br />
That every wicked sight is hid from the eye,<br />
And all fool talk from the ear.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 16.5em;">Who's passing there?</span><br />
And mocking us with music?</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>A stringed instrument without.</i>)</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 14em;">A young man plays it,</span><br />
There's an old woman and a lady with him.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech">What is the trouble of the poor to her?<br />
Nothing at all or a harsh radishy sauce<br />
For the day's meat.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">15</a></span><span style="margin-left: 10.5em;">God's pity on the rich.</span><br />
Had we been through as many doors, and seen<br />
The dishes standing on the polished wood<br />
In the wax candle light, we'd be as hard,<br />
And there's the needle's eye at the end of all.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech">My curse upon the rich.</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 12.5em;">They're coming here.</span></p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech">Then down upon that stool, down quick, I say,<br />
And call up a whey face and a whining voice,<br />
And let your head be bowed upon your knees.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">Had I but time to put the place to rights.</p>

<p class="direction">(CATHLEEN, OONA, <i>and</i> ALEEL <i>enter</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">God save all here. There is a certain house,<br />
An old grey castle with a kitchen garden,<br />
A cider orchard and a plot for flowers,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</a></span>Somewhere among these woods.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15em;">We know it, lady.</span><br />
A place that's set among impassable walls<br />
As though world's trouble could not find it out.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">It may be that we are that trouble, for we&mdash;<br />
Although we've wandered in the wood this hour&mdash;<br />
Have lost it too, yet I should know my way,<br />
For I lived all my childhood in that house.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">Then you are Countess Cathleen?</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 16.5em;">And this woman,</span><br />
Oona, my nurse, should have remembered it,<br />
For we were happy for a long time there.</p>

<p class="actor">OONA</p>

<p class="speech">The paths are overgrown with thickets now,<br />
Or else some change has come upon my sight.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">17</a></span>And this young man, that should have known the woods&mdash;<br />
Because we met him on their border but now,<br />
Wandering and singing like a wave of the sea&mdash;<br />
Is so wrapped up in dreams of terrors to come<br />
That he can give no help.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 13.5em;">You have still some way,</span><br />
But I can put you on the trodden path<br />
Your servants take when they are marketing.<br />
But first sit down and rest yourself awhile,<br />
For my old fathers served your fathers, lady,<br />
Longer than books can tell&mdash;and it were strange<br />
If you and yours should not be welcome here.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">And it were stranger still were I ungrateful<br />
For such kind welcome&mdash;but I must be gone,<br />
For the night's gathering in.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15.5em;">It is a long while</span><br />
Since I've set eyes on bread or on what buys it.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">So you are starving even in this wood,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">18</a></span>Where I had thought I would find nothing changed.<br />
But that's a dream, for the old worm o' the world<br />
Can eat its way into what place it pleases.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>She gives money.</i>)</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech">Beautiful lady, give me something too;<br />
I fell but now, being weak with hunger and thirst<br />
And lay upon the threshold like a log.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">I gave for all and that was all I had.<br />
Look, my purse is empty. I have passed<br />
By starving men and women all this day,<br />
And they have had the rest; but take the purse,<br />
The silver clasps on't may be worth a trifle.<br />
But if you'll come to-morrow to my house<br />
You shall have twice the sum.</p>

<p class="direction">(ALEEL <i>begins to play</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS (<i>muttering</i>)</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15.5em;">What, music, music!</span></p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">Ah, do not blame the finger on the string;<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</a></span>The doctors bid me fly the unlucky times<br />
And find distraction for my thoughts, or else<br />
Pine to my grave.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 9.5em;">I have said nothing, lady.</span><br />
Why should the like of us complain?</p>

<p class="actor">OONA</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 18.5em;">Have done.</span><br />
Sorrows that she's but read of in a book<br />
Weigh on her mind as if they had been her own.</p>

<p class="direction">(OONA, MARY, and CATHLEEN <i>go out</i>. ALEEL
<i>looks defiantly at</i> SHEMUS.)</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL (<i>singing</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">Were I but crazy for love's sake<br />
I know who'd measure out his length,<br />
I know the heads that I should break,<br />
For crazy men have double strength.<br />
There! all's out now to leave or take,<br />
And who mocks music mocks at love;<br />
And when I'm crazy for love's sake<br />
I'll not go far to choose.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>Snapping his fingers in</i> SHEMUS' <i>face</i>.)</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</a></span><span style="margin-left: 14em;">Enough!</span><br />
I know the heads that I shall break.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>He takes a step towards the door and then turns
again.</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">Shut to the door before the night has fallen,<br />
For who can say what walks, or in what shape<br />
Some devilish creature flies in the air, but now<br />
Two grey-horned owls hooted above our heads.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>He goes out, his singing dies away.</i> MARY <i>comes
in</i>. SHEMUS <i>has been counting the money.</i>)</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech">So that fool's gone.</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">He's seen the horned owls too.</span><br />
There's no good luck in owls, but it may be<br />
That the ill luck's to fall upon his head.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">You never thanked her ladyship.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 16.5em;">Thank her,</span><br />
For seven halfpence and a silver bit?</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">21</a></span>But for this empty purse?</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 14.5em;">What's that for thanks,</span><br />
Or what's the double of it that she promised?<br />
With bread and flesh and every sort of food<br />
Up to a price no man has heard the like of<br />
And rising every day.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">We have all she had;</span><br />
She emptied out the purse before our eyes.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS (<i>to</i> MARY, <i>who has gone to close the door</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">Leave that door open.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">When those that have read books,</span><br />
And seen the seven wonders of the world,<br />
Fear what's above or what's below the ground,<br />
It's time that poverty should bolt the door.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech">I'll have no bolts, for there is not a thing<br />
That walks above the ground or under it<br />
I had not rather welcome to this house<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</a></span>Than any more of mankind, rich or poor.</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech">So that they brought us money.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 17em;">I heard say</span><br />
There's something that appears like a white bird,<br />
A pigeon or a seagull or the like,<br />
But if you hit it with a stone or a stick<br />
It clangs as though it had been made of brass,<br />
And that if you dig down where it was scratching<br />
You'll find a crock of gold.</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15.5em;">But dream of gold</span><br />
For three nights running, and there's always gold.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech">You might be starved before you've dug it out.</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech">But maybe if you called, something would come,<br />
They have been seen of late.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15.5em;">Is it call devils?</span><br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</a></span>Call devils from the wood, call them in here?</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech">So you'd stand up against me, and you'd say<br />
Who or what I am to welcome here. (<i>He hits her.</i>)<br />
That is to show who's master.</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 16.5em;">Call them in.</span></p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">God help us all!</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 9.5em;">Pray, if you have a mind to.</span><br />
It's little that the sleepy ears above<br />
Care for your words; but I'll call what I please.</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech">There is many a one, they say, had money from them.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS (<i>at door</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">Whatever you are that walk the woods at night,<br />
So be it that you have not shouldered up<br />
Out of a grave&mdash;for I'll have nothing human&mdash;<br />
And have free hands, a friendly trick of speech,<br />
I welcome you. Come, sit beside the fire.<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</a></span>What matter if your head's below your arms<br />
Or you've a horse's tail to whip your flank,<br />
Feathers instead of hair, that's but a straw,<br />
Come, share what bread and meat is in the house,<br />
And stretch your heels and warm them in the ashes.<br />
And after that, let's share and share alike<br />
And curse all men and women. Come in, come in.<br />
What, is there no one there?  (<i>Turning from door</i>)<br />
<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">And yet they say</span><br />
They are as common as the grass, and ride<br />
Even upon the book in the priest's hand.</p>

<p class="exposition">(TEIG <i>lifts one arm slowly and points toward
the door and begins moving backwards</i>.
SHEMUS <i>turns, he also sees something and
begins moving backward</i>. MARY <i>does the
same. A man dressed as an Eastern
merchant comes in carrying a small carpet.
He unrolls it and sits cross-legged at one
end of it. Another man dressed in the
same way follows, and sits at the other
end. This is done slowly and deliberately.
When they are seated they take money
out of embroidered purses at their girdles
and begin arranging it on the carpet</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</a></span>You speak to them.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">No, you.</span></p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 13em;">'Twas you that called them.</span></p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS (<i>coming nearer</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">I'd make so bold, if you would pardon it,<br />
To ask if there's a thing you'd have of us.<br />
Although we are but poor people, if there is,<br />
Why, if there is&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">We've travelled a long road,</span><br />
For we are merchants that must tramp the world,<br />
And now we look for supper and a fire<br />
And a safe corner to count money in.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech">I thought you were ... but that's no matter now&mdash;<br />
There had been words between my wife and me<br />
Because I said I would be master here,<br />
And ask in what I pleased or who I pleased<br />
And so.... but that is nothing to the point,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">26</a></span>Because it's certain that you are but merchants.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">We travel for the Master of all merchants.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech">Yet if you were that I had thought but now<br />
I'd welcome you no less. Be what you please<br />
And you'll have supper at the market rate,<br />
That means that what was sold for but a penny<br />
Is now worth fifty.</p>

<p class="direction">(MERCHANTS <i>begin putting money on carpet</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">Our Master bids us pay</span><br />
So good a price, that all who deal with us<br />
Shall eat, drink, and be merry.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS (<i>to</i> MARY)</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 17em;">Bestir yourself,</span><br />
Go kill and draw the fowl, while Teig and I<br />
Lay out the plates and make a better fire.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">I will not cook for you.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</a></span><span style="margin-left: 13.5em;">Not cook! not cook!</span><br />
Do not be angry. She wants to pay me back<br />
Because I struck her in that argument.<br />
But she'll get sense again. Since the dearth came<br />
We rattle one on another as though we were<br />
Knives thrown into a basket to be cleaned.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">I will not cook for you, because I know<br />
In what unlucky shape you sat but now<br />
Outside this door.</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">It's this, your honours:</span><br />
Because of some wild words my father said<br />
She thinks you are not of those who cast a shadow.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech">I said I'd make the devils of the wood<br />
Welcome, if they'd a mind to eat and drink;<br />
But it is certain that you are men like us.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">It's strange that she should think we cast no shadow,<br />
For there is nothing on the ridge of the world<br />
That's more substantial than the merchants are<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">28</a></span>That buy and sell you.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 12.5em;">If you are not demons,</span><br />
And seeing what great wealth is spread out there,<br />
Give food or money to the starving poor.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">If we knew how to find deserving poor<br />
We'd do our share.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">But seek them patiently.</span></p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">We know the evils of mere charity.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">Those scruples may befit a common time.<br />
I had thought there was a pushing to and fro,<br />
At times like this, that overset the scale<br />
And trampled measure down.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15.5em;">But if already</span><br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">29</a></span>We'd thought of a more prudent way than that?</p>

<p class="actor">SECOND MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">If each one brings a bit of merchandise,<br />
We'll give him such a price he never dreamt of.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">Where shall the starving come at merchandise?</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">We will ask nothing but what all men have.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">Their swine and cattle, fields and implements<br />
Are sold and gone.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">They have not sold all yet.</span><br />
For there's a vaporous thing&mdash;that may be nothing,<br />
But that's the buyer's risk&mdash;a second self,<br />
They call immortal for a story's sake.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech">They come to buy our souls?</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15.5em;">I'll barter mine.</span><br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">30</a></span>Why should we starve for what may be but nothing?</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">Teig and Shemus&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">What can it be but nothing?</span><br />
What has God poured out of His bag but famine?<br />
Satan gives money.</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11.5em;">Yet no thunder stirs.</span></p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">There is a heap for each.</p>

<p class="direction">(SHEMUS <i>goes to take money</i>.)</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 14.5em;">But no, not yet,</span><br />
For there's a work I have to set you to.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech">So then you're as deceitful as the rest,<br />
And all that talk of buying what's but a vapour<br />
Is fancy bread. I might have known as much,<br />
Because that's how the trick-o'-the-loop man talks.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">That's for the work, each has its separate price;<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">31</a></span>But neither price is paid till the work's done.</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech">The same for me.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">Oh, God, why are you still?</span></p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">You've but to cry aloud at every cross-road,<br />
At every house door, that we buy men's souls.<br />
And give so good a price that all may live<br />
In mirth and comfort till the famine's done,<br />
Because we are Christian men.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 16.5em;">Come, let's away.</span></p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech">I shall keep running till I've earned the price.</p>

<p class="actor">SECOND MERCHANT</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>who has risen and gone towards fire</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">Stop; you must have proof behind the words.<br />
So here's your entertainment on the road.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>He throws a bag of money on the ground.</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">Live as you please; our Master's generous.</p>

<p class="direction">(TEIG and SHEMUS <i>have stopped</i>. TEIG <i>takes the
money. They go out.</i>)</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</a></span></p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">Destroyers of souls, God will destroy you quickly.<br />
You shall at last dry like dry leaves and hang<br />
Nailed like dead vermin to the doors of God.</p>

<p class="actor">SECOND MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">Curse to your fill, for saints will have their dreams.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">Though we're but vermin that our Master sent<br />
To overrun the world, he at the end<br />
Shall pull apart the pale ribs of the moon<br />
And quench the stars in the ancestral night.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">God is all powerful.</p>

<p class="actor">SECOND MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">Pray, you shall need Him.</span><br />
You shall eat dock and grass, and dandelion,<br />
Till that low threshold there becomes a wall,<br />
And when your hands can scarcely drag your body<br />
We shall be near you.</p>

<p class="direction">(MARY <i>faints</i>.)</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>The</i> FIRST MERCHANT <i>takes up the carpet, spreads
it before the fire and stands in front of it
warming his hands</i>.)</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">33</a></span></p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 12.5em;">Our faces go unscratched,</span><br />
Wring the neck o' that fowl, scatter the flour<br />
And look if there is bread upon the shelves.<br />
We'll turn the fowl upon the spit and roast it,<br />
And eat the supper we were bidden to,<br />
Now that the house is quiet, praise our Master,<br />
And stretch and warm our heels among the ashes.</p>

<h3>END OF SCENE I.</h3><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</a><br /><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">35</a></span></p>



<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">36</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</a></span></p>
<h2><a name="SCENE_II" id="SCENE_II"></a>SCENE II</h2>


<p class="exposition">FRONT SCENE.&mdash;<i>A wood with perhaps distant view of turreted
house at one side, but all in flat colour, without light and
shade and against a diapered or gold background.</i></p>

<p class="direction">COUNTESS CATHLEEN <i>comes in leaning upon</i> ALEEL'S
<i>arm</i>. OONA <i>follows them</i>.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN (<i>stopping</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">Surely this leafy corner, where one smells<br />
The wild bee's honey, has a story too?</p>

<p class="actor">OONA</p>

<p class="speech">There is the house at last.</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15.5em;">A man, they say,</span><br />
Loved Maeve the Queen of all the invisible host,<br />
And died of his love nine centuries ago.<br />
And now, when the moon's riding at the full,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</a></span>She leaves her dancers lonely and lies there<br />
Upon that level place, and for three days<br />
Stretches and sighs and wets her long pale cheeks.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">So she loves truly.</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">No, but wets her cheeks,</span><br />
Lady, because she has forgot his name.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">She'd sleep that trouble away&mdash;though it must be<br />
A heavy trouble to forget his name&mdash;<br />
If she had better sense.</p>

<p class="actor">OONA</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 14.5em;">Your own house, lady.</span></p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech">She sleeps high up on wintry Knock-na-rea<br />
In an old cairn of stones; while her poor women<br />
Must lie and jog in the wave if they would sleep&mdash;<br />
Being water born&mdash;yet if she cry their names<br />
They run up on the land and dance in the moon<br />
Till they are giddy and would love as men do,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">39</a></span>And be as patient and as pitiful.<br />
But there is nothing that will stop in their heads<br />
They've such poor memories, though they weep for it.<br />
Oh, yes, they weep; that's when the moon is full.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">Is it because they have short memories<br />
They live so long?</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 10.5em;">What's memory but the ash</span><br />
That chokes our fires that have begun to sink?<br />
And they've a dizzy, everlasting fire.</p>

<p class="actor">OONA</p>

<p class="speech">There is your own house, lady.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 17.5em;">Why, that's true,</span><br />
And we'd have passed it without noticing.</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech">A curse upon it for a meddlesome house!<br />
Had it but stayed away I would have known<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">40</a></span>What Queen Maeve thinks on when the moon is pinched;<br />
And whether now&mdash;as in the old days&mdash;the dancers<br />
Set their brief love on men.</p>

<p class="actor">OONA</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 16em;">Rest on my arm.</span><br />
These are no thoughts for any Christian ear.</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech">I am younger, she would be too heavy for you.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>He begins taking his lute out of the bag</i>,
CATHLEEN, <i>who has turned towards</i> OONA,
<i>turns back to him</i>.)</p>

<p class="speech">This hollow box remembers every foot<br />
That danced upon the level grass of the world,<br />
And will tell secrets if I whisper to it.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>Sings.</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">Lift up the white knee;<br />
Hear what they sing,<br />
Those young dancers<br />
That in a ring<br />
Raved but now<br />
Of the hearts that brake<br />
Long, long ago<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">41</a></span>For their sake.</p>

<p class="actor">OONA</p>

<p class="speech">New friends are sweet.</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech">"But the dance changes.<br />
Lift up the gown,<br />
All that sorrow<br />
Is trodden down."</p>

<p class="actor">OONA</p>

<p class="speech">The empty rattle-pate! Lean on this arm,<br />
That I can tell you is a christened arm,<br />
And not like some, if we are to judge by speech.<br />
But as you please. It is time I was forgot.<br />
Maybe it is not on this arm you slumbered<br />
When you were as helpless as a worm.</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech">Stay with me till we come to your own house.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN (<i>sitting down</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">When I am rested I will need no help.</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</a></span>I thought to have kept her from remembering<br />
The evil of the times for full ten minutes;<br />
But now when seven are out you come between.</p>

<p class="actor">OONA</p>

<p class="speech">Talk on; what does it matter what you say,<br />
For you have not been christened?</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 14em;">Old woman, old woman,</span><br />
You robbed her of three minutes peace of mind,<br />
And though you live unto a hundred years,<br />
And wash the feet of beggars and give alms,<br />
And climb Croaghpatrick, you shall not be pardoned.</p>

<p class="actor">OONA</p>

<p class="speech">How does a man who never was baptized<br />
Know what Heaven pardons?</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 14em;">You are a sinful woman.</span></p>

<p class="actor">OONA</p>

<p class="speech">I care no more than if a pig had grunted.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>Enter</i> CATHLEEN'S <i>Steward</i>.)</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</a></span></p>

<p class="actor">STEWARD</p>

<p class="speech">I am not to blame, for I had locked the gate,<br />
The forester's to blame. The men climbed in<br />
At the east corner where the elm-tree is.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">I do not understand you, who has climbed?</p>

<p class="actor">STEWARD</p>

<p class="speech">Then God be thanked, I am the first to tell you.<br />
I was afraid some other of the servants&mdash;<br />
Though I've been on the watch&mdash;had been the first,<br />
And mixed up truth and lies, your ladyship.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN (<i>rising</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">Has some misfortune happened?</p>

<p class="actor">STEWARD</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 16.5em;">Yes, indeed.</span><br />
The forester that let the branches lie<br />
Against the wall's to blame for everything,<br />
For that is how the rogues got into the garden.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">I thought to have escaped misfortune here.<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">44</a></span>Has any one been killed?</p>

<p class="actor">STEWARD</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 14.5em;">Oh, no, not killed.</span><br />
They have stolen half a cart-load of green cabbage.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">But maybe they were starving.</p>

<p class="actor">STEWARD</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 16.5em;">That is certain.</span><br />
To rob or starve, that was the choice they had.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">A learned theologian has laid down<br />
That starving men may take what's necessary,<br />
And yet be sinless.</p>

<p class="actor">OONA</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11.5em;">Sinless and a thief!</span><br />
There should be broken bottles on the wall.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">And if it be a sin, while faith's unbroken<br />
God cannot help but pardon. There is no soul<br />
But it's unlike all others in the world,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">45</a></span>Nor one but lifts a strangeness to God's love<br />
Till that's grown infinite, and therefore none<br />
Whose loss were less than irremediable<br />
Although it were the wickedest in the world.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>Enter</i> TEIG <i>and</i> SHEMUS.)</p>

<p class="actor">STEWARD</p>

<p class="speech">What are you running for? Pull off your cap,<br />
Do you not see who's there?</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15.5em;">I cannot wait.</span><br />
I am running to the world with the best news<br />
That has been brought it for a thousand years.</p>

<p class="actor">STEWARD</p>

<p class="speech">Then get your breath and speak.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 17.5em;">If you'd my news</span><br />
You'd run as fast and be as out of breath.</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech">Such news, we shall be carried on men's shoulders.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</a></span>There's something every man has carried with him<br />
And thought no more about than if it were<br />
A mouthful of the wind; and now it's grown<br />
A marketable thing!</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">And yet it seemed</span><br />
As useless as the paring of one's nails.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech">What sets me laughing when I think of it,<br />
Is that a rogue who's lain in lousy straw,<br />
If he but sell it, may set up his coach.</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG (<i>laughing</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">There are two gentlemen who buy men's souls.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">O God!</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">And maybe there's no soul at all.</span></p>

<p class="actor">STEWARD</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</a></span>They're drunk or mad.</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech">Look at the price they give.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>Showing money.</i>)</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS (<i>tossing up money</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">"Go cry it all about the world," they said.<br />
"Money for souls, good money for a soul."</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">Give twice and thrice and twenty times their money,<br />
And get your souls again. I will pay all.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech">Not we! not we! For souls&mdash;if there are souls&mdash;<br />
But keep the flesh out of its merriment.<br />
I shall be drunk and merry.</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 16em;">Come, let's away.</span></p>

<p class="direction">(<i>He goes.</i>)</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">But there's a world to come.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 16.5em;">And if there is,</span><br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">48</a></span>I'd rather trust myself into the hands<br />
That can pay money down than to the hands<br />
That have but shaken famine from the bag.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>He goes out</i> R.)</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>Lilting</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">"There's money for a soul, sweet yellow money.<br />
There's money for men's souls, good money, money."</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN (<i>to</i> ALEEL)</p>

<p class="speech">Go call them here again, bring them by force,<br />
Beseech them, bribe, do anything you like;</p>

<p class="direction">(ALEEL <i>goes</i>.)</p>

<p class="speech">And you too follow, add your prayers to his.</p>

<p class="direction">(OONA, <i>who has been praying, goes out</i>.)</p>

<p class="speech">Steward, you know the secrets of my house.<br />
How much have I?</p>

<p class="actor">STEWARD</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">A hundred kegs of gold.</span></p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">How much have I in castles?</p>

<p class="actor">STEWARD</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</a></span><span style="margin-left: 15.5em;">As much more.</span></p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">How much have I in pasture?</p>

<p class="actor">STEWARD</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15em;">As much more.</span></p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">How much have I in forests?</p>

<p class="actor">STEWARD</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15em;">As much more.</span></p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">Keeping this house alone, sell all I have,<br />
Go barter where you please, but come again<br />
With herds of cattle and with ships of meal.</p>

<p class="actor">STEWARD</p>

<p class="speech">God's blessing light upon your ladyship.<br />
You will have saved the land.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 16.5em;">Make no delay.</span></p>

<p class="direction">(<i>He goes</i> L.)</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">50</a></span></p>

<p class="direction">(ALEEL <i>and</i> OONA <i>return</i>)</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">They have not come; speak quickly.</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 19em;">One drew his knife</span><br />
And said that he would kill the man or woman<br />
That stopped his way; and when I would have stopped him<br />
He made this stroke at me; but it is nothing.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">You shall be tended. From this day for ever<br />
I'll have no joy or sorrow of my own.</p>

<p class="actor">OONA</p>

<p class="speech">Their eyes shone like the eyes of birds of prey.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">Come, follow me, for the earth burns my feet<br />
Till I have changed my house to such a refuge<br />
That the old and ailing, and all weak of heart,<br />
May escape from beak and claw; all, all, shall come<br />
Till the walls burst and the roof fall on us.<br />
From this day out I have nothing of my own.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>She goes.</i>)</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">51</a></span></p>

<p class="actor">OONA (<i>taking</i> ALEEL <i>by the arm and as she speaks bandaging his wound</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">She has found something now to put her hand to,<br />
And you and I are of no more account<br />
Than flies upon a window-pane in the winter.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>They go out.</i>)</p>

<h3>END OF SCENE II.</h3><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">52</a><br /><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</a></span></p>



<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">55</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</a></span></p>
<h2><a name="SCENE_III" id="SCENE_III"></a>SCENE III</h2>


<p class="exposition"><span class="smcap">Scene.</span>&mdash;<i>Hall in the house of</i> <span class="smcap">Countess Cathleen</span>. <i>At the
Left an oratory with steps leading up to it. At the Right
a tapestried wall, more or less repeating the form of the
oratory, and a great chair with its back against the wall.
In the Centre are two or more arches through which
one can see dimly the trees of the garden.</i> <span class="smcap">Cathleen</span> <i>is
kneeling in front of the altar in the oratory; there is a
hanging lighted lamp over the altar</i>. <span class="smcap">Aleel</span> <i>enters</i>.</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech">I have come to bid you leave this castle and fly<br />
Out of these woods.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11.5em;">What evil is there here</span><br />
That is not everywhere from this to the sea?</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech">They who have sent me walk invisible.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">So it is true what I have heard men say,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">56</a></span>That you have seen and heard what others cannot.</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech">I was asleep in my bed, and while I slept<br />
My dream became a fire; and in the fire<br />
One walked and he had birds about his head.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">I have heard that one of the old gods walked so.</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech">It may be that he is angelical;<br />
And, lady, he bids me call you from these woods.<br />
And you must bring but your old foster-mother,<br />
And some few serving men, and live in the hills,<br />
Among the sounds of music and the light<br />
Of waters, till the evil days are done.<br />
For here some terrible death is waiting you,<br />
Some unimagined evil, some great darkness<br />
That fable has not dreamt of, nor sun nor moon<br />
Scattered.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">No, not angelical.</span></p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 17.5em;">This house</span><br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</a></span>You are to leave with some old trusty man,<br />
And bid him shelter all that starve or wander<br />
While there is food and house room.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 19.5em;">He bids me go</span><br />
Where none of mortal creatures but the swan<br />
Dabbles, and there you would pluck the harp, when the trees<br />
Had made a heavy shadow about our door,<br />
And talk among the rustling of the reeds,<br />
When night hunted the foolish sun away<br />
With stillness and pale tapers. No&mdash;no&mdash;no!<br />
I cannot. Although I weep, I do not weep<br />
Because that life would be most happy, and here<br />
I find no way, no end. Nor do I weep<br />
Because I had longed to look upon your face,<br />
But that a night of prayer has made me weary.<br />
<br />
ALEEL (<i>prostrating himself before her</i>)<br />
<br />
Let Him that made mankind, the angels and devils<br />
And dearth and plenty, mend what He has made,<br />
For when we labour in vain and eye still sees<br />
Heart breaks in vain.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">58</a></span><span style="margin-left: 12.5em;">How would that quiet end?</span></p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech">How but in healing?</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11.5em;">You have seen my tears</span><br />
And I can see your hand shake on the floor.</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL (<i>faltering</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">I thought but of healing. He was angelical.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN (<i>turning away from him</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">No, not angelical, but of the old gods,<br />
Who wander about the world to waken the heart&mdash;<br />
The passionate, proud heart&mdash;that all the angels,<br />
Leaving nine heavens empty, would rock to sleep.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>She goes to chapel door;</i> ALEEL <i>holds his clasped
hands towards her for a moment hesitatingly,
and then lets them fall beside him</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">Do not hold out to me beseeching hands.<br />
This heart shall never waken on earth. I have sworn,<br />
By her whose heart the seven sorrows have pierced,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</a></span>To pray before this altar until my heart<br />
Has grown to Heaven like a tree, and there<br />
Rustled its leaves, till Heaven has saved my people.</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL (<i>who has risen</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">When one so great has spoken of love to one<br />
So little as I, though to deny him love,<br />
What can he but hold out beseeching hands,<br />
Then let them fall beside him, knowing how greatly<br />
They have overdared?</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>He goes towards the door of the hall.</i> <i>The</i>
COUNTESS CATHLEEN <i>takes a few steps towards
him</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">If the old tales are true,</span><br />
Queens have wed shepherds and kings beggar-maids;<br />
God's procreant waters flowing about your mind<br />
Have made you more than kings or queens; and not you<br />
But I am the empty pitcher.</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15em;">Being silent,</span><br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</a></span>I have said all, yet let me stay beside you.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">No, no, not while my heart is shaken. No,<br />
But you shall hear wind cry and water cry,<br />
And curlew cry, and have the peace I longed for.</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech">Give me your hand to kiss.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15em;">I kiss your forehead.</span><br />
And yet I send you from me. Do not speak;<br />
There have been women that bid men to rob<br />
Crowns from the Country-under-Wave or apples<br />
Upon a dragon-guarded hill, and all<br />
That they might sift men's hearts and wills,<br />
And trembled as they bid it, as I tremble<br />
That lay a hard task on you, that you go,<br />
And silently, and do not turn your head;<br />
Goodbye; but do not turn your head and look;<br />
Above all else, I would not have you look.</p>

<p class="direction">(ALEEL <i>goes</i>.)</p>

<p class="speech">I never spoke to him of his wounded hand,<br />
And now he is gone. (<i>She looks out.</i>)<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">61</a></span>I cannot see him, for all is dark outside.<br />
Would my imagination and my heart<br />
Were as little shaken as this holy flame!</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>She goes slowly into the chapel. The distant
sound of an alarm bell.</i> <i>The two</i> MERCHANTS
<i>enter hurriedly</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">SECOND MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">They are ringing the alarm, and in a moment<br />
They'll be upon us.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT (<i>going to a door at the side</i>)</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11.5em;">Here is the Treasury,</span><br />
You'd my commands to put them all to sleep.</p>

<p class="actor">SECOND MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">Some angel or else her prayers protected them.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>Goes into the Treasury and returns with bags
of treasure.</i> FIRST MERCHANT <i>has been
listening at the oratory door</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">She has fallen asleep.</p>

<p class="direction">(SECOND MERCHANT <i>goes out through one of the
arches at the back and stands listening.
The bags are at his feet.</i>)</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">62</a></span></p>

<p class="actor">SECOND MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 13em;">We've all the treasure now,</span><br />
So let's away before they've tracked us out.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">I have a plan to win her.</p>

<p class="actor">SECOND MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 14.5em;">You have time enough</span><br />
If you would kill her and bear off her soul<br />
Before they are upon us with their prayers;<br />
They search the Western Tower.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 16.5em;">That may not be.</span><br />
We cannot face the heavenly host in arms.<br />
Her soul must come to us of its own will,<br />
But being of the ninth and mightiest Hell<br />
Where all are kings, I have a plan to win it.<br />
Lady, we've news that's crying out for speech.</p>

<p class="direction">(CATHLEEN <i>wakes and comes to door of chapel</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">Who calls?</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">63</a></span><span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">We have brought news.</span></p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 16.5em;">What are you?</span></p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">We are merchants, and we know the book of the world<br />
Because we have walked upon its leaves; and there<br />
Have read of late matters that much concern you;<br />
And noticing the castle door stand open,<br />
Came in to find an ear.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 14em;">The door stands open,</span><br />
That no one who is famished or afraid,<br />
Despair of help or of a welcome with it.<br />
But you have news, you say.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15.5em;">We saw a man,</span><br />
Heavy with sickness in the bog of Allen,<br />
Whom you had bid buy cattle. Near Fair Head<br />
We saw your grain ships lying all becalmed<br />
In the dark night; and not less still than they,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">64</a></span>Burned all their mirrored lanthorns in the sea.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">My thanks to God, to Mary and the angels,<br />
That I have money in my treasury,<br />
And can buy grain from those who have stored it up<br />
To prosper on the hunger of the poor.<br />
But you've been far and know the signs of things,<br />
When will this famine end?</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15em;">Day copies day,</span><br />
And there's no sign of change, nor can it change,<br />
With the wheat withered and the cattle dead.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">And heard you of the demons who buy souls?</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">There are some men who hold they have wolves' heads,<br />
And say their limbs&mdash;dried by the infinite flame&mdash;<br />
Have all the speed of storms; others, again,<br />
Say they are gross and little; while a few<br />
Will have it they seem much as mortals are,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">65</a></span>But tall and brown and travelled&mdash;like us, lady&mdash;<br />
Yet all agree a power is in their looks<br />
That makes men bow, and flings a casting-net<br />
About their souls, and that all men would go<br />
And barter those poor vapours, were it not<br />
You bribe them with the safety of your gold.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">Praise be to God, to Mary, and the angels<br />
That I am wealthy! Wherefore do they sell?</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">As we came in at the great door we saw<br />
Your porter sleeping in his niche&mdash;a soul<br />
Too little to be worth a hundred pence,<br />
And yet they buy it for a hundred crowns.<br />
But for a soul like yours, I heard them say,<br />
They would give five hundred thousand crowns and more.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">How can a heap of crowns pay for a soul?<br />
Is the green grave so terrible a thing?</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">Some sell because the money gleams, and some<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">66</a></span>Because they are in terror of the grave,<br />
And some because their neighbours sold before,<br />
And some because there is a kind of joy<br />
In casting hope away, in losing joy,<br />
In ceasing all resistance, in at last<br />
Opening one's arms to the eternal flames,<br />
In casting all sails out upon the wind;<br />
To this&mdash;full of the gaiety of the lost&mdash;<br />
Would all folk hurry if your gold were gone.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">There is a something, Merchant, in your voice<br />
That makes me fear. When you were telling how<br />
A man may lose his soul and lose his God<br />
Your eyes were lighted up, and when you told<br />
How my poor money serves the people, both&mdash;<br />
Merchants forgive me&mdash;seemed to smile.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 21em;">I laugh</span><br />
To think that all these people should be swung<br />
As on a lady's shoe-string,&mdash;under them<br />
The glowing leagues of never-ending flame.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">67</a></span>There is a something in you that I fear;<br />
A something not of us; were you not born<br />
In some most distant corner of the world?</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>The</i> <span class="smcap">SECOND MERCHANT</span>, <i>who has been listening
at the door, comes forward, and as he comes
a sound of voices and feet is heard</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">SECOND MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">Away now&mdash;they are in the passage&mdash;hurry,<br />
For they will know us, and freeze up our hearts<br />
With Ave Marys, and burn all our skin<br />
With holy water.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">Farewell; for we must ride</span><br />
Many a mile before the morning come;<br />
Our horses beat the ground impatiently.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>They go out.</i> <i>A number of</i> <span class="smcap">PEASANTS</span> <i>enter by
other door</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech">Forgive us, lady, but we heard a noise.</p>

<p class="actor">SECOND PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">68</a></span>We sat by the fireside telling vanities.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech">We heard a noise, but though we have searched the house<br />
We have found nobody.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 12.5em;">You are too timid,</span><br />
For now you are safe from all the evil times,<br />
There is no evil that can find you here.</p>

<p class="actor">OONA (<i>entering hurriedly</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">Ochone! Ochone! The treasure room is broken in.<br />
The door stands open, and the gold is gone.</p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">PEASANTS</span> <i>raise a lamentable cry</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">Be silent. (<i>The cry ceases.</i>) Have you seen nobody?</p>

<p class="actor">OONA</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 22em;">Ochone!</span><br />
That my good mistress should lose all this money.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">69</a></span>Let those among you&mdash;not too old to ride&mdash;<br />
Get horses and search all the country round,<br />
I'll give a farm to him who finds the thieves.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>A man with keys at his girdle has come in while
she speaks. There is a general murmur of
"The porter! the porter!"</i>)</p>

<p class="actor">PORTER</p>

<p class="speech">Demons were here. I sat beside the door<br />
In my stone niche, and two owls passed me by,<br />
Whispering with human voices.</p>

<p class="actor">OLD PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 17em;">God forsakes us.</span></p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">Old man, old man, He never closed a door<br />
Unless one opened. I am desolate,<br />
Because of a strange thought that's in my heart;<br />
But I have still my faith; therefore be silent;<br />
For surely He does not forsake the world,<br />
But stands before it modelling in the clay<br />
And moulding there His image. Age by age<br />
The clay wars with His fingers and pleads hard<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">70</a></span>For its old, heavy, dull and shapeless ease;<br />
But sometimes&mdash;though His hand is on it still&mdash;<br />
It moves awry and demon hordes are born.</p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">PEASANTS</span> <i>cross themselves</i>.)</p>

<p class="speech">Yet leave me now, for I am desolate,<br />
I hear a whisper from beyond the thunder.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>She comes from the oratory door.</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">Yet stay an instant. When we meet again<br />
I may have grown forgetful. Oona, take<br />
These two&mdash;the larder and the dairy keys.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>To the</i> <span class="smcap">PORTER</span>.)</p>

<p class="speech">But take you this. It opens the small room<br />
Of herbs for medicine, of hellebore,<br />
Of vervain, monkshood, plantain, and self-heal.<br />
The book of cures is on the upper shelf.</p>

<p class="actor">PORTER</p>

<p class="speech">Why do you do this, lady; did you see<br />
Your coffin in a dream?</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 13em;">Ah, no, not that.</span><br />
But I have come to a strange thought. I have heard<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">71</a></span>A sound of wailing in unnumbered hovels,<br />
And I must go down, down&mdash;I know not where&mdash;<br />
Pray for all men and women mad from famine;<br />
Pray, you good neighbours.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>The</i> <span class="smcap">PEASANTS</span> <i>all kneel</i>. <span class="smcap">COUNTESS CATHLEEN</span>
<i>ascends the steps to the door of the oratory,
and turning round stands there motionless
for a little, and then cries in a loud voice</i>:)</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 14em;">Mary, Queen of angels,</span><br />
And all you clouds on clouds of saints, farewell!</p>

<h3>END OF SCENE III.</h3><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">72</a><br /><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">73</a></span></p>



<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">74</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">75</a></span></p>
<h2><a name="SCENE_IV" id="SCENE_IV"></a>SCENE IV</h2>


<p class="exposition"><span class="smcap">Scene.</span>&mdash;<i>A wood near the Castle, as in Scene II. A group
of</i> <span class="smcap">PEASANTS</span> <i>pass</i>.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech">I have seen silver and copper, but not gold.</p>

<p class="actor">SECOND PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech">It's yellow and it shines.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 13em;">It's beautiful.</span><br />
The most beautiful thing under the sun,<br />
That's what I've heard.</p>

<p class="actor">THIRD PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 14em;">I have seen gold enough.</span></p>

<p class="actor">FOURTH PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">76</a></span>I would not say that it's so beautiful.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech">But doesn't a gold piece glitter like the sun?<br />
That's what my father, who'd seen better days,<br />
Told me when I was but a little boy&mdash;<br />
So high&mdash;so high, it's shining like the sun,<br />
Round and shining, that is what he said.</p>

<p class="actor">SECOND PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech">There's nothing in the world it cannot buy.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech">They've bags and bags of it.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>They go out.</i> <i>The two</i> <span class="smcap">MERCHANTS</span> <i>follow
silently</i>. <i>Then</i> <span class="smcap">ALEEL</span> <i>passes over the stage
singing</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech">Impetuous heart be still, be still,<br />
Your sorrowful love can never be told,<br />
Cover it up with a lonely tune.<br />
He who could bend all things to His will<br />
Has covered the door of the infinite fold<br />
With the pale stars and the wandering moon.</p>

<h3>END OF SCENE IV.</h3>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">77</a></span></p>


<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">79</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">78</a></span></p>
<h2><a name="SCENE_V" id="SCENE_V"></a>SCENE V</h2>


<hr class="chap" />

<p class="exposition"><span class="smcap">Scene.</span>&mdash;<i>The house of</i> <span class="smcap">SHEMUS RUA</span>. <i>There is an alcove at
the back with curtains; in it a bed, and on the bed is
the body of</i> <span class="smcap">MARY</span> <i>with candles round it</i>. <i>The two</i>
<span class="smcap">MERCHANTS</span> <i>while they speak put a large book upon a
table, arrange money, and so on</i>.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">Thanks to that lie I told about her ships<br />
And that about the herdsman lying sick,<br />
We shall be too much thronged with souls to-morrow.</p>

<p class="actor">SECOND MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">What has she in her coffers now but mice?</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">When the night fell and I had shaped myself<br />
Into the image of the man-headed owl,<br />
I hurried to the cliffs of Donegal,<br />
And saw with all their canvas full of wind<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">80</a></span>And rushing through the parti-coloured sea<br />
Those ships that bring the woman grain and meal.<br />
They're but three days from us.</p>

<p class="actor">SECOND MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 18em;">When the dew rose</span><br />
I hurried in like feathers to the east,<br />
And saw nine hundred oxen driven through Meath<br />
With goads of iron. They're but three days from us.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">Three days for traffic.</p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">PEASANTS</span> <i>crowd in with</i> <span class="smcap">TEIG</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">SHEMUS</span>.)</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 8.5em;">Come in, come in, you are welcome.</span><br />
That is my wife. She mocked at my great masters,<br />
And would not deal with them. Now there she is;<br />
She does not even know she was a fool,<br />
So great a fool she was.</p>

<p class="actor">TEIG</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 12.5em;">She would not eat</span><br />
One crumb of bread bought with our master's money,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">81</a></span>But lived on nettles, dock, and dandelion.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech">There's nobody could put into her head<br />
That Death is the worst thing can happen us.<br />
Though that sounds simple, for her tongue grew rank<br />
With all the lies that she had heard in chapel.<br />
Draw to the curtain. (<span class="smcap">TEIG</span> <i>draws it</i>.) You'll not play the fool<br />
While these good gentlemen are there to save you.</p>

<p class="actor">SECOND MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">Since the drought came they drift about in a throng,<br />
Like autumn leaves blown by the dreary winds.<br />
Come, deal&mdash;come, deal.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 12.5em;">Who will come deal with us?</span></p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech">They are out of spirit, sir, with lack of food,<br />
Save four or five. Here, sir, is one of these;<br />
The others will gain courage in good time.</p>

<p class="actor">MIDDLE-AGED-MAN</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">82</a></span>I come to deal&mdash;if you give honest price.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT (<i>reading in a book</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">"John Maher, a man of substance, with dull mind,<br />
And quiet senses and unventurous heart.<br />
The angels think him safe." Two hundred crowns,<br />
All for a soul, a little breath of wind.</p>

<p class="actor">THE MAN</p>

<p class="speech">I ask three hundred crowns. You have read there<br />
That no mere lapse of days can make me yours.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">There is something more writ here&mdash;"Often at night<br />
He is wakeful from a dread of growing poor,<br />
And thereon wonders if there's any man<br />
That he could rob in safety."</p>

<p class="actor">A PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15em;">Who'd have thought it?</span><br />
And I was once alone with him at midnight.</p>

<p class="actor">ANOTHER PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech">I will not trust my mother after this.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">83</a></span>There is this crack in you&mdash;two hundred crowns.</p>

<p class="actor">A PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech">That's plenty for a rogue.</p>

<p class="actor">ANOTHER PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 14.5em;">I'd give him nothing.</span></p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech">You'll get no more&mdash;so take what's offered you.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>A general murmur, during which the</i> <span class="smcap">MIDDLE-AGED
MAN</span> <i>takes money, and slips into background,
where he sinks on to a seat</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">Has no one got a better soul than that?<br />
If only for the credit of your parishes,<br />
Traffic with us.</p>

<p class="actor">A WOMAN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 8.5em;">What will you give for mine?</span></p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT (<i>reading in book</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">"Soft, handsome, and still young"&mdash;not much, I think.<br />
"It's certain that the man she's married to<br />
Knows nothing of what's hidden in the jar<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">84</a></span>Between the hour-glass and the pepper-pot."</p>

<p class="actor">THE WOMAN</p>

<p class="speech">The scandalous book.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">"Nor how when he's away</span><br />
At the horse fair the hand that wrote what's hid<br />
Will tap three times upon the window-pane."</p>

<p class="actor">THE WOMAN</p>

<p class="speech">And if there is a letter, that is no reason<br />
Why I should have less money than the others.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">You're almost safe, I give you fifty crowns.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>She turns to go.</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">A hundred, then.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">Woman, have sense&mdash;come, come.</span><br />
Is this a time to haggle at the price?<br />
There, take it up. There, there. That's right.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>She takes them and goes into the crowd.</i>)</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">85</a></span>Come, deal, deal, deal. It is but for charity<br />
We buy such souls at all; a thousand sins<br />
Made them our Master's long before we came.</p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">ALEEL</span> <i>enters</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech">Here, take my soul, for I am tired of it.<br />
I do not ask a price.</p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11.5em;">Not ask a price?</span><br />
How can you sell your soul without a price?<br />
I would not listen to his broken wits;<br />
His love for Countess Cathleen has so crazed him<br />
He hardly understands what he is saying.</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech">The trouble that has come on Countess Cathleen,<br />
The sorrow that is in her wasted face,<br />
The burden in her eyes, have broke my wits,<br />
And yet I know I'd have you take my soul.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">We cannot take your soul, for it is hers.</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech">No, but you must. Seeing it cannot help her<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">86</a></span>I have grown tired of it.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15em;">Begone from me,</span><br />
I may not touch it.</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11.5em;">Is your power so small?</span><br />
And must I bear it with me all my days?<br />
May you be scorned and mocked!</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 16.5em;">Drag him away.</span><br />
He troubles me.</p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">TEIG</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">SHEMUS</span> <i>lead</i> <span class="smcap">ALEEL</span> <i>into the crowd</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">SECOND MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 9.5em;">His gaze has filled me, brother,</span><br />
With shaking and a dreadful fear.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 17.5em;">Lean forward</span><br />
And kiss the circlet where my Master's lips<br />
Were pressed upon it when he sent us hither;<br />
You shall have peace once more.</p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">SECOND MERCHANT</span> <i>kisses the gold circlet that is
about the head of the</i> <span class="smcap">FIRST MERCHANT</span>.)</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">87</a></span></p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 16.5em;">I, too, grow weary,</span><br />
But there is something moving in my heart<br />
Whereby I know that what we seek the most<br />
Is drawing near&mdash;our labour will soon end.<br />
Come, deal, deal, deal, deal, deal; are you all dumb?<br />
What, will you keep me from our ancient home,<br />
And from the eternal revelry?</p>

<p class="actor">SECOND MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 16em;">Deal, deal.</span></p>

<p class="actor">SHEMUS</p>

<p class="speech">They say you beat the woman down too low.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">I offer this great price: a thousand crowns<br />
For an old woman who was always ugly.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>An old</i> <span class="smcap">PEASANT WOMAN</span> <i>comes forward, and he
takes up a book and reads</i>:)</p>

<p class="speech">There is but little set down here against her.<br />
"She has stolen eggs and fowl when times were bad,<br />
But when the times grew better has confessed it;<br />
She never missed her chapel of a Sunday<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">88</a></span>And when she could, paid dues." Take up your money.</p>

<p class="actor">OLD WOMAN</p>

<p class="speech">God bless you, sir. (<i>She screams.</i>) Oh, sir, a pain went through me!</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">That name is like a fire to all damned souls.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>Murmur among the</i> <span class="smcap">PEASANTS</span>, <i>who shrink back
from her as she goes out</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">A PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech">How she screamed out!</p>

<p class="actor">SECOND PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">And maybe we shall scream so.</span></p>

<p class="actor">THIRD PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech">I tell you there is no such place as hell.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">Can such a trifle turn you from your profit?<br />
Come, deal; come, deal.</p>

<p class="actor">MIDDLE-AGED MAN</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">89</a></span><span style="margin-left: 13.5em;">Master, I am afraid.</span></p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">I bought your soul, and there's no sense in fear<br />
Now the soul's gone.</p>

<p class="actor">MIDDLE-AGED MAN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">Give me my soul again.</span></p>

<p class="actor">WOMAN (<i>going on her knees and clinging to</i>
<span class="smcap">MERCHANT</span>)</p>

<p class="speech">And take this money too, and give me mine.</p>

<p class="actor">SECOND MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">Bear bastards, drink or follow some wild fancy;<br />
For sighs and cries are the soul's work,<br />
And you have none.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>Throws the woman off.</i>)</p>

<p class="actor">PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 10.5em;">Come, let's away.</span></p>

<p class="actor">ANOTHER PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 20em;">Yes, yes.</span></p>

<p class="actor">ANOTHER PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech">Come quickly; if that woman had not screamed<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">90</a></span>I would have lost my soul.</p>

<p class="actor">ANOTHER PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15.5em;">Come, come away.</span></p>

<p class="direction">(<i>They turn to door, but are stopped by shouts of
"Countess Cathleen! Countess Cathleen!"</i>)</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN (<i>entering</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">And so you trade once more?</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15em;">In spite of you.</span><br />
What brings you here, saint with the sapphire eyes?</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">I come to barter a soul for a great price.</p>

<p class="actor">SECOND MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">What matter, if the soul be worth the price?</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">The people starve, therefore the people go<br />
Thronging to you. I hear a cry come from them<br />
And it is in my ears by night and day,<br />
And I would have five hundred thousand crowns<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">91</a></span>That I may feed them till the dearth go by.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">It may be the soul's worth it.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 16.5em;">There is more:</span><br />
The souls that you have bought must be set free.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">We know of but one soul that's worth the price.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">Being my own it seems a priceless thing.</p>

<p class="actor">SECOND MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">You offer us&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 9.5em;">I offer my own soul.</span></p>

<p class="actor">A PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech">Do not, do not, for souls the like of ours<br />
Are not precious to God as your soul is.<br />
O! what would Heaven do without you, lady?</p>

<p class="actor">ANOTHER PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">92</a></span>Look how their claws clutch in their leathern gloves.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">Five hundred thousand crowns; we give the price.<br />
The gold is here; the souls even while you speak<br />
Have slipped out of our bond, because your face<br />
Has shed a light on them and filled their hearts.<br />
But you must sign, for we omit no form<br />
In buying a soul like yours.</p>

<p class="actor">SECOND MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15em;">Sign with this quill</span><br />
It was a feather growing on the cock<br />
That crowed when Peter dared deny his Master,<br />
And all who use it have great honour in Hell.</p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">CATHLEEN</span> <i>leans forward to sign</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL (<i>rushing forward and snatching the
pen from her</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">Leave all things to the builder of the heavens.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">I have no thoughts; I hear a cry&mdash;a cry.</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL (<i>casting the pen on the ground</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">I have seen a vision under a green hedge,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">93</a></span>A hedge of hips and haws&mdash;men yet shall hear<br />
The Archangels rolling Satan's empty skull<br />
Over the mountain-tops.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 13em;">Take him away.</span></p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">TEIG</span> <i>and</i> SHEMUS <i>drag him roughly away so that
he falls upon the floor among the</i> <span class="smcap">PEASANTS</span>.
<span class="smcap">CATHLEEN</span> <i>picks up parchment and signs, then
turns towards the</i> <span class="smcap">PEASANTS</span>.)</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">Take up the money, and now come with me;<br />
When we are far from this polluted place<br />
I will give everybody money enough.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>She goes out, the</i> <span class="smcap">PEASANTS</span> <i>crowding round her
and kissing her dress</i>. <span class="smcap">ALEEL</span> <i>and the two</i>
<span class="smcap">MERCHANTS</span> <i>are left alone</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">SECOND MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech">We must away and wait until she dies,<br />
Sitting above her tower as two grey owls,<br />
Waiting as many years as may be, guarding<br />
Our precious jewel; waiting to seize her soul.</p>

<p class="actor">FIRST MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">94</a></span>We need but hover over her head in the air,<br />
For she has only minutes. When she signed<br />
Her heart began to break. Hush, hush, I hear<br />
The brazen door of Hell move on its hinges,<br />
And the eternal revelry float hither<br />
To hearten us.</p>

<p class="actor">SECOND MERCHANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">Leap feathered on the air</span><br />
And meet them with her soul caught in your claws.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>They rush out.</i> <span class="smcap">ALEEL</span> <i>crawls into the middle of
the room</i>. <i>The twilight has fallen and
gradually darkens as the scene goes on. There
is a distant muttering of thunder and a
sound of rising storm.</i>)</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech">The brazen door stands wide, and Balor comes<br />
Borne in his heavy car, and demons have lifted<br />
The age-weary eyelids from the eyes that of old<br />
Turned gods to stone; Barach, the traitor, comes<br />
And the lascivious race, Cailitin,<br />
That cast a druid weakness and decay<br />
Over Sualtem's and old Dectera's child;<br />
And that great king Hell first took hold upon<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">95</a></span>When he killed Naisi and broke Deirdre's heart<br />
And all their heads are twisted to one side,<br />
For when they lived they warred on beauty and peace<br />
With obstinate, crafty, sidelong bitterness.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>He moves about as though the air above him
was full of spirits</i>. <span class="smcap">OONA</span> <i>enters</i>.)</p>

<p class="speech">Crouch down, old heron, out of the blind storm.</p>

<p class="actor">OONA</p>

<p class="speech">Where is the Countess Cathleen? All this day<br />
Her eyes were full of tears, and when for a moment<br />
Her hand was laid upon my hand it trembled,<br />
And now I do not know where she is gone.</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech">Cathleen has chosen other friends than us,<br />
And they are rising through the hollow world.<br />
Demons are out, old heron.</p>

<p class="actor">OONA</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 14.5em;">God guard her soul.</span></p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech">She's bartered it away this very hour,<br />
As though we two were never in the world.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>He points downward.</i>)</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">96</a></span></p>

<p class="speech">First, Orchill, her pale, beautiful head<br />
Her body shadowy as vapour drifting<br />
Under the dawn, for she who awoke desire<br />
Has but a heart of blood when others die;<br />
About her is a vapoury multitude<br />
Of women alluring devils with soft laughter;<br />
Behind her a host heat of the blood made sin,<br />
But all the little pink-white nails have grown<br />
To be great talons.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>He seizes</i> <span class="smcap">OONA</span> <i>and drags her into the middle of
the room and points downward with vehement
gestures</i>. <i>The wind roars.</i>)</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11.5em;">They begin a song</span><br />
And there is still some music on their tongues.</p>

<p class="actor">OONA (<i>casting herself face downwards on the floor</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">O, Maker of all, protect her from the demons,<br />
And if a soul must need be lost, take mine.</p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">ALEEL</span> <i>kneels beside her, but does not seem to hear
her words</i>. <i>The</i> <span class="smcap">PEASANTS</span> <i>return</i>. <i>They
carry the</i> <span class="smcap">COUNTESS CATHLEEN</span> <i>and lay her
upon the ground before</i> <span class="smcap">OONA</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">ALEEL</span>.
<i>She lies there as if dead.</i>)</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">97</a></span></p>

<p class="actor">OONA</p>

<p class="speech">O, that so many pitchers of rough clay<br />
Should prosper and the porcelain break in two!</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>She kisses the hands of</i> <span class="smcap">CATHLEEN</span>.)</p>

<p class="actor">A PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech">We were under the tree where the path turns,<br />
When she grew pale as death and fainted away.<br />
And while we bore her hither cloudy gusts<br />
Blackened the world and shook us on our feet;<br />
Draw the great bolt, for no man has beheld<br />
So black, bitter, blinding, and sudden a storm.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>One who is near the door draws the bolt.</i>)</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">O, hold me, and hold me tightly, for the storm<br />
Is dragging me away.</p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">OONA</span> <i>takes her in her arms</i>. <span class="smcap">A woman</span> <i>begins
to wail</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 10.5em;">Hush!</span></p>

<p class="actor">PEASANTS</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">98</a></span><span style="margin-left: 15.5em;">Hush!</span></p>

<p class="actor">PEASANT WOMEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 19em;">Hush!</span></p>

<p class="actor">OTHER PEASANT WOMEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 22em;">Hush!</span></p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN (<i>half rising</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">Lay all the bags of money in a heap,<br />
And when I am gone, old Oona, share them out<br />
To every man and woman: judge, and give<br />
According to their needs.</p>

<p class="actor">A PEASANT WOMAN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 14em;">And will she give</span><br />
Enough to keep my children through the dearth?</p>

<p class="actor">ANOTHER PEASANT WOMAN</p>

<p class="speech">O, Queen of Heaven, and all you blessed saints,<br />
Let us and ours be lost so she be shriven.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">Bend down your faces, Oona and Aleel;<br />
I gaze upon them as the swallow gazes<br />
Upon the nest under the eave, before<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">99</a></span>She wander the loud waters. Do not weep<br />
Too great a while, for there is many a candle<br />
On the High Altar though one fall. Aleel,<br />
Who sang about the dancers of the woods,<br />
That know not the hard burden of the world,<br />
Having but breath in their kind bodies, farewell!<br />
And farewell, Oona, you who played with me,<br />
And bore me in your arms about the house<br />
When I was but a child and therefore happy,<br />
Therefore happy, even like those that dance.<br />
The storm is in my hair and I must go.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>She dies.</i>)</p>

<p class="actor">OONA</p>

<p class="speech">Bring me the looking-glass.</p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">A woman</span> <i>brings it to her out of the inner room</i>.
<span class="smcap">OONA</span> <i>holds it over the lips of</i> <span class="smcap">CATHLEEN</span>.
<i>All is silent for a moment. And then she
speaks in a half scream</i>:)</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15em;">O, she is dead!</span></p>

<p class="actor">A PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech">She was the great white lily of the world.</p>

<p class="actor">A PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span>She was more beautiful than the pale stars.</p>

<p class="actor">AN OLD PEASANT WOMAN</p>

<p class="speech">The little plant I love is broken in two.</p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">ALEEL</span> <i>takes looking-glass from</i> <span class="smcap">OONA</span> <i>and flings
it upon the floor so that it is broken in
many pieces</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech">I shatter you in fragments, for the face<br />
That brimmed you up with beauty is no more:<br />
And die, dull heart, for she whose mournful words<br />
Made you a living spirit has passed away<br />
And left you but a ball of passionate dust.<br />
And you, proud earth and plumy sea, fade out!<br />
For you may hear no more her faltering feet,<br />
But are left lonely amid the clamorous war<br />
Of angels upon devils.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>He stands up; almost every one is kneeling, but
it has grown so dark that only confused
forms can be seen.</i>)</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 12.5em;">And I who weep</span><br />
Call curses on you, Time and Fate and Change,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</a></span>And have no excellent hope but the great hour<br />
When you shall plunge headlong through bottomless space.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>A flash of lightning followed immediately by
thunder.</i>)</p>

<p class="actor">A PEASANT WOMAN</p>

<p class="speech">Pull him upon his knees before his curses<br />
Have plucked thunder and lightning on our heads.</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech">Angels and devils clash in the middle air,<br />
And brazen swords clang upon brazen helms.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>A flash of lightning followed immediately by
thunder.</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">Yonder a bright spear, cast out of a sling,<br />
Has torn through Balor's eye, and the dark clans<br />
Fly screaming as they fled Moytura of old.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>Everything is lost in darkness.</i>)</p>

<p class="actor">AN OLD MAN</p>

<p class="speech">The Almighty wrath at our great weakness and sin<br />
Has blotted out the world and we must die.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>The darkness is broken by a visionary light.
The</i> <span class="smcap">PEASANTS</span> <i>seem to be kneeling upon the</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</a></span>
<i>rocky slope of a mountain, and vapour full
of storm and ever-changing light is sweeping
above them and behind them. Half in the
light, half in the shadow, stand armed
angels. Their armour is old and worn,
and their drawn swords dim and dinted.
They stand as if upon the air in formation
of battle and look downward with stern
faces. The</i> <span class="smcap">PEASANTS</span> <i>cast themselves on the
ground</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech">Look no more on the half-closed gates of Hell,<br />
But speak to me, whose mind is smitten of God,<br />
That it may be no more with mortal things,<br />
And tell of her who lies there.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>He seizes one of the angels.</i>)</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 16.5em;">Till you speak</span><br />
You shall not drift into eternity.</p>

<p class="actor">THE ANGEL</p>

<p class="speech">The light beats down; the gates of pearl are wide<br />
And she is passing to the floor of peace,<br />
And Mary of the seven times wounded heart<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</a></span>Has kissed her lips, and the long blessed hair<br />
Has fallen on her face; The Light of Lights<br />
Looks always on the motive, not the deed,<br />
The Shadow of Shadows on the deed alone.</p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">ALEEL</span> <i>releases the</i> <span class="smcap">ANGEL</span> <i>and kneels</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">OONA</p>

<p class="speech">Tell them who walk upon the floor of peace<br />
That I would die and go to her I love;<br />
The years like great black oxen tread the world,<br />
And God the herdsman goads them on behind<br />
And I am broken by their passing feet.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>A sound of far-off horns seems to come from the
heart of the Light. The vision melts away,
and the forms of the kneeling</i> <span class="smcap">PEASANTS</span>
<i>appear faintly in the darkness</i>.)</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a><br /><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">105</a></span></p>



<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a></span></p>
<h2 class="p6"><a name="THE_ROSE" id="THE_ROSE"></a>THE ROSE</h2>


<p class="center p6">"<i>Sero te amavi, Pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova! Sero te
amavi.</i>"</p>

<p class="right">
<span class="smcap">S. Augustine.</span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a></span></p>


<p class="center p6">TO LIONEL JOHNSON</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a><br />
<a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span></p>


<h3 class="p6"><a name="TO_THE_ROSE_UPON_THE_ROOD_OF_TIME" id="TO_THE_ROSE_UPON_THE_ROOD_OF_TIME"></a>TO THE ROSE UPON THE ROOD OF
TIME</h3>


<p>
<i>Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!<br />
Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways:<br />
Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide;<br />
The Druid, gray, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed,<br />
Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold;<br />
And thine own sadness, whereof stars, grown old<br />
In dancing silver sandalled on the sea,<br />
Sing in their high and lonely melody.<br />
Come near, that no more blinded by man's fate,<br />
I find under the boughs of love and hate,<br />
In all poor foolish things that live a day,<br />
Eternal beauty wandering on her way.</i><br />
<br />
<i>Come near, come near, come near&mdash;Ah, leave me still<br />
A little space for the rose-breath to fill!<br />
Lest I no more hear common things that crave;<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">110</a></span>The weak worm hiding down in its small cave,</i><br />
<i>The field mouse running by me in the grass,<br />
And heavy mortal hopes that toil and pass;<br />
But seek alone to hear the strange things said<br />
By God to the bright hearts of those long dead,<br />
And learn to chaunt a tongue men do not know.<br />
Come near; I would, before my time to go,<br />
Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways:<br />
Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.</i></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="FERGUS_AND_THE_DRUID" id="FERGUS_AND_THE_DRUID"></a>FERGUS AND THE DRUID</h3>


<p class="actor">FERGUS</p>

<p class="speech">The whole day have I followed in the rocks,<br />
And you have changed and flowed from shape to shape.<br />
First as a raven on whose ancient wings<br />
Scarcely a feather lingered, then you seemed<br />
A weasel moving on from stone to stone,<br />
And now at last you wear a human shape,<br />
A thin gray man half lost in gathering night.</p>

<p class="actor">DRUID</p>

<p class="speech">What would you, king of the proud Red Branch kings?</p>

<p class="actor">FERGUS</p>

<p class="speech">This would I say, most wise of living souls:<br />
Young subtle Concobar sat close by me<br />
When I gave judgment, and his words were wise,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">112</a></span>And what to me was burden without end,<br />
To him seemed easy, so I laid the crown<br />
Upon his head to cast away my care.</p>

<p class="actor">DRUID</p>

<p class="speech">What would you, king of the proud Red Branch kings?</p>

<p class="actor">FERGUS</p>

<p class="speech">I feast amid my people on the hill,<br />
And pace the woods, and drive my chariot wheels<br />
In the white border of the murmuring sea;<br />
And still I feel the crown upon my head.</p>

<p class="actor">DRUID</p>

<p class="speech">What would you?</p>

<p class="actor">FERGUS</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">I would be no more a king</span><br />
But learn the dreaming wisdom that is yours.</p>

<p class="actor">DRUID</p>

<p class="speech">Look on my thin gray hair and hollow cheeks<br />
And on these hands that may not lift the sword<br />
This body trembling like a wind-blown reed.<br />
No woman loves me, no man seeks my help,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">113</a></span>Because I be not of the things I dream.</p>

<p class="actor">FERGUS</p>

<p class="speech">A wild and foolish labourer is a king,<br />
To do and do and do, and never dream.</p>

<p class="actor">DRUID</p>

<p class="speech">Take, if you must, this little bag of dreams;<br />
Unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round.</p>

<p class="actor">FERGUS</p>

<p class="speech">I see my life go dripping like a stream<br />
From change to change; I have been many things,<br />
A green drop in the surge, a gleam of light<br />
Upon a sword, a fir-tree on a hill,<br />
An old slave grinding at a heavy quern,<br />
A king sitting upon a chair of gold,<br />
And all these things were wonderful and great;<br />
But now I have grown nothing, being all,<br />
And the whole world weighs down upon my heart:<br />
Ah! Druid, Druid, how great webs of sorrow<br />
Lay hidden in the small slate-coloured bag!</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">114</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="THE_DEATH_OF_CUCHULAIN" id="THE_DEATH_OF_CUCHULAIN"></a>THE DEATH OF CUCHULAIN</h3>


<p>
A man came slowly from the setting sun,<br />
To Forgail's daughter, Emer, in her dun,<br />
And found her dyeing cloth with subtle care,<br />
And said, casting aside his draggled hair:<br />
"I am Aleel, the swineherd, whom you bid<br />
"Go dwell upon the sea cliffs, vapour hid;<br />
"But now my years of watching are no more."<br />
<br />
Then Emer cast the web upon the floor,<br />
And stretching out her arms, red with the dye,<br />
Parted her lips with a loud sudden cry.<br />
<br />
Looking on her, Aleel, the swineherd, said:<br />
"Not any god alive, nor mortal dead,<br />
"Has slain so mighty armies, so great kings,<br />
"Nor won the gold that now Cuchulain brings."<br />
<br />
"Why do you tremble thus from feet to crown?"<br />
<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">115</a></span>Aleel, the swineherd, wept and cast him down<br />
Upon the web-heaped floor, and thus his word:<br />
"With him is one sweet-throated like a bird."<br />
<br />
"Who bade you tell these things?" and then she cried<br />
To those about, "Beat him with thongs of hide<br />
"And drive him from the door."<br />
<br />
<span style="margin-left: 16em;">And thus it was:</span><br />
And where her son, Finmole, on the smooth grass<br />
Was driving cattle, came she with swift feet,<br />
And called out to him, "Son, it is not meet<br />
"That you stay idling here with flocks and herds."<br />
<br />
"I have long waited, mother, for those words:<br />
"But wherefore now?"<br />
<br />
<span style="margin-left: 12em;">"There is a man to die;</span><br />
"You have the heaviest arm under the sky."<br />
<br />
"My father dwells among the sea-worn bands,<br />
"And breaks the ridge of battle with his hands."<br />
<br />
"Nay, you are taller than Cuchulain, son."<br />
<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</a></span>"He is the mightiest man in ship or dun."<br />
<br />
"Nay, he is old and sad with many wars,<br />
"And weary of the crash of battle cars."<br />
<br />
"I only ask what way my journey lies,<br />
"For God, who made you bitter, made you wise."<br />
<br />
"The Red Branch kings a tireless banquet keep,<br />
"Where the sun falls into the Western deep.<br />
"Go there, and dwell on the green forest rim;<br />
"But tell alone your name and house to him<br />
"Whose blade compels, and bid them send you one<br />
"Who has a like vow from their triple dun."<br />
<br />
Between the lavish shelter of a wood<br />
And the gray tide, the Red Branch multitude<br />
Feasted, and with them old Cuchulain dwelt,<br />
And his young dear one close beside him knelt,<br />
And gazed upon the wisdom of his eyes,<br />
More mournful than the depth of starry skies,<br />
And pondered on the wonder of his days;<br />
And all around the harp-string told his praise,<br />
And Concobar, the Red Branch king of kings,<br />
With his own fingers touched the brazen strings.<br />
At last Cuchulain spake, "A young man strays<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">117</a></span>"Driving the deer along the woody ways.<br />
"I often hear him singing to and fro,<br />
"I often hear the sweet sound of his bow,<br />
"Seek out what man he is."<br />
<br />
<span style="margin-left: 14em;">One went and came.</span><br />
"He bade me let all know he gives his name<br />
"At the sword point, and bade me bring him one<br />
"Who had a like vow from our triple dun."<br />
<br />
"I only of the Red Branch hosted now,"<br />
Cuchulain cried, "have made and keep that vow."<br />
<br />
After short fighting in the leafy shade,<br />
He spake to the young man, "Is there no maid<br />
"Who loves you, no white arms to wrap you round,<br />
"Or do you long for the dim sleepy ground,<br />
"That you come here to meet this ancient sword?"<br />
<br />
"The dooms of men are in God's hidden hoard."<br />
<br />
"Your head a while seemed like a woman's head<br />
"That I loved once."<br />
<br />
<span style="margin-left: 11em;">Again the fighting sped,</span><br />
But now the war rage in Cuchulain woke,<br />
And through the other's shield his long blade broke,<br />
And pierced him.<br />
<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">118</a></span><span style="margin-left: 8em;">"Speak before your breath is done."</span><br />
"I am Finmole, mighty Cuchulain's son."<br />
<br />
"I put you from your pain. I can no more."<br />
<br />
While day its burden on to evening bore,<br />
With head bowed on his knees Cuchulain stayed;<br />
Then Concobar sent that sweet-throated maid,<br />
And she, to win him, his gray hair caressed;<br />
In vain her arms, in vain her soft white breast.<br />
Then Concobar, the subtlest of all men,<br />
Ranking his Druids round him ten by ten,<br />
Spake thus, "Cuchulain will dwell there and brood,<br />
"For three days more in dreadful quietude,<br />
"And then arise, and raving slay us all.<br />
"Go, cast on him delusions magical,<br />
"That he might fight the waves of the loud sea."<br />
And ten by ten under a quicken tree,<br />
The Druids chaunted, swaying in their hands<br />
Tall wands of alder, and white quicken wands.<br />
<br />
In three days' time, Cuchulain with a moan<br />
Stood up, and came to the long sands alone:<br />
For four days warred he with the bitter tide;<br />
And the waves flowed above him, and he died.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">119</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="THE_ROSE_OF_THE_WORLD" id="THE_ROSE_OF_THE_WORLD"></a>THE ROSE OF THE WORLD</h3>


<p>
Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?<br />
For these red lips, with all their mournful pride,<br />
Mournful that no new wonder may betide,<br />
Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam,<br />
And Usna's children died.<br />
<br />
We and the labouring world are passing by:<br />
Amid men's souls, that waver and give place,<br />
Like the pale waters in their wintry race,<br />
Under the passing stars, foam of the sky,<br />
Lives on this lonely face.<br />
<br />
Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode:<br />
Before you were, or any hearts to beat,<br />
Weary and kind one lingered by His seat;<br />
He made the world to be a grassy road<br />
Before her wandering feet.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">120</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="THE_ROSE_OF_PEACE" id="THE_ROSE_OF_PEACE"></a>THE ROSE OF PEACE</h3>


<p>
If Michael, leader of God's host<br />
When Heaven and Hell are met,<br />
Looked down on you from Heaven's door-post<br />
He would his deeds forget.<br />
<br />
Brooding no more upon God's wars<br />
In his Divine homestead,<br />
He would go weave out of the stars<br />
A chaplet for your head.<br />
<br />
And all folk seeing him bow down,<br />
And white stars tell your praise,<br />
Would come at last to God's great town,<br />
Led on by gentle ways;<br />
<br />
And God would bid His warfare cease.<br />
Saying all things were well;<br />
And softly make a rosy peace,<br />
A peace of Heaven with Hell.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">121</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="THE_ROSE_OF_BATTLE" id="THE_ROSE_OF_BATTLE"></a>THE ROSE OF BATTLE</h3>


<p>
Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!<br />
The tall thought-woven sails, that flap unfurled<br />
Above the tide of hours, trouble the air,<br />
And God's bell buoyed to be the water's care;<br />
While hushed from fear, or loud with hope, a band<br />
With blown, spray-dabbled hair gather at hand.<br />
<i>Turn if you may from battles never done</i>,<br />
I call, as they go by me one by one,<br />
<i>Danger no refuge holds; and war no peace,<br />
For him who hears love sing and never cease,<br />
Beside her clean-swept hearth, her quiet shade:<br />
But gather all for whom no love hath made<br />
A woven silence, or but came to cast<br />
A song into the air, and singing past<br />
To smile on the pale dawn; and gather you<br />
Who have sought more than is in rain or dew<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">122</a></span>Or in the sun and moon, or on the earth,</i><br />
<i>Or sighs amid the wandering, starry mirth,<br />
Or comes in laughter from the sea's sad lips<br />
And wage God's battles in the long gray ships.<br />
The sad, the lonely, the insatiable,<br />
To these Old Night shall all her mystery tell;<br />
God's bell has claimed them by the little cry<br />
Of their sad hearts, that may not live nor die.</i><br />
<br />
Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!<br />
You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled<br />
Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring<br />
The bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing.<br />
Beauty grown sad with its eternity<br />
Made you of us, and of the dim gray sea.<br />
Our long ships loose thought-woven sails and wait,<br />
For God has bid them share an equal fate;<br />
And when at last defeated in His wars,<br />
They have gone down under the same white stars,<br />
We shall no longer hear the little cry<br />
Of our sad hearts, that may not live nor die.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">123</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="A_FAERY_SONG" id="A_FAERY_SONG"></a>A FAERY SONG</h3>


<p class="exposition"><i>Sung by the people of faery over Diarmuid and Grania, who lay
in their bridal sleep under a Cromlech.</i></p>

<p>
We who are old, old and gay,<br />
O so old!<br />
Thousands of years, thousands of years,<br />
If all were told:<br />
<br />
Give to these children, new from the world,<br />
Silence and love;<br />
And the long dew-dropping hours of the night,<br />
And the stars above:<br />
<br />
Give to these children, new from the world,<br />
Rest far from men.<br />
Is anything better, anything better?<br />
Tell us it then:<br />
<br />
Us who are old, old and gay,<br />
O so old!<br />
Thousands of years, thousands of years,<br />
If all were told.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">124</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="THE_LAKE_ISLE_OF_INNISFREE" id="THE_LAKE_ISLE_OF_INNISFREE"></a>THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE</h3>


<p>
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,<br />
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:<br />
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,<br />
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.<br />
<br />
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,<br />
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;<br />
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,<br />
And evening full of the linnet's wings.<br />
<br />
I will arise and go now, for always night and day<br />
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;<br />
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,<br />
I hear it in the deep heart's core.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">125</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="A_CRADLE_SONG" id="A_CRADLE_SONG"></a>A CRADLE SONG</h3>


<p>
"<i>Coth yani me von gilli beg,<br />
'N heur ve thu more a creena</i>."<br />
<br />
The angels are stooping<br />
Above your bed;<br />
They weary of trooping<br />
With the whimpering dead.<br />
<br />
God's laughing in heaven<br />
To see you so good;<br />
The Shining Seven<br />
Are gay with His mood.<br />
<br />
I kiss you and kiss you,<br />
My pigeon, my own;<br />
Ah, how I shall miss you<br />
When you have grown.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">126</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="THE_PITY_OF_LOVE" id="THE_PITY_OF_LOVE"></a>THE PITY OF LOVE</h3>


<p>
A pity beyond all telling<br />
Is hid in the heart of love:<br />
The folk who are buying and selling<br />
The clouds on their journey above<br />
The cold wet winds ever blowing<br />
And the shadowy hazel grove<br />
Where mouse-gray waters are flowing<br />
Threaten the head that I love.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">127</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="THE_SORROW_OF_LOVE" id="THE_SORROW_OF_LOVE"></a>THE SORROW OF LOVE</h3>


<p>
The quarrel of the sparrows in the eaves,<br />
The full round moon and the star-laden sky,<br />
And the loud song of the ever-singing leaves,<br />
Had hid away earth's old and weary cry.<br />
<br />
And then you came with those red mournful lips,<br />
And with you came the whole of the world's tears<br />
And all the trouble of her labouring ships,<br />
And all the trouble of her myriad years.<br />
<br />
And now the sparrows warring in the eaves,<br />
The curd-pale moon, the white stars in the sky,<br />
And the loud chaunting of the unquiet leaves,<br />
Are shaken with earth's old and weary cry.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">128</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="WHEN_YOU_ARE_OLD" id="WHEN_YOU_ARE_OLD"></a>WHEN YOU ARE OLD</h3>


<p>
When you are old and gray and full of sleep,<br />
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,<br />
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look<br />
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;<br />
<br />
How many loved your moments of glad grace,<br />
And loved your beauty will love false or true;<br />
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,<br />
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.<br />
<br />
And bending down beside the glowing bars<br />
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled<br />
And paced upon the mountains overhead<br />
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">129</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="THE_WHITE_BIRDS" id="THE_WHITE_BIRDS"></a>THE WHITE BIRDS</h3>


<p>
I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!<br />
We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee;<br />
And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky,<br />
Has awaked in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.<br />
<br />
A weariness comes from those dreamers, dew dabbled, the lily and rose;<br />
Ah, dream not of them, my beloved, the flame of the meteor that goes,<br />
Or the flame of the blue star that lingers hung low in the fall of the dew:<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">130</a></span>For I would we were changed to white birds on the wandering foam: I and you!<br />
<br />
I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a Danaan shore,<br />
Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no more;<br />
Soon far from the rose and the lily, and fret of the flames would we be,<br />
Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea!</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">131</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="A_DREAM_OF_DEATH" id="A_DREAM_OF_DEATH"></a>A DREAM OF DEATH</h3>


<p>
I dreamed that one had died in a strange place<br />
Near no accustomed hand;<br />
And they had nailed the boards above her face<br />
The peasants of that land,<br />
Wondering to lay her in that solitude,<br />
And raised above her mound<br />
A cross they had made out of two bits of wood,<br />
And planted cypress round;<br />
And left her to the indifferent stars above<br />
Until I carved these words:<br />
<i>She was more beautiful than thy first love,<br />
But now lies under boards</i>.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">132</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="A_DREAM_OF_A_BLESSED_SPIRIT" id="A_DREAM_OF_A_BLESSED_SPIRIT"></a>A DREAM OF A BLESSED SPIRIT</h3>


<p>
All the heavy days are over;<br />
Leave the body's coloured pride<br />
Underneath the grass and clover,<br />
With the feet laid side by side.<br />
<br />
One with her are mirth and duty,<br />
Bear the gold embroidered dress,<br />
For she needs not her sad beauty,<br />
To the scented oaken press.<br />
<br />
Hers the kiss of Mother Mary,<br />
The long hair is on her face;<br />
Still she goes with footsteps wary,<br />
Full of earth's old timid grace.<br />
<br />
With white feet of angels seven<br />
Her white feet go glimmering<br />
And above the deep of heaven,<br />
Flame on flame and wing on wing.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">133</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="WHO_GOES_WITH_FERGUS" id="WHO_GOES_WITH_FERGUS"></a>WHO GOES WITH FERGUS?</h3>


<p>
Who will go drive with Fergus now,<br />
And pierce the deep wood's woven shade,<br />
And dance upon the level shore?<br />
Young man, lift up your russet brow,<br />
And lift your tender eyelids, maid,<br />
And brood on hopes and fears no more.<br />
<br />
And no more turn aside and brood<br />
Upon Love's bitter mystery;<br />
For Fergus rules the brazen cars,<br />
And rules the shadows of the wood,<br />
And the white breast of the dim sea<br />
And all dishevelled wandering stars.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">134</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="THE_MAN_WHO_DREAMED_OF_FAERYLAND" id="THE_MAN_WHO_DREAMED_OF_FAERYLAND"></a>THE MAN WHO DREAMED OF
FAERYLAND</h3>


<p>
He stood among a crowd at Drumahair;<br />
His heart hung all upon a silken dress,<br />
And he had known at last some tenderness,<br />
Before earth made of him her sleepy care;<br />
But when a man poured fish into a pile,<br />
It seemed they raised their little silver heads,<br />
And sang how day a Druid twilight sheds<br />
Upon a dim, green, well-beloved isle,<br />
Where people love beside star-laden seas;<br />
How Time may never mar their faery vows<br />
Under the woven roofs of quicken boughs:<br />
The singing shook him out of his new ease.<br />
<br />
He wandered by the sands of Lisadill;<br />
His mind ran all on money cares and fears,<br />
And he had known at last some prudent years<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">135</a></span>Before they heaped his grave under the hill;<br />
But while he passed before a plashy place,<br />
A lug-worm with its gray and muddy mouth<br />
Sang how somewhere to north or west or south<br />
There dwelt a gay, exulting, gentle race;<br />
And how beneath those three times blessed skies<br />
A Danaan fruitage makes a shower of moons,<br />
And as it falls awakens leafy tunes:<br />
And at that singing he was no more wise.<br />
<br />
He mused beside the well of Scanavin,<br />
He mused upon his mockers: without fail<br />
His sudden vengeance were a country tale,<br />
Now that deep earth has drunk his body in;<br />
But one small knot-grass growing by the pool<br />
Told where, ah, little, all-unneeded voice!<br />
Old Silence bids a lonely folk rejoice,<br />
And chaplet their calm brows with leafage cool,<br />
And how, when fades the sea-strewn rose of day,<br />
A gentle feeling wraps them like a fleece,<br />
And all their trouble dies into its peace:<br />
The tale drove his fine angry mood away.<br />
<br />
He slept under the hill of Lugnagall;<br />
And might have known at last unhaunted sleep<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">136</a></span>Under that cold and vapour-turbaned steep,<br />
Now that old earth had taken man and all:<br />
Were not the worms that spired about his bones<br />
A-telling with their low and reedy cry,<br />
Of how God leans His hands out of the sky,<br />
To bless that isle with honey in His tones;<br />
That none may feel the power of squall and wave<br />
And no one any leaf-crowned dancer miss<br />
Until He burn up Nature with a kiss:<br />
The man has found no comfort in the grave.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">137</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="THE_DEDICATION_TO_A_BOOK_OF_STORIES_SELECTED_FROM_THE_IRISH_NOVELISTS" id="THE_DEDICATION_TO_A_BOOK_OF_STORIES_SELECTED_FROM_THE_IRISH_NOVELISTS"></a>THE DEDICATION TO A BOOK OF
STORIES SELECTED FROM THE
IRISH NOVELISTS</h3>


<p>
There was a green branch hung with many a bell<br />
When her own people ruled in wave-worn Eire;<br />
And from its murmuring greenness, calm of faery,<br />
A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell.<br />
<br />
It charmed away the merchant from his guile,<br />
And turned the farmer's memory from his cattle,<br />
And hushed in sleep the roaring ranks of battle,<br />
For all who heard it dreamed a little while.<br />
<br />
Ah, Exiles wandering over many seas,<br />
Spinning at all times Eire's good to-morrow!<br />
Ah, worldwide Nation, always growing Sorrow!<br />
I also bear a bell branch full of ease.<br />
<br />
I tore it from green boughs winds tossed and hurled,<br />
Green boughs of tossing always, weary, weary!<br />
I tore it from the green boughs of old Eire,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">138</a></span>The willow of the many-sorrowed world.<br />
<br />
Ah, Exiles, wandering over many lands!<br />
My bell branch murmurs: the gay bells bring laughter,<br />
Leaping to shake a cobweb from the rafter;<br />
The sad bells bow the forehead on the hands.<br />
<br />
A honeyed ringing: under the new skies<br />
They bring you memories of old village faces,<br />
Cabins gone now, old well-sides, old dear places;<br />
And men who loved the cause that never dies.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">139</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="THE_LAMENTATION_OF_THE_OLD_PENSIONER" id="THE_LAMENTATION_OF_THE_OLD_PENSIONER"></a>THE LAMENTATION OF THE OLD
PENSIONER</h3>


<p>
I had a chair at every hearth,<br />
When no one turned to see,<br />
With "Look at that old fellow there,<br />
"And who may he be?"<br />
And therefore do I wander now,<br />
And the fret lies on me.<br />
<br />
The road-side trees keep murmuring<br />
Ah, wherefore murmur ye,<br />
As in the old days long gone by,<br />
Green oak and poplar tree?<br />
The well-known faces are all gone<br />
And the fret lies on me.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">140</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="THE_BALLAD_OF_FATHER_GILLIGAN" id="THE_BALLAD_OF_FATHER_GILLIGAN"></a>THE BALLAD OF FATHER GILLIGAN</h3>


<p>
The old priest Peter Gilligan<br />
Was weary night and day;<br />
For half his flock were in their beds,<br />
Or under green sods lay.<br />
<br />
Once, while he nodded on a chair,<br />
At the moth-hour of eve,<br />
Another poor man sent for him,<br />
And he began to grieve.<br />
<br />
"I have no rest, nor joy, nor peace,<br />
"For people die and die";<br />
And after cried he, "God forgive!<br />
"My body spake, not I!"<br />
<br />
He knelt, and leaning on the chair<br />
He prayed and fell asleep;<br />
And the moth-hour went from the fields,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">141</a></span>And stars began to peep.<br />
<br />
They slowly into millions grew,<br />
And leaves shook in the wind;<br />
And God covered the world with shade,<br />
And whispered to mankind.<br />
<br />
Upon the time of sparrow chirp<br />
When the moths came once more,<br />
The old priest Peter Gilligan<br />
Stood upright on the floor.<br />
<br />
"Mavrone, mavrone! the man has died,<br />
"While I slept on the chair";<br />
He roused his horse out of its sleep,<br />
And rode with little care.<br />
<br />
He rode now as he never rode,<br />
By rocky lane and fen;<br />
The sick man's wife opened the door:<br />
"Father! you come again!"<br />
<br />
"And is the poor man dead?" he cried,<br />
"He died an hour ago,"<br />
The old priest Peter Gilligan<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">142</a></span>In grief swayed to and fro.<br />
<br />
"When you were gone, he turned and died<br />
"As merry as a bird."<br />
The old priest Peter Gilligan<br />
He knelt him at that word.<br />
<br />
"He who hath made the night of stars<br />
"For souls, who tire and bleed,<br />
"Sent one of His great angels down<br />
"To help me in my need.<br />
<br />
"He who is wrapped in purple robes,<br />
"With planets in His care,<br />
"Had pity on the least of things<br />
"Asleep upon a chair."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">143</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="THE_TWO_TREES" id="THE_TWO_TREES"></a>THE TWO TREES</h3>


<p>
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart,<br />
The holy tree is growing there;<br />
From joy the holy branches start,<br />
And all the trembling flowers they bear.<br />
The changing colours of its fruit<br />
Have dowered the stars with merry light;<br />
The surety of its hidden root<br />
Has planted quiet in the night;<br />
The shaking of its leafy head<br />
Has given the waves their melody,<br />
And made my lips and music wed,<br />
Murmuring a wizard song for thee.<br />
There, through bewildered branches, go<br />
Winged Loves borne on in gentle strife,<br />
Tossing and tossing to and fro<br />
The flaming circle of our life.<br />
When looking on their shaken hair,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">144</a></span>And dreaming how they dance and dart,<br />
Thine eyes grow full of tender care:<br />
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart.<br />
<br />
Gaze no more in the bitter glass<br />
The demons, with their subtle guile,<br />
Lift up before us when they pass,<br />
Or only gaze a little while;<br />
For there a fatal image grows,<br />
With broken boughs, and blackened leaves,<br />
And roots half hidden under snows<br />
Driven by a storm that ever grieves.<br />
For all things turn to barrenness<br />
In the dim glass the demons hold,<br />
The glass of outer weariness,<br />
Made when God slept in times of old.<br />
There, through the broken branches, go<br />
The ravens of unresting thought;<br />
Peering and flying to and fro<br />
To see men's souls bartered and bought.<br />
When they are heard upon the wind,<br />
And when they shake their wings; alas!<br />
Thy tender eyes grow all unkind:<br />
Gaze no more in the bitter glass.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">145</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="TO_IRELAND_IN_THE_COMING_TIMES" id="TO_IRELAND_IN_THE_COMING_TIMES"></a>TO IRELAND IN THE COMING TIMES</h3>


<p>
<i>Know, that I would accounted be<br />
True brother of that company,<br />
Who sang to sweeten Ireland's wrong,<br />
Ballad and story, rann and song;<br />
Nor be I any less of them,<br />
Because the red-rose-bordered hem<br />
Of her, whose history began<br />
Before God made the angelic clan,<br />
Trails all about the written page;<br />
For in the world's first blossoming age<br />
The light fall of her flying feet<br />
Made Ireland's heart begin to beat;<br />
And still the starry candles flare<br />
To help her light foot here and there;<br />
And still the thoughts of Ireland brood<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">146</a></span>Upon her holy quietude.</i><br />
<br />
<i>Nor may I less be counted one<br />
With Davis, Mangan, Ferguson,<br />
Because to him, who ponders well,<br />
My rhymes more than their rhyming tell<br />
Of the dim wisdoms old and deep,<br />
That God gives unto man in sleep.<br />
For the elemental beings go<br />
About my table to and fro.<br />
In flood and fire and clay and wind,<br />
They huddle from man's pondering mind;<br />
Yet he who treads in austere ways<br />
May surely meet their ancient gaze.<br />
Man ever journeys on with them<br />
After the red-rose-bordered hem.<br />
Ah, faeries, dancing under the moon,<br />
A Druid land, a Druid tune!</i><br />
<br />
<i>While still I may, I write for you<br />
The love I lived, the dream I knew.<br />
From our birthday, until we die,<br />
Is but the winking of an eye;<br />
And we, our singing and our love,<br />
The mariners of night above,<br />
And all the wizard things that go<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">147</a></span>About my table to and fro.<br />
Are passing on to where may be,<br />
In truth's consuming ecstasy<br />
No place for love and dream at all;<br />
For God goes by with white foot-fall.<br />
I cast my heart into my rhymes,<br />
That you, in the dim coming times,<br />
May know how my heart went with them<br />
After the red-rose-bordered hem.</i></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a><br /><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a></span></p>



<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a></span></p>
<h2><a name="THE_LAND_OF_HEARTS_DESIRE" id="THE_LAND_OF_HEARTS_DESIRE"></a>THE LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE</h2>


<p class="center p6">
<i>O Rose, thou art sick.</i></p>

<p class="right">
<span class="smcap">William Blake.</span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></a></span></p>

<p class="center p6">TO<br />

FLORENCE FARR</p><p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a><br /><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">153</a></span></p>




<div class="center">
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="characters">
<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Maurteen Bruin</span></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Bridget Bruin</span></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Shawn Bruin</span></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Mary Bruin</span></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Father Hart</span></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">A Faery Child</span></td></tr>
</table></div>

<p class="exposition"><i>The Scene is laid in the Barony of Kilmacowen, in the
County of Sligo, and at a remote time.</i></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"></a><br /><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">155</a></span></p>


<p class="exposition"><span class="smcap">Scene.</span>&mdash;<i>A room with a hearth on the floor in the middle of a
deep alcove to the Right. There are benches in the alcove
and a table; and a crucifix on the wall. The alcove is
full of a glow of light from the fire. There is an open door
facing the audience to the Left, and to the left of this a
bench. Through the door one can see the forest. It is
night, but the moon or a late sunset glimmers through the
trees and carries the eye far off into a vague, mysterious
world.</i> <span class="smcap">MAURTEEN BRUIN</span>, <span class="smcap">SHAWN BRUIN</span>, <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">BRIDGET
BRUIN</span> <i>sit in the alcove at the table or about the fire. They
are dressed in the costume of some remote time, and near
them sits an old priest</i>, <span class="smcap">FATHER HART</span>. <i>He may be dressed
as a friar. There is food and drink upon the table</i>.
<span class="smcap">MARY BRUIN</span> <i>stands by the door reading a book. If she
looks up she can see through the door into the wood.</i></p>

<p class="actor">BRIDGET</p>

<p class="speech">Because I bid her clean the pots for supper<br />
She took that old book down out of the thatch;<br />
She has been doubled over it ever since.<br />
We should be deafened by her groans and moans<br />
Had she to work as some do, Father Hart;<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">156</a></span>Get up at dawn like me and mend and scour<br />
Or ride abroad in the boisterous night like you,<br />
The pyx and blessed bread under your arm.</p>

<p class="actor">SHAWN</p>

<p class="speech">Mother, you are too cross.</p>

<p class="actor">BRIDGET</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 14em;">You've married her,</span><br />
And fear to vex her and so take her part.</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN (<i>to</i> <span class="smcap">FATHER HART</span>)</p>

<p class="speech">It is but right that youth should side with youth;<br />
She quarrels with my wife a bit at times,<br />
And is too deep just now in the old book!<br />
But do not blame her greatly; she will grow<br />
As quiet as a puff-ball in a tree<br />
When but the moons of marriage dawn and die<br />
For half a score of times.</p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15em;">Their hearts are wild,</span><br />
As be the hearts of birds, till children come.</p>

<p class="actor">BRIDGET</p>

<p class="speech">She would not mind the kettle, milk the cow,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">157</a></span>Or even lay the knives and spread the cloth.</p>

<p class="actor">SHAWN</p>

<p class="speech">Mother, if only&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">Shawn, this is half empty;</span><br />
Go, bring up the best bottle that we have.</p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech">I never saw her read a book before,<br />
What can it be?</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN (<i>to</i> <span class="smcap">SHAWN</span>)</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">What are you waiting for?</span><br />
You must not shake it when you draw the cork;<br />
It's precious wine, so take your time about it.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>To Priest.</i>)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; (<span class="smcap">SHAWN</span> <i>goes</i>.)</p>

<p class="speech">There was a Spaniard wrecked at Ocris Head,<br />
When I was young, and I have still some bottles.<br />
He cannot bear to hear her blamed; the book<br />
Has lain up in the thatch these fifty years;<br />
My father told me my grandfather wrote it,<br />
And killed a heifer for the binding of it&mdash;<br />
But supper's spread, and we can talk and eat<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">158</a></span>It was little good he got out of the book,<br />
Because it filled his house with rambling fiddlers,<br />
And rambling ballad-makers and the like.<br />
The griddle-bread is there in front of you.<br />
Colleen, what is the wonder in that book,<br />
That you must leave the bread to cool? Had I<br />
Or had my father read or written books<br />
There were no stocking stuffed with yellow guineas<br />
To come when I am dead to Shawn and you.</p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech">You should not fill your head with foolish dreams.<br />
What are you reading?</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">How a Princess Edane,</span><br />
A daughter of a King of Ireland, heard<br />
A voice singing on a May Eve like this,<br />
And followed half awake and half asleep,<br />
Until she came into the Land of Faery,<br />
Where nobody gets old and godly and grave,<br />
Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise,<br />
Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue.<br />
And she is still there, busied with a dance<br />
Deep in the dewy shadow of a wood,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">159</a></span>Or where stars walk upon a mountain-top.</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech">Persuade the colleen to put down the book;<br />
My grandfather would mutter just such things,<br />
And he was no judge of a dog or a horse,<br />
And any idle boy could blarney him;<br />
Just speak your mind.</p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">Put it away, my colleen;</span><br />
God spreads the heavens above us like great wings<br />
And gives a little round of deeds and days,<br />
And then come the wrecked angels and set snares,<br />
And bait them with light hopes and heavy dreams,<br />
Until the heart is puffed with pride and goes<br />
Half shuddering and half joyous from God's peace;<br />
And it was some wrecked angel, blind with tears,<br />
Who flattered Edane's heart with merry words.<br />
My colleen, I have seen some other girls<br />
Restless and ill at ease, but years went by<br />
And they grew like their neighbours and were glad<br />
In minding children, working at the churn,<br />
And gossiping of weddings and of wakes;<br />
For life moves out of a red flare of dreams<br />
Into a common light of common hours,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">160</a></span>Until old age bring the red flare again.</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech">That's true&mdash;but she's too young to know it's true.</p>

<p class="actor">BRIDGET</p>

<p class="speech">She's old enough to know that it is wrong<br />
To mope and idle.</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">I've little blame for her;</span><br />
She's dull when my big son is in the fields,<br />
And that and maybe this good woman's tongue<br />
Have driven her to hide among her dreams<br />
Like children from the dark under the bed-clothes.</p>

<p class="actor">BRIDGET</p>

<p class="speech">She'd never do a turn if I were silent.</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech">And maybe it is natural upon May Eve<br />
To dream of the good people. But tell me, girl,<br />
If you've the branch of blessed quicken wood<br />
That women hang upon the post of the door<br />
That they may send good luck into the house?<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">161</a></span>Remember they may steal new-married brides<br />
After the fall of twilight on May Eve,<br />
Or what old women mutter at the fire<br />
Is but a pack of lies.</p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">It may be truth.</span><br />
We do not know the limit of those powers<br />
God has permitted to the evil spirits<br />
For some mysterious end. You have done right (<i>to</i> <span class="smcap">MARY</span>);<br />
It's well to keep old innocent customs up.</p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">MARY BRUIN</span> <i>has taken a bough of quicken wood
from a seat and hung it on a nail in the door-post.
A girl child strangely dressed, perhaps
in faery green, comes out of the wood and
takes it away</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">I had no sooner hung it on the nail<br />
Before a child ran up out of the wind;<br />
She has caught it in her hand and fondled it;<br />
Her face is pale as water before dawn.</p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">162</a></span>Whose child can this be?</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">No one's child at all.</span><br />
She often dreams that some one has gone by,<br />
When there was nothing but a puff of wind.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">They have taken away the blessed quicken wood,<br />
They will not bring good luck into the house;<br />
Yet I am glad that I was courteous to them,<br />
For are not they, likewise, children of God?</p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech">Colleen, they are the children of the fiend,<br />
And they have power until the end of Time,<br />
When God shall fight with them a great pitched battle<br />
And hack them into pieces.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 14em;">He will smile,</span><br />
Father, perhaps, and open His great door.</p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">163</a></span>Did but the lawless angels see that door<br />
They would fall, slain by everlasting peace;<br />
And when such angels knock upon our doors,<br />
Who goes with them must drive through the same storm.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>A thin old arm comes round the door-post and
knocks and beckons. It is clearly seen in
the silvery light.</i> <span class="smcap">MARY BRUIN</span> <i>goes to door
and stands in it for a moment</i>. <span class="smcap">MAURTEEN
BRUIN</span> <i>is busy filling</i> <span class="smcap">FATHER HART'S</span> <i>plate</i>.
<span class="smcap">BRIDGET BRUIN</span> <i>stirs the fire</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">MARY (<i>coming to table</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">There's somebody out there that beckoned me<br />
And raised her hand as though it held a cup,<br />
And she was drinking from it, so it may be<br />
That she is thirsty.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>She takes milk from the table and carries it to
the door.</i>)</p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11.5em;">That will be the child</span><br />
That you would have it was no child at all.</p>

<p class="actor">BRIDGET</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">164</a></span>And maybe, Father, what he said was true;<br />
For there is not another night in the year<br />
So wicked as to-night.</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">Nothing can harm us</span><br />
While the good Father's underneath our roof.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">A little queer old woman dressed in green.</p>

<p class="actor">BRIDGET</p>

<p class="speech">The good people beg for milk and fire<br />
Upon May Eve&mdash;woe to the house that gives,<br />
For they have power upon it for a year.</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech">Hush, woman, hush!</p>

<p class="actor">BRIDGET</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">She's given milk away.</span><br />
I knew she would bring evil on the house.</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">165</a></span>Who was it?</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 7em;">Both the tongue and face were strange.</span></p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech">Some strangers came last week to Clover Hill;<br />
She must be one of them.</p>

<p class="actor">BRIDGET</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 13em;">I am afraid.</span></p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech">The Cross will keep all evil from the house<br />
While it hangs there.</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">Come, sit beside me, colleen,</span><br />
And put away your dreams of discontent,<br />
For I would have you light up my last days,<br />
Like the good glow of the turf; and when I die<br />
You'll be the wealthiest hereabout, for, colleen,<br />
I have a stocking full of yellow guineas<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">166</a></span>Hidden away where nobody can find it.</p>

<p class="actor">BRIDGET</p>

<p class="speech">You are the fool of every pretty face,<br />
And I must spare and pinch that my son's wife<br />
May have all kinds of ribbons for her head.</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech">Do not be cross; she is a right good girl!<br />
The butter is by your elbow, Father Hart.<br />
My colleen, have not Fate and Time and Change<br />
Done well for me and for old Bridget there?<br />
We have a hundred acres of good land,<br />
And sit beside each other at the fire.<br />
I have this reverend Father for my friend,<br />
I look upon your face and my son's face&mdash;<br />
We've put his plate by yours&mdash;and here he comes,<br />
And brings with him the only thing we have lacked,<br />
Abundance of good wine. (<span class="smcap">SHAWN</span> <i>comes in</i>.) Stir up the fire,<br />
And put new turf upon it till it blaze;<br />
To watch the turf-smoke coiling from the fire,<br />
And feel content and wisdom in your heart,<br />
This is the best of life; when we are young<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">167</a></span>We long to tread a way none trod before,<br />
But find the excellent old way through love,<br />
And through the care of children, to the hour<br />
For bidding Fate and Time and Change goodbye.</p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">MARY</span> <i>takes a sod of turf from the fire and goes
out through the door</i>. <span class="smcap">SHAWN</span> <i>follows her
and meets her coming in</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">SHAWN</p>

<p class="speech">What is it draws you to the chill o' the wood?<br />
There is a light among the stems of the trees<br />
That makes one shiver.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">A little queer old man</span><br />
Made me a sign to show he wanted fire<br />
To light his pipe.</p>

<p class="actor">BRIDGET</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">You've given milk and fire</span><br />
Upon the unluckiest night of the year and brought,<br />
For all you know, evil upon the house.<br />
Before you married you were idle and fine<br />
And went about with ribbons on your head;<br />
And now&mdash;no, Father, I will speak my mind&mdash;<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">168</a></span>She is not a fitting wife for any man&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p class="actor">SHAWN</p>

<p class="speech">Be quiet, Mother!</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">You are much too cross.</span></p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">What do I care if I have given this house,<br />
Where I must hear all day a bitter tongue,<br />
Into the power of faeries!</p>

<p class="actor">BRIDGET</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 14em;">You know well</span><br />
How calling the good people by that name,<br />
Or talking of them over much at all,<br />
May bring all kinds of evil on the house.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">Come, faeries, take me out of this dull house!<br />
Let me have all the freedom I have lost;<br />
Work when I will and idle when I will!<br />
Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,<br />
For I would ride with you upon the wind.<br />
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">169</a></span>And dance upon the mountains like a flame.</p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech">You cannot know the meaning of your words.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">Father, I am right weary of four tongues:<br />
A tongue that is too crafty and too wise,<br />
A tongue that is too godly and too grave,<br />
A tongue that is more bitter than the tide,<br />
And a kind tongue too full of drowsy love,<br />
Of drowsy love and my captivity.</p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">SHAWN BRUIN</span> <i>leads her to a seat at the left of
the door</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">SHAWN</p>

<p class="speech">Do not blame me; I often lie awake<br />
Thinking that all things trouble your bright head.<br />
How beautiful it is&mdash;your broad pale forehead<br />
Under a cloudy blossoming of hair!<br />
Sit down beside me here&mdash;these are too old,<br />
And have forgotten they were ever young.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">O, you are the great door-post of this house,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">170</a></span>And I the branch of blessed quicken wood,<br />
And if I could I'd hang upon the post,<br />
Till I had brought good luck into the house.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>She would put her arms about him, but looks
shyly at the priest and lets her arms fall.</i>)</p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech">My daughter, take his hand&mdash;by love alone<br />
God binds us to Himself and to the hearth,<br />
That shuts us from the waste beyond His peace,<br />
From maddening freedom and bewildering light.</p>

<p class="actor">SHAWN</p>

<p class="speech">Would that the world were mine to give it you,<br />
And not its quiet hearths alone, but even<br />
All that bewilderment of light and freedom,<br />
If you would have it.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">I would take the world</span><br />
And break it into pieces in my hands<br />
To see you smile watching it crumble away.</p>

<p class="actor">SHAWN</p>

<p class="speech">Then I would mould a world of fire and dew,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">171</a></span>With no one bitter, grave or over wise,<br />
And nothing marred or old to do you wrong,<br />
And crowd the enraptured quiet of the sky<br />
With candles burning to your lonely face.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">Your looks are all the candles that I need.</p>

<p class="actor">SHAWN</p>

<p class="speech">Once a fly dancing in a beam of the sun,<br />
Or the light wind blowing out of the dawn,<br />
Could fill your heart with dreams none other knew,<br />
But now the indissoluble sacrament<br />
Has mixed your heart that was most proud and cold<br />
With my warm heart for ever; the sun and moon<br />
Must fade and heaven be rolled up like a scroll;<br />
But your white spirit still walk by my spirit.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>A Voice singing in the wood.</i>)</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech">There's some one singing. Why, it's but a child.<br />
It sang, "The lonely of heart is withered away."<br />
A strange song for a child, but she sings sweetly.<br />
Listen, listen!</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>Goes to door.</i>)</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">172</a></span></p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">O, cling close to me,</span><br />
Because I have said wicked things to-night.</p>

<p class="actor">THE VOICE</p>

<p class="speech">The wind blows out of the gates of the day,<br />
The wind blows over the lonely of heart,<br />
And the lonely of heart is withered away.<br />
While the faeries dance in a place apart,<br />
Shaking their milk-white feet in a ring,<br />
Tossing their milk-white arms in the air;<br />
For they hear the wind laugh and murmur and sing<br />
Of a land where even the old are fair,<br />
And even the wise are merry of tongue;<br />
But I heard a reed of Coolaney say,<br />
"When the wind has laughed and murmured and sung<br />
The lonely of heart is withered away!"</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech">Being happy, I would have all others happy,<br />
So I will bring her in out of the cold.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>He brings in the faery child.</i>)</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">173</a></span>I tire of winds and waters and pale lights.</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech">And that's no wonder, for when night has fallen<br />
The wood's a cold and a bewildering place,<br />
But you are welcome here.</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 14em;">I am welcome here.</span><br />
For when I tire of this warm little house<br />
There is one here that must away, away.</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech">O, listen to her dreamy and strange talk.<br />
Are you not cold?</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">I will crouch down beside you,</span><br />
For I have run a long, long way this night.</p>

<p class="actor">BRIDGET</p>

<p class="speech">You have a comely shape.</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">174</a></span><span style="margin-left: 13em;">Your hair is wet.</span></p>

<p class="actor">BRIDGET</p>

<p class="speech">I'll warm your chilly feet.</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 14em;">You have come indeed</span><br />
A long, long way&mdash;for I have never seen<br />
Your pretty face&mdash;and must be tired and hungry,<br />
Here is some bread and wine.</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15em;">The wine is bitter.</span><br />
Old mother, have you no sweet food for me?</p>

<p class="actor">BRIDGET</p>

<p class="speech">I have some honey.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>She goes into the next room.</i>)</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">You have coaxing ways,</span><br />
The mother was quite cross before you came.</p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">BRIDGET</span> <i>returns with the honey and fills a porringer with milk</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">BRIDGET</p>

<p class="speech">She is the child of gentle people; look<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">175</a></span>At her white hands and at her pretty dress.<br />
I've brought you some new milk, but wait a while<br />
And I will put it to the fire to warm,<br />
For things well fitted for poor folk like us<br />
Would never please a high-born child like you.</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech">From dawn, when you must blow the fire ablaze,<br />
You work your fingers to the bone, old mother.<br />
The young may lie in bed and dream and hope,<br />
But you must work your fingers to the bone<br />
Because your heart is old.</p>

<p class="actor">BRIDGET</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 13em;">The young are idle.</span></p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech">Your memories have made you wise, old father;<br />
The young must sigh through many a dream and hope,<br />
But you are wise because your heart is old.</p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">BRIDGET</span> <i>gives her more bread and honey</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech">O, who would think to find so young a girl<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">176</a></span>Loving old age and wisdom?</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15em;">No more, mother.</span></p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech">What a small bite! The milk is ready now. (<i>Hands it to her.</i>) What a small sip!</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">Put on my shoes, old mother.</span><br />
Now I would like to dance now I have eaten,<br />
The reeds are dancing by Coolaney lake,<br />
And I would like to dance until the reeds<br />
And the white waves have danced themselves asleep.</p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">BRIDGET</span> <i>puts on the shoes, and the</i> <span class="smcap">CHILD</span> <i>is about
to dance, but suddenly sees the crucifix and
shrieks and covers her eyes</i>.)</p>

<p class="speech">What is that ugly thing on the black cross?</p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech">You cannot know how naughty your words are!<br />
That is our Blessed Lord.</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">177</a></span><span style="margin-left: 13em;">Hide it away!</span></p>

<p class="actor">BRIDGET</p>

<p class="speech">I have begun to be afraid again.</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 16em;">Hide it away!</span></p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech">That would be wickedness!</p>

<p class="actor">BRIDGET</p>

<p class="speech">That would be sacrilege!</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">The tortured thing!</span><br />
Hide it away!</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 7em;">Her parents are to blame.</span></p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech">That is the image of the Son of God.</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD (<i>caressing him</i>)</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">178</a></span>Hide it away, hide it away!</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15em;">No, no.</span></p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech">Because you are so young and like a bird,<br />
That must take fright at every stir of the leaves,<br />
I will go take it down.</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">Hide it away!</span><br />
And cover it out of sight and out of mind!</p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">FATHER HART</span> <i>takes crucifix from wall and
carries it towards inner room</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech">Since you have come into this barony,<br />
I will instruct you in our blessed faith;<br />
And being so keen witted you'll soon learn.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>To the others.</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">We must be tender to all budding things,<br />
Our Maker let no thought of Calvary<br />
Trouble the morning stars in their first song.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>Puts crucifix in inner room.</i>)</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">179</a></span></p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech">Here is level ground for dancing; I will dance.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>Sings.</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">"The wind blows out of the gates of the day,<br />
The wind blows over the lonely of heart,<br />
And the lonely of heart is withered away."</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>She dances.</i>)</p>

<p class="actor">MARY (<i>to</i> <span class="smcap">SHAWN</span>)</p>

<p class="speech">Just now when she came near I thought I heard<br />
Other small steps beating upon the floor,<br />
And a faint music blowing in the wind,<br />
Invisible pipes giving her feet the tune.</p>

<p class="actor">SHAWN</p>

<p class="speech">I heard no steps but hers.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 14em;">I hear them now,</span><br />
The unholy powers are dancing in the house.</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech">Come over here, and if you promise me<br />
Not to talk wickedly of holy things<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">180</a></span>I will give you something.</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 13em;">Bring it me, old father.</span></p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech">Here are some ribbons that I bought in the town<br />
For my son's wife&mdash;but she will let me give them<br />
To tie up that wild hair the winds have tumbled.</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech">Come, tell me, do you love me?</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 16em;">Yes, I love you.</span></p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech">Ah, but you love this fireside. Do you love me?</p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech">When the Almighty puts so great a share<br />
Of His own ageless youth into a creature,<br />
To look is but to love.</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">181</a></span><span style="margin-left: 12em;">But you love Him?</span></p>

<p class="actor">BRIDGET</p>

<p class="speech">She is blaspheming.</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">And do you love me too?</span></p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">I do not know.</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 8em;">You love that young man there,</span><br />
Yet I could make you ride upon the winds,<br />
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,<br />
And dance upon the mountains like a flame.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">Queen of Angels and kind saints defend us!<br />
Some dreadful thing will happen. A while ago<br />
She took away the blessed quicken wood.</p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech">You fear because of her unmeasured prattle;<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">182</a></span>She knows no better. Child, how old are you?</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech">When winter sleep is abroad my hair grows thin,<br />
My feet unsteady. When the leaves awaken<br />
My mother carries me in her golden arms;<br />
I'll soon put on my womanhood and marry<br />
The spirits of wood and water, but who can tell<br />
When I was born for the first time? I think<br />
I am much older than the eagle cock<br />
That blinks and blinks on Ballygawley Hill,<br />
And he is the oldest thing under the moon.</p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech">O she is of the faery people.</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15em;">One called,</span><br />
I sent my messengers for milk and fire,<br />
She called again and after that I came.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>All except</i> <span class="smcap">SHAWN</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">MARY BRUIN</span> <i>gather
behind the priest for protection</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">SHAWN (<i>rising</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">Though you have made all these obedient,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">183</a></span>You have not charmed my sight and won from me<br />
A wish or gift to make you powerful;<br />
I'll turn you from the house.</p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15em;">No, I will face her.</span></p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech">Because you took away the crucifix<br />
I am so mighty that there's none can pass,<br />
Unless I will it, where my feet have danced<br />
Or where I've whirled my finger-tops.</p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">SHAWN</span> <i>tries to approach her and cannot</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 19em;">Look, look!</span><br />
There something stops him&mdash;look how he moves his hands<br />
As though he rubbed them on a wall of glass!</p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech">I will confront this mighty spirit alone;<br />
Be not afraid, the Father is with us,<br />
The Holy Martyrs and the Innocents,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">184</a></span>The adoring Magi in their coats of mail,<br />
And He who died and rose on the third day,<br />
And all the nine angelic hierarchies.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>The</i> <span class="smcap">CHILD</span> <i>kneels upon the settle beside</i> <span class="smcap">Mary</span> <i>and
puts her arms about her</i>.)</p>

<p class="speech">Cry, daughter, to the Angels and the Saints.</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech">You shall go with me, newly-married bride,<br />
And gaze upon a merrier multitude.<br />
White-armed Nuala, Aengus of the Birds,<br />
Feacra of the hurtling foam, and him<br />
Who is the ruler of the Western Host,<br />
Finvarra, and their Land of Heart's Desire,<br />
Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood,<br />
But joy is wisdom, Time an endless song.<br />
I kiss you and the world begins to fade.</p>

<p class="actor">SHAWN</p>

<p class="speech">Awake out of that trance&mdash;and cover up<br />
Your eyes and ears.</p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">She must both look and listen,</span><br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">185</a></span>For only the soul's choice can save her now.<br />
Come over to me, daughter; stand beside me;<br />
Think of this house and of your duties in it.</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech">Stay and come with me, newly-married bride,<br />
For if you hear him you grow like the rest;<br />
Bear children, cook, and bend above the churn,<br />
And wrangle over butter, fowl, and eggs,<br />
Until at last, grown old and bitter of tongue,<br />
You're crouching there and shivering at the grave.</p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech">Daughter, I point you out the way to Heaven.</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech">But I can lead you, newly-married bride,<br />
Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise,<br />
Where nobody gets old and godly and grave,<br />
Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue,<br />
And where kind tongues bring no captivity;<br />
For we are but obedient to the thoughts<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">186</a></span>That drift into the mind at a wink of the eye.</p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech">By the dear Name of the One crucified,<br />
I bid you, Mary Bruin, come to me.</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech">I keep you in the name of your own heart.</p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech">It is because I put away the crucifix<br />
That I am nothing, and my power is nothing.<br />
I'll bring it here again.</p>

<p class="actor">MAURTEEN (<i>clinging to him</i>)</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 13em;">No.</span></p>

<p class="actor">BRIDGET</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15em;">Do not leave us.</span></p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech">O, let me go before it is too late;<br />
It is my sin alone that brought it all.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>Singing outside.</i>)</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">187</a></span></p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech">I hear them sing, "Come, newly-married bride,<br />
Come, to the woods and waters and pale lights."</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">I will go with you.</p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">She is lost, alas!</span></p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD (<i>standing by the door</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">But clinging mortal hope must fall from you,<br />
For we who ride the winds, run on the waves,<br />
And dance upon the mountains are more light<br />
Than dewdrops on the banner of the dawn.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">O, take me with you.</p>

<p class="actor">SHAWN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">Beloved, I will keep you.</span><br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">188</a></span>I've more than words, I have these arms to hold you,<br />
Nor all the faery host, do what they please,<br />
Shall ever make me loosen you from these arms.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">Dear face! Dear voice!</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">Come, newly-married bride.</span></p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">I always loved her world&mdash;and yet&mdash;and yet&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech">White bird, white bird, come with me, little bird.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">She calls me!</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 7em;">Come with me, little bird.</span></p>

<p class="direction">(<i>Distant dancing figures appear in the wood.</i>)</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">189</a></span></p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">I can hear songs and dancing.</p>

<p class="actor">SHAWN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15em;">Stay with me.</span></p>

<p class="actor">MARY</p>

<p class="speech">I think that I would stay&mdash;and yet&mdash;and yet&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech">Come, little bird, with crest of gold.</p>

<p class="actor">MARY (<i>very softly</i>)</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 19em;">And yet&mdash;&mdash;</span></p>

<p class="actor">THE CHILD</p>

<p class="speech">Come, little bird with silver feet!</p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">MARY BRUIN</span> <i>dies, and the</i> <span class="smcap">CHILD</span> <i>goes</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">SHAWN</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">190</a></span><span style="margin-left: 18em;">She is dead!</span></p>

<p class="actor">BRIDGET</p>

<p class="speech">Come from that image; body and soul are gone.<br />
You have thrown your arms about a drift of leaves,<br />
Or bole of an ash-tree changed into her image.</p>

<p class="actor">FATHER HART</p>

<p class="speech">Thus do the spirits of evil snatch their prey,<br />
Almost out of the very hand of God;<br />
And day by day their power is more and more,<br />
And men and women leave old paths, for pride<br />
Comes knocking with thin knuckles on the heart.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>Outside there are dancing figures, and it may be a
white bird, and many voices singing</i>:)</p>

<p class="speech">"The wind blows out of the gates of the day,<br />
The wind blows over the lonely of heart,<br />
And the lonely of heart is withered away;<br />
While the faeries dance in a place apart,<br />
Shaking their milk-white feet in a ring,<br />
Tossing their milk-white arms in the air;<br />
For they hear the wind laugh and murmur and sing<br />
Of a land where even the old are fair,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">191</a></span>And even the wise are merry of tongue;<br />
But I heard a reed of Coolaney say&mdash;<br />
'When the wind has laughed and murmured and sung,<br />
The lonely of heart is withered away.'"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></a><br /><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a></span></p>



<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></a></span></p>
<h2><a name="CROSSWAYS" id="CROSSWAYS"></a>CROSSWAYS</h2>


<p class="center p6">
<i>"The stars are threshed, and the souls are threshed from their husks."</i></p>

<p class="right">
<span class="smcap">William Blake.</span></p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></a></span></p>

<p class="center p6">To <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196"></a><br />
<a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">197</a></span>A.E.</p>


<h3 class="p6"><a name="THE_SONG_OF_THE_HAPPY_SHEPHERD" id="THE_SONG_OF_THE_HAPPY_SHEPHERD"></a>THE SONG OF THE HAPPY
SHEPHERD</h3>


<p>
The woods of Arcady are dead,<br />
And over is their antique joy;<br />
Of old the world on dreaming fed;<br />
Gray Truth is now her painted toy;<br />
Yet still she turns her restless head:<br />
But O, sick children of the world,<br />
Of all the many changing things<br />
In dreary dancing past us whirled,<br />
To the cracked tune that Chronos sings,<br />
Words alone are certain good.<br />
Where are now the warring kings,<br />
Word be-mockers?&mdash;By the Rood<br />
Where are now the warring kings?<br />
An idle word is now their glory,<br />
By the stammering schoolboy said,<br />
Reading some entangled story:<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">198</a></span>The kings of the old time are fled<br />
The wandering earth herself may be<br />
Only a sudden flaming word,<br />
In clanging space a moment heard,<br />
Troubling the endless reverie.<br />
<br />
Then nowise worship dusty deeds,<br />
Nor seek; for this is also sooth;<br />
To hunger fiercely after truth,<br />
Lest all thy toiling only breeds<br />
New dreams, new dreams; there is no truth<br />
Saving in thine own heart. Seek, then,<br />
No learning from the starry men,<br />
Who follow with the optic glass<br />
The whirling ways of stars that pass&mdash;<br />
Seek, then, for this is also sooth,<br />
No word of theirs&mdash;the cold star-bane<br />
Has cloven and rent their hearts in twain,<br />
And dead is all their human truth.<br />
Go gather by the humming-sea<br />
Some twisted, echo-harbouring shell,<br />
And to its lips thy story tell,<br />
And they thy comforters will be,<br />
Rewarding in melodious guile,<br />
Thy fretful words a little while,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">199</a></span>Till they shall singing fade in ruth,<br />
And die a pearly brotherhood;<br />
For words alone are certain good:<br />
Sing, then, for this is also sooth.<br />
<br />
I must be gone: there is a grave<br />
Where daffodil and lily wave,<br />
And I would please the hapless faun,<br />
Buried under the sleepy ground,<br />
With mirthful songs before the dawn.<br />
His shouting days with mirth were crowned;<br />
And still I dream he treads the lawn,<br />
Walking ghostly in the dew,<br />
Pierced by my glad singing through,<br />
My songs of old earth's dreamy youth:<br />
But ah! she dreams not now; dream thou!<br />
For fair are poppies on the brow:<br />
Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">200</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="THE_SAD_SHEPHERD" id="THE_SAD_SHEPHERD"></a>THE SAD SHEPHERD</h3>


<p>
There was a man whom Sorrow named his friend,<br />
And he, of his high comrade Sorrow dreaming,<br />
Went walking with slow steps along the gleaming<br />
And humming sands, where windy surges wend:<br />
And he called loudly to the stars to bend<br />
From their pale thrones and comfort him, but they<br />
Among themselves laugh on and sing alway:<br />
And then the man whom Sorrow named his friend<br />
Cried out, <i>Dim sea, hear my most piteous story!</i><br />
The sea swept on and cried her old cry still,<br />
Rolling along in dreams from hill to hill;<br />
He fled the persecution of her glory<br />
And, in a far-off, gentle valley stopping,<br />
Cried all his story to the dewdrops glistening,<br />
But naught they heard, for they are always listening,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">201</a></span>The dewdrops, for the sound of their own dropping.<br />
And then the man whom Sorrow named his friend,<br />
Sought once again the shore, and found a shell,<br />
And thought, <i>I will my heavy story tell<br />
Till my own words, re-echoing, shall send<br />
Their sadness through a hollow, pearly heart;<br />
And my own tale again for me shall sing,<br />
And my own whispering words be comforting,<br />
And lo! my ancient burden may depart</i>.<br />
Then he sang softly nigh the pearly rim;<br />
But the sad dweller by the sea-ways lone<br />
Changed all he sang to inarticulate moan<br />
Among her wildering whirls, forgetting him.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">202</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="THE_CLOAK_THE_BOAT_AND_THE_SHOES" id="THE_CLOAK_THE_BOAT_AND_THE_SHOES"></a>THE CLOAK, THE BOAT, AND THE
SHOES</h3>


<p>
"What do you make so fair and bright?"<br />
<br />
"I make the cloak of Sorrow:<br />
"O, lovely to see in all men's sight<br />
"Shall be the cloak of Sorrow,<br />
"In all men's sight."<br />
<br />
"What do you build with sails for flight?"<br />
<br />
"I build a boat for Sorrow,<br />
"O, swift on the seas all day and night<br />
"Saileth the rover Sorrow,<br />
"All day and night."<br />
<br />
"What do you weave with wool so white?<br />
<br />
"I weave the shoes of Sorrow,<br />
"Soundless shall be the footfall light<br />
"In all men's ears of Sorrow,<br />
"Sudden and light."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">203</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="ANASHUYA_AND_VIJAYA" id="ANASHUYA_AND_VIJAYA"></a>ANASHUYA AND VIJAYA</h3>


<p class="exposition"><i>A little Indian temple in the Golden Age. Around it a
garden; around that the forest.</i> <span class="smcap">ANASHUYA</span>, <i>the young
priestess, kneeling within the temple</i>.</p>

<p class="actor">ANASHUYA</p>

<p class="speech">Send peace on all the lands and flickering corn.&mdash;<br />
O, may tranquillity walk by his elbow<br />
When wandering in the forest, if he love<br />
No other.&mdash;Hear, and may the indolent flocks<br />
Be plentiful.&mdash;And if he love another,<br />
May panthers end him.&mdash;Hear, and load our king<br />
With wisdom hour by hour.&mdash;May we two stand,<br />
When we are dead, beyond the setting suns,<br />
A little from the other shades apart,<br />
With mingling hair, and play upon one lute.</p>

<p class="actor">VIJAYA [<i>entering and throwing a lily at her</i>]</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">204</a></span>Hail! hail, my Anashuya.</p>

<p class="actor">ANASHUYA</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15em;">No: be still.</span><br />
I, priestess of this temple, offer up<br />
Prayers for the land.</p>

<p class="actor">VIJAYA</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">I will wait here, Amrita.</span></p>

<p class="actor">ANASHUYA</p>

<p class="speech">By mighty Brahma's ever rustling robe,<br />
Who is Amrita? Sorrow of all sorrows!<br />
Another fills your mind.</p>

<p class="actor">VIJAYA</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 13em;">My mother's name.</span></p>

<p class="actor">ANASHUYA [<i>sings, coming out of the temple</i>]</p>

<p class="speech"><i>A sad, sad thought went by me slowly:<br />
Sigh, O you little stars! O, sigh and shake your blue apparel!<br />
The sad, sad thought has gone from me now wholly:<br />
Sing, O you little stars! O, sing and raise your rapturous carol<br />
To mighty Brahma, he who made you many as the sands,<br />
And laid you on the gates of evening with his quiet hands.</i></p>

<p class="direction">[<i>Sits down on the steps of the temple.</i>]</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">205</a></span></p>

<p class="speech">Vijaya, I have brought my evening rice;<br />
The sun has laid his chin on the gray wood,<br />
Weary, with all his poppies gathered round him.</p>

<p class="actor">VIJAYA</p>

<p class="speech">The hour when Kama, full of sleepy laughter,<br />
Rises, and showers abroad his fragrant arrows,<br />
Piercing the twilight with their murmuring barbs.</p>

<p class="actor">ANASHUYA</p>

<p class="speech">See how the sacred old flamingoes come,<br />
Painting with shadow all the marble steps:<br />
Aged and wise, they seek their wonted perches<br />
Within the temple, devious walking, made<br />
To wander by their melancholy minds.<br />
Yon tall one eyes my supper; swiftly chase him<br />
Far, far away. I named him after you.<br />
He is a famous fisher; hour by hour<br />
He ruffles with his bill the minnowed streams.<br />
Ah! there he snaps my rice. I told you so.<br />
Now cuff him off. He's off! A kiss for you,<br />
Because you saved my rice. Have you no thanks?</p>

<p class="actor">VIJAYA [<i>sings</i>]</p>

<p class="speech"><i>Sing you of her, O first few stars,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">206</a></span>Whom Brahma, touching with his finger, praises, for you hold</i><br />
<i>The van of wandering quiet; ere you be too calm and old,<br />
Sing, turning in your cars,<br />
Sing, till you raise your hands and sigh, and from your car heads peer,<br />
With all your whirling hair, and drop many an azure tear.</i></p>

<p class="actor">ANASHUYA</p>

<p class="speech">What know the pilots of the stars of tears?</p>

<p class="actor">VIJAYA</p>

<p class="speech">Their faces are all worn, and in their eyes<br />
Flashes the fire of sadness, for they see<br />
The icicles that famish all the north,<br />
Where men lie frozen in the glimmering snow;<br />
And in the flaming forests cower the lion<br />
And lioness, with all their whimpering cubs;<br />
And, ever pacing on the verge of things,<br />
The phantom, Beauty, in a mist of tears;<br />
While we alone have round us woven woods,<br />
And feel the softness of each other's hand,<br />
Amrita, while&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p class="actor">ANASHUYA [<i>going away from him</i>]</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">Ah me, you love another,</span></p>

<p class="direction">[<i>Bursting into tears.</i>]</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">207</a></span>And may some dreadful ill befall her quick!</p>

<p class="actor">VIJAYA</p>

<p class="speech">I loved another; now I love no other.<br />
Among the mouldering of ancient woods<br />
You live, and on the village border she,<br />
With her old father the blind wood-cutter;<br />
I saw her standing in her door but now.</p>

<p class="actor">ANASHUYA</p>

<p class="speech">Vijaya, swear to love her never more,</p>

<p class="actor">VIJAYA</p>

<p class="speech">Ay, ay.</p>

<p class="actor">ANASHUYA</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Swear by the parents of the gods,</span><br />
Dread oath, who dwell on sacred Himalay,<br />
On the far Golden Peak; enormous shapes,<br />
Who still were old when the great sea was young<br />
On their vast faces mystery and dreams;<br />
Their hair along the mountains rolled and filled<br />
From year to year by the unnumbered nests<br />
Of aweless birds, and round their stirless feet<br />
The joyous flocks of deer and antelope,<br />
Who never hear the unforgiving hound.<br />
Swear!</p>

<p class="actor">VIJAYA</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">208</a></span>
<span style="margin-left: 3em;">By the parents of the gods, I swear.</span></p>

<p class="actor">ANASHUYA [<i>sings</i>]</p>

<p class="speech"><i>I have forgiven, O new star!<br />
Maybe you have not heard of us, you have come forth so newly,<br />
You hunter of the fields afar!<br />
Ah, you will know my loved one by his hunter's arrows truly,<br />
Shoot on him shafts of quietness, that he may ever keep<br />
An inner laughter, and may kiss his hands to me in sleep.</i><br />
<br />
Farewell, Vijaya. Nay, no word, no word;<br />
I, priestess of this temple, offer up<br />
Prayers for the land.</p>

<p class="direction">[<span class="smcap">VIJAYA</span> <i>goes</i>.]</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">O Brahma, guard in sleep</span><br />
The merry lambs and the complacent kine,<br />
The flies below the leaves, and the young mice<br />
In the tree roots, and all the sacred flocks<br />
Of red flamingo; and my love, Vijaya;<br />
And may no restless fay with fidget finger<br />
Trouble his sleeping: give him dreams of me.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">209</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="THE_INDIAN_UPON_GOD" id="THE_INDIAN_UPON_GOD"></a>THE INDIAN UPON GOD</h3>


<p>
I passed along the water's edge below the humid trees,<br />
My spirit rocked in evening light, the rushes round my knees,<br />
My spirit rocked in sleep and sighs; and saw the moorfowl pace<br />
All dripping on a grassy slope, and saw them cease to chase<br />
Each other round in circles, and heard the eldest speak:<br />
<i>Who holds the world between His bill and made us strong or weak<br />
Is an undying moorfowl, and He lives beyond the sky.<br />
The rains are from His dripping wing, the moonbeams from His eye.</i><br />
I passed a little further on and heard a lotus talk:<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">210</a></span><i>Who made the world and ruleth it, He hangeth on a stalk,</i><br />
<i>For I am in His image made, and all this tinkling tide<br />
Is but a sliding drop of rain between His petals wide.</i><br />
A little way within the gloom a roebuck raised his eyes<br />
Brimful of starlight, and he said: <i>The Stamper of the Skies,<br />
He is a gentle roebuck; for how else, I pray, could He<br />
Conceive a thing so sad and soft, a gentle thing like me?</i><br />
I passed a little further on and heard a peacock say:<br />
<i>Who made the grass and made the worms and made my feathers gay,<br />
He is a monstrous peacock, and He waveth all the night<br />
His languid tail above us, lit with myriad spots of light.</i></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">211</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="THE_INDIAN_TO_HIS_LOVE" id="THE_INDIAN_TO_HIS_LOVE"></a>THE INDIAN TO HIS LOVE</h3>


<p>
The island dreams under the dawn<br />
And great boughs drop tranquillity;<br />
The peahens dance on a smooth lawn,<br />
A parrot sways upon a tree,<br />
Raging at his own image in the enamelled sea.<br />
<br />
Here we will moor our lonely ship<br />
And wander ever with woven hands,<br />
Murmuring softly lip to lip,<br />
Along the grass, along the sands,<br />
Murmuring how far away are the unquiet lands:<br />
<br />
How we alone of mortals are<br />
Hid under quiet bows apart,<br />
While our love grows an Indian star,<br />
A meteor of the burning heart,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">212</a></span>One with the tide that gleams, the wings that gleam and dart,<br />
The heavy boughs, the burnished dove<br />
That moans and sighs a hundred days:<br />
How when we die our shades will rove,<br />
When eve has hushed the feathered ways,<br />
With vapoury footsole among the water's drowsy blaze.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">213</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="THE_FALLING_OF_THE_LEAVES" id="THE_FALLING_OF_THE_LEAVES"></a>THE FALLING OF THE LEAVES</h3>


<p>
Autumn is over the long leaves that love us,<br />
And over the mice in the barley sheaves;<br />
Yellow the leaves of the rowan above us,<br />
And yellow the wet wild-strawberry leaves.<br />
<br />
The hour of the waning of love has beset us,<br />
And weary and worn are our sad souls now;<br />
Let us part, ere the season of passion forget us,<br />
With a kiss and a tear on thy drooping brow.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">214</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="EPHEMERA" id="EPHEMERA"></a>EPHEMERA</h3>


<p>
"Your eyes that once were never weary of mine<br />
"Are bowed in sorrow under pendulous lids,<br />
"Because our love is waning."<br />
<br />
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">And then she:</span><br />
"Although our love is waning, let us stand<br />
"By the lone border of the lake once more,<br />
"Together in that hour of gentleness<br />
"When the poor tired child, Passion, falls asleep:<br />
"How far away the stars seem, and how far<br />
"Is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!"<br />
<br />
Pensive they paced along the faded leaves,<br />
While slowly he whose hand held hers replied:<br />
"Passion has often worn our wandering hearts."<br />
<br />
The woods were round them, and the yellow leaves<br />
Fell like faint meteors in the gloom, and once<br />
A rabbit old and lame limped down the path;<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">215</a></span>Autumn was over him: and now they stood<br />
On the lone border of the lake once more:<br />
Turning, he saw that she had thrust dead leaves<br />
Gathered in silence, dewy as her eyes,<br />
In bosom and hair.<br />
<br />
<span style="margin-left: 9.5em;">"Ah, do not mourn," he said,</span><br />
"That we are tired, for other loves await us;<br />
"Hate on and love through unrepining hours.<br />
"Before us lies eternity; our souls<br />
"Are love, and a continual farewell."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">216</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="THE_MADNESS_OF_KING_GOLL" id="THE_MADNESS_OF_KING_GOLL"></a>THE MADNESS OF KING GOLL</h3>


<p>
I sat on cushioned otter skin:<br />
My word was law from Ith to Emen,<br />
And shook at Invar Amargin<br />
The hearts of the world-troubling seamen.<br />
And drove tumult and war away<br />
From girl and boy and man and beast;<br />
The fields grew fatter day by day,<br />
The wild fowl of the air increased;<br />
And every ancient Ollave said,<br />
While he bent down his fading head,<br />
"He drives away the Northern cold."<br />
<i>They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.</i><br />
<br />
I sat and mused and drank sweet wine;<br />
A herdsman came from inland valleys,<br />
Crying, the pirates drove his swine<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">217</a></span>To fill their dark-beaked hollow galleys.<br />
I called my battle-breaking men,<br />
And my loud brazen battle-cars<br />
From rolling vale and rivery glen,<br />
And under the blinking of the stars<br />
Fell on the pirates by the deep,<br />
And hurled them in the gulph of sleep:<br />
These hands won many a torque of gold.<br />
<i>They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.</i><br />
<br />
But slowly, as I shouting slew<br />
And trampled in the bubbling mire,<br />
In my most secret spirit grew<br />
A whirling and a wandering fire:<br />
I stood: keen stars above me shone,<br />
Around me shone keen eyes of men:<br />
I laughed aloud and hurried on<br />
By rocky shore and rushy fen;<br />
I laughed because birds fluttered by,<br />
And starlight gleamed, and clouds flew high,<br />
And rushes waved and waters rolled.<br />
<i>They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.</i><br />
<br />
And now I wander in the woods<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">218</a></span>When summer gluts the golden bees,<br />
Or in autumnal solitudes<br />
Arise the leopard-coloured trees;<br />
Or when along the wintry strands<br />
The cormorants shiver on their rocks;<br />
I wander on, and wave my hands,<br />
And sing, and shake my heavy locks.<br />
The gray wolf knows me; by one ear<br />
I lead along the woodland deer;<br />
The hares run by me growing bold.<br />
<i>They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.</i><br />
<br />
I came upon a little town,<br />
That slumbered in the harvest moon,<br />
And passed a-tiptoe up and down,<br />
Murmuring, to a fitful tune,<br />
How I have followed, night and day,<br />
A tramping of tremendous feet,<br />
And saw where this old tympan lay,<br />
Deserted on a doorway seat,<br />
And bore it to the woods with me;<br />
Of some unhuman misery<br />
Our married voiced wildly trolled.<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">219</a></span><i>They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.</i><br />
<br />
I sang how, when day's toil is done,<br />
Orchil shakes out her long dark hair<br />
That hides away the dying sun<br />
And sheds faint odours through the air:<br />
When my hand passed from wire to wire<br />
It quenched, with sound like falling dew,<br />
The whirling and the wandering fire;<br />
But lift a mournful ulalu,<br />
For the kind wires are torn and still,<br />
And I must wander wood and hill<br />
Through summer's heat and winter's cold.<br />
<i>They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.</i></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">220</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="THE_STOLEN_CHILD" id="THE_STOLEN_CHILD"></a>THE STOLEN CHILD</h3>


<p>
Where dips the rocky highland<br />
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,<br />
There lies a leafy island<br />
Where flapping herons wake<br />
The drowsy water rats;<br />
There we've hid our faery vats,<br />
Full of berries,<br />
And of reddest stolen cherries.<br />
<i>Come away, O human child!<br />
To the waters and the wild<br />
With a faery, hand in hand,<br />
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.</i><br />
<br />
Where the wave of moonlight glosses<br />
The dim gray sands with light,<br />
Far off by furthest Rosses<br />
We foot it all the night,<br />
Weaving olden dances,<br />
Mingling hands and mingling glances<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">221</a></span>Till the moon has taken flight;<br />
To and fro we leap<br />
And chase the frothy bubbles,<br />
While the world is full of troubles<br />
And is anxious in its sleep.<br />
<i>Come away, O human child!<br />
To the waters and the wild<br />
With a faery, hand in hand,<br />
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.</i><br />
<br />
Where the wandering water gushes<br />
From the hills above Glen-Car,<br />
In pools among the rushes<br />
That scarce could bathe a star,<br />
We seek for slumbering trout<br />
And whispering in their ears<br />
Give them unquiet dreams;<br />
Leaning softly out<br />
From ferns that drop their tears<br />
Over the young streams,<br />
<i>Come away, O human child!<br />
To the waters and the wild<br />
With a faery, hand in hand,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">222</a></span>For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.</i><br />
<br />
Away with us he's going,<br />
The solemn-eyed:<br />
He'll hear no more the lowing<br />
Of the calves on the warm hillside<br />
Or the kettle on the hob<br />
Sing peace into his breast,<br />
Or see the brown mice bob<br />
Round and round the oatmeal-chest.<br />
<i>For he comes, the human child,<br />
To the waters and the wild<br />
With a faery, hand in hand,<br />
From a world more full of weeping than he can understand.</i></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">223</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="TO_AN_ISLE_IN_THE_WATER" id="TO_AN_ISLE_IN_THE_WATER"></a>TO AN ISLE IN THE WATER</h3>


<p>
Shy one, shy one,<br />
Shy one of my heart,<br />
She moves in the firelight<br />
Pensively apart.<br />
<br />
She carries in the dishes,<br />
And lays them in a row.<br />
To an isle in the water<br />
With her would I go.<br />
<br />
She carries in the candles,<br />
And lights the curtained room,<br />
Shy in the doorway<br />
And shy in the gloom;<br />
<br />
And shy as a rabbit,<br />
Helpful and shy.<br />
To an isle in the water<br />
With her would I fly.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">224</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="DOWN_BY_THE_SALLEY_GARDENS" id="DOWN_BY_THE_SALLEY_GARDENS"></a>DOWN BY THE SALLEY GARDENS</h3>


<p>
Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;<br />
She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.<br />
She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;<br />
But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.<br />
<br />
In a field by the river my love and I did stand,<br />
And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.<br />
She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;<br />
But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">225</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="THE_MEDITATION_OF_THE_OLD_FISHERMAN" id="THE_MEDITATION_OF_THE_OLD_FISHERMAN"></a>THE MEDITATION OF THE OLD
FISHERMAN</h3>


<p>
You waves, though you dance by my feet like children at play,<br />
Though you glow and you glance, though you purr and you dart;<br />
In the Junes that were warmer than these are, the waves were more gay,<br />
<i>When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart</i>.<br />
<br />
The herring are not in the tides as they were of old;<br />
My sorrow! for many a creak gave the creel in the cart<br />
That carried the take to Sligo town to be sold,<br />
<i>When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart</i>.<br />
<br />
And ah, you proud maiden, you are not so fair when his oar<br />
Is heard on the water, as they were, the proud and apart,<br />
Who paced in the eve by the nets on the pebbly shore,<br />
<i>When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart</i>.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">226</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="THE_BALLAD_OF_FATHER_OHART" id="THE_BALLAD_OF_FATHER_OHART"></a>THE BALLAD OF FATHER O'HART</h3>


<p>
Good Father John O'Hart<br />
In penal days rode out<br />
To a shoneen who had free lands<br />
And his own snipe and trout.<br />
<br />
In trust took he John's lands;<br />
Sleiveens were all his race;<br />
And he gave them as dowers to his daughters,<br />
And they married beyond their place.<br />
<br />
But Father John went up,<br />
And Father John went down;<br />
And he wore small holes in his shoes,<br />
And he wore large holes in his gown.<br />
<br />
All loved him, only the shoneen,<br />
Whom the devils have by the hair,<br />
From the wives, and the cats, and the children,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">227</a></span>To the birds in the white of the air.<br />
<br />
The birds, for he opened their cages<br />
As he went up and down;<br />
And he said with a smile, "Have peace now";<br />
And he went his way with a frown.<br />
<br />
But if when any one died<br />
Came keeners hoarser than rooks,<br />
He bade them give over their keening;<br />
For he was a man of books.<br />
<br />
And these were the works of John,<br />
When weeping score by score,<br />
People came into Coloony;<br />
For he'd died at ninety-four.<br />
<br />
There was no human keening;<br />
The birds from Knocknarea<br />
And the world round Knocknashee<br />
Came keening in that day.<br />
<br />
The young birds and old birds<br />
Came flying, heavy and sad;<br />
Keening in from Tiraragh,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">228</a></span>Keening from Ballinafad;<br />
<br />
Keening from Inishmurray,<br />
Nor stayed for bite or sup;<br />
This way were all reproved<br />
Who dig old customs up.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">229</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="THE_BALLAD_OF_MOLL_MAGEE" id="THE_BALLAD_OF_MOLL_MAGEE"></a>THE BALLAD OF MOLL MAGEE</h3>


<p>
Come round me, little childer;<br />
There, don't fling stones at me<br />
Because I mutter as I go;<br />
But pity Moll Magee.<br />
<br />
My man was a poor fisher<br />
With shore lines in the say;<br />
My work was saltin' herrings<br />
The whole of the long day.<br />
<br />
And sometimes from the saltin' shed,<br />
I scarce could drag my feet<br />
Under the blessed moonlight,<br />
Along the pebbly street.<br />
<br />
I'd always been but weakly,<br />
And my baby was just born;<br />
A neighbour minded her by day<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">230</a></span>I minded her till morn.<br />
<br />
I lay upon my baby;<br />
Ye little childer dear,<br />
I looked on my cold baby<br />
When the morn grew frosty and clear.<br />
<br />
A weary woman sleeps so hard!<br />
My man grew red and pale,<br />
And gave me money, and bade me go<br />
To my own place, Kinsale.<br />
<br />
He drove me out and shut the door,<br />
And gave his curse to me;<br />
I went away in silence,<br />
No neighbour could I see.<br />
<br />
The windows and the doors were shut,<br />
One star shone faint and green<br />
The little straws were turnin' round<br />
Across the bare boreen.<br />
<br />
I went away in silence:<br />
Beyond old Martin's byre<br />
I saw a kindly neighbour<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">231</a></span>Blowin' her mornin' fire.<br />
<br />
She drew from me my story&mdash;<br />
My money's all used up,<br />
And still, with pityin', scornin' eye,<br />
She gives me bite and sup.<br />
<br />
She says my man will surely come,<br />
And fetch me home agin;<br />
But always, as I'm movin' round,<br />
Without doors or within,<br />
<br />
Pilin' the wood or pilin' the turf,<br />
Or goin' to the well,<br />
I'm thinkin' of my baby<br />
And keenin' to mysel'.<br />
<br />
And sometimes I am sure she knows<br />
When, openin' wide His door,<br />
God lights the stars, His candles,<br />
And looks upon the poor.<br />
<br />
So now, ye little childer,<br />
Ye won't fling stones at me;<br />
But gather with your shinin' looks<br />
And pity Moll Magee.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">232</a></span></p>


<h3><a name="THE_BALLAD_OF_THE_FOXHUNTER" id="THE_BALLAD_OF_THE_FOXHUNTER"></a>THE BALLAD OF THE FOXHUNTER</h3>


<p>
"Now lay me in a cushioned chair<br />
"And carry me, you four,<br />
"With cushions here and cushions there,<br />
"To see the world once more.<br />
<br />
"And some one from the stables bring<br />
"My Dermot dear and brown,<br />
"And lead him gently in a ring,<br />
"And gently up and down.<br />
<br />
"Now leave the chair upon the grass:<br />
"Bring hound and huntsman here,<br />
"And I on this strange road will pass,<br />
"Filled full of ancient cheer."<br />
<br />
His eyelids droop, his head falls low,<br />
His old eyes cloud with dreams;<br />
The sun upon all things that grow<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">233</a></span>Pours round in sleepy streams.<br />
<br />
Brown Dermot treads upon the lawn,<br />
And to the armchair goes,<br />
And now the old man's dreams are gone,<br />
He smooths the long brown nose.<br />
<br />
And now moves many a pleasant tongue<br />
Upon his wasted hands,<br />
For leading aged hounds and young<br />
The huntsman near him stands.<br />
<br />
"My huntsman, Rody, blow the horn,<br />
"And make the hills reply."<br />
The huntsman loosens on the morn<br />
A gay and wandering cry.<br />
<br />
A fire is in the old man's eyes,<br />
His fingers move and sway,<br />
And when the wandering music dies<br />
They hear him feebly say,<br />
<br />
"My huntsman, Rody, blow the horn,<br />
"And make the hills reply."<br />
"I cannot blow upon my horn,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">234</a></span>"I can but weep and sigh."<br />
<br />
The servants round his cushioned place<br />
Are with new sorrow wrung;<br />
And hounds are gazing on his face,<br />
Both aged hounds and young.<br />
<br />
One blind hound only lies apart<br />
On the sun-smitten grass;<br />
He holds deep commune with his heart:<br />
The moments pass and pass;<br />
<br />
The blind hound with a mournful din<br />
Lifts slow his wintry head;<br />
The servants bear the body in;<br />
The hounds wail for the dead.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235"></a></span></p>



<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236"></a></span></p>
<h2 class="p6"><a name="THE_WANDERINGS_OF_USHEEN" id="THE_WANDERINGS_OF_USHEEN"></a>THE WANDERINGS OF USHEEN</h2>


<p class="center p6">"<i>Give me the world if Thou wilt, but grant me an asylum
for my affections.</i>"</p>

<p class="right">
<span class="smcap">Tulka.</span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237"></a></span></p>

<p class="center p6"><span class="smcap">To</span><br />
EDWIN J. ELLIS</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238"></a><br /><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239"></a></span></p>


<h3>BOOK I</h3><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240"></a><br /><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">241</a></span></p>


<p class="actor">S. PATRIC</p>

<p class="speech">You who are bent, and bald, and blind,<br />
With a heavy heart and a wandering mind,<br />
Have known three centuries, poets sing,<br />
Of dalliance with a demon thing.</p>

<p class="actor">USHEEN</p>

<p class="speech">Sad to remember, sick with years,<br />
The swift innumerable spears,<br />
The horsemen with their floating hair,<br />
And bowls of barley, honey, and wine,<br />
And feet of maidens dancing in tune,<br />
And the white body that lay by mine;<br />
But the tale, though words be lighter than air,<br />
Must live to be old like the wandering moon.<br />
<br />
Caolte, and Conan, and Finn were there,<br />
When we followed a deer with our baying hounds,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">242</a></span>With Bran, Sgeolan, and Lomair,<br />
And passing the Firbolgs' burial mounds,<br />
Came to the cairn-heaped grassy hill<br />
Where passionate Maive is stony still;<br />
And found on the dove-gray edge of the sea<br />
A pearl-pale, high-born lady, who rode<br />
On a horse with bridle of findrinny;<br />
And like a sunset were her lips,<br />
A stormy sunset on doomed ships;<br />
A citron colour gloomed in her hair,<br />
But down to her feet white vesture flowed,<br />
And with the glimmering crimson glowed<br />
Of many a figured embroidery;<br />
And it was bound with a pearl-pale shell<br />
That wavered like the summer streams,<br />
As her soft bosom rose and fell.</p>

<p class="actor">S. PATRIC</p>

<p class="speech">You are still wrecked among heathen dreams.</p>

<p class="actor">USHEEN</p>

<p class="speech">"Why do you wind no horn?" she said.<br />
"And every hero droop his head?<br />
"The hornless deer is not more sad<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">243</a></span>"That many a peaceful moment had,<br />
"More sleek than any granary mouse,<br />
"In his own leafy forest house<br />
"Among the waving fields of fern:<br />
"The hunting of heroes should be glad."<br />
<br />
"O pleasant woman," answered Finn,<br />
"We think on Oscar's pencilled urn,<br />
"And on the heroes lying slain,<br />
On Gavra's raven-covered plain;<br />
"But where are your noble kith and kin,<br />
"And from what country do you ride?"<br />
<br />
"My father and my mother are<br />
"Aengus and Adene, my own name<br />
"Niam, and my country far<br />
"Beyond the tumbling of this tide."<br />
<br />
"What dream came with you that you came<br />
"Through bitter tide on foam wet feet?<br />
"Did your companion wander away<br />
"From where the birds of Aengus wing?"<br />
<br />
She said, with laughter tender and sweet:<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">244</a></span>"I have not yet, war-weary king,<br />
"Been spoken of with any one;<br />
"Yet now I choose, for these four feet<br />
"Ran through the foam and ran to this<br />
"That I might have your son to kiss."<br />
<br />
"Were there no better than my son<br />
"That you through all that foam should run?"<br />
<br />
"I loved no man, though kings besought<br />
"Love, till the Danaan poets brought<br />
"Rhyme, that rhymed to Usheen's name,<br />
"And now I am dizzy with the thought<br />
"Of all that wisdom and the fame<br />
"Of battles broken by his hands,<br />
"Of stories builded by his words<br />
"That are like coloured Asian birds<br />
"At evening in their rainless lands."<br />
<br />
O Patric, by your brazen bell,<br />
There was no limb of mine but fell<br />
Into a desperate gulph of love!<br />
"You only will I wed," I cried,<br />
"And I will make a thousand songs,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">245</a></span>"And set your name all names above.<br />
"And captives bound with leathern thongs<br />
"Shall kneel and praise you, one by one,<br />
"At evening in my western dun."<br />
<br />
"O Usheen, mount by me and ride<br />
"To shores by the wash of the tremulous tide,<br />
"Where men have heaped no burial mounds,<br />
"And the days pass by like a wayward tune,<br />
"Where broken faith has never been known,<br />
"And the blushes of first love never have flown;<br />
"And there I will give you a hundred hounds;<br />
"No mightier creatures bay at the moon;<br />
"And a hundred robes of murmuring silk,<br />
"And a hundred calves and a hundred sheep<br />
"Whose long wool whiter than sea froth flows,<br />
"And a hundred spears and a hundred bows,<br />
"And oil and wine and honey and milk,<br />
"And always never-anxious sleep;<br />
"While a hundred youths, mighty of limb,<br />
"But knowing nor tumult nor hate nor strife,<br />
"And a hundred maidens, merry as birds,<br />
"Who when they dance to a fitful measure<br />
"Have a speed like the speed of the salmon herds,<br />
"Shall follow your horn and obey your whim,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">246</a></span>"And you shall know the Danaan leisure:<br />
"And Niam be with you for a wife."<br />
Then she sighed gently, "It grows late,<br />
"Music and love and sleep await,<br />
"Where I would be when the white moon climbs<br />
"The red sun falls, and the world grows dim."<br />
<br />
And then I mounted and she bound me<br />
With her triumphing arms around me,<br />
And whispering to herself enwound me;<br />
But when the horse had felt my weight,<br />
He shook himself and neighed three times:<br />
Caolte, Conan, and Finn came near,<br />
And wept, and raised their lamenting hands,<br />
And bid me stay, with many a tear;<br />
But we rode out from the human lands.<br />
<br />
In what far kingdom do you go,<br />
Ah, Fenians, with the shield and bow?<br />
Or are you phantoms white as snow,<br />
Whose lips had life's most prosperous glow?<br />
O you, with whom in sloping valleys,<br />
Or down the dewy forest alleys,<br />
I chased at morn the flying deer,<br />
With whom I hurled the hurrying spear,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">247</a></span>And heard the foemen's bucklers rattle,<br />
And broke the heaving ranks of battle!<br />
And Bran, Sgeolan, and Lomair,<br />
Where are you with your long rough hair?<br />
You go not where the red deer feeds,<br />
Nor tear the foemen from their steeds.</p>

<p class="actor">S. PATRIC</p>

<p class="speech">Boast not, nor mourn with drooping head<br />
Companions long accurst and dead,<br />
And hounds for centuries dust and air.</p>

<p class="actor">USHEEN</p>

<p class="speech">We galloped over the glossy sea:<br />
I know not if days passed or hours,<br />
And Niam sang continually<br />
Danaan songs, and their dewy showers<br />
Of pensive laughter, unhuman sound,<br />
Lulled weariness, and softly round<br />
My human sorrow her white arms wound.<br />
<br />
We galloped; now a hornless deer<br />
Passed by us, chased by a phantom hound<br />
All pearly white, save one red ear;<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">248</a></span>And now a maiden rode like the wind<br />
With an apple of gold in her tossing hand;<br />
And a beautiful young man followed behind<br />
With quenchless gaze and fluttering hair.<br />
<br />
"Were these two born in the Danaan land,<br />
"Or have they breathed the mortal air?"<br />
<br />
"Vex them no longer," Niam said,<br />
And sighing bowed her gentle head,<br />
And sighing laid the pearly tip<br />
Of one long finger on my lip.<br />
<br />
But now the moon like a white rose shone<br />
In the pale west, and the sun's rim sank,<br />
And clouds arrayed their rank on rank<br />
About his fading crimson ball:<br />
The floor of Emen's hosting hall<br />
Was not more level than the sea,<br />
As full of loving phantasy,<br />
And with low murmurs we rode on,<br />
Where many a trumpet-twisted shell<br />
That in immortal silence sleeps<br />
Dreaming of her own melting hues,<br />
Her golds, her ambers, and her blues,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">249</a></span>Pierced with soft light the shallowing deeps.<br />
<br />
But now a wandering land breeze came<br />
And a far sound of feathery quires;<br />
It seemed to blow from the dying flame,<br />
They seemed to sing in the smouldering fires.<br />
The horse towards the music raced,<br />
Neighing along the lifeless waste;<br />
Like sooty fingers, many a tree<br />
Rose ever out of the warm sea;<br />
And they were trembling ceaselessly,<br />
As though they all were beating time,<br />
Upon the centre of the sun,<br />
To that low laughing woodland rhyme.<br />
And, now our wandering hours were done,<br />
We cantered to the shore, and knew<br />
The reason of the trembling trees:<br />
Round every branch the song-birds flew,<br />
Or clung thereon like swarming bees;<br />
While round the shore a million stood<br />
Like drops of frozen rainbow light,<br />
And pondered in a soft vain mood<br />
Upon their shadows in the tide,<br />
And told the purple deeps their pride,<br />
And murmured snatches of delight;<br />
And on the shores were many boats<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">250</a></span>With bending sterns and bending bows.<br />
<br />
And carven figures on their prows<br />
Of bitterns, and fish-eating stoats,<br />
And swans with their exultant throats:<br />
And where the wood and waters meet<br />
We tied the horse in a leafy clump,<br />
And Niam blew three merry notes<br />
Out of a little silver trump;<br />
And then an answering whispering flew<br />
Over the bare and woody land,<br />
A whisper of impetuous feet,<br />
And ever nearer, nearer grew;<br />
And from the woods rushed out a band<br />
Of men and maidens, hand in hand,<br />
And singing, singing altogether;<br />
Their brows were white as fragrant milk,<br />
Their cloaks made out of yellow silk,<br />
And trimmed with many a crimson feather:<br />
And when they saw the cloak I wore<br />
Was dim with mire of a mortal shore,<br />
They fingered it and gazed on me<br />
And laughed like murmurs of the sea;<br />
But Niam with a swift distress<br />
Bid them away and hold their peace;<br />
And when they heard her voice they ran<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">251</a></span>And knelt them, every maid and man<br />
And kissed, as they would never cease,<br />
Her pearl-pale hand and the hem of her dress.<br />
She bade them bring us to the hall<br />
Where Aengus dreams, from sun to sun,<br />
A Druid dream of the end of days<br />
When the stars are to wane and the world be done.<br />
<br />
They led us by long and shadowy ways<br />
Where drops of dew in myriads fall,<br />
And tangled creepers every hour<br />
Blossom in some new crimson flower,<br />
And once a sudden laughter sprang<br />
From all their lips, and once they sang<br />
Together, while the dark woods rang,<br />
And made in all their distant parts,<br />
With boom of bees in honey marts,<br />
A rumour of delighted hearts.<br />
And once a maiden by my side<br />
Gave me a harp, and bid me sing,<br />
And touch the laughing silver string;<br />
But when I sang of human joy<br />
A sorrow wrapped each merry face,<br />
And, Patric! by your beard, they wept,<br />
Until one came, a tearful boy;<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">252</a></span>"A sadder creature never stept<br />
"Than this strange human bard," he cried;<br />
And caught the silver harp away,<br />
And, weeping over the white strings, hurled<br />
It down in a leaf-hid, hollow place<br />
That kept dim waters from the sky;<br />
And each one said, with a long, long sigh,<br />
"O saddest harp in all the world,<br />
"Sleep there till the moon and the stars die!"<br />
<br />
And now still sad we came to where<br />
A beautiful young man dreamed within<br />
A house of wattles, clay, and skin;<br />
One hand upheld his beardless chin,<br />
And one a sceptre flashing out<br />
Wild flames of red and gold and blue,<br />
Like to a merry wandering rout<br />
Of dancers leaping in the air;<br />
And men and maidens knelt them there<br />
And showed their eyes with teardrops dim,<br />
And with low murmurs prayed to him,<br />
And kissed the sceptre with red lips,<br />
And touched it with their finger-tips.<br />
<br />
He held that flashing sceptre up.<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">253</a></span>"Joy drowns the twilight in the dew,<br />
"And fills with stars night's purple cup,<br />
"And wakes the sluggard seeds of corn,<br />
"And stirs the young kid's budding horn.<br />
"And makes the infant ferns unwrap,<br />
"And for the peewit paints his cap,<br />
"And rolls along the unwieldy sun,<br />
"And makes the little planets run:<br />
"And if joy were not on the earth,<br />
"There were an end of change and birth,<br />
"And earth and heaven and hell would die,<br />
"And in some gloomy barrow lie<br />
"Folded like a frozen fly;<br />
"Then mock at Death and Time with glances<br />
"And wavering arms and wandering dances.<br />
<br />
"Men's hearts of old were drops of flame<br />
"That from the saffron morning came,<br />
"Or drops of silver joy that fell<br />
"Out of the moon's pale twisted shell;<br />
"But now hearts cry that hearts are slaves,<br />
"And toss and turn in narrow caves;<br />
"But here there is nor law nor rule,<br />
"Nor have hands held a weary tool;<br />
"And here there is nor Change nor Death,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">254</a></span>"But only kind and merry breath,<br />
"For joy is God and God is joy."<br />
With one long glance on maid and boy<br />
And the pale blossom of the moon,<br />
He fell into a Druid swoon.<br />
<br />
And in a wild and sudden dance<br />
We mocked at Time and Fate and Chance<br />
And swept out of the wattled hall<br />
And came to where the dewdrops fall<br />
Among the foamdrops of the sea,<br />
And there we hushed the revelry;<br />
And, gathering on our brows a frown,<br />
Bent all our swaying bodies down,<br />
And to the waves that glimmer by<br />
That sloping green De Danaan sod<br />
Sang "God is joy and joy is God.<br />
"And things that have grown sad are wicked,<br />
"And things that fear the dawn of the morrow<br />
"Or the gray wandering osprey Sorrow."<br />
<br />
We danced to where in the winding thicket<br />
The damask roses, bloom on bloom,<br />
Like crimson meteors hang in the gloom,<br />
And bending over them softly said,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">255</a></span>Bending over them in the dance,<br />
With a swift and friendly glance<br />
From dewy eyes: "Upon the dead<br />
"Fall the leaves of other roses,<br />
"On the dead dim earth encloses:<br />
"But never, never on our graves,<br />
"Heaped beside the glimmering waves,<br />
"Shall fall the leaves of damask roses.<br />
"For neither Death nor Change comes near us,<br />
"And all listless hours fear us,<br />
"And we fear no dawning morrow,<br />
"Nor the gray wandering osprey Sorrow."<br />
<br />
The dance wound through the windless woods;<br />
The ever-summered solitudes;<br />
Until the tossing arms grew still<br />
Upon the woody central hill;<br />
And, gathered in a panting band,<br />
We flung on high each waving hand,<br />
And sang unto the starry broods:<br />
In our raised eyes there flashed a glow<br />
Of milky brightness to and fro<br />
As thus our song arose: "You stars,<br />
"Across your wandering ruby cars<br />
"Shake the loose reins: you slaves of God<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">256</a></span>"He rules you with an iron rod,<br />
"He holds you with an iron bond,<br />
"Each one woven to the other,<br />
"Each one woven to his brother<br />
"Like bubbles in a frozen pond;<br />
"But we in a lonely land abide<br />
"Unchainable as the dim tide,<br />
"With hearts that know nor law nor rule,<br />
"And hands that hold no wearisome tool<br />
"Folded in love that fears no morrow,<br />
"Nor the gray wandering osprey Sorrow."<br />
<br />
O Patric! for a hundred years<br />
I chased upon that woody shore<br />
The deer, the badger, and the boar.<br />
O Patric! for a hundred years<br />
At evening on the glimmering sands,<br />
Beside the piled-up hunting spears,<br />
These now outworn and withered hands<br />
Wrestled among the island bands.<br />
O Patric! for a hundred years<br />
We went a-fishing in long boats<br />
With bending sterns and bending bows,<br />
And carven figures on their prows<br />
Of bitterns and fish-eating stoats.<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">257</a></span>O Patric! for a hundred years<br />
The gentle Niam was my wife;<br />
But now two things devour my life;<br />
The things that most of all I hate;<br />
Fasting and prayers.</p>

<p class="actor">S. PATRIC</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">Tell on.</span></p>

<p class="actor">USHEEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 15em;">Yes, yes,</span><br />
For these were ancient Usheen's fate<br />
Loosed long ago from heaven's gate,<br />
For his last days to lie in wait.<br />
<br />
When one day by the tide I stood,<br />
I found in that forgetfulness<br />
Of dreamy foam a staff of wood<br />
From some dead warrior's broken lance:<br />
I turned it in my hands; the stains<br />
Of war were on it, and I wept,<br />
Remembering how the Fenians stept<br />
Along the blood-bedabbled plains,<br />
Equal to good or grievous chance:<br />
Thereon young Niam softly came<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">258</a></span>And caught my hands, but spake no word<br />
Save only many times my name,<br />
In murmurs, like a frighted bird.<br />
We passed by woods, and lawns of clover,<br />
And found the horse and bridled him,<br />
For we knew well the old was over.<br />
I heard one say "His eyes grow dim<br />
"With all the ancient sorrow of men";<br />
And wrapped in dreams rode out again<br />
With hoofs of the pale findrinny<br />
Over the glimmering purple sea:<br />
Under the golden evening light.<br />
The immortals moved among the fountains<br />
By rivers and the woods' old night;<br />
Some danced like shadows on the mountains,<br />
Some wandered ever hand in hand,<br />
Or sat in dreams on the pale strand;<br />
Each forehead like an obscure star<br />
Bent down above each hooked knee:<br />
And sang, and with a dreamy gaze<br />
Watched where the sun in a saffron blaze<br />
Was slumbering half in the sea ways;<br />
And, as they sang, the painted birds<br />
Kept time with their bright wings and feet;<br />
Like drops of honey came their words,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">259</a></span>But fainter than a young lamb's bleat.<br />
<br />
"An old man stirs the fire to a blaze,<br />
"In the house of a child, of a friend, of a brother<br />
"He has over-lingered his welcome; the days,<br />
"Grown desolate, whisper and sigh to each other;<br />
"He hears the storm in the chimney above,<br />
"And bends to the fire and shakes with the cold,<br />
"While his heart still dreams of battle and love,<br />
"And the cry of the hounds on the hills of old.<br />
<br />
"But we are apart in the grassy places,<br />
"Where care cannot trouble the least of our days,<br />
"Or the softness of youth be gone from our faces,<br />
"Or love's first tenderness die in our gaze.<br />
"The hare grows old as she plays in the sun<br />
"And gazes around her with eyes of brightness;<br />
"Before the swift things that she dreamed of were done<br />
"She limps along in an aged whiteness;<br />
"A storm of birds in the Asian trees<br />
"Like tulips in the air a-winging,<br />
"And the gentle waves of the summer seas,<br />
"That raise their heads and wander singing.<br />
"Must murmur at last 'Unjust, unjust';<br />
"And 'My speed is a weariness,' falters the mouse<br />
"And the kingfisher turns to a ball of dust,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">260</a></span>"And the roof falls in of his tunnelled house.<br />
<br />
"But the love-dew dims our eyes till the day<br />
"When God shall come from the sea with a sigh<br />
"And bid the stars drop down from the sky,<br />
"And the moon like a pale rose wither away."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261"></a></span></p>


<h3 class="p6">BOOK II</h3><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262"></a><br /><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">263</a></span></p>


<p>
Now, man of croziers, shadows called our names<br />
And then away, away, like whirling flames;<br />
And now fled by, mist-covered, without sound,<br />
The youth and lady and the deer and hound;<br />
"Gaze no more on the phantoms," Niam said,<br />
And kissed my eyes, and, swaying her bright head<br />
And her bright body, sang of faery and man<br />
Before God was or my old line began;<br />
Wars shadowy, vast, exultant; faeries of old<br />
Who wedded men with rings of Druid gold;<br />
And how those lovers never turn their eyes<br />
Upon the life that fades and flickers and dies,<br />
But love and kiss on dim shores far away<br />
Rolled round with music of the sighing spray:<br />
But sang no more, as when, like a brown bee<br />
That has drunk full, she crossed the misty sea<br />
With me in her white arms a hundred years<br />
Before this day; for now the fall of tears<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">264</a></span>Troubled her song.<br />
<br />
<span style="margin-left: 11em;">I do not know if days</span><br />
Or hours passed by, yet hold the morning rays<br />
Shone many times among the glimmering flowers<br />
Woven into her hair, before dark towers<br />
Rose in the darkness, and the white surf gleamed<br />
About them; and the horse of faery screamed<br />
And shivered, knowing the Isle of many Fears,<br />
Nor ceased until white Niam stroked his ears<br />
And named him by sweet names.<br />
<br />
<span style="margin-left: 14.5em;">A foaming tide</span><br />
Whitened afar with surge, fan-formed and wide,<br />
Burst from a great door marred by many a blow<br />
From mace and sword and pole-axe, long ago<br />
When gods and giants warred. We rode between<br />
The seaweed-covered pillars, and the green<br />
And surging phosphorus alone gave light<br />
On our dark pathway, till a countless flight<br />
Of moonlit steps glimmered; and left and right<br />
Dark statues glimmered over the pale tide<br />
Upon dark thrones. Between the lids of one<br />
The imaged meteors had flashed and run<br />
And had disported in the stilly jet,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">265</a></span>And the fixed stars had dawned and shone and set,<br />
Since God made Time and Death and Sleep: the other<br />
Stretched his long arm to where, a misty smother,<br />
The stream churned, churned, and churned&mdash;his lips apart,<br />
As though he told his never slumbering heart<br />
Of every foamdrop on its misty way:<br />
Tying the horse to his vast foot that lay<br />
Half in the unvesselled sea, we climbed the stairs<br />
And climbed so long, I thought the last steps were<br />
Hung from the morning star; when these mild words<br />
Fanned the delighted air like wings of birds:<br />
"My brothers spring out of their beds at morn,<br />
"A-murmur like young partridge: with loud horn<br />
"They chase the noontide deer;<br />
"And when the dew-drowned stars hang in the air<br />
"Look to long fishing-lines, or point and pare<br />
"An ash-wood hunting spear.<br />
<br />
"O sigh, O fluttering sigh, be kind to me;<br />
"Flutter along the froth lips of the sea,<br />
"And shores, the froth lips wet:<br />
"And stay a little while, and bid them weep:<br />
"Ah, touch their blue-veined eyelids if they sleep,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">266</a></span>"And shake their coverlet.<br />
<br />
"When you have told how I weep endlessly,<br />
"Flutter along the froth lips of the sea<br />
"And home to me again,<br />
"And in the shadow of my hair lie hid,<br />
"And tell me how you came to one unbid,<br />
"The saddest of all men."<br />
<br />
A maiden with soft eyes like funeral tapers,<br />
And face that seemed wrought out of moonlit vapours,<br />
And a sad mouth, that fear made tremulous<br />
As any ruddy moth, looked down on us;<br />
And she with a wave-rusted chain was tied<br />
To two old eagles, full of ancient pride,<br />
That with dim eyeballs stood on either side.<br />
Few feathers were on their dishevelled wings,<br />
For their dim minds were with the ancient things.<br />
<br />
"I bring deliverance," pearl-pale Niam said.<br />
<br />
"Neither the living, nor the unlabouring dead,<br />
"Nor the high gods who never lived, may fight<br />
"My enemy and hope; demons for fright<br />
"Jabber and scream about him in the night;<br />
"For he is strong and crafty as the seas<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">267</a></span>"That sprang under the Seven Hazel Trees,<br />
"And I must needs endure and hate and weep,<br />
"Until the gods and demons drop asleep,<br />
"Hearing Aed touch the mournful strings of gold."<br />
<br />
"Is he so dreadful?"<br />
<br />
<span style="margin-left: 10em;">"Be not over bold,</span><br />
"But flee while you may flee from him."<br />
<br />
<span style="margin-left: 19.5em;">Then I:</span><br />
"This demon shall be pierced and drop and die,<br />
"And his loose bulk be thrown in the loud tide."<br />
<br />
"Flee from him," pearl-pale Niam weeping cried,<br />
"For all men flee the demons"; but moved not<br />
My angry, king remembering soul one jot;<br />
There was no mightier soul of Heber's line;<br />
Now it is old and mouse-like: for a sign<br />
I burst the chain: still earless, nerveless, blind,<br />
Wrapped in the things of the unhuman mind,<br />
In some dim memory or ancient mood<br />
Still earless, nerveless, blind, the eagles stood.<br />
<br />
And then we climbed the stair to a high door;<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">268</a></span>A hundred horsemen on the basalt floor<br />
Beneath had paced content: we held our way<br />
And stood within: clothed in a misty ray<br />
I saw a foam-white seagull drift and float<br />
Under the roof, and with a straining throat<br />
Shouted, and hailed him: he hung there a star,<br />
For no man's cry shall ever mount so far;<br />
Not even your God could have thrown down that hall;<br />
Stabling His unloosed lightnings in their stall,<br />
He had sat down and sighed with cumbered heart,<br />
As though His hour were come.<br />
<br />
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">We sought the part</span><br />
That was most distant from the door; green slime<br />
Made the way slippery, and time on time<br />
Showed prints of sea-born scales, while down through it<br />
The captive's journeys to and fro were writ<br />
Like a small river, and, where feet touched, came<br />
A momentary gleam of phosphorus flame.<br />
Under the deepest shadows of the hall<br />
That maiden found a ring hung on the wall,<br />
And in the ring a torch, and with its flare<br />
Making a world about her in the air,<br />
Passed under a dim doorway, out of sight<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">269</a></span>And came again, holding a second light<br />
Burning between her fingers, and in mine<br />
Laid it and sighed: I held a sword whose shine<br />
No centuries could dim: and a word ran<br />
Thereon in Ogham letters, "Mananan";<br />
That sea god's name, who in a deep content<br />
Sprang dripping, and, with captive demons sent<br />
Out of the seven-fold seas, built the dark hall<br />
Rooted in foam and clouds, and cried to all<br />
The mightier masters of a mightier race;<br />
And at his cry there came no milk-pale face<br />
Under a crown of thorns and dark with blood,<br />
But only exultant faces.<br />
<br />
<span style="margin-left: 12em;">Niam stood</span><br />
With bowed head, trembling when the white blade shone,<br />
But she whose hours of tenderness were gone<br />
Had neither hope nor fear. I bade them hide<br />
Under the shadows till the tumults died<br />
Of the loud crashing and earth shaking fight,<br />
Lest they should look upon some dreadful sight;<br />
And thrust the torch between the slimy flags.<br />
A dome made out of endless carven jags,<br />
Where shadowy face flowed into shadowy face,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">270</a></span>Looked down on me; and in the self-same place<br />
I waited hour by hour, and the high dome,<br />
Windowless, pillarless, multitudinous home<br />
Of faces, waited; and the leisured gaze<br />
Was loaded with the memory of days<br />
Buried and mighty. When through the great door<br />
The dawn came in, and glimmered on the floor<br />
With a pale light, I journeyed round the hall<br />
And found a door deep sunken in the wall,<br />
The least of doors; beyond on a dim plain<br />
A little runnel made a bubbling strain,<br />
And on the runnel's stony and bare edge<br />
A husky demon dry as a withered sedge<br />
Swayed, crooning to himself an unknown tongue:<br />
In a sad revelry he sang and swung<br />
Bacchant and mournful, passing to and fro<br />
His hand along the runnel's side, as though<br />
The flowers still grew there: far on the sea's waste<br />
Shaking and waving, vapour vapour chased,<br />
While high frail cloudlets, fed with a green light,<br />
Like drifts of leaves, immovable and bright,<br />
Hung in the passionate dawn. He slowly turned:<br />
A demon's leisure: eyes, first white, now burned<br />
Like wings of kingfishers; and he arose<br />
Barking. We trampled up and down with blows<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">271</a></span>Of sword and brazen battle-axe, while day<br />
Gave to high noon and noon to night gave way;<br />
And when at withering of the sun he knew<br />
The Druid sword of Mananan, he grew<br />
To many shapes; I lunged at the smooth throat<br />
Of a great eel; it changed, and I but smote<br />
A fir-tree roaring in its leafless top;<br />
I held a dripping corpse, with livid chop<br />
And sunken shape, against my face and breast,<br />
When I tore down the tree; but when the west<br />
Surged up in plumy fire, I lunged and drave<br />
Through heart and spine, and cast him in the wave,<br />
Lest Niam shudder.<br />
<br />
<span style="margin-left: 10em;">Full of hope and dread</span><br />
Those two came carrying wine and meat and bread,<br />
And healed my wounds with unguents out of flowers<br />
That feed white moths by some De Danaan shrine;<br />
Then in that hall, lit by the dim sea shine,<br />
We lay on skins of otters, and drank wine,<br />
Brewed by the sea-gods, from huge cups that lay<br />
Upon the lips of sea-gods in their day;<br />
And then on heaped-up skins of otters slept.<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">272</a></span>But when the sun once more in saffron stept,<br />
Rolling his flagrant wheel out of the deep,<br />
We sang the loves and angers without sleep,<br />
And all the exultant labours of the strong:<br />
<br />
But now the lying clerics murder song<br />
With barren words and flatteries of the weak.<br />
In what land do the powerless turn the beak<br />
Of ravening Sorrow, or the hand of Wrath?<br />
For all your croziers, they have left the path<br />
And wander in the storms and clinging snows,<br />
Hopeless for ever: ancient Usheen knows,<br />
For he is weak and poor and blind, and lies<br />
On the anvil of the world.</p>

<p class="actor">S. PATRIC</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 13em;">Be still: the skies</span><br />
Are choked with thunder, lightning, and fierce wind,<br />
For God has heard, and speaks His angry mind;<br />
Go cast your body on the stones and pray,<br />
For He has wrought midnight and dawn and day.</p>

<p class="actor">USHEEN</p>

<p class="speech">Saint, do you weep? I hear amid the thunder<br />
The Fenian horses; armour torn asunder;<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">273</a></span>Laughter and cries; the armies clash and shock;<br />
All is done now; I see the ravens flock;<br />
Ah, cease, you mournful, laughing Fenian horn!<br />
<br />
We feasted for three days. On the fourth morn<br />
I found, dropping sea foam on the wide stair,<br />
And hung with slime, and whispering in his hair,<br />
That demon dull and unsubduable;<br />
And once more to a day-long battle fell,<br />
And at the sundown threw him in the surge,<br />
To lie until the fourth morn saw emerge<br />
His new healed shape: and for a hundred years<br />
So warred, so feasted, with nor dreams nor fears,<br />
Nor languor nor fatigue: and endless feast,<br />
An endless war.<br />
<br />
<span style="margin-left: 8em;">The hundred years had ceased;</span><br />
I stood upon the stair: the surges bore<br />
A beech bough to me, and my heart grew sore,<br />
Remembering how I had stood by white-haired Finn<br />
Under a beech at Emen and heard the thin<br />
Outcry of bats.<br />
<br />
<span style="margin-left: 8em;">And then young Niam came</span><br />
Holding that horse, and sadly called my name;<br />
I mounted, and we passed over the lone<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">274</a></span>And drifting grayness, while this monotone,<br />
Surly and distant, mixed inseparably<br />
Into the clangour of the wind and sea.<br />
<br />
"I hear my soul drop down into decay,<br />
"And Mananan's dark tower, stone by stone,<br />
"Gather sea slime and fall the seaward way,<br />
"And the moon goad the waters night and day,<br />
"That all be overthrown.<br />
<br />
"But till the moon has taken all, I wage<br />
"War on the mightiest men under the skies,<br />
"And they have fallen or fled, age after age:<br />
"Light is man's love, and lighter is man's rage;<br />
"His purpose drifts and dies."<br />
<br />
And then lost Niam murmured, "Love, we go<br />
"To the Island of Forgetfulness, for lo!<br />
"The Islands of Dancing and of Victories<br />
"Are empty of all power."<br />
<br />
<span style="margin-left: 12em;">"And which of these</span><br />
"Is the Island of Content?"<br />
<br />
<span style="margin-left: 13em;">"None know," she said;</span><br />
And on my bosom laid her weeping head.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275"></a></span></p>


<h3 class="p6">BOOK III</h3><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276"></a><br /><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">277</a></span></p>


<p>
Fled foam underneath us, and around us, a wandering and milky smoke,<br />
High as the saddle girth, covering away from our glances the tide;<br />
And those that fled, and that followed, from the foam-pale distance broke;<br />
The immortal desire of immortals we saw in their faces, and sighed.<br />
<br />
I mused on the chase with the Fenians, and Bran, Sgeolan, Lomair,<br />
And never a song sang Niam, and over my finger-tips<br />
Came now the sliding of tears and sweeping of mist-cold hair,<br />
And now the warmth of sighs, and after the quiver of lips.<br />
<br />
Were we days long or hours long in riding, when rolled in a grisly peace,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">278</a></span>An isle lay level before us, with dripping hazel and oak?<br />
And we stood on a sea's edge we saw not; for whiter than new-washed fleece<br />
Fled foam underneath us, and round us, a wandering and milky smoke.<br />
<br />
And we rode on the plains of the sea's edge; the sea's edge barren and gray,<br />
Gray sand on the green of the grasses and over the dripping trees,<br />
Dripping and doubling landward, as though they would hasten away<br />
Like an army of old men longing for rest from the moan of the seas.<br />
<br />
But the trees grew taller and closer, immense in their wrinkling bark;<br />
Dropping; a murmurous dropping; old silence and that one sound;<br />
For no live creatures lived there, no weasels moved in the dark:<br />
Long sighs arose in our spirits, beneath us bubbled the ground.<br />
<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">279</a></span>And the ears of the horse went sinking away in the hollow night,<br />
For, as drift from a sailor slow drowning the gleams of the world and the sun,<br />
Ceased on our hands and our faces, on hazel and oak leaf, the light,<br />
And the stars were blotted above us, and the whole of the world was one.<br />
<br />
Till the horse gave a whinny; for, cumbrous with stems of the hazel and oak,<br />
A valley flowed down from his hoofs, and there in the long grass lay,<br />
Under the starlight and shadow, a monstrous slumbering folk,<br />
Their naked and gleaming bodies poured out and heaped in the way.<br />
<br />
And by them were arrow and war-axe, arrow and shield and blade;<br />
And dew-blanched horns, in whose hollow a child of three years old<br />
Could sleep on a couch of rushes, and all inwrought and inlaid,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">280</a></span>And more comely than man can make them with bronze and silver and gold.<br />
<br />
And each of the huge white creatures was huger than fourscore men;<br />
The tops of their ears were feathered, their hands were the claws of birds,<br />
And, shaking the plumes of the grasses and the leaves of the mural glen,<br />
The breathing came from those bodies, long-warless, grown whiter than curds.<br />
<br />
The wood was so spacious above them, that He who had stars for His flocks<br />
Could fondle the leaves with His fingers, nor go from His dew-cumbered skies;<br />
So long were they sleeping, the owls had builded their nests in their locks,<br />
Filling the fibrous dimness with long generations of eyes.<br />
<br />
And over the limbs and the valley the slow owls wandered and came,<br />
Now in a place of star-fire, and now in a shadow place wide;<br />
And the chief of the huge white creatures, his knees in the soft star-flame,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">281</a></span>Lay loose in a place of shadow: we drew the reins by his side.<br />
<br />
Golden the nails of his bird-claws, flung loosely along the dim ground;<br />
In one was a branch soft-shining, with bells more many than sighs,<br />
In midst of an old man's bosom; owls ruffling and pacing around,<br />
Sidled their bodies against him, filling the shade with their eyes.<br />
<br />
And my gaze was thronged with the sleepers; no, not since the world began,<br />
In realms where the handsome were many, nor in glamours by demons flung,<br />
Have faces alive with such beauty been known to the salt eye of man,<br />
Yet weary with passions that faded when the seven-fold seas were young.<br />
<br />
And I gazed on the bell-branch, sleep's forebear, far sung by the Sennachies.<br />
I saw how those slumberers, grown weary, there camping in grasses deep,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">282</a></span>Of wars with the wide world and pacing the shores of the wandering seas,<br />
Laid hands on the bell-branch and swayed it, and fed of unhuman sleep.<br />
<br />
Snatching the horn of Niam, I blew a lingering note;<br />
Came sound from those monstrous sleepers, a sound like the stirring of flies.<br />
He, shaking the fold of his lips, and heaving the pillar of his throat,<br />
Watched me with mournful wonder out of the wells of his eyes.<br />
<br />
I cried, "Come out of the shadow, king of the nails of gold!<br />
"And tell of your goodly household and the goodly works of your hands,<br />
"That we may muse in the starlight and talk of the battles of old;<br />
"Your questioner, Usheen, is worthy, he comes from the Fenian lands."<br />
<br />
Half open his eyes were, and held me, dull with the smoke of their dreams;<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">283</a></span>His lips moved slowly in answer, no answer out of them came;<br />
Then he swayed in his fingers the bell-branch, slow dropping a sound in faint streams<br />
Softer than snow-flakes in April and piercing the marrow like flame.<br />
<br />
Wrapt in the wave of that music, with weariness more than of earth,<br />
The moil of my centuries filled me; and gone like a sea-covered stone<br />
Were the memories of the whole of my sorrow and the memories of the whole of my mirth,<br />
And a softness came from the starlight and filled me full to the bone.<br />
<br />
In the roots of the grasses, the sorrels, I laid my body as low;<br />
And the pearl-pale Niam lay by me, her brow on the midst of my breast;<br />
And the horse was gone in the distance, and years after years 'gan flow;<br />
Square leaves of the ivy moved over us, binding us down to our rest.<br />
<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">284</a></span>And, man of the many white croziers, a century there I forgot;<br />
How the fetlocks drip blood in the battle, when the fallen on fallen lie rolled;<br />
How the falconer follows the falcon in the weeds of the heron's plot,<br />
And the names of the demons whose hammers made armour for Conhor of old.<br />
<br />
And, man of the many white croziers, a century there I forgot;<br />
That the spear-shaft is made out of ashwood, the shield out of ozier and hide;<br />
How the hammers spring on the anvil, on the spearhead's burning spot;<br />
How the slow, blue-eyed oxen of Finn low sadly at evening tide.<br />
<br />
But in dreams, mild man of the croziers, driving the dust with their throngs,<br />
Moved round me, of seamen or landsmen, all who are winter tales;<br />
Came by me the kings of the Red Branch, with roaring of laughter and songs,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">285</a></span>Or moved as they moved once, love-making or piercing the tempest with sails.<br />
<br />
Came Blanid, Mac Nessa, tall Fergus who feastward of old time slunk,<br />
Cook Barach, the traitor; and warward, the spittle on his beard never dry,<br />
Dark Balor, as old as a forest, car borne, his mighty head sunk<br />
Helpless, men lifting the lids of his weary and death-making eye.<br />
<br />
And by me, in soft red raiment, the Fenians moved in loud streams,<br />
And Grania, walking and smiling, sewed with her needle of bone,<br />
So lived I and lived not, so wrought I and wrought not, with creatures of dreams,<br />
In a long iron sleep, as a fish in the water goes dumb as a stone.<br />
<br />
At times our slumber was lightened. When the sun was on silver or gold;<br />
When brushed with the wings of the owls, in the dimness they love going by;<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">286</a></span>When a glow-worm was green on a grass leaf, lured from his lair in the mould;<br />
Half wakening, we lifted our eyelids, and gazed on the grass with a sigh.<br />
<br />
So watched I when, man of the croziers, at the heel of a century fell,<br />
Weak, in the midst of the meadow, from his miles in the midst of the air,<br />
A starling like them that forgathered 'neath a moon waking white as a shell.<br />
When the Fenians made foray at morning with Bran, Sgeolan, Lomair.<br />
<br />
I awoke: the strange horse without summons out of the distance ran,<br />
Thrusting his nose to my shoulder; he knew in his bosom deep<br />
That once more moved in my bosom the ancient sadness of man,<br />
And that I would leave the immortals, their dimness, their dews dropping sleep.<br />
<br />
O, had you seen beautiful Niam grow white as the waters are white,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">287</a></span>Lord of the croziers, you even had lifted your hands and wept:<br />
But, the bird in my fingers, I mounted, remembering alone that delight<br />
Of twilight and slumber were gone, and that hoofs impatiently stept.<br />
<br />
I cried, "O Niam! O white one! if only a twelve-houred day,<br />
"I must gaze on the beard of Finn, and move where the old men and young<br />
"In the Fenians' dwellings of wattle lean on the chessboards and play,<br />
"Ah, sweet to me now were even bald Conan's slanderous tongue!<br />
<br />
"Like me were some galley forsaken far off in Meridian isle.<br />
"Remembering its long-oared companions, sails turning to thread-bare rags;<br />
"No more to crawl on the seas with long oars mile after mile,<br />
"But to be amid shooting of flies and flowering of rushes and flags."<br />
<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">288</a></span>Their motionless eyeballs of spirits grown mild with mysterious thought<br />
Watched her those seamless faces from the valley's glimmering girth;<br />
As she murmured, "O wandering Usheen, the strength of the bell-branch is naught,<br />
"For there moves alive in your fingers the fluttering sadness of earth.<br />
<br />
"Then go through the lands in the saddle and see what the mortals do,<br />
"And softly come to your Niam over the tops of the tide;<br />
"But weep for your Niam, O Usheen, weep; for if only your shoe<br />
"Brush lightly as haymouse earth's pebbles, you will come no more to my side.<br />
<br />
"O flaming lion of the world, O when will you turn to your rest?"<br />
"I saw from a distant saddle; from the earth she made her moan;<br />
"I would die like a small withered leaf in the autumn, for breast unto breast<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">289</a></span>"We shall mingle no more, nor our gazes empty their sweetness lone.<br />
<br />
"In the isles of the farthest seas where only the spirits come.<br />
"Were the winds less soft than the breath of a pigeon who sleeps on her nest,<br />
"Nor lost in the star-fires and odours the sound of the sea's vague drum?<br />
"O flaming lion of the world, O when will you turn to your rest?"<br />
<br />
The wailing grew distant; I rode by the woods of the wrinkling bark,<br />
Where ever is murmurous dropping, old silence and that one sound;<br />
For no live creatures live there, no weasels move in the dark;<br />
In a reverie forgetful of all things, over the bubbling ground.<br />
<br />
And I rode by the plains of the sea's edge, where all is barren and gray,<br />
Gray sands on the green of the grasses and over the dripping trees,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">290</a></span>Dripping and doubling landward, as though they would hasten away,<br />
Like an army of old men lounging for rest from the moan of the seas.<br />
<br />
And the winds made the sands on the sea's edge turning and turning go,<br />
As my mind made the names of the Fenians. Far from the hazel and oak,<br />
I rode away on the surges, where, high as the saddle bow,<br />
Fled foam underneath me, and round me, a wandering and milky smoke.<br />
<br />
Long fled the foam-flakes around me, the winds fled out of the vast,<br />
Snatching the bird in secret; nor knew I, embosomed apart,<br />
When they froze the cloth on my body like armour riveted fast,<br />
For Remembrance, lifting her leanness, keened in the gates of my heart.<br />
<br />
Till fattening the winds of the morning, an odour of new-mown hay<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">291</a></span>Came, and my forehead fell low, and my tears like berries fell down;<br />
Later a sound came, half lost in the sound of a shore far away,<br />
From the great grass-barnacle calling, and later the shore-weeds brown.<br />
<br />
If I were as I once was, the strong hoofs crushing the sand and the shells,<br />
Coming out of the sea as the dawn comes, a chaunt of love on my lips,<br />
Not coughing, my head on my knees, and praying, and wroth with the bells,<br />
I would leave no saint's head on his body from Rachlin to Bera of ships.<br />
<br />
Making way from the kindling surges, I rode on a bridle-path<br />
Much wondering to see upon all hands, of wattles and woodwork made,<br />
Your bell-mounted churches, and guardless the sacred cairn and the rath,<br />
And a small and a feeble populace stooping with mattock and spade.<br />
<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">292</a></span>Or weeding or ploughing with faces a-shining with much-toil wet;<br />
While in this place and that place, with bodies unglorious, their chieftains stood,<br />
Awaiting in patience the straw-death, croziered one, caught in your net:<br />
Went the laughter of scorn from my mouth like the roaring of wind in a wood.<br />
<br />
And because I went by them so huge and so speedy with eyes so bright,<br />
Came after the hard gaze of youth, or an old man lifted his head:<br />
And I rode and I rode, and I cried out, "The Fenians hunt wolves in the night,<br />
So sleep thee by daytime." A voice cried, "The Fenians a long time are dead."<br />
<br />
A whitebeard stood hushed on the pathway, the flesh of his face as dried grass,<br />
And in folds round his eyes and his mouth, he sad as a child without milk;<br />
And the dreams of the islands were gone, and I knew how men sorrow and pass,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">293</a></span>And their hound, and their horse, and their love, and their eyes that glimmer like silk.<br />
<br />
And wrapping my face in my hair, I murmured, "In old age they ceased";<br />
And my tears were larger than berries, and I murmured, "Where white clouds lie spread<br />
"On Crevroe or broad Knockfefin, with many of old they feast<br />
"On the floors of the gods." He cried, "No, the gods a long time are dead."<br />
<br />
And lonely and longing for Niam, I shivered and turned me about,<br />
The heart in me longing to leap like a grasshopper into her heart;<br />
I turned and rode to the westward, and followed the sea's old shout<br />
Till I saw where Maive lies sleeping till starlight and midnight part.<br />
<br />
And there at the foot of the mountain, two carried a sack full of sand,<br />
They bore it with staggering and sweating, but fell with their burden at length:<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">294</a></span>Leaning down from the gem-studded saddle, I flung it five yards with my hand,<br />
With a sob for men waxing so weakly, a sob for the Fenian's old strength.<br />
<br />
The rest you have heard of, O croziered one; how, when divided the girth,<br />
I fell on the path, and the horse went away like a summer fly;<br />
And my years three hundred fell on me, and I rose, and walked on the earth,<br />
A creeping old man, full of sleep, with the spittle on his beard never dry.<br />
<br />
How the men of the sand-sack showed me a church with its belfry in air;<br />
Sorry place, where for swing of the war-axe in my dim eyes the crozier gleams;<br />
What place have Caolte and Conan, and Bran, Sgeolan, Lomair?<br />
Speak, you too are old with your memories, an old man surrounded with dreams.</p>

<p class="actor">S. PATRIC</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">295</a></span>Where the flesh of the footsole clingeth on the burning stones is their place;<br />
Where the demons whip them with wires on the burning stones of wide hell,<br />
Watching the blessed ones move far off, and the smile on God's face,<br />
Between them a gateway of brass, and the howl of the angels who fell.</p>

<p class="actor">USHEEN</p>

<p class="speech">Put the staff in my hands; for I go to the Fenians, O cleric, to chaunt<br />
The war-songs that roused them of old; they will rise, making clouds with their breath<br />
Innumerable, singing, exultant; the clay underneath them shall pant,<br />
And demons be broken in pieces, and trampled beneath them in death.<br />
<br />
And demons afraid in their darkness; deep horror of eyes and of wings,<br />
Afraid their ears on the earth laid, shall listen and rise up and weep;<br />
Hearing the shaking of shields and the quiver of stretched bowstrings,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">296</a></span>Hearing hell loud with a murmur, as shouting and mocking we sweep.<br />
<br />
We will tear out the flaming stones, and batter the gateway of brass<br />
And enter, and none sayeth "No" when there enters the strongly armed guest;<br />
Make clean as a broom cleans, and march on as oxen move over young grass;<br />
Then feast, making converse of wars, and of old wounds, and turn to our rest.</p>

<p class="actor">S. PATRIC</p>

<p class="speech">On the flaming stones, without refuge, the limbs of the Fenians are tost;<br />
None war on the masters of Hell, who could break up the world in their rage;<br />
But kneel and wear out the flags and pray for your soul that is lost<br />
Through the demon love of its youth and its godless and passionate age.</p>

<p class="actor">USHEEN</p>

<p class="speech">Ah, me! to be shaken with coughing and broken with old age and pain,<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">297</a></span>Without laughter, a show unto children, alone with remembrance and fear;<br />
All emptied of purple hours as a beggar's cloak in the rain,<br />
As a hay-cock out on the flood, or a wolf sucked under a weir.<br />
<br />
It were sad to gaze on the blessed and no man I loved of old there;<br />
I throw down the chain of small stones! when life in my body has ceased,<br />
I will go to Caolte, and Conan, and Bran, Sgeolan, Lomair,<br />
And dwell in the house of the Fenians, be they in flames or at feast.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298"></a><br /><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">299</a></span></p>




<h2 class="p6"><a name="GLOSSARY_AND_NOTES" id="GLOSSARY_AND_NOTES"></a>GLOSSARY AND NOTES</h2>


<p><i>The Pronunciation of the Irish Words.</i>&mdash;When I wrote the
greater number of these poems I had hardly considered the
question seriously. I copied at times somebody's perhaps
fanciful phonetic spelling, and at times the ancient spelling as
I found it in some literal translation, pronouncing the words
always as they were spelt. I do not suppose I would have
defended this system at any time, but I do not yet know what
system to adopt. The modern pronunciation, which is usually
followed by those who spell the words phonetically, is certainly
unlike the pronunciation of the time when classical Irish literature
was written, and, so far as I know, no Irish scholar who
writes in English or French has made that minute examination
of the way the names come into the rhythms and measures of the
old poems which can alone discover the old pronunciation. A
French Celtic scholar gave me the pronunciation of a few names,
and told me that Mr. Whitley Stokes had written something about
the subject in German, but I am ignorant of German. If I ever
learn the old pronunciation, I will revise all these poems, but at
present I can only affirm that I have not treated my Irish names
as badly as the mediæval writers of the stories of King Arthur
treated their Welsh names.</p>

<p><i>Mythological Gods and Heroes.</i>&mdash;I refer the reader for such
names as Balor and Finn and Usheen to Lady Gregory's
"Cuchulain of Muirthemne" and to her "Gods and Fighting
Men."</p>

<p><i>The Ballad of Father Gilligan.</i>&mdash;A tradition among the people
of Castleisland, Kerry.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">300</a></span></p>

<p><i>The Ballad of Father O'Hart.</i>&mdash;This ballad is founded on
the story of a certain Father O'Hart, priest of Coloony, Sligo,
in the last century, as told by the present priest of Coloony
in his <i>History of Ballisodare and Kilvarnet</i>. The robbery
of the lands of Father O'Hart was a kind of robbery which
occurred but rarely during the penal laws. Catholics, forbidden
to own landed property, evaded the law by giving a Protestant
nominal possession of their estates. There are instances on
record in which poor men were nominal owners of immense
estates.</p>

<p><i>The Ballad of the Foxhunter.</i>&mdash;Founded on an incident, probably
itself a Tipperary tradition, in Kickham's <i>Knockagow</i>.</p>

<p><i>Bell-branch.</i>&mdash;A legendary branch whose shaking casts all men
into a sleep.</p>

<p><i>The Countess Cathleen.</i>&mdash;I found the story of the Countess
Cathleen in what professed to be a collection of Irish folk-lore in
an Irish newspaper some years ago. I wrote to the compiler,
asking about its source, but got no answer, but have since heard
that it was translated from <i>Les Matinées de Timothè Trimm</i> a
good many years ago, and has been drifting about the Irish
press ever since. Léo Lespès gives it as an Irish story, and
though the editor of <i>Folklore</i> has kindly advertised for information,
the only Christian variant I know of is a Donegal tale,
given by Mr. Larminie in his <i>West Irish Folk Tales and
Romances</i>, of a woman who goes to hell for ten years to save
her husband, and stays there another ten, having been granted
permission to carry away as many souls as could cling to her
skirt. Léo Lespès may have added a few details, but I have no
doubt of the essential antiquity of what seems to me the most
impressive form of one of the supreme parables of the world.
The parable came to the Greeks in the sacrifice of Alcestis, but
her sacrifice was less overwhelming, less apparently irremediable.
Léo Lespès tells the story as follows:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">301</a></span>&mdash;</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Ce que je vais vous dire est un récit du carême Irlandais.
Le boiteux, l'aveugle, le paralytique des rues de Dublin ou de
Limerick, vous le diraient mieux que moi, cher lecteur, si vous
alliez le leur demander, un sixpense d'argent à la main.&mdash;Il
n'est pas une jeune fille catholique à laquelle on ne l'ait appris
pendant les jours de préparation à la communion sainte, pas un
berger des bords de la Blackwater qui ne le puisse redire à la
veillée.</p>

<p>Il y a bien longtemps qu'il apparut tout-à-coup dans la vielle
Irlande deux marchands inconnus dont personne n'avait ouï
parler, et qui parlaient néanmoins avec la plus grande perfection
la langue du pays. Leurs cheveux étaient noirs et ferrés avec
de l'or et leurs robes d'une grande magnificence.</p>

<p>Tous deux semblaient avoir le même âge; ils paraissaient
être des hommes de cinquante ans, car leur barbe grisonnait un
peu.</p>

<p>Or, à cette époque, comme aujourd'hui, l'Irlande était pauvre,
car le soleil avait été rare, et des récoltes presque nulles. Les
indigents ne savaient à quel sainte se vouer, et la misère devenait
de plus en plus terrible.</p>

<p>Dans l'hôtellerie où descendirent les marchands fastueux on
chercha à pénétrer leurs desseins: mais ce fut en vain, ils
demeurèrent silencieux et discrets.</p>

<p>Et pendant qu'ils demeurèrent dans l'hôtellerie, ils ne cessèrent
de compter et de recompter des sacs de pièces d'or, dont la vive
clarté s'apercevait à travers les vitres du logis.</p>

<p>Gentlemen, leur dit l'hôtesse un jour, d'où vient que vous êtes
si opulents, et que, venus pour secourir la misère publique, vous
ne fassiez pas de bonnes &#339;uvres?</p>

<p>&mdash;Belle hôtesse, répondit l'un d'eux, nous n'avons pas voulu
aller au-devant d'infortunes honorables, dans la crainte d'être
trompés par des misères fictives: que la douleur frappe à la
porte, nous ouvrirons.</p>

<p>Le lendemain, quand on sut qu'il existait deux opulents
étrangers prêts à prodiguer l'or, la foule assiégea leur logis; mais<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">302</a></span>
les figures des gens qui en sortaient étaient bien diverses. Les
uns avaient la fierté dans le regard, les autres portaient la honte
au front. Les deux trafiquants achetaient des âmes pour le
démon. L'âme d'un vieillard valait vingt pièces d'or, pas un
penny de plus; car Satan avait eu le temps d'y former
hypothèque. L'âme d'une épose en valait cinquante quand
elle était jolie, ou cent quand elle était laide. L'âme d'une
jeune fille se payait des prix fous: les fleurs les plus belles et les
plus pures sont les plus chères.</p>

<p>Pendant ce temps, il existait dans la ville un ange de beauté,
la comtesse Ketty O'Connor. Elle était l'idole du peuple, et
la providence des indigents. Dès qu'elle eut appris que des
mécréants profitaient de la misère publique pour dérober des
c&#339;urs à Dieu, elle fit appeler son majordome.</p>

<p>&mdash;Master Patrick, lui dit elle, combien ai-je de pièces d'or
dans mon coffre?</p>

<p>&mdash;Cent mille.</p>

<p>&mdash;Combien de bijoux?</p>

<p>&mdash;Peur autant d'argent.</p>

<p>&mdash;Combien de châteux, de bois et de terres?</p>

<p>&mdash;Pour le double de ces sommes.</p>

<p>&mdash;Eh bien! Patrick, vendez tout ce qui n'est pas or et
apportez-m'en le montant. Je ne veux garder à moi que ce
castel et le champ qui l'entoure.</p>

<p>Deux jours après, les ordres de la pieuse Ketty étaient
exécutés et le trésor était distribué aux pauvres au fur et à mesure
de leurs besoins.</p>

<p>Ceci ne faisait pas le compte, dit la tradition, des commis-voyageurs
du malin esprit, qui ne trouvaient plus d'âmes
à acheter.</p>

<p>Aidés par un valet infâme, ils pénétrèrent dans la retraite de
la noble dame et lui dérobèrent le reste de son trésor ... en
vain lutta-t-elle de toutes ses forces pour sauver le contenu de
son coffre, les larrons diaboliques furent les plus forts. Si Ketty
avait eu les moyens de faire un signe de croix, ajoute la légende<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">303</a></span>
Irlandaise, elle les eût mis en fuite, mais ses mains étaient
captives&mdash;Le larcin fut effectué. Alors les pauvres sollicitèrent
en vain près de Ketty dépouillée, elle ne pouvait plus secourir
leur misère;&mdash;elle les abandonnait à la tentation. Pourtant il
n'y avait plus que huit jours à passer pour que les grains et lea
fourrages arrivassent en abondance des pays d'Orient. Mais,
huit jours, c'était un siècle: huit jours nécessitaient une somme
immense pour subvenir aux exigences de la disette, et les
pauvres allaient ou expirer dans les angousses de la faim, ou,
reniant les saintes maximes de l'Evangile, vendre à vil prix leur
âme, le plus beau présent de la munificence du Seigneur tout-puissant.</p>

<p>Et Ketty n'avait plus une obole, car elle avait abandonné son
châteux aux malheureux.</p>

<p>Elle passa douze heures dans les larmes et le deuil, arrachant
ses cheveux couleur de soleil et meurtrissant son sein couleur du
lis: puis elle se leva résolue, animée par un vif sentiment de
désespoir.</p>

<p>Elle se rendit chez les marchands d'âmes.</p>

<p>&mdash;Que voulez-vous? dirent ils.</p>

<p>&mdash;Vous achetez des âmes?</p>

<p>&mdash;Oui, un peu malgré vous, n'est ce pas, sainte aux yeux de
saphir?</p>

<p>&mdash;Aujourd'hui je viens vous proposer un marché, reprit
elle.</p>

<p>&mdash;Lequel?</p>

<p>&mdash;J'ai une âme a vendre; mais elle est chère.</p>

<p>&mdash;Qu'importe si elle est précieuse? l'âme, comme le diamant,
s'apprécie à sa blancheur.</p>

<p>&mdash;C'est la mienne, dit Ketty.</p>

<p>Les deux envoyés de Satan tressaillirent. Leurs griffes
s'allongèrent sous leurs gants de cuir; leurs yeux gris étincelèrent&mdash;l'âme,
pure, immaculée, virginale de Ketty!... c'était
une acquisition inappréciable.</p>

<p>&mdash;Gentille dame, combien voulez-vous?</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">304</a></span></p>

<p>&mdash;Cent cinquante mille écus d'or.</p>

<p>&mdash;C'est fait, dirent les marchands: et ils tendirent à
Ketty un parchemin cacheté de noir, qu'elle signa en frissonnant.</p>

<p>La somme lui fut comptée.</p>

<p>Des qu'elle fut rentrée, elle dit au majordome:</p>

<p>&mdash;Tenez, distribuez ceci. Avec la somme que je vous donne
les pauvres attendront la huitaine nécessaire et pas une de leurs
âmes ne sera livrée au démon.</p>

<p>Puis elle s'enferma et recommanda qu'on ne vint pas la
déranger.</p>

<p>Trois jours se passèrent; elle n'appela pas; elle ne sortit
pas.</p>

<p>Quand on ouvrit sa porte, on la trouva raide et froide: elle
était morte de douleur.</p>

<p>Mais la vente de cette âme si adorable dans sa charité fut
déclarée nulle par le Seigneur: car elle avait sauvé ses concitoyens
de la morte éternelle.</p>

<p>Après la huitaine, des vaisseaux nombreux amenèrent à
l'Irlande affamée d'immenses provisions de grains.</p>

<p>La famine n'était plus possible. Quant aux marchands, ils
disparurent de leur hôtellerie, sans qu'on sût jamais ce qu'ils
étaient devenus.</p>

<p>Toutefois, les pêcheurs de la Blackwater prétendent qu'ils
sont enchainés dans une prison souterraine par ordre de
Lucifer jusqu'au moment où ils pourront livrer l'âme de Ketty
qui leur a échappé. Je vous dis la légende telle que je la sais.</p>

<p>&mdash;Mais les pauvres l'ont raconté d'âge en âge et les enfants de
Cork et de Dublin chantent encore la ballade dont voici les
derniers couplets:&mdash;</p>

<p>
Pour sauver les pauvres qu'elle aime<br />
Ketty donna<br />
Son esprit, sa croyance même:<br />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">305</a></span>Satan paya<br />
Cette âme au dévoûment sublime,<br />
En écus d'or,<br />
Disons pour racheter son crime,<br />
<i>Confiteor</i>.<br />
<br />
Mais l'ange qui se fit coupable<br />
Par charité<br />
Au séjour d'amour ineffable<br />
Est remonté.<br />
Satan vaincu n'eut pas de prise<br />
Sur ce c&#339;ur d'or;<br />
Chantons sous la nef de l'église,<br />
<i>Confiteor</i>.</p>

<p>N'est ce pas que ce récit, né de l'imagination des poètes
catholiques de la verte Erin, est une véritable récit de carême?</p>
</blockquote>

<p><i>The Countess Cathleen</i> was acted in Dublin in 1899, with
Mr. Marcus St. John and Mr. Trevor Lowe as the First and
Second Demon, Mr. Valentine Grace as Shemus Rua, Master
Charles Sefton as Teig, Madame San Carola as Mary, Miss
Florence Farr as Aleel, Miss Anna Mather as Oona, Mr.
Charles Holmes as the Herdsman, Mr. Jack Wilcox as the
Gardener, Mr. Walford as a Peasant, Miss Dorothy Paget as a
Spirit, Miss M. Kelly as a Peasant Woman, Mr. T.E. Wilkinson
as a Servant, and Miss May Whitty as The Countess
Kathleen. They had to face a very vehement opposition stirred
up by a politician and a newspaper, the one accusing me in a
pamphlet, the other in long articles day after day, of blasphemy
because of the language of the demons or of Shemus Rua, and
because I made a woman sell her soul and yet escape damnation,
and of a lack of patriotism because I made Irish men and
women, who, it seems, never did such a thing, sell theirs. The
politician or the newspaper persuaded some forty Catholic
students to sign a protest against the play, and a Cardinal, who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">306</a></span>
avowed that he had not read it, to make another, and both
politician and newspaper made such obvious appeals to the
audience to break the peace, that a score or so of police were sent
to the theatre to see that they did not. I had, however, no
reason to regret the result, for the stalls, containing almost all
that was distinguished in Dublin, and a gallery of artisans alike
insisted on the freedom of literature.</p>

<p>After the performance in 1899 I added the love scene between
Aleel and the Countess, and in this new form the play was
revived in New York by Miss Wycherley as well as being
played a good deal in England and America by amateurs.
Now at last I have made a complete revision to make it
suitable for performance at the Abbey Theatre. The first two
scenes are almost wholly new, and throughout the play I have
added or left out such passages as a stage experience of some
years showed me encumbered the action; the play in its first
form having been written before I knew anything of the theatre.
I have left the old end, however, in the version printed in the
body of this book, because the change for dramatic purposes
has been made for no better reason than that audiences&mdash;even
at the Abbey Theatre&mdash;are almost ignorant of Irish mythology&mdash;or
because a shallow stage made the elaborate vision of armed
angels upon a mountain-side impossible. The new end is
particularly suited to the Abbey stage, where the stage platform
can be brought out in front of the proscenium and have a flight
of steps at one side up which the Angel comes, crossing towards
the back of the stage at the opposite side. The principal lighting
is from two arc lights in the balcony which throw their
lights into the faces of the players, making footlights unnecessary.
The room at Shemus Rua's house is suggested by a great grey
curtain&mdash;a colour which becomes full of rich tints under the
stream of light from the arcs. The two or more arches in the third
scene permit the use of a gauze. The short front scene before
the last is just long enough when played with incidental music
to allow the scene set behind it to be changed. The play<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">307</a></span>
when played without interval in this way lasts a little over
an hour.</p>

<p>The play was performed at the Abbey Theatre for the first
time on December 14, 1911, Miss Maire O'Neill taking the part
of the Countess, and the last scene from the going out of the
Merchants was as follows:&mdash;</p>

<p class="exposition">(<span class="smcap">MERCHANTS</span> <i>rush out</i>. <span class="smcap">ALEEL</span> <i>crawls into the middle of
the room; the twilight has fallen and gradually
darkens as the scene goes on</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech">They're rising up&mdash;they're rising through the earth,<br />
Fat Asmodel and giddy Belial,<br />
And all the fiends. Now they leap in the air.<br />
But why does Hell's gate creak so? Round and round.<br />
Hither and hither, to and fro they're running.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>He moves about as though the air was full of spirits.</i> <span class="smcap">OONA</span>
<i>enters</i>.)</p>

<p class="speech">Crouch down, old heron, out of the blind storm.</p>

<p class="actor">OONA</p>

<p class="speech">Where is the Countess Cathleen? All this day<br />
Her eyes were full of tears, and when for a moment<br />
Her hand was laid upon my hand, it trembled.<br />
And now I do not know where she is gone.</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech">Cathleen has chosen other friends than us,<br />
And they are rising through the hollow world.<br />
Demons are out, old heron.</p>

<p class="actor">OONA</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">308</a></span><span style="margin-left: 13.5em;">God guard her soul.</span></p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech">She's bartered it away this very hour,<br />
As though we two were never in the world.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>He kneels beside her, but does not seem to hear her words.
The</i> <span class="smcap">PEASANTS</span> <i>return. They carry the</i> <span class="smcap">COUNTESS
CATHLEEN</span> <i>and lay her upon the ground before</i> <span class="smcap">OONA</span>
<i>and</i> <span class="smcap">ALEEL</span>. <i>She lies there as if dead.</i>)</p>

<p class="actor">OONA</p>

<p class="speech">O, that so many pitchers of rough clay<br />
Should prosper and the porcelain break in two!</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>She kisses the hands of</i> <span class="smcap">CATHLEEN</span>.)</p>

<p class="actor">A PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech">We were under the tree where the path turns<br />
When she grew pale as death and fainted away.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">O, hold me, and hold me tightly, for the storm<br />
Is dragging me away.</p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">OONA</span> <i>takes her in her arms</i>. <span class="smcap">A woman</span> <i>begins to wail</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">PEASANTS</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 10.5em;">Hush!</span></p>

<p class="actor">PEASANTS</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 13.5em;">Hush!</span></p>

<p class="actor">PEASANT WOMEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">309</a></span><span style="margin-left: 16.5em;">Hush!</span></p>

<p class="actor">OTHER PEASANT WOMEN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 19.5em;">Hush!</span></p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN (<i>half rising</i>)</p>

<p class="speech">Lay all the bags of money in a heap,<br />
And when I am gone, old Oona, share them out<br />
To every man and woman: judge, and give<br />
According to their needs.</p>

<p class="actor">A PEASANT WOMAN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 13em;">And will she give</span><br />
Enough to keep my children through the dearth?</p>

<p class="actor">ANOTHER PEASANT WOMAN</p>

<p class="speech">O, Queen of Heaven, and all you blessed saints,<br />
Let us and ours be lost, so she be shriven.</p>

<p class="actor">CATHLEEN</p>

<p class="speech">Bend down your faces, Oona and Aleel;<br />
I gaze upon them as the swallow gazes<br />
Upon the nest under the eave, before<br />
She wander the loud waters. Do not weep<br />
Too great a while, for there is many a candle<br />
On the High Altar though one fall. Aleel,<br />
Who sang about the dancers of the woods,<br />
That know not the hard burden of the world,<br />
Having but breath in their kind bodies, farewell!<br />
And farewell, Oona, you who played with me<br />
And bore me in your arms about the house<br />
When I was but a child&mdash;and therefore happy,<br />
Therefore happy even like those that dance.<br />
The storm is in my hair and I must go.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>She dies.</i>)</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">310</a></span></p>

<p class="actor">OONA</p>

<p class="speech">Bring me the looking-glass.</p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">A woman</span> <i>brings it to her out of inner room</i>. <span class="smcap">OONA</span>
<i>holds glass over the lips of</i> <span class="smcap">CATHLEEN</span>. <i>All is silent
for a moment, then she speaks in a half-scream.</i>)</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 14em;">O, she is dead!</span></p>

<p class="actor">A PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech">She was the great white lily of the world.</p>

<p class="actor">A PEASANT</p>

<p class="speech">She was more beautiful than the pale stars.</p>

<p class="actor">AN OLD PEASANT WOMAN</p>

<p class="speech">The little plant I loved is broken in two.</p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">ALEEL</span> <i>takes looking-glass from</i> <span class="smcap">OONA</span> <i>and flings it upon
floor, so that it is broken in many pieces</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech">I shatter you in fragments, for the face<br />
That brimmed you up with beauty is no more;<br />
And die, dull heart, for you that were a mirror<br />
Are but a ball of passionate dust again!<br />
And level earth and plumy sea, rise up!<br />
And haughty sky, fall down!</p>

<p class="actor">A PEASANT WOMAN</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 14em;">Pull him upon his knees,</span><br />
His curses will pluck lightning on our heads.</p>

<p class="actor">ALEEL</p>

<p class="speech"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">311</a></span>Angels and devils clash in the middle air,<br />
And brazen swords clang upon brazen helms.<br />
Look, look, a spear has gone through Belial's eye!</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>A winged</i> <span class="smcap">ANGEL</span>, <i>carrying a torch and a sword, enters
from the</i> <span class="smcap">R.</span> <i>with eyes fixed upon some distant
thing. The</i> <span class="smcap">ANGEL</span> <i>is about to pass out to the</i> <span class="smcap">L.</span>
<i>when</i> <span class="smcap">ALEEL</span> <i>speaks. The</i> <span class="smcap">ANGEL</span> <i>stops a moment and
turns</i>.)</p>

<p class="speech">Look no more on the half-closed gates of Hell,<br />
But speak to me whose mind is smitten of God,<br />
That it may be no more with mortal things:<br />
And tell of her who lies there.</p>

<p class="direction">(<i>The</i> <span class="smcap">ANGEL</span> <i>turns again and is about to go, but is seized by</i>
<span class="smcap">ALEEL</span>.)</p>

<p class="speech"><span style="margin-left: 16em;">Till you speak</span><br />
You shall not drift into eternity.</p>

<p class="actor">THE ANGEL</p>

<p class="speech">The light beats down; the gates of pearl are wide.<br />
And she is passing to the floor of peace,<br />
And Mary of the seven times wounded heart<br />
Has kissed her lips, and the long blessed hair<br />
Has fallen on her face; the Light of Lights<br />
Looks always on the motive, not the deed,<br />
The Shadow of Shadows on the deed alone.</p>

<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">ALEEL</span> <i>releases the</i> <span class="smcap">ANGEL</span> <i>and kneels</i>.)</p>

<p class="actor">OONA</p>

<p class="speech">Tell them to walk upon the floor of peace,<br />
That I would die and go to her I love;<br />
The years like great black oxen tread the world,<br />
And God the herdsman goads them on behind,<br />
And I am broken by their passing feet.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">312</a></span></p>

<p><i>Down by the Salley Gardens.</i>&mdash;An extension of three lines
sung to me by an old woman at Ballisodare.</p>

<p><i>Findrinny (Findruine).</i>&mdash;A kind of white bronze.</p>

<p><i>Finvarra (Finbar).</i>&mdash;The king of the faeries of Connaught.</p>

<p><i>Hell.</i>&mdash;In the older Irish books Hell is always cold, and it
may be because the Fomoroh, or evil powers, ruled over the
north and the winter. Christianity adopted as far as possible
the Pagan symbolism in Ireland as elsewhere, and Irish poets,
when they spoke of "the cold flagstone of Hell," may have
repeated Pagan symbolism. The folk-tales, and Keating in his
description of Hell, make use, however, of the ordinary symbolism
of fire.</p>

<p><i>The Lamentation of the Pensioner.</i>&mdash;This poem is little more
than a translation into verse of the very words of an old Wicklow
peasant. Fret means doom or destiny.</p>

<p><i>The Land of Heart's Desire.</i>&mdash;This little play was produced
at the Avenue Theatre in the spring of 1894, with the following
cast:&mdash;Maurteen Bruin, Mr. James Welch; Shawn Bruin,
Mr. A.E.W. Mason; Father Hart, Mr. G.R. Foss;
Bridget Bruin, Miss Charlotte Morland; Maire Bruin, Miss
Winifred Fraser; A Faery Child, Miss Dorothy Paget. It
ran for a little over six weeks. It was revived in America
in 1901, when it was taken on tour by Mrs. Lemoyne.
It has been played two or three times professionally since
then in America and a great many times in England and
America by amateurs. Till lately it was not part of the
repertory of the Abbey Theatre, for I had grown to dislike
it without knowing what I disliked in it. This winter, however,
I have made many revisions and now it plays well
enough to give me pleasure. It is printed in this book in
the new form, which was acted for the first time on February<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">313</a></span>
22, 1912, at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. At the Abbey
Theatre, where the platform of the stage comes out in front
of the curtain, the curtain falls before the priest's last words.
He remains outside the curtain and the words are spoken to
the audience like an epilogue.</p>

<p><i>The Meditation of the Old Fisherman.</i>&mdash;This poem is founded
upon some things a fisherman said to me when out fishing in
Sligo Bay.</p>

<p><i>Northern Cold.</i>&mdash;The Fomor, the powers of death and
darkness and cold and evil, came from the north.</p>

<p><i>Nuala.</i>&mdash;The wife of Finvarra.</p>

<p><i>Rose.</i>&mdash;The rose is a favourite symbol with the Irish poets,
and has given a name to several poems both Gaelic and English,
and is used in love poems, in addresses to Ireland like Mr.
Aubrey de Vere's poem telling how "The little black rose shall
be red at last," and in religious poems, like the old Gaelic one
which speaks of "the Rose of Friday," meaning the Rose of
Austerity.</p>

<p><i>Salley.</i>&mdash;Willow.</p>

<p><i>Seven Hazel-trees.</i>&mdash;There was once a well overshadowed by
seven sacred hazel-trees, in the midst of Ireland. A certain
woman plucked their fruit, and seven rivers arose out of the well
and swept her away. In my poems this well is the source of all
the waters of this world, which are therefore seven-fold.</p>

<p><i>The Wanderings of Usheen.</i>&mdash;The poem is founded upon the
middle Irish dialogues of S. Patric and Usheen and a certain
Gaelic poem of the last century. The events it describes, like
the events in most of the poems in this volume, are supposed
to have taken place rather in the indefinite period, made up of
many periods, described by the folk-tales, than in any particular<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">314</a></span>
century; it therefore, like the later Fenian stories themselves,
mixes much that is mediæval with much that is ancient. The
Gaelic poems do not make Usheen go to more than one island,
but a story in <i>Silva Gadelica</i> describes "four paradises," an island
to the north, an island to the west, an island to the south, and
Adam's paradise in the east.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">315</a></span></p>

<p class="center p6">
<i>Printed in Great Britain by</i><br />
<br />
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED<br />
WOKING AND LONDON</p>

<p class="transnote">Transcriber's Notes:<br />
Page 16: 'thictkes' changed to 'thickets'<br />
Page 172: 'He brings in' could be 'She brings in'<br />
Page 263: 'Before this duy' changed to 'Before this day'<br />
Page 290: 'Far from the hazel and oak.' changed to 'Far from the hazel and oak,'<br />
Page 295: 'move far off' could be 'move far oft'</p>








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