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<h1 class="faux">THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN. THE
LAND OF HEART’S DESIRE. THE
UNICORN FROM THE STARS: BEING
THE THIRD VOLUME OF THE
COLLECTED WORKS IN VERSE
AND PROSE OF WILLIAM BUTLER
YEATS</h1>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<div class="maintitle">THE COLLECTED WORKS OF<br />
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS</div>
<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>






<div class="figcenter" style="width: 432px;">
<img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-frontis.jpg" width="432" height="600" alt="Yeats: From a picture by Charles Shannon, Emery Walker, Ph. sc." />
</div>



<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>


<div class="title">
THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN. THE<br />
LAND OF HEART’S DESIRE. THE<br />
UNICORN FROM THE STARS <img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-leaf.jpg" width="27" height="30" alt="leaf" /> BEING<br />
THE THIRD VOLUME OF <span class="red">THE<br />
COLLECTED WORKS IN VERSE<br />
AND PROSE OF WILLIAM BUTLER<br />
YEATS</span> <img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-leaf.jpg" width="27" height="30" alt="leaf" /> IMPRINTED AT THE<br />
SHAKESPEARE HEAD PRESS <img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-leaf.jpg" width="27" height="30" alt="leaf" /><br />
STRATFORD-ON-AVON<br />
MCMVIII<br />
</div>


<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<h2>CONTENTS</h2>






<div class="center">
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents">
<tr>
<td align="left">&nbsp;</td>
<td align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN</td>
<td align="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">THE LAND OF HEART’S DESIRE</td>
<td align="right"><a href="#Page_89">89</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">THE UNICORN FROM THE STARS,</td></tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><span class="contentstitle">BY LADY GREGORY AND W. B. YEATS</span></td>
<td align="right"><a href="#Page_121">121</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">APPENDIX:</td></tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><span class="contentstitle">THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN</span></td>
<td align="right"><a href="#Page_209">209</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">NOTES</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_214">214</a></td></tr>
</table></div>


<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>

<h2>THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN</h2>


<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p>


<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
    <div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">‘<i>The sorrowful are dumb for thee.</i>’</div>
<div class="sig">Lament of <span class="smcap">Morion Shehone</span> for
<span class="smcap">Miss Mary Bourke</span>.</div>
</div></div></div>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p>

<div class="dedication"><span class="smcap">To Maud Gonne.</span></div>


<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a><br /><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p>




<h3><i>PERSONS IN THE PLAY</i></h3>



<ul class="cast">
<li><span class="smcap">Shemus Rua</span>, <i>a peasant</i></li>
<li><span class="smcap">Teig</span>, <i>his son</i></li>
<li><span class="smcap">Aleel</span>, <i>a young bard</i></li>
<li><span class="smcap">Maurteen</span>, <i>a gardener</i></li>
<li><span class="smcap">The Countess Cathleen</span></li>
<li><span class="smcap">Oona</span>, <i>her foster-mother</i></li>
<li><span class="smcap">Maire</span>, <i>wife of Shemus Rua</i></li>
<li><span class="smcap">Two Demons</span> <i>disguised as merchants</i></li>
<li><span class="smcap">Musicians</span></li>
<li><span class="smcap">Peasants, Servants, &amp;c.</span></li>
<li><span class="smcap">Angelical Beings, Spirits, and Faeries</span></li></ul>



<p class="center"><i>The scene is laid in Ireland, and in old times.</i></p>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a><br /><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p>




<h2>THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN.</h2>



<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>
<h3>ACT I.</h3>


<div class="hang1">
<i>The cottage of <span class="small">SHEMUS REA</span>. The door into the
open air is at right side of room. There is a
window at one side of the door, and a little
shrine of the Virgin Mother at the other. At
the back is a door opening into a bedroom, and
at the left side of the room a pantry door. A
wood of oak, beech, hazel, and quicken is seen
through the window half hidden in vapour and
twilight. <span class="small">MAIRE</span> watches <span class="small">TEIG</span>, who fills a
pot with water. He stops as if to listen, and
spills some of the water.</i></div>

<div class="metricp">
<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.</div>

<div class="metric">You are all thumbs.</div>

<div class="speakerm">TEIG.</div>

<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Hear how the dog bays, mother,</span></div>
<div class="metric">And how the gray hen flutters in the coop.</div>
<div class="metric">Strange things are going up and down the land,</div>
<div class="metric">These famine times: by Tubber-vanach crossroads</div>
<div class="metric">A woman met a man with ears spread out,</div>
<div class="metric">And they moved up and down like wings of bats.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.</div>

<div class="metric">Shemus stays late.</div>

<div class="speakerm">TEIG.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">By Carrick-orus churchyard,</span></div>
<div class="metric">A herdsman met a man who had no mouth,</div>
<div class="metric">Nor ears, nor eyes: his face a wall of flesh;</div>
<div class="metric">He saw him plainly by the moon.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.</div>

<p>[<i>Going over to the little shrine.</i>]</p>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">White Mary,</span></div>
<div class="metric">Bring Shemus home out of the wicked woods;</div>
<div class="metric">Save Shemus from the wolves; Shemus is daring;</div>
<div class="metric">And save him from the demons of the woods,</div>
<div class="metric">Who have crept out and wander on the roads,</div>
<div class="metric">Deluding dim-eyed souls now newly dead,</div>
<div class="metric">And those alive who have gone crazed with famine.</div>
<div class="metric">Save him, White Mary Virgin.</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">TEIG.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 13em;">And but now</span></div>
<div class="metric">I thought I heard far-off tympans and harps.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>Knocking at the door.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.</div>

<div class="metric">Shemus has come.</div>

<div class="speakerm">TEIG.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">May he bring better food</span></div>
<div class="metric">Than the lean crow he brought us yesterday.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i><span class="small">MAIRE</span> opens the door, and <span class="small">SHEMUS</span> comes in
with a dead wolf on his shoulder.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.</div>

<div class="metric">Shemus, you are late home: you have been lounging</div>
<div class="metric">And chattering with some one: you know well</div>
<div class="metric">How the dreams trouble me, and how I pray,</div>
<div class="metric">Yet you lie sweating on the hill from morn,</div>
<div class="metric">Or linger at the crossways with all comers,</div>
<div class="metric">Telling or gathering up calamity.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SHEMUS.</div>

<div class="metric">You would rail my head off. Here is a good dinner.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span></div>
<div class="right2">[<i>He throws the wolf on the table.</i></div>

<div class="metric">A wolf is better than a carrion crow.</div>
<div class="metric">I searched all day: the mice and rats and hedgehogs</div>
<div class="metric">Seemed to be dead, and I could hardly hear</div>
<div class="metric">A wing moving in all the famished woods,</div>
<div class="metric">Though the dead leaves and clauber of four forests</div>
<div class="metric">Cling to my footsole. I turned home but now,</div>
<div class="metric">And saw, sniffing the floor in a bare cow-house,</div>
<div class="metric">This young wolf here: the crossbow brought him down.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.</div>

<div class="metric">Praise be the saints!<span style="margin-left: 6em;">[<i>After a pause.</i></span></div>
<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 7em;">Why did the house dog bay?</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">SHEMUS.</div>

<div class="metric">He heard me coming and smelt food—what else?</div>

<div class="speakerm">TEIG.</div>

<div class="metric">We will not starve awhile.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SHEMUS.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">What food is within?</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">TEIG.</div>

<div class="metric">There is a bag half full of meal, a pan</div>
<div class="metric">Half full of milk.</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">SHEMUS.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">And we have one old hen.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">TEIG.</div>

<div class="metric">The bogwood were less hard.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">Before you came</span></div>
<div class="metric">She made a great noise in the hencoop, Shemus.</div>
<div class="metric">What fluttered in the window?</div>

<div class="speakerm">TEIG.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">Two horned owls</span></div>
<div class="metric">Have blinked and fluttered on the window sill</div>
<div class="metric">From when the dog began to bay.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SHEMUS.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">Hush, hush.</span></div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>He fits an arrow to the crossbow, and goes
towards the door. A sudden burst of
music without.</i></div>

<div class="metric">They are off again: ladies or gentlemen</div>
<div class="metric">Travel in the woods with tympan and with harp.</div>
<div class="metric">Teig, put the wolf upon the biggest hook</div>
<div class="metric">And shut the door.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i><span class="small">TEIG</span> goes into the cupboard with the wolf:
returns and fastens the door behind him.</i></div>

<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Sit on the creepy stool</span></div>
<div class="metric">And call up a whey face and a crying voice,</div>
<div class="metric">And let your head be bowed upon your knees.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>He opens the door of the cabin.</i></div>

<div class="metric">Come in, your honours: a full score of evenings</div>
<div class="metric">This threshold worn away by many a foot</div>
<div class="metric">Has been passed only by the snails and birds</div>
<div class="metric">And by our own poor hunger-shaken feet.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>The <span class="small">COUNTESS CATHLEEN</span>, <span class="small">ALEEL</span>, who carries
a small square harp, <span class="small">OONA</span>, and a little
group of fantastically dressed musicians
come in.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">Are you so hungry?</div>

<div class="speakerm">TEIG.<br />[<i>From beside the fire.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 7em;">Lady, I fell but now,</span></div>
<div class="metric">And lay upon the threshold like a log.</div>
<div class="metric">I have not tasted a crust for these four days.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>The <span class="small">COUNTESS CATHLEEN</span> empties her purse
on to the table.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">Had I more money I would give it you,</div>
<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>But we have passed by many cabins to-day;</div>
<div class="metric">And if you come to-morrow to my house</div>
<div class="metric">You shall have twice the sum. I am the owner</div>
<div class="metric">Of a long empty castle in these woods.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.</div>

<div class="metric">Then you are Countess Cathleen: you and yours</div>
<div class="metric">Are ever welcome under my poor thatch.</div>
<div class="metric">Will you sit down and warm you by the sods?</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">We must find out this castle in the wood</div>
<div class="metric">Before the chill o’ the night.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>The musicians begin to tune their instruments.</i></div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">Do not blame me,</span></div>
<div class="metric">Good woman, for the tympan and the harp:</div>
<div class="metric">I was bid fly the terror of the times</div>
<div class="metric">And wrap me round with music and sweet song</div>
<div class="metric">Or else pine to my grave. I have lost my way;</div>
<div class="metric">Aleel, the poet, who should know these woods,</div>
<div class="metric">Because we met him on their border but now</div>
<div class="metric">Wandering and singing like the foam of the sea,</div>
<div class="metric">Is so wrapped up in dreams of terrors to come</div>
<div class="metric">That he can give no help.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.<br />
[<i>Going to the door with her.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 10em;">You’re almost there.</span></div>
<div class="metric">There is a trodden way among the hazels</div>
<div class="metric">That brings your servants to their marketing.</div>

<div class="speakerm">ALEEL.</div>

<div class="metric">When we are gone draw to the door and the bolt,</div>
<div class="metric">For, till we lost them half an hour ago,</div>
<div class="metric">Two gray horned owls hooted above our heads</div>
<div class="metric">Of terrors to come. Tympan and harp awake!</div>
<div class="metric">For though the world drift from us like a sigh,</div>
<div class="metric">Music is master of all under the moon;</div>
<div class="metric">And play ‘The Wind that blows by Cummen Strand.’</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>Music.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm"><br />[<i>Sings.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>Impetuous heart, be still, be still:</i></span></div>
<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>Your sorrowful love may never be told;</i></span></div>
<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>Cover it up with a lonely tune.</i></span></div>
<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>He who could bend all things to His will</i></span></div>
<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>Has covered the door of the infinite fold</i></span></div>
<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>With the pale stars and the wandering moon.</i></span></div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>While he is singing the <span class="small">COUNTESS CATHLEEN</span>,
<span class="small">OONA</span>, and the musicians go out.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">ALEEL.</div>

<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>Shut to the door and shut the woods away,</div>
<div class="metric">For, till they had vanished in the thick of the leaves,</div>
<div class="metric">Two gray horned owls hooted above our heads.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>He goes out.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.<br />

[<i>Bolting the door.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric">When wealthy and wise folk wander from their peace</div>
<div class="metric">And fear wood things, poor folk may draw the bolt</div>
<div class="metric">And pray before the fire.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i><span class="small">SHEMUS</span> counts out the money, and rings a
piece upon the table.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">SHEMUS.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">The Mother of God,</span></div>
<div class="metric">Hushed by the waving of the immortal wings,</div>
<div class="metric">Has dropped in a doze and cannot hear the poor:</div>
<div class="metric">I passed by Margaret Nolan’s; for nine days</div>
<div class="metric">Her mouth was green with dock and dandelion;</div>
<div class="metric">And now they wake her.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">I will go the next;</span></div>
<div class="metric">Our parents’ cabins bordered the same field.</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">SHEMUS.</div>

<div class="metric">God, and the Mother of God, have dropped asleep,</div>
<div class="metric">For they are weary of the prayers and candles;</div>
<div class="metric">But Satan pours the famine from his bag,</div>
<div class="metric">And I am mindful to go pray to him</div>
<div class="metric">To cover all this table with red gold.</div>
<div class="metric">Teig, will you dare me to it?</div>

<div class="speakerm">TEIG.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 14em;">Not I, father.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.</div>

<div class="metric">O Shemus, hush, maybe your mind might pray</div>
<div class="metric">In spite o’ the mouth.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SHEMUS.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Two crowns and twenty pennies.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.</div>

<div class="metric">Is yonder quicken wood?</div>

<div class="speakerm">SHEMUS.</div>

<p>[<i>Picking the bough from the table.</i>]</p>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">He swayed about,</span></div>
<div class="metric">And so I tied him to a quicken bough</div>
<div class="metric">And slung him from my shoulder.</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.<br />
[<i>Taking the bough from him.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">Shemus! Shemus!</span></div>
<div class="metric">What, would you burn the blessed quicken wood?</div>
<div class="metric">A spell to ward off demons and ill faeries.</div>
<div class="metric">You know not what the owls were that peeped in,</div>
<div class="metric">For evil wonders live in this old wood,</div>
<div class="metric">And they can show in what shape please them best.</div>
<div class="metric">And we have had no milk to leave of nights</div>
<div class="metric">To keep our own good people kind to us.</div>
<div class="metric">And Aleel, who has talked with the great Sidhe,</div>
<div class="metric">Is full of terrors to come.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>She lays the bough on a chair.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">SHEMUS.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">I would eat my supper</span></div>
<div class="metric">With no less mirth if squatting by the hearth</div>
<div class="metric">Were dulacaun or demon of the pit</div>
<div class="metric">Clawing its knees, its hoof among the ashes.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>He rings another piece of money. A sound
of footsteps outside the door.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.</div>

<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>Who knows what evil you have brought to us?</div>
<div class="metric">I fear the wood things, Shemus.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>A knock at the door.</i></div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">Do not open.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">SHEMUS.</div>

<div class="metric">A crown and twenty pennies are not enough</div>
<div class="metric">To stop the hole that lets the famine in.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>The little shrine falls.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.</div>

<div class="metric">Look! look!</div>

<div class="speakerm">SHEMUS.<br />
[<i>Crushing it underfoot.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">The Mother of God has dropped asleep,</span></div>
<div class="metric">And all her household things have gone to wrack.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.</div>

<div class="metric">O Mary, Mother of God, be pitiful!</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i><span class="small">SHEMUS</span> opens the door. <span class="small">TWO MERCHANTS</span>
stand without. They have bands of gold
round their foreheads, and each carries
a bag upon his shoulder.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">Have you food here?</div>

<div class="speakerm">SHEMUS.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">For those who can pay well.</span></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">We are rich merchants seeking merchandise.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SHEMUS.</div>

<div class="metric">Come in, your honours.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">No, do not come in:</span></div>
<div class="metric">We have no food, not even for ourselves.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">There is a wolf on the big hook in the cupboard.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>They enter.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">SHEMUS.</div>

<div class="metric">Forgive her: she is not used to quality,</div>
<div class="metric">And is half crazed with being much alone.</div>
<div class="metric">How did you know I had taken a young wolf?</div>
<div class="metric">Fine wholesome food, though maybe somewhat strong.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>The <span class="small">SECOND MERCHANT</span> sits down by the fire and
begins rubbing his hands. The <span class="small">FIRST MERCHANT</span>
stands looking at the quicken bough
on the chair.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>I would rest here: the night is somewhat chilly,</div>
<div class="metric">And my feet footsore going up and down</div>
<div class="metric">From land to land and nation unto nation:</div>
<div class="metric">The fire burns dimly; feed it with this bough.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i><span class="small">SHEMUS</span> throws the bough into the fire. The
<span class="small">FIRST MERCHANT</span> sits down on the chair. The
<span class="smcap">MERCHANTS’</span> chairs are on each side of the
fire. The table is between them. Each lays
his bag before him on the table. The night
has closed in somewhat, and the main light
comes from the fire.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.</div>

<div class="metric">What have you in the bags?</div>

<div class="speakerm">SHEMUS.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">Don’t mind her, sir:</span></div>
<div class="metric">Women grow curious and feather-thoughted</div>
<div class="metric">Through being in each other’s company</div>
<div class="metric">More than is good for them.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">Our bags are full</span></div>
<div class="metric">Of golden pieces to buy merchandise.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>They pour gold pieces on to the table out of their
bags. It is covered with the gold pieces. They
shine in the firelight. <span class="small">MAIRE</span> goes to the door of
pantry, and watches the <span class="small">MERCHANTS</span>, muttering
to herself.</i></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">TEIG.</div>

<div class="metric">These are great gentlemen.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<p>[<i>Taking a stone bottle out of his bag.</i>]</p>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">Come to the fire,</span></div>
<div class="metric">Here is the headiest wine you ever tasted.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">Wine that can hush asleep the petty war</div>
<div class="metric">Of good and evil, and awake instead</div>
<div class="metric">A scented flame flickering above that peace</div>
<div class="metric">The bird of prey knows well in his deep heart.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SHEMUS.</div>

<p>[<i>Bringing drinking-cups.</i>]</p>

<div class="metric">I do not understand you, but your wine</div>
<div class="metric">Sets me athirst: its praise made your eyes lighten.</div>
<div class="metric">I am thirsting for it.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 8em;">Ay, come drink and drink,</span></div>
<div class="metric">I bless all mortals who drink long and deep.</div>
<div class="metric">My curse upon the salt-strewn road of monks.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i><span class="small">TEIG</span> and <span class="small">SHEMUS</span> sit down at the table and
drink.</i>]<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span></div>

<div class="speakerm">TEIG.</div>

<div class="metric">You must have seen rare sights and done rare things.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">What think you of the master whom we serve?</div>

<div class="speakerm">SHEMUS.</div>

<div class="metric">I have grown weary of my days in the world</div>
<div class="metric">Because I do not serve him.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">More of this</span></div>
<div class="metric">When we have eaten, for we love right well</div>
<div class="metric">A merry meal, a warm and leaping fire</div>
<div class="metric">And easy hearts.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SHEMUS.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Come, Maire, and cook the wolf.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.</div>

<div class="metric">I will not cook for you.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SHEMUS.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">Maire is mad.</span></div>

<div class="right2">[<i><span class="small">TEIG</span> and <span class="small">SHEMUS</span> stand up and stagger about.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">SHEMUS.</div>

<div class="metric">That wine is the suddenest wine man ever tasted.</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.</div>

<div class="metric">I will not cook for you: you are not human:</div>
<div class="metric">Before you came two horned owls looked at us;</div>
<div class="metric">The dog bayed, and the tongue of Shemus maddened.</div>
<div class="metric">When you came in the Virgin’s blessed shrine</div>
<div class="metric">Fell from its nail, and when you sat down here</div>
<div class="metric">You poured out wine as the wood sidheogs do</div>
<div class="metric">When they’d entice a soul out of the world.</div>
<div class="metric">Why did you come to us? Was not death near?</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">We are two merchants.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 8em;">If you be not demons,</span></div>
<div class="metric">Go and give alms among the starving poor,</div>
<div class="metric">You seem more rich than any under the moon.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">If we knew where to find deserving poor,</div>
<div class="metric">We would give alms.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 7em;">Then ask of Father John.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>We know the evils of mere charity,</div>
<div class="metric">And have been planning out a wiser way.</div>
<div class="metric">Let each man bring one piece of merchandise.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.</div>

<div class="metric">And have the starving any merchandise?</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">We do but ask what each man has.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 13em;">Merchants,</span></div>
<div class="metric">Their swine and cattle, fields and implements,</div>
<div class="metric">Are sold and gone.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">They have not sold all yet.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.</div>

<div class="metric">What have they?</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 5em;">They have still their souls.</span></div>

<div class="hang2">[<i><span class="small">MAIRE</span> shrieks. He beckons to <span class="small">TEIG</span>
and <span class="small">SHEMUS</span>.</i></div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 14em;">Come hither.</span></div>
<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>See you these little golden heaps? Each one</div>
<div class="metric">Is payment for a soul. From charity</div>
<div class="metric">We give so great a price for those poor flames.</div>
<div class="metric">Say to all men we buy men’s souls—away.</div>
<div class="metric"><br />
<div class="right2">[<i>They do not stir.</i></div>

<div class="metric">This pile is for you and this one here for you.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.</div>

<div class="metric">Shemus and Teig, Teig—</div>

<div class="speakerm">TEIG.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">Out of the way.</span></div>

<div class="right2">[<i><span class="small">SHEMUS</span> and <span class="small">TEIG</span> take the money.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">Cry out at cross-roads and at chapel doors</div>
<div class="metric">And market-places that we buy men’s souls,</div>
<div class="metric">Giving so great a price that men may live</div>
<div class="metric">In mirth and ease until the famine ends.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i><span class="small">TEIG</span> and <span class="small">SHEMUS</span> go out.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE [<i>kneeling</i>].</div>

<div class="metric">Destroyers of souls, may God destroy you quickly!</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">No curse can overthrow the immortal demons.</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE.</div>

<div class="metric">You shall at last dry like dry leaves, and hang</div>
<div class="metric">Nailed like dead vermin to the doors of God.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">You shall be ours. This famine shall not cease.</div>
<div class="metric">You shall eat grass, and dock, and dandelion,</div>
<div class="metric">And fail till this stone threshold seem a wall,</div>
<div class="metric">And when your hands can scarcely drag your body</div>
<div class="metric">We shall be near you.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>To <span class="small">SECOND MERCHANT</span>.</i></div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 8em;">Bring the meal out.</span></div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>The <span class="small">SECOND MERCHANT</span> brings the bag of
meal from the pantry.</i></div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">Burn it.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; [<i><span class="small">MAIRE</span> faints.</i></span></div>
<div class="metric">Now she has swooned, our faces go unscratched;</div>
<div class="metric">Bring me the gray hen, too.</div>

<div class="hang2"><i>The <span class="small">SECOND MERCHANT</span> goes out through the door
and returns with the hen strangled. He flings
it on the floor. While he is away the <span class="small">FIRST
MERCHANT</span> makes up the fire. The <span class="small">FIRST
MERCHANT</span> then fetches the pan of milk from
the pantry, and spills it on the ground. He
returns, and brings out the wolf, and throws
it down by the hen.</i></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 8em;">These need much burning.</span></div>
<div class="metric">This stool and this chair here will make good fuel.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>He begins breaking the chair.</i></div>

<div class="metric">My master will break up the sun and moon</div>
<div class="metric">And quench the stars in the ancestral night</div>
<div class="metric">And overturn the thrones of God and the angels.</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p>




<h3>ACT II.</h3>


<div class="hang1"><i>A great hall in the castle of the <span class="small">COUNTESS CATHLEEN</span>.
There is a large window at the farther
end, through which the forest is visible. The
wall to the right juts out slightly, cutting off
an angle of the room. A flight of stone steps
leads up to a small arched door in the jutting
wall. Through the door can be seen a little
oratory. The hall is hung with ancient
tapestry, representing the loves and wars and
huntings of the Fenian and Red Branch
heroes. There are doors to the right and left.
On the left side <span class="small">OONA</span> sits, as if asleep, beside
a spinning-wheel. The <span class="small">COUNTESS CATHLEEN</span>
stands farther back and more to the right,
close to a group of the musicians, still in their
fantastic dresses, who are playing a merry
tune.</i></div>
<div class="metricp">
<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">Be silent, I am tired of tympan and harp,</div>
<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>And tired of music that but cries ‘Sleep, sleep,’</div>
<div class="metric">Till joy and sorrow and hope and terror are gone.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>The <span class="small">COUNTESS CATHLEEN</span> goes over to <span class="small">OONA</span>.</i></div>

<div class="metric">You were asleep?</div>

<div class="speakerm">OONA.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 5em;">No, child, I was but thinking</span></div>
<div class="metric">Why you have grown so sad.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">The famine frets me.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">OONA.</div>

<div class="metric">I have lived now near ninety winters, child,</div>
<div class="metric">And I have known three things no doctor cures—</div>
<div class="metric">Love, loneliness, and famine; nor found refuge</div>
<div class="metric">Other than growing old and full of sleep.</div>
<div class="metric">See you where Oisin and young Niamh ride</div>
<div class="metric">Wrapped in each other’s arms, and where the Fenians</div>
<div class="metric">Follow their hounds along the fields of tapestry;</div>
<div class="metric">How merry they lived once, yet men died then.</div>
<div class="metric">Sit down by me, and I will chaunt the song</div>
<div class="metric">About the Danaan nations in their raths</div>
<div class="metric">That Aleel sang for you by the great door</div>
<div class="metric">Before we lost him in the shadow of leaves.</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">No, sing the song he sang in the dim light,</div>
<div class="metric">When we first found him in the shadow of leaves,</div>
<div class="metric">About King Fergus in his brazen car</div>
<div class="metric">Driving with troops of dancers through the woods.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>She crouches down on the floor, and lays
her head on <span class="smcap">OONA’S</span> knees.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">OONA.</div>

<div class="metric">Dear heart, make a soft cradle of old tales,</div>
<div class="metric">And songs, and music: wherefore should you sadden</div>
<div class="metric">For wrongs you cannot hinder? The great God</div>
<div class="metric">Smiling condemns the lost: be mirthful: He</div>
<div class="metric">Bids youth be merry and old age be wise.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">Tympan and harp awaken wandering dreams.</div>

<div class="speakerm">A VOICE [<i>without</i>].</div>

<div class="metric">You may not see the Countess.</div>

<div class="speakerm">ANOTHER VOICE.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">I must see her.</span></div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>Sound of a short struggle. A <span class="small">SERVANT</span>
enters from door to <span class="small">R</span>.</i></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">SERVANT.</div>

<div class="metric">The gardener is resolved to speak with you.</div>
<div class="metric">I cannot stay him.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">You may come, Maurteen.</span></div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>The <span class="small">GARDENER</span>, an old man, comes in from
the <span class="small">R.</span>, and the <span class="small">SERVANT</span> goes out.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">GARDENER.</div>

<div class="metric">Forgive my working clothes and the dirt on me.</div>
<div class="metric">I bring ill words, your ladyship,—too bad</div>
<div class="metric">To send with any other.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">These bad times,</span></div>
<div class="metric">Can any news be bad or any good?</div>

<div class="speakerm">GARDENER.</div>

<div class="metric">A crowd of ugly lean-faced rogues last night—</div>
<div class="metric">And may God curse them!—climbed the garden wall.</div>
<div class="metric">There is scarce an apple now on twenty trees,</div>
<div class="metric">And my asparagus and strawberry beds</div>
<div class="metric">Are trampled into clauber, and the boughs</div>
<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>Of peach and plum-trees broken and torn down</div>
<div class="metric">For some last fruit that hung there. My dog, too,</div>
<div class="metric">My old blind Simon, him who had no tail,</div>
<div class="metric">They murdered—God’s red anger seize them!</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">I know how pears and all the tribe of apples</div>
<div class="metric">Are daily in your love—how this ill chance</div>
<div class="metric">Is sudden doomsday fallen on your year;</div>
<div class="metric">So do not say no matter. I but say</div>
<div class="metric">I blame the famished season, and not you.</div>
<div class="metric">Then be not troubled.</div>

<div class="speakerm">GARDENER.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 8em;">I thank your ladyship.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">What rumours and what portents of the famine?</div>

<div class="speakerm">GARDENER.</div>

<div class="metric">The yellow vapour, in whose folds it came,</div>
<div class="metric">That creeps along the hedges at nightfall,</div>
<div class="metric">Rots all the heart out of my cabbages.</div>
<div class="metric">I pray against it.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>He goes towards the door, then pauses.</i></div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 5em;">If her ladyship</span></div>
<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>Would give me an old crossbow, I would watch</div>
<div class="metric">Behind a bush and guard the pears of nights</div>
<div class="metric">And make a hole in somebody I know of.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">They will give you a long draught of ale below.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>The <span class="small">GARDENER</span> goes out.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">OONA.</div>

<div class="metric">What did he say?—he stood on my deaf side.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">His apples are all stolen. Pruning time,</div>
<div class="metric">And the slow ripening of his pears and apples,</div>
<div class="metric">For him is a long, heart-moving history.</div>

<div class="speakerm">OONA.</div>

<div class="metric">Now lay your head once more upon my knees.</div>
<div class="metric">I will sing how Fergus drove his brazen cars.</div>
<div class="right2">[<i>She chaunts with the thin voice of age.</i></div>
<div class="metric2"><i>Who will go drive with Fergus now,</i></div>
<div class="metric2"><i>And pierce the deep woods’ woven shade,</i></div>
<div class="metric2"><i>And dance upon the level shore?</i></div>
<div class="metric2"><i>Young man, lift up your russet brow,</i></div>
<div class="metric2"><i>And lift your tender eyelids, maid,</i></div>
<div class="metric2"><i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>And brood on hopes and fears no more.</i></div>
<div class="metric">You have dropped down again into your trouble.</div>
<div class="metric">You do not hear me.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 8em;">Ah, sing on, old Oona,</span></div>
<div class="metric">I hear the horn of Fergus in my heart.</div>

<div class="speakerm">OONA.</div>

<div class="metric">I do not know the meaning of the song.</div>
<div class="metric">I am too old.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">The horn is calling, calling.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">OONA.</div>

<div class="metric2"><i>And no more turn aside and brood</i></div>
<div class="metric2"><i>Upon Love’s bitter mystery;</i></div>
<div class="metric2"><i>For Fergus rules the brazen cars,</i></div>
<div class="metric2"><i>And rules the shadows of the wood,</i></div>
<div class="metric2"><i>And the white breast of the dim sea</i></div>
<div class="metric2"><i>And all dishevelled wandering stars.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">THE SERVANT’S VOICE [<i>without</i>].</div>

<div class="metric">The Countess Cathleen must not be disturbed.</div>

<div class="speakerm">ANOTHER VOICE.</div>

<div class="metric">Man, I must see her.</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Who now wants me, Paudeen?</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">SERVANT [<i>from the door</i>].</div>

<div class="metric">A herdsman and his history.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">He may come.</span></div>

<div class="right2">[<i>The <span class="small">HERDSMAN</span> enters from the door to <span class="small">R.</span></i></div>

<div class="speakerm">HERDSMAN.</div>

<div class="metric">Forgive this dusty gear: I have come far.</div>
<div class="metric">My sheep were taken from the fold last night.</div>
<div class="metric">You will be angry: I am not to blame.</div>
<div class="metric">But blame these robbing times.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">No blame’s with you.</span></div>
<div class="metric">I blame the famine.</div>

<div class="speakerm">HERDSMAN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">Kneeling, I give thanks.</span></div>
<div class="metric">When gazing on your face, the poorest, Lady,</div>
<div class="metric">Forget their poverty, the rich their care.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">What rumours and what portents of the famine?</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">HERDSMAN.</div>

<div class="metric">As I came down the lane by Tubber-vanach</div>
<div class="metric">A boy and man sat cross-legged on two stones,</div>
<div class="metric">With moving hands and faces famine-thin,</div>
<div class="metric">Gabbling to crowds of men and wives and boys</div>
<div class="metric">Of how two merchants at a house in the woods</div>
<div class="metric">Buy souls for hell, giving so great a price</div>
<div class="metric">That men may live through all the dearth in plenty.</div>
<div class="metric">The vales are famine-crazy—I am right glad</div>
<div class="metric">My home is on the mountain near to God.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>He turns to go.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">They will give you ale and meat before you go.</div>
<div class="metric">You must have risen at dawn to come so far.</div>
<div class="metric">Keep your bare mountain—let the world drift by,</div>
<div class="metric">The burden of its wrongs rests not on you.</div>

<div class="speakerm">HERDSMAN.</div>

<div class="metric">I am content to serve your ladyship.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>He goes.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">OONA.</div>

<div class="metric">What did he say?—he stood on my deaf side.</div>
<div class="metric">He seemed to give you word of woful things.</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">A story born out of the dreaming eyes</div>
<div class="metric">And crazy brain and credulous ears of famine.</div>
<div class="metric">O, I am sadder than an old air, Oona,</div>
<div class="metric">My heart is longing for a deeper peace</div>
<div class="metric">Than Fergus found amid his brazen cars:</div>
<div class="metric">Would that like Edain my first forebear’s daughter,</div>
<div class="metric">Who followed once a twilight’s piercing tune,</div>
<div class="metric">I could go down and dwell among the Sidhe</div>
<div class="metric">In their old ever-busy honeyed land.</div>

<div class="speakerm">OONA.</div>

<div class="metric">You should not say such things—they bring ill-luck.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">The image of young Edain on the arras,</div>
<div class="metric">Walking along, one finger lifted up;</div>
<div class="metric">And that wild song of the unending dance</div>
<div class="metric">Of the dim Danaan nations in their raths,</div>
<div class="metric">Young Aleel sang for me by the great door,</div>
<div class="metric">Before we lost him in the shadow of leaves,</div>
<div class="metric">Have filled me full of all these wicked words.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>The <span class="small">SERVANT</span> enters hastily, followed by three
men. Two are peasants.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">SERVANT.</div>

<div class="metric">The steward of the castle brings two men</div>
<div class="metric">To talk with you.</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">STEWARD.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 5em;">And tell the strangest story</span></div>
<div class="metric">The mouth of man has uttered.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">More food taken;</span></div>
<div class="metric">Yet learned theologians have laid down</div>
<div class="metric">That he who has no food, offending no way,</div>
<div class="metric">May take his meat and bread from too-full larders.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST PEASANT.</div>

<div class="metric">We come to make amends for robbery.</div>
<div class="metric">I stole five hundred apples from your trees,</div>
<div class="metric">And laid them in a hole; and my friend here</div>
<div class="metric">Last night stole two large mountain sheep of yours</div>
<div class="metric">And hung them on a beam under his thatch.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND PEASANT.</div>

<div class="metric">His words are true.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST PEASANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 3em;">Since then our luck has changed.</span></div>
<div class="metric">As I came down the lane by Tubber-vanach</div>
<div class="metric">I fell on Shemus Rua and his son,</div>
<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>And they led me where two great gentlemen</div>
<div class="metric">Buy souls for money, and they bought my soul.</div>
<div class="metric">I told my friend here—my friend also trafficked.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND PEASANT.</div>

<div class="metric">His words are true.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST PEASANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 7em;">Now people throng to sell,</span></div>
<div class="metric">Noisy as seagulls tearing a dead fish.</div>
<div class="metric">There soon will be no man or woman’s soul</div>
<div class="metric">Unbargained for in fivescore baronies.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND PEASANT.</div>

<div class="metric">His words are true.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST PEASANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 5em;">When we had sold we talked,</span></div>
<div class="metric">And having no more comfortable life</div>
<div class="metric">Than this that makes us warm—our souls being bartered</div>
<div class="metric">For all this money—</div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND PEASANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 8em;">And this money here.</span></div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>They bring handfuls of money from their
pockets. <span class="small">CATHLEEN</span> starts up.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST PEASANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>And fearing much to hang for robbery,</div>
<div class="metric">We come to pay you for the sheep and fruit.</div>
<div class="metric">How do you price them?</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 8em;">Gather up your money.</span></div>
<div class="metric">Think you that I would touch the demons’ gold?</div>
<div class="metric">Begone, give twice, thrice, twenty times their money,</div>
<div class="metric">And buy your souls again. I will pay all.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST PEASANT.</div>

<div class="metric">We will not buy our souls again: a soul</div>
<div class="metric">But keeps the flesh out of its merriment.</div>
<div class="metric">We shall be merry and drunk from moon to moon.</div>
<div class="metric">Keep from our way. Let no one stop our way.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>They go.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN [<i>to servant</i>].</div>

<div class="metric">Follow and bring them here again—beseech them.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>The <span class="small">SERVANT</span> goes.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm"><br />[<i>To <span class="small">STEWARD</span>.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric">Steward, you know the secrets of this house.</div>
<div class="metric">How much have I in gold?</div>

<div class="speakerm">STEWARD.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">A hundred thousand.</span></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">How much have I in castles?</div>

<div class="speakerm">STEWARD.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">As much more.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">How much have I in pastures?</div>

<div class="speakerm">STEWARD.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">As much more.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">How much have I in forests?</div>

<div class="speakerm">STEWARD.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">As much more.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">Keeping this house alone, sell all I have;</div>
<div class="metric">Go to some distant country and come again</div>
<div class="metric">With many herds of cows and ships of grain.</div>

<div class="speakerm">STEWARD.</div>

<div class="metric">God’s blessing light upon your ladyship;</div>
<div class="metric">You will have saved the land.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">Make no delay.</span></div>

<div class="right2">[<i>He goes.</i></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p>

<p>[<i>Enter <span class="small">SERVANT</span>.</i>]</p>

<div class="metric">How did you thrive? Say quickly. You are pale.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SERVANT.</div>

<div class="metric">Their eyes burn like the eyes of birds of prey:</div>
<div class="metric">I did not dare go near.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">God pity them!</span></div>
<div class="metric">Bring all the old and ailing to this house,</div>
<div class="metric">For I will have no sorrow of my own</div>
<div class="metric">From this day onward.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>The <span class="small">SERVANT</span> goes out. Some of the musicians
follow him, some linger in the doorway.
The <span class="small">COUNTESS CATHLEEN</span> kneels beside
<span class="small">OONA</span>.</i></div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">Can you tell me, mother,</span></div>
<div class="metric">How I may mend the times, how staunch this wound</div>
<div class="metric">That bleeds in the earth, how overturn the famine,</div>
<div class="metric">How drive these demons to their darkness again?</div>

<div class="speakerm">OONA.</div>

<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>The demons hold our hearts between their hands,</div>
<div class="metric">For the apple is in our blood, and though heart break</div>
<div class="metric">There is no medicine but Michael’s trump.</div>
<div class="metric">Till it has ended parting and old age</div>
<div class="metric">And hail and rain and famine and foolish laughter;</div>
<div class="metric">The dead are happy, the dust is in their ears.</div>
</div>
<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p>




<h2>ACT III.</h2>


<div class="hang1">
<i>Hall of the <span class="small">COUNTESS CATHLEEN</span> as before.
<span class="small">SERVANT</span> enters and goes towards the oratory
door.</i></div>

<div class="metricp">
<div class="speakerm">SERVANT.</div>

<div class="metric">Here is yet another would see your ladyship.</div>

<p>CATHLEEN [<i>within</i>].</p>

<div class="metric">Who calls me?</div>

<div class="speakerm">SERVANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">There is a man would speak with you,</span></div>
<div class="metric">And by his face he has some pressing news,</div>
<div class="metric">Some moving tale.</div>

<p>CATHLEEN [<i>coming to chapel door</i>].</p>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">I cannot rest or pray,</span></div>
<div class="metric">For all day long the messengers run hither</div>
<div class="metric">On one another’s heels, and every message</div>
<div class="metric">More evil than the one that had gone before.</div>
<div class="metric">Who is the messenger?</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">SERVANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">Aleel, the poet.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">There is no hour he is not welcome to me,</div>
<div class="metric">Because I know of nothing but a harp-string</div>
<div class="metric">That can remember happiness.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i><span class="small">SERVANT</span> goes out and <span class="small">ALEEL</span> comes in.</i></div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">And now</span></div>
<div class="metric">I grow forgetful of evil for awhile.</div>

<div class="speakerm">ALEEL.</div>

<div class="metric">I have come to bid you leave this castle, and fly</div>
<div class="metric">Out of these woods.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 7em;">What evil is there here,</span></div>
<div class="metric">That is not everywhere from this to the sea?</div>

<div class="speakerm">ALEEL.</div>

<div class="metric">They who have sent me walk invisible.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">Men say that the wise people of the raths</div>
<div class="metric">Have given you wisdom.</div>

<div class="speakerm">ALEEL.</div>

<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 9em;">I lay in the dusk</span></div>
<div class="metric">Upon the grassy margin of a lake</div>
<div class="metric">Among the hills, where none of mortal creatures</div>
<div class="metric">But the swan comes—my sleep became a fire.</div>
<div class="metric">One walked in the fire with birds about his head.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">Ay, Aengus of the birds.</div>

<div class="speakerm">ALEEL.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">He may be Aengus,</span></div>
<div class="metric">But it may be he bears an angelical name.</div>
<div class="metric">Lady, he bid me call you from these woods;</div>
<div class="metric">He bids you bring Oona, your foster-mother,</div>
<div class="metric">And some few serving-men and live in the hills</div>
<div class="metric">Among the sounds of music and the light</div>
<div class="metric">Of waters till the evil days are gone.</div>

<div class="indent">[<i>He kneels.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric">For here some terrible death is waiting you;</div>
<div class="metric">Some unimaginable evil, some great darkness</div>
<div class="metric">That fable has not dreamt of, nor sun nor moon</div>
<div class="metric">Scattered.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 3em;">And he had birds about his head?</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">ALEEL.</div>

<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>Yes, yes, white birds. He bids you leave this house</div>
<div class="metric">With some old trusty serving-man, who will feed</div>
<div class="metric">All that are starving and shelter all that wander</div>
<div class="metric">While there is food and house-room.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 14em;">He bids me go</span></div>
<div class="metric">Where none of mortal creatures but the swan</div>
<div class="metric">Dabbles, and there you would pluck the harp when the trees</div>
<div class="metric">Had made a heavy shadow about our door,</div>
<div class="metric">And talk among the rustling of the reeds</div>
<div class="metric">When night hunted the foolish sun away,</div>
<div class="metric">With stillness and pale tapers. No—no—no.</div>
<div class="metric">I cannot. Although I weep, I do not weep</div>
<div class="metric">Because that life would be most happy, and here</div>
<div class="metric">I find no way, no end. Nor do I weep</div>
<div class="metric">Because I had longed to look upon your face,</div>
<div class="metric">But that a night of prayer has made me weary.</div>

<div class="speakerm">ALEEL.<br />

[<i>Throwing his arms about her feet.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric">Let Him that made mankind, the angels and devils</div>
<div class="metric">And death and plenty mend what He has made,</div>
<div class="metric">For when we labour in vain and eye still sees</div>
<div class="metric">Heart breaks in vain.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 5em;">How would that quiet end?</span></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">ALEEL.</div>

<div class="metric">How but in healing?</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 8em;">You have seen my tears.</span></div>
<div class="metric">And I can see your hand shake on the floor.</div>

<div class="speakerm">ALEEL [<i>faltering</i>].</div>

<div class="metric">I thought but of healing. He was angelical.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.<br />

[<i>Turning away from him.</i>]</div>

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

<div class="hang2">[<i>She goes to the chapel door; <span class="small">ALEEL</span> holds his
clasped hands towards her for a moment
hesitatingly, and then lets them fall beside
him.</i></div>

<div class="metric">Do not hold out to me beseeching hands.</div>
<div class="metric">This heart shall never waken on earth. I have sworn</div>
<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>By her whose heart the seven sorrows have pierced</div>
<div class="metric">To pray before this altar until my heart</div>
<div class="metric">Has grown to Heaven like a tree, and there</div>
<div class="metric">Rustled its leaves till Heaven has saved my people.</div>

<div class="speakerm">ALEEL [<i>who has risen</i>].</div>

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

<div class="hang2">[<i>He goes towards the door of the hall. The
<span class="small">COUNTESS CATHLEEN</span> takes a few steps towards
him.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 8em;">If the old tales are true,</span></div>
<div class="metric">Queens have wed shepherds and kings beggar-maids;</div>
<div class="metric">God’s procreant waters flowing about your mind</div>
<div class="metric">Have made you more than kings or queens; and not you</div>
<div class="metric">But I am the empty pitcher.</div>

<div class="speakerm">ALEEL.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 13em;">Being silent,</span></div>
<div class="metric">I have said all—farewell, farewell; and yet no,</div>
<div class="metric">Give me your hand to kiss.</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">I kiss your brow,</span></div>
<div class="metric">But will not say farewell. I am often weary,</div>
<div class="metric">And I would hear the harp-string.</div>

<div class="speakerm">ALEEL.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 13em;">I cannot stay,</span></div>
<div class="metric">For I would hide my sorrow among the hills—</div>
<div class="metric">Listen, listen, the hills are calling me.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>They listen for a moment.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">I hear the cry of curlew.</div>

<div class="speakerm">ALEEL.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">Then I will out</span></div>
<div class="metric">Where I can hear wind cry and water cry</div>
<div class="metric">And curlew cry: how does the saying go</div>
<div class="metric">That calls them the three oldest cries in the world?</div>
<div class="metric">Farewell, farewell, I will go wander among them,</div>
<div class="metric">Because there is no comfort under a roof-tree.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>He goes out.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.<br />
[<i>Looking through the door after him.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric">I cannot see him. He has come to the great door.</div>
<div class="metric">I must go pray. Would that my heart and mind</div>
<div class="metric">Were as little shaken as this candle-light.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>She goes into the chapel. The <span class="small">TWO MERCHANTS</span> enter.</i></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">Who was the man that came from the great door</div>
<div class="metric">While we were still in the shadow?</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 14em;">Aleel, her lover.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">It may be that he has turned her thought from us</div>
<div class="metric">And we can gather our merchandise in peace.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">No, no, for she is kneeling.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">Shut the door.</span></div>
<div class="metric">Are all our drudges here?</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.<br />
[<i>Closing the chapel door.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">I bid them follow.</span></div>
<div class="metric">Can you not hear them breathing upon the stairs?</div>
<div class="metric">I have sat this hour under the elder-tree.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">I had bid you rob her treasury, and yet</div>
<div class="metric">I found you sitting drowsed and motionless,</div>
<div class="metric">Your chin bowed to your knees, while on all sides,</div>
<div class="metric">Bat-like from bough and roof and window-ledge,</div>
<div class="metric">Clung evil souls of men, and in the woods,</div>
<div class="metric">Like streaming flames, floated upon the winds</div>
<div class="metric">The elemental creatures.</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 8em;">I have fared ill;</span></div>
<div class="metric">She prayed so hard I could not cross the threshold</div>
<div class="metric">Till this young man had turned her prayer to dreams.</div>
<div class="metric">You have had a man to kill: how have you fared?</div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">I lay in the image of a nine-monthed bonyeen,</div>
<div class="metric">By Tubber-vanach cross-roads: Father John</div>
<div class="metric">Came, sad and moody, murmuring many prayers;</div>
<div class="metric">I seemed as though I came from his own sty;</div>
<div class="metric">He saw the one brown ear; the breviary dropped;</div>
<div class="metric">He ran; I ran, I ran into the quarry;</div>
<div class="metric">He fell a score of yards.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 8em;">Now that he is dead</span></div>
<div class="metric">We shall be too much thronged with souls to-morrow.</div>
<div class="metric">Did his soul escape you?</div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">I thrust it in the bag.</span></div>
<div class="metric">But the hand that blessed the poor and raised the Host</div>
<div class="metric">Tore through the leather with sharp piety.</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">Well, well, to labour—here is the treasury door.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>They go out by the left-hand door, and enter
again in a little while, carrying full bags upon
their shoulders.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">Brave thought, brave thought—a shining thought of mine!</div>
<div class="metric">She now no more may bribe the poor—no more</div>
<div class="metric">Cheat our great master of his merchandise,</div>
<div class="metric">While our heels dangle at the house in the woods,</div>
<div class="metric">And grass grows on the threshold, and snails crawl</div>
<div class="metric">Along the window-pane and the mud floor.</div>
<div class="metric">Brother, where wander all these dwarfish folk,</div>
<div class="metric">Hostile to men, the people of the tides?</div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.</div>
<div class="indent">[<i>Going to the door.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric">They are gone. They have already wandered away,</div>
<div class="metric">Unwilling labourers.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 7em;">I will call them hither.</span></div>

<div class="right2">[<i>He opens the window.</i></div>

<div class="metric">Come hither, hither, hither, water-folk:</div>
<div class="metric">Come, all you elemental populace;</div>
<div class="metric">Leave lonely the long-hoarding surges: leave</div>
<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>The cymbals of the waves to clash alone,</div>
<div class="metric">And, shaking the sea-tangles from your hair,</div>
<div class="metric">Gather about us.      <span style="margin-left: 6em;">[<i>After a pause.</i></span></div>
<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">I can hear a sound</span></div>
<div class="metric">As from waves beating upon distant strands;</div>
<div class="metric">And the sea-creatures, like a surf of light,</div>
<div class="metric">Pour eddying through the pathways of the oaks;</div>
<div class="metric">And as they come, the sentient grass and leaves</div>
<div class="metric">Bow towards them, and the tall, drouth-jaded oaks</div>
<div class="metric">Fondle the murmur of their flying feet.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">The green things love unknotted hearts and minds;</div>
<div class="metric">And neither one with angels or with us,</div>
<div class="metric">Nor risen in arms with evil nor with good,</div>
<div class="metric">In laughter roves the litter of the waves.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>A crowd of faces fill up the darkness outside the
window. A figure separates from the others
and speaks.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">THE SPIRIT.</div>

<div class="metric">We come unwillingly, for she whose gold</div>
<div class="metric">We must now carry to the house in the woods</div>
<div class="metric">Is dear to all our race. On the green plain,</div>
<div class="metric">Beside the sea, a hundred shepherds live</div>
<div class="metric">To mind her sheep; and when the nightfall comes</div>
<div class="metric">They leave a hundred pans of white ewes’ milk</div>
<div class="metric">Outside their doors, to feed us when the dawn</div>
<div class="metric">Has driven us out of Finbar’s ancient house,</div>
<div class="metric">And broken the long dance under the hill.</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.<br />

[<i>Making a sign upon the air.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric">Obey! I make a sign upon your hearts.</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE SPIRIT.</div>

<div class="metric">The sign of evil burns upon our hearts,</div>
<div class="metric">And we obey.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>They crowd through the window, and take out of
the bags a small bag each. They are dressed in
green robes and have ruddy hair. They are a
little less than the size of men and women.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">And now begone—begone!&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; [<i>They go.</i></span></div>
<div class="metric">I bid them go, for, being garrulous</div>
<div class="metric">And flighty creatures, they had soon begun</div>
<div class="metric">To deafen us with their sea-gossip. Now</div>
<div class="metric">We must go bring more money. Brother, brother,</div>
<div class="metric">I long to see my master’s face again,</div>
<div class="metric">For I turn homesick.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 8em;">I too tire of toil.</span></div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>They go out, and return as before, with their
bags full.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="indent">[<i>Pointing to the oratory.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric">How may we gain this woman for our lord?</div>
<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>This pearl, this turquoise fastened in his crown</div>
<div class="metric">Would make it shine like His we dare not name.</div>
<div class="metric">Now that the winds are heavy with our kind,</div>
<div class="metric">Might we not kill her, and bear off her spirit</div>
<div class="metric">Before the mob of angels were astir?</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>A diadem and a heap of jewels fall from the bag.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">Who tore the bag?</div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">The finger of Priest John</span></div>
<div class="metric">When he fled through the leather. I had thought</div>
<div class="metric">Because his was an old and little spirit</div>
<div class="metric">The tear would hardly matter.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">This comes, brother,</span></div>
<div class="metric">Of stealing souls that are not rightly ours.</div>
<div class="metric">If we would win this turquoise for our lord,</div>
<div class="metric">It must go dropping down of its freewill.</div>
<div class="metric">She will have heard the noise. She will stifle us</div>
<div class="metric">With holy names.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>He goes to the oratory door and opens it a little,
and then closes it.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 7em;">No, she has fallen asleep.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">The noise wakened the household. While you spoke</div>
<div class="metric">I heard chairs moved, and heard folk’s shuffling feet.</div>
<div class="metric">And now they are coming hither.</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">A VOICE [<i>within</i>].</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 14em;">It was here.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">ANOTHER VOICE.</div>

<div class="metric">No, further away.</div>

<div class="speakerm">ANOTHER VOICE.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">It was in the western tower.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">ANOTHER VOICE.</div>

<div class="metric">Come quickly; we will search the western tower.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">We still have time—they search the distant rooms.</div>
<div class="metric">Call hither the fading and the unfading fires.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.</div>

<p>[<i>Going to the window.</i>]</p>

<div class="metric">There are none here. They tired and strayed from hence—</div>
<div class="metric">Unwilling labourers.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 7em;">I will draw them in.</span></div>

<div class="right2">[<i>He cries through the window.</i></div>

<div class="metric">Come hither, you lost souls of men, who died</div>
<div class="metric">In drunken sleep, and by each other’s hands</div>
<div class="metric">When they had bartered you—come hither all</div>
<div class="metric">Who mourn among the scenery of your sins,</div>
<div class="metric">Turning to animal and reptile forms,</div>
<div class="metric">The visages of passions; hither, hither—</div>
<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>Leave marshes and the reed-encumbered pools,</div>
<div class="metric">You shapeless fires, that were the souls of men,</div>
<div class="metric">And are a fading wretchedness.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">They come not.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.<br />
[<i>Making a sign upon the air.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric">Come hither, hither, hither.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">I can hear</span></div>
<div class="metric">A crying as of storm-distempered reeds.</div>
<div class="metric">The fading and the unfading fires rise up</div>
<div class="metric">Like steam out of the earth; the grass and leaves</div>
<div class="metric">Shiver and shrink away and sway about,</div>
<div class="metric">Blown by unnatural gusts of ice-cold air.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">They are one with all the beings of decay,</div>
<div class="metric">Ill longings, madness, lightning, famine, drouth.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>The whole stage is gradually filled with vague
forms, some animal shapes, some human, some
mere lights.</i></div>

<div class="metric">Come you—and you—and you, and lift these bags.</div>

<div class="speakerm">A SPIRIT.</div>

<div class="metric">We are too violent; mere shapes of storm.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">Come you—and you—and you, and lift these bags.</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">A SPIRIT.</div>

<div class="metric">We are too feeble, fading out of life.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">Come you, and you, who are the latest dead,</div>
<div class="metric">And still wear human shape: the shape of power.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>The two robbing peasants of the last scene come
forward. Their faces have withered from
much pain.</i></div>

<div class="metric">Now, brawlers, lift the bags of gold.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST PEASANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 16em;">Yes, yes!</span></div>
<div class="metric">Unwillingly, unwillingly; for she,</div>
<div class="metric">Whose gold we bear upon our shoulders thus,</div>
<div class="metric">Has endless pity even for lost souls</div>
<div class="metric">In her good heart. At moments, now and then,</div>
<div class="metric">When plunged in horror, brooding each alone,</div>
<div class="metric">A memory of her face floats in on us.</div>
<div class="metric">It brings a crowned misery, half repose,</div>
<div class="metric">And we wail one to other; we obey,</div>
<div class="metric">For heaven’s many-angled star reversed,</div>
<div class="metric">Now sign of evil, burns into our hearts.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">When these pale sapphires and these diadems</div>
<div class="metric">And these small bags of money are in our house,</div>
<div class="metric">The burning shall give over—now begone.</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.<br />
[<i>Lifting the diadem to put it upon his head.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric">No—no—no. I will carry the diadem.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">No, brother, not yet.</div>
<div class="metric">For none can carry her treasures wholly away</div>
<div class="metric">But spirits that are too light for good and evil,</div>
<div class="metric">Or, being evil, can remember good.</div>
<div class="metric">Begone! [<i>The spirits vanish.</i>] I bade them go, for they are lonely,</div>
<div class="metric">And when they see aught living love to sigh.</div>
<div class="metric">[<i>Pointing to the oratory.</i>] Brother, I heard a sound in there—a sound</div>
<div class="metric">That troubles me.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.<br />

[<i>Going to the door of the oratory and peering through it.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">Upon the altar steps</span></div>
<div class="metric">The Countess tosses, murmuring in her sleep</div>
<div class="metric">A broken <i>Paternoster</i>.</div>

<p>[<i>The <span class="small">FIRST MERCHANT</span> goes to the door and stands
beside him.</i>]</p>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">She is grown still.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">A great plan floats into my mind—no wonder,</div>
<div class="metric">For I come from the ninth and mightiest Hell,</div>
<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>Where all are kings. I will wake her from her sleep,</div>
<div class="metric">And mix with all her thoughts a thought to serve.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>He calls through the door.</i></div>

<div class="metric">May we be well remembered in your prayers!</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>The <span class="small">COUNTESS CATHLEEN</span> wakes, and comes to
the door of the oratory. The <span class="small">MERCHANTS</span> descend
into the room again. She stands at the
top of the stone steps.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">What would you, sirs?</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">We are two merchant men,</span></div>
<div class="metric">New come from foreign lands. We bring you news.</div>
<div class="metric">Forgive our sudden entry: the great door</div>
<div class="metric">Was open, we came in to seek a face.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">The door stands always open to receive,</div>
<div class="metric">With kindly welcome, starved and sickly folk,</div>
<div class="metric">Or any who would fly the woful times.</div>
<div class="metric">Merchants, you bring me news?</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 13em;">We saw a man</span></div>
<div class="metric">Heavy with sickness in the Bog of Allan,</div>
<div class="metric">Whom you had bid buy cattle. Near Fair Head</div>
<div class="metric">We saw your grain ships lying all becalmed</div>
<div class="metric">In the dark night, and not less still than they</div>
<div class="metric">Burned all their mirrored lanthorns in the sea.</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">My thanks to God, to Mary, and the angels,</div>
<div class="metric">I still have bags of money, and can buy</div>
<div class="metric">Meal from the merchants who have stored it up,</div>
<div class="metric">To prosper on the hunger of the poor.</div>
<div class="metric">You have been far, and know the signs of things:</div>
<div class="metric">When will this yellow vapour no more hang</div>
<div class="metric">And creep about the fields, and this great heat</div>
<div class="metric">Vanish away—and grass show its green shoots?</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">There is no sign of change—day copies day,</div>
<div class="metric">Green things are dead—the cattle too are dead,</div>
<div class="metric">Or dying—and on all the vapour hangs</div>
<div class="metric">And fattens with disease and glows with heat.</div>
<div class="metric">In you is all the hope of all the land.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

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

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">There are some men who hold they have wolves’ heads,</div>
<div class="metric">And say their limbs, dried by the infinite flame,</div>
<div class="metric">Have all the speed of storms; others again</div>
<div class="metric">Say they are gross and little; while a few</div>
<div class="metric">Will have it they seem much as mortals are,</div>
<div class="metric">But tall and brown and travelled, like us, lady.</div>
<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>Yet all agree a power is in their looks</div>
<div class="metric">That makes men bow, and flings a casting-net</div>
<div class="metric">About their souls, and that all men would go</div>
<div class="metric">And barter those poor flames—their spirits—only</div>
<div class="metric">You bribe them with the safety of your gold.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">Praise be to God, to Mary, and the angels,</div>
<div class="metric">That I am wealthy. Wherefore do they sell?</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">The demons give a hundred crowns and more</div>
<div class="metric">For a poor soul like his who lies asleep</div>
<div class="metric">By your great door under the porter’s niche;</div>
<div class="metric">A little soul not worth a hundred pence.</div>
<div class="metric">But, for a soul like yours, I heard them say,</div>
<div class="metric">They would give five hundred thousand crowns and more.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

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

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">Some sell because the money gleams, and some</div>
<div class="metric">Because they are in terror of the grave,</div>
<div class="metric">And some because their neighbours sold before,</div>
<div class="metric">And some because there is a kind of joy</div>
<div class="metric">In casting hope away, in losing joy,</div>
<div class="metric">In ceasing all resistance, in at last</div>
<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>Opening one’s arms to the eternal flames,</div>
<div class="metric">In casting all sails out upon the wind:</div>
<div class="metric">To this—full of the gaiety of the lost—</div>
<div class="metric">Would all folk hurry if your gold were gone.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">There is a something, merchant, in your voice</div>
<div class="metric">That makes me fear. When you were telling how</div>
<div class="metric">A man may lose his soul and lose his God,</div>
<div class="metric">Your eyes lighted, and the strange weariness</div>
<div class="metric">That hangs about you vanished. When you told</div>
<div class="metric">How my poor money serves the people—both—</div>
<div class="metric">Merchants, forgive me—seemed to smile.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 15em;">Man’s sins</span></div>
<div class="metric">Move us to laughter only, we have seen</div>
<div class="metric">So many lands and seen so many men.</div>
<div class="metric">How strange that all these people should be swung</div>
<div class="metric">As on a lady’s shoe-string—under them</div>
<div class="metric">The glowing leagues of never-ending flame!</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">There is a something in you that I fear:</div>
<div class="metric">A something not of us. Were you not born</div>
<div class="metric">In some most distant corner of the world?</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>The <span class="small">SECOND MERCHANT</span>, who has been listening
at the door to the right, comes forward, and
as he comes a sound of voices and feet is heard
through the door to his left.</i></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT [<i>aside to <span class="small">FIRST MERCHANT</span></i>].</div>

<div class="metric">Away now—they are in the passage—hurry,</div>
<div class="metric">For they will know us, and freeze up our hearts</div>
<div class="metric">With Ave Marys, and burn all our skin</div>
<div class="metric">With holy water.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">Farewell: we must ride</span></div>
<div class="metric">Many a mile before the morning come;</div>
<div class="metric">Our horses beat the ground impatiently.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>They go out to <span class="small">R.</span> A number of peasants enter
at the same moment by the opposite door.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">What would you?</div>

<div class="speakerm">A PEASANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 7em;">As we nodded by the fire,</span></div>
<div class="metric">Telling old histories, we heard a noise</div>
<div class="metric">Of falling money. We have searched in vain.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">You are too timid. I heard naught at all.</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE OLD PEASANT.</div>

<div class="metric">Ay, we are timid, for a rich man’s word</div>
<div class="metric">Can shake our houses, and a moon of drouth</div>
<div class="metric">Shrivel our seedlings in the barren earth;</div>
<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>We are the slaves of wind, and hail, and flood;</div>
<div class="metric">Fear jogs our elbow in the market-place,</div>
<div class="metric">And nods beside us on the chimney-seat.</div>
<div class="metric">Ill-bodings are as native unto our hearts</div>
<div class="metric">As are their spots unto the woodpeckers.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">You need not shake with bodings in this house.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i><span class="smcap">Oona</span> enters from the door to <span class="small">L.</span></i></div>

<div class="speakerm">OONA.</div>

<div class="metric">The treasure-room is broken in—mavrone—mavrone;</div>
<div class="metric">The door stands open and the gold is gone.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>The peasants raise a lamenting cry.</i></div>

<div class="metric">CATHLEEN.</div>
<div class="metric">Be silent.      <span style="margin-left: 6em;">[<i>The cry ceases.</i></span></div>
<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 3em;">Saw you any one?</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">OONA.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">Mavrone,</span></div>
<div class="metric">That my good mistress should lose all this money.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">You three upon my right hand, ride and ride;</div>
<div class="metric">I will give a farm to him who finds the thieves.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>A man with keys at his girdle has entered
while she was speaking.</i></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">A PEASANT.</div>

<div class="metric">The porter trembles.</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE PORTER.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 7em;">It is all no use;</span></div>
<div class="metric">Demons were here. I sat beside the door</div>
<div class="metric">In my stone niche, and two owls passed me by,</div>
<div class="metric">Whispering with human voices.</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE OLD PEASANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">God forsakes us.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">Old man, old man, He never closed a door</div>
<div class="metric">Unless one opened. I am desolate,</div>
<div class="metric">For a most sad resolve wakes in my heart:</div>
<div class="metric">But always I have faith. Old men and women,</div>
<div class="metric">Be silent; He does not forsake the world,</div>
<div class="metric">But stands before it modelling in the clay</div>
<div class="metric">And moulding there His image. Age by age</div>
<div class="metric">The clay wars with His fingers and pleads hard</div>
<div class="metric">For its old, heavy, dull, and shapeless ease;</div>
<div class="metric">At times it crumbles and a nation falls,</div>
<div class="metric">Now moves awry and demon hordes are born.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>The peasants cross themselves.</i></div>

<div class="metric">But leave me now, for I am desolate,</div>
<div class="metric">I hear a whisper from beyond the thunder.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>She steps down from the oratory door.</i></div>

<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>Yet stay an instant. When we meet again</div>
<div class="metric">I may have grown forgetful. Oona, take</div>
<div class="metric">These two—the larder and the dairy keys.</div>
<div class="metric">[<i>To <span class="small">THE OLD PEASANT</span>.</i>] But take you this. It opens the small room</div>
<div class="metric">Of herbs for medicine, of hellebore,</div>
<div class="metric">Of vervain, monkshood, plantain, and self-heal</div>
<div class="metric">And all the others; and the book of cures</div>
<div class="metric">Is on the upper shelf. You understand,</div>
<div class="metric">Because you doctored goats and cattle once.</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE OLD PEASANT.</div>

<div class="metric">Why do you do this, lady—did you see</div>
<div class="metric">Your coffin in a dream?</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">Ah, no, not that,</span></div>
<div class="metric">A sad resolve wakes in me. I have heard</div>
<div class="metric">A sound of wailing in unnumbered hovels,</div>
<div class="metric">And I must go down, down, I know not where.</div>
<div class="metric">Pray for the poor folk who are crazed with famine;</div>
<div class="metric">Pray, you good neighbours.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>The peasants all kneel. The <span class="small">COUNTESS CATHLEEN</span>
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>]</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">Mary, queen of angels,</span></div>
<div class="metric">And all you clouds on clouds of saints, farewell!</div>
</div>
<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p>




<h3>ACT IV.</h3>


<div class="hang1">

<i>The cabin of <span class="small">SHEMUS RUA</span>. The <span class="small">TWO MERCHANTS</span>
are sitting one at each end of the table, with
rolls of parchment and many little heaps of
gold before them. Through an open door, at
the back, one sees into an inner room, in which
there is a bed. On the bed is the body of
<span class="small">MAIRE</span> with candles about it.</i></div>

<div class="metricp">
<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">The woman may keep robbing us no more,</div>
<div class="metric">For there are only mice now in her coffers.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">Last night, closed in the image of an owl,</div>
<div class="metric">I hurried to the cliffs of Donegal,</div>
<div class="metric">And saw, creeping on the uneasy surge,</div>
<div class="metric">Those ships that bring the woman grain and meal;</div>
<div class="metric">They are five days from us.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 13em;">I hurried East,</span></div>
<div class="metric">A gray owl flitting, flitting in the dew,</div>
<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>And saw nine hundred oxen toil through Meath</div>
<div class="metric">Driven on by goads of iron; they, too, brother,</div>
<div class="metric">Are full five days from us.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">Five days for traffic.</span></div>

<div class="hang2">

[<i>While they have been speaking the peasants have
come in, led by <span class="small">TEIG</span> and <span class="small">SHEMUS</span>, who take
their stations, one on each side of the door, and
keep them marshalled into rude order and encourage
them from time to time with gestures
and whispered words.</i></div>

<div class="metric">Here throng they; since the drouth they go in throngs,</div>
<div class="metric">Like autumn leaves blown by the dreary winds.</div>
<div class="metric">Come, deal—come, deal.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Who will come deal with us?</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">SHEMUS.</div>

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

<div class="speakerm">A MIDDLE-AGED MAN.</div>

<div class="metric">I come to deal if you give honest price.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="indent">[<i>Reading in a parchment.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>John Maher, a man of substance, with dull mind,</div>
<div class="metric">And quiet senses and unventurous heart.</div>
<div class="metric">The angels think him safe. Two hundred crowns,</div>
<div class="metric">All for a soul, a little breath of wind.</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE MAN.</div>

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

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">There is something more writ here—often at night</div>
<div class="metric">He is wakeful from a dread of growing poor.</div>
<div class="metric">There is this crack in you—two hundred crowns.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i><span class="small">THE MAN</span> takes them and goes.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">Come, deal—one would half think you had no souls.</div>
<div class="metric">If only for the credit of your parishes,</div>
<div class="metric">Come, deal, deal, deal, or will you always starve?</div>
<div class="metric">Maire, the wife of Shemus, would not deal,</div>
<div class="metric">She starved—she lies in there with red wallflowers,</div>
<div class="metric">And candles stuck in bottles round her bed.</div>

<div class="speakerm">A WOMAN.</div>

<div class="metric">What price, now, will you give for mine?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span></div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 15em;">Ay, ay,</span></div>
<div class="metric">Soft, handsome, and still young—not much, I think.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>Reading in the parchment.</i></div>

<div class="metric">She has love letters in a little jar</div>
<div class="metric">On the high shelf between the pepper-pot</div>
<div class="metric">And wood-cased hour-glass.</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE WOMAN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 5em;">O, the scandalous parchment!</span></div>

<p>FIRST MERCHANT [<i>reading</i>].</p>

<div class="metric">She hides them from her husband, who buys horses,</div>
<div class="metric">And is not much at home. You are almost safe.</div>
<div class="metric">I give you fifty crowns.<span style="margin-left: 6em;">[<i>She turns to go.</i></span></div>
<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">A hundred, then.</span></div>

<div class="right2">[<i>She takes them, and goes into the crowd.</i></div>

<div class="metric">Come—deal, deal, deal; it is for charity</div>
<div class="metric">We buy such souls at all; a thousand sins</div>
<div class="metric">Made them our master’s long before we came.</div>
<div class="metric">Come, deal—come, deal. You seem resolved to starve</div>
<div class="metric">Until your bones show through your skin. Come, deal,</div>
<div class="metric">Or live on nettles, grass, and dandelion.</div>
<div class="metric">Or do you dream the famine will go by?</div>
<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>The famine is hale and hearty; it is mine</div>
<div class="metric">And my great master’s; it shall no wise cease</div>
<div class="metric">Until our purpose end: the yellow vapour</div>
<div class="metric">That brought it bears it over your dried fields</div>
<div class="metric">And fills with violent phantoms of the lost,</div>
<div class="metric">And grows more deadly as day copies day.</div>
<div class="metric">See how it dims the daylight. Is that peace</div>
<div class="metric">Known to the birds of prey so dread a thing?</div>
<div class="metric">They, and the souls obedient to our master,</div>
<div class="metric">And those who live with that great other spirit</div>
<div class="metric">Have gained an end, a peace, while you but toss</div>
<div class="metric">And swing upon a moving balance beam.</div>

<div class="right2">
[<i><span class="small">ALEEL</span> enters; the wires of his harp are broken.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">ALEEL.</div>

<div class="metric">Here, take my soul, for I am tired of it;</div>
<div class="metric">I do not ask a price.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT [<i>reading</i>].</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 8em;">A man of songs:</span></div>
<div class="metric">Alone in the hushed passion of romance,</div>
<div class="metric">His mind ran all on sidheoges and on tales</div>
<div class="metric">Of Fenian labours and the Red Branch kings,</div>
<div class="metric">And he cared nothing for the life of man:</div>
<div class="metric">But now all changes.</div>

<div class="speakerm">ALEEL.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 8em;">Ay, because her face,</span></div>
<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>The face of Countess Cathleen, dwells with me:</div>
<div class="metric">The sadness of the world upon her brow:</div>
<div class="metric">The crying of these strings grew burdensome,</div>
<div class="metric">Therefore I tore them; see; now take my soul.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

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

<div class="speakerm">ALEEL.</div>

<div class="metric">Ah, take it; take it. It nowise can help her,</div>
<div class="metric">And, therefore, do I tire of it.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 13em;">No; no.</span></div>
<div class="metric">We may not touch it.</div>

<div class="speakerm">ALEEL.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">Is your power so small,</span></div>
<div class="metric">Must I then bear it with me all my days?</div>
<div class="metric">May scorn close deep about you!</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">Lead him hence;</span></div>
<div class="metric">He troubles me.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i><span class="small">TEIG</span> and <span class="small">SHEMUS</span> lead <span class="small">ALEEL</span> into the crowd.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">His gaze has filled me, brother,</span></div>
<div class="metric">With shaking and a dreadful fear.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 13em;">Lean forward</span></div>
<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>And kiss the circlet where my master’s lips</div>
<div class="metric">Were pressed upon it when he sent us hither:</div>
<div class="metric">You will have peace once more.</div>

<div class="hang2">
[<i>The <span class="small">SECOND MERCHANT</span> kisses the gold circlet
that is about the head of the <span class="small">FIRST MERCHANT</span>.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">SHEMUS.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">He is called Aleel,</span></div>
<div class="metric">And has been crazy now these many days;</div>
<div class="metric">But has no harm in him: his fits soon pass,</div>
<div class="metric">And one can go and lead him like a child.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">Come, deal, deal, deal, deal, deal; you are all dumb?</div>

<div class="speakerm">SHEMUS.</div>

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

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

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

<div class="hang2">[<i>An old peasant woman comes forward, and he
takes up a parchment and reads.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric">There is but little set down here against her;</div>
<div class="metric">She stole fowl sometimes when the harvest failed,</div>
<div class="metric">But always went to chapel twice a week,</div>
<div class="metric">And paid her dues when prosperous. Take your money.</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE OLD PEASANT WOMAN [<i>curtseying</i>].</div>

<div class="metric">God bless you, sir.      <span style="margin-left: 6em;">[<i>She screams.</i></span></div>
<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 5em;">O, sir, a pain went through me.</span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span></div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">That name is like a fire to all damned souls.</div>
<div class="metric">Begone. [<i>She goes.</i>] See how the red gold pieces glitter.</div>
<div class="metric">Deal: do you fear because an old hag screamed?</div>
<div class="metric">Are you all cowards?</div>

<div class="speakerm">A PEASANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">Nay, I am no coward.</span></div>
<div class="metric">I will sell half my soul.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">How half your soul?</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">THE PEASANT.</div>

<div class="metric">Half my chance of heaven.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">It is writ here</span></div>
<div class="metric">This man in all things takes the moderate course,</div>
<div class="metric">He sits on midmost of the balance beam,</div>
<div class="metric">And no man has had good of him or evil.</div>
<div class="metric">Begone, we will not buy you.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">Deal, come, deal.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">What, will you keep us from our ancient home,</div>
<div class="metric">And from the eternal revelry? Come, deal,</div>
<div class="metric">And we will hence to our great master again.</div>
<div class="metric">Come, deal, deal, deal.</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">THE PEASANTS SHOUT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 5em;">The Countess Cathleen comes!</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN [<i>entering</i>].</div>

<div class="metric">And so you trade once more?</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">In spite of you.</span></div>
<div class="metric">What brings you here, saint with the sapphire eyes?</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

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

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">What matter if the soul be worth the price?</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">The people starve, therefore the people go</div>
<div class="metric">Thronging to you. I hear a cry come from them,</div>
<div class="metric">And it is in my ears by night and day;</div>
<div class="metric">And I would have five hundred thousand crowns,</div>
<div class="metric">That I may feed them till the dearth go by;</div>
<div class="metric">And have the wretched spirits you have bought</div>
<div class="metric">For your gold crowns released and sent to God.</div>
<div class="metric">The soul that I would barter is my soul.</div>

<div class="speakerm">A PEASANT.</div>

<div class="metric">Do not, do not; the souls of us poor folk</div>
<div class="metric">Are not precious to God as your soul is.</div>
<div class="metric">O! what would heaven do without you, lady?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></div>

<div class="speakerm">ANOTHER PEASANT.</div>

<div class="metric">Look how their claws clutch in their leathern gloves.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">Five hundred thousand crowns; we give the price,</div>
<div class="metric">The gold is here; the spirits, while you speak,</div>
<div class="metric">Begin to labour upward, for your face</div>
<div class="metric">Sheds a great light on them and fills their hearts</div>
<div class="metric">With those unveilings of the fickle light,</div>
<div class="metric">Whereby our heavy labours have been marred</div>
<div class="metric">Since first His spirit moved upon the deeps</div>
<div class="metric">And stole them from us; even before this day</div>
<div class="metric">The souls were but half ours, for your bright eyes</div>
<div class="metric">Had pierced them through and robbed them of content.</div>
<div class="metric">But you must sign, for we omit no form</div>
<div class="metric">In buying a soul like yours; sign with this quill;</div>
<div class="metric">It was a feather growing on the cock</div>
<div class="metric">That crowed when Peter dared deny his Master,</div>
<div class="metric">And all who use it have great honour in Hell.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i><span class="small">CATHLEEN</span> leans forward to sign.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">ALEEL.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>Rushing forward and snatching the parchment
from her.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric">Leave all things to the builder of the heavens.</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">I have no thoughts: I hear a cry—a cry.</div>

<div class="speakerm">ALEEL.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>Casting the parchment on the ground.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric">I had a vision under a green hedge,</div>
<div class="metric">A hedge of hips and haws—men yet shall hear</div>
<div class="metric">The archangels rolling Satan’s empty skull</div>
<div class="metric">Over the mountain-tops.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">Take him away.</span></div>

<div class="hang2">

[<i><span class="small">TEIG</span> and <span class="small">SHEMUS</span> drag him roughly away so
that he falls upon the floor among the peasants.
<span class="small">CATHLEEN</span> picks up the parchment and signs,
and then turns towards the peasants.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">Take up the money; and now come with me.</div>
<div class="metric">When we are far from this polluted place</div>
<div class="metric">I will give everybody money enough.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>She goes out, the peasants crowding round her
and kissing her dress. <span class="small">ALEEL</span> and the <span class="small">TWO
MERCHANTS</span> are left alone.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">Now are our days of heavy labour done.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">We have a precious jewel for Satan’s crown.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">We must away, and wait until she dies,</div>
<div class="metric">Sitting above her tower as two gray owls,</div>
<div class="metric">Watching as many years as may be, guarding</div>
<div class="metric">Our precious jewel; waiting to seize her soul.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FIRST MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric">We need but hover over her head in the air,</div>
<div class="metric">For she has only minutes: when she came</div>
<div class="metric">I saw the dimness of the tomb in her,</div>
<div class="metric">And marked her walking as with leaden shoes</div>
<div class="metric">And looking on the ground as though the worms</div>
<div class="metric">Were calling her, and when she wrote her name</div>
<div class="metric">Her heart began to break. Hush! hush! I hear</div>
<div class="metric">The brazen door of Hell move on its hinges,</div>
<div class="metric">And the eternal revelry float hither</div>
<div class="metric">To hearten us.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SECOND MERCHANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Leap, feathered, on the air</span></div>
<div class="metric">And meet them with her soul caught in your claws.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>They rush out. <span class="small">ALEEL</span> crawls into the middle of
the room. 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><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></div>

<div class="speakerm">ALEEL.</div>

<div class="metric">The brazen door stands wide, and Balor comes</div>
<div class="metric">Borne in his heavy car, and demons have lifted</div>
<div class="metric">The age-weary eyelids from the eyes that of old</div>
<div class="metric">Turned gods to stone; Barach the traitor comes;</div>
<div class="metric">And the lascivious race, Cailitin,</div>
<div class="metric">That cast a druid weakness and decay</div>
<div class="metric">Over Sualtam’s and old Dectora’s child;</div>
<div class="metric">And that great king Hell first took hold upon</div>
<div class="metric">When he killed Naisi and broke Deirdre’s heart;</div>
<div class="metric">And all their heads are twisted to one side,</div>
<div class="metric">For when they lived they warred on beauty and peace</div>
<div class="metric">With obstinate, crafty, sidelong bitterness.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i><span class="small">OONA</span> enters, but remains standing by the door.
<span class="small">ALEEL</span> half rises, leaning upon one arm and
one knee.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric">Crouch down, old heron, out of the blind storm.</div>

<div class="speakerm">OONA.</div>

<div class="metric">Where is the Countess Cathleen? All this day</div>
<div class="metric">She has been pale and weakly: when her hand</div>
<div class="metric">Touched mine over the spindle her hand trembled,</div>
<div class="metric">And now I do not know where she has gone.</div>

<div class="speakerm">ALEEL.</div>

<div class="metric">Cathleen has chosen other friends than us,</div>
<div class="metric">And they are rising through the hollow world.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>He points downwards.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></div>

<div class="metric">First, Orchil, her pale beautiful head alive,</div>
<div class="metric">Her body shadowy as vapour drifting</div>
<div class="metric">Under the dawn, for she who awoke desire</div>
<div class="metric">Has but a heart of blood when others die;</div>
<div class="metric">About her is a vapoury multitude</div>
<div class="metric">Of women, alluring devils with soft laughter;</div>
<div class="metric">Behind her a host heat of the blood made sin,</div>
<div class="metric">But all the little pink-white nails have grown</div>
<div class="metric">To be great talons.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>He seizes <span class="small">OONA</span> and drags her into the middle
of the room and points downwards with vehement
gestures. The wind roars.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">They begin a song</span></div>
<div class="metric">And there is still some music on their tongues.</div>

<div class="speakerm">OONA.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>Casting herself face downwards on the floor.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric">O maker of all, protect her from the demons,</div>
<div class="metric">And if a soul must needs be lost, take mine.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i><span class="small">ALEEL</span> kneels beside her, but does not seem to hear
her words; he is gazing down as if through
the earth. The peasants return. They carry
the <span class="small">COUNTESS CATHLEEN</span> and lay her upon the
ground before <span class="small">OONA</span> and <span class="small">ALEEL</span>. She lies there
as if dead.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric">O that so many pitchers of rough clay</div>
<div class="metric">Should prosper and the porcelain break in two!</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>She kisses the hands of the <span class="small">COUNTESS CATHLEEN</span>.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></div>

<div class="speakerm">A PEASANT.</div>

<div class="metric">We were under the tree where the path turns</div>
<div class="metric">When she grew pale as death and fainted away,</div>
<div class="metric">And while we bore her hither, cloudy gusts</div>
<div class="metric">Blackened the world and shook us on our feet:</div>
<div class="metric">Draw the great bolt, for no man has beheld</div>
<div class="metric">So black, bitter, blinding, and sudden a storm.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>One who is near the door draws the bolt.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">OONA.</div>

<div class="metric">Hush, hush, she has awakened from her swoon.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">O hold me, and hold me tightly, for the storm</div>
<div class="metric">Is dragging me away!</div>

<div class="hang2">

[<i><span class="small">OONA</span> takes her in her arms. A woman begins to wail.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">A PEASANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 8em;">Hush.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">ANOTHER PEASANT.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">Hush.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">A PEASANT WOMAN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 12em;">Hush.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">ANOTHER PEASANT WOMAN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 14em;">Hush.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN [<i>half rising</i>].</div>

<div class="metric">Lay all the bags of money at my feet.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>They lay the bags at her feet.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span></div>

<div class="metric">And send and bring old Neal when I am dead,</div>
<div class="metric">And bid him hear each man and judge and give:</div>
<div class="metric">He doctors you with herbs, and can best say</div>
<div class="metric">Who has the less and who the greater need.</div>

<div class="speakerm">A PEASANT WOMAN.</div>
<div class="indent">[<i>At the back of the crowd.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric">And will he give enough out of the bags</div>
<div class="metric">To keep my children till the dearth go by?</div>

<div class="speakerm">ANOTHER PEASANT WOMAN.</div>

<div class="metric">O Queen of Heaven and all you blessed Saints,</div>
<div class="metric">Let us and ours be lost, so she be shriven.</div>

<div class="speakerm">CATHLEEN.</div>

<div class="metric">Bend down your faces, Oona and Aleel:</div>
<div class="metric">I gaze upon them as the swallow gazes</div>
<div class="metric">Upon the nest under the eave, before</div>
<div class="metric">He wander the loud waters: do not weep</div>
<div class="metric">Too great a while, for there is many a candle</div>
<div class="metric">On the high altar though one fall. Aleel,</div>
<div class="metric">Who sang about the people of the raths,</div>
<div class="metric">That know not the hard burden of the world,</div>
<div class="metric">Having but breath in their kind bodies, farewell!</div>
<div class="metric">And farewell, Oona, who spun flax with me</div>
<div class="metric">Soft as their sleep when every dance is done:</div>
<div class="metric">The storm is in my hair and I must go.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>She dies.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span></div>

<div class="speakerm">OONA.</div>

<div class="metric">Bring me the looking-glass.</div>
<div class="hang2">[<i>A woman brings it to her out of the inner room.
<span class="small">OONA</span> holds the glass over the lips of the
<span class="small">COUNTESS CATHLEEN</span>. All is silent for a
moment; and then she speaks in a half scream.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">O, she is dead!</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">A PEASANT WOMAN.</div>

<div class="metric">She was the great white lily of the world.</div>

<div class="speakerm">ANOTHER PEASANT WOMAN.</div>

<div class="metric">She was more beautiful than the pale stars.</div>

<div class="speakerm">AN OLD PEASANT WOMAN.</div>

<div class="metric">The little plant I loved is broken in two.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i><span class="small">ALEEL</span> takes the looking-glass from <span class="small">OONA</span> and
flings it upon the floor so that it is broken in
many pieces.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">ALEEL.</div>

<div class="metric">I shatter you in fragments, for the face</div>
<div class="metric">That brimmed you up with beauty is no more:</div>
<div class="metric">And die, dull heart, for she whose mournful words</div>
<div class="metric">Made you a living spirit has passed away</div>
<div class="metric">And left you but a ball of passionate dust;</div>
<div class="metric">And you, proud earth and plumy sea, fade out,</div>
<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>For you may hear no more her faltering feet,</div>
<div class="metric">But are left lonely amid the clamorous war</div>
<div class="metric">Of angels upon devils.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>He stands up; almost everyone is kneeling, but it has
grown so dark that only confused forms can be seen.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">And I who weep</span></div>
<div class="metric">Call curses on you, Time and Fate and Change,</div>
<div class="metric">And have no excellent hope but the great hour</div>
<div class="metric">When you shall plunge headlong through bottomless space.</div>

<div class="right">[<i>A flash of lightning followed immediately by thunder.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">A PEASANT WOMAN.</div>

<div class="metric">Pull him upon his knees before his curses</div>
<div class="metric">Have plucked thunder and lightning on our heads.</div>

<div class="speakerm">ALEEL.</div>

<div class="metric">Angels and devils clash in the middle air,</div>
<div class="metric">And brazen swords clang upon brazen helms:</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>A flash of lightning followed immediately by thunder.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric">Yonder a bright spear, cast out of a sling,</div>
<div class="metric">Has torn through Balor’s eye, and the dark clans</div>
<div class="metric">Fly screaming as they fled Moytura of old.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>Everything is lost in darkness.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">AN OLD MAN.</div>

<div class="metric">The Almighty, wrath at our great weakness and sin,</div>
<div class="metric">Has blotted out the world and we must die.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span></div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>The darkness is broken by a visionary light. The
peasants seem to be kneeling upon the 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 peasants
cast themselves on the ground.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">ALEEL.</div>

<div class="metric">Look no more on the half-closed gates of Hell,</div>
<div class="metric">But speak to me, whose mind is smitten of God,</div>
<div class="metric">That it may be no more with mortal things;</div>
<div class="metric">And tell of her who lies here.</div>
<div class="metric">[<i>He seizes one of the Angels.</i>] Till you speak</div>
<div class="metric">You shall not drift into eternity.</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE ANGEL.</div>

<div class="metric">The light beats down: the gates of pearl are wide,</div>
<div class="metric">And she is passing to the floor of peace,</div>
<div class="metric">And Mary of the seven times wounded heart</div>
<div class="metric">Has kissed her lips, and the long blessed hair</div>
<div class="metric">Has fallen on her face; the Light of Lights</div>
<div class="metric">Looks always on the motive, not the deed,</div>
<div class="metric">The Shadow of Shadows on the deed alone.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i><span class="small">ALEEL</span> releases the Angel and kneels.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span></div>

<div class="speakerm">OONA.</div>

<div class="metric">Tell them who walk upon the floor of peace</div>
<div class="metric">That I would die and go to her I love;</div>
<div class="metric">The years like great black oxen tread the world,</div>
<div class="metric">And God the herdsman goads them on behind,</div>
<div class="metric">And I am broken by their passing feet.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<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 peasants appear
faintly in the darkness.</i>]</div>
</div>


<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p>
<h2>THE LAND OF HEART’S DESIRE</h2>



<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></p>




<div class='center'>‘O Rose, thou art sick.’—<i>William Blake.</i></div>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p>

<div class="dedication"><span class="smcap">To Florence Farr</span></div>


<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p>




<h3><i>PERSONS IN THE PLAY</i></h3>


<ul class="cast">
<li>MAURTEEN BRUIN</li>
<li>SHAWN BRUIN</li>
<li>FATHER HART</li>
<li>BRIDGET BRUIN</li>
<li>MAIRE BRUIN</li>
<li>A FAERY CHILD</li>
</ul>


<p><i>The scene is laid in the Barony of Kilmacowen, in the
County of Sligo, and the characters are supposed to speak
in Gaelic. They wear the costume of a century ago.</i></p>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span></p>




<h2>THE LAND OF HEART’S DESIRE</h2>


<div class="hang2"><i>The kitchen of <span class="smcap">MAURTEEN BRUIN’S</span> house. An
open grate with a turf fire is at the left side of
the room, with a table in front of it. There is
a door leading to the open air at the back, and
another door a little to its left, leading into
an inner room. There is a window, a settle,
and a large dresser on the right side of the room,
and a great bowl of primroses on the sill of the
window. <span class="small">MAURTEEN BRUIN</span>, <span class="small">FATHER HART</span>,
and <span class="small">BRIDGET BRUIN</span> are sitting at the table.
<span class="small">SHAWN BRUIN</span> is setting the table for supper.
<span class="small">MAIRE BRUIN</span> sits on the settle reading a yellow
manuscript.</i></div>
<div class="metricp">
<div class="speakerm">BRIDGET BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">Because I bade her go and feed the calves,</div>
<div class="metric">She took that old book down out of the thatch</div>
<div class="metric">And has been doubled over it all day.</div>
<div class="metric">We would be deafened by her groans and moans</div>
<div class="metric">Had she to work as some do, Father Hart,</div>
<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>Get up at dawn like me, and mend and scour;</div>
<div class="metric">Or ride abroad in the boisterous night like you,</div>
<div class="metric">The pyx and blessed bread under your arm.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SHAWN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">You are too cross.</div>

<div class="speakerm">BRIDGET BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">The young side with the young.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">MAURTEEN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">She quarrels with my wife a bit at times,</div>
<div class="metric">And is too deep just now in the old book,</div>
<div class="metric">But do not blame her greatly; she will grow</div>
<div class="metric">As quiet as a puff-ball in a tree</div>
<div class="metric">When but the moons of marriage dawn and die</div>
<div class="metric">For half a score of times.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">Their hearts are wild</span></div>
<div class="metric">As be the hearts of birds, till children come.</div>

<div class="speakerm">BRIDGET BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">She would not mind the griddle, milk the cow,</div>
<div class="metric">Or even lay the knives and spread the cloth.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric">I never saw her read a book before;</div>
<div class="metric">What may it be?</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAURTEEN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">I do not rightly know;</span></div>
<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>It has been in the thatch for fifty years.</div>
<div class="metric">My father told me my grandfather wrote it,</div>
<div class="metric">Killed a red heifer and bound it with the hide.</div>
<div class="metric">But draw your chair this way—supper is spread.</div>
<div class="metric">And little good he got out of the book,</div>
<div class="metric">Because it filled his house with roaming bards,</div>
<div class="metric">And roaming ballad-makers and the like,</div>
<div class="metric">And wasted all his goods.—Here is the wine:</div>
<div class="metric">The griddle bread’s beside you, Father Hart.</div>
<div class="metric">Colleen, what have you got there in the book</div>
<div class="metric">That you must leave the bread to cool? Had I,</div>
<div class="metric">Or had my father, read or written books</div>
<div class="metric">There were no stocking full of silver and gold</div>
<div class="metric">To come, when I am dead, to Shawn and you.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric">You should not fill your head with foolish dreams.</div>
<div class="metric">What are you reading?</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 8em;">How a Princess Edain,</span></div>
<div class="metric">A daughter of a King of Ireland, heard</div>
<div class="metric">A voice singing on a May Eve like this,</div>
<div class="metric">And followed, half awake and half asleep,</div>
<div class="metric">Until she came into the land of faery,</div>
<div class="metric">Where nobody gets old and godly and grave,</div>
<div class="metric">Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise,</div>
<div class="metric">Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue;</div>
<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>And she is still there, busied with a dance,</div>
<div class="metric">Deep in the dewy shadow of a wood,</div>
<div class="metric">Or where stars walk upon a mountain-top.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAURTEEN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">Persuade the colleen to put by the book:</div>
<div class="metric">My grandfather would mutter just such things,</div>
<div class="metric">And he was no judge of a dog or horse,</div>
<div class="metric">And any idle boy could blarney him:</div>
<div class="metric">Just speak your mind.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 7em;">Put it away, my colleen.</span></div>
<div class="metric">God spreads the heavens above us like great wings,</div>
<div class="metric">And gives a little round of deeds and days,</div>
<div class="metric">And then come the wrecked angels and set snares,</div>
<div class="metric">And bait them with light hopes and heavy dreams,</div>
<div class="metric">Until the heart is puffed with pride and goes,</div>
<div class="metric">Half shuddering and half joyous, from God’s peace:</div>
<div class="metric">And it was some wrecked angel, blind from tears,</div>
<div class="metric">Who flattered Edain’s heart with merry words.</div>
<div class="metric">My colleen, I have seen some other girls</div>
<div class="metric">Restless and ill at ease, but years went by</div>
<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>And they grew like their neighbours and were glad</div>
<div class="metric">In minding children, working at the churn,</div>
<div class="metric">And gossiping of weddings and of wakes;</div>
<div class="metric">For life moves out of a red flare of dreams</div>
<div class="metric">Into a common light of common hours,</div>
<div class="metric">Until old age bring the red flare again.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SHAWN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">Yet do not blame her greatly, Father Hart,</div>
<div class="metric">For she is dull while I am in the fields,</div>
<div class="metric">And mother’s tongue were harder still to bear,</div>
<div class="metric">But for her fancies: this is May Eve too,</div>
<div class="metric">When the good people post about the world,</div>
<div class="metric">And surely one may think of them to-night.</div>
<div class="metric">Maire, have you the primroses to fling</div>
<div class="metric">Before the door to make a golden path</div>
<div class="metric">For them to bring good luck into the house?</div>
<div class="metric">Remember, they may steal new-married brides</div>
<div class="metric">After the fall of twilight on May Eve.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i><span class="small">MAIRE BRUIN</span> goes over to the window and takes
flowers from the bowl and strews them outside
the door.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric">You do well, daughter, because God permits</div>
<div class="metric">Great power to the good people on May Eve.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SHAWN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">They can work all their will with primroses;</div>
<div class="metric">Change them to golden money, or little flames</div>
<div class="metric">To burn up those who do them any wrong.</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p>

<p>MAIRE BRUIN [<i>in a dreamy voice</i>].</p>

<div class="metric">I had no sooner flung them by the door</div>
<div class="metric">Than the wind cried and hurried them away;</div>
<div class="metric">And then a child came running in the wind</div>
<div class="metric">And caught them in her hands and fondled them:</div>
<div class="metric">Her dress was green: her hair was of red gold;</div>
<div class="metric">Her face was pale as water before dawn.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric">Whose child can this be?</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAURTEEN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">No one’s child at all.</span></div>
<div class="metric">She often dreams that someone has gone by</div>
<div class="metric">When there was nothing but a puff of wind.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">They will not bring good luck into the house,</div>
<div class="metric">For they have blown the primroses away;</div>
<div class="metric">Yet I am glad that I was courteous to them,</div>
<div class="metric">For are not they, likewise, children of God?</div>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric">Colleen, they are the children of the Fiend,</div>
<div class="metric">And they have power until the end of Time,</div>
<div class="metric">When God shall fight with them a great pitched battle</div>
<div class="metric">And hack them into pieces.</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">He will smile,</span></div>
<div class="metric">Father, perhaps, and open His great door,</div>
<div class="metric">And call the pretty and kind into His house.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric">Did but the lawless angels see that door,</div>
<div class="metric">They would fall, slain by everlasting peace;</div>
<div class="metric">And when such angels knock upon our doors</div>
<div class="metric">Who goes with them must drive through the same storm.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>A knock at the door. <span class="small">MAIRE BRUIN</span> opens it and
then goes to the dresser and fills a porringer
with milk and hands it through the door and
takes it back empty and closes the door.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">A little queer old woman cloaked in green,</div>
<div class="metric">Who came to beg a porringer of milk.</div>

<div class="speakerm">BRIDGET BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">The good people go asking milk and fire</div>
<div class="metric">Upon May Eve.—Woe on the house that gives,</div>
<div class="metric">For they have power upon it for a year.</div>
<div class="metric">I knew you would bring evil on the house.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAURTEEN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">Who was she?</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Both the tongue and face were strange.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">MAURTEEN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">Some strangers came last week to Clover Hill;</div>
<div class="metric">She must be one of them.</div>

<div class="speakerm">BRIDGET BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">I am afraid.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">MAURTEEN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">The priest will keep all harm out of the house.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric">The cross will keep all harm out of the house</div>
<div class="metric">While it hangs there.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAURTEEN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Come, sit beside me, colleen,</span></div>
<div class="metric">And put away your dreams of discontent,</div>
<div class="metric">For I would have you light up my last days</div>
<div class="metric">Like a bright torch of pine, and when I die</div>
<div class="metric">I will make you the wealthiest hereabout:</div>
<div class="metric">For hid away where nobody can find</div>
<div class="metric">I have a stocking full of silver and gold.</div>

<div class="speakerm">BRIDGET BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">You are the fool of every pretty face,</div>
<div class="metric">And I must pinch and pare that my son’s wife</div>
<div class="metric">May have all kinds of ribbons for her head.</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">MAURTEEN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">Do not be cross; she is a right good girl!</div>
<div class="metric">The butter is by your elbow, Father Hart.</div>
<div class="metric">My colleen, have not Fate and Time and Change</div>
<div class="metric">Done well for me and for old Bridget there?</div>
<div class="metric">We have a hundred acres of good land,</div>
<div class="metric">And sit beside each other at the fire,</div>
<div class="metric">The wise priest of our parish to our right,</div>
<div class="metric">And you and our dear son to left of us.</div>
<div class="metric">To sit beside the board and drink good wine</div>
<div class="metric">And watch the turf smoke coiling from the fire</div>
<div class="metric">And feel content and wisdom in your heart,</div>
<div class="metric">This is the best of life; when we are young</div>
<div class="metric">We long to tread a way none trod before,</div>
<div class="metric">But find the excellent old way through love</div>
<div class="metric">And through the care of children to the hour</div>
<div class="metric">For bidding Fate and Time and Change good-bye.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>A knock at the door. <span class="small">MAIRE BRUIN</span> opens it and
then takes a sod of turf out of the hearth in
the tongs and passes it through the door and
closes the door and remains standing by it.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">A little queer old man in a green coat,</div>
<div class="metric">Who asked a burning sod to light his pipe.</div>

<div class="speakerm">BRIDGET BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>You have now given milk and fire, and brought,</div>
<div class="metric">For all you know, evil upon the house.</div>
<div class="metric">Before you married you were idle and fine,</div>
<div class="metric">And went about with ribbons on your head;</div>
<div class="metric">And now you are a good-for-nothing wife.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SHAWN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">Be quiet, mother!</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAURTEEN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">You are much too cross!</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">What do I care if I have given this house,</div>
<div class="metric">Where I must hear all day a bitter tongue,</div>
<div class="metric">Into the power of faeries!</div>

<div class="speakerm">BRIDGET BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">You know well</span></div>
<div class="metric">How calling the good people by that name</div>
<div class="metric">Or talking of them over-much at all</div>
<div class="metric">May bring all kinds of evil on the house.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">Come, faeries, take me out of this dull house!</div>
<div class="metric">Let me have all the freedom I have lost;</div>
<div class="metric">Work when I will and idle when I will!</div>
<div class="metric">Faeries, come, take me out of this dull world,</div>
<div class="metric">For I would ride with you upon the wind,</div>
<div class="metric">Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,</div>
<div class="metric">And dance upon the mountains like a flame!</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric">You cannot know the meaning of your words.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">Father, I am right weary of four tongues:</div>
<div class="metric">A tongue that is too crafty and too wise,</div>
<div class="metric">A tongue that is too godly and too grave,</div>
<div class="metric">A tongue that is more bitter than the tide,</div>
<div class="metric">And a kind tongue too full of drowsy love,</div>
<div class="metric">Of drowsy love and my captivity.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i><span class="small">SHAWN BRUIN</span> comes over to her and leads her to
the settle.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">SHAWN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">Do not blame me; I often lie awake</div>
<div class="metric">Thinking that all things trouble your bright head—</div>
<div class="metric">How beautiful it is—such broad pale brows</div>
<div class="metric">Under a cloudy blossoming of hair!</div>
<div class="metric">Sit down beside me here—these are too old,</div>
<div class="metric">And have forgotten they were ever young.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">O, you are the great door-post of this house,</div>
<div class="metric">And I, the red nasturtium, climbing up.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>She takes <span class="smcap">SHAWN’S</span> hand, but looks shyly at the
priest and lets it go.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>Good daughter, take his hand—by love alone</div>
<div class="metric">God binds us to Himself and to the hearth</div>
<div class="metric">And shuts us from the waste beyond His peace,</div>
<div class="metric">From maddening freedom and bewildering light.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SHAWN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">Would that the world were mine to give it you</div>
<div class="metric">With every quiet hearth and barren waste,</div>
<div class="metric">The maddening freedom of its woods and tides,</div>
<div class="metric">And the bewildering light upon its hills.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">Then I would take and break it in my hands</div>
<div class="metric">To see you smile watching it crumble away.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SHAWN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">Then I would mould a world of fire and dew</div>
<div class="metric">With no one bitter, grave, or over-wise,</div>
<div class="metric">And nothing marred or old to do you wrong;</div>
<div class="metric">And crowd the enraptured quiet of the sky</div>
<div class="metric">With candles burning to your lonely face.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">Your looks are all the candles that I need.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SHAWN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">Once a fly dancing in a beam of the sun,</div>
<div class="metric">Or the light wind blowing out of the dawn,</div>
<div class="metric">Could fill your heart with dreams none other knew,</div>
<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>But now the indissoluble sacrament</div>
<div class="metric">Has mixed your heart that was most proud and cold</div>
<div class="metric">With my warm heart for ever; and sun and moon</div>
<div class="metric">Must fade and heaven be rolled up like a scroll;</div>
<div class="metric">But your white spirit still walk by my spirit.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i><span class="small">A VOICE</span> sings in the distance.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">Did you hear something call? O, guard me close,</div>
<div class="metric">Because I have said wicked things to-night;</div>
<div class="metric">And seen a pale-faced child with red-gold hair,</div>
<div class="metric">And longed to dance upon the winds with her.</div>

<div class="speakerm">A VOICE [<i>close to the door</i>].</div>

<div class="metric"><i>The wind blows out of the gates of the day,</i></div>
<div class="metric"><i>The wind blows over the lonely of heart,</i></div>
<div class="metric"><i>And the lonely of heart is withered away,</i></div>
<div class="metric"><i>While the faeries dance in a place apart,</i></div>
<div class="metric"><i>Shaking their milk-white feet in a ring,</i></div>
<div class="metric"><i>Tossing their milk-white arms in the air;</i></div>
<div class="metric"><i>For they hear the wind laugh, and murmur and sing</i></div>
<div class="metric"><i>Of a land where even the old are fair,</i></div>
<div class="metric"><i>And even the wise are merry of tongue;</i></div>
<div class="metric"><i>But I heard a reed of Coolaney say,</i></div>
<div class="metric"><i>‘When the wind has laughed and murmured and sung,</i></div>
<div class="metric"><i>The lonely of heart is withered away!’</i></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">MAURTEEN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">I am right happy, and would make all else</div>
<div class="metric">Be happy too. I hear a child outside,</div>
<div class="metric">And will go bring her in out of the cold.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>He opens the door. <span class="small">A CHILD</span> dressed in pale green
and with red-gold hair comes into the house.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric">I tire of winds and waters and pale lights!</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAURTEEN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">You are most welcome. It is cold out there;</div>
<div class="metric">Who’d think to face such cold on a May Eve?</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric">And when I tire of this warm little house</div>
<div class="metric">There is one here who must away, away,</div>
<div class="metric">To where the woods, the stars, and the white streams</div>
<div class="metric">Are holding a continual festival.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAURTEEN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">O listen to her dreamy and strange talk.</div>
<div class="metric">Come to the fire.</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">I will sit upon your knee,</span></div>
<div class="metric">For I have run from where the winds are born,</div>
<div class="metric">And long to rest my feet a little while.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>She sits upon his knee.</i></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">BRIDGET BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">How pretty you are!</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAURTEEN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">Your hair is wet with dew!</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">BRIDGET BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">I will warm your chilly feet.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>She takes <span class="smcap">THE CHILD’S</span> feet in her hands.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">MAURTEEN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">You must have come</span></div>
<div class="metric">A long, long way, for I have never seen</div>
<div class="metric">Your pretty face, and must be tired and hungry;</div>
<div class="metric">Here is some bread and wine.</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">The wine is bitter.</span></div>
<div class="metric">Old mother, have you no sweet food for me?</div>

<div class="speakerm">BRIDGET BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">I have some honey!</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>She goes into the next room.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">MAURTEEN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">You are a dear child;</span></div>
<div class="metric">The mother was quite cross before you came.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i><span class="small">BRIDGET</span> returns with the honey, and goes to the
dresser and fills a porringer with milk.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></div>

<div class="speakerm">BRIDGET BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">She is the child of gentle people; look</div>
<div class="metric">At her white hands and at her pretty dress.</div>
<div class="metric">I have brought you some new milk, but wait awhile,</div>
<div class="metric">And I will put it by the fire to warm,</div>
<div class="metric">For things well fitted for poor folk like us</div>
<div class="metric">Would never please a high-born child like you.</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric">Old mother, my old mother, the green dawn</div>
<div class="metric">Brightens above while you blow up the fire;</div>
<div class="metric">And evening finds you spreading the white cloth.</div>
<div class="metric">The young may lie in bed and dream and hope,</div>
<div class="metric">But you work on because your heart is old.</div>

<div class="speakerm">BRIDGET BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">The young are idle.</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 7em;">Old father, you are wise,</span></div>
<div class="metric">And all the years have gathered in your heart</div>
<div class="metric">To whisper of the wonders that are gone.</div>
<div class="metric">The young must sigh through many a dream and hope,</div>
<div class="metric">But you are wise because your heart is old.</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">MAURTEEN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">O, who would think to find so young a child</div>
<div class="metric">Loving old age and wisdom?</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i><span class="small">BRIDGET</span> gives her more bread and honey.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">No more, mother.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">MAURTEEN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">What a small bite! The milk is ready now;</div>
<div class="metric">What a small sip!</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">Put on my shoes, old mother,</span></div>
<div class="metric">For I would like to dance now I have eaten.</div>
<div class="metric">The reeds are dancing by Coolaney lake,</div>
<div class="metric">And I would like to dance until the reeds</div>
<div class="metric">And the white waves have danced themselves to sleep.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i><span class="small">BRIDGET</span> having put on her shoes, she gets off
the old man’s knees and is about to dance, but
suddenly sees the crucifix and shrieks and
covers her eyes.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric">What is that ugly thing on the black cross?</div>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric">You cannot know how naughty your words are!</div>
<div class="metric">That is our Blessed Lord!</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">Hide it away!</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">BRIDGET BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">I have begun to be afraid, again!</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric">Hide it away!</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAURTEEN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 5em;">That would be wickedness!</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">BRIDGET BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">That would be sacrilege!</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">The tortured thing!</span></div>
<div class="metric">Hide it away!</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAURTEEN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Her parents are to blame.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric">That is the image of the Son of God.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i><span class="small">THE CHILD</span> puts her arm round his neck and
kisses him.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric">Hide it away! Hide it away!</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAURTEEN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 11em;">No! no!</span></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric">Because you are so young and little a child</div>
<div class="metric">I will go take it down.</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">Hide it away,</span></div>
<div class="metric">And cover it out of sight and out of mind.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i><span class="small">FATHER HART</span> takes it down and carries it
towards the inner room.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric">Since you have come into this barony,</div>
<div class="metric">I will instruct you in our blessed faith:</div>
<div class="metric">Being a clever child, you will soon learn.</div>
<div class="metric">[<i>To the others.</i>] We must be tender with all budding things.</div>
<div class="metric">Our Maker let no thought of Calvary</div>
<div class="metric">Trouble the morning stars in their first song.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>Puts the crucifix in the inner room.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric">Here is level ground for dancing. I will dance.</div>
<div class="metric">The wind is blowing on the waving reeds,</div>
<div class="metric">The wind is blowing on the heart of man.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>She dances, swaying about like the reeds.</i></div>

<p>MAIRE [<i>to <span class="small">SHAWN BRUIN</span></i>].</p>

<div class="metric">Just now when she came near I thought I heard</div>
<div class="metric">Other small steps beating upon the floor,</div>
<div class="metric">And a faint music blowing in the wind,</div>
<div class="metric">Invisible pipes giving her feet the time.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span></div>

<div class="speakerm">SHAWN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">I heard no step but hers.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">Look to the bolt!</span></div>
<div class="metric">Because the unholy powers are abroad.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAURTEEN BRUIN [<i>to <span class="small">THE CHILD</span></i>].</div>

<div class="metric">Come over here, and if you promise me</div>
<div class="metric">Not to talk wickedly of holy things</div>
<div class="metric">I will give you something.</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">Bring it me, old father!</span></div>

<div class="right2">[<i><span class="small">MAURTEEN BRUIN</span> goes into the next room.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric">I will have queen cakes when you come to me!</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i><span class="small">MAURTEEN BRUIN</span> returns and lays a piece of
money on the table. <span class="small">THE CHILD</span> makes a
gesture of refusal.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">MAURTEEN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">It will buy lots of toys; see how it glitters!</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric">Come, tell me, do you love me?</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAURTEEN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 13em;">I love you!</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric">Ah, but you love this fireside!</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">I love you.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric">But you love Him above.</div>

<div class="speakerm">BRIDGET BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">She is blaspheming.</span></div>

<p>THE CHILD [<i>to <span class="small">MAIRE</span></i>].</p>

<div class="metric">And do you love me?</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 8em;">I—I do not know.</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric">You love that great tall fellow over there:</div>
<div class="metric">Yet I could make you ride upon the winds,</div>
<div class="metric">Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,</div>
<div class="metric">And dance upon the mountains like a flame!</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">Queen of the Angels and kind Saints, defend us!</div>
<div class="metric">Some dreadful fate has fallen: a while ago</div>
<div class="metric">The wind cried out and took the primroses,</div>
<div class="metric">And she ran by me laughing in the wind,</div>
<div class="metric">And I gave milk and fire, and she came in</div>
<div class="metric">And made you hide the blessed crucifix.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric">You fear because of her wild, pretty prattle;</div>
<div class="metric">She knows no better.</div>
<div class="metric">[<i>To <span class="small">THE CHILD</span></i>] Child, how old are you?</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric">When winter sleep is abroad my hair grows thin,</div>
<div class="metric">My feet unsteady. When the leaves awaken</div>
<div class="metric">My mother carries me in her golden arms.</div>
<div class="metric">I’ll soon put on my womanhood and marry</div>
<div class="metric">The spirits of wood and water, but who can tell</div>
<div class="metric">When I was born for the first time? I think</div>
<div class="metric">I am much older than the eagle cock</div>
<div class="metric">That blinks and blinks on Ballygawley Hill,</div>
<div class="metric">And he is the oldest thing under the moon.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric">She is of the faery people.</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">I am Brig’s daughter.</span></div>
<div class="metric">I sent my messengers for milk and fire,</div>
<div class="metric">And then I heard one call to me and came.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>They all except <span class="small">MAIRE BRUIN</span> gather about the
priest for protection. <span class="small">MAIRE BRUIN</span> stays on
the settle in a stupor of terror. <span class="small">THE CHILD</span>
takes primroses from the great bowl and begins
to strew them between herself and the priest
and about <span class="small">MAIRE BRUIN</span>. During the following
dialogue <span class="small">SHAWN BRUIN</span> goes more than once to
the brink of the primroses, but shrinks back to
the others timidly.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric">I will confront this mighty spirit alone.</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>They cling to him and hold him back.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span></div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD [<i>while she strews the primroses</i>].</div>

<div class="metric">No one whose heart is heavy with human tears</div>
<div class="metric">Can cross these little cressets of the wood.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric">Be not afraid, the Father is with us,</div>
<div class="metric">And all the nine angelic hierarchies,</div>
<div class="metric">The Holy Martyrs and the Innocents,</div>
<div class="metric">The adoring Magi in their coats of mail,</div>
<div class="metric">And He who died and rose on the third day,</div>
<div class="metric">And Mary with her seven times wounded heart.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i><span class="small">THE CHILD</span> ceases strewing the primroses, and
kneels upon the settle beside <span class="small">MAIRE</span> and puts
her arms about her neck.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric">Cry, daughter, to the Angels and the Saints.</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric">You shall go with me, newly-married bride,</div>
<div class="metric">And gaze upon a merrier multitude;</div>
<div class="metric">White-armed Nuala and Aengus of the birds,</div>
<div class="metric">And Feacra of the hurtling foam, and him</div>
<div class="metric">Who is the ruler of the western host,</div>
<div class="metric">Finvarra, and their Land of Heart’s Desire,</div>
<div class="metric">Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood,</div>
<div class="metric">But joy is wisdom, Time an endless song.</div>
<div class="metric">I kiss you and the world begins to fade.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric">Daughter, I call you unto home and love!</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric">Stay, and come with me, newly-married bride,</div>
<div class="metric">For, if you hear him, you grow like the rest:</div>
<div class="metric">Bear children, cook, be mindful of the churn,</div>
<div class="metric">And wrangle over butter, fowl, and eggs,</div>
<div class="metric">And sit at last there, old and bitter of tongue,</div>
<div class="metric">Watching the white stars war upon your hopes.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric">Daughter, I point you out the way to heaven.</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric">But I can lead you, newly-married bride,</div>
<div class="metric">Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise,</div>
<div class="metric">Where nobody gets old and godly and grave,</div>
<div class="metric">Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue,</div>
<div class="metric">And where kind tongues bring no captivity,</div>
<div class="metric">For we are only true to the far lights</div>
<div class="metric">We follow singing, over valley and hill.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric">By the dear name of the One crucified,</div>
<div class="metric">I bid you, Maire Bruin, come to me.</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric">I keep you in the name of your own heart!</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>She leaves the settle, and stooping takes up a
mass of primroses and kisses them.</i>]</div>

<div class="metric">We have great power to-night, dear golden folk,</div>
<div class="metric"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>For he took down and hid the crucifix.</div>
<div class="metric">And my invisible brethren fill the house;</div>
<div class="metric">I hear their footsteps going up and down.</div>
<div class="metric">O, they shall soon rule all the hearts of men</div>
<div class="metric">And own all lands; last night they merrily danced</div>
<div class="metric">About his chapel belfry! [<i>To <span class="small">MAIRE</span></i>] Come away,</div>
<div class="metric">I hear my brethren bidding us away!</div>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric">I will go fetch the crucifix again.</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>They hang about him in terror and prevent him
from moving.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">BRIDGET BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">The enchanted flowers will kill us if you go.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAURTEEN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">They turn the flowers to little twisted flames.</div>

<div class="speakerm">SHAWN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">The little twisted flames burn up the heart.</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric">I hear them crying, ‘Newly-married bride,</div>
<div class="metric">Come to the woods and waters and pale lights.’</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">I will go with you.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 8em;">She is lost, alas!</span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span></div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD [<i>standing by the door</i>].</div>

<div class="metric">Then, follow: but the heavy body of clay</div>
<div class="metric">And clinging mortal hope must fall from you,</div>
<div class="metric">For we who ride the winds, run on the waves,</div>
<div class="metric">And dance upon the mountains, are more light</div>
<div class="metric">Than dewdrops on the banners of the dawn.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">Then take my soul.</div>
<div class="right2">[<i><span class="small">SHAWN BRUIN</span> goes over to her.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">SHAWN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">Beloved, do not leave me!</span></div>
<div class="metric">Remember when I met you by the well</div>
<div class="metric">And took your hand in mine and spoke of love.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">Dear face! Dear voice!</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">Come, newly-married bride!</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">I always loved her world—and yet—and yet—</div>

<div class="right2">[<i>Sinks into his arms.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD [<i>from the door</i>].</div>

<div class="metric">White bird, white bird, come with me, little bird.</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">She calls my soul!</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">Come with me, little bird!</span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span></div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">I can hear songs and dancing!</div>

<div class="speakerm">SHAWN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 13em;">Stay with me!</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">I think that I would stay—and yet—and yet—</div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric">Come, little bird with crest of gold!</div>

<div class="speakerm">MAIRE BRUIN [<i>very softly</i>].</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 16em;">And yet—</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">THE CHILD.</div>

<div class="metric">Come, little bird with silver feet!</div>

<div class="hang2">[<i><span class="small">MAIRE</span> dies, and <span class="small">THE CHILD</span> goes.</i></div>

<div class="speakerm">SHAWN BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric"><span style="margin-left: 15em;">She is dead!</span></div>

<div class="speakerm">BRIDGET BRUIN.</div>

<div class="metric">Come from that image there: she is far away:</div>
<div class="metric">You have thrown your arms about a drift of leaves</div>
<div class="metric">Or bole of an ash-tree changed into her image.</div>

<div class="speakerm">FATHER HART.</div>

<div class="metric">Thus do the spirits of evil snatch their prey</div>
<div class="metric">Almost out of the very hand of God;</div>
<div class="metric">And day by day their power is more and more,</div>
<div class="metric">And men and women leave old paths, for pride</div>
<div class="metric">Comes knocking with thin knuckles on the heart.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></div>

<div class="speakerm">A VOICE [<i>singing outside</i>].</div>

<div class="metric"><i>The wind blows out of the gates of the day,</i></div>
<div class="metric"><i>The wind blows over the lonely of heart,</i></div>
<div class="metric"><i>And the lonely of heart is withered away</i></div>
<div class="metric"><i>While the faeries dance in a place apart,</i></div>
<div class="metric"><i>Shaking their milk-white feet in a ring,</i></div>
<div class="metric"><i>Tossing their milk-white arms in the air;</i></div>
<div class="metric"><i>For they hear the wind laugh, and murmur and sing</i></div>
<div class="metric"><i>Of a land where even the old are fair,</i></div>
<div class="metric"><i>And even the wise are merry of tongue;</i></div>
<div class="metric"><i>But I heard a reed of Coolaney say,</i></div>
<div class="metric"><i>‘When the wind has laughed and murmured and sung,</i></div>
<div class="metric"><i>The lonely of heart is withered away.’</i></div>

<div class="hang2">[<i>The song is taken up by many voices, who sing
loudly, as if in triumph. Some of the voices
seem to come from within the house.</i>]</div>
</div>
<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span></p>

<h2>THE UNICORN FROM THE STARS</h2>


<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span></p>




<h3><i>PERSONS IN THE PLAY</i></h3>




<div class="center">
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="cast">
<tr>
<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Father John</span></td>
<td align="left">&nbsp;</td>
<td align="left">&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Thomas Hearne</span>,</td>
<td align="left">&nbsp;</td>
<td align="left"><i>a coachbuilder</i></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Andrew Hearne</span>,</td>
<td align="left">&nbsp;</td>
<td align="left"><i>his brother</i></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Martin Hearne</span>,</td>
<td align="left">&nbsp;</td>
<td align="left"><i>his nephew</i></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Johnny Bacach</span></td>
<td align="left" class="trbb" rowspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
<td align="left" rowspan="4" valign="middle">-&nbsp;<i>beggars</i></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Paudeen</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Biddy Lally</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Nanny</span></td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>


<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span></p>




<h2>THE UNICORN FROM THE STARS</h2>



<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>
<h2>ACT I.</h2>


<div class="hang1">
<i>Interior of a coachbuilder’s workshop. Parts of a
gilded coach, among them an ornament representing
a lion and unicorn. <span class="small">THOMAS</span> working at a
wheel. <span class="small">FATHER JOHN</span> coming from door of inner
room.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>I have prayed over Martin. I have prayed
a long time, but there is no move in him yet.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>You are giving yourself too much trouble,
Father. It’s as good for you to leave him alone
till the doctor’s bottle will come. If there is
any cure at all for what is on him, it is likely
the doctor will have it.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>I think it is not doctor’s medicine will help
him in this case.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>It will, it will. The doctor has his business
learned well. If Andrew had gone to him the
time I bade him and had not turned again to
bring yourself to the house, it is likely Martin
would be walking at this time. I am loth to
trouble you, Father, when the business is not
of your own sort. Any doctor at all should be
able and well able to cure the falling sickness.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>It is not any common sickness that is on him
now.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>I thought at the first it was gone to sleep he
was. But when shaking him and roaring at him
failed to rouse him, I knew well it was the falling
sickness. Believe me, the doctor will reach
it with his drugs.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>Nothing but prayer can reach a soul that is
so far beyond the world as his soul is at this
moment.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>You are not saying that the life is gone out
of him!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>No, no, his life is in no danger. But where
he himself, the spirit, the soul, is gone, I cannot
say. It has gone beyond our imaginings.
He is fallen into a trance.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>He used to be queer as a child, going asleep
in the fields, and coming back with talk of
white horses he saw, and bright people like
angels or whatever they were. But I mended
that. I taught him to recognise stones beyond
angels with a few strokes of a rod. I would
never give in to visions or to trances.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>We who hold the faith have no right to
speak against trance or vision. Saint Elizabeth
had them, Saint Benedict, Saint Anthony, Saint
Columcille. Saint Catherine of Siena often lay
a long time as if dead.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>That might be so in the olden time, but those
things are gone out of the world now. Those
that do their work fair and honest have no
occasion to let the mind go rambling. What
would send my nephew, Martin Hearne, into
a trance, supposing trances to be in it, and he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>
rubbing the gold on the lion and unicorn that
he had taken in hand to make a good job of for
the top of the coach?</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN [<i>taking up ornament</i>].</div>

<p>It is likely it was that sent him off. The
flashing of light upon it would be enough to
throw one that had a disposition to it into a
trance. There was a very saintly man, though
he was not of our church; he wrote a great book
called <i>Mysterium Magnum</i> was seven days in
a trance. Truth, or whatever truth he found,
fell upon him like a bursting shower, and he a
poor tradesman at his work. It was a ray of
sunlight on a pewter vessel that was the beginning
of all. [<i>Goes to the door and looks in.</i>]
There is no stir in him yet. It is either the
best thing or the worst thing can happen to
anyone, that is happening to him now.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>And what in the living world can happen to
a man that is asleep on his bed?</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>There are some would answer you that it is
to those who are awake that nothing happens,
and it is they that know nothing. He is gone
where all have gone for supreme truth.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.<br />
[<i>Sitting down again and taking up tools.</i>]</div>

<p>Well, maybe so. But work must go on and
coachbuilding must go on, and they will not
go on the time there is too much attention
given to dreams. A dream is a sort of a shadow,
no profit in it to anyone at all. A coach, now,
is a real thing and a thing that will last for
generations and be made use of to the last, and
maybe turn to be a hen-roost at its latter end.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>I think Andrew told me it was a dream of
Martin’s that led to the making of that coach.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>Well, I believe he saw gold in some dream,
and it led him to want to make some golden
thing, and coaches being the handiest, nothing
would do him till he put the most of his fortune
into the making of this golden coach. It turned
out better than I thought, for some of the
lawyers came looking at it at Assize time, and
through them it was heard of at Dublin Castle .&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
and who now has it ordered but the Lord
Lieutenant! [<i><span class="small">FATHER JOHN</span> nods.</i>] Ready it
must be and sent off it must be by the end of
the month. It is likely King George will be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>
visiting Dublin, and it is he himself will be
sitting in it yet.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>Martin has been working hard at it, I know.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>You never saw a man work the way he did,
day and night, near ever since the time six
months ago he first came home from France.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>I never thought he would be so good at a
trade. I thought his mind was only set on books.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>He should be thankful to myself for that.
Any person I will take in hand, I make a clean
job of them the same as I would make of any
other thing in my yard—coach, half-coach,
hackney-coach, ass-car, common-car, post-chaise,
calash, chariot on two wheels, on four
wheels. Each one has the shape Thomas Hearne
put on it, and it in his hands; and what I can
do with wood and iron, why would I not be
able to do it with flesh and blood, and it in a
way my own?</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>Indeed, I know you did your best for Martin.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>Every best. Checked him, taught him the
trade, sent him to the monastery in France for
to learn the language and to see the wide world;
but who should know that if you did not know
it, Father John, and I doing it according to
your own advice?</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>I thought his nature needed spiritual guidance
and teaching, the best that could be found.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>I thought myself it was best for him to be
away for a while. There are too many wild lads
about this place. He to have stopped here, he
might have taken some fancies, and got into
some trouble, going against the Government
maybe the same as Johnny Gibbons that is at this
time an outlaw, having a price upon his head.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>That is so. That imagination of his might
have taken fire here at home. It was better
putting him with the Brothers, to turn it to
imaginings of heaven.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>Well, I will soon have a good hardy tradesman
made of him now that will live quiet and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
rear a family, and be maybe appointed coachbuilder
to the Royal Family at the last.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN [<i>at window</i>].</div>

<p>I see your brother Andrew coming back from
the doctor; he is stopping to talk with a troop
of beggars that are sitting by the side of the road.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>There, now, is another that I have shaped.
Andrew used to be a bit wild in his talk and
in his ways, wanting to go rambling, not content
to settle in the place where he was reared.
But I kept a guard over him; I watched the
time poverty gave him a nip, and then I settled
him into the business. He never was so good
a worker as Martin, he is too fond of wasting
his time talking vanities. But he is middling
handy, and he is always steady and civil to customers.
I have no complaint worth while to be
making this last twenty years against Andrew.</p>

<div class="enter">[<i><span class="small">ANDREW</span> comes in.</i>]</div>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>Beggars there outside going the road to the
Kinvara fair. They were saying there is news
that Johnny Gibbons is coming back from
France on the quiet; the king’s soldiers are
watching the ports for him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>Let you keep now, Andrew, to the business
you have in hand. Will the doctor be coming
himself or did he send a bottle that will cure
Martin?</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>The doctor can’t come, for he’s down with
the lumbago in the back. He questioned me
as to what ailed Martin, and he got a book to
go looking for a cure, and he began telling me
things out of it, but I said I could not be
carrying things of that sort in my head. He
gave me the book then, and he has marks put
in it for the places where the cures are .&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
wait now.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. [<i>Reads</i>] ‘Compound medicines
are usually taken inwardly, or outwardly applied;
inwardly taken, they should be either
liquid or solid; outwardly, they should be fomentations
or sponges wet in some decoctions.’</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>He had a right to have written it out himself
upon a paper. Where is the use of all
that?</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>I think I moved the mark maybe .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. here,
now, is the part he was reading to me himself.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
‘The remedies for diseases belonging to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
the skins next the brain, headache, vertigo,
cramp, convulsions, palsy, incubus, apoplexy,
falling sickness.’</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>It is what I bid you to tell him that it was
the falling sickness.</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW [<i>dropping book</i>].</div>

<p>O, my dear, look at all the marks gone out
of it! Wait, now, I partly remember what he
said .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. a blister he spoke of .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. or to be
smelling hartshorn .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. or the sneezing powder .&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
or if all fails, to try letting the blood.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>All this has nothing to do with the real case.
It is all waste of time.</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>That is what I was thinking myself, Father.
Sure it was I was the first to call out to you when
I saw you coming down from the hill-side, and
to bring you in to see what could you do. I
would have more trust in your means than in
any doctor’s learning. And in case you might
fail to cure him, I have a cure myself I heard
from my grandmother—God rest her soul!—and
she told me she never knew it to fail. A
person to have the falling sickness, to cut the
top of his nails and a small share of the hair of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>
his head, and to put it down on the floor, and
to take a harry-pin and drive it down with
that into the floor and to leave it there. ‘That
is the cure will never fail,’ she said, ‘to rise up
any person at all having the falling sickness.’</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN [<i>hand on ear</i>].</div>

<p>I will go back to the hill-side, I will go back
to the hill-side; but no, no, I must do what I
can. I will go again, I will wrestle, I will
strive my best to call him back with prayer.</p>

<div class="right">[<i>Goes in and shuts door.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>It is queer Father John is sometimes, and
very queer. There are times when you would
say that he believes in nothing at all.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>If you wanted a priest, why did you not get
our own parish priest that is a sensible man,
and a man that you would know what his
thoughts are? You know well the bishop
should have something against Father John to
have left him through the years in that poor
mountainy place, minding the few unfortunate
people that were left out of the last famine.
A man of his learning to be going in rags the
way he is, there must be some good cause for
that.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>I had all that in mind and I bringing him.
But I thought he would have done more for
Martin than what he is doing. To read a
Mass over him I thought he would, and to be
convulsed in the reading it, and some strange
thing to have gone out with a great noise
through the doorway.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>It would give no good name to the place
such a thing to be happening in it. It is well
enough for labouring-men and for half-acre
men. It would be no credit at all such a thing
to be heard of in this house, that is for coachbuilding
the capital of the county.</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>If it is from the devil this sickness comes, it
would be best to put it out whatever way it
would be put out. But there might no bad thing
be on the lad at all. It is likely he was with
wild companions abroad, and that knocking
about might have shaken his health. I was
that way myself one time.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>Father John said that it was some sort of a
vision or a trance, but I would give no heed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>
to what he would say. It is his trade to see
more than other people would see, the same
as I myself might be seeing a split in a leather
car hood that no other person would find out
at all.</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>If it is the falling sickness is on him, I have
no objection to that—a plain, straight sickness
that was cast as a punishment on the unbelieving
Jews. It is a thing that might attack one
of a family, and one of another family, and not
to come upon their kindred at all. A person
to have it, all you have to do is not to go between
him and the wind, or fire, or water. But
I am in dread trance is a thing might run
through the house the same as the cholera
morbus.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>In my belief there is no such thing as a
trance. Letting on people do be to make the
world wonder the time they think well to rise
up. To keep them to their work is best, and
not to pay much attention to them at all.</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>I would not like trances to be coming on
myself. I leave it in my will if I die without
cause, a holly-stake to be run through my heart<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
the way I will lie easy after burial, and not
turn my face downwards in my coffin. I tell
you I leave it on you in my will.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>Leave thinking of your own comforts,
Andrew, and give your mind to the business.
Did the smith put the irons yet on to the shafts
of this coach?</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>I will go see did he.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>Do so, and see did he make a good job of
it. Let the shafts be sound and solid if they
are to be studded with gold.</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>They are, and the steps along with them—glass
sides for the people to be looking in at
the grandeur of the satin within—the lion
and the unicorn crowning all. It was a great
thought Martin had the time he thought of
making this coach!</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>It is best for me to go see the smith myself
and leave it to no other one. You can be
attending to that ass-car out in the yard wants a
new tyre in the wheel—out in the rear of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
yard it is. [<i>They go to door.</i>] To pay attention
to every small thing, and to fill up every
minute of time shaping whatever you have to
do, that is the way to build up a business.</p>

<div class="right">[<i>They go out.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN [<i>bringing in <span class="small">MARTIN</span></i>].</div>

<p>They are gone out now—the air is fresher
here in the workshop—you can sit here for a
while. You are now fully awake, you have
been in some sort of a trance or a sleep.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>Who was it that pulled at me? Who
brought me back?</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>It is I, Father John, did it. I prayed a long
time over you and brought you back.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>You, Father John, to be so unkind! O leave
me, leave me alone!</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>You are in your dream still.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>It was no dream, it was real. Do you not
smell the broken fruit—the grapes? the room
is full of the smell.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>Tell me what you have seen, where you
have been?</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>There were horses—white horses rushing
by, with white shining riders—there was a
horse without a rider, and someone caught me
up and put me upon him and we rode away,
with the wind, like the wind—</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>That is a common imagining. I know many
poor persons have seen that.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>We went on, on, on. We came to a sweet-smelling
garden with a gate to it, and there
were wheatfields in full ear around, and there
were vineyards like I saw in France, and the
grapes in bunches. I thought it to be one of
the townlands of heaven. Then I saw the
horses we were on had changed to unicorns, and
they began trampling the grapes and breaking
them. I tried to stop them but I could not.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>That is strange, that is strange. What is it
that brings to mind? I heard it in some place,
<i>monoceros de astris</i>, the unicorn from the stars.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>They tore down the wheat and trampled it on
stones, and then they tore down what were left
of grapes and crushed and bruised and trampled
them. I smelt the wine, it was flowing on
every side—then everything grew vague. I
cannot remember clearly, everything was silent;
the trampling now stopped, we were all waiting
for some command. Oh! was it given!
I was trying to hear it; there was someone
dragging, dragging me away from that. I am
sure there was a command given, and there
was a great burst of laughter. What was it?
What was the command? Everything seemed
to tremble round me.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>Did you awake then?</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>I do not think I did, it all changed—it was
terrible, wonderful! I saw the unicorns trampling,
trampling, but not in the wine troughs.
Oh, I forget! Why did you waken me?</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>I did not touch you. Who knows what
hands pulled you away? I prayed, that was all
I did. I prayed very hard that you might<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
awake. If I had not, you might have died. I
wonder what it all meant? The unicorns—what
did the French monk tell me?—strength
they meant, virginal strength, a rushing, lasting,
tireless strength.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>They were strong. Oh, they made a great
noise with their trampling.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>And the grapes, what did they mean? It puts
me in mind of the psalm, <i>Et calix meus inebrians
quam præclarus est</i>. It was a strange vision, a
very strange vision, a very strange vision.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>How can I get back to that place?</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>You must not go back, you must not think
of doing that. That life of vision, of contemplation,
is a terrible life, for it has far more of
temptation in it than the common life. Perhaps
it would have been best for you to stay under
rules in the monastery.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>I could not see anything so clearly there.
It is back here in my own place the visions
come, in the place where shining people used
to laugh around me, and I a little lad in a bib.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>You cannot know but it was from the Prince
of this world the vision came. How can one ever
know unless one follows the discipline of the
Church? Some spiritual director, some wise
learned man, that is what you want. I do not
know enough. What am I but a poor banished
priest, with my learning forgotten, my books
never handled and spotted with the damp!</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>I will go out into the fields where you cannot
come to me to awake me. I will see that townland
again; I will hear that command. I cannot
wait, I must know what happened, I must
bring that command to mind again.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.<br />
[<i>Putting himself between <span class="small">MARTIN</span> and the door.</i>]</div>

<p>You must have patience as the saints had it.
You are taking your own way. If there is a
command from God for you, you must wait
His good time to receive it.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>Must I live here forty years, fifty years .&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
to grow as old as my uncles, seeing nothing but
common things, doing work .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. some foolish
work?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>Here they are coming; it is time for me to
go. I must think and I must pray. My mind
is troubled about you. [<i>To <span class="small">THOMAS</span> as he and
<span class="small">ANDREW</span> come in.</i>] Here he is; be very kind to
him for he has still the weakness of a little
child.</p>
<div class="right">[<i>Goes out.</i></div>
<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>Are you well of the fit, lad?</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>It was no fit. I was away—for awhile—no,
you will not believe me if I tell you.</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>I would believe it, Martin. I used to have
very long sleeps myself and very queer dreams.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>You had, till I cured you, taking you in
hand and binding you to the hours of the clock.
The cure that will cure yourself, Martin, and
will waken you, is to put the whole of your
mind on to your golden coach; to take it in
hand and to finish it out of face.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>Not just now. I want to think—to try and
remember what I saw, something that I heard,
that I was told to do.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>No, but put it out of your mind. There is no
man doing business that can keep two things in
his head. A Sunday or a holy-day, now, you
might go see a good hurling or a thing of the
kind, but to be spreading out your mind on
anything outside of the workshop on common
days, all coachbuilding would come to an end.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>I don’t think it is building I want to do. I
don’t think that is what was in the command.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>It is too late to be saying that, the time you
have put the most of your fortune in the business.
Set yourself now to finish your job, and
when it is ended maybe I won’t begrudge you
going with the coach as far as Dublin.</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>That is it, that will satisfy him. I had a
great desire myself, and I young, to go travelling
the roads as far as Dublin. The roads are
the great things, they never come to an end.
They are the same as the serpent having his
tail swallowed in his own mouth.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>It was not wandering I was called to. What
was it? what was it?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>What you are called to, and what everyone
having no great estate is called to, is to work.
Sure the world itself could not go on without
work.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>I wonder if that is the great thing, to make
the world go on? No, I don’t think that is
the great thing—what does the Munster poet
call it?—‘this crowded slippery coach-loving
world.’ I don’t think I was told to work for that.</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>I often thought that myself. It is a pity the
stock of the Hearnes to be asked to do any
work at all.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>Rouse yourself, Martin, and don’t be talking
the way a fool talks. You started making that
golden coach, and you were set upon it, and
you had me tormented about it. You have
yourself wore out working at it, and planning it,
and thinking of it, and at the end of the race,
when you have the winning-post in sight, and
horses hired for to bring it to Dublin Castle,
you go falling into sleeps and blathering about
dreams, and we run to a great danger of letting
the profit and the sale go by. Sit down on the
bench now, and lay your hands to the work.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN [<i>sitting down</i>].</div>

<p>I will try. I wonder why I ever wanted to
make it; it was no good dream set me doing
that. [<i>He takes up wheel.</i>] What is there in a
wooden wheel to take pleasure in it? Gilding
it outside makes it no different.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>That is right, now. You had some good
plan for making the axle run smooth.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.<br />
[<i>Letting wheel fall and putting his hands to his head.</i>]</div>

<p>It is no use. [<i>Angrily.</i>] Why did you send
the priest to awake me? My soul is my own
and my mind is my own. I will send them to
where I like. You have no authority over my
thoughts.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>That is no way to be speaking to me. I am
head of this business. Nephew, or no nephew,
I will have no one come cold or unwilling to
the work.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>I had better go; I am of no use to you. I
am going—I must be alone—I will forget if I
am not alone. Give me what is left of my
money and I will go out of this.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.<br />
[<i>Opening a press and taking out a bag and
throwing it to him.</i>]</div>

<p>There is what is left of your money! The
rest of it you have spent on the coach. If you
want to go, go, and I will not have to be
annoyed with you from this out.</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>Come now with me, Thomas. The boy
is foolish, but it will soon pass over. He has
not my sense to be giving attention to what
you will say. Come along now, leave him for
awhile; leave him to me I say, it is I will get
inside his mind.</p>

<div class="hang2">[<i>He leads <span class="small">THOMAS</span> out. <span class="small">MARTIN</span> bangs door
angrily after them and sits down, taking up
lion and unicorn.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>I think it was some shining thing I saw.
What was it?</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.<br />
[<i>Opening door and putting in his head.</i>]</div>

<p>Listen to me, Martin.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>Go away, no more talking; leave me alone.</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>O, but wait. I understand you. Thomas
doesn’t understand your thoughts, but I understand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>
them. Wasn’t I telling you I was just
like you once?</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>Like me? Did you ever see the other things,
the things beyond?</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>I did. It is not the four walls of the house
keep me content. Thomas doesn’t know. Oh,
no, he doesn’t know.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>No, he has no vision.</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>He has not, nor any sort of a heart for a
frolic.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>He has never heard the laughter and the
music beyond.</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>He has not, nor the music of my own little
flute. I have it hidden in the thatch outside.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>Does the body slip from you as it does from
me? They have not shut your window into
eternity?</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>Thomas never shut a window I could not
get through. I knew you were one of my own
sort. When I am sluggish in the morning,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>
Thomas says, ‘Poor Andrew is getting old.’
That is all he knows. The way to keep young
is to do the things youngsters do. Twenty
years I have been slipping away, and he never
found me out yet!</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>That is what they call ecstasy, but there is
no word that can tell out very plain what it
means. That freeing of the mind from its
thoughts, those wonders we know when we
put them into words; the words seem as little
like them as blackberries are like the moon and
sun.</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>I found that myself the time they knew me
to be wild, and used to be asking me to say
what pleasure did I find in cards, and women,
and drink.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>You might help me to remember that vision
I had this morning, to understand it. The
memory of it has slipped from me. Wait, it
is coming back, little by little. I know that I
saw the unicorns trampling, and then a figure,
a many-changing figure, holding some bright
thing. I knew something was going to happen
or to be said, something that would make my
whole life strong and beautiful like the rushing
of the unicorns, and then, and then—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY BACACH’S <i>voice at window</i>.</div>

<p>A poor person I am, without food, without
a way, without portion, without costs, without
a person or a stranger, without means, without
hope, without health, without warmth—</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW [<i>looking towards window</i>].</div>

<p>It is that troop of beggars. Bringing their tricks
and their thieveries they are to the Kinvara Fair.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN [<i>impatiently</i>].</div>

<p>There is no quiet—come to the other room.
I am trying to remember.</p>

<div class="hang2">[<i>They go to door of inner room, but <span class="small">ANDREW</span> stops him.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>They are a bad-looking fleet. I have a mind
to drive them away, giving them a charity.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>Drive them away or come away from their
voices.</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANOTHER VOICE.</div>

<p>I put under the power of my prayer</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
    <div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">All that will give me help.</div>
<div class="verse">Rafael keep him Wednesday,</div>
<div class="verse">Sachiel feed him Thursday,</div>
<div class="verse">Hamiel provide him Friday,</div>
<div class="verse">Cassiel increase him Saturday.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

<div class="unindent">Sure giving to us is giving to the Lord and
laying up a store in the treasury of heaven.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span></div>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>Whisht! He is entering by the window!</p>

<div class="right">[<i><span class="small">JOHNNY</span> climbs up.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>That I may never sin, but the place is empty.</p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>Go in and see what can you make a grab at.</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY [<i>getting in</i>].</div>

<p>That every blessing I gave may be turned
to a curse on them that left the place so bare!
[<i>He turns things over.</i>] I might chance something
in this chest if it was open.</p>

<div class="right">[<i><span class="small">ANDREW</span> begins creeping towards him.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">NANNY [<i>outside</i>].</div>

<p>Hurry on, now, you limping crabfish you!
We can’t be stopping here while you’ll boil
stirabout!</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.<br />
[<i>Seizing bag of money and holding it up high in
both hands.</i>]</div>

<p>Look at this, now, look!</p>

<div class="right">[<i><span class="small">ANDREW</span> comes behind, seizes his arm.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY [<i>letting bag fall with a crash</i>].</div>

<p>Destruction on us all!</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.<br />
[<i>Running forward, seizes him. Heads disappear.</i>]</div>

<p>That is it! O, I remember. That is what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>
happened. That is the command. Who was
it sent you here with that command?</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>It was misery sent me in, and starvation,
and the hard ways of the world.</p>

<div class="speakerc">NANNY [<i>outside</i>].</div>

<p>It was that, my poor child, and my one son
only. Show mercy to him now and he after
leaving gaol this morning.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN [<i>to <span class="small">ANDREW</span></i>].</div>

<p>I was trying to remember it—when he spoke
that word it all came back to me. I saw a bright
many-changing figure; it was holding up a
shining vessel [<i>holds up arms</i>]; then the vessel
fell and was broken with a great crash; then I
saw the unicorns trampling it. They were
breaking the world to pieces—when I saw the
cracks coming I shouted for joy! And I heard
the command ‘Destroy, destroy, destruction is
the life-giver! destroy!’</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>What will we do with him? He was thinking
to rob you of your gold.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>How could I forget it or mistake it? It has
all come upon me now; the reasons of it all,
like a flood, like a flooded river.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY [<i>weeping</i>].</div>

<p>It was the hunger brought me in and the
drouth.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>Were you given any other message? Did
you see the unicorns?</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>I saw nothing and heard nothing; near dead
I am with the fright I got and with the hardship
of the gaol.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>To destroy, to overthrow all that comes between
us and God, between us and that shining
country. To break the wall, Andrew, to break
the thing—whatever it is that comes between,
but where to begin—</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>What is it you are talking about?</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>It may be that this man is the beginning.
He has been sent—the poor, they have nothing,
and so they can see heaven as we cannot. He
and his comrades will understand me. But how
to give all men high hearts that they may all
understand?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>It’s the juice of the grey barley will do that.</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>To rise everybody’s heart, is it? Is it that
was your meaning all the time? If you will
take the blame of it all, I’ll do what you want.
Give me the bag of money then. [<i>He takes it up.</i>]
O, I’ve a heart like your own. I’ll lift the world,
too. The people will be running from all parts.
O, it will be a great day in this district.</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>Will I go with you?</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>No, you must stay here; we have things to
do and to plan.</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>Destroyed we all are with the hunger and
the drouth.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>Go, then, get food and drink, whatever is
wanted to give you strength and courage. Gather
your people together here, bring them all in.
We have a great thing to do. I have to begin—I
want to tell it to the whole world. Bring them
in, bring them in, I will make the house ready.</p>

<div class="hang2">[<i>He stands looking up as if in ecstasy; <span class="small">ANDREW</span>
and <span class="small">JOHNNY BACACH</span> go out.</i></div>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></p>




<h3>ACT II</h3>


<div class="hang1"><i>The same workshop. <span class="small">MARTIN</span> seen arranging mugs
and bread, etc., on a table. <span class="small">FATHER JOHN</span> comes
in, knocking at open door as he comes; his mind
intensely absorbed.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>Come in, come in, I have got the house ready.
Here is bread and meat—everybody is welcome.</p>

<div class="right">[<i>Hearing no answer, turns round.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>Martin, I have come back. There is something
I want to say to you.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>You are welcome, there are others coming.
They are not of your sort, but all are welcome.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>I have remembered suddenly something that
I read when I was in the seminary.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>You seem very tired.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN [<i>sitting down</i>].</div>

<p>I had almost got back to my own place
when I thought of it. I have run part of the
way. It is very important; it is about the trance
that you have been in. When one is inspired
from above, either in trance or in contemplation,
one remembers afterwards all that one has
seen and read. I think there must be something
about it in St. Thomas. I know that I
have read a long passage about it years ago. But,
Martin, there is another kind of inspiration, or
rather an obsession or possession. A diabolical
power comes into one’s body, or overshadows
it. Those whose bodies are taken hold of in this
way, jugglers, and witches, and the like, can
often tell what is happening in distant places,
or what is going to happen, but when they
come out of that state they remember nothing.
I think you said—</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>That I could not remember.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>You remembered something, but not all.
Nature is a great sleep; there are dangerous
and evil spirits in her dreams, but God is above
Nature. She is a darkness, but He makes
everything clear; He is light.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>All is clear now. I remember all, or all that
matters to me. A poor man brought me a
word, and I know what I have to do.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>Ah, I understand, words were put into his
mouth. I have read of such things. God
sometimes uses some common man as his messenger.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>You may have passed the man who brought
it on the road. He left me but now.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>Very likely, very likely, that is the way it
happened. Some plain, unnoticed man has
sometimes been sent with a command.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>I saw the unicorns trampling in my dream.
They were breaking the world. I am to destroy,
destruction was the word the messenger spoke.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>To destroy?</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>To bring again the old disturbed exalted life,
the old splendour.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>You are not the first that dream has come to.
[<i>Gets up, and walks up and down.</i>] It has been
wandering here and there, calling now to this
man, now to that other. It is a terrible dream.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>Father John, you have had the same thought.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>Men were holy then, there were saints everywhere.
There was reverence; but now it is all
work, business, how to live a long time. Ah, if
one could change it all in a minute, even by
war and violence! There is a cell where Saint
Ciaran used to pray; if one could bring that
time again!</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>Do not deceive me. You have had the
command.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>Why are you questioning me? You are
asking me things that I have told to no one
but my confessor.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>We must gather the crowds together, you
and I.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>I have dreamed your dream, it was long ago.
I had your vision.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>And what happened?</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN [<i>harshly</i>].</div>

<p>It was stopped; that was an end. I was sent
to the lonely parish where I am, where there
was no one I could lead astray. They have
left me there. We must have patience; the
world was destroyed by water, it has yet to be
consumed by fire.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>Why should we be patient? To live seventy
years, and others to come after us and live
seventy years it may be; and so from age to
age, and all the while the old splendour dying
more and more.</p>

<div class="hang2">[<i>A noise of shouting. <span class="small">ANDREW</span>, who has been
standing at the door, comes in.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>Martin says truth, and he says it well.
Planing the side of a cart or a shaft, is that
life? It is not. Sitting at a desk writing
letters to the man that wants a coach, or to
the man that won’t pay for the one he has got,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
is that life, I ask you? Thomas arguing at
you and putting you down—‘Andrew, dear
Andrew, did you put the tyre on that wheel
yet?’ Is that life? Not, it is not. I ask you
all, what do you remember when you are dead?
It’s the sweet cup in the corner of the widow’s
drinking-house that you remember. Ha, ha,
listen to that shouting! That is what the lads
in the village will remember to the last day
they live.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>Why are they shouting? What have you
told them?</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>Never you mind; you left that to me. You
bade me to lift their hearts and I did lift them.
There is not one among them but will have
his head like a blazing tar-barrel before morning.
What did your friend the beggar say?
The juice of the grey barley, he said.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>You accursed villain! You have made them
drunk!</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>Not at all, but lifting them to the stars.
That is what Martin bade me to do, and there
is no one can say I did not do it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p>

<div class="hang2">[<i>A shout at door, and beggars push in a barrel.
They cry, ‘Hi! for the noble master!’ and
point at <span class="small">ANDREW</span>.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>It’s not him, it’s that one! [<i>Points at <span class="small">MARTIN</span>.</i></p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>Are you bringing this devil’s work in at the
very door? Go out of this, I say! get out!
Take these others with you!</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>No, no; I asked them in, they must not be
turned out. They are my guests.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>Drive them out of your uncle’s house!</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>Come, Father, it is better for you to go.
Go back to your own place. I have taken the
command. It is better perhaps for you that
you did not take it.</p>

<div class="right">[<i><span class="small">FATHER JOHN</span> and <span class="small">MARTIN</span> go out.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>It is well for that old lad he didn’t come
between ourselves and our luck. Himself to
be after his meal, and ourselves staggering with
the hunger! It would be right to have flayed
him and to have made bags of his skin.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">NANNY.</div>

<p>What a hurry you are in to get your enough!
Look at the grease on your frock yet, with the
dint of the dabs you put in your pocket!
Doing cures and foretellings is it? You starved
pot-picker, you!</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>That you may be put up to-morrow to take
the place of that decent son of yours that had
the yard of the gaol wore with walking it till
this morning!</p>

<div class="speakerc">NANNY.</div>

<p>If he had, he had a mother to come to, and
he would know her when he did see her; and
that is what no son of your own could do and
he to meet you at the foot of the gallows.</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>If I did know you, I knew too much of you
since the first beginning of my life! What
reward did I ever get travelling with you?
What store did you give me of cattle or of
goods? What provision did I get from you
by day or by night but your own bad character
to be joined on to my own, and I following at
your heels, and your bags tied round about me!</p>

<div class="speakerc">NANNY.</div>

<p>Disgrace and torment on you! Whatever
you got from me, it was more than any reward<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
or any bit I ever got from the father you had,
or any honourable thing at all, but only the
hurt and the harm of the world and its shame!</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>What would he give you, and you going
with him without leave! Crooked and foolish
you were always, and you begging by the side
of the ditch.</p>

<div class="speakerc">NANNY.</div>

<p>Begging or sharing, the curse of my heart
upon you! It’s better off I was before ever I
met with you to my cost! What was on me
at all that I did not cut a scourge in the wood
to put manners and decency on you the time
you were not hardened as you are!</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>Leave talking to me of your rods and your
scourges! All you taught me was robbery, and
it is on yourself and not on myself the scourges
will be laid at the day of the recognition of
tricks.</p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>’Faith, the pair of you together is better than
Hector fighting before Troy!</p>

<div class="speakerc">NANNY.</div>

<p>Ah, let you be quiet. It is not fighting we
are craving, but the easing of the hunger that
is on us and of the passion of sleep. Lend me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>
a graineen of tobacco now till I’ll kindle my
pipe—a blast of it will take the weight of the
road off my heart.</p>

<div class="right">[<i><span class="small">ANDREW</span> gives her some, <span class="small">NANNY</span> grabs at it.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>No, but it’s to myself you should give it. I
that never smoked a pipe this forty year without
saying the tobacco prayer. Let that one
say did ever she do that much.</p>

<div class="speakerc">NANNY.</div>

<p>That the pain of your front tooth may be in
your back tooth, you to be grabbing my share!</p>

<div class="right">[<i>They snap at tobacco.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>Pup, pup, pup! Don’t be snapping and
quarrelling now, and you so well treated in this
house. It is strollers like yourselves should be
for frolic and for fun. Have you ne’er a good
song to sing, a song that will rise all our hearts?</p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>Johnny Bacach is a good singer, it is what
he used to be doing in the fairs, if the oakum of
the gaol did not give him a hoarseness within
the throat.</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>Give it out so, a good song, a song will put
courage and spirit into any man at all.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY [<i>singing</i>].</div>


<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
    <div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Come, all ye airy bachelors,</div>
<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: -1em;">A warning take by me,</span></div>
<div class="verse">A sergeant caught me fowling,</div>
<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: -1em;">And fired his gun so free.</span></div>
    </div>
    <div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">His comrades came to his relief,</div>
<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: -1em;">And I was soon trepanned,</span></div>
<div class="verse">And bound up like a woodcock</div>
<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: -1em;">Had fallen into their hands.</span></div>
    </div>
    <div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The judge said transportation,</div>
<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: -1em;">The ship was on the strand;</span></div>
<div class="verse">They have yoked me to the traces</div>
<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: -1em;">For to plough Van Dieman’s Land!</span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>That’s no good of a song but a melancholy
sort of a song. I’d as lief be listening to a saw
going through timber. Wait, now, till you will
hear myself giving out a tune on the flute.</p>

<div class="right">[<i>Goes out for it.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>It is what I am thinking there must be a
great dearth and a great scarcity of good comrades
in this place, a man like that youngster,
having means in his hand, to be bringing ourselves
and our rags into the house.</p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>You think yourself very wise, Johnny Bacach.
Can you tell me, now, who that man is?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>Some decent lad, I suppose, with a good way
of living and a mind to send up his name upon
the roads.</p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>You that have been gaoled this eight months
know little of this countryside. It isn’t a limping
stroller like yourself the Boys would let
come among them. But I know. I went to
the drill a few nights and I skinning kids for
the mountainy men. In a quarry beyond the
drill is—they have their plans made—it’s the
square house of the Brownes is to be made an
attack on and plundered. Do you know, now,
who is the leader they are waiting for?</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>How would I know that?</p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN [<i>singing</i>].</div>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">Oh, Johnny Gibbons, my five hundred healths to you.</div>
<div class="verse">It is long you are away from us over the sea!</div>
</div></div>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY [<i>standing up excitedly</i>].</div>

<p>Sure that man could not be Johnny Gibbons
that is outlawed!</p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>I asked news of him from the old lad, and I
bringing in the drink along with him. ‘Don’t
be asking questions,’ says he; ‘take the treat he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>
gives you,’ says he. ‘If a lad that has a high
heart has a mind to rouse the neighbours,’ says
he, ‘and to stretch out his hand to all that pass
the road, it is in France he learned it,’ says he,
‘the place he is but lately come from, and where
the wine does be standing open in tubs. Take
your treat when you get it,’ says he, ‘and make
no delay or all might be discovered and put an
end to.’</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>He came over the sea from France! It is
Johnny Gibbons, surely, but it seems to me they
were calling him by some other name.</p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>A man on his keeping might go by a hundred
names. Would he be telling it out to us that
he never saw before, and we with that clutch
of chattering women along with us? Here he
is coming now. Wait till you see is he the lad
I think him to be.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN [<i>coming in</i>].</div>

<p>I will make my banner, I will paint the unicorn
on it. Give me that bit of canvas, there
is paint over here. We will get no help from the
settled men—we will call to the lawbreakers,
the tinkers, the sievemakers, the sheepstealers.</p>

<div class="right">[<i>He begins to make banner.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span></div>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>That sounds to be a queer name of an army.
Ribbons I can understand, Whiteboys, Rightboys,
Threshers, and Peep o’ Day, but Unicorns
I never heard of before.</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>It is not a queer name but a very good name.
[<i>Takes up lion and unicorn.</i>] It is often you saw
that before you in the dock. There is the unicorn
with the one horn, and what it is he is
going against? The lion of course. When he
has the lion destroyed, the crown must fall and
be shivered. Can’t you see it is the League of
the Unicorns is the league that will fight and
destroy the power of England and King George?</p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>It is with that banner we will march and the
lads in the quarry with us, it is they will have
the welcome before him! It won’t be long till
we’ll be attacking the Square House! Arms
there are in it, riches that would smother the
world, rooms full of guineas we will put wax
on our shoes walking them; the horses themselves
shod with no less than silver!</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN [<i>holding up banner</i>].</div>

<p>There it is ready! We are very few now,
but the army of the Unicorns will be a great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>
army! [<i>To <span class="small">JOHNNY</span>.</i>] Why have you brought me
the message? Can you remember any more?
Has anything more come to you? You have
been drinking, the clouds upon your mind have
been destroyed.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Can you see anything or
hear anything that is beyond the world?</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>I can not. I don’t know what do you want
me to tell you at all?</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>I want to begin the destruction, but I don’t
know where to begin .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. you do not hear
any other voice?</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>I do not. I have nothing at all to do with
Freemasons or witchcraft.</p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>It is Biddy Lally has to do with witchcraft.
It is often she threw the cups and gave out
prophecies the same as Columcille.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>You are one of the knowledgeable women.
You can tell me where it is best to begin, and
what will happen in the end.</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>I will foretell nothing at all. I rose out of it
this good while, with the stiffness and the swelling
it brought upon my joints.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>If you have foreknowledge you have no right
to keep silent. If you do not help me I may
go to work in the wrong way. I know I have
to destroy, but when I ask myself what I am
to begin with, I am full of uncertainty.</p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>Here now are the cups handy and the leavings
in them.</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.<br />
[<i>Taking cups and pouring one from another.</i>]</div>

<p>Throw a bit of white money into the four
corners of the house.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>There! [<i>Throwing it.</i>]</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>There can be nothing told without silver.
It is not myself will have the profit of it. Along
with that I will be forced to throw out gold.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>There is a guinea for you. Tell me what
comes before your eyes.</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>What is it you are wanting to have news of?</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>Of what I have to go out against at the beginning .&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
there is so much .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. the whole
world it may be.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.<br />
[<i>Throwing from one cup to another and looking.</i>]</div>

<p>You have no care for yourself. You have been
across the sea, you are not long back. You are
coming within the best day of your life.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>What is it? What is it I have to do?</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>I see a great smoke, I see burning .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. there
is a great smoke overhead.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>That means we have to burn away a great
deal that men have piled up upon the earth.
We must bring men once more to the wildness
of the clean green earth.</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>Herbs for my healing, the big herb and the
little herb, it is true enough they get their great
strength out of the earth.</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>Who was it the green sod of Ireland belonged
to in the olden times? Wasn’t it to the ancient
race it belonged? And who has possession of
it now but the race that came robbing over the
sea? The meaning of that is to destroy the big
houses and the towns, and the fields to be given
back to the ancient race.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>That is it. You don’t put it as I do, but
what matter? Battle is all.</p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>Columcille said, the four corners to be burned,
and then the middle of the field to be burned.
I tell you it was Columcille’s prophecy said that.</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>Iron handcuffs I see and a rope and a gallows,
and it maybe is not for yourself I see it, but
for some I have acquaintance with a good way
back.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>That means the law. We must destroy the
law. That was the first sin, the first mouthful
of the apple.</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>So it was, so it was. The law is the worst
loss. The ancient law was for the benefit of all.
It is the law of the English is the only sin.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>When there were no laws men warred on
one another and man to man, not with machines
made in towns as they do now, and they grew
hard and strong in body. They were altogether
alive like him that made them in his image,
like people in that unfallen country. But presently<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
they thought it better to be safe, as if
safety mattered or anything but the exaltation
of the heart, and to have eyes that danger had
made grave and piercing. We must overthrow
the laws and banish them.</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>It is what I say, to put out the laws is to put
out the whole nation of the English. Laws for
themselves they made for their own profit, and
left us nothing at all, no more than a dog or a
sow.</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>An old priest I see, and I would not say is
he the one was here or another. Vexed and
troubled he is, kneeling fretting and ever-fretting
in some lonesome ruined place.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>I thought it would come to that. Yes, the
Church too—that is to be destroyed. Once
men fought with their desires and their fears,
with all that they call their sins, unhelped, and
their souls became hard and strong. When we
have brought back the clean earth and destroyed
the law and the Church all life will become
like a flame of fire, like a burning eye .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Oh,
how to find words for it all .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. all that is not
life will pass away.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>It is Luther’s Church he means, and the
humpbacked discourse of Seaghan Calvin’s
Bible. So we will break it, and make an end of it.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>We will go out against the world and break
it and unmake it. [<i>Rising.</i>] We are the army
of the Unicorn from the Stars! We will trample
it to pieces.—We will consume the world, we
will burn it away—Father John said the world
has yet to be consumed by fire. Bring me fire.</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW [<i>to <span class="normal">Beggars</span></i>].</div>

<p>Here is Thomas. Hide—let you hide.</p>

<div class="right">[<i>All except <span class="small">MARTIN</span> hurry into next room.
<span class="small">THOMAS</span> comes in.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>Come with me, Martin. There is terrible
work going on in the town! There is mischief
gone abroad. Very strange things are happening!</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>What are you talking of? What has happened?</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>Come along, I say, it must be put a stop to.
We must call to every decent man. It is as if
the devil himself had gone through the town
on a blast and set every drinking-house open!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>I wonder how that has happened. Can it
have anything to do with Andrew’s plan?</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>Are you giving no heed to what I’m saying?
There is not a man, I tell you, in the parish and
beyond the parish but has left the work he
was doing whether in the field or in the mill.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>Then all work has come to an end? Perhaps
that was a good thought of Andrew’s.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>There is not a man has come to sensible
years that is not drunk or drinking! My own
labourers and my own serving-men are sitting
on counters and on barrels! I give you my
word, the smell of the spirits and the porter
and the shouting and the cheering within, made
the hair to rise up on my scalp.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>And yet there is not one of them that does
not feel that he could bridle the four winds.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS [<i>sitting down in despair</i>].</div>

<p>You are drunk too. I never thought you had
a fancy for it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>It is hard for you to understand. You have
worked all your life. You have said to yourself
every morning, ‘What is to be done to-day?’
and when you are tired out you have thought
of the next day’s work. If you gave yourself
an hour’s idleness, it was but that you might
work the better. Yet it is only when one has
put work away that one begins to live.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>It is those French wines that did it.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>I have been beyond the earth. In Paradise,
in that happy townland, I have seen the shining
people. They were all doing one thing or another,
but not one of them was at work. All
that they did was but the overflowing of their
idleness, and their days were a dance bred of
the secret frenzy of their hearts, or a battle
where the sword made a sound that was like
laughter.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>You went away sober from out of my hands;
they had a right to have minded you better.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>No man can be alive, and what is paradise
but fulness of life, if whatever he sets his hand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>
to in the daylight cannot carry him from exaltation
to exaltation, and if he does not rise into
the frenzy of contemplation in the night silence.
Events that are not begotten in joy are misbegotten
and darken the world, and nothing
is begotten in joy if the joy of a thousand years
has not been crushed into a moment.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>And I offered to let you go to Dublin in the
coach!</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN [<i>giving banner to <span class="small">PAUDEEN</span></i>].</div>

<p>Give me the lamp. The lamp has not yet
been lighted and the world is to be consumed!</p>

<div class="right">[<i>Goes into inner room.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS [<i>seeing <span class="small">ANDREW</span></i>].</div>

<p>Is it here you are, Andrew? What are these
beggars doing? Was this door thrown open too?
Why did you not keep order? I will go for
the constables to help us!</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>You will not find them to help you. They
were scattering themselves through the drinking-houses
of the town, and why wouldn’t they?</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>Are you drunk too? You are worse than
Martin. You are a disgrace!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>Disgrace yourself! Coming here to be making
an attack on me and badgering me and disparaging
me! And what about yourself that turned
me to be a hypocrite?</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>What are you saying?</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>You did, I tell you! Weren’t you always at
me to be regular and to be working and to be
going through the day and the night without
company and to be thinking of nothing but the
trade? What did I want with a trade? I got
a sight of the fairy gold one time in the mountains.
I would have found it again and brought
riches from it but for you keeping me so close
to the work.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>Oh, of all the ungrateful creatures! You
know well that I cherished you, leading you to
live a decent, respectable life.</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>You never had respect for the ancient ways.
It is after the mother you take it, that was too
soft and too lumpish, having too much of the
English in her blood. Martin is a Hearne like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>
myself. It is he has the generous heart! It is
not Martin would make a hypocrite of me and
force me to do night-walking secretly, watching
to be back by the setting of the seven stars!</p>

<div class="right">[<i>He begins to play his flute.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>I will turn you out of this, yourself and this
filthy troop! I will have them lodged in gaol.</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>Filthy troop, is it? Mind yourself! The
change is coming. The pikes will be up and
the traders will go down!</p>

<div class="enter"><i><span class="normal">All</span> seize <span class="small">THOMAS</span> and sing.</i></div>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
    <div class="stanza">
<div class="verse"><small>When the Lion will lose his strength,</small></div>
<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><small>And the braket-thistle begin to pine,</small></span></div>
<div class="verse"><small>The harp shall sound sweet, sweet at length,</small></div>
<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><small>Between the eight and the nine!</small></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>Let me out of this, you villains!</p>

<div class="speakerc">NANNY.</div>

<p>We’ll make a sieve of holes of you, you old
bag of treachery!</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>How well you threatened us with gaol, you
skim of a weasel’s milk!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>You heap of sicknesses! You blinking hangman!
That you may never die till you’ll get
a blue hag for a wife!</p>

<div class="right">[<i><span class="small">MARTIN</span> comes back with lighted lamp.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>Let him go. [<i>They let <span class="small">THOMAS</span> go, and fall
back.</i>] Spread out the banner. The moment
has come to begin the war.</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>Up with the Unicorn and destroy the Lion!
Success to Johnny Gibbons and all good men!</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>Heap all those things together there. Heap
those pieces of the coach one upon another.
Put that straw under them. It is with this
flame I will begin the work of destruction. All
nature destroys and laughs.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>Destroy your own golden coach!</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN [<i>kneeling before <span class="small">THOMAS</span></i>].</div>

<p>I am sorry to go a way that you do not like
and to do a thing that will vex you. I have
been a great trouble to you since I was a child
in the house, and I am a great trouble to you
yet. It is not my fault. I have been chosen for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>
what I have to do. [<i>Stands up.</i>] I have to free
myself first and those that are near me. The love
of God is a very terrible thing! [<i><span class="small">THOMAS</span> tries
to stop him, but is prevented by <span class="normal">Beggars</span>. <span class="small">MARTIN</span>
takes a wisp of straw and lights it.</i>] We will destroy
all that can perish! It is only the soul
that can suffer no injury. The soul of man is
of the imperishable substance of the stars!</p>

<div class="right">[<i>He throws wisp into heap—it blazes up.</i></div>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p>




<h3>ACT III</h3>


<div class="hang1">
<i>Before dawn. A wild rocky place, <span class="small">NANNY</span> and
<span class="small">BIDDY LALLY</span> squatting by a fire. Rich stuffs, etc.,
strewn about. <span class="small">PAUDEEN</span> watching by <span class="small">MARTIN</span>,
who is lying as if dead, a sack over him.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">NANNY [<i>to <span class="small">PAUDEEN</span></i>].</div>

<p>Well, you are great heroes and great warriors
and great lads altogether, to have put down the
Brownes the way you did, yourselves and the
Whiteboys of the quarry. To have ransacked
the house and have plundered it! Look at the
silks and the satins and the grandeurs I brought
away! Look at that now! [<i>Holds up a velvet
cloak.</i>] It’s a good little jacket for myself will
come out of it. It’s the singers will be stopping
their songs and the jobbers turning from their
cattle in the fairs to be taking a view of the
laces of it and the buttons! It’s my far-off
cousins will be drawing from far and near!</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>There was not so much gold in it all as what
they were saying there was. Or maybe that
fleet of Whiteboys had the place ransacked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>
before we ourselves came in. Bad cess to them
that put it in my mind to go gather up the full
of my bag of horseshoes out of the forge. Silver
they were saying they were, pure white silver;
and what are they in the end but only hardened
iron! A bad end to them! [<i>Flings away horseshoes.</i>]
The time I will go robbing big houses
again it will not be in the light of the full moon
I will go doing it, that does be causing every
common thing to shine out as if for a deceit
and a mockery. It’s not shining at all they are
at this time, but duck yellow and dark.</p>

<div class="speakerc">NANNY.</div>

<p>To leave the big house blazing after us, it was
that crowned all! Two houses to be burned to
ashes in the one night. It is likely the servant-girls
were rising from the feathers and the cocks
crowing from the rafters for seven miles around,
taking the flames to be the whitening of the
dawn.</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>It is the lad is stretched beyond you have to
be thankful to for that. There was never seen
a leader was his equal for spirit and for daring.
Making a great scatter of the guards the way
he did. Running up roofs and ladders, the fire
in his hand, till you’d think he would be apt to
strike his head against the stars.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">NANNY.</div>

<p>I partly guessed death was near him, and the
queer shining look he had in his two eyes, and
he throwing sparks east and west through the
beams. I wonder now was it some inward wound
he got, or did some hardy lad of the Brownes
give him a tip on the skull unknownst in the
fight? It was I myself found him, and the troop
of the Whiteboys gone, and he lying by the
side of a wall as weak as if he had knocked a
mountain. I failed to waken him trying him
with the sharpness of my nails, and his head fell
back when I moved it, and I knew him to be
spent and gone.</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>It’s a pity you not to have left him where he
was lying and said no word at all to Paudeen or
to that son you have, that kept us back from
following on, bringing him here to this shelter
on sacks and upon poles.</p>

<div class="speakerc">NANNY.</div>

<p>What way could I help letting a screech out
of myself, and the life but just gone out of him
in the darkness, and not a living Christian by
his side but myself and the great God?</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>It’s on ourselves the vengeance of the red
soldiers will fall, they to find us sitting here the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>
same as hares in a tuft. It would be best for us
follow after the rest of the army of the Whiteboys.</p>

<div class="speakerc">NANNY.</div>

<p>Whisht! I tell you. The lads are cracked
about him. To get but the wind of the word of
leaving him, it’s little but they’d knock the
head off the two of us. Whisht!</p>

<div class="enter">
<i>Enter <span class="small">JOHNNY BACACH</span> with candles.</i><br />
</div>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY [<i>standing over <span class="small">MARTIN</span></i>].</div>

<p>Wouldn’t you say now there was some malice
or some venom in the air, that is striking down
one after another the whole of the heroes of
the Gael?</p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>It makes a person be thinking of the four
last ends, death and judgment, heaven and hell.
Indeed and indeed my heart lies with him. It
is well I knew what man he was under his by-name
and his disguise.</p>


<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
    <div class="stanza">
<div class="verse"><small>[<i>Sings.</i>] Oh, Johnny Gibbons, it’s you were the prop to us.</small></div>
<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 3em;"><small>You to have left us, we are put astray!</small></span></div>
</div></div></div>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>It is lost we are now and broken to the end
of our days. There is no satisfaction at all but
to be destroying the English, and where now
will we get so good a leader again? Lay him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
out fair and straight upon a stone, till I will
let loose the secret of my heart keening him!</p>

<div class="right">[<i>Sets out candles on a rock, propping them up
with stones.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">NANNY.</div>

<p>Is it mould candles you have brought to set
around him, Johnny Bacach? It is great riches
you should have in your pocket to be going to
those lengths and not to be content with dips.</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>It is lengths I will not be going to the time
the life will be gone out of your own body. It
is not your corpse I will be wishful to hold in
honour the way I hold this corpse in honour.</p>

<div class="speakerc">NANNY.</div>

<p>That’s the way always, there will be grief and
quietness in the house if it is a young person
has died, but funning and springing and tricking
one another if it is an old person’s corpse
is in it. There is no compassion at all for the old.</p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>It is he would have got leave for the Gael to
be as high as the Gall. Believe me, he was in
the prophecies. Let you not be comparing yourself
with the like of him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">NANNY.</div>

<p>Why wouldn’t I be comparing myself? Look
at all that was against me in the world. Would
you be matching me against a man of his sort,
that had the people shouting him and that had
nothing to do but to die and to go to heaven?</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>The day you go to heaven that you may
never come back alive out of it! But it is not
yourself will ever hear the saints hammering at
their musics! It is you will be moving through
the ages, chains upon you, and you in the form
of a dog or a monster. I tell you that one will
go through Purgatory as quick as lightning
through a thorn-bush.</p>

<div class="speakerc">NANNY.</div>

<p>That’s the way, that the way.</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse"><small>[<i>Croons.</i>] Three that are watching my time to run,</small></div>
<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><small>The worm, the devil, and my son,</small></span></div>
<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><small>To see a loop around their neck</small></span></div>
<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><small>It’s that would make my heart to lep!</small></span></div>
</div></div>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>Five white candles. I wouldn’t begrudge
them to him indeed. If he had held out and
held up it is my belief he would have freed
Ireland!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>Wait till the full light of the day and you’ll
see the burying he’ll have. It is not in this
place we will be waking him. I’ll make a call
to the two hundred Ribbons he was to lead on
to the attack on the barracks at Aughanish.
They will bring him marching to his grave
upon the hill. He had surely some gift from
the other world, I wouldn’t say but he had
power from the other side.</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW [<i>coming in very shaky</i>].</div>

<p>Well, it was a great night he gave to the
village, and it is long till it will be forgotten.
I tell you the whole of the neighbours are up
against him. There is no one at all this morning
to set the mills going. There was no bread
baked in the night-time, the horses are not fed
in the stalls, the cows are not milked in the
sheds. I met no man able to make a curse this
night but he put it on my head and on the head
of the boy that is lying there before us .&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
Is there no sign of life in him at all?</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>What way would there be a sign of life and
the life gone out of him this three hours or
more?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>He was lying in his sleep for a while yesterday,
and he wakened again after another while.</p>

<div class="speakerc">NANNY.</div>

<p>He will not waken, I tell you. I held his hand
in my own and it getting cold as if you were
pouring on it the coldest cold water, and no
running in his blood. He is gone sure enough
and the life is gone out of him.</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>Maybe so, maybe so. It seems to me yesterday
his cheeks were bloomy all the while, and
now he is as pale as wood ashes. Sure we all
must come to it at the last. Well, my white-headed
darling, it is you were the bush among
us all, and you to be cut down in your prime.
Gentle and simple, everyone liked you. It is
no narrow heart you had, it is you were for
spending and not for getting. It is you made
a good wake for yourself, scattering your estate
in one night only in beer and in wine for the
whole province; and that you may be sitting
in the middle of Paradise and in the chair of
the Graces!</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>Amen to that. It’s pity I didn’t think the
time I sent for yourself to send the little lad of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>
a messenger looking for a priest to overtake him.
It might be in the end the Almighty is the best
man for us all!</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>Sure I sent him on myself to bid the priest
to come. Living or dead I would wish to do
all that is rightful for the last and the best of
my own race and generation.</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY [<i>jumping up</i>].</div>

<p>Is it the priest you are bringing in among us?
Where is the sense in that? Aren’t we robbed
enough up to this with the expense of the
candles and the like?</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>If it is that poor starved priest he called to
that came talking in secret signs to the man
that is gone, it is likely he will ask nothing for
what he has to do. There is many a priest is
a Whiteboy in his heart.</p>

<div class="speakerc">NANNY.</div>

<p>I tell you, if you brought him tied in a bag
he would not say an Our Father for you, without
you having a half-crown at the top of your
fingers.</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>There is no priest is any good at all but a
spoiled priest. A one that would take a drop<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>
of drink, it is he would have courage to face
the hosts of trouble. Rout them out he would,
the same as a shoal of fish from out the weeds.
It’s best not to vex a priest, or to run against
them at all.</p>

<div class="speakerc">NANNY.</div>

<p>It’s yourself humbled yourself well to one the
time you were sick in the gaol and had like to
die, and he bade you to give over the throwing
of the cups.</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>Ah, plaster of Paris I gave him. I took to
it again and I free upon the roads.</p>

<div class="speakerc">NANNY.</div>

<p>Much good you are doing with it to yourself
or any other one. Aren’t you after telling that
corpse no later than yesterday that he was coming
within the best day of his life?</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>Whisht, let ye. Here is the priest coming.</p>

<div class="enter"><i><span class="small">FATHER JOHN</span> comes in.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>It is surely not true that he is dead?</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>The spirit went from him about the middle
hour of the night. We brought him here to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>
this sheltered place. We were loth to leave him
without friends.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>Where is he?</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY [<i>taking up sacks</i>].</div>

<p>Lying there stiff and stark. He has a very
quiet look as if there was no sin at all or no
great trouble upon his mind.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN [<i>kneels and touches him</i>].</div>

<p>He is not dead.</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY [<i>pointing to <span class="small">NANNY</span></i>].</div>

<p>He is dead. If it was letting on he was, he
would not have let that one rob him and search
him the way she did.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>It has the appearance of death, but it is not
death. He is in a trance.</p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>Is it Heaven and Hell he is walking at this
time to be bringing back newses of the sinners
in pain?</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>I was thinking myself it might away he was,
riding on white horses with the riders of the
forths.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>He will have great wonders to tell out the
time he will rise up from the ground. It is a
pity he not to waken at this time and to lead
us on to overcome the troop of the English.
Sure those that are in a trance get strength, that
they can walk on water.</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>It was Father John wakened him yesterday
the time he was lying in the same way. Wasn’t
I telling you it was for that I called to him?</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>Waken him now till they’ll see did I tell
any lie in my foretelling. I knew well by the
signs, he was coming within the best day of his
life.</p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>And not dead at all! We’ll be marching to
attack Dublin itself within a week. The horn
will blow for him, and all good men will gather
to him. Hurry on, Father, and waken him.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>I will not waken him. I will not bring him
back from where he is.</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>And how long will it be before he will waken
of himself?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>Maybe to-day, maybe to-morrow, it is hard
to be certain.</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>If it is <i>away</i> he is he might be away seven
years. To be lying like a stump of a tree and
using no food and the world not able to knock
a word out of him, I know the signs of it well.</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>We cannot be waiting and watching through
seven years. If the business he has started is to
be done we have to go on here and now. The
time there is any delay, that is the time the
Government will get information. Waken him
now, Father, and you’ll get the blessing of the
generations.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>I will not bring him back. God will bring
him back in his own good time. For all I know
he may be seeing the hidden things of God.</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>He might slip away in his dream. It is best
to raise him up now.</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>Waken him, Father John. I thought he was
surely dead this time, and what way could I go
face Thomas through all that is left of my lifetime,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>
after me standing up to face him the way
I did? And if I do take a little drop of an odd
night, sure I’d be very lonesome if I did not
take it. All the world knows it’s not for love
of what I drink, but for love of the people that
do be with me! Waken him, Father, or maybe
I would waken him myself. [<i>Shakes him.</i>]</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>Lift your hand from touching him. Leave
him to himself and to the power of God.</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>If you will not bring him back why wouldn’t
we ourselves do it? Go on now, it is best for
you to do it yourself.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>I woke him yesterday. He was angry with
me, he could not get to the heart of the command.</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>If he did not, he got a command from myself
that satisfied him, and a message.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>He did—he took it from you—and how do
I know what devil’s message it may have been
that brought him into that devil’s work, destruction
and drunkenness and burnings! That
was not a message from heaven! It was I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>
awoke him, it was I kept him from hearing
what was maybe a divine message, a voice of
truth, and he heard you speak and he believed
the message was brought by you. You have
made use of your deceit and his mistaking—you
have left him without house or means to
support him, you are striving to destroy and to
drag him to entire ruin. I will not help you,
I would rather see him die in his trance and
go into God’s hands than awake him and see
him go into hell’s mouth with vagabonds and
outcasts like you!</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY [<i>turning to <span class="small">BIDDY</span></i>].</div>

<p>You should have knowledge, Biddy Lally, of
the means to bring back a man that is away.</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>The power of the earth will do it through
its herbs, and the power of the air will do it
kindling fire into flame.</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>Rise up and make no delay. Stretch out and
gather a handful of an herb that will bring him
back from whatever place he is in.</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>Where is the use of herbs, and his teeth
clenched the way he could not use them?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>Take fire so in the devil’s name, and put it
to the soles of his feet.</p>

<div class="right">[<i>Takes a lighted sod from fire.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>Let him alone, I say! [<i>Dashes away the sod.</i></p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>I will not leave him alone! I will not give
in to leave him swooning there and the country
waiting for him to awake!</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>I tell you I awoke him! I sent him into
thieves’ company! I will not have him wakened
again and evil things it maybe waiting to take
hold of him! Back from him, back, I say! Will
you dare to lay a hand on me! You cannot do
it! You cannot touch him against my will!</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>Mind yourself, do not be bringing us under
the curse of the Church.</p>

<div class="right">[<i><span class="small">JOHNNY</span> steps back. <span class="small">MARTIN</span> moves.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>It is God has him in His care. It is He is
awaking him. [<i><span class="small">MARTIN</span> has risen to his elbow.</i>]
Do not touch him, do not speak to him, he may
be hearing great secrets.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>That music, I must go nearer—sweet marvellous
music—louder than the trampling of
the unicorns; far louder, though the mountain
is shaking with their feet—high joyous music.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>Hush, he is listening to the music of Heaven!</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>Take me to you, musicians, wherever you
are! I will go nearer to you; I hear you better
now, more and more joyful; that is strange, it
is strange.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>He is getting some secret.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>It is the music of Paradise, that is certain,
somebody said that. It is certainly the music
of Paradise. Ah, now I hear, now I understand.
It is made of the continual clashing of swords!</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>That is the best music. We will clash them
sure enough. We will clash our swords and our
pikes on the bayonets of the red soldiers. It
is well you rose up from the dead to lead us!
Come on, now, come on!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>Who are you? Ah, I remember—where are
you asking me to come to?</p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>To come on, to be sure, to the attack on the
barracks at Aughanish. To carry on the work
you took in hand last night.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>What work did I take in hand last night?
Oh, yes, I remember—some big house—we
burned it down—but I had not understood the
vision when I did that. I had not heard the
command right. That was not the work I was
sent to do.</p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>Rise up now and bid us what to do. Your
great name itself will clear the road before you.
It is you yourself will have freed all Ireland
before the stooks will be in stacks!</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>Listen, I will explain—I have misled you.
It is only now I have the whole vision plain.
As I lay there I saw through everything, I know
all. It was but a frenzy that going out to burn
and to destroy. What have I to do with the
foreign army? What I have to pierce is the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>
wild heart of time. My business is not reformation
but revelation.</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>If you are going to turn back now from leading
us, you are no better than any other traitor
that ever gave up the work he took in hand.
Let you come and face now the two hundred
men you brought out daring the power of the
law last night, and give them your reason for
failing them.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>I was mistaken when I set out to destroy
Church and Law. The battle we have to fight
is fought out in our own mind. There is a fiery
moment, perhaps once in a lifetime, and in that
moment we see the only thing that matters.
It is in that moment the great battles are lost
and won, for in that moment we are a part of
the host of heaven.</p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>Have you betrayed us to the naked hangman
with your promises and with your drink? If
you brought us out here to fail us and to ridicule
us, it is the last day you will live!</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>The curse of my heart on you! It would be
right to send you to your own place on the flagstone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>
of the traitors in hell. When once I have
made an end of you I will be as well satisfied
to be going to my death for it as if I was going
home!</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>Father John, Father John, can you not hear?
Can you not see? Are you blind? Are you deaf?</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>What is it? What is it?</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>There on the mountain, a thousand white
unicorns trampling; a thousand riders with
their swords drawn—the swords clashing! Oh,
the sound of the swords, the sound of the clashing
of the swords!</p>

<div class="hang2">

[<i>He goes slowly off stage. <span class="small">JOHNNY</span> takes up a
stone to throw at him.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN [<i>seizing his arm</i>].</div>

<p>Stop—do you not see he is beyond the world?</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>Keep your hand off him, Johnny Bacach. If
he is gone wild and cracked, that’s natural.
Those that have been wakened from a trance on
a sudden are apt to go bad and light in the head.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>If it is madness is on him, it is not he himself
should pay the penalty.</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>To prey on the mind it does, and rises into
the head. There are some would go over any
height and would have great power in their
madness. It is maybe to some secret cleft he is
going, to get knowledge of the great cure for
all things, or of the Plough that was hidden in
the old times, the Golden Plough.</p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>It seemed as if he was talking through honey.
He had the look of one that had seen great
wonders. It is maybe among the old heroes of
Ireland he went raising armies for our help.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>God take him in his care and keep him from
lying spirits and from all delusions!</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>We have got candles here, Father. We had
them to put around his body. Maybe they
would keep away the evil things of the air.</p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>Light them so, and he will say out a Mass
for him the same as in a lime-washed church.</p>

<div class="right">[<i>They light the candles.</i></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span></p>

<div class="center"><i><span class="small">THOMAS</span> comes in.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>Where is he? I am come to warn him. The
destruction he did in the night-time has been
heard of. The soldiers are out after him and
the constables—there are two of the constables
not far off—there are others on every side—they
heard he was here in the mountain—where
is he?</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>He has gone up the path.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>Hurry after him! Tell him to hide himself—this
attack he had a hand in is a hanging
crime. Tell him to hide himself, to come to
me when all is quiet—bad as his doings are, he
is my own brother’s son; I will get him on to
a ship that will be going to France.</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>That will be best, send him back to the
Brothers and to the wise Bishops. They can
unravel this tangle, I cannot. I cannot be sure
of the truth.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS.</div>

<p>Here are the constables, he will see them and
get away. Say no word. The Lord be praised
that he is out of sight.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span></p>

<div class="center">
<i><span class="normal">Constables</span> come in.</i><br />
</div>

<div class="speakerc">CONSTABLE.</div>

<p>The man we are looking for, where is he?
He was seen coming here along with you. You
have to give him up into the power of the law.</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>We will not give him up. Go back out of
this or you will be sorry.</p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>We are not in dread of you or the like of you.</p>

<div class="speakerc">BIDDY.</div>

<p>Throw them down over the rocks!</p>

<div class="speakerc">NANNY.</div>

<p>Give them to the picking of the crows!</p>

<div class="speakerc">ALL.</div>

<p>Down with the law!</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>Hush! He is coming back. [<i>To <span class="normal">Constables</span>.</i>]
Stop, stop—leave him to himself. He is not
trying to escape, he is coming towards you.</p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>There is a sort of a brightness about him. I
misjudged him calling him a traitor. It is not
to this world he belongs at all. He is over on
the other side.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.<br />
[<i>Standing beside the rock where the lighted
candles are.</i>]</div>
<div class="center"><i>Et calix meus inebrians quam præclarus est!</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>I must know what he has to say. It is not
from himself he is speaking.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.</div>

<p>Father John, Heaven is not what we have
believed it to be. It is not quiet, it is not singing
and making music, and all strife at an end.
I have seen it, I have been there. The lover
still loves but with a greater passion, and the
rider still rides but the horse goes like the wind
and leaps the ridges, and the battle goes on
always, always. That is the joy of Heaven, continual
battle. I thought the battle was here,
and that the joy was to be found here on earth,
that all one had to do was to bring again the
old wild earth of the stories—but no, it is not
here; we shall not come to that joy, that battle,
till we have put out the senses, everything that
can be seen and handled, as I put out this candle.
[<i>He puts out candle.</i>] We must put out the whole
world as I put out this candle [<i>puts out another
candle</i>]. We must put out the light of the stars
and the light of the sun and the light of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>
moon [<i>puts out the rest of the candles</i>], till we
have brought everything to nothing once again.
I saw in a broken vision, but now all is clear to
me. Where there is nothing, where there is
nothing—there is God!</p>

<div class="speakerc">CONSTABLE.</div>

<p>Now we will take him!</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>We will never give him up to the law!</p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>Make your escape! We will not let you be
followed.</p>

<div class="hang2">[<i>They struggle with <span class="normal">Constables</span>; the women help
them; all disappear struggling. There is a shot.
<span class="small">MARTIN</span> stumbles and falls. <span class="normal">Beggars</span> come
back with a shout.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>We have done for them, they will not meddle
with you again.</p>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN.</div>

<p>Oh, he is down!</p>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>He is shot through the breast. Oh, who has
dared meddle with a soul that was in the tumults
on the threshold of sanctity?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span></p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>It was that gun went off and I striking it
from the constable’s hand.</p>

<div class="speakerc">MARTIN.<br />
[<i>Looking at his hand, on which there is blood.</i>]</div>

<p>Ah, that is blood! I fell among the rocks.
It is a hard climb. It is a long climb to the
vineyards of Eden. Help me up. I must go on.
The Mountain of Abiegnos is very high—but
the vineyards—the vineyards!</p>

<div class="right">[<i>He falls back dead. The men uncover their heads.</i></div>

<div class="speakerc">PAUDEEN [<i>to <span class="small">BIDDY</span></i>].</div>

<p>It was you misled him with your foretelling
that he was coming within the best day of his
life.</p>

<div class="speakerc">JOHNNY.</div>

<p>Madness on him or no madness, I will not
leave that body to the law to be buried with a
dog’s burial or brought away and maybe hanged
upon a tree. Lift him on the sacks, bring him
away to the quarry; it is there on the hillside
the boys will give him a great burying, coming
on horses and bearing white rods in their hands.</p>

<div class="right">
[<i><span class="small">NANNY</span> lays the velvet cloak over him.</i></div>

<div class="enter"><i>They lift him and carry the body away singing:</i></div>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
    <div class="stanza">
<div class="verse"><small>Our hope and our darling, our heart dies with you,</small></div>
<div class="verse"><small>You to have failed us, we are foals astray!</small><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

<div class="speakerc">FATHER JOHN.</div>

<p>He is gone and we can never know where
that vision came from. I cannot know—the wise
Bishops would have known.</p>

<div class="speakerc">THOMAS [<i>taking up banner</i>].</div>

<p>To be shaping a lad through his lifetime, and
he to go his own way at the last, and a queer
way. It is very queer the world itself is, whatever
shape was put upon it at the first.</p>

<div class="speakerc">ANDREW.</div>

<p>To be too headstrong and too open, that is
the beginning of trouble. To keep to yourself
the thing that you know, and to do in quiet
the thing you want to do. There would be no
disturbance at all in the world, all people to
bear that in mind!</p>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a><br /><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span></p>

<h2>APPENDIX.</h2>


<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a><br /><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span></p>




<h3><i>THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN.</i></h3>

<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Preface to the Fourth Edition.</span></p>


<p><span class="smcap">The</span> present version of <i>The Countess Cathleen</i> 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 still 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. 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 robed actors, 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—no, not even when she answered, as in <i>The Duchess
of Malfi</i>, 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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span></p>

<p>Besides re-writing a lyric or two, I have much enlarged
the note on <i>The Countess Cathleen</i>, as there has been some
discussion in Ireland about the origin of the story, but the
other notes<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> 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 poem 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
great and complicated inheritance of images which written
literature has substituted for the greater and more complex
inheritance of spoken tradition, to that majestic heraldry of
the poets 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 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 very unnecessary.
When Cimabue had the cry it was, it seems, worth thinking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>
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>

<div class="sig">
W. B. YEATS.<br />
</div>

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


<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1">[A]</a> I have left them out of this edition as Lady Gregory’s <i>Cuchulain of Muirthemne</i>
and <i>Gods and Fighting Men</i> have made them unnecessary. When I began
to write, the names of the Irish heroes were almost unknown even in Ireland.</p></div></div>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span></p>


<h2>NOTES</h2>


<p><i>The Countess Cathleen.</i>—I found the story of the Countess
Cathleen in what professed to be a collection of Irish folklore
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
Timothé 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:—</p>

<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 sixpence d’argent à la
main.—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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>
vieille 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 saint 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 œuvres?</p>

<p>—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 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 épouse 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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span></p>

<p>Pendant ce temps, il existait dans la ville un ange de
beauté, la comtesse Ketty O’Donnor. 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 cœurs à Dieu, elle fit appeler son majordome.</p>

<p>—Master Patrick, lui dit elle, combien ai-je de pièces
d’or dans mon coffre?</p>

<p>—Cent mille.</p>

<p>—Combien de bijoux?</p>

<p>—Pour autant d’argent.</p>

<p>—Combien de châteaux, de bois et de terres?</p>

<p>—Pour le double de ces sommes.</p>

<p>—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 .&nbsp;.
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 Irlandaise, elle les eût mis en fuite,
mais ses mains étaient captives—Le larcin fut effectué. Alors
les pauvres sollicitèrent en vain près de Ketty dépouillée, elle
ne pouvait plus secourir leur misère;—elle les abandonnait
à la tentation. Pourtant il n’y avait plus que huit jours à
passer pour que les grains et les 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 angoisses de la faim, ou, reniant les saintes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>
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 château 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>—Que voulez-vous? dirent ils.</p>

<p>—Vous achetez des âmes?</p>

<p>—Oui, un peu malgré vous, n’est ce pas, sainte aux yeux
de saphir?</p>

<p>—Aujourd’hui je viens vous proposer un marché, reprit
elle.</p>

<p>—Lequel?</p>

<p>—J’ai une âme a vendre; mais elle est chère.</p>

<p>—Qu’importe si elle est précieuse? l’âme, comme le diamant,
s’apprécie à sa blancheur.</p>

<p>—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:—l’âme,
pure, immaculée, virginale de Ketty!&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
c’était une acquisition inappréciable.</p>

<p>—Gentille dame, combien voulez-vous?</p>

<p>—Cent cinquante mille écus d’or.</p>

<p>—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>Dès qu’elle fut rentrée, elle dit au majordome:</p>

<p>—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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span></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 mort 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 enchaînés 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>—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:—</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
    <div class="stanza">
<div class="verse"><small>Pour sauver les pauvres qu’elle aime</small></div>
<div class="verse"><small><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Ketty donna</span></small></div>
<div class="verse"><small>Son esprit, sa croyance même;</small></div>
<div class="verse"><small><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Satan paya</span></small></div>
<div class="verse"><small>Cette âme au dévoûment sublime,</small></div>
<div class="verse"><small><span style="margin-left: 4em;">En écus d’or,</span></small></div>
<div class="verse"><small>Disons pour racheter son crime</small></div>
<div class="verse"><small><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>Confiteor</i>.</span></small></div>
    </div>
    <div class="stanza">
<div class="verse"><small>Mais l’ange qui se fit coupable</small></div>
<div class="verse"><small><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Par charité</span></small></div>
<div class="verse"><small>Au séjour d’amour ineffable</small></div>
<div class="verse"><small><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Est remonté.</span></small></div>
<div class="verse"><small>Satan vaincu n’eut pas de prise</small></div>
<div class="verse"><small><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Sur ce cœur d’or;</span></small></div>
<div class="verse"><small>Chantons sous la nef de l’église,</small></div>
<div class="verse"><small><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>Confiteor</i>.</span></small></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

<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?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span></p>

<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
Maire, 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. Wilkenson as a Servant, and Miss May
Whitty as the Countess Cathleen. 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 in the first act, 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 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 some score of police<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a>
were sent to the theatre to see that they did not. I have,
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,
and I myself have the pleasure of recording strange events.</p>

<p>The play has since been revived in New York by Miss
Wycherley, but I did not see her performance.</p>

<hr class="tb" />

<p><i>The Land of Heart’s Desire.</i>—This little play was produced
at the Avenue Theatre in the spring of 1894, with
the following cast:—Maurteen Bruin, Mr. James Welch;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>
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 was again played, under the auspices of the
Irish Literary Society of New York, in 1903, and has lately
been played in San Francisco.</p>

<hr class="tb" />

<p><i>The Unicorn from the Stars.</i>—Some years ago I wrote in a
fortnight with the help of Lady Gregory and another friend
a five act tragedy called <i>Where there is Nothing</i>. I wrote at
such speed that I might save from a plagiarist a subject that
seemed worth the keeping till greater knowledge of the stage
made an adequate treatment possible. I knew that my first
version was hurried and oratorical, with events cast into the
plot because they seemed lively or amusing in themselves,
and not because they grew out of the characters and the
plot; and I came to dislike a central character so arid and so
dominating. We cannot sympathise with a man who sets
his anger at once lightly and confidently to overthrow the
order of the world; but our hearts can go out to him, as
I think, if he speak with some humility, so far as his daily
self carries him, out of a cloudy light of vision. Whether
he understand or know, it may be that the voices of Angels
and Archangels have spoken in the cloud and whatever wildness
come upon his life, feet of theirs may well have trod
the clusters. I began with this new thought to dictate the
play to Lady Gregory, but since I had last worked with
her, her knowledge of the stage and her mastery of dialogue
had so increased that my imagination could not go neck to
neck with hers. I found myself, too, with an old difficulty,
that my words flow freely alone when my people speak in
verse, or in words that are like those we put into verse; and
so after an attempt to work alone I gave my scheme to her.
The result is a play almost wholly hers in handiwork, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>
I can yet read, as I have just done after the stories of <i>The
Secret Rose</i>, and recognize thoughts, a point of view, an
artistic aim which seem a part of my world. Her greatest
difficulty was that I had given her for chief character a man
so plunged in trance that he could not be otherwise than all
but still and silent, though perhaps with the stillness and the
silence of a lamp; and the movement of the play as a whole,
if we were to listen to hear him, had to be without hurry or
violence. The strange characters, her handiwork, on whom he
sheds his light, delight me. She has enabled me to carry out
an old thought for which my own knowledge is insufficient
and to commingle the ancient phantasies of poetry with
the rough, vivid, ever-contemporaneous tumult of the road-side;
to create for a moment a form that otherwise I could
but dream of, though I do that always, an art that prophesies
though with worn and failing voice of the day when Quixote
and Sancho Panza long estranged may once again go out
gaily into the bleak air. Ever since I began to write I have
awaited with impatience a linking, all Europe over, of the
hereditary knowledge of the country-side, now becoming
known to us through the work of wanderers and men of
learning, with our old lyricism so full of ancient frenzies and
hereditary wisdom, a yoking of antiquities, a Marriage of
Heaven and Hell.</p>

<p><i>The Unicorn from the Stars</i> was first played at the Abbey
Theatre on November 23rd, 1907, with the following
cast:—Father John, Ernest Vaughan; Thomas Hearne, a
coachbuilder, Arthur Sinclair; Andrew Hearne, brother of
Thomas, J. A. O’Rourke; Martin Hearne, nephew of
Thomas, F. J. Fay; Johnny Bacach, a beggar, W. G. Fay;
Paudeen, J. M. Kerrigan; Biddy Lally, Maire O’Neill;
Nanny, Brigit O’Dempsey.</p>

<p class="sig">
W. B. YEATS.<br />
</p>

<p>
<i>March, 1908.</i><br />
</p>


<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2">[B]</a> Mr. Synge has outdone me with his <i>Play Boy of the Western World</i>, which
towards the end of the week had more than three times the number in the pit
alone. Counting the police inside and outside the theatre, there were, according
to some evening papers, five hundred.—<i>March, 1908.</i></p></div></div>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span></p>




<h2>THE MUSIC FOR USE IN THE PERFORMANCE
OF THESE PLAYS.</h2>


<p>All the music that is printed here, with the exception of
Mr. Arthur Darley’s, is of that kind which I have described
in <i>Samhain</i> and in <i>Ideas of Good and Evil</i>. Some of it is old
Irish music made when all songs were but heightened speech,
and some of it composed by modern musicians is none the
less to be associated with words that must never lose the
intonation of passionate speech. No vowel must ever be prolonged
unnaturally, no word of mine must ever change into
a mere musical note, no singer of my words must ever cease
to be a man and become an instrument.</p>

<p>The degree of approach to ordinary singing depends on
the context, for one desires a greater or lesser amount of
contrast between the lyrics and the dialogue according to
situation and emotion and the qualities of players. The words
of Cathleen ni Houlihan about the ‘white-scarfed riders’
must be little more than regulated declamation; the little
song of Leagerie when he seizes the ‘Golden Helmet’ should
in its opening words be indistinguishable from the dialogue
itself. Upon the other hand, Cathleen’s verses by the fire,
and those of the pupils in the <i>Hour-Glass</i>, and those of the
beggars in the <i>Unicorn</i>, are sung as the country people understand
song. Modern singing would spoil them for dramatic
purposes by taking the keenness and the salt out of the words.
The songs in <i>Deirdre</i>, in Miss Farr’s and in Miss Allgood’s
setting, need fine speakers of verse more than good singers;
and in these, and still more in the song of the Three Women
in <i>Baile’s Strand</i>, the singers must remember the natural
speed of words. If the lyric in <i>Baile’s Strand</i> is sung slowly
it is like church-singing, but if sung quickly and with
the right expression it becomes an incantation so old that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>
nobody can quite understand it. That it may give this sense
of something half-forgotten, it must be sung with a certain
lack of minute feeling for the meaning of the words, which,
however, must always remain words. The songs in <i>Deirdre</i>,
especially the last dirge, which is supposed to be the creation
of the moment, must, upon the other hand, at any rate
when Miss Farr’s or Miss Allgood’s music is used, be sung or
spoken with minute passionate understanding. I have rehearsed
the part of the Angel in the <i>Hour-Glass</i> with recorded
notes throughout, and believe this is the right way; but in
practice, owing to the difficulty of finding a player who did
not sing too much the moment the notes were written
down, have left it to the player’s own unrecorded inspiration,
except at the ‘exit,’ where it is well for the player
to go nearer to ordinary song.</p>

<p>I have not yet put Miss Farr’s <i>Deirdre</i> music to the test
of performances, but, as she and I have worked out all this
art of spoken song together, I have little doubt but I shall
find it all I would have it. Mr. Darley’s music was used at
the first production of the play and at its revival last spring,
and was dramatically effective. I could hear the words perfectly,
and I think they must have been audible to anyone
hearing the play for the first or second time. They had not,
however, the full animation of speech, as one heard it in the
dirge at the end of the play set by Miss Allgood herself, who
played the principal musician. It is very difficult for a
musician who is not a speaker to do exactly what I want.
Mr. Darley has written for singers not for speakers. His
music is, perhaps, too elaborate, simple though it is. I have
not had sufficient opportunity to experiment with the play
to find out the exact distance from ordinary speech necessary
in the first two lyrics, which must prolong the mood of the
dialogue while being a rest from its passions. Miss Farr’s
music will be used at the next revival of the play.</p>

<p>Mr. Darley’s music for <i>Shadowy Waters</i> was supposed to
be played upon Forgael’s magic harp, and it accompanied<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>
words of Dectora’s and Aibric’s. It was played in reality
upon a violin, always pizzicato, and gave the effect of harp
playing, at any rate of a magic harp. The ‘cues’ are all
given and the words are printed under the music. The
violinist followed the voice, except in the case of the ‘O’,
where it was the actress that had to follow.</p>

<div class="sig">
W. B. YEATS.<br />
</div>

<p>
<i>March, 1908.</i><br />
</p>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span></p>

<h3 class="faux">THE KING’S THRESHOLD.</h3>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
<img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-music_1_231_a_kings.jpg" width="600" height="382" alt="The King's Threshold" />
</div>
<div class="tnote"><b>Transcriber's Note:</b> To hear this song and any song in this section
click on the song title.</div>

<div class="songtitle"><a href="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-231a.mid">THE KING’S THRESHOLD.</a></div>



<p class="center"><i>THE FOUR RIVERS.</i><br />
<span class="smcap">Florence Farr.</span></p>



<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
    <div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Through well-mown level ground</div>
<div class="verse">Have come out of a blessed well</div>
<div class="verse">That is all bound and wound</div>
<div class="verse">By the great roots of an apple,</div>
<div class="verse">And all fowls of the air</div>
<div class="verse">Have gathered in the wide branches</div>
<div class="verse">And Keep singing there.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>
<h3 class="faux">ON BAILE’S STRAND. THE FOOL’S SONG.</h3>

<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
<img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-music_1_231_b_bailes_fool.jpg" width="600" height="496" alt="On Baile's Strand music The Fool's Song" />
</div>

<div class="songtitle"><a href="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-231b.mid">ON BAILE’S STRAND.</a></div>
<p class="center"><i>THE FOOL’S SONG.</i><br />
<span class="smcap">Florence Farr.</span></p>


<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
    <div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Cuchulain has killed kings,</div>
<div class="verse">Kings and sons of kings,</div>
<div class="verse">Dragons out of the water and witches out of the air,</div>
<div class="verse">Banachas and Bonachas and people of the woods.</div>
<div class="verse">Witches that steal the milk,</div>
<div class="verse">Fomor that steal the children,</div>
<div class="verse">Hags that have heads like hares,</div>
<div class="verse">Hares that have claws like witches,</div>
<div class="verse">All riding a-cock-horse,</div>
<div class="verse">Out of the very bottom of the bitter black north.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span></p>


<h3 class="faux">ON BAILE’S STRAND.—SONG OF THE WOMEN.</h3>

<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
<img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-music_2_232_bailes_womens.jpg" width="600" height="952" alt="On Baile's Strand Song of the Women" />
</div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
<img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-music_3_233_bailes_cont_a.jpg" width="600" height="583" alt="Music: women's song continues" />
</div>
<div class="songtitle"><a href="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-232.mid">ON BAILE’S STRAND.</a></div>



<p class="center"><i>SONG OF THE WOMEN.</i><br /><span class="smcap">Florence Farr.</span></p>


<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
    <div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">May this fire have driven out</div>
<div class="verse">The shape-changers that can put</div>
<div class="verse">Ruin on a great king’s house,</div>
<div class="verse">Until all be ruinous.</div>
<div class="verse">Names whereby a man has known</div>
<div class="verse">The threshold and the hearthstone,</div>
<div class="verse">Gather on the wind and drive</div>
<div class="verse">Women none can kiss and thrive,</div>
<div class="verse">For they are but whirling wind,</div>
<div class="verse">Out of memory and mind.</div>
<div class="verse">They would make a prince decay</div>
<div class="verse">With light images of clay</div>
<div class="verse">Planted in the running wave;</div>
<div class="verse">Or for many shapes they have,</div>
<div class="verse">They would change them into hounds</div>
<div class="verse">Until he had died of his wounds</div>
<div class="verse">Though the change were but a whim;</div>
<div class="verse">Or they’d hurl a spell at him,</div>
<div class="verse">That he follow with desire</div>
<div class="verse">Bodies that can never tire</div>
<div class="verse">Or grow kind, for they anoint</div>
<div class="verse">All their bodies joint by joint</div>
<div class="verse">With a miracle-working juice</div>
<div class="verse"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>That is made out of the grease</div>
<div class="verse">Of the ungoverned unicorn;</div>
<div class="verse">But the man is thrice forlorn</div>
<div class="verse">Emptied, ruined, wracked, and lost,</div>
<div class="verse">That they follow, for at most</div>
<div class="verse">They will give him kiss for kiss</div>
<div class="verse">While they murmur “After this</div>
<div class="verse">Hatred may be sweet to the taste;”</div>
<div class="verse">Those wild hands that have embraced</div>
<div class="verse">All his body can but shove</div>
<div class="verse">At the burning wheel of love</div>
<div class="verse">Till the side of hate comes up.</div>
<div class="verse">Therefore in this ancient cup</div>
<div class="verse">May the sword-blades drink their fill</div>
<div class="verse">Of the home-brew there, until</div>
<div class="verse">They will have for master none</div>
<div class="verse">But the threshold and hearthstone.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<h3 class="faux"><i>THE FOOL’S SONG.</i>—II.</h3>

<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
<img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-music_3_233_bailes_cont_b_fool_song.jpg" width="600" height="426" alt="Music: On Baile's Strand Fool's song" />
</div>

<div class="songtitle"><a href="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-233.mid"><i>THE FOOL’S SONG.</i>—II.</a></div>



<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Florence Farr.</span></p>


<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
    <div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">When you were an acorn on the tree top,</div>
<div class="verse">Then was I an eagle-cock;</div>
<div class="verse">Now that you are a withered old block,</div>
<div class="verse">Still am I an eagle-cock.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span></p>


<h3 class="faux">DEIRDRE. <i>MUSICIANS’ SONG.</i>—I.</h3>

<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
<img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-music_4_234_deirdre.jpg" width="600" height="996" alt="Music: Deirdre Musician's Song" />
</div>

<div class="songtitle"><a href="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-234.mid">DEIRDRE.<br />
<small><i>MUSICIANS’ SONG.</i>—I.</small></a></div>

<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Florence Farr.</span></p>


<h4>First Musician.</h4>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“Why is it,” Queen Edain said,</div>
<div class="verse">“If I do but climb the stair</div>
<div class="verse">To the tower overhead</div>
<div class="verse">When the winds are calling there,</div>
<div class="verse">Or the gannets calling out,</div>
<div class="verse">In waste places of the sky,</div>
<div class="verse">There is so much to think about,</div>
<div class="verse">That I cry, that I cry?”</div>
</div>
</div>


<h4>Second Musician.</h4>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">But her goodman answered her:</div>
<div class="verse">“Love would be a thing of naught</div>
<div class="verse">Had not all his limbs a stir</div>
<div class="verse">Born out of immoderate thought.</div>
<div class="verse">Were he any thing by half,</div>
<div class="verse">Were his measure running dry,</div>
<div class="verse">Lovers, if they may not laugh,</div>
<div class="verse">Have to cry, have to cry.”</div>
</div>
</div>


<h4>The Three Musicians together.</h4>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">But is Edain worth a song</div>
<div class="verse">Now the hunt begins anew?</div>
<div class="verse">Praise the beautiful and strong;</div>
<div class="verse">Praise the redness of the yew;</div>
<div class="verse">Praise the blossoming apple-stem.</div>
<div class="verse">But our silence had been wise.</div>
<div class="verse">What is all our praise to them</div>
<div class="verse">That have one another’s eyes?</div>
</div>
</div>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span></p>


<h3 class="faux">DEIRDRE. <i>MUSICIANS’ SONG.</i>—II.</h3>

<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
<img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-music_5_235_deirdre_cont_a.jpg" width="600" height="504" alt="Music: Deirdre: Musicians Song II" />
</div>

<div class="songtitle"><a href="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-235a.mid">DEIRDRE.<br />
<small><i>MUSICIANS’ SONG.</i>—II.</small></a></div>
<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Florence Farr.</span></p>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
    <div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Love is an immoderate thing</div>
<div class="verse">And can never be content</div>
<div class="verse">Till it dip an ageing wing,</div>
<div class="verse">Where some laughing element</div>
<div class="verse">Leaps and Time’s old lanthorn dims.</div>
<div class="verse">What’s the merit in love-play,</div>
<div class="verse">In the tumult of the limbs</div>
<div class="verse">That dies out before ’tis day,</div>
<div class="verse">Heart on heart or mouth on mouth</div>
<div class="verse">All that mingling of our breath,</div>
<div class="verse">When love-longing is but drouth</div>
<div class="verse">For the things that follow death?</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>
<h3 class="faux">DEIRDRE. <i>MUSICIANS’ SONG.</i>—III. Farr.</h3>

<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
<img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-music_5_235_deirdre_cont_b.jpg" width="600" height="505" alt="Music: Deirdre: Musician's Song III" />
</div>

<div class="songtitle"><a href="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-235b.mid">DEIRDRE.<br />
<small><i>MUSICIANS’ SONG.</i>—III.</small></a></div>


<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Florence Farr.</span></p>


<h4>First Musician.</h4>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">They are gone, they are gone</div>
<div class="verse">The proud may lie by the proud.</div>
</div>
</div>


<h4>Second Musician.</h4>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">Though we were bidden to sing, cry nothing Loud.</div>
</div>
</div>


<h4>First Musician.</h4>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">They are gone, they are gone.</div>
</div>
</div>


<h4>Second Musician.</h4>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">Whispering were enough.</div>
</div>
</div>


<h4>First Musician.</h4>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">Into the secret wilderness of their love.</div>
</div>
</div>


<h4>Second Musician.</h4>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">A high grey cairn.</div>
<div class="verse">What more to be said?</div>
</div>
</div>


<h4>First Musician.</h4>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">Eagles have gone into their cloudy bed.</div>
</div>
</div>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span></p>


<h3 class="faux">DEIRDRE. <i>MUSICIANS’ SONG.</i>—III. ALLGOOD.</h3>

<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
<img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-music_6_236_deirdre_concl.jpg" width="600" height="853" alt="Music: Deirdre: Musician's Song III by Allgood" />
</div>

<div class="songtitle"><a href="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-236.mid">DEIRDRE.
<small><i>MUSICIANS’ SONG.</i>—III.</small></a></div>

<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Sarah Allgood.</span></p>


<h4><span class="smcap">First Musician</span></h4>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">They are gone:</div>
<div class="verse">They are gone; the proud may lie by the proud.</div>
</div>
</div>


<h4><span class="smcap">Second Musician</span></h4>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">Though we are bidden to sing, cry nothing loud.</div>
</div>
</div>


<h4><span class="smcap">First Musician</span></h4>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">They are gone, they are gone.</div>
</div>
</div>


<h4><span class="smcap">Second Musician</span></h4>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">Whispering were enough.</div>
</div>
</div>


<h4><span class="smcap">First Musician.</span></h4>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">Into the secret wilderness of their love.</div>
</div>
</div>


<h4><span class="smcap">Second Musician</span></h4>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">A high grey cairn.</div>
<div class="verse">What more is to be said?</div>
</div>
</div>


<h4><span class="smcap">First Musician</span></h4>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">Eagles have gone into their cloudy bed.</div>
</div>
</div>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span></p>


<h3 class="faux">SHADOWY WATERS.</h3>

<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
<img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-music_7_237_shadowy.jpg" width="600" height="861" alt="Music: Shadowy Waters" />
</div>

<div class="songtitle"><a href="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-237.mid">SHADOWY WATERS.</a></div>



<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Arthur Darley.</span></p>


<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse"><b>Sailors.</b> And I! And I! And I!</div>
<div class="verse"><b>Dectora.</b> Protect me now, gods, that my people swear by.</div>
<div class="verse"><b>Dectora.</b> I will end all your magic on the instant.<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a></div>
<div class="verse">This sword is to lie beside him in the grave.</div>
<div class="verse">It was in all his battles.</div>
<div class="verse">I will spread my hair, and wring my hands, and wail him bitterly,</div>
<div class="verse">For I have heard that he was proud and laughing, blue-eyed, and a quick runner on bare feet,</div>
<div class="verse">And that he died a thousand years ago.</div>
<div class="verse">O! O! O!</div>
<div class="verse">But no, that is not it.</div>
<div class="verse">I knew him well, and while I heard him laughing they killed him at my feet.</div>
<div class="verse">O! O! O! O!</div>
<div class="verse">For golden-armed Iollan that I loved.</div>
<div class="verse"><b>Forgael.</b> Have buried nothing by my golden arms.</div>
<div class="verse"><b>Forgael.</b> And knitted mesh to mesh we grow immortal.</div>
</div>
</div>

<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3">[C]</a> The Violinist should time the music so as to finish when Aibric says
“For everything is gone”.</p></div></div>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>



<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span></p>


<h3 class="faux">THE UNICORN FROM THE STARS “The Airy Bachelor.”</h3>

<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
<img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-music_8_238_a_unicorn_a.jpg" width="600" height="287" alt="Music: The Unicorn: The Airy Bachelor" />
</div>

<div class="songtitle">THE UNICORN FROM THE STARS</div>


<p class="center"><i>IRISH TRADITIONAL AIRS.</i></p>

<div class="songtitle"><a href="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-238a.mid">“The Airy Bachelor.”</a></div>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
    <div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Oh come all ye airy bachelors,</div>
<div class="verse">come listen unto me.</div>
<div class="verse">A sergeant caught mefowling,</div>
<div class="verse">and he fired his gun so free .&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</div>
<div class="verse">His comrades came to his relief,</div>
<div class="verse">And I was soon trapanned.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</div>
<div class="verse">And bound up like a wood-cock</div>
<div class="verse">That had fallen into their hands.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<h3 class="faux">THE UNICORN FROM THE STARS “Johnnie Gibbons.”</h3>

<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
<img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-music_8_238_a_unicorn_b.jpg" width="600" height="108" alt="Music: The Unicorn:  Johnny Gibbons" />
</div>

<div class="songtitle"><a href="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-238b.mid">“Johnnie Gibbons.”</a></div>


<h4>1.</h4>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
    <div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Oh Johnnie Gibbons my five hundred healths to you,</div>
<div class="verse">Its long you’re away from us over the sea.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

<h4>2.</h4>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
    <div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Oh Johnnie Gibbons its you were the prop to us,</div>
<div class="verse">You to have left us, we’re fools put astray.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<h3 class="faux">THE UNICORN FROM THE STARS “The Lion shall lose his strength.”</h3>

<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
<img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-music_8_238_a_unicorn_c.jpg" width="600" height="80" alt="Music: The Unicorn: The Lion shall lose his strength" />
</div>

<div class="songtitle"><a href="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-238c.mid">“The Lion shall lose his strength.”</a></div>


<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
    <div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Oh the Lion shall lose his strength,</div>
<div class="verse">And the bracket thistle pine .&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</div>
<div class="verse">And the harp shall sound sweet, sweet at length</div>
<div class="verse">Between the eight and nine.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<h3 class="faux">THE HOUR-GLASS.</h3>

<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
<img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-music_8_238_d_hour.jpg" width="600" height="140" alt="Music: The Hour-Glass." />
</div>

<div class="songtitle"><a href="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-238d.mid">THE HOUR-GLASS.</a></div>
<p class="center"><i>TRADITIONAL ARAN AIR.</i></p>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
    <div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I was going the road one day .&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</div>
<div class="verse">O! the brown and the yellow beer,</div>
<div class="verse">And I met with a man that was no right man, .&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</div>
<div class="verse">Oh my dear, my dear.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>
<h3 class="faux">CATHLEEN NI HOULIHAN.</h3>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span></p>


<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
<img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-music_9_239_cathleen.jpg" width="600" height="1282" alt="Music: CATHLEEN NI HOULIHAN" />
</div>

<div class="songtitle">CATHLEEN NI HOULIHAN.</div>


<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Florence Farr.</span></p>


<h4><a href="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-239a.mid">I.</a></h4>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">I will go cry with the woman,</div>
<div class="verse">For yellow-haired Donough is dead,</div>
<div class="verse">With a hempen rope for a neck-cloth,</div>
<div class="verse">And a white cloth on his head.</div>
</div>
</div>




<h4><a href="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-239b.mid">II.</a></h4>


<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">Do not make a great keening</div>
<div class="verse">When the graves have been dug tomorrow.</div>
</div>
</div>




<h4><a href="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-239c.mid">III.</a></h4>


<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">They shall be remembered forever</div>
<div class="center">[repeat 3 times]</div>
<div class="verse">The people shall hear them forever.</div>
</div>
</div>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span></p>




<h2>MUSIC FOR LYRICS.</h2>


<p>Three of the following settings are by Miss Farr, and she
accompanies the words upon her psaltery for the most part.
She has a beautiful speaking-voice, and, an almost rarer thing,
a perfect ear for verse; and nothing but the attempting of
it will show how far these things can be taught or developed
where they exist but a little. I believe that they should be
a part of the teaching of all children, for the beauty of the
speaking-voice is more important to our lives than that of
the singing, and the rhythm of words comes more into the
structure of our daily being than any abstract pattern of notes.
The relation between formal music and speech will yet
become the subject of science, not less than the occasion of
artistic discovery; for I am certain that all poets, even all
delighted readers of poetry, speak certain kinds of poetry to
distinct and simple tunes, though the speakers may be,
perhaps generally are, deaf to ordinary music, even what
we call tone-deaf. I suggest that we will discover in this
relation a very early stage in the development of music, with
its own great beauty, and that those who love lyric poetry
but cannot tell one tune from another repeat a state of mind
which created music and yet was incapable of the emotional
abstraction which delights in patterns of sound separated from
words. To it the music was an unconscious creation, the
words a conscious, for no beginnings are in the intellect, and
no living thing remembers its own birth.</p>

<p>I give after Miss Farr’s settings three others, two taken
down by Mr. Arnold Dolmetsch from myself, and one from
a fine scholar in poetry, who hates all music but that of
poetry, and knows of no instrument that does not fill him
with rage and misery. Mr. Arnold Dolmetsch, when he
took up the subject at my persuasion, wrote down the
recitation of another lyric poet, who like myself knows nothing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>
of music, and found little tunes that delighted him;
and Mr. George Russell (‘A.E.’) writes all his lyrics, a musician
tells me, to two little tunes which sound like old
Arabic music. I do not mean that there is only one way
of reciting a poem that is correct, for different tunes will
fit different speakers or different moods of the same speaker,
but as a rule the more the music of the verse becomes a
movement of the stanza as a whole, at the same time detaching
itself from the sense as in much of Mr. Swinburne’s
poetry, the less does the poet vary in his recitation. I mean
in the way he recites when alone, or unconscious of an
audience, for before an audience he will remember the imperfection
of his ear in note and tone, and cling to daily speech,
or something like it.</p>

<p>Sometimes one composes to a remembered air. I wrote
and I still speak the verses that begin ‘Autumn is over the
long leaves that love us’ to some traditional air, though I
could not tell that air or any other on another’s lips, and
<i>The Ballad of Father Gilligan</i> to a modification of the air
<i>A Fine Old English Gentleman</i>. When, however, the rhythm
is more personal than it is in these simple verses, the tune
will always be original and personal, alike in the poet and
in the reader who has the right ear; and these tunes will
now and again have great beauty.</p>


<h3>NOTE BY FLORENCE FARR.</h3>

<p>I made an interesting discovery after I had been elaborating
the art of speaking to the psaltery for some time. I had tried
to make it more beautiful than the speaking by priests at
High Mass, the singing of recitative in opera and the speaking
through music of actors in melodrama. My discovery
was that those who had invented these arts had all said about
them exactly what Mr. Arnold Dolmetsch and Mr. W. B.
Yeats said about my art. Anyone can prove this for himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>
who will go to a library and read the authorities that describe
how early liturgical chant, plain-song and jubilations
or melismata were adapted from the ancient traditional music;
or if they read the history of the beginning of opera and the
‘nuove musiche’ by Caccini, or study the music of Monteverde
and Carissimi, who flourished at the beginning of the
seventeenth century, they will find these masters speak of
doing all they can to give an added beauty to the words of
the poet, often using simple vowel sounds when a purely
vocal effect was to be made whether of joy or sorrow. There
is no more beautiful sound than the alternation of carolling
or keening and a voice speaking in regulated declamation.
The very act of alternation has a peculiar charm.</p>

<p>Now to read these records of music of the eighth and
seventeenth centuries one would think that the Church and
the opera were united in the desire to make beautiful speech
more beautiful, but I need not say if we put such a hope to
the test we discover it is groundless. There is no ecstasy in
the delivery of ritual, and recitative is certainly not treated by
opera-singers in a way that makes us wish to imitate them.</p>

<p>When beginners attempt to speak to musical notes they
fall naturally into the intoning as heard throughout our lands
in our various religious rituals. It is not until they have been
forced to use their imaginations and express the inmost
meaning of the words, not until their thought imposes itself
upon all listeners and each word invokes a special mode of
beauty, that the method rises once more from the dead and
becomes a living art.</p>

<p>It is the belief in the power of words and the delight in
the purity of sound that will make the arts of plain-chant
and recitative the great arts they are described as being by
those who first practised them.</p>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span></p>

<h3 class="faux"><i>THE WIND BLOWS OUT OF THE GATES OF THE DAY.</i></h3>

<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
<img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-music_10_243_a_windblows.jpg" width="600" height="490" alt="Music: The Wind Blows Out of the Gates of the Day" />
</div>

<div class="songtitle"><i><a href="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-243a.mid">THE WIND BLOWS OUT OF THE GATES OF THE DAY.</a></i><a name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a></div>


<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Florence Farr.</span></p>


<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">The wind blows out of the gates of the day,</div>
<div class="verse">The wind blows over the lonely of heart,</div>
<div class="verse">And the lonely of heart is withered away,</div>
<div class="verse">While the fairies dance in a place apart,</div>
<div class="verse">Shaking their milkwhite feet in a ring,</div>
<div class="verse">Tossing their milkwhite arms in the air</div>
<div class="verse">For they hear the wind laugh and murmur and sing</div>
<div class="verse">Of a land where even the old are fair</div>
<div class="verse">And even the wise are merry of tongue.</div>
<div class="verse">But I heard a reed of Coolaney say,</div>
<div class="verse">When the wind has laughed and murmured and sung,</div>
<div class="verse">The lovely of heart must wither away.</div>
</div>
</div>


<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>
<h3 class="faux"><i>THE HAPPY TOWNLAND.</i></h3>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
<img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-music_10_243_b_townland.jpg" width="600" height="575" alt="Music: the Happy Townland" />
</div>

<div class="songtitle"><i><a href="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-243b.mid">THE HAPPY TOWNLAND.</a></i><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a></div>

<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Florence Farr.</span></p>


<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">O Death’s old bony finger</div>
<div class="verse">Will never find us there</div>
<div class="verse">In the high hollow townland</div>
<div class="verse">Where love’s to give and to spare;</div>
<div class="verse">Where boughs have fruit and blossom</div>
<div class="verse">at all times of the year;</div>
<div class="verse">Where rivers are running over</div>
<div class="verse">With red beer and brown beer.</div>
<div class="verse">An old man plays the bagpipes</div>
<div class="verse">In a gold and silver wood;</div>
<div class="verse">Queens, their eyes blue like the ice,</div>
<div class="verse">Are dancing in a crowd.</div>
<div class="center">Chorus.</div>
<div class="verse">The little fox he murmured,</div>
<div class="verse">‘O what of the world’s bane?’</div>
<div class="verse">The sun was laughing sweetly,</div>
<div class="verse">The moon plucked at my rein;</div>
<div class="verse">But the little red fox murmured,</div>
<div class="verse">‘O do not pluck at his rein,</div>
<div class="verse">He is riding to the townland</div>
<div class="verse">That is the world’s bane.’</div>
</div>
</div>

<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_D_4" id="Footnote_D_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D_4">[D]</a> The music as written suits my speaking voice if played an octave lower than the notation.—F.F.</p></div></div>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span></p>


<h3 class="faux"><i>I HAVE DRUNK ALE FROM THE COUNTRY OF THE YOUNG.</i></h3>

<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
<img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-music_11_244_a_drunk.jpg" width="600" height="430" alt="Music: I Have Drunk Ale from the Country of the Young" />
</div>

<div class="songtitle"><i><a href="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-244a.mid">I HAVE DRUNK ALE FROM THE COUNTRY OF THE YOUNG</a>.</i><a name="FNanchor_E_5" id="FNanchor_E_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_E_5" class="fnanchor">[E]</a></div>


<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Florence Farr.</span></p>


<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">I have drunk ale from the Country of the Young</div>
<div class="verse">And weep because I know all things now:</div>
<div class="verse">I have been a hazel tree and they hung</div>
<div class="verse">The Pilot Star and the Crooked Plough</div>
<div class="verse">Among my leaves in times out of mind:</div>
<div class="verse">I became a rush that horses tread:</div>
<div class="verse">I became a man, a hater of the wind,</div>
<div class="verse">Knowing one, out of all things, alone, that his head</div>
<div class="verse">Would not lie on the breast or his lips on the hair</div>
<div class="verse">Of the woman that he loves, Until he dies;</div>
<div class="verse">Although the rushes and the fowl of the air</div>
<div class="verse">Cry of his love with their pitiful cries.</div>
</div>
</div>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>


<h3 class="faux"><i>THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS.</i></h3>

<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
<img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-music_11_244_b_aengus.jpg" width="600" height="326" alt="Music: The Song of the Wandering Aengus" />
</div>

<div class="songtitle"><i><a href="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-244b.mid">THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS</a>.</i></div>


<p class="center">W.B.Y.</p>


<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">I went out to the hazel wood,</div>
<div class="verse">Because a fire was in my head,</div>
<div class="verse">And cut and peeled a hazel wand,</div>
<div class="verse">And hooked a berry to a thread;</div>
<div class="verse">And when white moths were on the wing,</div>
<div class="verse">And moth-like stars were flickering out,</div>
<div class="verse">I dropped the berry in a stream,</div>
<div class="verse">And caught a little silver trout.</div>
</div>
</div>


<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<h3 class="faux"><i>THE HOST OF THE AIR.</i></h3>

<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
<img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-music_11_244_c_host.jpg" width="600" height="187" alt="Music: The Host of the Air." />
</div>

<div class="songtitle"><i><a href="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-244c.mid">THE HOST OF THE AIR.</a></i></div>


<p class="center">A.H.B.</p>


<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
    <div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">O’Driscoll drove with a song</div>
<div class="verse">The wild duck and the drake</div>
<div class="verse">From the tall and tree tufted reeds</div>
<div class="verse">Of the drear Hart Lake.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_E_5" id="Footnote_E_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_E_5">[E]</a> To be spoken an octave lower than it would be sung.—F.F.</p></div></div>

<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter"></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span></p>


<h3 class="faux"><i>THE SONG OF THE OLD MOTHER.</i></h3>

<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
<img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-music_12_245_mother.jpg" width="600" height="981" alt="Music: The Song of the Old Mother" />
</div>

<div class="songtitle"><i><a href="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:w:collected-works-of-yeats-vol-3-245.mid">THE SONG OF THE OLD MOTHER.</a></i></div>


<p class="center">W.B.Y.</p>


<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow</div>
<div class="verse">Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow;</div>
<div class="verse">And then I must scrub and bake and sweep</div>
<div class="verse">Till stars are beginning to blink and peep;</div>
<div class="verse">And the young lie long and dream in their bed</div>
<div class="verse">Of the matching of ribbons for bosom and head,</div>
<div class="verse">And their day goes over in idleness,</div>
<div class="verse">And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress;</div>
<div class="verse">While I must work because I am old,</div>
<div class="verse">And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold.</div>
</div>
</div>


<hr class="full" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span></p>




<div class="copyright">
<i>Printed by</i> <span class="smcap">A. H. Bullen</span>, <i>at The Shakespeare Head Press, Stratford-on-Avon</i>.</div>
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