Although I tramped the woods for half a day,
I've taken nothing, for the very rats,
Badgers, and hedgehogs seem to have died of drought,
And there was scarce a wind in the parched leaves.
I've taken nothing, for the very rats,
Badgers, and hedgehogs seem to have died of drought,
And there was scarce a wind in the parched leaves.
Yeats - Poems
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Title: Poems
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POEMS
EVERY IRISHMAN'S LIBRARY
_Cr. 8vo. , cloth, 3s. 6d. net each. With Frontispieces. _
LIST OF VOLUMES
1. Thomas Davis. SELECTIONS FROM HIS PROSE
AND POETRY. Edited by T. W. ROLLESTON,
M. A. (Dublin).
2. Wild Sports of the West. By W. H. MAXWELL.
Edited by the EARL OF DUNRAVEN.
3. Legends of Saints and Sinners from the
Irish. Edited by DOUGLAS HYDE, LL. D.
(Dublin).
4. The Book of Irish Humour. Edited by
CHARLES L. GRAVES, M. A. (Oxon. ).
5. Irish Orators and Oratory. With an Introduction
by Professor T. M. KETTLE, M. P.
6. The Book of Irish Poetry. Edited by ALFRED
PERCEVAL GRAVES, M. A. (Dublin).
7. Standish O'Grady. SELECTED ESSAYS AND
PASSAGES. Edited by ERNEST A. BOYD.
8. Recollections of Jonah Barrington. Edited
by GEORGE A. BIRMINGHAM.
9. Poems of Sir Samuel Ferguson. Edited by
ALFRED PERCEVAL GRAVES, M. A.
10. Carleton's Stories of Irish Life. With an
Introduction by DARRELL FIGGIS.
11. The Collegians. By GERALD GRIFFIN. With
Introduction by PADRAIC COLUM.
12. Maria Edgeworth: SELECTIONS FROM HER
WORKS. With an Introduction by MALCOLM
COTTER SETON, M. A.
T. FISHER UNWIN LTD. , LONDON
[Illustration: Signature: WB Yeats]
POEMS
BY
W. B. YEATS
LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN LTD.
ADELPHI TERRACE
"The Wanderings of Oisin" was published with the lyrics now collected
under the title "Crossways" in 1888, "The Countess Cathleen" with the
lyrics now collected under the title "The Rose" in 1892, and "The Land
of Heart's Desire" by itself in 1894. They were revised and reprinted in
one volume in 1895, again revised and reprinted in 1899, and again
reprinted in 1901, 1904, 1908, 1912, 1913, 1919, and 1920.
(_All rights reserved_)
PREFACE
During the last year I have spent much time altering "The Countess
Cathleen" and "The Land of Heart's Desire" that they might be a part of
the repertory of the Abbey Theatre. I had written them before I had any
practical experience, and I knew from the performance of the one in
Dublin in 1899 and of the other in London in 1894 that they were full of
defects. But in their new shape--and each play has been twice played
during the winter--they have given me some pleasure, and are, I think,
easier to play effectively than my later plays, depending less upon the
players and more upon the producer, both having been imagined more for
variety of stage-picture than variety of mood in the player. It was,
indeed, the first performance of "The Countess Cathleen," when our
stage-pictures were made out of poor conventional scenery and hired
costumes, that set me writing plays where all would depend upon the
player. The first two scenes are wholly new, and though I have left the
old end in the body of this book I have given in the notes an end less
difficult to producer and audience, and there are slight alterations
elsewhere in the poem. "The Land of Heart's Desire," besides some
mending in the details, has been thrown back in time because the
metrical speech would have sounded unreal if spoken in a country cottage
now that we have so many dialect comedies. The shades of Mrs. Fallan and
Mrs. Dillane and of Dan Bourke and the Tramp would have seemed too
boisterous or too vivid for shades made cold and distant with the
artifice of verse.
I have not again retouched the lyric poems of my youth, fearing some
stupidity in my middle years, but have changed two or three pages that I
always knew to be wrong in "The Wanderings of Usheen. "
W. B. YEATS.
_June, 1912. _
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
I have added some passages to "The Land of Heart's Desire," and a new
scene of some little length, besides passages here and there, to "The
Countess Cathleen. " The goddess has never come to me with her hands so
full that I have not found many waste places after I had planted all
that she had brought me. The present version of "The Countess Cathleen"
is not quite the version adopted by the Irish Literary Theatre a couple
of years ago, for our stage and scenery were capable of little; and it
may differ more from any stage version I make in future, for it seems
that my people of the waters and my unhappy dead, in the third act,
cannot keep their supernatural essence, but must put on too much of our
mortality, in any ordinary theatre. I am told that I must abandon a
meaning or two and make my merchants carry away the treasure
themselves. The act was written long ago, when I had seen so few plays
that I took pleasure in stage effects. Indeed, I am not yet certain that
a wealthy theatre could not shape it to an impressive pageantry, or that
a theatre without any wealth could not lift it out of pageantry into the
mind, with a dim curtain, and some dimly lighted players, and the
beautiful voices that should be as important in poetical as in musical
drama. The Elizabethan stage was so little imprisoned in material
circumstance that the Elizabethan imagination was not strained by god or
spirit, nor even by Echo herself--no, not even when she answered, as in
"The Duchess of Malfi," in clear, loud words which were not the words
that had been spoken to her. We have made a prison-house of paint and
canvas, where we have as little freedom as under our own roofs, for
there is no freedom in a house that has been made with hands. All art
moves in the cave of the Chimaera, 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.
Besides rewriting a lyric or two, I have much enlarged the note on "The
Countess Cathleen," as there has been some discussion in Ireland about
the origin of the story, but the other notes are as they have always
been. They are short enough, but I do not think that anybody who knows
modern poetry will find obscurities in this book. In any case, I must
leave my myths and symbols to explain themselves as the years go by and
one poems lights up another, and the stories that friends, and one
friend in particular, have gathered for me, or that I have gathered
myself in many cottages, find their way into the light. I would, if I
could, add to that majestic heraldry of the poets, that great and
complicated inheritance of images which written literature has
substituted for the greater and more complex inheritance of spoken
tradition, some new heraldic images, gathered from the lips of the
common people. Christianity and the old nature faith have lain down side
by side in the cottages, and I would proclaim that peace as loudly as I
can among the kingdoms of poetry, where there is no peace that is not
joyous, no battle that does not give life instead of death; I may even
try to persuade others, in more sober prose, that there can be no
language more worthy of poetry and of the meditation of the soul than
that which has been made, or can be made, out of a subtlety of desire,
an emotion of sacrifice, a delight in order, that 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?
These details may seem to many unnecessary; but after all one writes
poetry for a few careful readers and for a few friends, who will not
consider such details unnecessary. When Cimabue had the cry it was, it
seems, worth thinking of those that run; but to-day, when they can write
as well as read, one can sit with one's companions under the hedgerow
contentedly. If one writes well and has the patience, somebody will come
from among the runners and read what one has written quickly, and go
away quickly, and write out as much as he can remember in the language
of the highway.
W. B. YEATS.
_January, 1901. _
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN 1
THE ROSE--
To the Rose upon the Rood of Time 109
Fergus and the Druid 111
The Death of Cuchulain 114
The Rose of the World 119
The Rose of Peace 120
The Rose of Battle 121
A Faery Song 123
The Lake Isle of Innisfree 124
A Cradle Song 125
The Pity of Love 126
The Sorrow of Love 127
When You are Old 128
The White Birds 129
A Dream of Death 131
A Dream of a Blessed Spirit 132
Who goes with Fergus 133
The Man who Dreamed of Faeryland 134
The Dedication to a Book of Stories selected from
the Irish Novelists 137
The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner 139
The Ballad of Father Gilligan 140
The Two Trees 143
To Ireland in the Coming Times 145
THE LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE 149
CROSSWAYS--
The Song of the Happy Shepherd 197
The Sad Shepherd 200
The Cloak, The Boat, and the Shoes 202
Anashuya and Vijaya 203
The Indian upon God 209
The Indian to his Love 211
The Falling of the Leaves 213
Ephemera 214
The Madness of King Goll 216
The Stolen Child 220
To an Isle in the Water 223
Down by the Salley Gardens 224
The Meditation of the Old Fisherman 225
The Ballad of Father O'Hart 226
The Ballad of Moll Magee 229
The Ballad of the Foxhunter 232
THE WANDERINGS OF USHEEN 235
GLOSSARY AND NOTES 299
_TO SOME I HAVE TALKED WITH BY THE FIRE_
_While I wrought out these fitful Danaan rhymes,
My heart would brim with dreams about the times
When we bent down above the fading coals;
And talked of the dark folk, who live in souls
Of passionate men, like bats in the dead trees;
And of the wayward twilight companies,
Who sigh with mingled sorrow and content,
Because their blossoming dreams have never bent
Under the fruit of evil and of good:
And of the embattled flaming multitude
Who rise, wing above wing, flame above flame,
And, like a storm, cry the Ineffable Name,
And with the clashing of their sword blades make
A rapturous music, till the morning break,
And the white hush end all, but the loud beat
Of their long wings, the flash of their white feet. _
THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN
"The sorrowful are dumb for thee"
_Lament of Morion Shehone for Miss Mary Bourke_
TO
MAUD GONNE
SHEMUS RUA A Peasant
MARY His Wife
TEIG His Son
ALEEL A Poet
THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN
OONA Her Foster Mother
Two Demons disguised as Merchants
Peasants, Servants, Angelical Beings
_The Scene is laid in Ireland and in old times_
SCENE I
SCENE. --_A room with lighted fire, and a door into the open air,
through which one sees, perhaps, the trees of a wood, and these
trees should be painted in flat colour upon a gold or diapered sky.
The walls are of one colour. The scent should have the effect of
missal painting. _ MARY, a_ woman of forty years or so, is grinding
a quern_.
MARY
What can have made the grey hen flutter so?
(TEIG, _a boy of fourteen, is coming in with turf, which he lays beside
the hearth_. )
TEIG
They say that now the land is famine struck
The graves are walking.
MARY
There is something that the hen hears.
TEIG
And that is not the worst; at Tubber-vanach
A woman met a man with ears spread out,
And they moved up and down like a bat's wing.
MARY
What can have kept your father all this while?
TEIG
Two nights ago, at Carrick-orus churchyard,
A herdsman met a man who had no mouth,
Nor eyes, nor ears; his face a wall of flesh;
He saw him plainly by the light of the moon.
MARY
Look out, and tell me if your father's coming.
(TEIG _goes to door_. )
TEIG
Mother!
MARY
What is it?
TEIG
In the bush beyond,
There are two birds--if you can call them birds--
I could not see them rightly for the leaves.
But they've the shape and colour of horned owls
And I'm half certain they've a human face.
MARY
Mother of God, defend us!
TEIG
They're looking at me.
What is the good of praying? father says.
God and the Mother of God have dropped asleep.
What do they care, he says, though the whole land
Squeal like a rabbit under a weasel's tooth?
MARY
You'll bring misfortune with your blasphemies
Upon your father, or yourself, or me.
I would to God he were home--ah, there he is.
(SHEMUS _comes in_. )
What was it kept you in the wood? You know
I cannot get all sorts of accidents
Out of my mind till you are home again.
SHEMUS
I'm in no mood to listen to your clatter.
Although I tramped the woods for half a day,
I've taken nothing, for the very rats,
Badgers, and hedgehogs seem to have died of drought,
And there was scarce a wind in the parched leaves.
TEIG
Then you have brought no dinner.
SHEMUS
After that
I sat among the beggars at the cross-roads,
And held a hollow hand among the others.
MARY
What, did you beg?
SHEMUS
I had no chance to beg,
For when the beggars saw me they cried out
They would not have another share their alms,
And hunted me away with sticks and stones.
TEIG
You said that you would bring us food or money.
SHEMUS
What's in the house?
TEIG
A bit of mouldy bread.
MARY
There's flour enough to make another loaf.
TEIG
And when that's gone?
MARY
There is the hen in the coop.
SHEMUS
My curse upon the beggars, my curse upon them!
TEIG
And the last penny gone.
SHEMUS
When the hen's gone,
What can we do but live on sorrel and dock,
And dandelion, till our mouths are green?
MARY
God, that to this hour's found bit and sup,
Will cater for us still.
SHEMUS
His kitchen's bare.
There were five doors that I looked through this day
And saw the dead and not a soul to wake them.
MARY
Maybe He'd have us die because He knows,
When the ear is stopped and when the eye is stopped,
That every wicked sight is hid from the eye,
And all fool talk from the ear.
SHEMUS
Who's passing there?
And mocking us with music?
(_A stringed instrument without. _)
TEIG
A young man plays it,
There's an old woman and a lady with him.
SHEMUS
What is the trouble of the poor to her?
Nothing at all or a harsh radishy sauce
For the day's meat.
MARY
God's pity on the rich.
Had we been through as many doors, and seen
The dishes standing on the polished wood
In the wax candle light, we'd be as hard,
And there's the needle's eye at the end of all.
SHEMUS
My curse upon the rich.
TEIG
They're coming here.
SHEMUS
Then down upon that stool, down quick, I say,
And call up a whey face and a whining voice,
And let your head be bowed upon your knees.
MARY
Had I but time to put the place to rights.
(CATHLEEN, OONA, _and_ ALEEL _enter_. )
CATHLEEN
God save all here. There is a certain house,
An old grey castle with a kitchen garden,
A cider orchard and a plot for flowers,
Somewhere among these woods.
MARY
We know it, lady.
A place that's set among impassable walls
As though world's trouble could not find it out.
CATHLEEN
It may be that we are that trouble, for we--
Although we've wandered in the wood this hour--
Have lost it too, yet I should know my way,
For I lived all my childhood in that house.
MARY
Then you are Countess Cathleen?
CATHLEEN
And this woman,
Oona, my nurse, should have remembered it,
For we were happy for a long time there.
OONA
The paths are overgrown with thickets now,
Or else some change has come upon my sight.
CATHLEEN
And this young man, that should have known the woods--
Because we met him on their border but now,
Wandering and singing like a wave of the sea--
Is so wrapped up in dreams of terrors to come
That he can give no help.
MARY
You have still some way,
But I can put you on the trodden path
Your servants take when they are marketing.
But first sit down and rest yourself awhile,
For my old fathers served your fathers, lady,
Longer than books can tell--and it were strange
If you and yours should not be welcome here.
CATHLEEN
And it were stranger still were I ungrateful
For such kind welcome--but I must be gone,
For the night's gathering in.
SHEMUS
It is a long while
Since I've set eyes on bread or on what buys it.
CATHLEEN
So you are starving even in this wood,
Where I had thought I would find nothing changed.
But that's a dream, for the old worm o' the world
Can eat its way into what place it pleases.
Although I tramped the woods for half a day,
I've taken nothing, for the very rats,
Badgers, and hedgehogs seem to have died of drought,
And there was scarce a wind in the parched leaves.
TEIG
Then you have brought no dinner.
SHEMUS
After that
I sat among the beggars at the cross-roads,
And held a hollow hand among the others.
MARY
What, did you beg?
SHEMUS
I had no chance to beg,
For when the beggars saw me they cried out
They would not have another share their alms,
And hunted me away with sticks and stones.
TEIG
You said that you would bring us food or money.
SHEMUS
What's in the house?
TEIG
A bit of mouldy bread.
MARY
There's flour enough to make another loaf.
TEIG
And when that's gone?
MARY
There is the hen in the coop.
SHEMUS
My curse upon the beggars, my curse upon them!
TEIG
And the last penny gone.
SHEMUS
When the hen's gone,
What can we do but live on sorrel and dock,
And dandelion, till our mouths are green?
MARY
God, that to this hour's found bit and sup,
Will cater for us still.
SHEMUS
His kitchen's bare.
There were five doors that I looked through this day
And saw the dead and not a soul to wake them.
MARY
Maybe He'd have us die because He knows,
When the ear is stopped and when the eye is stopped,
That every wicked sight is hid from the eye,
And all fool talk from the ear.
SHEMUS
Who's passing there?
And mocking us with music?
(_A stringed instrument without. _)
TEIG
A young man plays it,
There's an old woman and a lady with him.
SHEMUS
What is the trouble of the poor to her?
Nothing at all or a harsh radishy sauce
For the day's meat.
MARY
God's pity on the rich.
Had we been through as many doors, and seen
The dishes standing on the polished wood
In the wax candle light, we'd be as hard,
And there's the needle's eye at the end of all.
SHEMUS
My curse upon the rich.
TEIG
They're coming here.
SHEMUS
Then down upon that stool, down quick, I say,
And call up a whey face and a whining voice,
And let your head be bowed upon your knees.
MARY
Had I but time to put the place to rights.
(CATHLEEN, OONA, _and_ ALEEL _enter_. )
CATHLEEN
God save all here. There is a certain house,
An old grey castle with a kitchen garden,
A cider orchard and a plot for flowers,
Somewhere among these woods.
MARY
We know it, lady.
A place that's set among impassable walls
As though world's trouble could not find it out.
CATHLEEN
It may be that we are that trouble, for we--
Although we've wandered in the wood this hour--
Have lost it too, yet I should know my way,
For I lived all my childhood in that house.
MARY
Then you are Countess Cathleen?
CATHLEEN
And this woman,
Oona, my nurse, should have remembered it,
For we were happy for a long time there.
OONA
The paths are overgrown with thickets now,
Or else some change has come upon my sight.
CATHLEEN
And this young man, that should have known the woods--
Because we met him on their border but now,
Wandering and singing like a wave of the sea--
Is so wrapped up in dreams of terrors to come
That he can give no help.
MARY
You have still some way,
But I can put you on the trodden path
Your servants take when they are marketing.
But first sit down and rest yourself awhile,
For my old fathers served your fathers, lady,
Longer than books can tell--and it were strange
If you and yours should not be welcome here.
CATHLEEN
And it were stranger still were I ungrateful
For such kind welcome--but I must be gone,
For the night's gathering in.
SHEMUS
It is a long while
Since I've set eyes on bread or on what buys it.
CATHLEEN
So you are starving even in this wood,
Where I had thought I would find nothing changed.
But that's a dream, for the old worm o' the world
Can eat its way into what place it pleases.
(_She gives money. _)
TEIG
Beautiful lady, give me something too;
I fell but now, being weak with hunger and thirst
And lay upon the threshold like a log.
CATHLEEN
I gave for all and that was all I had.
Look, my purse is empty. I have passed
By starving men and women all this day,
And they have had the rest; but take the purse,
The silver clasps on't may be worth a trifle.
But if you'll come to-morrow to my house
You shall have twice the sum.
(ALEEL _begins to play_. )
SHEMUS (_muttering_)
What, music, music!
CATHLEEN
Ah, do not blame the finger on the string;
The doctors bid me fly the unlucky times
And find distraction for my thoughts, or else
Pine to my grave.
SHEMUS
I have said nothing, lady.
Why should the like of us complain?
OONA
Have done.
Sorrows that she's but read of in a book
Weigh on her mind as if they had been her own.
(OONA, MARY, and CATHLEEN _go out_. ALEEL _looks defiantly at_ SHEMUS. )
ALEEL (_singing_)
Were I but crazy for love's sake
I know who'd measure out his length,
I know the heads that I should break,
For crazy men have double strength.
There! all's out now to leave or take,
And who mocks music mocks at love;
And when I'm crazy for love's sake
I'll not go far to choose.
(_Snapping his fingers in_ SHEMUS' _face_. )
Enough!
I know the heads that I shall break.
(_He takes a step towards the door and then turns again. _)
Shut to the door before the night has fallen,
For who can say what walks, or in what shape
Some devilish creature flies in the air, but now
Two grey-horned owls hooted above our heads.
(_He goes out, his singing dies away. _ MARY _comes in_. SHEMUS _has been
counting the money. _)
SHEMUS
So that fool's gone.
TEIG
He's seen the horned owls too.
There's no good luck in owls, but it may be
That the ill luck's to fall upon his head.
MARY
You never thanked her ladyship.
SHEMUS
Thank her,
For seven halfpence and a silver bit?
TEIG
But for this empty purse?
SHEMUS
What's that for thanks,
Or what's the double of it that she promised?
With bread and flesh and every sort of food
Up to a price no man has heard the like of
And rising every day.
MARY
We have all she had;
She emptied out the purse before our eyes.
SHEMUS (_to_ MARY, _who has gone to close the door_)
Leave that door open.
MARY
When those that have read books,
And seen the seven wonders of the world,
Fear what's above or what's below the ground,
It's time that poverty should bolt the door.
SHEMUS
I'll have no bolts, for there is not a thing
That walks above the ground or under it
I had not rather welcome to this house
Than any more of mankind, rich or poor.
TEIG
So that they brought us money.
SHEMUS
I heard say
There's something that appears like a white bird,
A pigeon or a seagull or the like,
But if you hit it with a stone or a stick
It clangs as though it had been made of brass,
And that if you dig down where it was scratching
You'll find a crock of gold.
TEIG
But dream of gold
For three nights running, and there's always gold.
SHEMUS
You might be starved before you've dug it out.
TEIG
But maybe if you called, something would come,
They have been seen of late.
MARY
Is it call devils?
Call devils from the wood, call them in here?
SHEMUS
So you'd stand up against me, and you'd say
Who or what I am to welcome here. (_He hits her. _)
That is to show who's master.
TEIG
Call them in.
MARY
God help us all!
SHEMUS
Pray, if you have a mind to.
It's little that the sleepy ears above
Care for your words; but I'll call what I please.
TEIG
There is many a one, they say, had money from them.
SHEMUS (_at door_)
Whatever you are that walk the woods at night,
So be it that you have not shouldered up
Out of a grave--for I'll have nothing human--
And have free hands, a friendly trick of speech,
I welcome you. Come, sit beside the fire.
What matter if your head's below your arms
Or you've a horse's tail to whip your flank,
Feathers instead of hair, that's but a straw,
Come, share what bread and meat is in the house,
And stretch your heels and warm them in the ashes.
And after that, let's share and share alike
And curse all men and women. Come in, come in.
What, is there no one there? (_Turning from door_)
And yet they say
They are as common as the grass, and ride
Even upon the book in the priest's hand.
(TEIG _lifts one arm slowly and points toward the door and begins
moving backwards_. SHEMUS _turns, he also sees something and begins
moving backward_. MARY _does the same. A man dressed as an Eastern
merchant comes in carrying a small carpet. He unrolls it and sits
cross-legged at one end of it. Another man dressed in the same way
follows, and sits at the other end. This is done slowly and
deliberately. When they are seated they take money out of
embroidered purses at their girdles and begin arranging it on the
carpet_. )
TEIG
You speak to them.
SHEMUS
No, you.
TEIG
'Twas you that called them.
SHEMUS (_coming nearer_)
I'd make so bold, if you would pardon it,
To ask if there's a thing you'd have of us.
Although we are but poor people, if there is,
Why, if there is----
FIRST MERCHANT
We've travelled a long road,
For we are merchants that must tramp the world,
And now we look for supper and a fire
And a safe corner to count money in.
SHEMUS
I thought you were . . . but that's no matter now--
There had been words between my wife and me
Because I said I would be master here,
And ask in what I pleased or who I pleased
And so. . . . but that is nothing to the point,
Because it's certain that you are but merchants.
FIRST MERCHANT
We travel for the Master of all merchants.
SHEMUS
Yet if you were that I had thought but now
I'd welcome you no less. Be what you please
And you'll have supper at the market rate,
That means that what was sold for but a penny
Is now worth fifty.
(MERCHANTS _begin putting money on carpet_. )
FIRST MERCHANT
Our Master bids us pay
So good a price, that all who deal with us
Shall eat, drink, and be merry.
SHEMUS (_to_ MARY)
Bestir yourself,
Go kill and draw the fowl, while Teig and I
Lay out the plates and make a better fire.
MARY
I will not cook for you.
SHEMUS
Not cook! not cook!
Do not be angry. She wants to pay me back
Because I struck her in that argument.
But she'll get sense again. Since the dearth came
We rattle one on another as though we were
Knives thrown into a basket to be cleaned.
MARY
I will not cook for you, because I know
In what unlucky shape you sat but now
Outside this door.
TEIG
It's this, your honours:
Because of some wild words my father said
She thinks you are not of those who cast a shadow.
SHEMUS
I said I'd make the devils of the wood
Welcome, if they'd a mind to eat and drink;
But it is certain that you are men like us.
FIRST MERCHANT
It's strange that she should think we cast no shadow,
For there is nothing on the ridge of the world
That's more substantial than the merchants are
That buy and sell you.
MARY
If you are not demons,
And seeing what great wealth is spread out there,
Give food or money to the starving poor.
FIRST MERCHANT
If we knew how to find deserving poor
We'd do our share.
MARY
But seek them patiently.
FIRST MERCHANT
We know the evils of mere charity.
MARY
Those scruples may befit a common time.
I had thought there was a pushing to and fro,
At times like this, that overset the scale
And trampled measure down.
FIRST MERCHANT
But if already
We'd thought of a more prudent way than that?
SECOND MERCHANT
If each one brings a bit of merchandise,
We'll give him such a price he never dreamt of.
MARY
Where shall the starving come at merchandise?
FIRST MERCHANT
We will ask nothing but what all men have.
MARY
Their swine and cattle, fields and implements
Are sold and gone.
FIRST MERCHANT
They have not sold all yet.
For there's a vaporous thing--that may be nothing,
But that's the buyer's risk--a second self,
They call immortal for a story's sake.
SHEMUS
They come to buy our souls?
TEIG
I'll barter mine.
Why should we starve for what may be but nothing?
MARY
Teig and Shemus----
SHEMUS
What can it be but nothing?
What has God poured out of His bag but famine?
Satan gives money.
TEIG
Yet no thunder stirs.
FIRST MERCHANT
There is a heap for each.
(SHEMUS _goes to take money_. )
But no, not yet,
For there's a work I have to set you to.
SHEMUS
So then you're as deceitful as the rest,
And all that talk of buying what's but a vapour
Is fancy bread. I might have known as much,
Because that's how the trick-o'-the-loop man talks.
FIRST MERCHANT
That's for the work, each has its separate price;
But neither price is paid till the work's done.
TEIG
The same for me.
MARY
Oh, God, why are you still?
FIRST MERCHANT
You've but to cry aloud at every cross-road,
At every house door, that we buy men's souls.
And give so good a price that all may live
In mirth and comfort till the famine's done,
Because we are Christian men.
SHEMUS
Come, let's away.
TEIG
I shall keep running till I've earned the price.
SECOND MERCHANT
(_who has risen and gone towards fire_)
Stop; you must have proof behind the words.
So here's your entertainment on the road.
(_He throws a bag of money on the ground. _)
Live as you please; our Master's generous.
(TEIG and SHEMUS _have stopped_. TEIG _takes the money. They go out. _)
MARY
Destroyers of souls, God will destroy you quickly.
You shall at last dry like dry leaves and hang
Nailed like dead vermin to the doors of God.
SECOND MERCHANT
Curse to your fill, for saints will have their dreams.
FIRST MERCHANT
Though we're but vermin that our Master sent
To overrun the world, he at the end
Shall pull apart the pale ribs of the moon
And quench the stars in the ancestral night.
MARY
God is all powerful.
SECOND MERCHANT
Pray, you shall need Him.
You shall eat dock and grass, and dandelion,
Till that low threshold there becomes a wall,
And when your hands can scarcely drag your body
We shall be near you.
(MARY _faints_. )
(_The_ FIRST MERCHANT _takes up the carpet, spreads it before the fire
and stands in front of it warming his hands_. )
FIRST MERCHANT
Our faces go unscratched,
Wring the neck o' that fowl, scatter the flour
And look if there is bread upon the shelves.
We'll turn the fowl upon the spit and roast it,
And eat the supper we were bidden to,
Now that the house is quiet, praise our Master,
And stretch and warm our heels among the ashes.
END OF SCENE I.
SCENE II
FRONT SCENE. --_A wood with perhaps distant view of turreted house
at one side, but all in flat colour, without light and shade and
against a diapered or gold background. _
COUNTESS CATHLEEN _comes in leaning upon_ ALEEL'S _arm_. OONA _follows
them_.
CATHLEEN (_stopping_)
Surely this leafy corner, where one smells
The wild bee's honey, has a story too?
OONA
There is the house at last.
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Title: Poems
Author: W. B. Yeats
Release Date: February 14, 2012 [EBook #38877]
Language: English
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POEMS
EVERY IRISHMAN'S LIBRARY
_Cr. 8vo. , cloth, 3s. 6d. net each. With Frontispieces. _
LIST OF VOLUMES
1. Thomas Davis. SELECTIONS FROM HIS PROSE
AND POETRY. Edited by T. W. ROLLESTON,
M. A. (Dublin).
2. Wild Sports of the West. By W. H. MAXWELL.
Edited by the EARL OF DUNRAVEN.
3. Legends of Saints and Sinners from the
Irish. Edited by DOUGLAS HYDE, LL. D.
(Dublin).
4. The Book of Irish Humour. Edited by
CHARLES L. GRAVES, M. A. (Oxon. ).
5. Irish Orators and Oratory. With an Introduction
by Professor T. M. KETTLE, M. P.
6. The Book of Irish Poetry. Edited by ALFRED
PERCEVAL GRAVES, M. A. (Dublin).
7. Standish O'Grady. SELECTED ESSAYS AND
PASSAGES. Edited by ERNEST A. BOYD.
8. Recollections of Jonah Barrington. Edited
by GEORGE A. BIRMINGHAM.
9. Poems of Sir Samuel Ferguson. Edited by
ALFRED PERCEVAL GRAVES, M. A.
10. Carleton's Stories of Irish Life. With an
Introduction by DARRELL FIGGIS.
11. The Collegians. By GERALD GRIFFIN. With
Introduction by PADRAIC COLUM.
12. Maria Edgeworth: SELECTIONS FROM HER
WORKS. With an Introduction by MALCOLM
COTTER SETON, M. A.
T. FISHER UNWIN LTD. , LONDON
[Illustration: Signature: WB Yeats]
POEMS
BY
W. B. YEATS
LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN LTD.
ADELPHI TERRACE
"The Wanderings of Oisin" was published with the lyrics now collected
under the title "Crossways" in 1888, "The Countess Cathleen" with the
lyrics now collected under the title "The Rose" in 1892, and "The Land
of Heart's Desire" by itself in 1894. They were revised and reprinted in
one volume in 1895, again revised and reprinted in 1899, and again
reprinted in 1901, 1904, 1908, 1912, 1913, 1919, and 1920.
(_All rights reserved_)
PREFACE
During the last year I have spent much time altering "The Countess
Cathleen" and "The Land of Heart's Desire" that they might be a part of
the repertory of the Abbey Theatre. I had written them before I had any
practical experience, and I knew from the performance of the one in
Dublin in 1899 and of the other in London in 1894 that they were full of
defects. But in their new shape--and each play has been twice played
during the winter--they have given me some pleasure, and are, I think,
easier to play effectively than my later plays, depending less upon the
players and more upon the producer, both having been imagined more for
variety of stage-picture than variety of mood in the player. It was,
indeed, the first performance of "The Countess Cathleen," when our
stage-pictures were made out of poor conventional scenery and hired
costumes, that set me writing plays where all would depend upon the
player. The first two scenes are wholly new, and though I have left the
old end in the body of this book I have given in the notes an end less
difficult to producer and audience, and there are slight alterations
elsewhere in the poem. "The Land of Heart's Desire," besides some
mending in the details, has been thrown back in time because the
metrical speech would have sounded unreal if spoken in a country cottage
now that we have so many dialect comedies. The shades of Mrs. Fallan and
Mrs. Dillane and of Dan Bourke and the Tramp would have seemed too
boisterous or too vivid for shades made cold and distant with the
artifice of verse.
I have not again retouched the lyric poems of my youth, fearing some
stupidity in my middle years, but have changed two or three pages that I
always knew to be wrong in "The Wanderings of Usheen. "
W. B. YEATS.
_June, 1912. _
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
I have added some passages to "The Land of Heart's Desire," and a new
scene of some little length, besides passages here and there, to "The
Countess Cathleen. " The goddess has never come to me with her hands so
full that I have not found many waste places after I had planted all
that she had brought me. The present version of "The Countess Cathleen"
is not quite the version adopted by the Irish Literary Theatre a couple
of years ago, for our stage and scenery were capable of little; and it
may differ more from any stage version I make in future, for it seems
that my people of the waters and my unhappy dead, in the third act,
cannot keep their supernatural essence, but must put on too much of our
mortality, in any ordinary theatre. I am told that I must abandon a
meaning or two and make my merchants carry away the treasure
themselves. The act was written long ago, when I had seen so few plays
that I took pleasure in stage effects. Indeed, I am not yet certain that
a wealthy theatre could not shape it to an impressive pageantry, or that
a theatre without any wealth could not lift it out of pageantry into the
mind, with a dim curtain, and some dimly lighted players, and the
beautiful voices that should be as important in poetical as in musical
drama. The Elizabethan stage was so little imprisoned in material
circumstance that the Elizabethan imagination was not strained by god or
spirit, nor even by Echo herself--no, not even when she answered, as in
"The Duchess of Malfi," in clear, loud words which were not the words
that had been spoken to her. We have made a prison-house of paint and
canvas, where we have as little freedom as under our own roofs, for
there is no freedom in a house that has been made with hands. All art
moves in the cave of the Chimaera, 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.
Besides rewriting a lyric or two, I have much enlarged the note on "The
Countess Cathleen," as there has been some discussion in Ireland about
the origin of the story, but the other notes are as they have always
been. They are short enough, but I do not think that anybody who knows
modern poetry will find obscurities in this book. In any case, I must
leave my myths and symbols to explain themselves as the years go by and
one poems lights up another, and the stories that friends, and one
friend in particular, have gathered for me, or that I have gathered
myself in many cottages, find their way into the light. I would, if I
could, add to that majestic heraldry of the poets, that great and
complicated inheritance of images which written literature has
substituted for the greater and more complex inheritance of spoken
tradition, some new heraldic images, gathered from the lips of the
common people. Christianity and the old nature faith have lain down side
by side in the cottages, and I would proclaim that peace as loudly as I
can among the kingdoms of poetry, where there is no peace that is not
joyous, no battle that does not give life instead of death; I may even
try to persuade others, in more sober prose, that there can be no
language more worthy of poetry and of the meditation of the soul than
that which has been made, or can be made, out of a subtlety of desire,
an emotion of sacrifice, a delight in order, that 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?
These details may seem to many unnecessary; but after all one writes
poetry for a few careful readers and for a few friends, who will not
consider such details unnecessary. When Cimabue had the cry it was, it
seems, worth thinking of those that run; but to-day, when they can write
as well as read, one can sit with one's companions under the hedgerow
contentedly. If one writes well and has the patience, somebody will come
from among the runners and read what one has written quickly, and go
away quickly, and write out as much as he can remember in the language
of the highway.
W. B. YEATS.
_January, 1901. _
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN 1
THE ROSE--
To the Rose upon the Rood of Time 109
Fergus and the Druid 111
The Death of Cuchulain 114
The Rose of the World 119
The Rose of Peace 120
The Rose of Battle 121
A Faery Song 123
The Lake Isle of Innisfree 124
A Cradle Song 125
The Pity of Love 126
The Sorrow of Love 127
When You are Old 128
The White Birds 129
A Dream of Death 131
A Dream of a Blessed Spirit 132
Who goes with Fergus 133
The Man who Dreamed of Faeryland 134
The Dedication to a Book of Stories selected from
the Irish Novelists 137
The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner 139
The Ballad of Father Gilligan 140
The Two Trees 143
To Ireland in the Coming Times 145
THE LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE 149
CROSSWAYS--
The Song of the Happy Shepherd 197
The Sad Shepherd 200
The Cloak, The Boat, and the Shoes 202
Anashuya and Vijaya 203
The Indian upon God 209
The Indian to his Love 211
The Falling of the Leaves 213
Ephemera 214
The Madness of King Goll 216
The Stolen Child 220
To an Isle in the Water 223
Down by the Salley Gardens 224
The Meditation of the Old Fisherman 225
The Ballad of Father O'Hart 226
The Ballad of Moll Magee 229
The Ballad of the Foxhunter 232
THE WANDERINGS OF USHEEN 235
GLOSSARY AND NOTES 299
_TO SOME I HAVE TALKED WITH BY THE FIRE_
_While I wrought out these fitful Danaan rhymes,
My heart would brim with dreams about the times
When we bent down above the fading coals;
And talked of the dark folk, who live in souls
Of passionate men, like bats in the dead trees;
And of the wayward twilight companies,
Who sigh with mingled sorrow and content,
Because their blossoming dreams have never bent
Under the fruit of evil and of good:
And of the embattled flaming multitude
Who rise, wing above wing, flame above flame,
And, like a storm, cry the Ineffable Name,
And with the clashing of their sword blades make
A rapturous music, till the morning break,
And the white hush end all, but the loud beat
Of their long wings, the flash of their white feet. _
THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN
"The sorrowful are dumb for thee"
_Lament of Morion Shehone for Miss Mary Bourke_
TO
MAUD GONNE
SHEMUS RUA A Peasant
MARY His Wife
TEIG His Son
ALEEL A Poet
THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN
OONA Her Foster Mother
Two Demons disguised as Merchants
Peasants, Servants, Angelical Beings
_The Scene is laid in Ireland and in old times_
SCENE I
SCENE. --_A room with lighted fire, and a door into the open air,
through which one sees, perhaps, the trees of a wood, and these
trees should be painted in flat colour upon a gold or diapered sky.
The walls are of one colour. The scent should have the effect of
missal painting. _ MARY, a_ woman of forty years or so, is grinding
a quern_.
MARY
What can have made the grey hen flutter so?
(TEIG, _a boy of fourteen, is coming in with turf, which he lays beside
the hearth_. )
TEIG
They say that now the land is famine struck
The graves are walking.
MARY
There is something that the hen hears.
TEIG
And that is not the worst; at Tubber-vanach
A woman met a man with ears spread out,
And they moved up and down like a bat's wing.
MARY
What can have kept your father all this while?
TEIG
Two nights ago, at Carrick-orus churchyard,
A herdsman met a man who had no mouth,
Nor eyes, nor ears; his face a wall of flesh;
He saw him plainly by the light of the moon.
MARY
Look out, and tell me if your father's coming.
(TEIG _goes to door_. )
TEIG
Mother!
MARY
What is it?
TEIG
In the bush beyond,
There are two birds--if you can call them birds--
I could not see them rightly for the leaves.
But they've the shape and colour of horned owls
And I'm half certain they've a human face.
MARY
Mother of God, defend us!
TEIG
They're looking at me.
What is the good of praying? father says.
God and the Mother of God have dropped asleep.
What do they care, he says, though the whole land
Squeal like a rabbit under a weasel's tooth?
MARY
You'll bring misfortune with your blasphemies
Upon your father, or yourself, or me.
I would to God he were home--ah, there he is.
(SHEMUS _comes in_. )
What was it kept you in the wood? You know
I cannot get all sorts of accidents
Out of my mind till you are home again.
SHEMUS
I'm in no mood to listen to your clatter.
Although I tramped the woods for half a day,
I've taken nothing, for the very rats,
Badgers, and hedgehogs seem to have died of drought,
And there was scarce a wind in the parched leaves.
TEIG
Then you have brought no dinner.
SHEMUS
After that
I sat among the beggars at the cross-roads,
And held a hollow hand among the others.
MARY
What, did you beg?
SHEMUS
I had no chance to beg,
For when the beggars saw me they cried out
They would not have another share their alms,
And hunted me away with sticks and stones.
TEIG
You said that you would bring us food or money.
SHEMUS
What's in the house?
TEIG
A bit of mouldy bread.
MARY
There's flour enough to make another loaf.
TEIG
And when that's gone?
MARY
There is the hen in the coop.
SHEMUS
My curse upon the beggars, my curse upon them!
TEIG
And the last penny gone.
SHEMUS
When the hen's gone,
What can we do but live on sorrel and dock,
And dandelion, till our mouths are green?
MARY
God, that to this hour's found bit and sup,
Will cater for us still.
SHEMUS
His kitchen's bare.
There were five doors that I looked through this day
And saw the dead and not a soul to wake them.
MARY
Maybe He'd have us die because He knows,
When the ear is stopped and when the eye is stopped,
That every wicked sight is hid from the eye,
And all fool talk from the ear.
SHEMUS
Who's passing there?
And mocking us with music?
(_A stringed instrument without. _)
TEIG
A young man plays it,
There's an old woman and a lady with him.
SHEMUS
What is the trouble of the poor to her?
Nothing at all or a harsh radishy sauce
For the day's meat.
MARY
God's pity on the rich.
Had we been through as many doors, and seen
The dishes standing on the polished wood
In the wax candle light, we'd be as hard,
And there's the needle's eye at the end of all.
SHEMUS
My curse upon the rich.
TEIG
They're coming here.
SHEMUS
Then down upon that stool, down quick, I say,
And call up a whey face and a whining voice,
And let your head be bowed upon your knees.
MARY
Had I but time to put the place to rights.
(CATHLEEN, OONA, _and_ ALEEL _enter_. )
CATHLEEN
God save all here. There is a certain house,
An old grey castle with a kitchen garden,
A cider orchard and a plot for flowers,
Somewhere among these woods.
MARY
We know it, lady.
A place that's set among impassable walls
As though world's trouble could not find it out.
CATHLEEN
It may be that we are that trouble, for we--
Although we've wandered in the wood this hour--
Have lost it too, yet I should know my way,
For I lived all my childhood in that house.
MARY
Then you are Countess Cathleen?
CATHLEEN
And this woman,
Oona, my nurse, should have remembered it,
For we were happy for a long time there.
OONA
The paths are overgrown with thickets now,
Or else some change has come upon my sight.
CATHLEEN
And this young man, that should have known the woods--
Because we met him on their border but now,
Wandering and singing like a wave of the sea--
Is so wrapped up in dreams of terrors to come
That he can give no help.
MARY
You have still some way,
But I can put you on the trodden path
Your servants take when they are marketing.
But first sit down and rest yourself awhile,
For my old fathers served your fathers, lady,
Longer than books can tell--and it were strange
If you and yours should not be welcome here.
CATHLEEN
And it were stranger still were I ungrateful
For such kind welcome--but I must be gone,
For the night's gathering in.
SHEMUS
It is a long while
Since I've set eyes on bread or on what buys it.
CATHLEEN
So you are starving even in this wood,
Where I had thought I would find nothing changed.
But that's a dream, for the old worm o' the world
Can eat its way into what place it pleases.
Although I tramped the woods for half a day,
I've taken nothing, for the very rats,
Badgers, and hedgehogs seem to have died of drought,
And there was scarce a wind in the parched leaves.
TEIG
Then you have brought no dinner.
SHEMUS
After that
I sat among the beggars at the cross-roads,
And held a hollow hand among the others.
MARY
What, did you beg?
SHEMUS
I had no chance to beg,
For when the beggars saw me they cried out
They would not have another share their alms,
And hunted me away with sticks and stones.
TEIG
You said that you would bring us food or money.
SHEMUS
What's in the house?
TEIG
A bit of mouldy bread.
MARY
There's flour enough to make another loaf.
TEIG
And when that's gone?
MARY
There is the hen in the coop.
SHEMUS
My curse upon the beggars, my curse upon them!
TEIG
And the last penny gone.
SHEMUS
When the hen's gone,
What can we do but live on sorrel and dock,
And dandelion, till our mouths are green?
MARY
God, that to this hour's found bit and sup,
Will cater for us still.
SHEMUS
His kitchen's bare.
There were five doors that I looked through this day
And saw the dead and not a soul to wake them.
MARY
Maybe He'd have us die because He knows,
When the ear is stopped and when the eye is stopped,
That every wicked sight is hid from the eye,
And all fool talk from the ear.
SHEMUS
Who's passing there?
And mocking us with music?
(_A stringed instrument without. _)
TEIG
A young man plays it,
There's an old woman and a lady with him.
SHEMUS
What is the trouble of the poor to her?
Nothing at all or a harsh radishy sauce
For the day's meat.
MARY
God's pity on the rich.
Had we been through as many doors, and seen
The dishes standing on the polished wood
In the wax candle light, we'd be as hard,
And there's the needle's eye at the end of all.
SHEMUS
My curse upon the rich.
TEIG
They're coming here.
SHEMUS
Then down upon that stool, down quick, I say,
And call up a whey face and a whining voice,
And let your head be bowed upon your knees.
MARY
Had I but time to put the place to rights.
(CATHLEEN, OONA, _and_ ALEEL _enter_. )
CATHLEEN
God save all here. There is a certain house,
An old grey castle with a kitchen garden,
A cider orchard and a plot for flowers,
Somewhere among these woods.
MARY
We know it, lady.
A place that's set among impassable walls
As though world's trouble could not find it out.
CATHLEEN
It may be that we are that trouble, for we--
Although we've wandered in the wood this hour--
Have lost it too, yet I should know my way,
For I lived all my childhood in that house.
MARY
Then you are Countess Cathleen?
CATHLEEN
And this woman,
Oona, my nurse, should have remembered it,
For we were happy for a long time there.
OONA
The paths are overgrown with thickets now,
Or else some change has come upon my sight.
CATHLEEN
And this young man, that should have known the woods--
Because we met him on their border but now,
Wandering and singing like a wave of the sea--
Is so wrapped up in dreams of terrors to come
That he can give no help.
MARY
You have still some way,
But I can put you on the trodden path
Your servants take when they are marketing.
But first sit down and rest yourself awhile,
For my old fathers served your fathers, lady,
Longer than books can tell--and it were strange
If you and yours should not be welcome here.
CATHLEEN
And it were stranger still were I ungrateful
For such kind welcome--but I must be gone,
For the night's gathering in.
SHEMUS
It is a long while
Since I've set eyes on bread or on what buys it.
CATHLEEN
So you are starving even in this wood,
Where I had thought I would find nothing changed.
But that's a dream, for the old worm o' the world
Can eat its way into what place it pleases.
(_She gives money. _)
TEIG
Beautiful lady, give me something too;
I fell but now, being weak with hunger and thirst
And lay upon the threshold like a log.
CATHLEEN
I gave for all and that was all I had.
Look, my purse is empty. I have passed
By starving men and women all this day,
And they have had the rest; but take the purse,
The silver clasps on't may be worth a trifle.
But if you'll come to-morrow to my house
You shall have twice the sum.
(ALEEL _begins to play_. )
SHEMUS (_muttering_)
What, music, music!
CATHLEEN
Ah, do not blame the finger on the string;
The doctors bid me fly the unlucky times
And find distraction for my thoughts, or else
Pine to my grave.
SHEMUS
I have said nothing, lady.
Why should the like of us complain?
OONA
Have done.
Sorrows that she's but read of in a book
Weigh on her mind as if they had been her own.
(OONA, MARY, and CATHLEEN _go out_. ALEEL _looks defiantly at_ SHEMUS. )
ALEEL (_singing_)
Were I but crazy for love's sake
I know who'd measure out his length,
I know the heads that I should break,
For crazy men have double strength.
There! all's out now to leave or take,
And who mocks music mocks at love;
And when I'm crazy for love's sake
I'll not go far to choose.
(_Snapping his fingers in_ SHEMUS' _face_. )
Enough!
I know the heads that I shall break.
(_He takes a step towards the door and then turns again. _)
Shut to the door before the night has fallen,
For who can say what walks, or in what shape
Some devilish creature flies in the air, but now
Two grey-horned owls hooted above our heads.
(_He goes out, his singing dies away. _ MARY _comes in_. SHEMUS _has been
counting the money. _)
SHEMUS
So that fool's gone.
TEIG
He's seen the horned owls too.
There's no good luck in owls, but it may be
That the ill luck's to fall upon his head.
MARY
You never thanked her ladyship.
SHEMUS
Thank her,
For seven halfpence and a silver bit?
TEIG
But for this empty purse?
SHEMUS
What's that for thanks,
Or what's the double of it that she promised?
With bread and flesh and every sort of food
Up to a price no man has heard the like of
And rising every day.
MARY
We have all she had;
She emptied out the purse before our eyes.
SHEMUS (_to_ MARY, _who has gone to close the door_)
Leave that door open.
MARY
When those that have read books,
And seen the seven wonders of the world,
Fear what's above or what's below the ground,
It's time that poverty should bolt the door.
SHEMUS
I'll have no bolts, for there is not a thing
That walks above the ground or under it
I had not rather welcome to this house
Than any more of mankind, rich or poor.
TEIG
So that they brought us money.
SHEMUS
I heard say
There's something that appears like a white bird,
A pigeon or a seagull or the like,
But if you hit it with a stone or a stick
It clangs as though it had been made of brass,
And that if you dig down where it was scratching
You'll find a crock of gold.
TEIG
But dream of gold
For three nights running, and there's always gold.
SHEMUS
You might be starved before you've dug it out.
TEIG
But maybe if you called, something would come,
They have been seen of late.
MARY
Is it call devils?
Call devils from the wood, call them in here?
SHEMUS
So you'd stand up against me, and you'd say
Who or what I am to welcome here. (_He hits her. _)
That is to show who's master.
TEIG
Call them in.
MARY
God help us all!
SHEMUS
Pray, if you have a mind to.
It's little that the sleepy ears above
Care for your words; but I'll call what I please.
TEIG
There is many a one, they say, had money from them.
SHEMUS (_at door_)
Whatever you are that walk the woods at night,
So be it that you have not shouldered up
Out of a grave--for I'll have nothing human--
And have free hands, a friendly trick of speech,
I welcome you. Come, sit beside the fire.
What matter if your head's below your arms
Or you've a horse's tail to whip your flank,
Feathers instead of hair, that's but a straw,
Come, share what bread and meat is in the house,
And stretch your heels and warm them in the ashes.
And after that, let's share and share alike
And curse all men and women. Come in, come in.
What, is there no one there? (_Turning from door_)
And yet they say
They are as common as the grass, and ride
Even upon the book in the priest's hand.
(TEIG _lifts one arm slowly and points toward the door and begins
moving backwards_. SHEMUS _turns, he also sees something and begins
moving backward_. MARY _does the same. A man dressed as an Eastern
merchant comes in carrying a small carpet. He unrolls it and sits
cross-legged at one end of it. Another man dressed in the same way
follows, and sits at the other end. This is done slowly and
deliberately. When they are seated they take money out of
embroidered purses at their girdles and begin arranging it on the
carpet_. )
TEIG
You speak to them.
SHEMUS
No, you.
TEIG
'Twas you that called them.
SHEMUS (_coming nearer_)
I'd make so bold, if you would pardon it,
To ask if there's a thing you'd have of us.
Although we are but poor people, if there is,
Why, if there is----
FIRST MERCHANT
We've travelled a long road,
For we are merchants that must tramp the world,
And now we look for supper and a fire
And a safe corner to count money in.
SHEMUS
I thought you were . . . but that's no matter now--
There had been words between my wife and me
Because I said I would be master here,
And ask in what I pleased or who I pleased
And so. . . . but that is nothing to the point,
Because it's certain that you are but merchants.
FIRST MERCHANT
We travel for the Master of all merchants.
SHEMUS
Yet if you were that I had thought but now
I'd welcome you no less. Be what you please
And you'll have supper at the market rate,
That means that what was sold for but a penny
Is now worth fifty.
(MERCHANTS _begin putting money on carpet_. )
FIRST MERCHANT
Our Master bids us pay
So good a price, that all who deal with us
Shall eat, drink, and be merry.
SHEMUS (_to_ MARY)
Bestir yourself,
Go kill and draw the fowl, while Teig and I
Lay out the plates and make a better fire.
MARY
I will not cook for you.
SHEMUS
Not cook! not cook!
Do not be angry. She wants to pay me back
Because I struck her in that argument.
But she'll get sense again. Since the dearth came
We rattle one on another as though we were
Knives thrown into a basket to be cleaned.
MARY
I will not cook for you, because I know
In what unlucky shape you sat but now
Outside this door.
TEIG
It's this, your honours:
Because of some wild words my father said
She thinks you are not of those who cast a shadow.
SHEMUS
I said I'd make the devils of the wood
Welcome, if they'd a mind to eat and drink;
But it is certain that you are men like us.
FIRST MERCHANT
It's strange that she should think we cast no shadow,
For there is nothing on the ridge of the world
That's more substantial than the merchants are
That buy and sell you.
MARY
If you are not demons,
And seeing what great wealth is spread out there,
Give food or money to the starving poor.
FIRST MERCHANT
If we knew how to find deserving poor
We'd do our share.
MARY
But seek them patiently.
FIRST MERCHANT
We know the evils of mere charity.
MARY
Those scruples may befit a common time.
I had thought there was a pushing to and fro,
At times like this, that overset the scale
And trampled measure down.
FIRST MERCHANT
But if already
We'd thought of a more prudent way than that?
SECOND MERCHANT
If each one brings a bit of merchandise,
We'll give him such a price he never dreamt of.
MARY
Where shall the starving come at merchandise?
FIRST MERCHANT
We will ask nothing but what all men have.
MARY
Their swine and cattle, fields and implements
Are sold and gone.
FIRST MERCHANT
They have not sold all yet.
For there's a vaporous thing--that may be nothing,
But that's the buyer's risk--a second self,
They call immortal for a story's sake.
SHEMUS
They come to buy our souls?
TEIG
I'll barter mine.
Why should we starve for what may be but nothing?
MARY
Teig and Shemus----
SHEMUS
What can it be but nothing?
What has God poured out of His bag but famine?
Satan gives money.
TEIG
Yet no thunder stirs.
FIRST MERCHANT
There is a heap for each.
(SHEMUS _goes to take money_. )
But no, not yet,
For there's a work I have to set you to.
SHEMUS
So then you're as deceitful as the rest,
And all that talk of buying what's but a vapour
Is fancy bread. I might have known as much,
Because that's how the trick-o'-the-loop man talks.
FIRST MERCHANT
That's for the work, each has its separate price;
But neither price is paid till the work's done.
TEIG
The same for me.
MARY
Oh, God, why are you still?
FIRST MERCHANT
You've but to cry aloud at every cross-road,
At every house door, that we buy men's souls.
And give so good a price that all may live
In mirth and comfort till the famine's done,
Because we are Christian men.
SHEMUS
Come, let's away.
TEIG
I shall keep running till I've earned the price.
SECOND MERCHANT
(_who has risen and gone towards fire_)
Stop; you must have proof behind the words.
So here's your entertainment on the road.
(_He throws a bag of money on the ground. _)
Live as you please; our Master's generous.
(TEIG and SHEMUS _have stopped_. TEIG _takes the money. They go out. _)
MARY
Destroyers of souls, God will destroy you quickly.
You shall at last dry like dry leaves and hang
Nailed like dead vermin to the doors of God.
SECOND MERCHANT
Curse to your fill, for saints will have their dreams.
FIRST MERCHANT
Though we're but vermin that our Master sent
To overrun the world, he at the end
Shall pull apart the pale ribs of the moon
And quench the stars in the ancestral night.
MARY
God is all powerful.
SECOND MERCHANT
Pray, you shall need Him.
You shall eat dock and grass, and dandelion,
Till that low threshold there becomes a wall,
And when your hands can scarcely drag your body
We shall be near you.
(MARY _faints_. )
(_The_ FIRST MERCHANT _takes up the carpet, spreads it before the fire
and stands in front of it warming his hands_. )
FIRST MERCHANT
Our faces go unscratched,
Wring the neck o' that fowl, scatter the flour
And look if there is bread upon the shelves.
We'll turn the fowl upon the spit and roast it,
And eat the supper we were bidden to,
Now that the house is quiet, praise our Master,
And stretch and warm our heels among the ashes.
END OF SCENE I.
SCENE II
FRONT SCENE. --_A wood with perhaps distant view of turreted house
at one side, but all in flat colour, without light and shade and
against a diapered or gold background. _
COUNTESS CATHLEEN _comes in leaning upon_ ALEEL'S _arm_. OONA _follows
them_.
CATHLEEN (_stopping_)
Surely this leafy corner, where one smells
The wild bee's honey, has a story too?
OONA
There is the house at last.
