No More Learning

Y.


I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream,
And caught a little silver trout.




_THE HOST OF THE AIR. _

A. H. B.


O'Driscoll drove with a song
The wild duck and the drake
From the tall and tree tufted reeds
Of the drear Hart Lake.

FOOTNOTE:

[E] To be spoken an octave lower than it would be sung. --F. F.




_THE SONG OF THE OLD MOTHER. _

W. B. Y.


I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow
Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow;
And then I must scrub and bake and sweep
Till stars are beginning to blink and peep;
And the young lie long and dream in their bed
Of the matching of ribbons for bosom and head,
And their day goes over in idleness,
And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress;
While I must work because I am old,
And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold.




_Printed by_ A. H. BULLEN, _at The Shakespeare Head Press,
Stratford-on-Avon_.

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

Page 25, stage direction, mixed case "TEIg" was changed to "TEIG" (TEIG
and SHEMUS go out)

Page 70, "marhsalled" changed to "marshalled" (marshalled into rude
order)

Page 112, "The CHILD" changed to "THE CHILD" to match rest of usage in
text (THE CHILD makes a)

Page 214, "_Les Matinees de Timothe Trimm_" was retained as printed as
it appears spelled this way in more than one text. More common is "_Les
Matinees de Timothee Trimm_. "

Page 216, "apre" changed to "apres" (Deux jours apres)

Page 217, "Des" changed to "Des" (Des qu'elle fut)

Page 218, "enchaines" changed to "enchaines" (enchaines dans une prison)


Music Transcriber's Notes:

Rhythms have been added to all songs where words are to be spoken on a
single note, to match the rhythm of speech.

Shadowy Waters--Although Yeats states in his notes on the music (pp.
223-24) that this piece was played on a violin in actual performance,
he states that it is meant to be "Forgael's magic harp. " For that
reason, and reasons of improved sound in midi, a harp sound has been
used.

The Airy Bachelor--in bar 3, the second and fourth quarter notes have
been corrected to eighths. In "Johnnie Gibbons," bar 1, the first note
should be a dotted quarter. In "The Lion shall lose his strength," bar
3, the first note should be a dotted quarter.

I--The rests should be quarter rests. II and III--The key and time
signature are missing in the original, so the transcriber has guessed
at them and adjusted the rhythm to the words.

The Song of Wandering Aengus--a sixteenth rest and fermata have been
added to bar 7 to match the rhythm of the other lines in the song.

The Song of the Old Mother--In bars 3 and 19, the first note should be
sharp. In the line "And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress," the
eighth note for "but" should be in the next bar.





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? The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of
William Butler Yeats, Vol. 4 (of 8), by William Butler Yeats

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
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Title: The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 4 (of 8)
The Hour-glass. Cathleen ni Houlihan. The Golden Helmet.
The Irish Dramatic Movement

Author: William Butler Yeats

Release Date: August 5, 2015 [EBook #49611]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF W B YEATS, VOL 4 ***




Produced by Emmy, mollypit and the Online Distributed
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THE COLLECTED WORKS OF

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS




THE HOUR-GLASS. CATHLEEN NI
HOULIHAN. THE GOLDEN HELMET.
THE IRISH DRAMATIC MOVEMENT
:: BEING THE FOURTH VOLUME OF
THE COLLECTED WORKS IN VERSE &
PROSE OF WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
IMPRINTED AT THE SHAKESPEARE
HEAD PRESS STRATFORD-ON-AVON
MCMVIII




CONTENTS


PAGE
THE HOUR-GLASS 1

CATHLEEN NI HOULIHAN 31

THE GOLDEN HELMET 55

THE IRISH DRAMATIC MOVEMENT 79

APPENDIX I:
'THE HOUR-GLASS' 233

APPENDIX II:
'CATHLEEN NI HOULIHAN' 240

APPENDIX III:
'THE GOLDEN HELMET' 243

APPENDIX IV:
DATES AND PLACES OF THE FIRST PERFORMANCE
OF NEW PLAYS PRODUCED BY THE NATIONAL
THEATRE SOCIETY AND ITS PREDECESSORS 244




THE HOUR-GLASS:

A MORALITY




_PERSONS IN THE PLAY_


A WISE MAN
A FOOL
SOME PUPILS
AN ANGEL
THE WISE MAN'S WIFE AND TWO CHILDREN




THE HOUR-GLASS:

A MORALITY


_A large room with a door at the back and another at
the side, or else a curtained place where persons can
enter by parting the curtains. A desk and a chair at
one side. An hour-glass on a bracket or stand near the
door. A creepy stool near it. Some benches. A WISE MAN
sitting at his desk. _

WISE MAN.

[_Turning over the pages of a book. _]

WHERE is that passage I am to explain to my pupils to-day? Here it
is, and the book says that it was written by a beggar on the walls of
Babylon: 'There are two living countries, the one visible and the one
invisible; and when it is winter with us it is summer in that country,
and when the November winds are up among us it is lambing-time there. '
I wish that my pupils had asked me to explain any other passage. [_The
FOOL comes in and stands at the door holding out his hat. He has a pair
of shears in the other hand. _] It sounds to me like foolishness; and
yet that cannot be, for the writer of this book, where I have found
so much knowledge, would not have set it by itself on this page, and
surrounded it with so many images and so many deep colours and so much
fine gilding, if it had been foolishness.

FOOL.

Give me a penny.

WISE MAN [_turns to another page_].

Here he has written: 'The learned in old times forgot the visible
country. ' That I understand, but I have taught my learners better.

FOOL.

Won't you give me a penny?

WISE MAN.

What do you want? The words of the wise Saracen will not teach you much.

FOOL.

Such a great wise teacher as you are will not refuse a penny to a fool.

WISE MAN.

What do you know about wisdom?

FOOL.

Oh, I know! I know what I have seen.

WISE MAN.

What is it you have seen?

FOOL.

When I went by Kilcluan where the bells used to be ringing at the
break of every day, I could hear nothing but the people snoring in
their houses. When I went by Tubbervanach, where the young men used
to be climbing the hill to the blessed well, they were sitting at the
crossroads playing cards. When I went by Carrigoras, where the friars
used to be fasting and serving the poor, I saw them drinking wine and
obeying their wives. And when I asked what misfortune had brought all
these changes, they said it was no misfortune, but it was the wisdom
they had learned from your teaching.

WISE MAN.

Run round to the kitchen, and my wife will give you something to eat.

FOOL.

That is foolish advice for a wise man to give.

WISE MAN.

Why, Fool?

FOOL.

What is eaten is gone. I want pennies for my bag. I must buy bacon
in the shops, and nuts in the market, and strong drink for the time
when the sun is weak. And I want snares to catch the rabbits and the
squirrels and the hares, and a pot to cook them in.

WISE MAN.

Go away. I have other things to think of now than giving you pennies.

FOOL.

Give me a penny and I will bring you luck. Bresal the Fisherman lets me
sleep among the nets in his loft in the winter-time because he says I
bring him luck; and in the summer-time the wild creatures let me sleep
near their nests and their holes. It is lucky even to look at me or to
touch me, but it is much more lucky to give me a penny. [_Holds out his
hand. _] If I wasn't lucky, I'd starve.

WISE MAN.

What have you got the shears for?

FOOL.

I won't tell you. If I told you, you would drive them away.

WISE MAN.

Whom would I drive away?

FOOL.

I won't tell you.

WISE MAN.

Not if I give you a penny?

FOOL.

No.

WISE MAN.

Not if I give you two pennies?

FOOL.

You will be very lucky if you give me two pennies, but I won't tell you!

WISE MAN.

Three pennies?

FOOL.

Four, and I will tell you!

WISE MAN.

Very well, four. But I will not call you Teig the Fool any longer.

FOOL.

Let me come close to you where nobody will hear me. But first you must
promise you will not drive them away. [_WISE MAN nods. _] Every day men
go out dressed in black and spread great black nets over the hills,
great black nets.

WISE MAN.

Why do they do that?

FOOL.

That they may catch the feet of the angels. But every morning, just
before the dawn, I go out and cut the nets with my shears, and the
angels fly away.

WISE MAN.

Ah, now I know that you are Teig the Fool. You have told me that I am
wise, and I have never seen an angel.

FOOL.

I have seen plenty of angels.

WISE MAN.

Do you bring luck to the angels too?

FOOL.

Oh, no, no! No one could do that. But they are always there if one
looks about one; they are like the blades of grass.

WISE MAN.

When do you see them?

FOOL.

When one gets quiet, then something wakes up inside one, something
happy and quiet like the stars--not like the seven that move, but like
the fixed stars. [_He points upward. _

WISE MAN.

And what happens then?

FOOL.

Then all in a minute one smells summer flowers, and tall people go by,
happy and laughing, and their clothes are the colour of burning sods.

WISE MAN.

Is it long since you have seen them, Teig the Fool?

FOOL.

Not long, glory be to God! I saw one coming behind me just now. It was
not laughing, but it had clothes the colour of burning sods, and there
was something shining about its head.

WISE MAN.

Well, there are your four pennies. You, a fool, say 'Glory be to God,'
but before I came the wise men said it.

FOOL.

Four pennies! That means a great deal of luck. Great teacher, I have
brought you plenty of luck!