His
spear was slender and tipped with shining metal; the spear of Dhoya of
wood, one end pointed and hardened in the fire.
spear was slender and tipped with shining metal; the spear of Dhoya of
wood, one end pointed and hardened in the fire.
Yeats
'
She held the bundle of letters in the flame. He got up from his
seat. She motioned him away imperiously. He looked at the flame in a
bewildered way. The letters fell in little burning fragments about
the hearth. It was all like a terrible dream. He watched those steady
fingers hold letter after letter in the candle flame, and watched the
candle burning on like a passion in the grey daylight of universal
existence. A draught from under the door began blowing the ash about
the room. The voice said--
'You tried to marry a rich girl. You did not love her, but knew she was
rich. You tired of her as you tire of so many things, and behaved to
her most wrongly, most wickedly and treacherously. When you were jilted
you came again to me and to the idleness of this little town. We had
all hoped great things of you. You seemed good and honest. '
'I loved you all along,' he cried. 'If you would marry me we would
be very happy. I loved you all along,' he repeated--this helplessly,
several times over. The bird shook a shower of seed on his shoulder. He
picked one of them from the collar of his coat and turned it over in
his fingers mechanically. 'I loved you all along. '
'You have done no duty that came to you. You have tired of everything
you should cling to; and now you have come to this little town because
here is idleness and irresponsibility. '
The last letter lay in ashes on the hearth. She blew out the candle,
and replaced it among the photographs on the mantelpiece, and stood
there as calm as a portion of the marble.
'John, our friendship is over--it has been burnt in the candle. '
He started forward, his mind full of appeals half-stifled with despair,
on his lips gathered incoherent words: 'She will be happy with Howard.
They were made for each other. I slipped into it. I always thought I
should marry someone who was rich. I never loved anyone but you. I did
not know I loved you at first. I thought about you always. You are the
root of my life. '
Steps were heard outside the door at the end of a passage. Mary Carton
went to the door and called. The steps turned and came nearer. With a
great effort Sherman controlled himself. The door opened, and a tall,
slight girl of twelve came into the room. A strong smell of garden
mould rose from a basket in her hands, Sherman recognized the child who
had given him tea that evening in the schoolhouse three years before.
'Have you finished weeding the carrots? ' said Mary Carton.
'Yes, Miss. '
'Then you are to weed the small bed under the pear-tree by the
tool-house. Do not go yet, child. This is Mr. Sherman. Sit down a
little. '
The child sat down on the corner of a chair with a scared look in her
eyes. Suddenly she said--
'Oh, what a lot of burnt paper! '
'Yes; I have been burning some old letters. '
'I think,' said John, 'I will go now. ' Without a word of farewell he
went out, almost groping his way.
He had lost the best of all the things he held dear. Twice he had gone
through the fire. The first time worldly ambition left him; the second,
love. An hour before the air had been full of singing and peace that
was resonant like joy. Now he saw standing before his Eden the angel
with the flaming sword. All the hope he had ever gathered about him had
taken itself off, and the naked soul shivered.
IV
The road under his feet felt gritty and barren. He hurried away from
the town. It was late afternoon. Trees cast bands of shadow across the
road. He walked rapidly as if pursued. About a mile to the west of
the town he came on a large wood bordering the road and surrounding
a deserted house. Some local rich man once lived there, now it was
given over to a caretaker who lived in two rooms in the back part. Men
were at work cutting down trees in two or three parts of the wood.
Many places were quite bare. A mass of ruins--a covered well, and the
wreckage of castle wall--that had been roofed with green for centuries,
lifted themselves up, bare as anatomies. The sight intensified, by
some strange sympathy, his sorrow, and he hurried away as from a thing
accursed of God.
The road led to the foot of a mountain, topped by a cairn supposed
in popular belief to be the grave of Maeve, Mab of the fairies, and
considered by antiquarians to mark the place where certain prisoners
were executed in legendary times as sacrifices to the moon.
He began to climb the mountain. The sun was on the rim of the sea. It
stayed there without moving, for as he ascended he saw an ever-widening
circle of water.
He threw himself down upon the cairn. The sun sank under the sea. The
Donegal headlands mixed with the surrounding blue. The stars grew out
of heaven.
Sometimes he got up and walked to and fro. Hours passed. The stars,
the streams down in the valley, the wind moving among the boulders,
the various unknown creatures rustling in the silence--all these were
contained within themselves, fulfilling their law, content to be alone,
content to be with others, having the peace of God or the peace of the
birds of prey. He only did not fulfil his law; something that was not
he, that was not nature, that was not God, had made him and her he
loved its tools. Hope, memory, tradition, conformity, had been laying
waste their lives. As he thought this the night seemed to crush him
with its purple foot. Hour followed hour. At midnight he started up,
hearing a faint murmur of clocks striking the hour in the distant town.
His face and hands were wet with tears, his clothes saturated with dew.
He turned homeward, hurriedly flying from the terrible firmament.
What had this glimmering and silence to do with him--this luxurious
present? He belonged to the past and the future. With pace somewhat
slackened, because of the furze, he came down into the valley. Along
the northern horizon moved a perpetual dawn, travelling eastward as the
night advanced. Once, as he passed a marsh near a lime-kiln, a number
of small birds rose chirruping from where they had been clinging among
the reeds. Once, standing still for a moment where two roads crossed on
a hill-side, he looked out over the dark fields. A white stone rose in
the middle of a field, a score of yards in front of him. He knew the
place well; it was an ancient burying-ground. He looked at the stone,
and suddenly filled by the terror of the darkness children feel, began
again his hurried walk.
He re-entered Ballah by the southern side. In passing he looked at the
rectory. To his surprise a light burned in the drawing-room. He stood
still. The dawn was brightening towards the east, but all round him
was darkness, seeming the more intense to his eyes for their being
fresh from the unshaded fields. In the midst of this darkness shone
the lighted window. He went over to the gate and looked in. The room
was empty. He was about to turn away when he noticed a white figure
standing close to the gate. The latch creaked and the gate moved slowly
on its hinges.
'John,' said a trembling voice, 'I have been praying, and a light has
come to me. I wished you to be ambitious--to go away and do something
in the world. You did badly, and my poor pride was wounded. You do not
know how much I had hoped from you; but it was all pride--all pride and
foolishness. You love me. I ask no more. We need each other; the rest
is with God. '
She took his hand in hers, and began caressing it. 'We have been
shipwrecked. Our goods have been cast into the sea. ' Something in her
voice told of the emotion that divides the love of woman from the love
of man. She looked upon him whom she loved as full of a helplessness
that needed protection, a reverberation of the feeling of the mother
for the child at the breast.
DHOYA
I
LONG ago, before the earliest stone of the Pyramids was laid, before
the Bo tree of Buddha unrolled its first leaf, before a Japanese had
painted on a temple wall the horse that every evening descended and
trampled the rice-fields, before the ravens of Thor had eaten their
first worm together, there lived a man of giant stature and of giant
strength named Dhoya. One evening Fomorian galleys had entered the Bay
of the Red Cataract, now the Bay of Ballah, and there deserted him.
Though he rushed into the water and hurled great stones after them,
they were out of reach. From earliest childhood the Fomorians had held
him captive and compelled him to toil at the oar, but when his strength
had come his fits of passion made him a terror to all on board.
Sometimes he would tear the seats of the galley from under the rowers,
and drive the rowers up into the shrouds, where they would cling until
the passion left him. 'The demons,' they said, 'have made him their
own. ' So they enticed him on shore, he having on his head a mighty
stone pitcher to fill with water, and deserted him.
When the last sail had dropped over the rim of the world, he rose from
where he had flung himself down on the sands and hurried through the
forest eastward. After a time he reached that lake among the mountains
where in later times Diarmuid drove down four stakes and made thereon
a platform with four flags in the centre for a hearth, and placed over
all a roof of wicker and skins, and hid his Grania, islanded thereon.
Still eastward he went, what is now Bulben on one side, Cope's mountain
on the other, until at last he threw himself at full length in a deep
cavern and slept. Henceforward he made this cavern his lair, issuing
forth to hunt the deer or the bears or the mountain oxen. Slowly the
years went by, his fits of fury growing more and more frequent, though
there was no one but his own shadow to rave against. When his fury was
on him even the bats and owls, and the brown frogs that crept out of
the grass at twilight, would hide themselves--even the bats and owls
and the brown frogs. These he had made his friends, and let them crawl
and perch about him, for at times he would be very gentle, and they
too were sullen and silent--the outcasts from they knew not what. But
most of all, things placid and beautiful feared him. He would watch for
hours, hidden in the leaves, to reach his hand out slowly and carefully
at last, and seize and crush some glittering halcyon.
Slowly the years went by and human face he never saw, but sometimes,
when the gentle mood was on him and it was twilight, a presence seemed
to float invisibly by him and sigh softly, and once or twice he awoke
from sleep with the sensation of a finger having rested for a moment
on his forehead, and would mutter a prayer to the moon that glimmered
through the door of his cave before turning to sleep again. 'O moon,'
he would say, 'that wanderest in the blue cave of the sky, more white
than the beard of Partholan, whose years were five hundred, sullen and
solitary, sleeping only on the floor of the sea: keep me from the evil
spirits of the islands of the lake southward beyond the mountains, and
the evil spirits of the caves northward beyond the mountains, and the
evil spirits who wave their torches by the mouth of the river eastward
beyond the valley, and the evil spirits of the pools westward beyond
the mountains, and I will offer you a bear and a deer in full horn, O
solitary of the cave divine, and if any have done you wrong I will
avenge you. '
Gradually, however, he began to long for this mysterious touch.
At times he would make journeys into distant parts, and once the
mountain bulls gathered together, proud of their overwhelming numbers
and their white horns, and followed him with great bellowing westward,
he being laden with their tallest, well-nigh to his cave, and would
have gored him, but, pacing into a pool of the sea to his shoulders, he
saw them thunder away, losing him in the darkness. The place where he
stood is called Pooldhoya to this day.
So the years went slowly by, and ever deeper and deeper came his
moodiness, and more often his fits of wrath. Once in his gloom he paced
the forests for miles, now this way, now that, until, returning in the
twilight, he found himself standing on a cliff southward of the lake
that was southward of the mountains. The moon was rising. The sound
of the swaying of reeds floated from beneath, and the twittering of
the flocks of reed-wrens who love to cling on the moving stems. It was
the hour of votaries. He turned to the moon, then hurriedly gathered
a pile of leaves and branches, and making a fire cast thereon wild
strawberries and the fruit of the quicken-tree. As the smoke floated
upwards a bar of faint purple clouds drifted over the moon's face--a
refusal of the sacrifice. Hurrying through the surrounding woods he
found an owl sleeping in the hollow of a tree, and returning cast him
on the fire. Still the clouds gathered. Again he searched the woods.
This time it was a badger that he cast among the flames. Time after
time he came and went, sometimes returning immediately with some live
thing, at others not till the fire had almost burnt itself out. Deer,
wild swine, birds, all to no purpose. Higher and higher he piled the
burning branches, the flames and the smoke waved and circled like
the lash of a giant's whip. Gradually the nearer islands passed the
rosy colour on to their more distant brethren. The reed-wrens of the
furthest reed beds disturbed amid their sleep must have wondered at the
red gleam reflected in each other's eyes. Useless his night-long toil;
the clouds covered the moon's face more and more, until, when the long
fire-lash was at its brightest, they drowned her completely in a surge
of unbroken mist. Raging against the fire he scattered with his staff
the burning branches, and trampled in his fury the sacrificial embers
beneath his feet. Suddenly a voice in the surrounding darkness called
him softly by name. He turned. For years no articulate voice had
sounded in his ears. It seemed to rise from the air just beneath the
verge of the precipice. Holding by a hazel bush he leaned out, and for
a moment it seemed to him the form of a beautiful woman floated faintly
before him, but changed as he watched to a little cloud of vapour;
and from the nearest of the haunted islands there came assuredly a
whiff of music. Then behind him in the forest said the voice, 'Dhoya,
my beloved. ' He rushed in pursuit; something white was moving before
him. He stretched out his hand; it was only a mass of white campion
trembling in the morning breeze, for an ashen morning was just touching
the mists on the eastern mountains. Beginning suddenly to tremble with
supernatural fear Dhoya turned homewards. Everything was changed; dark
shadows seemed to come and go, and elfin chatter to pass upon the
breeze. But when he reached the shelter of the pine woods all was still
as of old. He slackened his speed. Those solemn pine-trees soothed
him with their vast unsociability--many and yet each one alone. Once
or twice, when in some glade further than usual from its kind arose a
pine-tree larger than the rest, he paused with bowed head to mutter an
uncouth prayer to that dark outlaw. As he neared his cave and came from
the deep shade into the region of mountain-ash and hazel, the voices
seemed again to come and go, and the shadows to circle round him, and
once a voice said, he imagined, in accents faint and soft as falling
dew, 'Dhoya, my beloved. ' But a few yards from the cave all grew
suddenly silent.
II
Slower and slower he went, with his eyes on the ground, bewildered
by all that was happening. A few feet from the cave he stood still,
counting aimlessly the round spots of light made by the beams slanting
through trees that hid with their greenness, as in the centre of the
sea, that hollow rock. As over and over he counted them, he heard,
first with the ear only, then with the mind also, a footstep going to
and fro within the cave. Lifting his eyes he saw the same figure seen
on the cliff--the figure of a woman, beautiful and young. Her dress was
white, save for a border of feathers dyed the fatal red of the spirits.
She had arranged in one corner the spears, and in the other the
brushwood and branches used for the fire, and spread upon the ground
the skins, and now began pulling vainly at the great stone pitcher of
the Fomorians.
Suddenly she saw him and with a burst of laughter flung her arms round
his neck, crying, 'Dhoya, I have left my world far off. My people--on
the floor of the lake they are dancing and singing, and on the islands
of the lake; always happy, always young, always without change. I have
left them for thee, Dhoya, for they cannot love. Only the changing,
and moody, and angry, and weary can love. I am beautiful; love me,
Dhoya. Do you hear me? I left the places where they dance, Dhoya, for
thee! ' For long she poured out a tide of words, he answering at first
little, then more and more as she melted away the silence of so many
inarticulate years; and all the while she gazed on him with eyes, no
ardour could rob of the mild and mysterious melancholy that watches us
from the eyes of animals--sign of unhuman reveries.
Many days passed over these strangely-wedded ones. Sometimes when he
asked her, 'Do you love me? ' she would answer, 'I do not know, but
I long for your love endlessly. ' Often at twilight, returning from
hunting, he would find her bending over a stream that flowed near to
the cave, decking her hair with feathers and reddening her lips with
the juice of a wild berry.
He was very happy secluded in that deep forest. Hearing the faint
murmurs of the western sea, they seemed to have outlived change. But
Change is everywhere, with the tides and the stars fastened to her
wheel. Every blood-drop in their lips, every cloud in the sky, every
leaf in the world changed a little, while they brushed back their hair
and kissed. All things change save only the fear of change. And yet
for his hour Dhoya was happy and as full of dreams as an old man or an
infant--for dreams wander nearest to the grave and the cradle.
Once, as he was returning home from hunting, by the northern edge of
the lake, at the hour when the owls cry to each other, 'It is time to
be abroad,' and the last flutter of the wind has died away, leaving
under every haunted island an image legible to the least hazel branch,
there suddenly stood before him a slight figure, at the edge of the
narrow sand-line, dark against the glowing water. Dhoya drew nearer. It
was a man leaning on his spear-staff, on his head a small red cap.
His
spear was slender and tipped with shining metal; the spear of Dhoya of
wood, one end pointed and hardened in the fire. The red-capped stranger
silently raised that slender spear and thrust at Dhoya, who parried
with his pointed staff.
For a long while they fought. The last vestige of sunset passed away
and the stars came out. Underneath them the feet of Dhoya beat up the
ground, but the feet of the other as he rushed hither and thither,
matching his agility with the mortal's mighty strength, made neither
shadow nor footstep on the sands. Dhoya was wounded, and growing weary
a little, when the other leaped away, and, crouching down by the water,
began: 'You have carried away by some spell unknown the most beautiful
of our bands--you who have neither laughter nor singing. Restore her,
Dhoya, and go free. ' Dhoya answered him no word, and the other rose and
again thrust at him with the spear. They fought to and fro upon the
sands until the dawn touched with olive the distant sky, and then his
anger-fit, long absent, fell on Dhoya, and he closed with his enemy and
threw him, and put his knee on his chest and his hands on his throat,
and would have crushed all life out of him, when lo! he held beneath
his knee no more than a bundle of reeds.
Nearing home in the early morning he heard the voice he loved, singing:
Full moody is my love and sad,
His moods bow low his sombre crest,
I hold him dearer than the glad,
And he shall slumber on my breast.
My love hath many an evil mood,
Ill words for all things soft and fair,
I hold him dearer than the good,
My fingers feel his amber hair.
No tender wisdom floods the eyes
That watch me with their suppliant light--
I hold him dearer than the wise,
And for him make me wise and bright.
And when she saw him she cried, 'An old mortal song heard floating from
a tent of skin, as we rode, I and mine, through a camping-place at
night. ' From that day she was always either singing wild and melancholy
songs or else watching him with that gaze of animal reverie.
Once he asked, 'How old are you? '
'A thousand years, for I am young. '
'I am so little to you,' he went on, 'and you are so much to me--dawn,
and sunset, tranquillity, and speech, and solitude. '
'Am I so much? ' she said; 'say it many times! ' and her eyes seemed to
brighten and her breast heaved with joy.
Often he would bring her the beautiful skins of animals, and she would
walk to and fro on them, laughing to feel their softness under her
feet. Sometimes she would pause and ask suddenly, 'Will you weep for me
when we have parted? ' and he would answer, 'I will die then'; and she
would go on rubbing her feet to and fro in the soft skin.
And so Dhoya grew tranquil and gentle, and Change seemed still to
have forgotten them, having so much on her hands. The stars rose and
set watching them smiling together, and the tides ebbed and flowed,
bringing mutability to all save them. But always everything changes,
save only the fear of Change.
III
One evening as they sat in the inner portion of the cave, watching
through the opening the paling of the sky and the darkening of the
leaves, and counting the budding stars, Dhoya suddenly saw stand before
him the dark outline of him he fought on the lake sand, and heard at
the same instant his companion sigh.
The stranger approached a little, and said, 'Dhoya, we have fought
heretofore, and now I have come to play chess against thee, for well
thou knowest, dear to the perfect warrior after war is chess. '
'I know it,' answered Dhoya.
'And when we have played, Dhoya, we will name the stake. '
'Do not play,' whispered his companion at his side.
But Dhoya, being filled with his anger-fit at the sight of his enemy,
answered, 'I will play, and I know well the stake you mean, and I name
this for mine, that I may again have my knee on your chest and my hands
on your throat, and that you will not again change into a bundle
of wet reeds. ' His companion lay down on a skin and began to cry a
little. Dhoya felt sure of winning. He had often played in his boyhood,
before the time of his anger-fits, with his masters of the galley; and
besides, he could always return to his hands and his weapons once more.
Now the floor of the cave was of smooth, white sand, brought from
the seashore in his great Fomorian pitcher, to make it soft for his
beloved to walk upon; before it had been, as it now is, of rough clay.
On this sand the red-capped stranger marked out with his spear-point
a chess-board, and marked with rushes, crossed and recrossed each
alternate square, fixing each end of the rush in the sand, until a
complete board was finished of white and green squares, and then drew
from a bag large chessmen of mingled wood and silver. Two or three
would have made an armful for a child. Standing each at his end they
began to play. The game did not last long. No matter how carefully
Dhoya played, each move went against him. At last, leaping back from
the board, he cried, 'I have lost! ' The two spirits were standing
together at the entrance. Dhoya seized his spear, but slowly the
figures began to fade, first a star and then the leaves showed through
their forms. Soon all had vanished away.
Then, understanding his loss, he threw himself on the ground, and
rolling hither and thither, roared like a wild beast. All night long he
lay on the ground, and all the next day till nightfall. He had crumbled
his staff unconsciously between his fingers into small pieces, and now,
full of dull rage, the pointed end of the staff still in his hand,
arose and went forth westward. In a ravine of the northern mountain
he came on the tracks of wild horses. Soon one passed him fearlessly,
knowing nothing of man. He drove the pointed end of the staff deep in
the flank, making a great wound, sending the horse rushing with short
screams down the mountain. Other horses passed him one by one, driven
southward by a cold wind laden with mist, arisen in the night-time.
Towards the end of the ravine stood one black and huge, the leader of
the herd. Dhoya leaped on his back with a loud cry that sent a raven
circling from the neighbouring cliff, and the horse, after vainly
seeking to throw him, rushed off towards the north-west, over the
heights of the mountains where the mists floated. The moon, clear
sometimes of the flying clouds, from low down in the south-east, cast
a pale and mutable light, making their shadow rise before them on
the mists, as though they pursued some colossal demon, sombre on his
black charger. Then leaving the heights they rushed down that valley
where, in far later times, Diarmuid hid in a deep cavern his Grania,
and passed the stream where Muadhan, their savage servant, caught fish
for them on a hook baited with a quicken-berry. On over the plains,
on northward, mile after mile, the wild gigantic horse leaping cliff
and chasm in his terrible race; on until the mountains of what is now
Donegal rose before them--over these among the clouds, driving rain
blowing in their faces from the sea, Dhoya knowing not whither he went,
or why he rode. On--the stones loosened by the hoofs rumbling down into
the valleys--till far in the distance he saw the sea, a thousand feet
below him; then, fixing his eyes thereon, and using the spear-point as
a goad, he roused his black horse into redoubled speed, until horse and
rider plunged headlong into the Western Sea.
Sometimes the cotters on the mountains of Donegal hear on windy nights
a sudden sound of horses' hoofs, and say to each other, 'There goes
Dhoya. ' And at the same hour men say if any be abroad in the valleys
they see a huge shadow rushing along the mountain.
_Printed by_ A. H. BULLEN, _at The Shakespeare Head Press,
Stratford-on-Avon_.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Repeated story titles were removed to avoid redundancy. Obvious
punctuation errors repaired. Varied hyphenation was retained.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Collected Works in Verse and Prose
of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 7 (of 8), by William Butler Yeats
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF W B YEATS, VOL 7 ***
***** This file should be named 49614-0. txt or 49614-0. zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www. gutenberg. org/4/9/6/1/49614/
Produced by Emmy, mollypit and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www. pgdp. net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
be renamed.
Creating the works from print editions not protected by U. S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you! ) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive
specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this
eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook
for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports,
performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given
away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks
not protected by U. S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the
trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.
START: FULL LICENSE
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
www. gutenberg. org/license.
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works
1. A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
1. E. 8.
1. B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1. C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works. See paragraph 1. E below.
1. C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
you share it without charge with others.
1. D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country outside the United States.
1. E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1. E. 1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work
on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
eBook or online at www. gutenberg. org. If you are not located in the
United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you
are located before using this ebook.
1. E. 2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U. S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1. E. 1 through 1. E. 7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1. E. 8 or 1. E. 9.
1. E. 3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1. E. 1 through 1. E. 7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.
1. E. 4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
1. E. 5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1. E. 1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.
1. E. 6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format
other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site
(www. gutenberg. org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1. E. 1.
1. E. 7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1. E. 8 or 1. E. 9.
1. E. 8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
provided that
* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has
agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation. "
* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm
works.
* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1. F. 3, a full refund of
any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
receipt of the work.
* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
1. E. 9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The
Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm
trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
She held the bundle of letters in the flame. He got up from his
seat. She motioned him away imperiously. He looked at the flame in a
bewildered way. The letters fell in little burning fragments about
the hearth. It was all like a terrible dream. He watched those steady
fingers hold letter after letter in the candle flame, and watched the
candle burning on like a passion in the grey daylight of universal
existence. A draught from under the door began blowing the ash about
the room. The voice said--
'You tried to marry a rich girl. You did not love her, but knew she was
rich. You tired of her as you tire of so many things, and behaved to
her most wrongly, most wickedly and treacherously. When you were jilted
you came again to me and to the idleness of this little town. We had
all hoped great things of you. You seemed good and honest. '
'I loved you all along,' he cried. 'If you would marry me we would
be very happy. I loved you all along,' he repeated--this helplessly,
several times over. The bird shook a shower of seed on his shoulder. He
picked one of them from the collar of his coat and turned it over in
his fingers mechanically. 'I loved you all along. '
'You have done no duty that came to you. You have tired of everything
you should cling to; and now you have come to this little town because
here is idleness and irresponsibility. '
The last letter lay in ashes on the hearth. She blew out the candle,
and replaced it among the photographs on the mantelpiece, and stood
there as calm as a portion of the marble.
'John, our friendship is over--it has been burnt in the candle. '
He started forward, his mind full of appeals half-stifled with despair,
on his lips gathered incoherent words: 'She will be happy with Howard.
They were made for each other. I slipped into it. I always thought I
should marry someone who was rich. I never loved anyone but you. I did
not know I loved you at first. I thought about you always. You are the
root of my life. '
Steps were heard outside the door at the end of a passage. Mary Carton
went to the door and called. The steps turned and came nearer. With a
great effort Sherman controlled himself. The door opened, and a tall,
slight girl of twelve came into the room. A strong smell of garden
mould rose from a basket in her hands, Sherman recognized the child who
had given him tea that evening in the schoolhouse three years before.
'Have you finished weeding the carrots? ' said Mary Carton.
'Yes, Miss. '
'Then you are to weed the small bed under the pear-tree by the
tool-house. Do not go yet, child. This is Mr. Sherman. Sit down a
little. '
The child sat down on the corner of a chair with a scared look in her
eyes. Suddenly she said--
'Oh, what a lot of burnt paper! '
'Yes; I have been burning some old letters. '
'I think,' said John, 'I will go now. ' Without a word of farewell he
went out, almost groping his way.
He had lost the best of all the things he held dear. Twice he had gone
through the fire. The first time worldly ambition left him; the second,
love. An hour before the air had been full of singing and peace that
was resonant like joy. Now he saw standing before his Eden the angel
with the flaming sword. All the hope he had ever gathered about him had
taken itself off, and the naked soul shivered.
IV
The road under his feet felt gritty and barren. He hurried away from
the town. It was late afternoon. Trees cast bands of shadow across the
road. He walked rapidly as if pursued. About a mile to the west of
the town he came on a large wood bordering the road and surrounding
a deserted house. Some local rich man once lived there, now it was
given over to a caretaker who lived in two rooms in the back part. Men
were at work cutting down trees in two or three parts of the wood.
Many places were quite bare. A mass of ruins--a covered well, and the
wreckage of castle wall--that had been roofed with green for centuries,
lifted themselves up, bare as anatomies. The sight intensified, by
some strange sympathy, his sorrow, and he hurried away as from a thing
accursed of God.
The road led to the foot of a mountain, topped by a cairn supposed
in popular belief to be the grave of Maeve, Mab of the fairies, and
considered by antiquarians to mark the place where certain prisoners
were executed in legendary times as sacrifices to the moon.
He began to climb the mountain. The sun was on the rim of the sea. It
stayed there without moving, for as he ascended he saw an ever-widening
circle of water.
He threw himself down upon the cairn. The sun sank under the sea. The
Donegal headlands mixed with the surrounding blue. The stars grew out
of heaven.
Sometimes he got up and walked to and fro. Hours passed. The stars,
the streams down in the valley, the wind moving among the boulders,
the various unknown creatures rustling in the silence--all these were
contained within themselves, fulfilling their law, content to be alone,
content to be with others, having the peace of God or the peace of the
birds of prey. He only did not fulfil his law; something that was not
he, that was not nature, that was not God, had made him and her he
loved its tools. Hope, memory, tradition, conformity, had been laying
waste their lives. As he thought this the night seemed to crush him
with its purple foot. Hour followed hour. At midnight he started up,
hearing a faint murmur of clocks striking the hour in the distant town.
His face and hands were wet with tears, his clothes saturated with dew.
He turned homeward, hurriedly flying from the terrible firmament.
What had this glimmering and silence to do with him--this luxurious
present? He belonged to the past and the future. With pace somewhat
slackened, because of the furze, he came down into the valley. Along
the northern horizon moved a perpetual dawn, travelling eastward as the
night advanced. Once, as he passed a marsh near a lime-kiln, a number
of small birds rose chirruping from where they had been clinging among
the reeds. Once, standing still for a moment where two roads crossed on
a hill-side, he looked out over the dark fields. A white stone rose in
the middle of a field, a score of yards in front of him. He knew the
place well; it was an ancient burying-ground. He looked at the stone,
and suddenly filled by the terror of the darkness children feel, began
again his hurried walk.
He re-entered Ballah by the southern side. In passing he looked at the
rectory. To his surprise a light burned in the drawing-room. He stood
still. The dawn was brightening towards the east, but all round him
was darkness, seeming the more intense to his eyes for their being
fresh from the unshaded fields. In the midst of this darkness shone
the lighted window. He went over to the gate and looked in. The room
was empty. He was about to turn away when he noticed a white figure
standing close to the gate. The latch creaked and the gate moved slowly
on its hinges.
'John,' said a trembling voice, 'I have been praying, and a light has
come to me. I wished you to be ambitious--to go away and do something
in the world. You did badly, and my poor pride was wounded. You do not
know how much I had hoped from you; but it was all pride--all pride and
foolishness. You love me. I ask no more. We need each other; the rest
is with God. '
She took his hand in hers, and began caressing it. 'We have been
shipwrecked. Our goods have been cast into the sea. ' Something in her
voice told of the emotion that divides the love of woman from the love
of man. She looked upon him whom she loved as full of a helplessness
that needed protection, a reverberation of the feeling of the mother
for the child at the breast.
DHOYA
I
LONG ago, before the earliest stone of the Pyramids was laid, before
the Bo tree of Buddha unrolled its first leaf, before a Japanese had
painted on a temple wall the horse that every evening descended and
trampled the rice-fields, before the ravens of Thor had eaten their
first worm together, there lived a man of giant stature and of giant
strength named Dhoya. One evening Fomorian galleys had entered the Bay
of the Red Cataract, now the Bay of Ballah, and there deserted him.
Though he rushed into the water and hurled great stones after them,
they were out of reach. From earliest childhood the Fomorians had held
him captive and compelled him to toil at the oar, but when his strength
had come his fits of passion made him a terror to all on board.
Sometimes he would tear the seats of the galley from under the rowers,
and drive the rowers up into the shrouds, where they would cling until
the passion left him. 'The demons,' they said, 'have made him their
own. ' So they enticed him on shore, he having on his head a mighty
stone pitcher to fill with water, and deserted him.
When the last sail had dropped over the rim of the world, he rose from
where he had flung himself down on the sands and hurried through the
forest eastward. After a time he reached that lake among the mountains
where in later times Diarmuid drove down four stakes and made thereon
a platform with four flags in the centre for a hearth, and placed over
all a roof of wicker and skins, and hid his Grania, islanded thereon.
Still eastward he went, what is now Bulben on one side, Cope's mountain
on the other, until at last he threw himself at full length in a deep
cavern and slept. Henceforward he made this cavern his lair, issuing
forth to hunt the deer or the bears or the mountain oxen. Slowly the
years went by, his fits of fury growing more and more frequent, though
there was no one but his own shadow to rave against. When his fury was
on him even the bats and owls, and the brown frogs that crept out of
the grass at twilight, would hide themselves--even the bats and owls
and the brown frogs. These he had made his friends, and let them crawl
and perch about him, for at times he would be very gentle, and they
too were sullen and silent--the outcasts from they knew not what. But
most of all, things placid and beautiful feared him. He would watch for
hours, hidden in the leaves, to reach his hand out slowly and carefully
at last, and seize and crush some glittering halcyon.
Slowly the years went by and human face he never saw, but sometimes,
when the gentle mood was on him and it was twilight, a presence seemed
to float invisibly by him and sigh softly, and once or twice he awoke
from sleep with the sensation of a finger having rested for a moment
on his forehead, and would mutter a prayer to the moon that glimmered
through the door of his cave before turning to sleep again. 'O moon,'
he would say, 'that wanderest in the blue cave of the sky, more white
than the beard of Partholan, whose years were five hundred, sullen and
solitary, sleeping only on the floor of the sea: keep me from the evil
spirits of the islands of the lake southward beyond the mountains, and
the evil spirits of the caves northward beyond the mountains, and the
evil spirits who wave their torches by the mouth of the river eastward
beyond the valley, and the evil spirits of the pools westward beyond
the mountains, and I will offer you a bear and a deer in full horn, O
solitary of the cave divine, and if any have done you wrong I will
avenge you. '
Gradually, however, he began to long for this mysterious touch.
At times he would make journeys into distant parts, and once the
mountain bulls gathered together, proud of their overwhelming numbers
and their white horns, and followed him with great bellowing westward,
he being laden with their tallest, well-nigh to his cave, and would
have gored him, but, pacing into a pool of the sea to his shoulders, he
saw them thunder away, losing him in the darkness. The place where he
stood is called Pooldhoya to this day.
So the years went slowly by, and ever deeper and deeper came his
moodiness, and more often his fits of wrath. Once in his gloom he paced
the forests for miles, now this way, now that, until, returning in the
twilight, he found himself standing on a cliff southward of the lake
that was southward of the mountains. The moon was rising. The sound
of the swaying of reeds floated from beneath, and the twittering of
the flocks of reed-wrens who love to cling on the moving stems. It was
the hour of votaries. He turned to the moon, then hurriedly gathered
a pile of leaves and branches, and making a fire cast thereon wild
strawberries and the fruit of the quicken-tree. As the smoke floated
upwards a bar of faint purple clouds drifted over the moon's face--a
refusal of the sacrifice. Hurrying through the surrounding woods he
found an owl sleeping in the hollow of a tree, and returning cast him
on the fire. Still the clouds gathered. Again he searched the woods.
This time it was a badger that he cast among the flames. Time after
time he came and went, sometimes returning immediately with some live
thing, at others not till the fire had almost burnt itself out. Deer,
wild swine, birds, all to no purpose. Higher and higher he piled the
burning branches, the flames and the smoke waved and circled like
the lash of a giant's whip. Gradually the nearer islands passed the
rosy colour on to their more distant brethren. The reed-wrens of the
furthest reed beds disturbed amid their sleep must have wondered at the
red gleam reflected in each other's eyes. Useless his night-long toil;
the clouds covered the moon's face more and more, until, when the long
fire-lash was at its brightest, they drowned her completely in a surge
of unbroken mist. Raging against the fire he scattered with his staff
the burning branches, and trampled in his fury the sacrificial embers
beneath his feet. Suddenly a voice in the surrounding darkness called
him softly by name. He turned. For years no articulate voice had
sounded in his ears. It seemed to rise from the air just beneath the
verge of the precipice. Holding by a hazel bush he leaned out, and for
a moment it seemed to him the form of a beautiful woman floated faintly
before him, but changed as he watched to a little cloud of vapour;
and from the nearest of the haunted islands there came assuredly a
whiff of music. Then behind him in the forest said the voice, 'Dhoya,
my beloved. ' He rushed in pursuit; something white was moving before
him. He stretched out his hand; it was only a mass of white campion
trembling in the morning breeze, for an ashen morning was just touching
the mists on the eastern mountains. Beginning suddenly to tremble with
supernatural fear Dhoya turned homewards. Everything was changed; dark
shadows seemed to come and go, and elfin chatter to pass upon the
breeze. But when he reached the shelter of the pine woods all was still
as of old. He slackened his speed. Those solemn pine-trees soothed
him with their vast unsociability--many and yet each one alone. Once
or twice, when in some glade further than usual from its kind arose a
pine-tree larger than the rest, he paused with bowed head to mutter an
uncouth prayer to that dark outlaw. As he neared his cave and came from
the deep shade into the region of mountain-ash and hazel, the voices
seemed again to come and go, and the shadows to circle round him, and
once a voice said, he imagined, in accents faint and soft as falling
dew, 'Dhoya, my beloved. ' But a few yards from the cave all grew
suddenly silent.
II
Slower and slower he went, with his eyes on the ground, bewildered
by all that was happening. A few feet from the cave he stood still,
counting aimlessly the round spots of light made by the beams slanting
through trees that hid with their greenness, as in the centre of the
sea, that hollow rock. As over and over he counted them, he heard,
first with the ear only, then with the mind also, a footstep going to
and fro within the cave. Lifting his eyes he saw the same figure seen
on the cliff--the figure of a woman, beautiful and young. Her dress was
white, save for a border of feathers dyed the fatal red of the spirits.
She had arranged in one corner the spears, and in the other the
brushwood and branches used for the fire, and spread upon the ground
the skins, and now began pulling vainly at the great stone pitcher of
the Fomorians.
Suddenly she saw him and with a burst of laughter flung her arms round
his neck, crying, 'Dhoya, I have left my world far off. My people--on
the floor of the lake they are dancing and singing, and on the islands
of the lake; always happy, always young, always without change. I have
left them for thee, Dhoya, for they cannot love. Only the changing,
and moody, and angry, and weary can love. I am beautiful; love me,
Dhoya. Do you hear me? I left the places where they dance, Dhoya, for
thee! ' For long she poured out a tide of words, he answering at first
little, then more and more as she melted away the silence of so many
inarticulate years; and all the while she gazed on him with eyes, no
ardour could rob of the mild and mysterious melancholy that watches us
from the eyes of animals--sign of unhuman reveries.
Many days passed over these strangely-wedded ones. Sometimes when he
asked her, 'Do you love me? ' she would answer, 'I do not know, but
I long for your love endlessly. ' Often at twilight, returning from
hunting, he would find her bending over a stream that flowed near to
the cave, decking her hair with feathers and reddening her lips with
the juice of a wild berry.
He was very happy secluded in that deep forest. Hearing the faint
murmurs of the western sea, they seemed to have outlived change. But
Change is everywhere, with the tides and the stars fastened to her
wheel. Every blood-drop in their lips, every cloud in the sky, every
leaf in the world changed a little, while they brushed back their hair
and kissed. All things change save only the fear of change. And yet
for his hour Dhoya was happy and as full of dreams as an old man or an
infant--for dreams wander nearest to the grave and the cradle.
Once, as he was returning home from hunting, by the northern edge of
the lake, at the hour when the owls cry to each other, 'It is time to
be abroad,' and the last flutter of the wind has died away, leaving
under every haunted island an image legible to the least hazel branch,
there suddenly stood before him a slight figure, at the edge of the
narrow sand-line, dark against the glowing water. Dhoya drew nearer. It
was a man leaning on his spear-staff, on his head a small red cap.
His
spear was slender and tipped with shining metal; the spear of Dhoya of
wood, one end pointed and hardened in the fire. The red-capped stranger
silently raised that slender spear and thrust at Dhoya, who parried
with his pointed staff.
For a long while they fought. The last vestige of sunset passed away
and the stars came out. Underneath them the feet of Dhoya beat up the
ground, but the feet of the other as he rushed hither and thither,
matching his agility with the mortal's mighty strength, made neither
shadow nor footstep on the sands. Dhoya was wounded, and growing weary
a little, when the other leaped away, and, crouching down by the water,
began: 'You have carried away by some spell unknown the most beautiful
of our bands--you who have neither laughter nor singing. Restore her,
Dhoya, and go free. ' Dhoya answered him no word, and the other rose and
again thrust at him with the spear. They fought to and fro upon the
sands until the dawn touched with olive the distant sky, and then his
anger-fit, long absent, fell on Dhoya, and he closed with his enemy and
threw him, and put his knee on his chest and his hands on his throat,
and would have crushed all life out of him, when lo! he held beneath
his knee no more than a bundle of reeds.
Nearing home in the early morning he heard the voice he loved, singing:
Full moody is my love and sad,
His moods bow low his sombre crest,
I hold him dearer than the glad,
And he shall slumber on my breast.
My love hath many an evil mood,
Ill words for all things soft and fair,
I hold him dearer than the good,
My fingers feel his amber hair.
No tender wisdom floods the eyes
That watch me with their suppliant light--
I hold him dearer than the wise,
And for him make me wise and bright.
And when she saw him she cried, 'An old mortal song heard floating from
a tent of skin, as we rode, I and mine, through a camping-place at
night. ' From that day she was always either singing wild and melancholy
songs or else watching him with that gaze of animal reverie.
Once he asked, 'How old are you? '
'A thousand years, for I am young. '
'I am so little to you,' he went on, 'and you are so much to me--dawn,
and sunset, tranquillity, and speech, and solitude. '
'Am I so much? ' she said; 'say it many times! ' and her eyes seemed to
brighten and her breast heaved with joy.
Often he would bring her the beautiful skins of animals, and she would
walk to and fro on them, laughing to feel their softness under her
feet. Sometimes she would pause and ask suddenly, 'Will you weep for me
when we have parted? ' and he would answer, 'I will die then'; and she
would go on rubbing her feet to and fro in the soft skin.
And so Dhoya grew tranquil and gentle, and Change seemed still to
have forgotten them, having so much on her hands. The stars rose and
set watching them smiling together, and the tides ebbed and flowed,
bringing mutability to all save them. But always everything changes,
save only the fear of Change.
III
One evening as they sat in the inner portion of the cave, watching
through the opening the paling of the sky and the darkening of the
leaves, and counting the budding stars, Dhoya suddenly saw stand before
him the dark outline of him he fought on the lake sand, and heard at
the same instant his companion sigh.
The stranger approached a little, and said, 'Dhoya, we have fought
heretofore, and now I have come to play chess against thee, for well
thou knowest, dear to the perfect warrior after war is chess. '
'I know it,' answered Dhoya.
'And when we have played, Dhoya, we will name the stake. '
'Do not play,' whispered his companion at his side.
But Dhoya, being filled with his anger-fit at the sight of his enemy,
answered, 'I will play, and I know well the stake you mean, and I name
this for mine, that I may again have my knee on your chest and my hands
on your throat, and that you will not again change into a bundle
of wet reeds. ' His companion lay down on a skin and began to cry a
little. Dhoya felt sure of winning. He had often played in his boyhood,
before the time of his anger-fits, with his masters of the galley; and
besides, he could always return to his hands and his weapons once more.
Now the floor of the cave was of smooth, white sand, brought from
the seashore in his great Fomorian pitcher, to make it soft for his
beloved to walk upon; before it had been, as it now is, of rough clay.
On this sand the red-capped stranger marked out with his spear-point
a chess-board, and marked with rushes, crossed and recrossed each
alternate square, fixing each end of the rush in the sand, until a
complete board was finished of white and green squares, and then drew
from a bag large chessmen of mingled wood and silver. Two or three
would have made an armful for a child. Standing each at his end they
began to play. The game did not last long. No matter how carefully
Dhoya played, each move went against him. At last, leaping back from
the board, he cried, 'I have lost! ' The two spirits were standing
together at the entrance. Dhoya seized his spear, but slowly the
figures began to fade, first a star and then the leaves showed through
their forms. Soon all had vanished away.
Then, understanding his loss, he threw himself on the ground, and
rolling hither and thither, roared like a wild beast. All night long he
lay on the ground, and all the next day till nightfall. He had crumbled
his staff unconsciously between his fingers into small pieces, and now,
full of dull rage, the pointed end of the staff still in his hand,
arose and went forth westward. In a ravine of the northern mountain
he came on the tracks of wild horses. Soon one passed him fearlessly,
knowing nothing of man. He drove the pointed end of the staff deep in
the flank, making a great wound, sending the horse rushing with short
screams down the mountain. Other horses passed him one by one, driven
southward by a cold wind laden with mist, arisen in the night-time.
Towards the end of the ravine stood one black and huge, the leader of
the herd. Dhoya leaped on his back with a loud cry that sent a raven
circling from the neighbouring cliff, and the horse, after vainly
seeking to throw him, rushed off towards the north-west, over the
heights of the mountains where the mists floated. The moon, clear
sometimes of the flying clouds, from low down in the south-east, cast
a pale and mutable light, making their shadow rise before them on
the mists, as though they pursued some colossal demon, sombre on his
black charger. Then leaving the heights they rushed down that valley
where, in far later times, Diarmuid hid in a deep cavern his Grania,
and passed the stream where Muadhan, their savage servant, caught fish
for them on a hook baited with a quicken-berry. On over the plains,
on northward, mile after mile, the wild gigantic horse leaping cliff
and chasm in his terrible race; on until the mountains of what is now
Donegal rose before them--over these among the clouds, driving rain
blowing in their faces from the sea, Dhoya knowing not whither he went,
or why he rode. On--the stones loosened by the hoofs rumbling down into
the valleys--till far in the distance he saw the sea, a thousand feet
below him; then, fixing his eyes thereon, and using the spear-point as
a goad, he roused his black horse into redoubled speed, until horse and
rider plunged headlong into the Western Sea.
Sometimes the cotters on the mountains of Donegal hear on windy nights
a sudden sound of horses' hoofs, and say to each other, 'There goes
Dhoya. ' And at the same hour men say if any be abroad in the valleys
they see a huge shadow rushing along the mountain.
_Printed by_ A. H. BULLEN, _at The Shakespeare Head Press,
Stratford-on-Avon_.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Repeated story titles were removed to avoid redundancy. Obvious
punctuation errors repaired. Varied hyphenation was retained.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Collected Works in Verse and Prose
of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 7 (of 8), by William Butler Yeats
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF W B YEATS, VOL 7 ***
***** This file should be named 49614-0. txt or 49614-0. zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www. gutenberg. org/4/9/6/1/49614/
Produced by Emmy, mollypit and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www. pgdp. net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
be renamed.
Creating the works from print editions not protected by U. S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you! ) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive
specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this
eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook
for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports,
performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given
away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks
not protected by U. S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the
trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.
START: FULL LICENSE
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
www. gutenberg. org/license.
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works
1. A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
1. E. 8.
1. B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1. C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works. See paragraph 1. E below.
1. C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
you share it without charge with others.
1. D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country outside the United States.
1. E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1. E. 1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work
on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
eBook or online at www. gutenberg. org. If you are not located in the
United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you
are located before using this ebook.
1. E. 2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U. S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1. E. 1 through 1. E. 7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1. E. 8 or 1. E. 9.
1. E. 3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1. E. 1 through 1. E. 7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.
1. E. 4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
1. E. 5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1. E. 1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.
1. E. 6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format
other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site
(www. gutenberg. org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1. E. 1.
1. E. 7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1. E. 8 or 1. E. 9.
1. E. 8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
provided that
* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has
agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation. "
* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm
works.
* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1. F. 3, a full refund of
any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
receipt of the work.
* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
1. E. 9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The
Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm
trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
