The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats. Volume 3 of 8. The Countess Cathleen. The Land of Heart's Desire. The Unicorn from the Stars - William Yeats 2 стр.

You must have seen rare sights and done rare things.

What think you of the master whom we serve?

I have grown weary of my days in the world
Because I do not serve him.

More of this
When we have eaten, for we love right well
A merry meal, a warm and leaping fire
And easy hearts.

Come, Maire, and cook the wolf.

I will not cook for you.

Maire is mad.

That wine is the suddenest wine man ever tasted.

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

We are two merchants.

If you be not demons,
Go and give alms among the starving poor,
You seem more rich than any under the moon.

If we knew where to find deserving poor,
We would give alms.

Then ask of Father John.

We know the evils of mere charity,
And have been planning out a wiser way.
Let each man bring one piece of merchandise.

And have the starving any merchandise?

We do but ask what each man has.

Merchants,
Their swine and cattle, fields and implements,
Are sold and gone.

They have not sold all yet.

What have they?

They have still their souls.

Come hither.
See you these little golden heaps? Each one
Is payment for a soul. From charity
We give so great a price for those poor flames.
Say to all men we buy mens souls away.

This pile is for you and this one here for you.

Shemus and Teig, Teig

Out of the way.

Cry out at cross-roads and at chapel doors
And market-places that we buy mens souls,
Giving so great a price that men may live
In mirth and ease until the famine ends.

Destroyers of souls, may God destroy you quickly!

No curse can overthrow the immortal demons.

You shall at last dry like dry leaves, and hang
Nailed like dead vermin to the doors of God.

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

Bring the meal out.

Burn it.      [MAIRE faints.
Now she has swooned, our faces go unscratched;
Bring me the gray hen, too.

These need much burning.
This stool and this chair here will make good fuel.

My master will break up the sun and moon
And quench the stars in the ancestral night
And overturn the thrones of God and the angels.

Be silent, I am tired of tympan and harp,
And tired of music that but cries Sleep, sleep,
Till joy and sorrow and hope and terror are gone.

You were asleep?

No, child, I was but thinking
Why you have grown so sad.

The famine frets me.

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

No, sing the song he sang in the dim light,
When we first found him in the shadow of leaves,
About King Fergus in his brazen car
Driving with troops of dancers through the woods.

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

Tympan and harp awaken wandering dreams.

You may not see the Countess.

I must see her.

The gardener is resolved to speak with you.
I cannot stay him.

You may come, Maurteen.

Forgive my working clothes and the dirt on me.
I bring ill words, your ladyship,  too bad
To send with any other.

These bad times,
Can any news be bad or any good?

A crowd of ugly lean-faced rogues last night
And may God curse them!  climbed the garden wall.
There is scarce an apple now on twenty trees,
And my asparagus and strawberry beds
Are trampled into clauber, and the boughs
Of peach and plum-trees broken and torn down
For some last fruit that hung there. My dog, too,
My old blind Simon, him who had no tail,
They murdered Gods red anger seize them!

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

I thank your ladyship.

What rumours and what portents of the famine?

The yellow vapour, in whose folds it came,
That creeps along the hedges at nightfall,
Rots all the heart out of my cabbages.
I pray against it.

If her ladyship
Would give me an old crossbow, I would watch
Behind a bush and guard the pears of nights
And make a hole in somebody I know of.

They will give you a long draught of ale below.

What did he say?  he stood on my deaf side.

His apples are all stolen. Pruning time,
And the slow ripening of his pears and apples,
For him is a long, heart-moving history.

Now lay your head once more upon my knees.
I will sing how Fergus drove his brazen cars.

Who will go drive with Fergus now,
And pierce the deep woods woven shade,
And dance upon the level shore?
Young man, lift up your russet brow,
And lift your tender eyelids, maid,
And brood on hopes and fears no more.
You have dropped down again into your trouble.
You do not hear me.

Ah, sing on, old Oona,
I hear the horn of Fergus in my heart.

I do not know the meaning of the song.
I am too old.

The horn is calling, calling.

And no more turn aside and brood
Upon Loves bitter mystery;
For Fergus rules the brazen cars,
And rules the shadows of the wood,
And the white breast of the dim sea
And all dishevelled wandering stars.

The Countess Cathleen must not be disturbed.

Man, I must see her.

Who now wants me, Paudeen?

A herdsman and his history.

He may come.

Forgive this dusty gear: I have come far.
My sheep were taken from the fold last night.
You will be angry: I am not to blame.
But blame these robbing times.

No blames with you.
I blame the famine.

Kneeling, I give thanks.
When gazing on your face, the poorest, Lady,
Forget their poverty, the rich their care.

What rumours and what portents of the famine?

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

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

I am content to serve your ladyship.

What did he say?  he stood on my deaf side.
He seemed to give you word of woful things.

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

You should not say such things they bring ill-luck.

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