[The SERVANT enters hastily, followed by three men. Two are peasants.
SERVANTThe steward of the castle brings two men
To talk with you.
And tell the strangest story
The mouth of man has uttered.
More food taken;
Yet learned theologians have laid down
That he who has no food, offending no way,
May take his meat and bread from too-full larders.
We come to make amends for robbery.
I stole five hundred apples from your trees,
And laid them in a hole; and my friend here
Last night stole two large mountain sheep of yours
And hung them on a beam under his thatch.
His words are true.
Since then our luck has changed.
As I came down the lane by Tubber-vanach
I fell on Shemus Rua and his son,
And they led me where two great gentlemen
Buy souls for money, and they bought my soul.
I told my friend here my friend also trafficked.
His words are true.
Now people throng to sell,
Noisy as seagulls tearing a dead fish.
There soon will be no man or womans soul
Unbargained for in fivescore baronies.
His words are true.
When we had sold we talked,
And having no more comfortable life
Than this that makes us warm our souls being bartered
For all this money
And this money here.
[They bring handfuls of money from their pockets. CATHLEEN starts up.
FIRST PEASANTAnd fearing much to hang for robbery,
We come to pay you for the sheep and fruit.
How do you price them?
Gather up your money.
Think you that I would touch the demons gold?
Begone, give twice, thrice, twenty times their money,
And buy your souls again. I will pay all.
We will not buy our souls again: a soul
But keeps the flesh out of its merriment.
We shall be merry and drunk from moon to moon.
Keep from our way. Let no one stop our way.
Follow and bring them here again beseech them.
Steward, you know the secrets of this house.
How much have I in gold?
A hundred thousand.
How much have I in castles?
As much more.
How much have I in pastures?
As much more.
How much have I in forests?
As much more.
Keeping this house alone, sell all I have;
Go to some distant country and come again
With many herds of cows and ships of grain.
Gods blessing light upon your ladyship;
You will have saved the land.
Make no delay.
How did you thrive? Say quickly. You are pale.
Their eyes burn like the eyes of birds of prey:
I did not dare go near.
God pity them!
Bring all the old and ailing to this house,
For I will have no sorrow of my own
From this day onward.
[The SERVANT goes out. Some of the musicians follow him, some linger in the doorway. The COUNTESS CATHLEEN kneels beside OONA.
Can you tell me, mother,
How I may mend the times, how staunch this wound
That bleeds in the earth, how overturn the famine,
How drive these demons to their darkness again?
The demons hold our hearts between their hands,
For the apple is in our blood, and though heart break
There is no medicine but Michaels trump.
Till it has ended parting and old age
And hail and rain and famine and foolish laughter;
The dead are happy, the dust is in their ears.
ACT III
Hall of the COUNTESS CATHLEEN as before. SERVANT enters and goes towards the oratory door.
SERVANTHere is yet another would see your ladyship.
Who calls me?
There is a man would speak with you,
And by his face he has some pressing news,
Some moving tale.
I cannot rest or pray,
For all day long the messengers run hither
On one anothers heels, and every message
More evil than the one that had gone before.
Who is the messenger?
Aleel, the poet.
There is no hour he is not welcome to me,
Because I know of nothing but a harp-string
That can remember happiness.
And now
I grow forgetful of evil for awhile.
I have come to bid you leave this castle, and fly
Out of these woods.
What evil is there here,
That is not everywhere from this to the sea?
They who have sent me walk invisible.
Men say that the wise people of the raths
Have given you wisdom.
I lay in the dusk
Upon the grassy margin of a lake
Among the hills, where none of mortal creatures
But the swan comes my sleep became a fire.
One walked in the fire with birds about his head.
Ay, Aengus of the birds.
He may be Aengus,
But it may be he bears an angelical name.
Lady, he bid me call you from these woods;
He bids you bring Oona, your foster-mother,
And some few serving-men and live in the hills
Among the sounds of music and the light
Of waters till the evil days are gone.
For here some terrible death is waiting you;
Some unimaginable evil, some great darkness
That fable has not dreamt of, nor sun nor moon
Scattered.
And he had birds about his head?
Yes, yes, white birds. He bids you leave this house
With some old trusty serving-man, who will feed
All that are starving and shelter all that wander
While there is food and house-room.
He bids me go
Where none of mortal creatures but the swan
Dabbles, and there you would pluck the harp when the trees
Had made a heavy shadow about our door,
And talk among the rustling of the reeds
When night hunted the foolish sun away,
With stillness and pale tapers. No no no.
I cannot. Although I weep, I do not weep
Because that life would be most happy, and here
I find no way, no end. Nor do I weep
Because I had longed to look upon your face,
But that a night of prayer has made me weary.
Let Him that made mankind, the angels and devils
And death and plenty mend what He has made,
For when we labour in vain and eye still sees
Heart breaks in vain.
How would that quiet end?
How but in healing?
You have seen my tears.
And I can see your hand shake on the floor.
I thought but of healing. He was angelical.
No, not angelical, but of the old gods,
Who wander about the world to waken the heart
The passionate, proud heart that all the angels
Leaving nine heavens empty would rock to sleep.
[She goes to the chapel door; ALEEL holds his clasped hands towards her for a moment hesitatingly, and then lets them fall beside him.
[She goes to the chapel door; ALEEL holds his clasped hands towards her for a moment hesitatingly, and then lets them fall beside him.
Do not hold out to me beseeching hands.
This heart shall never waken on earth. I have sworn
By her whose heart the seven sorrows have pierced
To pray before this altar until my heart
Has grown to Heaven like a tree, and there
Rustled its leaves till Heaven has saved my people.
When one so great has spoken of love to one
So little as I, although to deny him love,
What can he but hold out beseeching hands,
Then let them fall beside him, knowing how greatly
They have overdared?
[He goes towards the door of the hall. The COUNTESS CATHLEEN takes a few steps towards him.
CATHLEENIf the old tales are true,
Queens have wed shepherds and kings beggar-maids;
Gods procreant waters flowing about your mind
Have made you more than kings or queens; and not you
But I am the empty pitcher.
Being silent,
I have said all farewell, farewell; and yet no,
Give me your hand to kiss.
I kiss your brow,
But will not say farewell. I am often weary,
And I would hear the harp-string.
I cannot stay,
For I would hide my sorrow among the hills
Listen, listen, the hills are calling me.
I hear the cry of curlew.
Then I will out
Where I can hear wind cry and water cry
And curlew cry: how does the saying go
That calls them the three oldest cries in the world?
Farewell, farewell, I will go wander among them,
Because there is no comfort under a roof-tree.
I cannot see him. He has come to the great door.
I must go pray. Would that my heart and mind
Were as little shaken as this candle-light.
Who was the man that came from the great door
While we were still in the shadow?
Aleel, her lover.
It may be that he has turned her thought from us
And we can gather our merchandise in peace.
No, no, for she is kneeling.
Shut the door.
Are all our drudges here?
I bid them follow.
Can you not hear them breathing upon the stairs?
I have sat this hour under the elder-tree.
I had bid you rob her treasury, and yet
I found you sitting drowsed and motionless,
Your chin bowed to your knees, while on all sides,
Bat-like from bough and roof and window-ledge,
Clung evil souls of men, and in the woods,
Like streaming flames, floated upon the winds
The elemental creatures.
I have fared ill;
She prayed so hard I could not cross the threshold
Till this young man had turned her prayer to dreams.
You have had a man to kill: how have you fared?
I lay in the image of a nine-monthed bonyeen,
By Tubber-vanach cross-roads: Father John
Came, sad and moody, murmuring many prayers;
I seemed as though I came from his own sty;
He saw the one brown ear; the breviary dropped;
He ran; I ran, I ran into the quarry;
He fell a score of yards.
Now that he is dead
We shall be too much thronged with souls to-morrow.
Did his soul escape you?
I thrust it in the bag.
But the hand that blessed the poor and raised the Host
Tore through the leather with sharp piety.
Well, well, to labour here is the treasury door.
[They go out by the left-hand door, and enter again in a little while, carrying full bags upon their shoulders.
FIRST MERCHANTBrave thought, brave thought a shining thought of mine!
She now no more may bribe the poor no more
Cheat our great master of his merchandise,
While our heels dangle at the house in the woods,
And grass grows on the threshold, and snails crawl
Along the window-pane and the mud floor.
Brother, where wander all these dwarfish folk,
Hostile to men, the people of the tides?
They are gone. They have already wandered away,
Unwilling labourers.
I will call them hither.
Come hither, hither, hither, water-folk:
Come, all you elemental populace;
Leave lonely the long-hoarding surges: leave
The cymbals of the waves to clash alone,
And, shaking the sea-tangles from your hair,
Gather about us. [After a pause.
I can hear a sound
As from waves beating upon distant strands;
And the sea-creatures, like a surf of light,
Pour eddying through the pathways of the oaks;
And as they come, the sentient grass and leaves
Bow towards them, and the tall, drouth-jaded oaks
Fondle the murmur of their flying feet.
The green things love unknotted hearts and minds;
And neither one with angels or with us,
Nor risen in arms with evil nor with good,
In laughter roves the litter of the waves.
[A crowd of faces fill up the darkness outside the window. A figure separates from the others and speaks.
THE SPIRITWe come unwillingly, for she whose gold
We must now carry to the house in the woods
Is dear to all our race. On the green plain,
Beside the sea, a hundred shepherds live
To mind her sheep; and when the nightfall comes
They leave a hundred pans of white ewes milk
Outside their doors, to feed us when the dawn
Has driven us out of Finbars ancient house,
And broken the long dance under the hill.
Obey! I make a sign upon your hearts.
The sign of evil burns upon our hearts,
And we obey.
[They crowd through the window, and take out of the bags a small bag each. They are dressed in green robes and have ruddy hair. They are a little less than the size of men and women.