W. B. Yeats

“ CATHLEEN
There is a something, Merchant, in your voice
That makes me fear. When you were telling how
A man may lose his soul and lose his God
Your eyes were lighted up, and when you told
How my poor money serves the people, both—
Merchants forgive me—seemed to smile.
FIRST MERCHANT
I laugh
To think that all these people should be swung
As on a lady's shoe-string,—under them
The glowing leagues of never-ending flame.
CATHLEEN
67There is a something in you that I fear;
A something not of us; were you not born
In some most distant corner of the world? ”

“ Came Blanid, Mac Nessa, tall Fergus who feastward of old time slunk,
Cook Barach, the traitor; and warward, the spittle on his beard never dry,
Dark Balor, as old as a forest, car borne, his mighty head sunk
Helpless, men lifting the lids of his weary and death-making eye.
And by me, in soft red raiment, the Fenians moved in loud streams,
And Grania, walking and smiling, sewed with her needle of bone,
So lived I and lived not, so wrought I and wrought not, with creatures of dreams,
In a long iron sleep, as a fish in the water goes dumb as a stone. ”

“ To look is but to love.
THE CHILD
181But you love Him?
BRIDGET
She is blaspheming.
THE CHILD
And do you love me too?
MARY
I do not know.
THE CHILD
You love that young man there,
Yet I could make you ride upon the winds,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame.
MARY
Queen of Angels and kind saints defend us!
Some dreadful thing will happen. A while ago
She took away the blessed quicken wood.
FATHER HART
You fear because of her unmeasured prattle;
182She knows no better. Child, how old are you? ”

“ A FAERY SONG Sung by the people of faery over Diarmuid and Grania, who lay in their bridal sleep under a Cromlech.
We who are old, old and gay,
O so old!
Thousands of years, thousands of years,
If all were told:
Give to these children, new from the world,
Silence and love;
And the long dew-dropping hours of the night,
And the stars above:
Give to these children, new from the world,
Rest far from men.
Is anything better, anything better?
Tell us it then:
Us who are old, old and gay,
O so old! ”

“ USHEEN
Sad to remember, sick with years,
The swift innumerable spears,
The horsemen with their floating hair,
And bowls of barley, honey, and wine,
And feet of maidens dancing in tune,
And the white body that lay by mine;
But the tale, though words be lighter than air,
Must live to be old like the wandering moon.
Caolte, and Conan, and Finn were there,
When we followed a deer with our baying hounds,
242With Bran, Sgeolan, and Lomair,
And passing the Firbolgs' burial mounds,
Came to the cairn-heaped grassy hill
Where passionate Maive is stony still ”

“ There are two gentlemen who buy men's souls.
CATHLEEN
O God!
TEIG
And maybe there's no soul at all.
STEWARD
47They're drunk or mad.
TEIG
Look at the price they give.
(Showing money.)
SHEMUS (tossing up money)
"Go cry it all about the world," they said.
"Money for souls, good money for a soul."
CATHLEEN
Give twice and thrice and twenty times their money,
And get your souls again. I will pay all.
SHEMUS
Not we! not we! For souls—if there are souls—
But keep the flesh out of its merriment. ”

“ Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!
Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways:
Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide;
The Druid, gray, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed,
Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold;
And thine own sadness, whereof stars, grown old
In dancing silver sandalled on the sea,
Sing in their high and lonely melody.
Come near, that no more blinded by man's fate,
I find under the boughs of love and hate,
In all poor foolish things that live a day,
Eternal beauty wandering on her way. ”

“ Cry, daughter, to the Angels and the Saints.
THE CHILD
You shall go with me, newly-married bride,
And gaze upon a merrier multitude.
White-armed Nuala, Aengus of the Birds,
Feacra of the hurtling foam, and him
Who is the ruler of the Western Host,
Finvarra, and their Land of Heart's Desire,
Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood,
But joy is wisdom, Time an endless song. ”

“ No woman loves me, no man seeks my help,
113Because I be not of the things I dream.
FERGUS
A wild and foolish labourer is a king,
To do and do and do, and never dream.
DRUID
Take, if you must, this little bag of dreams;
Unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round.
FERGUS
I see my life go dripping like a stream
From change to change; I have been many things,
A green drop in the surge, a gleam of light
Upon a sword, a fir-tree on a hill,
An old slave grinding at a heavy quern,
A king sitting upon a chair of gold,
And all these things were wonderful and great ”

“ CATHLEEN
A learned theologian has laid down
That starving men may take what's necessary,
And yet be sinless.
OONA
Sinless and a thief!
There should be broken bottles on the wall.
CATHLEEN
And if it be a sin, while faith's unbroken
God cannot help but pardon. There is no soul
But it's unlike all others in the world,
45Nor one but lifts a strangeness to God's love
Till that's grown infinite, and therefore none
Whose loss were less than irremediable
Although it were the wickedest in the world. ”

“ Crouch down, old heron, out of the blind storm.
OONA
Where is the Countess Cathleen? All this day
Her eyes were full of tears, and when for a moment
Her hand was laid upon my hand it trembled,
And now I do not know where she is gone.
ALEEL
Cathleen has chosen other friends than us,
And they are rising through the hollow world.
Demons are out, old heron. ”

“ And the names of the demons whose hammers made armour for Conhor of old.
And, man of the many white croziers, a century there I forgot;
That the spear-shaft is made out of ashwood, the shield out of ozier and hide;
How the hammers spring on the anvil, on the spearhead's burning spot;
How the slow, blue-eyed oxen of Finn low sadly at evening tide.
But in dreams, mild man of the croziers, driving the dust with their throngs,
Moved round me, of seamen or landsmen, all who are winter tales ”

“ I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!
We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee;
And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky,
Has awaked in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.
A weariness comes from those dreamers, dew dabbled, the lily and rose ”

“ Although we are but poor people, if there is,
Why, if there is——
FIRST MERCHANT
We've travelled a long road,
For we are merchants that must tramp the world,
And now we look for supper and a fire
And a safe corner to count money in.
SHEMUS
I thought you were ... but that's no matter now—
There had been words between my wife and me
Because I said I would be master here,
And ask in what I pleased or who I pleased
And so.... but that is nothing to the point,
26Because it's certain that you are but merchants.
FIRST MERCHANT
We travel for the Master of all merchants. ”

“ Under the starlight and shadow, a monstrous slumbering folk,
Their naked and gleaming bodies poured out and heaped in the way.
And by them were arrow and war-axe, arrow and shield and blade;
And dew-blanched horns, in whose hollow a child of three years old
Could sleep on a couch of rushes, and all inwrought and inlaid,
280And more comely than man can make them with bronze and silver and gold.
And each of the huge white creatures was huger than fourscore men ”

“ Where ever is murmurous dropping, old silence and that one sound;
For no live creatures live there, no weasels move in the dark;
In a reverie forgetful of all things, over the bubbling ground.
And I rode by the plains of the sea's edge, where all is barren and gray,
Gray sands on the green of the grasses and over the dripping trees,
290Dripping and doubling landward, as though they would hasten away,
Like an army of old men lounging for rest from the moan of the seas.
And the winds made the sands on the sea's edge turning and turning go,
As my mind made the names of the Fenians. ”

“ Angels and devils clash in the middle air,
And brazen swords clang upon brazen helms.
(A flash of lightning followed immediately by thunder.)
Yonder a bright spear, cast out of a sling,
Has torn through Balor's eye, and the dark clans
Fly screaming as they fled Moytura of old.
(Everything is lost in darkness.)
AN OLD MAN
The Almighty wrath at our great weakness and sin
Has blotted out the world and we must die. ”

“ I mused on the chase with the Fenians, and Bran, Sgeolan, Lomair,
And never a song sang Niam, and over my finger-tips
Came now the sliding of tears and sweeping of mist-cold hair,
And now the warmth of sighs, and after the quiver of lips.
Were we days long or hours long in riding, when rolled in a grisly peace,
278An isle lay level before us, with dripping hazel and oak?
And we stood on a sea's edge we saw not; for whiter than new-washed fleece
Fled foam underneath us, and round us, a wandering and milky smoke. ”

“ CATHLEEN
O, hold me, and hold me tightly, for the storm
Is dragging me away.
(OONA takes her in her arms. A woman begins to wail.)
PEASANT
Hush!
PEASANTS
98Hush!
PEASANT WOMEN
Hush!
OTHER PEASANT WOMEN
Hush!
CATHLEEN (half rising)
Lay all the bags of money in a heap,
And when I am gone, old Oona, share them out
To every man and woman: judge, and give
According to their needs.
A PEASANT WOMAN
And will she give
Enough to keep my children through the dearth?
ANOTHER PEASANT WOMAN
O, Queen of Heaven, and all you blessed saints,
Let us and ours be lost so she be shriven. ”

“ I cried, "Come out of the shadow, king of the nails of gold!
"And tell of your goodly household and the goodly works of your hands,
"That we may muse in the starlight and talk of the battles of old;
"Your questioner, Usheen, is worthy, he comes from the Fenian lands."
Half open his eyes were, and held me, dull with the smoke of their dreams;
283His lips moved slowly in answer, no answer out of them came;
Then he swayed in his fingers the bell-branch, slow dropping a sound in faint streams
Softer than snow-flakes in April and piercing the marrow like flame. ”

“ CATHLEEN
How can a heap of crowns pay for a soul?
Is the green grave so terrible a thing?
FIRST MERCHANT
Some sell because the money gleams, and some
66Because they are in terror of the grave,
And some because their neighbours sold before,
And some because there is a kind of joy
In casting hope away, in losing joy,
In ceasing all resistance, in at last
Opening one's arms to the eternal flames,
In casting all sails out upon the wind ”

“ For their dim minds were with the ancient things.
"I bring deliverance," pearl-pale Niam said.
"Neither the living, nor the unlabouring dead,
"Nor the high gods who never lived, may fight
"My enemy and hope; demons for fright
"Jabber and scream about him in the night;
"For he is strong and crafty as the seas
267"That sprang under the Seven Hazel Trees,
"And I must needs endure and hate and weep,
"Until the gods and demons drop asleep,
"Hearing Aed touch the mournful strings of gold." ”

“ They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.
220
THE STOLEN CHILD
Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berries,
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. ”

“ Elle passa douze heures dans les larmes et le deuil, arrachant ses cheveux couleur de soleil et meurtrissant son sein couleur du lis: puis elle se leva résolue, animée par un vif sentiment de désespoir.
Elle se rendit chez les marchands d'âmes.
—Que voulez-vous? dirent ils.
—Vous achetez des âmes?
—Oui, un peu malgré vous, n'est ce pas, sainte aux yeux de saphir?
—Aujourd'hui je viens vous proposer un marché, reprit elle.
—Lequel?
—J'ai une âme a vendre; mais elle est chère.
—Qu'importe si elle est précieuse? l'âme, comme le diamant, s'apprécie à sa blancheur. ”

“ For there is nothing on the ridge of the world
That's more substantial than the merchants are
28That buy and sell you.
MARY
If you are not demons,
And seeing what great wealth is spread out there,
Give food or money to the starving poor. ”

“ O, had you seen beautiful Niam grow white as the waters are white,
287Lord of the croziers, you even had lifted your hands and wept:
But, the bird in my fingers, I mounted, remembering alone that delight
Of twilight and slumber were gone, and that hoofs impatiently stept.
I cried, "O Niam! O white one! if only a twelve-houred day,
"I must gaze on the beard of Finn, and move where the old men and young
"In the Fenians' dwellings of wattle lean on the chessboards and play,
"Ah, sweet to me now were even bald Conan's slanderous tongue! ”