W. B. Yeats

“ Paul Ruttledge. Ah! Charlie, give me the soldering iron—no, bring me the lap anvil—I'm as good a tinker as any of you.
Charlie Ward. He thinks he's back on the roads with us! He is done for.
Sabina Silver. I knew he'd have to come back to me to die after all; it's a lonesome thing to die among strangers.
Paul Ruttledge. That is right, that is right, take me up in your brazen claws. But no—no—I will not go out beyond [129] Saturn into the dark. Take me down—down to that field under the earth, under the roots of the grave. ”

“ Charlie Ward. Keep your tongue quiet, Molly. If the gentleman has reasons for keeping out of the way it isn't for us to be questioning him. [To Paul Ruttledge.] Don't mind her, she's cross enough, but maybe your own ladies would be cross as well if they saw their young sons dying by the roadside in a little kennel of straw under the ass-cart the way she did; from first to last.
Paul Ruttledge. I suppose you have your troubles like others. But you seem cheerful enough.
Charlie Ward. It isn't anything to fret about. Some of us go soon, and some travel the roads for their lifetime. ”

“ Paul Ruttledge. Oh, I'll stand it well enough.
Tommy the Song. You're not like us that were reared to it. You were not born like us with wandering in the heart.
Paul Ruttledge. Oh yes, I have wandering in the heart. I got sick of these lighted rooms you were talking of just now.
Charlie Ward. That might be so. It's the dark is welcome to a man sometimes.
Paul Ruttledge. The dark. Yes, I think that is what I want. [Stands up.] The dark, where there is nothing that is anything, and nobody that is anybody; one can be free there, where there is nothing. ”

“ Thomas Ruttledge. Oh, Paul, why have you upset the place like this?
Paul Ruttledge. Well, I wanted to give a little pleasure to my fellow-creatures.
Mr. Dowler. This seems rather a low form of pleasure.
Paul Ruttledge. I daresay it seems to you a little violent. But the poor have very few hours in which to enjoy themselves; they must take their pleasure raw; they haven't the time to cook it.
Mr. Algie. But drunkenness!
Paul Ruttledge. [Putting his hand on the shoulders of two of the magistrates.] Have we not tried sobriety? Do you like it? ”

“ Charlie Ward. Those free drinks of yours, Paul, is playing the devil with them. Do you hear them now and every roar out of them? They're putting the cocks astray. [He takes out a cock.] Sure they think it's thunder.
Molly the Scold. There's not a man of them outside there now but would be ready to knock down his own brother.
Tommy the Song. He wouldn't know him to knock him down. They're all blind. I never saw the like of it.
Paul Ruttledge. You in here stood it better than that.
Charlie Ward. When those common men drink it's what they fall down. They haven't the heads. ”

“ Think what it is to them to have their imagination like a blazing tar-barrel for a whole week. Work could never bring them such blessedness as that.
Mr. Dowler. Everyone knows there is no more valuable blessing than work.
Mr. Algie. Idleness is the curse of this country.
Paul Ruttledge. I am prejudiced, for I have always been an idler. Doubtless, the poor must work. It was, no doubt, of them you were speaking. Yet, doesn't the Church [63] say, doesn't it describe heaven as a place where saints and angels only sing and hold branches and wander about hand in hand. ”

“ Aloysius. I wish we had something ourselves to eat. They should be sitting down to their dinner in the monastery now. They will be having a good dinner to-day to carry them over the fast to-morrow.
Colman. I am thinking sometimes, Brother Paul should give more thought to us than he does. It is all very well for him, he is so taken up with his thoughts and his visions he doesn't know if he is full or fasting. [106]
Aloysius. He has such holy thoughts and visions no one would like to trouble him. He ought not to be in the world at all, or to do the world's work. ”

“ We must teach the poor to think work a thing fit for heaven, a blessed thing. I'll tell you what we'll do, Dowler. Will you subscribe, and you, and you, and we'll send lecturers about with magic lanterns showing heaven as it should be, the saints with spades and hammers in their hands and everybody working. The poor might learn to think more of work then. Will you join in that scheme, Dowler? ”

“ Colonel Lawley. What has become of Paul and Father Jerome? I thought I heard their voices out here, and now they are conspicuous by their absence.
Thomas Ruttledge. He seems to have no friend he cares for but that Father Jerome.
Mr. Green. I wish he would come more into touch with his fellows.
Colonel Lawley. What a pity he didn't go into the army. I wish he would join the militia. Every man should try to find some useful sphere of employment.
Mr. Green. Thomas, your brother will never come to see me, though I often ask him. He would find the best people—people worth meeting—at my house. ”

“ First Friar. To escape what they call the wandering of nature. They say it was in the trance Brother Paul got the knowledge of it. He says that if a man can only keep his mind on the one high thought he gets out of time into eternity, and learns the truth for itself.
Third Friar. He calls that getting above [81] law and number, and becoming king and priest in one's own house.
Second Friar. A nice state of things it would be if every man was his own priest and his own king.
First Friar. I wonder will he wake soon. I thought I saw him stir just now. Father Aloysius, will he wake soon? ”

“ Paul Ruttledge. And when they have drunk from my barrel, they will break open the door, they will put law and number under their two feet; and they will have a hot palm and a cold palm, for they will put down the moon and the sun with their two hands.
Charlie Ward. There's no mistake but you're the same Paul still; nice and plain and simple, only for your hard talk. And what about the rheumatism? It's hardly you got through that fit you had, and you don't look as if much hardship would agree with you now.
Aloysius. He does not, indeed, and if he doesn't kill himself one way he will another. ”

“ Let the devil take his children if he has a mind to. God will call His own.
[The Monks fall back. Superior goes up to altar, takes the cross from it and turns, standing on the steps.
Superior. Father Aloysius, come to me here. [Aloysius takes Paul Ruttledge's hand.] Father Bartley, Father Colman. [They go nearer to Paul Ruttledge.] Father Patrick! [A Friar comes towards him.] Kneel down! [Father Patrick kneels.] Father Clement, Father Nestor, Father James ... leave the heretic—you are on the very edge of the pit. Your shoes are growing red hot. ”

“ Charlie Ward. Well, they fly far, anyway.
Paul Ruttledge. They tell one another what they have seen, too. That is why [50] they make so much noise. Maybe their news goes round the world. [He comes towards the others.] I think they have seen my wild beast, Laughter. They could tell me if he has a face smoky from the eternal fires, and wings of brass and claws of brass—claws of brass. [Holds out his hands and moves them like claws.] ”

“ Paul Ruttledge. Yes, that is the way to [33] take life. What does the length of our rope matter?
Charlie Ward. We haven't time to be thinking of troubles like people that would be shut up in a house. We have the wide world before us to make our living out of. The people of the whole world are begrudging us our living, and we make it out of them for all that. When they will spread currant cakes and feather beds before us, it will be time for us to sit down and fret.
Tommy the Song. It's likely you'll think the life too hard. ”

“ Even you, Jerome, though I have not found your armorial beast, are getting a little monastic; when I have found it I will put it among the others. There is a place for it there, but the worst of it is that it will take so long getting nice and green. ”

“ Green, Colonel Lawley, Mr. Dowler, Mr. Joyce, Mr. Algie and Thomas Ruttledge.
Paddy Cockfight. All J.P.'s; I have looked at every one of them from the dock!
Mr. Green. Mr. Ruttledge, this is very sad.
Mr. Joyce. This is a disgraceful business, Paul; the whole countryside is demoralized. There is not a man who has come to sensible years who is not drunk.
Mr. Dowler. This is a flagrant violation of all propriety. Society is shaken to its roots. My own servants have been led astray by the free drinks that are being given in the village. ”

“ I thought if I could write this out as a little play I could make others see my dream as I had seen it, but I could not get down out of that high window of dramatic verse, and in spite of all you had done for me I had not the country speech. One has to live among the people, like you, of whom an old man said in my hearing, "She has been a serving-maid among us," before one can think the thoughts of the people and speak with their tongue. ”

“ I had to stop away from Gortmore a good while after we left you at the gate, but I sent Paddy Cockfight one time to get news, and he mended cans for the laundry of the monastery, and they told him you were well again, and a monk as good as the rest. But a while ago I got word there was a monk had gone near to break up the whole monastery with his talk and his piety, and I said to myself, "That's Paul!" And then I heard there was a monk had been driven out for not keeping the rules, and I said to myself, "That's Paul!" ”

“ Colman. [Starting up.] We can mind him well enough here. I have a plan. We haven't been getting on the way we ought with the people. It's no way to be getting on with people to be asking things of them always, they have no opinion at all of us seeing us the way we are. They have no notion of the respect they should show to Brother Paul, and the way all the Brothers used to be listening to his preaching, and the townspeople as well. And I, myself, the time I preached in Dublin——
Aloysius. ”

“ Sabina is with us always, and Johneen is a great hand with the tools now, but Tommy the Song——
Paul Ruttledge. Oh, Tommy the Song, does he pray still? He was beginning to pray. Did he ever get an answer?
Charlie Ward. Well, I don't know about an answer, but I believe he heard something one night beside an old thorn tree, some sort of a voice it was.
Paul Ruttledge. A voice? What did it [119] say to him? Did he see anything? We have learned too much, our minds are like troubled water—we get nothing but broken images. He who knew nothing may have seen all. Is he praying still? ”

“ Paul Ruttledge. Why are the people so much against you?
Tommy the Song. We are not like themselves. It's little we care about them or they about us. If their saint did curse us itself——
Charlie Ward. Stop. I won't have you [34] talking about that story here. Why would they think so much of the curse of one saint, and saints so plenty?
Paddy Cockfight. Where's the good of a gentleman being here? He'll be breaking down on the road. It's on the ass-cart he'll be wanting to sit. ”

“ Paul Ruttledge. [Turning to Aloysius and Charlie Ward.] Yes, you see his plan. To gather the people together, to build houses for them; to make them rich too, and to keep their money safe. And the Kingdom of God too? What about that?
Colman. Oh, I'm just coming to that. They will think so much more of our teaching when we have got them under our influence by other things. Of course we will teach them their meditations, and give them a regular religious life. ”

“ Charlie Ward. [As another tinker comes up.] Paddy, here's the gentleman I was telling you about. He's going to join us for good and all. [To Paul Ruttledge.] Wait till we have time and some quiet place, and he'll show you as good a cockfight as ever you saw. [A woman comes up.] This is his wife; Molly the Scold we call her; faith, she is a better fighter than any cock he ever had in a basket; he'd find it hard to shut the lid on her. ”

“ I agree with him, and as I was discontented here, I thought it time to make a [23] change. Like that worthy man, I must be content to shock my friends.
Mr. Dowler. But you had everything here you could want.
Paul Ruttledge. That's just it. You who are so wealthy, you of all people should understand that I want to get rid of all that responsibility, answering letters and so on. It is not worth the trouble of being rich if one has to answer letters. Could you ever understand, Georgina, that one gets tired of many charming things? ”

“ Then I went to London to make my living, and though I spent a part of every year in Ireland and tried to keep the old life in my memory by reading every country tale I could find in books or old newspapers, I began to forget the true countenance of country life. ”