unnoticed man has sometimes been sent with a command.
MARTIN.
I saw the unicorns trampling in my dream. They were breaking the world.
I am to destroy, destruction was the word the messenger spoke.
FATHER JOHN.
To destroy?
MARTIN.
To bring again the old disturbed exalted life, the old splendour.
FATHER JOHN.
You are not the first that dream has come to. [_Gets up, and walks up
and down._] It has been wandering here and there, calling now to this
man, now to that other. It is a terrible dream.
MARTIN.
Father John, you have had the same thought.
FATHER JOHN.
Men were holy then, there were saints everywhere. There was reverence;
but now it is all work, business, how to live a long time. Ah, if one
could change it all in a minute, even by war and violence! There is
a cell where Saint Ciaran used to pray; if one could bring that time
again!
MARTIN.
Do not deceive me. You have had the command.
FATHER JOHN.
Why are you questioning me? You are asking me things that I have told
to no one but my confessor.
MARTIN.
We must gather the crowds together, you and I.
FATHER JOHN.
I have dreamed your dream, it was long ago. I had your vision.
MARTIN.
And what happened?
FATHER JOHN [_harshly_].
It was stopped; that was an end. I was sent to the lonely parish where
I am, where there was no one I could lead astray. They have left me
there. We must have patience; the world was destroyed by water, it has
yet to be consumed by fire.
MARTIN.
Why should we be patient? To live seventy years, and others to come
after us and live seventy years it may be; and so from age to age, and
all the while the old splendour dying more and more.
[_A noise of shouting. ANDREW, who has been standing at
the door, comes in._
ANDREW.
Martin says truth, and he says it well. Planing the side of a cart or
a shaft, is that life? It is not. Sitting at a desk writing letters to
the man that wants a coach, or to the man that won’t pay for the one he
has got, is that life, I ask you? Thomas arguing at you and putting
you down—‘Andrew, dear Andrew, did you put the tyre on that wheel yet?’
Is that life? Not, it is not. I ask you all, what do you remember
when you are dead? It’s the sweet cup in the corner of the widow’s
drinking-house that you remember. Ha, ha, listen to that shouting! That
is what the lads in the village will remember to the last day they live.
MARTIN.
Why are they shouting? What have you told them?
ANDREW.
Never you mind; you left that to me. You bade me to lift their hearts
and I did lift them. There is not one among them but will have his head
like a blazing tar-barrel before morning. What did your friend the
beggar say? The juice of the grey barley, he said.
FATHER JOHN.
You accursed villain! You have made them drunk!
ANDREW.
Not at all, but lifting them to the stars. That is what Martin bade me
to do, and there is no one can say I did not do it.
[_A shout at door, and beggars push in a barrel. They
cry, ‘Hi! for the noble master!’ and point at ANDREW._
JOHNNY.
It’s not him, it’s that one! [_Points at MARTIN._
FATHER JOHN.
Are you bringing this devil’s work in at the very door? Go out of this,
I say! get out! Take these others with you!
MARTIN.
No, no; I asked them in, they must not be turned out. They are my
guests.
FATHER JOHN.
Drive them out of your uncle’s house!
MARTIN.
Come, Father, it is better for you to go. Go back to your own place. I
have taken the command. It is better perhaps for you that you did not
take it.
[_FATHER JOHN and MARTIN go out._
BIDDY.
It is well for that old lad he didn’t come between ourselves and our
luck. Himself to be after his meal, and ourselves staggering with the
hunger! It would be right to have flayed him and to have made bags of
his skin.
NANNY.
What a hurry you are in to get your enough! Look at the grease on your
frock yet, with the dint of the dabs you put in your pocket! Doing
cures and foretellings is it? You starved pot-picker, you!
BIDDY.
That you may be put up to-morrow to take the place of that decent son
of yours that had the yard of the gaol wore with walking it till this
morning!
NANNY.
If he had, he had a mother to come to, and he would know her when he
did see her; and that is what no son of your own could do and he to
meet you at the foot of the gallows.
JOHNNY.
If I did know you, I knew too much of you since the first beginning of
my life! What reward did I ever get travelling with you? What store did
you give me of cattle or of goods? What provision did I get from you by
day or by night but your own bad character to be joined on to my own,
and I following at your heels, and your bags tied round about me!
NANNY.
Disgrace and torment on you! Whatever you got from me, it was more
than any reward or any bit I ever got from the father you had, or any
honourable thing at all, but only the hurt and the harm of the world
and its shame!
JOHNNY.
What would he give you, and you going with him without leave! Crooked
and foolish you were always, and you begging by the side of the ditch.
NANNY.
Begging or sharing, the curse of my heart upon you! It’s better off I
was before ever I met with you to my cost! What was on me at all that I
did not cut a scourge in the wood to put manners and decency on you the
time you were not hardened as you are!
JOHNNY.
Leave talking to me of your rods and your scourges! All you taught me
was robbery, and it is on yourself and not on myself the scourges will
be laid at the day of the recognition of tricks.
PAUDEEN.
’Faith, the pair of you together is better than Hector fighting before
Troy!
NANNY.
Ah, let you be quiet. It is not fighting we are craving, but the easing
of the hunger that is on us and of the passion of sleep. Lend me a
graineen of tobacco now till I’ll kindle my pipe—a blast of it will
take the weight of the road off my heart.
[_ANDREW gives her some, NANNY grabs at it._
BIDDY.
No, but it’s to myself you should give it. I that never smoked a pipe
this forty year without saying the tobacco prayer. Let that one say did
ever she do that much.
NANNY.
That the pain of your front tooth may be in your back tooth, you to be
grabbing my share!
[_They snap at tobacco._
ANDREW.
Pup, pup, pup! Don’t be snapping and quarrelling now, and you so well
treated in this house. It is strollers like yourselves should be for
frolic and for fun. Have you ne’er a good song to sing, a song that
will rise all our hearts?
PAUDEEN.
Johnny Bacach is a good singer, it is what he used to be doing in the
fairs, if the oakum of the gaol did not give him a hoarseness within
the throat.
ANDREW.
Give it out so, a good song, a song will put courage and spirit into
any man at all.
JOHNNY [_singing_].
Come, all ye airy bachelors,
A warning take by me,
A sergeant caught me fowling,
And fired his gun so free.
His comrades came to his relief,
And I was soon trepanned,
And bound up like a woodcock
Had fallen into their hands.
The judge said transportation,
The ship was on the strand;
They have yoked me to the traces
For to plough Van Dieman’s Land!
ANDREW.
That’s no good of a song but a melancholy sort of a song. I’d as lief
be listening to a saw going through timber. Wait, now, till you will
hear myself giving out a tune on the flute.
[_Goes out for it._
JOHNNY.
It is what I am thinking there must be a great dearth and a great
scarcity of good comrades in this place, a man like that youngster,
having means in his hand, to be bringing ourselves and our rags into
the house.
PAUDEEN.
You think yourself very wise, Johnny Bacach. Can you tell me, now, who
that man is?
JOHNNY.
Some decent lad, I suppose, with a good way of living and a mind to
send up his name upon the roads.
PAUDEEN.
You that have been gaoled this eight months know little of this
countryside. It isn’t a limping stroller like yourself the Boys would
let come among them. But I know. I went to the drill a few nights and
I skinning kids for the mountainy men. In a quarry beyond the drill
is—they have their plans made—it’s the square house of the Brownes is
to be made an attack on and plundered. Do you know, now, who is the
leader they are waiting for?
JOHNNY.
How would I know that?
PAUDEEN [_singing_].
Oh, Johnny Gibbons, my five hundred healths to you.
It is long you are away from us over the sea!
JOHNNY [_standing up excitedly_].
Sure that man could not be Johnny Gibbons that is outlawed!
PAUDEEN.
I asked news of him from the old lad, and I bringing in the drink along
with him. ‘Don’t be asking questions,’ says he; ‘take the treat he
gives you,’ says he. ‘If a lad that has a high heart has a mind to
rouse the neighbours,’ says he, ‘and to stretch out his hand to all
that pass the road, it is in France he learned it,’ says he, ‘the place
he is but lately come from, and where the wine does be standing open in
tubs. Take your treat when you get it,’ says he, ‘and make no delay or
all might be discovered and put an end to.’
JOHNNY.
He came over the sea from France! It is Johnny Gibbons, surely, but it
seems to me they were calling him by some other name.
PAUDEEN.
A man on his keeping might go by a hundred names. Would he be telling
it out to us that he never saw before, and we with that clutch of
chattering women along with us? Here he is coming now. Wait till you
see is he the lad I think him to be.
MARTIN [_coming in_].
I will make my banner, I will paint the unicorn on it. Give me that
bit of canvas, there is paint over here. We will get no help from
the settled men—we will call to the lawbreakers, the tinkers, the
sievemakers, the sheepstealers.
[_He begins to make banner._
BIDDY.
That sounds to be a queer name of an army. Ribbons I can understand,
Whiteboys, Rightboys, Threshers, and Peep o’ Day, but Unicorns I never
heard of before.
JOHNNY.
It is not a queer name but a very good name. [_Takes up lion and
unicorn._] It is often you saw that before you in the dock. There is
the unicorn with the one horn, and what it is he is going against? The
lion of course. When he has the lion destroyed, the crown must fall
and be shivered. Can’t you see it is the League of the Unicorns is the
league that will fight and destroy the power of England and King George?
PAUDEEN.
It is with that banner we will march and the lads in the quarry with
us, it is they will have the welcome before him! It won’t be long till
we’ll be attacking the Square House! Arms there are in it, riches that
would smother the world, rooms full of guineas we will put wax on our
shoes walking them; the horses themselves shod with no less than silver!
MARTIN [_holding up banner_].
There it is ready! We are very few now, but the army of the Unicorns
will be a great army! [_To JOHNNY._] Why have you brought me the
message? Can you remember any more? Has anything more come to you? You
have been drinking, the clouds upon your mind have been destroyed....
Can you see anything or hear anything that is beyond the world?
JOHNNY.
I can not. I don’t know what do you want me to tell you at all?
MARTIN.
I want to begin the destruction, but I don’t know where to begin ...
you do not hear any other voice?
JOHNNY.
I do not. I have nothing at all to do with Freemasons or witchcraft.
PAUDEEN.
It is Biddy Lally has to do with witchcraft. It is often she threw the
cups and gave out prophecies the same as Columcille.
MARTIN.
You are one of the knowledgeable women. You can tell me where it is
best to begin, and what will happen in the end.
BIDDY.
I will foretell nothing at all. I rose out of it this good while, with
the stiffness and the swelling it brought upon my joints.
MARTIN.
If you have foreknowledge you have no right to keep silent. If you
do not help me I may go to work in the wrong way. I know I have to
destroy, but when I ask myself what I am to begin with, I am full of
uncertainty.
PAUDEEN.
Here now are the cups handy and the leavings in them.
BIDDY.
[_Taking cups and pouring one from another._]
Throw a bit of white money into the four corners of the house.
MARTIN.
There! [_Throwing it._]
BIDDY.
There can be nothing told without silver. It is not myself will have
the profit of it. Along with that I will be forced to throw out gold.
MARTIN.
There is a guinea for you. Tell me what comes before your eyes.
BIDDY.
What is it you are wanting to have news of?
MARTIN.
Of what I have to go out against at the beginning ... there is so much
... the whole world it may be.
BIDDY.
[_Throwing from one cup to another and looking._]
You have no care for yourself. You have been across the sea, you are
not long back. You are coming within the best day of your life.
MARTIN.
What is it? What is it I have to do?
BIDDY.
I see a great smoke, I see burning ... there is a great smoke overhead.
MARTIN.
That means we have to burn away a great deal that men have piled up
upon the earth. We must bring men once more to the wildness of the
clean green earth.
BIDDY.
Herbs for my healing, the big herb and the little herb, it is true
enough they get their great strength out of the earth.
JOHNNY.
Who was it the green sod of Ireland belonged to in the olden times?
Wasn’t it to the ancient race it belonged? And who has possession of it
now but the race that came robbing over the sea? The meaning of that
is to destroy the big houses and the towns, and the fields to be given
back to the ancient race.
MARTIN.
That is it. You don’t put it as I do, but what matter? Battle is all.
PAUDEEN.
Columcille said, the four corners to be burned, and then the middle of
the field to be burned. I tell you it was Columcille’s prophecy said
that.
BIDDY.
Iron handcuffs I see and a rope and a gallows, and it maybe is not for
yourself I see it, but for some I have acquaintance with a good way
back.
MARTIN.
That means the law. We must destroy the law. That was the first sin,
the first mouthful of the apple.
JOHNNY.
So it was, so it was. The law is the worst loss. The ancient law was
for the benefit of all. It is the law of the English is the only sin.
MARTIN.
When there were no laws men warred on one another and man to man, not
with machines made in towns as they do now, and they grew hard and
strong in body. They were altogether alive like him that made them in
his image, like people in that unfallen country. But presently they
thought it better to be safe, as if safety mattered or anything but the
exaltation of the heart, and to have eyes that danger had made grave
and piercing. We must overthrow the laws and banish them.
JOHNNY.
It is what I say, to put out the laws is to put out the whole nation of
the English. Laws for themselves they made for their own profit, and
left us nothing at all, no more than a dog or a sow.
BIDDY.
An old priest I see, and I would not say is he the one was here or
another. Vexed and troubled he is, kneeling fretting and ever-fretting
in some lonesome ruined place.
MARTIN.
I thought it would come to that. Yes, the Church too—that is to be
destroyed. Once men fought with their desires and their fears, with all
that they call their sins, unhelped, and their souls became hard and
strong. When we have brought back the clean earth and destroyed the
law and the Church all life will become like a flame of fire, like a
burning eye ... Oh, how to find words for it all ... all that is not
life will pass away.
JOHNNY.
It is Luther’s Church he means, and the humpbacked discourse of Seaghan
Calvin’s Bible. So we will break it, and make an end of it.
MARTIN.
We will go out against the world and break it and unmake it.
[_Rising._] We are the army of the Unicorn from the Stars! We will
trample it to pieces.—We will consume the world, we will burn it
away—Father John said the world has yet to be consumed by fire. Bring
me fire.
ANDREW [_to _Beggars_].
Here is Thomas. Hide—let you hide.
[_All except MARTIN hurry into next room. THOMAS comes
in._
THOMAS.
Come with me, Martin. There is terrible work going on in the town!
There is mischief gone abroad. Very strange things are happening!
MARTIN.
What are you talking of? What has happened?
THOMAS.
Come along, I say, it must be put a stop to. We must call to every
decent man. It is as if the devil himself had gone through the town on
a blast and set every drinking-house open!
MARTIN.
I wonder how that has happened. Can it have anything to do with
Andrew’s plan?
THOMAS.
Are you giving no heed to what I’m saying? There is not a man, I tell
you, in the parish and beyond the parish but has left the work he was
doing whether in the field or in the mill.
MARTIN.
Then all work has come to an end? Perhaps that was a good thought of
Andrew’s.
THOMAS.
There is not a man has come to sensible years that is not drunk or
drinking! My own labourers and my own serving-men are sitting on
counters and on barrels! I give you my word, the smell of the spirits
and the porter and the shouting and the cheering within, made the hair
to rise up on my scalp.
MARTIN.
And yet there is not one of them that does not feel that he could
bridle the four winds.
THOMAS [_sitting down in despair_].
You are drunk too. I never thought you had a fancy for it.
MARTIN.
It is hard for you to understand. You have worked all your life. You
have said to yourself every morning, ‘What is to be done to-day?’ and
when you are tired out you have thought of the next day’s work. If you
gave yourself an hour’s idleness, it was but that you might work the
better. Yet it is only when one has put work away that one begins to
live.
THOMAS.
It is those French wines that did it.
MARTIN.
I have been beyond the earth. In Paradise, in that happy townland,
I have seen the shining people. They were all doing one thing or
another, but not one of them was at work. All that they did was but the
overflowing of their idleness, and their days were a dance bred of the
secret frenzy of their hearts, or a battle where the sword made a sound
that was like laughter.
THOMAS.
You went away sober from out of my hands; they had a right to have
minded you better.
MARTIN.
No man can be alive, and what is paradise but fulness of life, if
whatever he sets his hand to in the daylight cannot carry him from
exaltation to exaltation, and if he does not rise into the frenzy of
contemplation in the night silence. Events that are not begotten in joy
are misbegotten and darken the world, and nothing is begotten in joy if
the joy of a thousand years has not been crushed into a moment.
THOMAS.
And I offered to let you go to Dublin in the coach!
MARTIN [_giving banner to PAUDEEN_].
Give me the lamp. The lamp has not yet been lighted and the world is to
be consumed!
[_Goes into inner room._
THOMAS [_seeing ANDREW_].
Is it here you are, Andrew? What are these beggars doing? Was this
door thrown open too? Why did you not keep order? I will go for the
constables to help us!
ANDREW.
You will not find them to help you. They were scattering themselves
through the drinking-houses of the town, and why wouldn’t they?
THOMAS.
Are you drunk too? You are worse than Martin. You are a disgrace!
ANDREW.
Disgrace yourself! Coming here to be making an attack on me and
badgering me and disparaging me! And what about yourself that turned me
to be a hypocrite?
THOMAS.
What are you saying?
ANDREW.
You did, I tell you! Weren’t you always at me to be regular and to be
working and to be going through the day and the night without company
and to be thinking of nothing but the trade? What did I want with a
trade? I got a sight of the fairy gold one time in the mountains.
I would have found it again and brought riches from it but for you
keeping me so close to the work.
THOMAS.
Oh, of all the ungrateful creatures! You know well that I cherished
you, leading you to live a decent, respectable life.
ANDREW.
You never had respect for the ancient ways. It is after the mother you
take it, that was too soft and too lumpish, having too much of the
English in her blood. Martin is a Hearne like myself. It is he has the
generous heart! It is not Martin would make a hypocrite of me and force
me to do night-walking secretly, watching to be back by the setting of
the seven stars!
[_He begins to play his flute._
THOMAS.
I will turn you out of this, yourself and this filthy troop! I will
have them lodged in gaol.
JOHNNY.
Filthy troop, is it? Mind yourself! The change is coming. The pikes
will be up and the traders will go down!
_All_ seize THOMAS and sing._
When the Lion will lose his strength,
And the braket-thistle begin to pine,
The harp shall sound sweet, sweet at length,
Between the eight and the nine!
THOMAS.
Let me out of this, you villains!
NANNY.
We’ll make a sieve of holes of you, you old bag of treachery!
BIDDY.
How well you threatened us with gaol, you skim of a weasel’s milk!
JOHNNY.
You heap of sicknesses! You blinking hangman! That you may never die
till you’ll get a blue hag for a wife!
[_MARTIN comes back with lighted lamp._
MARTIN.
Let him go. [_They let THOMAS go, and fall back._] Spread out the
banner. The moment has come to begin the war.
JOHNNY.
Up with the Unicorn and destroy the Lion! Success to Johnny Gibbons and
all good men!
MARTIN.
Heap all those things together there. Heap those pieces of the coach
one upon another. Put that straw under them. It is with this flame I
will begin the work of destruction. All nature destroys and laughs.
THOMAS.
Destroy your own golden coach!
MARTIN [_kneeling before THOMAS_].
I am sorry to go a way that you do not like and to do a thing that
will vex you. I have been a great trouble to you since I was a child
in the house, and I am a great trouble to you yet. It is not my fault.
I have been chosen for what I have to do. [_Stands up._] I have to
free myself first and those that are near me. The love of God is a
very terrible thing! [_THOMAS tries to stop him, but is prevented by
_Beggars_. MARTIN takes a wisp of straw and lights it._] We will
destroy all that can perish! It is only the soul that can suffer no
injury. The soul of man is of the imperishable substance of the stars!
[_He throws wisp into heap—it blazes up._
ACT III
_Before dawn. A wild rocky place, NANNY and BIDDY LALLY
squatting by a fire. Rich stuffs, etc., strewn about.
PAUDEEN watching by MARTIN, who is lying as if dead, a
sack over him._
NANNY [_to PAUDEEN_].
Well, you are great heroes and great warriors and great lads
altogether, to have put down the Brownes the way you did, yourselves
and the Whiteboys of the quarry. To have ransacked the house and have
plundered it! Look at the silks and the satins and the grandeurs I
brought away! Look at that now! [_Holds up a velvet cloak._] It’s a
good little jacket for myself will come out of it. It’s the singers
will be stopping their songs and the jobbers turning from their cattle
in the fairs to be taking a view of the laces of it and the buttons!
It’s my far-off cousins will be drawing from far and near!
BIDDY.
There was not so much gold in it all as what they were saying there
was. Or maybe that fleet of Whiteboys had the place ransacked before
we ourselves came in. Bad cess to them that put it in my mind to go
gather up the full of my bag of horseshoes out of the forge. Silver
they were saying they were, pure white silver; and what are they in
the end but only hardened iron! A bad end to them! [_Flings away
horseshoes._] The time I will go robbing big houses again it will
not be in the light of the full moon I will go doing it, that does
be causing every common thing to shine out as if for a deceit and a
mockery. It’s not shining at all they are at this time, but duck yellow
and dark.
NANNY.
To leave the big house blazing after us, it was that crowned all!
Two houses to be burned to ashes in the one night. It is likely the
servant-girls were rising from the feathers and the cocks crowing
from the rafters for seven miles around, taking the flames to be the
whitening of the dawn.
BIDDY.
It is the lad is stretched beyond you have to be thankful to for that.
There was never seen a leader was his equal for spirit and for daring.
Making a great scatter of the guards the way he did. Running up roofs
and ladders, the fire in his hand, till you’d think he would be apt to
strike his head against the stars.
NANNY.
I partly guessed death was near him, and the queer shining look he
had in his two eyes, and he throwing sparks east and west through the
beams. I wonder now was it some inward wound he got, or did some hardy
lad of the Brownes give him a tip on the skull unknownst in the fight?
It was I myself found him, and the troop of the Whiteboys gone, and he
lying by the side of a wall as weak as if he had knocked a mountain. I
failed to waken him trying him with the sharpness of my nails, and his
head fell back when I moved it, and I knew him to be spent and gone.
BIDDY.
It’s a pity you not to have left him where he was lying and said no
word at all to Paudeen or to that son you have, that kept us back from
following on, bringing him here to this shelter on sacks and upon poles.
NANNY.
What way could I help letting a screech out of myself, and the life but
just gone out of him in the darkness, and not a living Christian by his
side but myself and the great God?
BIDDY.
It’s on ourselves the vengeance of the red soldiers will fall, they to
find us sitting here the same as hares in a tuft. It would be best for
us follow after the rest of the army of the Whiteboys.
NANNY.
Whisht! I tell you. The lads are cracked about him. To get but the wind
of the word of leaving him, it’s little but they’d knock the head off
the two of us. Whisht!
_Enter JOHNNY BACACH with candles._
JOHNNY [_standing over MARTIN_].
Wouldn’t you say now there was some malice or some venom in the air,
that is striking down one after another the whole of the heroes of the
Gael?
PAUDEEN.
It makes a person be thinking of the four last ends, death and
judgment, heaven and hell. Indeed and indeed my heart lies with him. It
is well I knew what man he was under his by-name and his disguise.
[_Sings._] Oh, Johnny Gibbons, it’s you were the prop to us.
You to have left us, we are put astray!
JOHNNY.
It is lost we are now and broken to the end of our days. There is no
satisfaction at all but to be destroying the English, and where now
will we get so good a leader again? Lay him out fair and straight upon
a stone, till I will let loose the secret of my heart keening him!
[_Sets out candles on a rock, propping them up with
stones._
NANNY.
Is it mould candles you have brought to set around him, Johnny Bacach?
It is great riches you should have in your pocket to be going to those
lengths and not to be content with dips.
JOHNNY.
It is lengths I will not be going to the time the life will be gone out
of your own body. It is not your corpse I will be wishful to hold in
honour the way I hold this corpse in honour.
NANNY.
That’s the way always, there will be grief and quietness in the house
if it is a young person has died, but funning and springing and
tricking one another if it is an old person’s corpse is in it. There is
no compassion at all for the old.
PAUDEEN.
It is he would have got leave for the Gael to be as high as the Gall.
Believe me, he was in the prophecies. Let you not be comparing yourself
with the like of him.
NANNY.
Why wouldn’t I be comparing myself? Look at all that was against me in
the world. Would you be matching me against a man of his sort, that had
the people shouting him and that had nothing to do but to die and to go
to heaven?
JOHNNY.
The day you go to heaven that you may never come back alive out of it!
But it is not yourself will ever hear the saints hammering at their
musics! It is you will be moving through the ages, chains upon you,
and you in the form of a dog or a monster. I tell you that one will go
through Purgatory as quick as lightning through a thorn-bush.
NANNY.
That’s the way, that the way.
[_Croons._] Three that are watching my time to run,
The worm, the devil, and my son,
To see a loop around their neck
It’s that would make my heart to lep!
JOHNNY.
Five white candles. I wouldn’t begrudge them to him indeed. If he had
held out and held up it is my belief he would have freed Ireland!
PAUDEEN.
Wait till the full light of the day and you’ll see the burying he’ll
have. It is not in this place we will be waking him. I’ll make a call
to the two hundred Ribbons he was to lead on to the attack on the
barracks at Aughanish. They will bring him marching to his grave upon
the hill. He had surely some gift from the other world, I wouldn’t say
but he had power from the other side.
ANDREW [_coming in very shaky_].
Well, it was a great night he gave to the village, and it is long
till it will be forgotten. I tell you the whole of the neighbours are
up against him. There is no one at all this morning to set the mills
going. There was no bread baked in the night-time, the horses are not
fed in the stalls, the cows are not milked in the sheds. I met no man
able to make a curse this night but he put it on my head and on the
head of the boy that is lying there before us ... Is there no sign of
life in him at all?
JOHNNY.
What way would there be a sign of life and the life gone out of him
this three hours or more?
ANDREW.
He was lying in his sleep for a while yesterday, and he wakened again
after another while.
NANNY.
He will not waken, I tell you. I held his hand in my own and it getting
cold as if you were pouring on it the coldest cold water, and no
running in his blood. He is gone sure enough and the life is gone out
of him.
ANDREW.
Maybe so, maybe so. It seems to me yesterday his cheeks were bloomy all
the while, and now he is as pale as wood ashes. Sure we all must come
to it at the last. Well, my white-headed darling, it is you were the
bush among us all, and you to be cut down in your prime. Gentle and
simple, everyone liked you. It is no narrow heart you had, it is you
were for spending and not for getting. It is you made a good wake for
yourself, scattering your estate in one night only in beer and in wine
for the whole province; and that you may be sitting in the middle of
Paradise and in the chair of the Graces!
JOHNNY.
Amen to that. It’s pity I didn’t think the time I sent for yourself to
send the little lad of a messenger looking for a priest to overtake
him. It might be in the end the Almighty is the best man for us all!
ANDREW.
Sure I sent him on myself to bid the priest to come. Living or dead I
would wish to do all that is rightful for the last and the best of my
own race and generation.
BIDDY [_jumping up_].
Is it the priest you are bringing in among us? Where is the sense
in that? Aren’t we robbed enough up to this with the expense of the
candles and the like?
JOHNNY.
If it is that poor starved priest he called to that came talking in
secret signs to the man that is gone, it is likely he will ask nothing
for what he has to do. There is many a priest is a Whiteboy in his
heart.
NANNY.
I tell you, if you brought him tied in a bag he would not say an Our
Father for you, without you having a half-crown at the top of your
fingers.
BIDDY.
There is no priest is any good at all but a spoiled priest. A one that
would take a drop of drink, it is he would have courage to face the
hosts of trouble. Rout them out he would, the same as a shoal of fish
from out the weeds. It’s best not to vex a priest, or to run against
them at all.
NANNY.
It’s yourself humbled yourself well to one the time you were sick in
the gaol and had like to die, and he bade you to give over the throwing
of the cups.
BIDDY.
Ah, plaster of Paris I gave him. I took to it again and I free upon the
roads.
NANNY.
Much good you are doing with it to yourself or any other one. Aren’t
you after telling that corpse no later than yesterday that he was
coming within the best day of his life?
JOHNNY.
Whisht, let ye. Here is the priest coming.
_FATHER JOHN comes in._
FATHER JOHN.
It is surely not true that he is dead?
JOHNNY.
The spirit went from him about the middle hour of the night. We brought
him here to this sheltered place. We were loth to leave him without
friends.
FATHER JOHN.
Where is he?
JOHNNY [_taking up sacks_].
Lying there stiff and stark. He has a very quiet look as if there was
no sin at all or no great trouble upon his mind.
FATHER JOHN [_kneels and touches him_].
He is not dead.
BIDDY [_pointing to NANNY_].
He is dead. If it was letting on he was, he would not have let that one
rob him and search him the way she did.
FATHER JOHN.
It has the appearance of death, but it is not death. He is in a trance.
PAUDEEN.
Is it Heaven and Hell he is walking at this time to be bringing back
newses of the sinners in pain?
BIDDY.
I was thinking myself it might away he was, riding on white horses with
the riders of the forths.
JOHNNY.
He will have great wonders to tell out the time he will rise up from
the ground. It is a pity he not to waken at this time and to lead us on
to overcome the troop of the English. Sure those that are in a trance
get strength, that they can walk on water.
ANDREW.
It was Father John wakened him yesterday the time he was lying in the
same way. Wasn’t I telling you it was for that I called to him?
BIDDY.
Waken him now till they’ll see did I tell any lie in my foretelling. I
knew well by the signs, he was coming within the best day of his life.
PAUDEEN.
And not dead at all! We’ll be marching to attack Dublin itself within a
week. The horn will blow for him, and all good men will gather to him.
Hurry on, Father, and waken him.
FATHER JOHN.
I will not waken him. I will not bring him back from where he is.
JOHNNY.
And how long will it be before he will waken of himself?
FATHER JOHN.
Maybe to-day, maybe to-morrow, it is hard to be certain.
BIDDY.
If it is _away_ he is he might be away seven years. To be lying like
a stump of a tree and using no food and the world not able to knock a
word out of him, I know the signs of it well.
JOHNNY.
We cannot be waiting and watching through seven years. If the business
he has started is to be done we have to go on here and now. The
time there is any delay, that is the time the Government will get
information. Waken him now, Father, and you’ll get the blessing of the
generations.
FATHER JOHN.
I will not bring him back. God will bring him back in his own good
time. For all I know he may be seeing the hidden things of God.
JOHNNY.
He might slip away in his dream. It is best to raise him up now.
ANDREW.
Waken him, Father John. I thought he was surely dead this time,
and what way could I go face Thomas through all that is left of my
lifetime, after me standing up to face him the way I did? And if I do
take a little drop of an odd night, sure I’d be very lonesome if I did
not take it. All the world knows it’s not for love of what I drink, but
for love of the people that do be with me! Waken him, Father, or maybe
I would waken him myself. [_Shakes him._]
FATHER JOHN.
Lift your hand from touching him. Leave him to himself and to the power
of God.
JOHNNY.
If you will not bring him back why wouldn’t we ourselves do it? Go on
now, it is best for you to do it yourself.
FATHER JOHN.
I woke him yesterday. He was angry with me, he could not get to the
heart of the command.
JOHNNY.
If he did not, he got a command from myself that satisfied him, and a
message.
FATHER JOHN.
He did—he took it from you—and how do I know what devil’s message it
may have been that brought him into that devil’s work, destruction and
drunkenness and burnings! That was not a message from heaven! It was
I awoke him, it was I kept him from hearing what was maybe a divine
message, a voice of truth, and he heard you speak and he believed the
message was brought by you. You have made use of your deceit and his
mistaking—you have left him without house or means to support him, you
are striving to destroy and to drag him to entire ruin. I will not help
you, I would rather see him die in his trance and go into God’s hands
than awake him and see him go into hell’s mouth with vagabonds and
outcasts like you!
JOHNNY [_turning to BIDDY_].
You should have knowledge, Biddy Lally, of the means to bring back a
man that is away.
BIDDY.
The power of the earth will do it through its herbs, and the power of
the air will do it kindling fire into flame.
JOHNNY.
Rise up and make no delay. Stretch out and gather a handful of an herb
that will bring him back from whatever place he is in.
BIDDY.
Where is the use of herbs, and his teeth clenched the way he could not
use them?
JOHNNY.
Take fire so in the devil’s name, and put it to the soles of his feet.
[_Takes a lighted sod from fire._
FATHER JOHN.
Let him alone, I say! [_Dashes away the sod._
JOHNNY.
I will not leave him alone! I will not give in to leave him swooning
there and the country waiting for him to awake!
FATHER JOHN.
I tell you I awoke him! I sent him into thieves’ company! I will not
have him wakened again and evil things it maybe waiting to take hold of
him! Back from him, back, I say! Will you dare to lay a hand on me! You
cannot do it! You cannot touch him against my will!
BIDDY.
Mind yourself, do not be bringing us under the curse of the Church.
[_JOHNNY steps back. MARTIN moves._
FATHER JOHN.
It is God has him in His care. It is He is awaking him. [_MARTIN has
risen to his elbow._] Do not touch him, do not speak to him, he may be
hearing great secrets.
MARTIN.
That music, I must go nearer—sweet marvellous music—louder than the
trampling of the unicorns; far louder, though the mountain is shaking
with their feet—high joyous music.
FATHER JOHN.
Hush, he is listening to the music of Heaven!
MARTIN.
Take me to you, musicians, wherever you are! I will go nearer to you;
I hear you better now, more and more joyful; that is strange, it is
strange.
FATHER JOHN.
He is getting some secret.
MARTIN.
It is the music of Paradise, that is certain, somebody said that. It is
certainly the music of Paradise. Ah, now I hear, now I understand. It
is made of the continual clashing of swords!
JOHNNY.
That is the best music. We will clash them sure enough. We will clash
our swords and our pikes on the bayonets of the red soldiers. It is
well you rose up from the dead to lead us! Come on, now, come on!
MARTIN.
Who are you? Ah, I remember—where are you asking me to come to?
PAUDEEN.
To come on, to be sure, to the attack on the barracks at Aughanish. To
carry on the work you took in hand last night.
MARTIN.
What work did I take in hand last night? Oh, yes, I remember—some big
house—we burned it down—but I had not understood the vision when I did
that. I had not heard the command right. That was not the work I was
sent to do.
PAUDEEN.
Rise up now and bid us what to do. Your great name itself will clear
the road before you. It is you yourself will have freed all Ireland
before the stooks will be in stacks!
MARTIN.
Listen, I will explain—I have misled you. It is only now I have the
whole vision plain. As I lay there I saw through everything, I know
all. It was but a frenzy that going out to burn and to destroy. What
have I to do with the foreign army? What I have to pierce is the wild
heart of time. My business is not reformation but revelation.
JOHNNY.
If you are going to turn back now from leading us, you are no better
than any other traitor that ever gave up the work he took in hand. Let
you come and face now the two hundred men you brought out daring the
power of the law last night, and give them your reason for failing them.
MARTIN.
I was mistaken when I set out to destroy Church and Law. The battle we
have to fight is fought out in our own mind. There is a fiery moment,
perhaps once in a lifetime, and in that moment we see the only thing
that matters. It is in that moment the great battles are lost and won,
for in that moment we are a part of the host of heaven.
PAUDEEN.
Have you betrayed us to the naked hangman with your promises and with
your drink? If you brought us out here to fail us and to ridicule us,
it is the last day you will live!
JOHNNY.
The curse of my heart on you! It would be right to send you to your own
place on the flagstone of the traitors in hell. When once I have made
an end of you I will be as well satisfied to be going to my death for
it as if I was going home!
MARTIN.
Father John, Father John, can you not hear? Can you not see? Are you
blind? Are you deaf?
FATHER JOHN.
What is it? What is it?
MARTIN.
There on the mountain, a thousand white unicorns trampling; a thousand
riders with their swords drawn—the swords clashing! Oh, the sound of
the swords, the sound of the clashing of the swords!
[_He goes slowly off stage. JOHNNY takes up a stone to
throw at him._
FATHER JOHN [_seizing his arm_].
Stop—do you not see he is beyond the world?
BIDDY.
Keep your hand off him, Johnny Bacach. If he is gone wild and cracked,
that’s natural. Those that have been wakened from a trance on a sudden
are apt to go bad and light in the head.
PAUDEEN.
If it is madness is on him, it is not he himself should pay the penalty.
BIDDY.
To prey on the mind it does, and rises into the head. There are some
would go over any height and would have great power in their madness.
It is maybe to some secret cleft he is going, to get knowledge of the
great cure for all things, or of the Plough that was hidden in the old
times, the Golden Plough.
PAUDEEN.
It seemed as if he was talking through honey. He had the look of one
that had seen great wonders. It is maybe among the old heroes of
Ireland he went raising armies for our help.
FATHER JOHN.
God take him in his care and keep him from lying spirits and from all
delusions!
JOHNNY.
We have got candles here, Father. We had them to put around his body.
Maybe they would keep away the evil things of the air.
PAUDEEN.
Light them so, and he will say out a Mass for him the same as in a
lime-washed church.
[_They light the candles._
_THOMAS comes in._
THOMAS.
Where is he? I am come to warn him. The destruction he did in the
night-time has been heard of. The soldiers are out after him and the
constables—there are two of the constables not far off—there are others
on every side—they heard he was here in the mountain—where is he?
FATHER JOHN.
He has gone up the path.
THOMAS.
Hurry after him! Tell him to hide himself—this attack he had a hand in
is a hanging crime. Tell him to hide himself, to come to me when all is
quiet—bad as his doings are, he is my own brother’s son; I will get him
on to a ship that will be going to France.
FATHER JOHN.
That will be best, send him back to the Brothers and to the wise
Bishops. They can unravel this tangle, I cannot. I cannot be sure of
the truth.
THOMAS.
Here are the constables, he will see them and get away. Say no word.
The Lord be praised that he is out of sight.
_Constables_ come in._
CONSTABLE.
The man we are looking for, where is he? He was seen coming here along
with you. You have to give him up into the power of the law.
JOHNNY.
We will not give him up. Go back out of this or you will be sorry.
PAUDEEN.
We are not in dread of you or the like of you.
BIDDY.
Throw them down over the rocks!
NANNY.
Give them to the picking of the crows!
ALL.
Down with the law!
FATHER JOHN.
Hush! He is coming back. [_To _Constables._] Stop, stop—leave him
to himself. He is not trying to escape, he is coming towards you.
PAUDEEN.
There is a sort of a brightness about him. I misjudged him calling him
a traitor. It is not to this world he belongs at all. He is over on the
other side.
MARTIN.
[_Standing beside the rock where the lighted candles
are._]
_Et calix meus inebrians quam præclarus est!_
FATHER JOHN.
I must know what he has to say. It is not from himself he is speaking.
MARTIN.
Father John, Heaven is not what we have believed it to be. It is not
quiet, it is not singing and making music, and all strife at an end.
I have seen it, I have been there. The lover still loves but with a
greater passion, and the rider still rides but the horse goes like the
wind and leaps the ridges, and the battle goes on always, always. That
is the joy of Heaven, continual battle. I thought the battle was here,
and that the joy was to be found here on earth, that all one had to do
was to bring again the old wild earth of the stories—but no, it is not
here; we shall not come to that joy, that battle, till we have put out
the senses, everything that can be seen and handled, as I put out this
candle. [_He puts out candle._] We must put out the whole world as I
put out this candle [_puts out another candle_]. We must put out the
light of the stars and the light of the sun and the light of the moon
[_puts out the rest of the candles_], till we have brought everything
to nothing once again. I saw in a broken vision, but now all is clear
to me. Where there is nothing, where there is nothing—there is God!
CONSTABLE.
Now we will take him!
JOHNNY.
We will never give him up to the law!
PAUDEEN.
Make your escape! We will not let you be followed.
[_They struggle with _Constables_; the women help
them; all disappear struggling. There is a shot. MARTIN
stumbles and falls. _Beggars_ come back with a
shout._
JOHNNY.
We have done for them, they will not meddle with you again.
PAUDEEN.
Oh, he is down!
FATHER JOHN.
He is shot through the breast. Oh, who has dared meddle with a soul
that was in the tumults on the threshold of sanctity?
JOHNNY.
It was that gun went off and I striking it from the constable’s hand.
MARTIN.
[_Looking at his hand, on which there is blood._]
Ah, that is blood! I fell among the rocks. It is a hard climb. It is
a long climb to the vineyards of Eden. Help me up. I must go on. The
Mountain of Abiegnos is very high—but the vineyards—the vineyards!
[_He falls back dead. The men uncover their heads._
PAUDEEN [_to BIDDY_].
It was you misled him with your foretelling that he was coming within
the best day of his life.
JOHNNY.
Madness on him or no madness, I will not leave that body to the law to
be buried with a dog’s burial or brought away and maybe hanged upon a
tree. Lift him on the sacks, bring him away to the quarry; it is there
on the hillside the boys will give him a great burying, coming on
horses and bearing white rods in their hands.
[_NANNY lays the velvet cloak over him._
_They lift him and carry the body away singing:_
Our hope and our darling, our heart dies with you,
You to have failed us, we are foals astray!
FATHER JOHN.
He is gone and we can never know where that vision came from. I cannot
know—the wise Bishops would have known.
THOMAS [_taking up banner_].
To be shaping a lad through his lifetime, and he to go his own way
at the last, and a queer way. It is very queer the world itself is,
whatever shape was put upon it at the first.
ANDREW.
To be too headstrong and too open, that is the beginning of trouble. To
keep to yourself the thing that you know, and to do in quiet the thing
you want to do. There would be no disturbance at all in the world, all
people to bear that in mind!
APPENDIX.
_THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN._
PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.
THE present version of _The Countess Cathleen_ is not quite the version
adopted by the Irish Literary Theatre a couple of years ago, for our
stage and scenery were capable of little; and it may differ still more
from any stage version I make in future, for it seems that my people
of the waters and my unhappy dead, in the third act, cannot keep their
supernatural essence, but must put on too much of our mortality, in
any ordinary theatre. I am told that I must abandon a meaning or two
and make my merchants carry away the treasure themselves. The act was
written long ago, when I had seen so few plays that I took pleasure
in stage effects. Indeed, I am not yet certain that a wealthy theatre
could not shape it to an impressive pageantry, or that a theatre
without any wealth could not lift it out of pageantry into the mind,
with a dim curtain, and some dimly robed actors, and the beautiful
voices that should be as important in poetical as in musical drama. The
Elizabethan stage was so little imprisoned in material circumstance
that the Elizabethan imagination was not strained by god or spirit, nor
even by Echo herself—no, not even when she answered, as in _The Duchess
of Malfi_, in clear, loud words which were not the words that had been
spoken to her. We have made a prison-house of paint and canvas, where
we have as little freedom as under our own roofs, for there is no
freedom in a house that has been made with hands. All art moves in the
cave of the Chimæra, or in the garden of the Hesperides, or in the more
silent house of the gods, and neither cave, nor garden, nor house can
show itself clearly but to the mind’s eye.
Besides re-writing a lyric or two, I have much enlarged the note on
_The Countess Cathleen_, as there has been some discussion in Ireland
about the origin of the story, but the other notes[A] are as they have
always been. They are short enough, but I do not think that anybody who
knows modern poetry will find obscurities in this book. In any case, I
must leave my myths and symbols to explain themselves as the years go
by and one poem lights up another, and the stories that friends, and
one friend in particular, have gathered for me, or that I have gathered
myself in many cottages, find their way into the light. I would, if I
could, add to that great and complicated inheritance of images which
written literature has substituted for the greater and more complex
inheritance of spoken tradition, to that majestic heraldry of the poets
some new heraldic images gathered from the lips of the common people.
Christianity and the old nature faith have lain down side by side in
the cottages, and I would proclaim that peace as loudly as I can among
the kingdoms of poetry, where there is no peace that is not joyous,
no battle that does not give life instead of death; I may even try to
persuade others, in more sober prose, that there can be no language
more worthy of poetry and of the meditation of the soul than that which
has been made, or can be made, out of a subtlety of desire, an emotion
of sacrifice, a delight in order, that are perhaps Christian, and myths
and images that mirror the energies of woods and streams, and of their
wild creatures. Has any part of that majestic heraldry of the poets
had a very different fountain? Is it not the ritual of the marriage of
heaven and earth?
These details may seem to many unnecessary; but after all one writes
poetry for a few careful readers and for a few friends, who will not
consider such details very unnecessary. When Cimabue had the cry it
was, it seems, worth thinking of those that run; but to-day, when they
can write as well as read, one can sit with one’s companions under the
hedgerow contentedly. If one writes well and has the patience, somebody
will come from among the runners and read what one has written quickly,
and go away quickly, and write out as much as he can remember in the
language of the highway.
W. B. YEATS.
_January, 1901._
FOOTNOTE:
[A] I have left them out of this edition as Lady Gregory’s _Cuchulain
of Muirthemne_ and _Gods and Fighting Men_ have made them unnecessary.
When I began to write, the names of the Irish heroes were almost
unknown even in Ireland.
NOTES
_The Countess Cathleen._—I found the story of the Countess Cathleen
in what professed to be a collection of Irish folklore in an Irish
newspaper some years ago. I wrote to the compiler, asking about its
source, but got no answer, but have since heard that it was translated
from _Les Matinées de Timothé Trimm_ a good many years ago, and has
been drifting about the Irish press ever since. Léo Lespès gives it
as an Irish story, and though the editor of _Folklore_ has kindly
advertised for information, the only Christian variant I know of is
a Donegal tale, given by Mr. Larminie in his _West Irish Folk Tales
and Romances_, of a woman who goes to hell for ten years to save her
husband and stays there another ten, having been granted permission
to carry away as many souls as could cling to her skirt. Léo Lespès
may have added a few details, but I have no doubt of the essential
antiquity of what seems to me the most impressive form of one of the
supreme parables of the world. The parable came to the Greeks in the
sacrifice of Alcestis, but her sacrifice was less overwhelming, less
apparently irremediable. Léo Lespès tells the story as follows:—
‘Ce que je vais vous dire est un récit du carême Irlandais. Le boiteux,
l’aveugle, le paralytique des rues de Dublin ou de Limerick, vous le
diraient mieux que moi, cher lecteur, si vous alliez le leur demander,
un sixpence d’argent à la main.—Il n’est pas une jeune fille catholique
à laquelle on ne l’ait appris, pendant les jours de préparation à la
communion sainte, pas un berger des bords de la Blackwater qui ne le
puisse redire à la veillée.
‘Il y a bien longtemps qu’il apparut tout-à-coup dans la vieille
Irlande deux marchands inconnus dont personne n’avait ouï parler, et
qui parlaient néanmoins avec la plus grande perfection la langue du
pays. Leurs cheveux étaient noirs et ferrés avec de l’or et leurs robes
d’une grande magnificence.
Tous deux semblaient avoir le même âge: ils paraissaient être des
hommes de cinquante ans, car leur barbe grisonnait un peu.
Or, à cette époque, comme aujourd’hui, l’Irlande était pauvre, car le
soleil avait été rare, et des récoltes presque nulles. Les indigents ne
savaient à quel saint se vouer, et la misère devenait de plus en plus
terrible.
Dans l’hôtellerie où descendirent les marchands fastueux on chercha
à pénétrer leurs desseins: mais ce fut en vain, ils demeurèrent
silencieux et discrets.
Et pendant qu’ils demeurèrent dans l’hôtellerie, ils ne cessèrent de
compter et de recompter des sacs de pièces d’or, dont la vive clarté
s’apercevait à travers les vitres du logis.
Gentlemen, leur dit l’hôtesse un jour, d’où vient que vous êtes si
opulents, et que, venus pour secourir la misère publique, vous ne
fassiez pas de bonnes œuvres?
—Belle hôtesse, répondit l’un d’eux, nous n’avons pas voulu aller
au-devant d’infortunes honorables, dans la crainte d’être trompés par
des misères fictives: que la douleur frappe à la porte, nous ouvrirons.
Le lendemain, quand on sut qu’il existait deux opulents étrangers
prêts à prodiguer l’or, la foule assiégea leur logis; mais les figures
des gens qui en sortaient étaient bien diverses. Les uns avaient la
fierté dans le regard, les autres portaient la honte au front. Les deux
trafiquants achetaient des âmes pour le démon. L’âme d’un vieillard
valait vingt pièces d’or, pas un penny de plus; car Satan avait eu le
temps d’y former hypothèque. L’âme d’une épouse en valait cinquante
quand elle était jolie, ou cent quand elle était laide. L’âme d’une
jeune fille se payait des prix fous: les fleurs les plus belles et les
plus pures sont les plus chères.
Pendant ce temps, il existait dans la ville un ange de beauté, la
comtesse Ketty O’Donnor. Elle était l’idole du peuple, et la providence
des indigents. Dès qu’elle eut appris que des mécréants profitaient de
la misère publique pour dérober des cœurs à Dieu, elle fit appeler son
majordome.
—Master Patrick, lui dit elle, combien ai-je de pièces d’or dans mon
coffre?
—Cent mille.
—Combien de bijoux?
—Pour autant d’argent.
—Combien de châteaux, de bois et de terres?
—Pour le double de ces sommes.
—Eh bien! Patrick, vendez tout ce qui n’est pas or et apportez-m’en
le montant. Je ne veux garder à moi que ce castel et le champ qui
l’entoure.
Deux jours après, les ordres de la pieuse Ketty étaient exécutés et le
trésor était distribué aux pauvres au fur et à mesure de leurs besoins.
Ceci ne faisait pas le compte, dit la tradition, des commis-voyageurs
du malin esprit, qui ne trouvaient plus d’âmes à acheter.
Aidés par un valet infâme, ils pénétrèrent dans la retraite de la noble
dame et lui dérobèrent le reste de son trésor .. en vain lutta-t-elle
de toutes ses forces pour sauver le contenu de son coffre, les larrons
diaboliques furent les plus forts. Si Ketty avait eu les moyens de
faire un signe de croix, ajoute la légende Irlandaise, elle les eût mis
en fuite, mais ses mains étaient captives—Le larcin fut effectué. Alors
les pauvres sollicitèrent en vain près de Ketty dépouillée, elle ne
pouvait plus secourir leur misère;—elle les abandonnait à la tentation.
Pourtant il n’y avait plus que huit jours à passer pour que les grains
et les fourrages arrivassent en abondance des pays d’Orient. Mais, huit
jours, c’était un siècle: huit jours nécessitaient une somme immense
pour subvenir aux exigences de la disette, et les pauvres allaient ou
expirer dans les angoisses de la faim, ou, reniant les saintes maximes
de l’Evangile, vendre à vil prix leur âme, le plus beau présent de la
munificence du Seigneur tout-puissant.
Et Ketty n’avait plus une obole, car elle avait abandonné son château
aux malheureux.
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.
—C’est la mienne, dit Ketty.
Les deux envoyés de Satan tressaillirent. Leurs griffes s’allongèrent
sous leurs gants de cuir; leurs yeux gris étincelèrent:—l’âme, pure,
immaculée, virginale de Ketty!... c’était une acquisition inappréciable.
—Gentille dame, combien voulez-vous?
—Cent cinquante mille écus d’or.
—C’est fait, dirent les marchands; et ils tendirent à Ketty un
parchemin cacheté de noir, qu’elle signa en frissonnant.
La somme lui fut comptée.
Dès qu’elle fut rentrée, elle dit au majordome:
—Tenez, distribuez ceci. Avec la somme que je vous donne les pauvres
attendront la huitaine nécessaire et pas une de leurs âmes ne sera
livrée au démon.
Puis elle s’enferma et recommanda qu’on ne vint pas la déranger.
Trois jours se passèrent; elle n’appela pas; elle ne sortit pas.
Quand on ouvrit sa porte, on la trouva raide et froide: elle était
morte de douleur.
Mais la vente de cette âme si adorable dans sa charité fut déclarée
nulle par le Seigneur: car elle avait sauvé ses concitoyens de la mort
éternelle.
Après la huitaine, des vaisseaux nombreux amenèrent à l’Irlande affamée
d’immenses provisions de grains.
La famine n’était plus possible. Quant aux marchands, ils disparurent
de leur hôtellerie, sans qu’on sût jamais ce qu’ils étaient devenus.
Toutefois, les pêcheurs de la Blackwater prétendent qu’ils sont
enchaînés dans une prison souterraine par ordre de Lucifer jusqu’au
moment où ils pourront livrer l’âme de Ketty qui leur a échappé. Je
vous dis la légende telle que je la sais.
—Mais les pauvres l’ont raconté d’âge en âge et les enfants de Cork et
de Dublin chantent encore la ballade dont voici les derniers couplets:—
Pour sauver les pauvres qu’elle aime
Ketty donna
Son esprit, sa croyance même;
Satan paya
Cette âme au dévoûment sublime,
En écus d’or,
Disons pour racheter son crime
_Confiteor_.
Mais l’ange qui se fit coupable
Par charité
Au séjour d’amour ineffable
Est remonté.
Satan vaincu n’eut pas de prise
Sur ce cœur d’or;
Chantons sous la nef de l’église,
_Confiteor_.
N’est ce pas que ce récit, né de l’imagination des poètes catholiques
de la verte Erin, est une véritable récit de carême?
_The Countess Cathleen_ was acted in Dublin in 1899 with Mr. Marcus St.
John and Mr. Trevor Lowe as the First and Second Demon, Mr. Valentine
Grace as Shemus Rua, Master Charles Sefton as Teig, Madame San Carola
as Maire, Miss Florence Farr as Aleel, Miss Anna Mather as Oona, Mr.
Charles Holmes as the Herdsman, Mr. Jack Wilcox as the Gardener, Mr.
Walford as a Peasant, Miss Dorothy Paget as a Spirit, Miss M. Kelly as
a Peasant Woman, Mr. T. E. Wilkenson as a Servant, and Miss May Whitty
as the Countess Cathleen. They had to face a very vehement opposition
stirred up by a politician and a newspaper, the one accusing me in
a pamphlet, the other in long articles day after day, of blasphemy
because of the language of the demons in the first act, and because I
made a woman sell her soul and yet escape damnation, and of a lack of
patriotism because I made Irish men and women, who it seems never did
such a thing, sell theirs. The politician or the newspaper persuaded
some forty Catholic students to sign a protest against the play, and a
Cardinal, who avowed that he had not read it, to make another, and both
politician and newspaper made such obvious appeals to the audience to
break the peace, that some score of police[B] were sent to the theatre
to see that they did not. I have, however, no reason to regret the
result, for the stalls, containing almost all that was distinguished
in Dublin, and a gallery of artisans, alike insisted on the freedom of
literature, and I myself have the pleasure of recording strange events.
The play has since been revived in New York by Miss Wycherley, but I
did not see her performance.
* * * * *
_The Land of Heart’s Desire._—This little play was produced at the
Avenue Theatre in the spring of 1894, with the following cast:—Maurteen
Bruin, Mr. James Welch; Shawn Bruin, Mr. A. E. W. Mason; Father Hart,
Mr. G. R. Foss; Bridget Bruin, Miss Charlotte Morland; Maire Bruin,
Miss Winifred Fraser; A Faery Child, Miss Dorothy Paget. It ran for a
little over six weeks. It was revived in America in 1901, when it was
taken on tour by Mrs. Lemoyne. It was again played, under the auspices
of the Irish Literary Society of New York, in 1903, and has lately been
played in San Francisco.
* * * * *
_The Unicorn from the Stars._—Some years ago I wrote in a fortnight
with the help of Lady Gregory and another friend a five act tragedy
called _Where there is Nothing_. I wrote at such speed that I might
save from a plagiarist a subject that seemed worth the keeping till
greater knowledge of the stage made an adequate treatment possible.
I knew that my first version was hurried and oratorical, with events
cast into the plot because they seemed lively or amusing in themselves,
and not because they grew out of the characters and the plot; and I
came to dislike a central character so arid and so dominating. We
cannot sympathise with a man who sets his anger at once lightly and
confidently to overthrow the order of the world; but our hearts can go
out to him, as I think, if he speak with some humility, so far as his
daily self carries him, out of a cloudy light of vision. Whether he
understand or know, it may be that the voices of Angels and Archangels
have spoken in the cloud and whatever wildness come upon his life,
feet of theirs may well have trod the clusters. I began with this new
thought to dictate the play to Lady Gregory, but since I had last
worked with her, her knowledge of the stage and her mastery of dialogue
had so increased that my imagination could not go neck to neck with
hers. I found myself, too, with an old difficulty, that my words flow
freely alone when my people speak in verse, or in words that are like
those we put into verse; and so after an attempt to work alone I gave
my scheme to her. The result is a play almost wholly hers in handiwork,
which I can yet read, as I have just done after the stories of _The
Secret Rose_, and recognize thoughts, a point of view, an artistic aim
which seem a part of my world. Her greatest difficulty was that I had
given her for chief character a man so plunged in trance that he could
not be otherwise than all but still and silent, though perhaps with the
stillness and the silence of a lamp; and the movement of the play as
a whole, if we were to listen to hear him, had to be without hurry or
violence. The strange characters, her handiwork, on whom he sheds his
light, delight me. She has enabled me to carry out an old thought for
which my own knowledge is insufficient and to commingle the ancient
phantasies of poetry with the rough, vivid, ever-contemporaneous
tumult of the road-side; to create for a moment a form that otherwise
I could but dream of, though I do that always, an art that prophesies
though with worn and failing voice of the day when Quixote and Sancho
Panza long estranged may once again go out gaily into the bleak air.
Ever since I began to write I have awaited with impatience a linking,
all Europe over, of the hereditary knowledge of the country-side, now
becoming known to us through the work of wanderers and men of learning,
with our old lyricism so full of ancient frenzies and hereditary
wisdom, a yoking of antiquities, a Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
_The Unicorn from the Stars_ was first played at the Abbey Theatre
on November 23rd, 1907, with the following cast:—Father John, Ernest
Vaughan; Thomas Hearne, a coachbuilder, Arthur Sinclair; Andrew Hearne,
brother of Thomas, J. A. O’Rourke; Martin Hearne, nephew of Thomas, F.
J. Fay; Johnny Bacach, a beggar, W. G. Fay; Paudeen, J. M. Kerrigan;
Biddy Lally, Maire O’Neill; Nanny, Brigit O’Dempsey.
W. B. YEATS.
_March, 1908._
FOOTNOTE:
[B] Mr. Synge has outdone me with his _Play Boy of the Western World_,
which towards the end of the week had more than three times the number
in the pit alone. Counting the police inside and outside the theatre,
there were, according to some evening papers, five hundred.—_March,
1908._
THE MUSIC FOR USE IN THE PERFORMANCE OF THESE PLAYS.
All the music that is printed here, with the exception of Mr. Arthur
Darley’s, is of that kind which I have described in _Samhain_ and in
_Ideas of Good and Evil_. Some of it is old Irish music made when all
songs were but heightened speech, and some of it composed by modern
musicians is none the less to be associated with words that must
never lose the intonation of passionate speech. No vowel must ever be
prolonged unnaturally, no word of mine must ever change into a mere
musical note, no singer of my words must ever cease to be a man and
become an instrument.
The degree of approach to ordinary singing depends on the context, for
one desires a greater or lesser amount of contrast between the lyrics
and the dialogue according to situation and emotion and the qualities
of players. The words of Cathleen ni Houlihan about the ‘white-scarfed
riders’ must be little more than regulated declamation; the little song
of Leagerie when he seizes the ‘Golden Helmet’ should in its opening
words be indistinguishable from the dialogue itself. Upon the other
hand, Cathleen’s verses by the fire, and those of the pupils in the
_Hour-Glass_, and those of the beggars in the _Unicorn_, are sung as
the country people understand song. Modern singing would spoil them for
dramatic purposes by taking the keenness and the salt out of the words.
The songs in _Deirdre_, in Miss Farr’s and in Miss Allgood’s setting,
need fine speakers of verse more than good singers; and in these,
and still more in the song of the Three Women in _Baile’s Strand_,
the singers must remember the natural speed of words. If the lyric
in _Baile’s Strand_ is sung slowly it is like church-singing, but if
sung quickly and with the right expression it becomes an incantation
so old that nobody can quite understand it. That it may give this
sense of something half-forgotten, it must be sung with a certain lack
of minute feeling for the meaning of the words, which, however, must
always remain words. The songs in _Deirdre_, especially the last dirge,
which is supposed to be the creation of the moment, must, upon the
other hand, at any rate when Miss Farr’s or Miss Allgood’s music is
used, be sung or spoken with minute passionate understanding. I have
rehearsed the part of the Angel in the _Hour-Glass_ with recorded notes
throughout, and believe this is the right way; but in practice, owing
to the difficulty of finding a player who did not sing too much the
moment the notes were written down, have left it to the player’s own
unrecorded inspiration, except at the ‘exit,’ where it is well for the
player to go nearer to ordinary song.
I have not yet put Miss Farr’s _Deirdre_ music to the test of
performances, but, as she and I have worked out all this art of spoken
song together, I have little doubt but I shall find it all I would have
it. Mr. Darley’s music was used at the first production of the play and
at its revival last spring, and was dramatically effective. I could
hear the words perfectly, and I think they must have been audible to
anyone hearing the play for the first or second time. They had not,
however, the full animation of speech, as one heard it in the dirge
at the end of the play set by Miss Allgood herself, who played the
principal musician. It is very difficult for a musician who is not a
speaker to do exactly what I want. Mr. Darley has written for singers
not for speakers. His music is, perhaps, too elaborate, simple though
it is. I have not had sufficient opportunity to experiment with the
play to find out the exact distance from ordinary speech necessary in
the first two lyrics, which must prolong the mood of the dialogue while
being a rest from its passions. Miss Farr’s music will be used at the
next revival of the play.
Mr. Darley’s music for _Shadowy Waters_ was supposed to be played
upon Forgael’s magic harp, and it accompanied words of Dectora’s and
Aibric’s. It was played in reality upon a violin, always pizzicato,
and gave the effect of harp playing, at any rate of a magic harp. The
‘cues’ are all given and the words are printed under the music. The
violinist followed the voice, except in the case of the ‘O’, where it
was the actress that had to follow.
W. B. YEATS.
_March, 1908._
THE KING’S THRESHOLD.
_THE FOUR RIVERS._
FLORENCE FARR.
The four rivers that run there,
Through well-mown level ground
Have come out of a blessed well
That is all bound and wound
By the great roots of an apple,
And all fowls of the air
Have gathered in the wide branches
And Keep singing there.
ON BAILE’S STRAND.
_THE FOOL’S SONG._
FLORENCE FARR.
Cuchulain has killed kings,
Kings and sons of kings,
Dragons out of the water and witches out of the air,
Banachas and Bonachas and people of the woods.
Witches that steal the milk,
Fomor that steal the children,
Hags that have heads like hares,
Hares that have claws like witches,
All riding a-cock-horse,
Out of the very bottom of the bitter black north.
ON BAILE’S STRAND.
_SONG OF THE WOMEN._
FLORENCE FARR.
May this fire have driven out
The shape-changers that can put
Ruin on a great king’s house,
Until all be ruinous.
Names whereby a man has known
The threshold and the hearthstone,
Gather on the wind and drive
Women none can kiss and thrive,
For they are but whirling wind,
Out of memory and mind.
They would make a prince decay
With light images of clay
Planted in the running wave;
Or for many shapes they have,
They would change them into hounds
Until he had died of his wounds
Though the change were but a whim;
Or they’d hurl a spell at him,
That he follow with desire
Bodies that can never tire
Or grow kind, for they anoint
All their bodies joint by joint
With a miracle-working juice
That is made out of the grease
Of the ungoverned unicorn;
But the man is thrice forlorn
Emptied, ruined, wracked, and lost,
That they follow, for at most
They will give him kiss for kiss
While they murmur “After this
Hatred may be sweet to the taste;”
Those wild hands that have embraced
All his body can but shove
At the burning wheel of love
Till the side of hate comes up.
Therefore in this ancient cup
May the sword-blades drink their fill
Of the home-brew there, until
They will have for master none
But the threshold and hearthstone.
_THE FOOL’S SONG._—II.
FLORENCE FARR.
When you were an acorn on the tree top,
Then was I an eagle-cock;
Now that you are a withered old block,
Still am I an eagle-cock.
DEIRDRE.
_MUSICIANS’ SONG._—I.
FLORENCE FARR.
First Musician.
“Why is it,” Queen Edain said,
“If I do but climb the stair
To the tower overhead
When the winds are calling there,
Or the gannets calling out,
In waste places of the sky,
There is so much to think about,
That I cry, that I cry?”
Second Musician.
But her goodman answered her:
“Love would be a thing of naught
Had not all his limbs a stir
Born out of immoderate thought.
Were he any thing by half,
Were his measure running dry,
Lovers, if they may not laugh,
Have to cry, have to cry.”
The Three Musicians together.
But is Edain worth a song
Now the hunt begins anew?
Praise the beautiful and strong;
Praise the redness of the yew;
Praise the blossoming apple-stem.
But our silence had been wise.
What is all our praise to them
That have one another’s eyes?
DEIRDRE.
_MUSICIANS’ SONG._—II.
FLORENCE FARR.
Love is an immoderate thing
And can never be content
Till it dip an ageing wing,
Where some laughing element
Leaps and Time’s old lanthorn dims.
What’s the merit in love-play,
In the tumult of the limbs
That dies out before ’tis day,
Heart on heart or mouth on mouth
All that mingling of our breath,
When love-longing is but drouth
For the things that follow death?
_MUSICIANS’ SONG._—III.
FLORENCE FARR.
First Musician.
They are gone, they are gone
The proud may lie by the proud.
Second Musician.
Though we were bidden to sing, cry nothing Loud.
First Musician.
They are gone, they are gone.
Second Musician.
Whispering were enough.
First Musician.
Into the secret wilderness of their love.
Second Musician.
A high grey cairn.
What more to be said?
First Musician.
Eagles have gone into their cloudy bed.
DEIRDRE.
_MUSICIANS’ SONG._—III.
SARAH ALLGOOD.
FIRST MUSICIAN
They are gone:
They are gone; the proud may lie by the proud.
SECOND MUSICIAN
Though we are bidden to sing, cry nothing loud.
FIRST MUSICIAN
They are gone, they are gone.
SECOND MUSICIAN
Whispering were enough.
FIRST MUSICIAN.
Into the secret wilderness of their love.
SECOND MUSICIAN
A high grey cairn.
What more is to be said?
FIRST MUSICIAN
Eagles have gone into their cloudy bed.
SHADOWY WATERS.
ARTHUR DARLEY.
Sailors. And I! And I! And I!
Dectora. Protect me now, gods, that my people swear by.
Dectora. I will end all your magic on the instant.[C]
This sword is to lie beside him in the grave.
It was in all his battles.
I will spread my hair, and wring my hands, and wail him bitterly,
For I have heard that he was proud and laughing, blue-eyed, and
a quick runner on bare feet,
And that he died a thousand years ago.
O! O! O!
But no, that is not it.
I knew him well, and while I heard him laughing they killed him at
my feet.
O! O! O! O!
For golden-armed Iollan that I loved.
Forgael. Have buried nothing by my golden arms.
Forgael. And knitted mesh to mesh we grow immortal.
FOOTNOTE:
[C] The Violinist should time the music so as to finish when Aibric
says “For everything is gone”.
THE UNICORN FROM THE STARS.
_IRISH TRADITIONAL AIRS._
“The Airy Bachelor.”
Oh come all ye airy bachelors,
come listen unto me.
A sergeant caught mefowling,
and he fired his gun so free ...
His comrades came to his relief,
And I was soon trapanned...
And bound up like a wood-cock
That had fallen into their hands.
“Johnnie Gibbons.”
1.
Oh Johnnie Gibbons my five hundred healths to you,
Its long you’re away from us over the sea.
2.
Oh Johnnie Gibbons its you were the prop to us,
You to have left us, we’re fools put astray.
“The Lion shall lose his strength.”
Oh the Lion shall lose his strength,
And the bracket thistle pine ...
And the harp shall sound sweet, sweet at length
Between the eight and nine.
THE HOUR-GLASS.
_TRADITIONAL ARAN AIR._
I was going the road one day ...
O! the brown and the yellow beer,
And I met with a man that was no right man, ...
Oh my dear, my dear.
CATHLEEN NI HOULIHAN.
FLORENCE FARR.
I.
I will go cry with the woman,
For yellow-haired Donough is dead,
With a hempen rope for a neck-cloth,
And a white cloth on his head.
II.
Do not make a great keening
When the graves have been dug tomorrow.
III.
They shall be remembered forever
[repeat 3 times]
The people shall hear them forever.
MUSIC FOR LYRICS.
Three of the following settings are by Miss Farr, and she accompanies
the words upon her psaltery for the most part. She has a beautiful
speaking-voice, and, an almost rarer thing, a perfect ear for verse;
and nothing but the attempting of it will show how far these things
can be taught or developed where they exist but a little. I believe
that they should be a part of the teaching of all children, for the
beauty of the speaking-voice is more important to our lives than that
of the singing, and the rhythm of words comes more into the structure
of our daily being than any abstract pattern of notes. The relation
between formal music and speech will yet become the subject of science,
not less than the occasion of artistic discovery; for I am certain
that all poets, even all delighted readers of poetry, speak certain
kinds of poetry to distinct and simple tunes, though the speakers may
be, perhaps generally are, deaf to ordinary music, even what we call
tone-deaf. I suggest that we will discover in this relation a very
early stage in the development of music, with its own great beauty, and
that those who love lyric poetry but cannot tell one tune from another
repeat a state of mind which created music and yet was incapable of the
emotional abstraction which delights in patterns of sound separated
from words. To it the music was an unconscious creation, the words a
conscious, for no beginnings are in the intellect, and no living thing
remembers its own birth.
I give after Miss Farr’s settings three others, two taken down by Mr.
Arnold Dolmetsch from myself, and one from a fine scholar in poetry,
who hates all music but that of poetry, and knows of no instrument that
does not fill him with rage and misery. Mr. Arnold Dolmetsch, when he
took up the subject at my persuasion, wrote down the recitation of
another lyric poet, who like myself knows nothing of music, and found
little tunes that delighted him; and Mr. George Russell (‘A.E.’) writes
all his lyrics, a musician tells me, to two little tunes which sound
like old Arabic music. I do not mean that there is only one way of
reciting a poem that is correct, for different tunes will fit different
speakers or different moods of the same speaker, but as a rule the more
the music of the verse becomes a movement of the stanza as a whole,
at the same time detaching itself from the sense as in much of Mr.
Swinburne’s poetry, the less does the poet vary in his recitation. I
mean in the way he recites when alone, or unconscious of an audience,
for before an audience he will remember the imperfection of his ear in
note and tone, and cling to daily speech, or something like it.
Sometimes one composes to a remembered air. I wrote and I still speak
the verses that begin ‘Autumn is over the long leaves that love us’ to
some traditional air, though I could not tell that air or any other on
another’s lips, and _The Ballad of Father Gilligan_ to a modification
of the air _A Fine Old English Gentleman_. When, however, the rhythm is
more personal than it is in these simple verses, the tune will always
be original and personal, alike in the poet and in the reader who has
the right ear; and these tunes will now and again have great beauty.
NOTE BY FLORENCE FARR.
I made an interesting discovery after I had been elaborating the art
of speaking to the psaltery for some time. I had tried to make it
more beautiful than the speaking by priests at High Mass, the singing
of recitative in opera and the speaking through music of actors in
melodrama. My discovery was that those who had invented these arts
had all said about them exactly what Mr. Arnold Dolmetsch and Mr. W.
B. Yeats said about my art. Anyone can prove this for himself who
will go to a library and read the authorities that describe how early
liturgical chant, plain-song and jubilations or melismata were adapted
from the ancient traditional music; or if they read the history of the
beginning of opera and the ‘nuove musiche’ by Caccini, or study the
music of Monteverde and Carissimi, who flourished at the beginning of
the seventeenth century, they will find these masters speak of doing
all they can to give an added beauty to the words of the poet, often
using simple vowel sounds when a purely vocal effect was to be made
whether of joy or sorrow. There is no more beautiful sound than the
alternation of carolling or keening and a voice speaking in regulated
declamation. The very act of alternation has a peculiar charm.
Now to read these records of music of the eighth and seventeenth
centuries one would think that the Church and the opera were united in
the desire to make beautiful speech more beautiful, but I need not say
if we put such a hope to the test we discover it is groundless. There
is no ecstasy in the delivery of ritual, and recitative is certainly
not treated by opera-singers in a way that makes us wish to imitate
them.
When beginners attempt to speak to musical notes they fall naturally
into the intoning as heard throughout our lands in our various
religious rituals. It is not until they have been forced to use their
imaginations and express the inmost meaning of the words, not until
their thought imposes itself upon all listeners and each word invokes a
special mode of beauty, that the method rises once more from the dead
and becomes a living art.
It is the belief in the power of words and the delight in the purity of
sound that will make the arts of plain-chant and recitative the great
arts they are described as being by those who first practised them.
_THE WIND BLOWS OUT OF THE GATES OF THE DAY._[A]
FLORENCE FARR.
The wind blows out of the gates of the day,
The wind blows over the lonely of heart,
And the lonely of heart is withered away,
While the fairies dance in a place apart,
Shaking their milkwhite feet in a ring,
Tossing their milkwhite arms in the air
For they hear the wind laugh and murmur and sing
Of a land where even the old are fair
And even the wise are merry of tongue.
But I heard a reed of Coolaney say,
When the wind has laughed and murmured and sung,
The lovely of heart must wither away.
_THE HAPPY TOWNLAND._[D]
FLORENCE FARR.
O Death’s old bony finger
Will never find us there
In the high hollow townland
Where love’s to give and to spare;
Where boughs have fruit and blossom
at all times of the year;
Where rivers are running over
With red beer and brown beer.
An old man plays the bagpipes
In a gold and silver wood;
Queens, their eyes blue like the ice,
Are dancing in a crowd.
Chorus.
The little fox he murmured,
‘O what of the world’s bane?’
The sun was laughing sweetly,
The moon plucked at my rein;
But the little red fox murmured,
‘O do not pluck at his rein,
He is riding to the townland
That is the world’s bane.’
FOOTNOTE:
[D] The music as written suits my speaking voice if played an octave
lower than the notation.—F.F.
_I HAVE DRUNK ALE FROM THE COUNTRY OF THE YOUNG._[E]
FLORENCE FARR.
I have drunk ale from the Country of the Young
And weep because I know all things now:
I have been a hazel tree and they hung
The Pilot Star and the Crooked Plough
Among my leaves in times out of mind:
I became a rush that horses tread:
I became a man, a hater of the wind,
Knowing one, out of all things, alone, that his head
Would not lie on the breast or his lips on the hair
Of the woman that he loves, Until he dies;
Although the rushes and the fowl of the air
Cry of his love with their pitiful cries.
_THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS._
W.B.Y.
I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream,
And caught a little silver trout.
_THE HOST OF THE AIR._
A.H.B.
O’Driscoll drove with a song
The wild duck and the drake
From the tall and tree tufted reeds
Of the drear Hart Lake.
FOOTNOTE:
[E] To be spoken an octave lower than it would be sung.—F.F.
_THE SONG OF THE OLD MOTHER._
W.B.Y.
I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow
Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow;
And then I must scrub and bake and sweep
Till stars are beginning to blink and peep;
And the young lie long and dream in their bed
Of the matching of ribbons for bosom and head,
And their day goes over in idleness,
And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress;
While I must work because I am old,
And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold.
_Printed by_ A. H. BULLEN, _at The Shakespeare Head Press,
Stratford-on-Avon_.
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Page 25, stage direction, mixed case “TEIg” was changed to “TEIG” (TEIG
and SHEMUS go out)
Page 70, “marhsalled” changed to “marshalled” (marshalled into rude
order)
Page 112, “The CHILD” changed to “THE CHILD” to match rest of usage in
text (THE CHILD makes a)
Page 214, “_Les Matinées de Timothé Trimm_” was retained as printed as
it appears spelled this way in more than one text. More common is “_Les
Matinées de Timothée Trimm_.”
Page 216, “apre” changed to “après” (Deux jours après)
Page 217, “Des” changed to “Dès” (Dès qu’elle fut)
Page 218, “enchainés” changed to “enchaînés” (enchaînés dans une prison)
Music Transcriber’s Notes:
Rhythms have been added to all songs where words are to be spoken on a
single note, to match the rhythm of speech.
Shadowy Waters—Although Yeats states in his notes on the music (pp.
223-24) that this piece was played on a violin in actual performance,
he states that it is meant to be “Forgael’s magic harp.” For that
reason, and reasons of improved sound in midi, a harp sound has been
used.
The Airy Bachelor—in bar 3, the second and fourth quarter notes have
been corrected to eighths. In “Johnnie Gibbons,” bar 1, the first note
should be a dotted quarter. In “The Lion shall lose his strength,” bar
3, the first note should be a dotted quarter.
I—The rests should be quarter rests. II and III—The key and time
signature are missing in the original, so the transcriber has guessed
at them and adjusted the rhythm to the words.
The Song of Wandering Aengus—a sixteenth rest and fermata have been
added to bar 7 to match the rhythm of the other lines in the song.
The Song of the Old Mother—In bars 3 and 19, the first note should be
sharp. In the line “And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress,” the
eighth note for “but” should be in the next bar.