Poems. William Butler Yeats

can have kept your father all this while?

TEIG

      Two nights ago, at Carrick-orus churchyard,

      A herdsman met a man who had no mouth,

      Nor eyes, nor ears; his face a wall of flesh;

      He saw him plainly by the light of the moon.

MARY

      Look out, and tell me if your father's coming.

      (TEIG goes to door.)

TEIG

      Mother!

MARY

      What is it?

TEIG

      In the bush beyond,

      There are two birds – if you can call them birds —

      I could not see them rightly for the leaves.

      But they've the shape and colour of horned owls

      And I'm half certain they've a human face.

MARY

      Mother of God, defend us!

TEIG

      They're looking at me.

      What is the good of praying? father says.

      God and the Mother of God have dropped asleep.

      What do they care, he says, though the whole land

      Squeal like a rabbit under a weasel's tooth?

MARY

      You'll bring misfortune with your blasphemies

      Upon your father, or yourself, or me.

      I would to God he were home – ah, there he is.

      (SHEMUS comes in.)

      What was it kept you in the wood? You know

      I cannot get all sorts of accidents

      Out of my mind till you are home again.

SHEMUS

      I'm in no mood to listen to your clatter.

      Although I tramped the woods for half a day,

      I've taken nothing, for the very rats,

      Badgers, and hedgehogs seem to have died of drought,

      And there was scarce a wind in the parched leaves.

TEIG

      Then you have brought no dinner.

SHEMUS

      After that

      I sat among the beggars at the cross-roads,

      And held a hollow hand among the others.

MARY

      What, did you beg?

SHEMUS

      I had no chance to beg,

      For when the beggars saw me they cried out

      They would not have another share their alms,

      And hunted me away with sticks and stones.

TEIG

      You said that you would bring us food or money.

SHEMUS

      What's in the house?

TEIG

      A bit of mouldy bread.

MARY

      There's flour enough to make another loaf.

TEIG

      And when that's gone?

MARY

      There is the hen in the coop.

SHEMUS

      My curse upon the beggars, my curse upon them!

TEIG

      And the last penny gone.

SHEMUS

      When the hen's gone,

      What can we do but live on sorrel and dock,

      And dandelion, till our mouths are green?

MARY

      God, that to this hour's found bit and sup,

      Will cater for us still.

SHEMUS

      His kitchen's bare.

      There were five doors that I looked through this day

      And saw the dead and not a soul to wake them.

MARY

      Maybe He'd have us die because He knows,

      When the ear is stopped and when the eye is stopped,

      That every wicked sight is hid from the eye,

      And all fool talk from the ear.

SHEMUS

      Who's passing there?

      And mocking us with music?

      (A stringed instrument without.)

TEIG

      A young man plays it,

      There's an old woman and a lady with him.

SHEMUS

      What is the trouble of the poor to her?

      Nothing at all or a harsh radishy sauce

      For the day's meat.

MARY

      God's pity on the rich.

      Had we been through as many doors, and seen

      The dishes standing on the polished wood

      In the wax candle light, we'd be as hard,

      And there's the needle's eye at the end of all.

SHEMUS

      My curse upon the rich.

TEIG

      They're coming here.

SHEMUS

      Then down upon that stool, down quick, I say,

      And call up a whey face and a whining voice,

      And let your head be bowed upon your knees.

MARY

      Had I but time to put the place to rights.

      (CATHLEEN, OONA, and ALEEL enter.)

CATHLEEN

      God save all here. There is a certain house,

      An old grey castle with a kitchen garden,

      A cider orchard and a plot for flowers,

      Somewhere among these woods.

MARY

      We know it, lady.

      A place that's set among impassable walls

      As though world's trouble could not find it out.

CATHLEEN

      It may be that we are that trouble, for we —

      Although we've wandered in the wood this hour —

      Have lost it too, yet I should know my way,

      For I lived all my childhood in that house.

MARY

      Then you are Countess Cathleen?

CATHLEEN

      And this woman,

      Oona, my nurse, should have remembered it,

      For we were happy for a long time there.

OONA

      The