Poems. William Butler Yeats

swine and cattle, fields and implements

      Are sold and gone.

FIRST MERCHANT

      They have not sold all yet.

      For there's a vaporous thing – that may be nothing,

      But that's the buyer's risk – a second self,

      They call immortal for a story's sake.

SHEMUS

      They come to buy our souls?

TEIG

      I'll barter mine.

      Why should we starve for what may be but nothing?

MARY

      Teig and Shemus —

SHEMUS

      What can it be but nothing?

      What has God poured out of His bag but famine?

      Satan gives money.

TEIG

      Yet no thunder stirs.

FIRST MERCHANT

      There is a heap for each.

      (SHEMUS goes to take money.)

      But no, not yet,

      For there's a work I have to set you to.

SHEMUS

      So then you're as deceitful as the rest,

      And all that talk of buying what's but a vapour

      Is fancy bread. I might have known as much,

      Because that's how the trick-o'-the-loop man talks.

FIRST MERCHANT

      That's for the work, each has its separate price;

      But neither price is paid till the work's done.

TEIG

      The same for me.

MARY

      Oh, God, why are you still?

FIRST MERCHANT

      You've but to cry aloud at every cross-road,

      At every house door, that we buy men's souls.

      And give so good a price that all may live

      In mirth and comfort till the famine's done,

      Because we are Christian men.

SHEMUS

      Come, let's away.

TEIG

      I shall keep running till I've earned the price.

SECOND MERCHANT

      (who has risen and gone towards fire)

      Stop; you must have proof behind the words.

      So here's your entertainment on the road.

      (He throws a bag of money on the ground.)

      Live as you please; our Master's generous.

      (TEIG and SHEMUS have stopped. TEIG takes the money. They go out.)

MARY

      Destroyers of souls, God will destroy you quickly.

      You shall at last dry like dry leaves and hang

      Nailed like dead vermin to the doors of God.

SECOND MERCHANT

      Curse to your fill, for saints will have their dreams.

FIRST MERCHANT

      Though we're but vermin that our Master sent

      To overrun the world, he at the end

      Shall pull apart the pale ribs of the moon

      And quench the stars in the ancestral night.

MARY

      God is all powerful.

SECOND MERCHANT

      Pray, you shall need Him.

      You shall eat dock and grass, and dandelion,

      Till that low threshold there becomes a wall,

      And when your hands can scarcely drag your body

      We shall be near you.

      (MARY faints.)

      (The FIRST MERCHANT takes up the carpet, spreads it before the fire and stands in front of it warming his hands.)

FIRST MERCHANT

      Our faces go unscratched,

      Wring the neck o' that fowl, scatter the flour

      And look if there is bread upon the shelves.

      We'll turn the fowl upon the spit and roast it,

      And eat the supper we were bidden to,

      Now that the house is quiet, praise our Master,

      And stretch and warm our heels among the ashes.

END OF SCENE I

      SCENE II

      FRONT SCENE. —A wood with perhaps distant view of turreted house at one side, but all in flat colour, without light and shade and against a diapered or gold background.

      COUNTESS CATHLEEN comes in leaning upon ALEEL'S arm. OONA follows them.

CATHLEEN (stopping)

      Surely this leafy corner, where one smells

      The wild bee's honey, has a story too?

OONA

      There is the house at last.

ALEEL

      A man, they say,

      Loved Maeve the Queen of all the invisible host,

      And died of his love nine centuries ago.

      And now, when the moon's riding at the full,

      She leaves her dancers lonely and lies there

      Upon that level place, and for three days

      Stretches and sighs and wets her long pale cheeks.

CATHLEEN

      So she loves truly.

ALEEL

      No, but wets her cheeks,

      Lady, because she has forgot his name.

CATHLEEN

      She'd sleep that trouble away – though it must be

      A heavy trouble to forget his name —

      If she had better sense.

OONA

      Your own house, lady.

ALEEL

      She sleeps high up on wintry Knock-na-rea

      In an old cairn of stones; while her poor women

      Must lie and jog in the wave if they would sleep —

      Being water born – yet if she cry their names

      They run up on the land and dance in the moon

      Till they are giddy and would love as men do,

      And be as patient and as pitiful.

      But there is nothing that will stop in their heads

      They've such poor memories, though they weep for it.

      Oh, yes, they weep; that's when the moon is full.

CATHLEEN

      Is it because they have short memories

      They live so long?

ALEEL

      What's