The Complete Works. William Butler Yeats

      You are not of this country, or you’d know

      That they are in my charge, and all forgiven.

      FIRST MUSICIAN.

      We have no country but the roads of the world.

      FERGUS.

      Then you should know that all things change in the world,

      And hatred turns to love and love to hate,

      And even kings forgive.

      FIRST MUSICIAN.

      An old man’s love

      Who casts no second line, is hard to cure;

      His jealousy is like his love.

      FERGUS.

      And that’s but true.

      You have learned something in your wanderings.

      He was so hard to cure, that the whole court,

      But I alone, thought it impossible;

      Yet after I had urged it at all seasons,

      I had my way, and all’s forgiven now;

      And you shall speak the welcome and the joy

      That I lack tongue for.

      FIRST MUSICIAN.

      Yet old men are jealous.

      FERGUS [going to door].

      I am Conchubar’s near friend, and that weighed somewhat,

      And it was policy to pardon them.

      The need of some young, famous, popular man

      To lead the troops, the murmur of the crowd,

      And his own natural impulse, urged him to it.

      They have been wandering half-a-dozen years.

      FIRST MUSICIAN.

      And yet old men are jealous.

      FERGUS [coming from door].

      Sing the more sweetly

      Because, though age is arid as a bone,

      This man has flowered. I’ve need of music, too;

      If this gray head would suffer no reproach,

      I’d dance and sing—and dance till the hour ran out,

      Because I have accomplished this good deed.

      FIRST MUSICIAN.

      Look there—there at the window, those dark men,

      With murderous and outlandish-looking arms—

      They’ve been about the house all day.

      [Dark-faced MEN with strange barbaric dress and arms pass by the doors and windows. They pass one by one and in silence.

      FERGUS [looking after them].

      What are you?

      Where do you come from, who is it sent you here?

      FIRST MUSICIAN.

      They will not answer you.

      FERGUS.

      They do not hear.

      FIRST MUSICIAN.

      Forgive my open speech, but to these eyes

      That have seen many lands, they are such men

      As kings will gather for a murderous task,

      That neither bribes, commands, nor promises

      Can bring their people to.

      FERGUS.

      And that is why

      You harped upon an old man’s jealousy.

      A trifle sets you quaking. Conchubar’s fame

      Brings merchandise on every wind that blows.

      They may have brought him Libyan dragon-skin,

      Or the ivory of the fierce unicorn.

      FIRST MUSICIAN.

      If these be merchants, I have seen the goods

      They have brought to Conchubar, and understood

      His murderous purpose.

      FERGUS.

      Murderous, you say?

      Why, what new gossip of the roads is this?

      But I’ll not hear.

      FIRST MUSICIAN.

      It may be life or death.

      There is a room in Conchubar’s house, and there—

      FERGUS.

      Be silent, or I’ll drive you from the door.

      There’s many a one that would do more than that,

      And make it prison, or death, or banishment

      To slander the High King.

      [Suddenly restraining himself and speaking gently.

      He is my friend;

      I have his oath, and I am well content.

      I have known his mind as if it were my own

      These many years, and there is none alive

      Shall buzz against him, and I there to stop it.

      I know myself, and him, and your wild thought

      Fed on extravagant poetry, and lit

      By such a dazzle of old fabulous tales

      That common things are lost, and all that’s strange

      Is true because ’twere pity if it were not.

      [Going to the door again.

      Quick! quick! your instruments! they are coming now.

      I hear the hoofs a-clatter. Begin that song;

      But what is it to be? I’d have them hear

      A music foaming up out of the house

      Like wine out of a cup. Come now, a verse

      Of some old time not worth remembering,

      And all the lovelier because a bubble.

      Begin, begin, of some old king and queen,

      Of Lugaidh Redstripe or another; no, not him,

      He and his lady perished wretchedly.

      FIRST MUSICIAN [singing].

      ‘Why is it,’ Queen Edain said,

      ‘If I do but climb the stair. …’

      FERGUS.

      Ah! that is better. … They are alighted now.

      Shake all your cockscombs, children; these are lovers.

      [FERGUS goes out.

      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’s so much to think about,