The Complete Works. William Butler Yeats

NOTE BY FLORENCE FARR.

       THE WIND BLOWS OUT OF THE GATES OF THE DAY.

       THE HAPPY TOWNLAND.

       I HAVE DRUNK ALE FROM THE COUNTRY OF THE YOUNG.

       THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS.

       THE HOST OF THE AIR.

       THE SONG OF THE OLD MOTHER.

THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN

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      ‘The sorrowful are dumb for thee.’

      Lament of Morion Shehone for Miss Mary Bourke.

      To Maud Gonne.

PERSONS IN THE PLAY

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       Shemus Rua, a peasant

       Teig, his son

       Aleel, a young bard

       Maurteen, a gardener

       The Countess Cathleen

       Oona, her foster-mother

       Maire, wife of Shemus Rua

       Two Demons disguised as merchants

       Musicians

       Peasants, Servants, &c.

       Angelical Beings, Spirits, and Faeries

      The scene is laid in Ireland, and in old times.

THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN.

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ACT I.

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      The cottage of SHEMUS REA. The door into the open air is at right side of room. There is a window at one side of the door, and a little shrine of the Virgin Mother at the other. At the back is a door opening into a bedroom, and at the left side of the room a pantry door. A wood of oak, beech, hazel, and quicken is seen through the window half hidden in vapour and twilight. MAIRE watches TEIG, who fills a pot with water. He stops as if to listen, and spills some of the water.

      MAIRE.

      You are all thumbs.

      TEIG.

      Hear how the dog bays, mother,

      And how the gray hen flutters in the coop.

      Strange things are going up and down the land,

      These famine times: by Tubber-vanach crossroads

      A woman met a man with ears spread out,

      And they moved up and down like wings of bats.

      MAIRE.

      Shemus stays late.

      TEIG.

      By Carrick-orus churchyard,

      A herdsman met a man who had no mouth,

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

      He saw him plainly by the moon.

      MAIRE.

      [Going over to the little shrine.]

      White Mary,

      Bring Shemus home out of the wicked woods;

      Save Shemus from the wolves; Shemus is daring;

      And save him from the demons of the woods,

      Who have crept out and wander on the roads,

      Deluding dim-eyed souls now newly dead,

      And those alive who have gone crazed with famine.

      Save him, White Mary Virgin.

      TEIG.

      And but now

      I thought I heard far-off tympans and harps.

      [Knocking at the door.

      MAIRE.

      Shemus has come.

      TEIG.

      May he bring better food

      Than the lean crow he brought us yesterday.

      [MAIRE opens the door, and SHEMUS comes in with a dead wolf on his shoulder.

      MAIRE.

      Shemus, you are late home: you have been lounging

      And chattering with some one: you know well

      How the dreams trouble me, and how I pray,

      Yet you lie sweating on the hill from morn,

      Or linger at the crossways with all comers,

      Telling or gathering up calamity.

      SHEMUS.

      You would rail my head off. Here is a good dinner.

      [He throws the wolf on the table.

      A wolf is better than a carrion crow.

      I searched all day: the mice and rats and hedgehogs

      Seemed to be dead, and I could hardly hear

      A wing moving in all the famished woods,

      Though the dead leaves and clauber of four forests

      Cling to my footsole. I turned home but now,

      And saw, sniffing the floor in a bare cow-house,

      This young wolf here: the crossbow brought him down.

      MAIRE.

      Praise be the saints![After a pause.

      Why did the house dog bay?

      SHEMUS.

      He heard me coming and smelt food—what else?

      TEIG.

      We will not starve awhile.

      SHEMUS.

      What food is within?

      TEIG.

      There is a bag half full of meal, a pan

      Half full of milk.

      SHEMUS.

      And we have one old hen.

      TEIG.

      The bogwood were less hard.

      MAIRE.

      Before you came

      She made a great noise in the hencoop, Shemus.

      What fluttered in the window?

      TEIG.

      Two horned owls