The Complete Works. William Butler Yeats

to deny him love,

      What can he but hold out beseeching hands,

      Then let them fall beside him, knowing how greatly

      They have overdared?

      [He goes towards the door of the hall. The COUNTESS CATHLEEN takes a few steps towards him.

      CATHLEEN.

      If the old tales are true,

      Queens have wed shepherds and kings beggar-maids;

      God’s procreant waters flowing about your mind

      Have made you more than kings or queens; and not you

      But I am the empty pitcher.

      ALEEL.

      Being silent,

      I have said all—farewell, farewell; and yet no,

      Give me your hand to kiss.

      CATHLEEN.

      I kiss your brow,

      But will not say farewell. I am often weary,

      And I would hear the harp-string.

      ALEEL.

      I cannot stay,

      For I would hide my sorrow among the hills—

      Listen, listen, the hills are calling me.

      [They listen for a moment.

      CATHLEEN.

      I hear the cry of curlew.

      ALEEL.

      Then I will out

      Where I can hear wind cry and water cry

      And curlew cry: how does the saying go

      That calls them the three oldest cries in the world?

      Farewell, farewell, I will go wander among them,

      Because there is no comfort under a roof-tree.

      [He goes out.

      CATHLEEN.

       [Looking through the door after him.]

      I cannot see him. He has come to the great door.

      I must go pray. Would that my heart and mind

      Were as little shaken as this candle-light.

      [She goes into the chapel. The TWO MERCHANTS enter.

      SECOND MERCHANT.

      Who was the man that came from the great door

      While we were still in the shadow?

      FIRST MERCHANT.

      Aleel, her lover.

      SECOND MERCHANT.

      It may be that he has turned her thought from us

      And we can gather our merchandise in peace.

      FIRST MERCHANT.

      No, no, for she is kneeling.

      SECOND MERCHANT.

      Shut the door.

      Are all our drudges here?

      FIRST MERCHANT.

       [Closing the chapel door.]

      I bid them follow.

      Can you not hear them breathing upon the stairs?

      I have sat this hour under the elder-tree.

      SECOND MERCHANT.

      I had bid you rob her treasury, and yet

      I found you sitting drowsed and motionless,

      Your chin bowed to your knees, while on all sides,

      Bat-like from bough and roof and window-ledge,

      Clung evil souls of men, and in the woods,

      Like streaming flames, floated upon the winds

      The elemental creatures.

      FIRST MERCHANT.

      I have fared ill;

      She prayed so hard I could not cross the threshold

      Till this young man had turned her prayer to dreams.

      You have had a man to kill: how have you fared?

      SECOND MERCHANT.

      I lay in the image of a nine-monthed bonyeen,

      By Tubber-vanach cross-roads: Father John

      Came, sad and moody, murmuring many prayers;

      I seemed as though I came from his own sty;

      He saw the one brown ear; the breviary dropped;

      He ran; I ran, I ran into the quarry;

      He fell a score of yards.

      FIRST MERCHANT.

      Now that he is dead

      We shall be too much thronged with souls to-morrow.

      Did his soul escape you?

      SECOND MERCHANT.

      I thrust it in the bag.

      But the hand that blessed the poor and raised the Host

      Tore through the leather with sharp piety.

      FIRST MERCHANT.

      Well, well, to labour—here is the treasury door.

      [They go out by the left-hand door, and enter again in a little while, carrying full bags upon their shoulders.

      FIRST MERCHANT.

      Brave thought, brave thought—a shining thought of mine!

      She now no more may bribe the poor—no more

      Cheat our great master of his merchandise,

      While our heels dangle at the house in the woods,

      And grass grows on the threshold, and snails crawl

      Along the window-pane and the mud floor.

      Brother, where wander all these dwarfish folk,

      Hostile to men, the people of the tides?

      SECOND MERCHANT.

      [Going to the door.]

      They are gone. They have already wandered away,

      Unwilling labourers.

      FIRST MERCHANT.

      I will call them hither.

      [He opens the window.

      Come hither, hither, hither, water-folk:

      Come, all you elemental populace;

      Leave lonely the long-hoarding surges: leave

      The cymbals of the waves to clash alone,

      And, shaking the sea-tangles from your hair,

      Gather about us. [After a pause.

      I can hear a sound

      As from waves beating upon distant strands;

      And the sea-creatures, like a surf of light,

      Pour eddying through the pathways of the oaks;

      And as they come, the sentient grass and leaves

      Bow towards them, and the tall, drouth-jaded oaks

      Fondle the murmur of their flying feet.

      SECOND MERCHANT.

      The green things love unknotted hearts and minds;

      And