The Complete Works. William Butler Yeats

his soul and lose his God,

      Your eyes lighted, and the strange weariness

      That hangs about you vanished. When you told

      How my poor money serves the people—both—

      Merchants, forgive me—seemed to smile.

      FIRST MERCHANT.

      Man’s sins

      Move us to laughter only, we have seen

      So many lands and seen so many men.

      How strange that all these people should be swung

      As on a lady’s shoe-string—under them

      The glowing leagues of never-ending flame!

      CATHLEEN.

      There is a something in you that I fear:

      A something not of us. Were you not born

      In some most distant corner of the world?

      [The SECOND MERCHANT, who has been listening at the door to the right, comes forward, and as he comes a sound of voices and feet is heard through the door to his left.

      SECOND MERCHANT [aside to FIRST MERCHANT].

      Away now—they are in the passage—hurry,

      For they will know us, and freeze up our hearts

      With Ave Marys, and burn all our skin

      With holy water.

      FIRST MERCHANT.

      Farewell: we must ride

      Many a mile before the morning come;

      Our horses beat the ground impatiently.

      [They go out to R. A number of peasants enter at the same moment by the opposite door.

      CATHLEEN.

      What would you?

      A PEASANT.

      As we nodded by the fire,

      Telling old histories, we heard a noise

      Of falling money. We have searched in vain.

      CATHLEEN.

      You are too timid. I heard naught at all.

      THE OLD PEASANT.

      Ay, we are timid, for a rich man’s word

      Can shake our houses, and a moon of drouth

      Shrivel our seedlings in the barren earth;

      We are the slaves of wind, and hail, and flood;

      Fear jogs our elbow in the market-place,

      And nods beside us on the chimney-seat.

      Ill-bodings are as native unto our hearts

      As are their spots unto the woodpeckers.

      CATHLEEN.

      You need not shake with bodings in this house.

      [Oona enters from the door to L.

      OONA.

      The treasure-room is broken in—mavrone—mavrone;

      The door stands open and the gold is gone.

      [The peasants raise a lamenting cry.

      CATHLEEN.

      Be silent. [The cry ceases.

      Saw you any one?

      OONA.

      Mavrone,

      That my good mistress should lose all this money.

      CATHLEEN.

      You three upon my right hand, ride and ride;

      I will give a farm to him who finds the thieves.

      [A man with keys at his girdle has entered while she was speaking.

      A PEASANT.

      The porter trembles.

      THE PORTER.

      It is all no use;

      Demons were here. I sat beside the door

      In my stone niche, and two owls passed me by,

      Whispering with human voices.

      THE OLD PEASANT.

      God forsakes us.

      CATHLEEN.

      Old man, old man, He never closed a door

      Unless one opened. I am desolate,

      For a most sad resolve wakes in my heart:

      But always I have faith. Old men and women,

      Be silent; He does not forsake the world,

      But stands before it modelling in the clay

      And moulding there His image. Age by age

      The clay wars with His fingers and pleads hard

      For its old, heavy, dull, and shapeless ease;

      At times it crumbles and a nation falls,

      Now moves awry and demon hordes are born.

      [The peasants cross themselves.

      But leave me now, for I am desolate,

      I hear a whisper from beyond the thunder.

      [She steps down from the oratory door.

      Yet stay an instant. When we meet again

      I may have grown forgetful. Oona, take

      These two—the larder and the dairy keys.

      [To THE OLD PEASANT.] But take you this. It opens the small room

      Of herbs for medicine, of hellebore,

      Of vervain, monkshood, plantain, and self-heal

      And all the others; and the book of cures

      Is on the upper shelf. You understand,

      Because you doctored goats and cattle once.

      THE OLD PEASANT.

      Why do you do this, lady—did you see

      Your coffin in a dream?

      CATHLEEN.

      Ah, no, not that,

      A sad resolve wakes in me. I have heard

      A sound of wailing in unnumbered hovels,

      And I must go down, down, I know not where.

      Pray for the poor folk who are crazed with famine;

      Pray, you good neighbours.

      [The peasants all kneel. The COUNTESS CATHLEEN ascends the steps to the door of the oratory, and, turning round, stands there motionless for a little, and then cries in a loud voice.]

      Mary, queen of angels,

      And all you clouds on clouds of saints, farewell!

ACT IV.

       Table of Contents

      The cabin of SHEMUS RUA. The TWO MERCHANTS are sitting one at each end of the table, with rolls of parchment and many little heaps of gold before them. Through an open door, at the back, one sees into an inner room, in which there is a bed. On the bed is the body of MAIRE with candles about it.

      FIRST MERCHANT.

      The woman may keep robbing us no more,

      For there