The Complete Works. William Butler Yeats

PEASANT WOMAN.

      She was the great white lily of the world.

      ANOTHER PEASANT WOMAN.

      She was more beautiful than the pale stars.

      AN OLD PEASANT WOMAN.

      The little plant I loved is broken in two.

      [ALEEL takes the looking-glass from OONA and flings it upon the floor so that it is broken in many pieces.

      ALEEL.

      I shatter you in fragments, for the face

      That brimmed you up with beauty is no more:

      And die, dull heart, for she whose mournful words

      Made you a living spirit has passed away

      And left you but a ball of passionate dust;

      And you, proud earth and plumy sea, fade out,

      For you may hear no more her faltering feet,

      But are left lonely amid the clamorous war

      Of angels upon devils.

      [He stands up; almost everyone is kneeling, but it has grown so dark that only confused forms can be seen.]

      And I who weep

      Call curses on you, Time and Fate and Change,

      And have no excellent hope but the great hour

      When you shall plunge headlong through bottomless space.

      [A flash of lightning followed immediately by thunder.

      A PEASANT WOMAN.

      Pull him upon his knees before his curses

      Have plucked thunder and lightning on our heads.

      ALEEL.

      Angels and devils clash in the middle air,

      And brazen swords clang upon brazen helms:

      [A flash of lightning followed immediately by thunder.]

      Yonder a bright spear, cast out of a sling,

      Has torn through Balor’s eye, and the dark clans

      Fly screaming as they fled Moytura of old.

      [Everything is lost in darkness.

      AN OLD MAN.

      The Almighty, wrath at our great weakness and sin,

      Has blotted out the world and we must die.

      [The darkness is broken by a visionary light. The peasants seem to be kneeling upon the rocky slope of a mountain, and vapour full of storm and ever-changing light is sweeping above them and behind them. Half in the light, half in the shadow, stand armed Angels. Their armour is old and worn, and their drawn swords dim and dinted. They stand as if upon the air in formation of battle and look downward with stern faces. The peasants cast themselves on the ground.

      ALEEL.

      Look no more on the half-closed gates of Hell,

      But speak to me, whose mind is smitten of God,

      That it may be no more with mortal things;

      And tell of her who lies here.

      [He seizes one of the Angels.] Till you speak

      You shall not drift into eternity.

      THE ANGEL.

      The light beats down: the gates of pearl are wide,

      And she is passing to the floor of peace,

      And Mary of the seven times wounded heart

      Has kissed her lips, and the long blessed hair

      Has fallen on her face; the Light of Lights

      Looks always on the motive, not the deed,

      The Shadow of Shadows on the deed alone.

      [ALEEL releases the Angel and kneels.

      OONA.

      Tell them who walk upon the floor of peace

      That I would die and go to her I love;

      The years like great black oxen tread the world,

      And God the herdsman goads them on behind,

      And I am broken by their passing feet.

      [A sound of far-off horns seems to come from the heart of the light. The vision melts away, and the forms of the kneeling peasants appear faintly in the darkness.]

THE LAND OF HEART’S DESIRE

       Table of Contents

      ‘O Rose, thou art sick.’—William Blake.

      To Florence Farr

PERSONS IN THE PLAY

       Table of Contents

       MAURTEEN BRUIN

       SHAWN BRUIN

       FATHER HART

       BRIDGET BRUIN

       MAIRE BRUIN

       A FAERY CHILD

      The scene is laid in the Barony of Kilmacowen, in the County of Sligo, and the characters are supposed to speak in Gaelic. They wear the costume of a century ago.