William Yeats - The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats. Volume 3 of 8. The Countess Cathleen. The Land of Heart's Desire. The Unicorn from the Stars

Tympan and harp awaken wandering dreams.

You may not see the Countess.

I must see her.

The gardener is resolved to speak with you.
I cannot stay him.

You may come, Maurteen.

Forgive my working clothes and the dirt on me.
I bring ill words, your ladyship, – too bad
To send with any other.

These bad times,
Can any news be bad or any good?

A crowd of ugly lean-faced rogues last night —
And may God curse them! – climbed the garden wall.
There is scarce an apple now on twenty trees,
And my asparagus and strawberry beds
Are trampled into clauber, and the boughs
Of peach and plum-trees broken and torn down
For some last fruit that hung there. My dog, too,
My old blind Simon, him who had no tail,
They murdered – God’s red anger seize them!

I know how pears and all the tribe of apples
Are daily in your love – how this ill chance
Is sudden doomsday fallen on your year;
So do not say no matter. I but say
I blame the famished season, and not you.
Then be not troubled.

I thank your ladyship.

What rumours and what portents of the famine?

The yellow vapour, in whose folds it came,
That creeps along the hedges at nightfall,
Rots all the heart out of my cabbages.
I pray against it.

If her ladyship
Would give me an old crossbow, I would watch
Behind a bush and guard the pears of nights
And make a hole in somebody I know of.

They will give you a long draught of ale below.

What did he say? – he stood on my deaf side.

His apples are all stolen. Pruning time,
And the slow ripening of his pears and apples,
For him is a long, heart-moving history.

Now lay your head once more upon my knees.
I will sing how Fergus drove his brazen cars.

Who will go drive with Fergus now,
And pierce the deep woods’ woven shade,
And dance upon the level shore?
Young man, lift up your russet brow,
And lift your tender eyelids, maid,
And brood on hopes and fears no more.
You have dropped down again into your trouble.
You do not hear me.

Ah, sing on, old Oona,
I hear the horn of Fergus in my heart.

I do not know the meaning of the song.
I am too old.

The horn is calling, calling.

And no more turn aside and brood
Upon Love’s bitter mystery;
For Fergus rules the brazen cars,
And rules the shadows of the wood,
And the white breast of the dim sea
And all dishevelled wandering stars.

The Countess Cathleen must not be disturbed.

Man, I must see her.

Who now wants me, Paudeen?

A herdsman and his history.

He may come.

Forgive this dusty gear: I have come far.
My sheep were taken from the fold last night.
You will be angry: I am not to blame.
But blame these robbing times.

No blame’s with you.
I blame the famine.

Kneeling, I give thanks.
When gazing on your face, the poorest, Lady,
Forget their poverty, the rich their care.

What rumours and what portents of the famine?

As I came down the lane by Tubber-vanach
A boy and man sat cross-legged on two stones,
With moving hands and faces famine-thin,
Gabbling to crowds of men and wives and boys
Of how two merchants at a house in the woods
Buy souls for hell, giving so great a price
That men may live through all the dearth in plenty.
The vales are famine-crazy – I am right glad
My home is on the mountain near to God.

They will give you ale and meat before you go.
You must have risen at dawn to come so far.
Keep your bare mountain – let the world drift by,
The burden of its wrongs rests not on you.

I am content to serve your ladyship.

What did he say? – he stood on my deaf side.
He seemed to give you word of woful things.

A story born out of the dreaming eyes
And crazy brain and credulous ears of famine.
O, I am sadder than an old air, Oona,
My heart is longing for a deeper peace
Than Fergus found amid his brazen cars:
Would that like Edain my first forebear’s daughter,
Who followed once a twilight’s piercing tune,
I could go down and dwell among the Sidhe
In their old ever-busy honeyed land.

You should not say such things – they bring ill-luck.

The image of young Edain on the arras,
Walking along, one finger lifted up;
And that wild song of the unending dance
Of the dim Danaan nations in their raths,
Young Aleel sang for me by the great door,
Before we lost him in the shadow of leaves,
Have filled me full of all these wicked words.

The steward of the castle brings two men
To talk with you.

And tell the strangest story
The mouth of man has uttered.

More food taken;
Yet learned theologians have laid down
That he who has no food, offending no way,
May take his meat and bread from too-full larders.