William Yeats - Poems

You are too timid,

For now you are safe from all the evil times,

There is no evil that can find you here.

OONA ( entering hurriedly )

Ochone! Ochone! The treasure room is broken in.

The door stands open, and the gold is gone.

(PEASANTS raise a lamentable cry .)

CATHLEEN

Be silent. ( The cry ceases. ) Have you seen nobody?

OONA

Ochone!

That my good mistress should lose all this money.

CATHLEEN

Let those among you—not too old to ride—

Get horses and search all the country round,

I'll give a farm to him who finds the thieves.

( A man with keys at his girdle has come in while she speaks. There is a general murmur of "The porter! the porter!" )

PORTER

Demons were here. I sat beside the door

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

Whispering with human voices.

OLD PEASANT

God forsakes us.

CATHLEEN

Old man, old man, He never closed a door

Unless one opened. I am desolate,

Because of a strange thought that's in my heart;

But I have still my faith; therefore be silent;

For surely 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;

But sometimes—though His hand is on it still—

It moves awry and demon hordes are born.

(PEASANTS cross themselves .)

Yet leave me now, for I am desolate,

I hear a whisper from beyond the thunder.

( She comes 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 PORTER.)

But take you this. It opens the small room

Of herbs for medicine, of hellebore,

Of vervain, monkshood, plantain, and self-heal.

The book of cures is on the upper shelf.

PORTER

Why do you do this, lady; did you see

Your coffin in a dream?

CATHLEEN

Ah, no, not that.

But I have come to a strange thought. I have heard

A sound of wailing in unnumbered hovels,

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

Pray for all men and women mad from famine;

Pray, you good neighbours.

( The PEASANTS all kneel . 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!

END OF SCENE III.

Scene.— A wood near the Castle, as in Scene II. A group of PEASANTS pass .

FIRST PEASANT

I have seen silver and copper, but not gold.

SECOND PEASANT

It's yellow and it shines.

FIRST PEASANT

It's beautiful.

The most beautiful thing under the sun,

That's what I've heard.

THIRD PEASANT

I have seen gold enough.

FOURTH PEASANT

I would not say that it's so beautiful.

FIRST PEASANT

But doesn't a gold piece glitter like the sun?

That's what my father, who'd seen better days,

Told me when I was but a little boy—

So high—so high, it's shining like the sun,

Round and shining, that is what he said.

SECOND PEASANT

There's nothing in the world it cannot buy.

FIRST PEASANT

They've bags and bags of it.

( They go out. The two MERCHANTS follow silently . Then ALEEL passes over the stage singing .)

ALEEL

Impetuous heart be still, be still,

Your sorrowful love can never be told,

Cover it up with a lonely tune.

He who could bend all things to His will

Has covered the door of the infinite fold

With the pale stars and the wandering moon.

END OF SCENE IV.

Scene.— The house of SHEMUS RUA. There is an alcove at the back with curtains; in it a bed, and on the bed is the body of MARY with candles round it . The two MERCHANTS while they speak put a large book upon a table, arrange money, and so on .

FIRST MERCHANT

Thanks to that lie I told about her ships

And that about the herdsman lying sick,

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

SECOND MERCHANT

What has she in her coffers now but mice?

FIRST MERCHANT

When the night fell and I had shaped myself

Into the image of the man-headed owl,

I hurried to the cliffs of Donegal,

And saw with all their canvas full of wind

And rushing through the parti-coloured sea

Those ships that bring the woman grain and meal.

They're but three days from us.

SECOND MERCHANT

When the dew rose

I hurried in like feathers to the east,

And saw nine hundred oxen driven through Meath

With goads of iron. They're but three days from us.

FIRST MERCHANT

Three days for traffic.

(PEASANTS crowd in with TEIG and SHEMUS.)

SHEMUS

Come in, come in, you are welcome.

That is my wife. She mocked at my great masters,

And would not deal with them. Now there she is;

She does not even know she was a fool,

So great a fool she was.

TEIG

She would not eat

One crumb of bread bought with our master's money,

But lived on nettles, dock, and dandelion.

SHEMUS

There's nobody could put into her head

That Death is the worst thing can happen us.

Though that sounds simple, for her tongue grew rank

With all the lies that she had heard in chapel.

Draw to the curtain. (TEIG draws it .) You'll not play the fool

While these good gentlemen are there to save you.

SECOND MERCHANT

Since the drought came they drift about in a throng,

Like autumn leaves blown by the dreary winds.

Come, deal—come, deal.

FIRST MERCHANT

Who will come deal with us?

SHEMUS

They are out of spirit, sir, with lack of food,

Save four or five. Here, sir, is one of these;

The others will gain courage in good time.

MIDDLE-AGED-MAN

I come to deal—if you give honest price.

FIRST MERCHANT ( reading in a book )

"John Maher, a man of substance, with dull mind,

And quiet senses and unventurous heart.

The angels think him safe." Two hundred crowns,

All for a soul, a little breath of wind.

THE MAN

I ask three hundred crowns. You have read there

That no mere lapse of days can make me yours.

FIRST MERCHANT

There is something more writ here—"Often at night

He is wakeful from a dread of growing poor,

And thereon wonders if there's any man

That he could rob in safety."

A PEASANT

Who'd have thought it?

And I was once alone with him at midnight.

ANOTHER PEASANT

I will not trust my mother after this.

FIRST MERCHANT

There is this crack in you—two hundred crowns.

A PEASANT

That's plenty for a rogue.

ANOTHER PEASANT

I'd give him nothing.

SHEMUS

You'll get no more—so take what's offered you.

( A general murmur, during which the MIDDLE-AGED MAN takes money, and slips into background, where he sinks on to a seat .)

FIRST MERCHANT

Has no one got a better soul than that?

If only for the credit of your parishes,

Traffic with us.

A WOMAN

What will you give for mine?

FIRST MERCHANT ( reading in book )