William Yeats - The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats. Volume 2 of 8

But it would be the greater compliment
If Peter’d do it.

Reason with him, Peter.
Persuade him to eat; he’s such a bag of bones!

I’ll never trust a woman’s word again!
There’s nobody that was so loud against him
When he was at the table; now the wind’s changed,
And you that could not bear his speech or his silence,
Would have him there in his old place again;
I do believe you would, but I won’t help you.

Why will you be so hard upon us, Peter?
You know we have turned the common sort against us,
And he looks miserable.

We cannot dance,
Because no harper will pluck a string for us.

I cannot sleep with thinking of his face.

And I love dancing more than anything.

Do not be hard on us; but yesterday
A woman in the road threw stones at me.
You would not have me stoned?

May I not dance?

I will do nothing. You have put him out,
And now that he is out – well, leave him out.

Do it for my sake, Peter.

And for mine.

Well, well; but not your way. [ To SEANCHAN.] Here’s meat for you.
It has been carried from too good a table
For men like you, and I am offering it
Because these women have made a fool of me.

You mean to starve? You will have none of it?
I’ll leave it there, where you can sniff the savour.
Snuff it, old hedgehog, and unroll yourself!
But if I were the King, I’d make you do it
With wisps of lighted straw.

You have rightly named me.
I lie rolled up under the ragged thorns
That are upon the edge of those great waters
Where all things vanish away, and I have heard
Murmurs that are the ending of all sound.
I am out of life; I am rolled up, and yet,
Hedgehog although I am, I’ll not unroll
For you, King’s dog! Go to the King, your master.
Crouch down and wag your tail, for it may be
He has nothing now against you, and I think
The stripes of your last beating are all healed.

Put up your sword, sir; put it up, I say!
The common sort would tear you into pieces
If you but touched him.

If he’s to be flattered,
Petted, cajoled, and dandled into humour,
We might as well have left him at the table.

You must need keep your patience yet awhile,
For I have some few mouthfuls of sweet air
To swallow before I have grown to be as civil
As any other dust.

You wrong us, Seanchan.
There is none here but holds you in respect;
And if you’d only eat out of this dish,
The King would show how much he honours you.

Who could imagine you’d so take to heart
Being put from the high table? I am certain
That you, if you will only think it over,
Will understand that it is men of law,
Leaders of the King’s armies, and the like,
That should sit there.

Somebody has deceived you,
Or maybe it was your own eyes that lied,
In making it appear that I was driven
From the King’s table. You have driven away
The images of them that weave a dance
By the four rivers in the mountain garden.

You mean we have driven poetry away.
But that’s not altogether true, for I,
As you should know, have written poetry.
And often when the table has been cleared,
And candles lighted, the King calls for me,
And I repeat it him. My poetry
Is not to be compared with yours; but still,
Where I am honoured, poetry is honoured —
In some measure.

If you are a poet,
Cry out that the King’s money would not buy,
Nor the high circle consecrate his head,
If poets had never christened gold, and even
The moon’s poor daughter, that most whey-faced metal,
Precious; and cry out that none alive
Would ride among the arrows with high heart,
Or scatter with an open hand, had not
Our heady craft commended wasteful virtues.
And when that story’s finished, shake your coat
Where little jewels gleam on it, and say,
A herdsman, sitting where the pigs had trampled,
Made up a song about enchanted kings,
Who were so finely dressed, one fancied them
All fiery, and women by the churn
And children by the hearth caught up the song
And murmured it, until the tailors heard it.

If you would but eat something you’d find out
That you have had these thoughts from lack of food,
For hunger makes us feverish.

Cry aloud,
That when we are driven out we come again
Like a great wind that runs out of the waste
To blow the tables flat; and thereupon
Lie down upon the threshold till the King
Restore to us the ancient right of the poets.

You cannot shake him. I will to the King,
And offer him consolation in his trouble,
For that man there has set his teeth to die.
And being one that hates obedience,
Discipline, and orderliness of life,
I cannot mourn him.

’Twas you that stirred it up.
You stirred it up that you might spoil our dancing.
Why shouldn’t we have dancing? We’re not in Lent.
Yet nobody will pipe or play to us;
And they will never do it if he die.
And that is why you are going.

What folly’s this?

Well, if you did not do it, speak to him —
Use your authority; make him obey you.
What harm is there in dancing?

Hush! begone!
Go to the fields and watch the hurley players,
Or any other place you have a mind to.
This is not woman’s work.

Come! let’s away!
We can do nothing here.

The pride of the poets!
Dancing, hurling, the country full of noise,
And King and Church neglected. Seanchan,
I’ll take my leave, for you are perishing
Like all that let the wanton imagination
Carry them where it will, and it’s not likely
I’ll look upon your living face again.