Poems

OONA

There is the house at last.

ALEEL

A man, they say,
Loved Maeve the Queen of all the invisible host,
And died of his love nine centuries ago.
And now, when the moon's riding at the full,
She leaves her dancers lonely and lies there
Upon that level place, and for three days
Stretches and sighs and wets her long pale cheeks.

CATHLEEN

So she loves truly.

ALEEL

No, but wets her cheeks,
Lady, because she has forgot his name.

CATHLEEN

She'd sleep that trouble away – though it must be
A heavy trouble to forget his name —
If she had better sense.

OONA

Your own house, lady.

ALEEL

She sleeps high up on wintry Knock-na-rea
In an old cairn of stones; while her poor women
Must lie and jog in the wave if they would sleep —
Being water born – yet if she cry their names
They run up on the land and dance in the moon
Till they are giddy and would love as men do,
And be as patient and as pitiful.
But there is nothing that will stop in their heads
They've such poor memories, though they weep for it.
Oh, yes, they weep; that's when the moon is full.

CATHLEEN

Is it because they have short memories
They live so long?

ALEEL

What's memory but the ash
That chokes our fires that have begun to sink?
And they've a dizzy, everlasting fire.

OONA

There is your own house, lady.

CATHLEEN

Why, that's true,
And we'd have passed it without noticing.

ALEEL

A curse upon it for a meddlesome house!
Had it but stayed away I would have known
What Queen Maeve thinks on when the moon is pinched;
And whether now – as in the old days – the dancers
Set their brief love on men.

OONA

Rest on my arm.
These are no thoughts for any Christian ear.

ALEEL

I am younger, she would be too heavy for you.

(He begins taking his lute out of the bag, CATHLEEN, who has turned towards OONA, turns back to him.)

This hollow box remembers every foot
That danced upon the level grass of the world,
And will tell secrets if I whisper to it.

(Sings.)

Lift up the white knee;
Hear what they sing,
Those young dancers
That in a ring
Raved but now
Of the hearts that brake
Long, long ago
For their sake.

OONA

New friends are sweet.

ALEEL

"But the dance changes.
Lift up the gown,
All that sorrow
Is trodden down."

OONA

The empty rattle-pate! Lean on this arm,
That I can tell you is a christened arm,
And not like some, if we are to judge by speech.
But as you please. It is time I was forgot.
Maybe it is not on this arm you slumbered
When you were as helpless as a worm.

ALEEL

Stay with me till we come to your own house.

CATHLEEN (sitting down)

When I am rested I will need no help.

ALEEL

I thought to have kept her from remembering
The evil of the times for full ten minutes;
But now when seven are out you come between.

OONA

Talk on; what does it matter what you say,
For you have not been christened?

ALEEL

Old woman, old woman,
You robbed her of three minutes peace of mind,
And though you live unto a hundred years,
And wash the feet of beggars and give alms,
And climb Croaghpatrick, you shall not be pardoned.

OONA

How does a man who never was baptized
Know what Heaven pardons?

ALEEL

You are a sinful woman.

OONA

I care no more than if a pig had grunted.

(Enter CATHLEEN'S Steward.)

STEWARD

I am not to blame, for I had locked the gate,
The forester's to blame. The men climbed in
At the east corner where the elm-tree is.

CATHLEEN

I do not understand you, who has climbed?

STEWARD

Then God be thanked, I am the first to tell you.
I was afraid some other of the servants —
Though I've been on the watch – had been the first,
And mixed up truth and lies, your ladyship.

CATHLEEN (rising)

Has some misfortune happened?

STEWARD

Yes, indeed.
The forester that let the branches lie
Against the wall's to blame for everything,
For that is how the rogues got into the garden.

CATHLEEN

I thought to have escaped misfortune here.
Has any one been killed?

STEWARD

Oh, no, not killed.
They have stolen half a cart-load of green cabbage.

CATHLEEN

But maybe they were starving.

STEWARD

That is certain.
To rob or starve, that was the choice they had.

CATHLEEN

A learned theologian has laid down
That starving men may take what's necessary,
And yet be sinless.

OONA

Sinless and a thief!
There should be broken bottles on the wall.

CATHLEEN

And if it be a sin, while faith's unbroken
God cannot help but pardon. There is no soul
But it's unlike all others in the world,
Nor one but lifts a strangeness to God's love
Till that's grown infinite, and therefore none
Whose loss were less than irremediable
Although it were the wickedest in the world.

(Enter TEIG and SHEMUS.)

STEWARD

What are you running for? Pull off your cap,
Do you not see who's there?

SHEMUS

I cannot wait.
I am running to the world with the best news
That has been brought it for a thousand years.

STEWARD

Then get your breath and speak.

SHEMUS

If you'd my news
You'd run as fast and be as out of breath.

TEIG

Such news, we shall be carried on men's shoulders.

SHEMUS

There's something every man has carried with him
And thought no more about than if it were
A mouthful of the wind; and now it's grown
A marketable thing!

TEIG

And yet it seemed
As useless as the paring of one's nails.