by W. B. Yeats
Deep in the dewy shadow of a wood,
Or where stars walk upon a mountain-top.
MAURTEEN
Persuade the colleen to put down the book;
My grandfather would mutter just such things,
And he was no judge of a dog or a horse,
And any idle boy could blarney him;
Just speak your mind.
FATHER HART
Put it away, my colleen;
God spreads the heavens above us like great wings
And gives a little round of deeds and days,
And then come the wrecked angels and set snares,
And bait them with light hopes and heavy dreams,
Until the heart is puffed with pride and goes
Half shuddering and half joyous from God’s peace;
And it was some wrecked angel, blind with tears,
Who flattered Edane’s heart with merry words.
My colleen, I have seen some other girls
Restless and ill at ease, but years went by
And they grew like their neighbours and were glad
In minding children, working at the churn,
And gossiping of weddings and of wakes;
For life moves out of a red flare of dreams
Into a common light of common hours,
Until old age bring the red flare again.
MAURTEEN
That’s true — but she’s too young to know it’s true.
BRIDGET
She’s old enough to know that it is wrong
To mope and idle.
MAURTEEN
I’ve little blame for her;
She’s dull when my big son is in the fields,
And that and maybe this good woman’s tongue
Have driven her to hide among her dreams
Like children from the dark under the bed-clothes.
BRIDGET
She’d never do a turn if I were silent.
MAURTEEN
And maybe it is natural upon May Eve
To dream of the good people. But tell me, girl,
If you’ve the branch of blessed quicken wood
That women hang upon the post of the door
That they may send good luck into the house?
Remember they may steal new-married brides
After the fall of twilight on May Eve,
Or what old women mutter at the fire
Is but a pack of lies.
FATHER HART
It may be truth.
We do not know the limit of those powers
God has permitted to the evil spirits
For some mysterious end. You have done right (to MARY);
It’s well to keep old innocent customs up.
(MARY BRUIN has taken a bough of quicken wood from a seat and hung it on a nail in the door-post. A girl child strangely dressed, perhaps in faery green, comes out of the wood and takes it away.)
MARY
I had no sooner hung it on the nail
Before a child ran up out of the wind;
She has caught it in her hand and fondled it;
Her face is pale as water before dawn.
FATHER HART
Whose child can this be?
MAURTEEN
No one’s child at all.
She often dreams that some one has gone by,
When there was nothing but a puff of wind.
MARY
They have taken away the blessed quicken wood,
They will not bring good luck into the house;
Yet I am glad that I was courteous to them,
For are not they, likewise, children of God?
FATHER HART
Colleen, they are the children of the fiend,
And they have power until the end of Time,
When God shall fight with them a great pitched battle
And hack them into pieces.
MARY
He will smile,
Father, perhaps, and open His great door.
FATHER HART
Did but the lawless angels see that door
They would fall, slain by everlasting peace;
And when such angels knock upon our doors,
Who goes with them must drive through the same storm.
(A thin old arm comes round the door-post and knocks and beckons. It is clearly seen in the silvery light. MARY BRUIN goes to door and stands in it for a moment. MAURTEEN BRUIN is busy filling FATHER HART’S plate. BRIDGET BRUIN stirs the fire.)
MARY (coming to table)
There’s somebody out there that beckoned me
And raised her hand as though it held a cup,
And she was drinking from it, so it may be
That she is thirsty.
(She takes milk from the table and carries it to the door.)
FATHER HART
That will be the child
That you would have it was no child at all.
BRIDGET
And maybe, Father, what he said was true;
For there is not another night in the year
So wicked as to-night.
MAURTEEN
Nothing can harm us
While the good Father’s underneath our roof.
MARY
A little queer old woman dressed in green.
BRIDGET
The good people beg for milk and fire
Upon May Eve — woe to the house that gives,
For they have power upon it for a year.
MAURTEEN
Hush, woman, hush!
BRIDGET
She’s given milk away.
I knew she would bring evil on the house.
MAURTEEN
Who was it?
MARY
Both the tongue and face were strange.
MAURTEEN
Some strangers came last week to Clover Hill;
She must be one of them.
BRIDGET
I am afraid.
FATHER HART
The Cross will keep all evil from the house
While it hangs there.
MAURTEEN
Come, sit beside me, colleen,
And put away your dreams of discontent,
For I would have you light up my last days,
Like the good glow of the turf; and when I die
You’ll be the wealthiest hereabout, for, colleen,
I have a stocking full of yellow guineas
Hidden away where nobody can find it.
BRIDGET
You are the fool of every pretty face,
And I must spare and pinch that my son’s wife
May have all kinds of ribbons for her head.
MAURTEEN
Do not be cross; she is a right good girl!
The butter is by your elbow, Father Hart.
My colleen, have not Fate and Time and Change
Done well for me and for old Bridget there?
We have a hundred acres of good land,
And sit beside each other at the fire.
I have this reverend Father for my friend,
I look upon your face and my son’s face —
We’ve put his plate by yours — and here he comes,
And brings with him the only thing we have lacked,
Abundance of good wine. (SHAWN comes in.) Stir up the fire,
And put new turf upon it till it blaze;
To watch the turf-smoke coiling from the fire,
And feel content and wisdom in your heart,
This is the best of life; when we are young
We long to tread a way none trod before,
But find the excellent old way through love,
And through the care of children, to the hour
For bidding Fate and Time and Change goodbye.
(MARY takes a sod of turf from the fire and goes out through the door. SHAWN follows her and meets her coming in.)
SHAWN
What is it draws you to the chill o’ the wood?
There i
s a light among the stems of the trees
That makes one shiver.
MARY
A little queer old man
Made me a sign to show he wanted fire
To light his pipe.
BRIDGET
You’ve given milk and fire
Upon the unluckiest night of the year and brought,
For all you know, evil upon the house.
Before you married you were idle and fine
And went about with ribbons on your head;
And now — no, Father, I will speak my mind —
She is not a fitting wife for any man — —
SHAWN
Be quiet, Mother!
MAURTEEN
You are much too cross.
MARY
What do I care if I have given this house,
Where I must hear all day a bitter tongue,
Into the power of faeries!
BRIDGET
You know well
How calling the good people by that name,
Or talking of them over much at all,
May bring all kinds of evil on the house.
MARY
Come, faeries, take me out of this dull house!
Let me have all the freedom I have lost;
Work when I will and idle when I will!
Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind.
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame.
FATHER HART
You cannot know the meaning of your words.
MARY
Father, I am right weary of four tongues:
A tongue that is too crafty and too wise,
A tongue that is too godly and too grave,
A tongue that is more bitter than the tide,
And a kind tongue too full of drowsy love,
Of drowsy love and my captivity.
(SHAWN BRUIN leads her to a seat at the left of the door.)
SHAWN
Do not blame me; I often lie awake
Thinking that all things trouble your bright head.
How beautiful it is — your broad pale forehead
Under a cloudy blossoming of hair!
Sit down beside me here — these are too old,
And have forgotten they were ever young.
MARY
O, you are the great door-post of this house,
And I the branch of blessed quicken wood,
And if I could I’d hang upon the post,
Till I had brought good luck into the house.
(She would put her arms about him, but looks shyly at the priest and lets her arms fall.)
FATHER HART
My daughter, take his hand — by love alone
God binds us to Himself and to the hearth,
That shuts us from the waste beyond His peace,
From maddening freedom and bewildering light.
SHAWN
Would that the world were mine to give it you,
And not its quiet hearths alone, but even
All that bewilderment of light and freedom,
If you would have it.
MARY
I would take the world
And break it into pieces in my hands
To see you smile watching it crumble away.
SHAWN
Then I would mould a world of fire and dew,
With no one bitter, grave or over wise,
And nothing marred or old to do you wrong,
And crowd the enraptured quiet of the sky
With candles burning to your lonely face.
MARY
Your looks are all the candles that I need.
SHAWN
Once a fly dancing in a beam of the sun,
Or the light wind blowing out of the dawn,
Could fill your heart with dreams none other knew,
But now the indissoluble sacrament
Has mixed your heart that was most proud and cold
With my warm heart for ever; the sun and moon
Must fade and heaven be rolled up like a scroll;
But your white spirit still walk by my spirit.
(A Voice singing in the wood.)
MAURTEEN
There’s some one singing. Why, it’s but a child.
It sang, “The lonely of heart is withered away.”
A strange song for a child, but she sings sweetly.
Listen, listen!
(Goes to door.)
MARY
O, cling close to me,
Because I have said wicked things to-night.
THE VOICE
The wind blows out of the gates of the day,
The wind blows over the lonely of heart,
And the lonely of heart is withered away.
While the faeries dance in a place apart,
Shaking their milk-white feet in a ring,
Tossing their milk-white arms in the air;
For they hear the wind laugh and murmur and sing
Of a land where even the old are fair,
And even the wise are merry of tongue;
But I heard a reed of Coolaney say,
“When the wind has laughed and murmured and sung
The lonely of heart is withered away!”
MAURTEEN
Being happy, I would have all others happy,
So I will bring her in out of the cold.
(He brings in the faery child.)
THE CHILD
I tire of winds and waters and pale lights.
MAURTEEN
And that’s no wonder, for when night has fallen
The wood’s a cold and a bewildering place,
But you are welcome here.
THE CHILD
I am welcome here.
For when I tire of this warm little house
There is one here that must away, away.
MAURTEEN
O, listen to her dreamy and strange talk.
Are you not cold?
THE CHILD
I will crouch down beside you,
For I have run a long, long way this night.
BRIDGET
You have a comely shape.
MAURTEEN
Your hair is wet.
BRIDGET
I’ll warm your chilly feet.
MAURTEEN
You have come indeed
A long, long way — for I have never seen
Your pretty face — and must be tired and hungry,
Here is some bread and wine.
THE CHILD
The wine is bitter.
Old mother, have you no sweet food for me?
BRIDGET
I have some honey.
(She goes into the next room.)
MAURTEEN
You have coaxing ways,
The mother was quite cross before you came.
(BRIDGET returns with the honey and fills a porringer with milk.)
BRIDGET
She is the child of gentle people; look
At her white hands and at her pretty dress.
I’ve brought you some new milk, but wait a while
And I will put it to the fire to warm,
For things well fitted for poor folk like us
Would never please a high-born child like you.
THE CHILD
From dawn, when you must blow the fire ablaze,
You work your fingers to the bone, old mother.
The young may lie in bed and dream and hope,
But you must work your fingers to the bone
Because your heart is old.
BRIDGET
The young are idle.
THE CHILD
Your memories have made you wise, old father;
The young must sigh through many a dream and hope,
But you are wise because your heart is old.
(BRIDGET gives her more bread and honey.)
MAURTEEN
Loving old age and wisdom?
THE CHILD
No more, mother.
MAURTEEN
What a small bite! The milk is ready now. (Hands it to her.) What a small sip!
THE CHILD
Put on my shoes, old mother.
Now I would like to dance now I have eaten,
The reeds are dancing by Coolaney lake,
And I would like to dance until the reeds
And the white waves have danced themselves asleep.
(BRIDGET puts on the shoes, and the CHILD is about to dance, but suddenly sees the crucifix and shrieks and covers her eyes.)