The Complete Works. William Butler Yeats
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Where no child’s born but to outlive the moon.’
[The SAILORS come in with AIBRIC. They are in great excitement.
FIRST SAILOR.
The hold is full of treasure.
SECOND SAILOR.
Full to the hatches.
FIRST TWO.
Treasure and treasure.
THIRD SAILOR.
Boxes of precious spice.
FIRST SAILOR.
Ivory images with amethyst eyes.
THIRD SAILOR.
Dragons with eyes of ruby.
FIRST SAILOR.
The whole ship
Flashes as if it were a net of herrings.
THIRD SAILOR.
Let’s home; I’d give some rubies to a woman.
SECOND SAILOR.
There’s somebody I’d give the amethyst eyes to.
FIRST SAILOR.
Let’s home and spend it in our villages.
AIBRIC.
[Silencing them with a gesture.]
We would return to our own country, Forgael,
For we have found a treasure that’s so great
Imagination cannot reckon it.
And having lit upon this woman there,
What more have you to look for on the seas?
FORGAEL.
I cannot—I am going on to the end.
As for this woman, I think she is coming with me.
AIBRIC.
The ever-living have made you mad; but no,
It was this woman in her woman’s vengeance
That drove you to it, and I fool enough
To fancy that she’d bring you home again.
’Twas you that egged him to it, for you know
That he is being driven to his death.
DECTORA.
That is not true, for he has promised me
An unimaginable happiness.
AIBRIC.
And if that happiness be more than dreams,
More than the froth, the feather, the dustwhirl,
The crazy nothing that I think it is,
It shall be in the country of the dead,
If there be such a country.
DECTORA.
No, not there,
But in some island where the life of the world
Leaps upward, as if all the streams o’ the world
Had run into one fountain.
AIBRIC.
Speak to him.
He knows that he is taking you to death;
Speak—he will not deny it.
DECTORA.
Is that true?
FORGAEL.
I do not know for certain, but I know
That I have the best of pilots.
AIBRIC.
Shadows, illusions,
That the shape-changers, the ever-laughing ones,
The immortal mockers have cast into his mind,
Or called before his eyes.
DECTORA.
O carry me
To some sure country, some familiar place.
Have we not everything that life can give
In having one another?
FORGAEL.
How could I rest
If I refused the messengers and pilots
With all those sights and all that crying out?
DECTORA.
But I will cover up your eyes and ears,
That you may never hear the cry of the birds,
Or look upon them.
FORGAEL.
Were they but lowlier
I’d do your will, but they are too high—too high.
DECTORA.
Being too high, their heady prophecies
But harry us with hopes that come to nothing,
Because we are not proud, imperishable,
Alone and winged.
FORGAEL.
Our love shall be like theirs
When we have put their changeless image on.
DECTORA.
I am a woman, I die at every breath.
AIBRIC.
Let the birds scatter for the tree is broken.
And there’s no help in words. [To the SAILORS.] To the other ship,
And I will follow you and cut the rope
When I have said farewell to this man here,
For neither I nor any living man
Will look upon his face again.
[The SAILORS go out.
FORGAEL [to DECTORA]
Go with him,
For he will shelter you and bring you home.
AIBRIC.
[Taking FORGAEL’S hand.]
I’ll do it for his sake.
DECTORA.
No. Take this sword
And cut the rope, for I go on with Forgael.
AIBRIC.
[Half-falling into the keen.]
The yew bough has been broken into two,
And all the birds are scattered—O! O! O!
Farewell! farewell!
[He goes out.
DECTORA.
The sword is in the rope—
The rope’s in two—it falls into the sea,
It whirls into the foam. O ancient worm,
Dragon that loved the world and held us to it,
You are broken, you are broken. The world drifts away,
And I am left alone with my beloved,
Who cannot put me from his sight for ever.
We are alone for ever, and I laugh,
Forgael,