The Complete Works. William Butler Yeats
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NOTE BY FLORENCE FARR.
THE WIND BLOWS OUT OF THE GATES OF THE DAY.
I HAVE DRUNK ALE FROM THE COUNTRY OF THE YOUNG.
THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN
‘The sorrowful are dumb for thee.’
Lament of Morion Shehone for Miss Mary Bourke.
To Maud Gonne.
PERSONS IN THE PLAY
Shemus Rua, a peasant
Teig, his son
Aleel, a young bard
Maurteen, a gardener
The Countess Cathleen
Oona, her foster-mother
Maire, wife of Shemus Rua
Two Demons disguised as merchants
Musicians
Peasants, Servants, &c.
Angelical Beings, Spirits, and Faeries
The scene is laid in Ireland, and in old times.
THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN.
ACT I.
The cottage of SHEMUS REA. The door into the open air is at right side of room. There is a window at one side of the door, and a little shrine of the Virgin Mother at the other. At the back is a door opening into a bedroom, and at the left side of the room a pantry door. A wood of oak, beech, hazel, and quicken is seen through the window half hidden in vapour and twilight. MAIRE watches TEIG, who fills a pot with water. He stops as if to listen, and spills some of the water.
MAIRE.
You are all thumbs.
TEIG.
Hear how the dog bays, mother,
And how the gray hen flutters in the coop.
Strange things are going up and down the land,
These famine times: by Tubber-vanach crossroads
A woman met a man with ears spread out,
And they moved up and down like wings of bats.
MAIRE.
Shemus stays late.
TEIG.
By Carrick-orus churchyard,
A herdsman met a man who had no mouth,
Nor ears, nor eyes: his face a wall of flesh;
He saw him plainly by the moon.
MAIRE.
[Going over to the little shrine.]
White Mary,
Bring Shemus home out of the wicked woods;
Save Shemus from the wolves; Shemus is daring;
And save him from the demons of the woods,
Who have crept out and wander on the roads,
Deluding dim-eyed souls now newly dead,
And those alive who have gone crazed with famine.
Save him, White Mary Virgin.
TEIG.
And but now
I thought I heard far-off tympans and harps.
[Knocking at the door.
MAIRE.
Shemus has come.
TEIG.
May he bring better food
Than the lean crow he brought us yesterday.
[MAIRE opens the door, and SHEMUS comes in with a dead wolf on his shoulder.
MAIRE.
Shemus, you are late home: you have been lounging
And chattering with some one: you know well
How the dreams trouble me, and how I pray,
Yet you lie sweating on the hill from morn,
Or linger at the crossways with all comers,
Telling or gathering up calamity.
SHEMUS.
You would rail my head off. Here is a good dinner.
[He throws the wolf on the table.
A wolf is better than a carrion crow.
I searched all day: the mice and rats and hedgehogs
Seemed to be dead, and I could hardly hear
A wing moving in all the famished woods,
Though the dead leaves and clauber of four forests
Cling to my footsole. I turned home but now,
And saw, sniffing the floor in a bare cow-house,
This young wolf here: the crossbow brought him down.
MAIRE.
Praise be the saints![After a pause.
Why did the house dog bay?
SHEMUS.
He heard me coming and smelt food—what else?
TEIG.
We will not starve awhile.
SHEMUS.
What food is within?
TEIG.
There is a bag half full of meal, a pan
Half full of milk.
SHEMUS.
And we have one old hen.
TEIG.
The bogwood were less hard.
MAIRE.
Before you came
She made a great noise in the hencoop, Shemus.
What fluttered in the window?
TEIG.
Two horned owls