The Complete Works. William Butler Yeats

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СКАЧАТЬ and two owls passed me by,

      Whispering with human voices.

      THE OLD PEASANT.

      God forsakes us.

      CATHLEEN.

      Old man, old man, He never closed a door

      Unless one opened. I am desolate,

      For a most sad resolve wakes in my heart:

      But always I have faith. Old men and women,

      Be silent; He does not forsake the world,

      But stands before it modelling in the clay

      And moulding there His image. Age by age

      The clay wars with His fingers and pleads hard

      For its old, heavy, dull, and shapeless ease;

      At times it crumbles and a nation falls,

      Now moves awry and demon hordes are born.

      [The peasants cross themselves.

      But leave me now, for I am desolate,

      I hear a whisper from beyond the thunder.

      [She steps down from the oratory door.

      Yet stay an instant. When we meet again

      I may have grown forgetful. Oona, take

      These two—the larder and the dairy keys.

      [To THE OLD PEASANT.] But take you this. It opens the small room

      Of herbs for medicine, of hellebore,

      Of vervain, monkshood, plantain, and self-heal

      And all the others; and the book of cures

      Is on the upper shelf. You understand,

      Because you doctored goats and cattle once.

      THE OLD PEASANT.

      Why do you do this, lady—did you see

      Your coffin in a dream?

      CATHLEEN.

      Ah, no, not that,

      A sad resolve wakes in me. I have heard

      A sound of wailing in unnumbered hovels,

      And I must go down, down, I know not where.

      Pray for the poor folk who are crazed with famine;

      Pray, you good neighbours.

      [The peasants all kneel. The COUNTESS CATHLEEN ascends the steps to the door of the oratory, and, turning round, stands there motionless for a little, and then cries in a loud voice.]

      Mary, queen of angels,

      And all you clouds on clouds of saints, farewell!

ACT IV.

       Table of Contents

      The cabin of SHEMUS RUA. The TWO MERCHANTS are sitting one at each end of the table, with rolls of parchment and many little heaps of gold before them. Through an open door, at the back, one sees into an inner room, in which there is a bed. On the bed is the body of MAIRE with candles about it.

      FIRST MERCHANT.

      The woman may keep robbing us no more,

      For there are only mice now in her coffers.

      SECOND MERCHANT.

      Last night, closed in the image of an owl,

      I hurried to the cliffs of Donegal,

      And saw, creeping on the uneasy surge,

      Those ships that bring the woman grain and meal;

      They are five days from us.

      FIRST MERCHANT.

      I hurried East,

      A gray owl flitting, flitting in the dew,

      And saw nine hundred oxen toil through Meath

      Driven on by goads of iron; they, too, brother,

      Are full five days from us.

      SECOND MERCHANT.

      Five days for traffic.

      [While they have been speaking the peasants have come in, led by TEIG and SHEMUS, who take their stations, one on each side of the door, and keep them marshalled into rude order and encourage them from time to time with gestures and whispered words.

      Here throng they; since the drouth they go in throngs,

      Like autumn leaves blown by the dreary winds.

      Come, deal—come, deal.

      FIRST MERCHANT.

      Who will come deal with us?

      SHEMUS.

      They are out of spirit, sir, with lack of food,

      Save four or five. Here, sir, is one of these;

      The others will gain courage in good time.

      A MIDDLE-AGED MAN.

      I come to deal if you give honest price.

      FIRST MERCHANT.

      [Reading in a parchment.]

      John Maher, a man of substance, with dull mind,

      And quiet senses and unventurous heart.

      The angels think him safe. Two hundred crowns,

      All for a soul, a little breath of wind.

      THE MAN.

      I ask three hundred crowns. You have read there,

      That no mere lapse of days can make me yours.

      FIRST MERCHANT.

      There is something more writ here—often at night

      He is wakeful from a dread of growing poor.

      There is this crack in you—two hundred crowns.

      [THE СКАЧАТЬ