RESPONSIBILITIES
AND OTHER POEMS

'In dreams begins responsibility.'

Old Play.

'How am I fallen from myself, for a long time now

I have not seen the Prince of Chang in my dreams.'

Khoung-fou-tseu.

Pardon, old fathers, if you still remain

Somewhere in ear-shot for the story's end,

Old Dublin merchant 'free of ten and four'

Or trading out of Galway into Spain;

And country scholar, Robert Emmet's friend,

A hundred-year-old memory to the poor;

Traders or soldiers who have left me blood

That has not passed through any huxter's loin,

Pardon, and you that did not weigh the cost,

Old Butlers when you took to horse and stood

Beside the brackish waters of the Boyne

Till your bad master blenched and all was lost;

[2] You merchant skipper that leaped overboard

After a ragged hat in Biscay Bay,

You most of all, silent and fierce old man

Because you were the spectacle that stirred

My fancy, and set my boyish lips to say

'Only the wasteful virtues earn the sun';

Pardon that for a barren passion's sake,

Although I have come close on forty-nine

I have no child, I have nothing but a book,

Nothing but that to prove your blood and mine.

Poets with whom I learned my trade,

Companions of the Cheshire Cheese,

Here's an old story I've re-made,

Imagining 'twould better please

Your ears than stories now in fashion,

Though you may think I waste my breath

Pretending that there can be passion

That has more life in it than death,

And though at bottling of your wine

The bow-legged Goban had no say;

The moral's yours because it's mine.

When cups went round at close of day—

Is not that how good stories run?—

Somewhere within some hollow hill,

[4] If books speak truth in Slievenamon,

But let that be, the gods were still

And sleepy, having had their meal,

And smoky torches made a glare

On painted pillars, on a deal

Of fiddles and of flutes hung there

By the ancient holy hands that brought them

From murmuring Murias, on cups—

Old Goban hammered them and wrought them,

And put his pattern round their tops

To hold the wine they buy of him.

But from the juice that made them wise

All those had lifted up the dim

Imaginations of their eyes,

For one that was like woman made

Before their sleepy eyelids ran

And trembling with her passion said,

'Come out and dig for a dead man,

Who's burrowing somewhere in the ground,

[5] And mock him to his face and then

Hollo him on with horse and hound,

For he is the worst of all dead men.'

We should be dazed and terror struck,

If we but saw in dreams that room,

Those wine-drenched eyes, and curse our luck

That emptied all our days to come.

I knew a woman none could please,

Because she dreamed when but a child

Of men and women made like these;

And after, when her blood ran wild,

Had ravelled her own story out,

And said, 'In two or in three years

I need must marry some poor lout,'

And having said it burst in tears.

Since, tavern comrades, you have died,

Maybe your images have stood,

Mere bone and muscle thrown aside,

Before that roomful or as good.

You had to face your ends when young—

'Twas wine or women, or some curse—

[6] But never made a poorer song

That you might have a heavier purse,

Nor gave loud service to a cause

That you might have a troop of friends.

You kept the Muses' sterner laws,

And unrepenting faced your ends,

And therefore earned the right—and yet

Dowson and Johnson most I praise—

To troop with those the world's forgot,

And copy their proud steady gaze.

'The Danish troop was driven out

Between the dawn and dusk,' she said;

'Although the event was long in doubt,

Although the King of Ireland's dead

And half the kings, before sundown

All was accomplished.'

'When this day

Murrough, the King of Ireland's son,

Foot after foot was giving way,

[7] He and his best troops back to back

Had perished there, but the Danes ran,

Stricken with panic from the attack,

The shouting of an unseen man;

And being thankful Murrough found,

Led by a footsole dipped in blood

That had made prints upon the ground,

Where by old thorn trees that man stood;

And though when he gazed here and there,

He had but gazed on thorn trees, spoke,

"Who is the friend that seems but air

And yet could give so fine a stroke?"

Thereon a young man met his eye,

Who said, "Because she held me in

Her love, and would not have me die,

Rock-nurtured Aoife took a pin,

And pushing it into my shirt,

Promised that for a pin's sake,

No man should see to do me hurt;

But there it's gone; I will not take

[8] The fortune that had been my shame

Seeing, King's son, what wounds you have."

'Twas roundly spoke, but when night came

He had betrayed me to his grave,

For he and the King's son were dead.

I'd promised him two hundred years,

And when for all I'd done or said—

And these immortal eyes shed tears—

He claimed his country's need was most,

I'd save his life, yet for the sake

Of a new friend he has turned a ghost.

What does he care if my heart break?

I call for spade and horse and hound

That we may harry him.' Thereon

She cast herself upon the ground

And rent her clothes and made her moan:

'Why are they faithless when their might

Is from the holy shades that rove

[9] The grey rock and the windy light?

Why should the faithfullest heart most love

The bitter sweetness of false faces?

Why must the lasting love what passes,

Why are the gods by men betrayed!'

But thereon every god stood up

With a slow smile and without sound,

And stretching forth his arm and cup

To where she moaned upon the ground,

Suddenly drenched her to the skin;

And she with Goban's wine adrip,

No more remembering what had been,

Stared at the gods with laughing lip.

I have kept my faith, though faith was tried,

To that rock-born, rock-wandering foot,

And the world's altered since you died,

And I am in no good repute

[10] With the loud host before the sea,

That think sword strokes were better meant

Than lover's music—let that be,

So that the wandering foot's content.

King Eochaid came at sundown to a wood

Westward of Tara. Hurrying to his queen

He had out-ridden his war-wasted men

That with empounded cattle trod the mire;

And where beech trees had mixed a pale green light

With the ground-ivy's blue, he saw a stag

Whiter than curds, its eyes the tint of the sea.

Because it stood upon his path and seemed

More hands in height than any stag in the world

[12] He sat with tightened rein and loosened mouth

Upon his trembling horse, then drove the spur;

But the stag stooped and ran at him, and passed,

Rending the horse's flank. King Eochaid reeled

Then drew his sword to hold its levelled point

Against the stag. When horn and steel were met

The horn resounded as though it had been silver,

A sweet, miraculous, terrifying sound.

Horn locked in sword, they tugged and struggled there

As though a stag and unicorn were met

In Africa on Mountain of the Moon,

Until at last the double horns, drawn backward,

Butted below the single and so pierced

[13] The entrails of the horse. Dropping his sword

King Eochaid seized the horns in his strong hands

And stared into the sea-green eye, and so

Hither and thither to and fro they trod

Till all the place was beaten into mire.

The strong thigh and the agile thigh were met,

The hands that gathered up the might of the world,

And hoof and horn that had sucked in their speed

Amid the elaborate wilderness of the air.

Through bush they plunged and over ivied root,

And where the stone struck fire, while in the leaves

A squirrel whinnied and a bird screamed out;

But when at last he forced those sinewy flanks

[14] Against a beech bole, he threw down the beast

And knelt above it with drawn knife. On the instant

It vanished like a shadow, and a cry

So mournful that it seemed the cry of one

Who had lost some unimaginable treasure

Wandered between the blue and the green leaf

And climbed into the air, crumbling away,

Till all had seemed a shadow or a vision

But for the trodden mire, the pool of blood,

The disembowelled horse.

King Eochaid ran,

Toward peopled Tara, nor stood to draw his breath

Until he came before the painted wall,

The posts of polished yew, circled with bronze,

[15] Of the great door; but though the hanging lamps

Showed their faint light through the unshuttered windows,

Nor door, nor mouth, nor slipper made a noise,

Nor on the ancient beaten paths, that wound

From well-side or from plough-land, was there noise;

And there had been no sound of living thing

Before him or behind, but that far-off

On the horizon edge bellowed the herds.

Knowing that silence brings no good to kings,

And mocks returning victory, he passed

Between the pillars with a beating heart

And saw where in the midst of the great hall

Pale-faced, alone upon a bench, Edain

[16] Sat upright with a sword before her feet.

Her hands on either side had gripped the bench,

Her eyes were cold and steady, her lips tight.

Some passion had made her stone. Hearing a foot

She started and then knew whose foot it was;

But when he thought to take her in his arms

She motioned him afar, and rose and spoke:

'I have sent among the fields or to the woods

The fighting men and servants of this house,

For I would have your judgment upon one

Who is self-accused. If she be innocent

She would not look in any known man's face

[17] Till judgment has been given, and if guilty,

Will never look again on known man's face.'

And at these words he paled, as she had paled,

Knowing that he should find upon her lips

The meaning of that monstrous day.

Then she:

'You brought me where your brother Ardan sat

Always in his one seat, and bid me care him

Through that strange illness that had fixed him there,

And should he die to heap his burial mound

And carve his name in Ogham.' Eochaid said,

'He lives?' 'He lives and is a healthy man.'

[18] 'While I have him and you it matters little

What man you have lost, what evil you have found.'

'I bid them make his bed under this roof

And carried him his food with my own hands,

And so the weeks passed by. But when I said

"What is this trouble?" he would answer nothing,

Though always at my words his trouble grew;

And I but asked the more, till he cried out,

Weary of many questions: "There are things

That make the heart akin to the dumb stone."

Then I replied: "Although you hide a secret,

Hopeless and dear, or terrible to think on,

[19] Speak it, that I may send through the wide world

For medicine." Thereon he cried aloud:

"Day after day you question me, and I,

Because there is such a storm amid my thoughts

I shall be carried in the gust, command,

Forbid, beseech and waste my breath." Then I,

"Although the thing that you have hid were evil,

The speaking of it could be no great wrong,

And evil must it be, if done 'twere worse

Than mound and stone that keep all virtue in,

And loosen on us dreams that waste our life,

Shadows and shows that can but turn the brain."

But finding him still silent I stooped down

[20] And whispering that none but he should hear,

Said: "If a woman has put this on you,

My men, whether it please her or displease,

And though they have to cross the Loughlan waters

And take her in the middle of armed men,

Shall make her look upon her handiwork,

That she may quench the rick she has fired; and though

She may have worn silk clothes, or worn a crown,

She'll not be proud, knowing within her heart

That our sufficient portion of the world

Is that we give, although it be brief giving,

Happiness to children and to men."

Then he, driven by his thought beyond his thought,

[21] And speaking what he would not though he would,

Sighed: "You, even you yourself, could work the cure!"

And at those words I rose and I went out

And for nine days he had food from other hands,

And for nine days my mind went whirling round

The one disastrous zodiac, muttering

That the immedicable mound's beyond

Our questioning, beyond our pity even.

But when nine days had gone I stood again

Before his chair and bending down my head

Told him, that when Orion rose, and all

The women of his household were asleep,

To go—for hope would give his limbs the power—

[22] To an old empty woodman's house that's hidden

Close to a clump of beech trees in the wood

Westward of Tara, there to await a friend

That could, as he had told her, work his cure

And would be no harsh friend.

When night had deepened,

I groped my way through boughs, and over roots,

Till oak and hazel ceased and beech began,

And found the house, a sputtering torch within,

And stretched out sleeping on a pile of skins

Ardan, and though I called to him and tried

To shake him out of sleep, I could not rouse him.

I waited till the night was on the turn,

[23] Then fearing that some labourer, on his way

To plough or pasture-land, might see me there,

Went out.

Among the ivy-covered rocks,

As on the blue light of a sword, a man

Who had unnatural majesty, and eyes

Like the eyes of some great kite scouring the woods,

Stood on my path. Trembling from head to foot

I gazed at him like grouse upon a kite;

But with a voice that had unnatural music,

"A weary wooing and a long," he said,

"Speaking of love through other lips and looking

Under the eyelids of another, for it was my craft

That put a passion in the sleeper there,

And when I had got my will and drawn you here,

[24] Where I may speak to you alone, my craft

Sucked up the passion out of him again

And left mere sleep. He'll wake when the sun wakes,

Push out his vigorous limbs and rub his eyes,

And wonder what has ailed him these twelve months."

I cowered back upon the wall in terror,

But that sweet-sounding voice ran on: "Woman,

I was your husband when you rode the air,

Danced in the whirling foam and in the dust,

In days you have not kept in memory,

Being betrayed into a cradle, and I come

That I may claim you as my wife again."

I was no longer terrified, his voice

[25] Had half awakened some old memory,

Yet answered him: "I am King Eochaid's wife

And with him have found every happiness

Women can find." With a most masterful voice,

That made the body seem as it were a string

Under a bow, he cried: "What happiness

Can lovers have that know their happiness

Must end at the dumb stone? But where we build

Our sudden palaces in the still air

Pleasure itself can bring no weariness,

Nor can time waste the cheek, nor is there foot

That has grown weary of the whirling dance,

Nor an unlaughing mouth, but mine that mourns,

[26] Among those mouths that sing their sweethearts' praise,

Your empty bed." "How should I love," I answered,

"Were it not that when the dawn has lit my bed

And shown my husband sleeping there, I have sighed,

'Your strength and nobleness will pass away.'

Or how should love be worth its pains were it not

That when he has fallen asleep within my arms,

Being wearied out, I love in man the child?

What can they know of love that do not know

She builds her nest upon a narrow ledge

Above a windy precipice?" Then he:

"Seeing that when you come to the death-bed

[27] You must return, whether you would or no,

This human life blotted from memory,

Why must I live some thirty, forty years,

Alone with all this useless happiness?"

Thereon he seized me in his arms, but I

Thrust him away with both my hands and cried,

"Never will I believe there is any change

Can blot out of my memory this life

Sweetened by death, but if I could believe

That were a double hunger in my lips

For what is doubly brief."

And now the shape,

My hands were pressed to, vanished suddenly.

I staggered, but a beech tree stayed my fall,

[28] And clinging to it I could hear the cocks

Crow upon Tara.'

King Eochaid bowed his head

And thanked her for her kindness to his brother,

For that she promised, and for that refused.

Thereon the bellowing of the empounded herds

Rose round the walls, and through the bronze-ringed door

Jostled and shouted those war-wasted men,

And in the midst King Eochaid's brother stood.

He'd heard that din on the horizon's edge

And ridden towards it, being ignorant.

You gave but will not give again

Until enough of Paudeen's pence

By Biddy's halfpennies have lain

To be 'some sort of evidence,'

Before you'll put your guineas down,

That things it were a pride to give

Are what the blind and ignorant town

Imagines best to make it thrive.

What cared Duke Ercole, that bid

His mummers to the market place,

What th' onion-sellers thought or did

So that his Plautus set the pace

For the Italian comedies?

And Guidobaldo, when he made

[30] That grammar school of courtesies

Where wit and beauty learned their trade

Upon Urbino's windy hill,

Had sent no runners to and fro

That he might learn the shepherds' will.

And when they drove out Cosimo,

Indifferent how the rancour ran,

He gave the hours they had set free

To Michelozzo's latest plan

For the San Marco Library,

Whence turbulent Italy should draw

Delight in Art whose end is peace,

In logic and in natural law

By sucking at the dugs of Greece.

Your open hand but shows our loss,

For he knew better how to live.

Let Paudeens play at pitch and toss,

Look up in the sun's eye and give

What the exultant heart calls good

[31] That some new day may breed the best

Because you gave, not what they would

But the right twigs for an eagle's nest!

What need you, being come to sense,

But fumble in a greasy till

And add the halfpence to the pence

And prayer to shivering prayer, until

You have dried the marrow from the bone;

For men were born to pray and save:

Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,

It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Yet they were of a different kind

The names that stilled your childish play,

They have gone about the world like wind,

But little time had they to pray

For whom the hangman's rope was spun,

[33] And what, God help us, could they save:

Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,

It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Was it for this the wild geese spread

The grey wing upon every tide;

For this that all that blood was shed,

For this Edward Fitzgerald died,

And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone,

All that delirium of the brave;

Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,

It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Yet could we turn the years again,

And call those exiles as they were,

In all their loneliness and pain

You'd cry 'some woman's yellow hair

Has maddened every mother's son':

They weighed so lightly what they gave,

But let them be, they're dead and gone,

They're with O'Leary in the grave.

Now all the truth is out,

Be secret and take defeat

From any brazen throat,

For how can you compete,

Being honour bred, with one

Who, were it proved he lies,

Were neither shamed in his own

Nor in his neighbours' eyes?

Bred to a harder thing

Than Triumph, turn away

And like a laughing string

Whereon mad fingers play

Amid a place of stone,

Be secret and exult,

Because of all things known

That is most difficult.

Indignant at the fumbling wits, the obscure spite

Of our old Paudeen in his shop, I stumbled blind

Among the stones and thorn trees, under morning light;

Until a curlew cried and in the luminous wind

A curlew answered; and suddenly thereupon I thought

That on the lonely height where all are in God's eye,

There cannot be, confusion of our sound forgot,

A single soul that lacks a sweet crystaline cry.

If you have revisited the town, thin Shade,

Whether to look upon your monument

(I wonder if the builder has been paid)

Or happier thoughted when the day is spent

To drink of that salt breath out of the sea

When grey gulls flit about instead of men,

And the gaunt houses put on majesty:

Let these content you and be gone again;

For they are at their old tricks yet.

A man

Of your own passionate serving kind who had brought

[37] In his full hands what, had they only known,

Had given their children's children loftier thought,

Sweeter emotion, working in their veins

Like gentle blood, has been driven from the place,

And insult heaped upon him for his pains

And for his open-handedness, disgrace;

An old foul mouth that slandered you had set

The pack upon him.

Go, unquiet wanderer,

And gather the Glasnevin coverlet

About your head till the dust stops your ear,

The time for you to taste of that salt breath

And listen at the corners has not come;

[38] You had enough of sorrow before death—

Away, away! You are safer in the tomb.

We have cried in our despair

That men desert,

For some trivial affair

Or noisy, insolent sport,

Beauty that we have won

From bitterest hours;

Yet we, had we walked within

Those topless towers

Where Helen walked with her boy,

Had given but as the rest

Of the men and women of Troy,

A word and a jest.

Once, when midnight smote the air,

Eunuchs ran through Hell and met

From thoroughfare to thoroughfare,

While that great Juan galloped by;

And like these to rail and sweat

Staring upon his sinewy thigh.

'Though to my feathers in the wet,

I have stood here from break of day,

I have not found a thing to eat

For only rubbish comes my way.

Am I to live on lebeen-lone?'

Muttered the old crane of Gort.

'For all my pains on lebeen-lone.'

King Guari walked amid his court

The palace-yard and river-side

And there to three old beggars said:

'You that have wandered far and wide

Can ravel out what's in my head.

Do men who least desire get most,

Or get the most who most desire?'

A beggar said: 'They get the most

[42] Whom man or devil cannot tire,

And what could make their muscles taut

Unless desire had made them so.'

But Guari laughed with secret thought,

'If that be true as it seems true,

One of you three is a rich man,

For he shall have a thousand pounds

Who is first asleep, if but he can

Sleep before the third noon sounds.'

And thereon merry as a bird,

With his old thoughts King Guari went

From river-side and palace-yard

And left them to their argument.

'And if I win,' one beggar said,

'Though I am old I shall persuade

A pretty girl to share my bed';

The second: 'I shall learn a trade';

The third: 'I'll hurry to the course

Among the other gentlemen,

And lay it all upon a horse';

The second: 'I have thought again:

[43] A farmer has more dignity.'

One to another sighed and cried:

The exorbitant dreams of beggary,

That idleness had borne to pride,

Sang through their teeth from noon to noon;

And when the second twilight brought

The frenzy of the beggars' moon

They closed their blood-shot eyes for naught.

One beggar cried: 'You're shamming sleep.'

And thereupon their anger grew

Till they were whirling in a heap.

They'd mauled and bitten the night through

Or sat upon their heels to rail,

And when old Guari came and stood

Before the three to end this tale,

They were commingling lice and blood.

'Time's up,' he cried, and all the three

[44] With blood-shot eyes upon him stared.

'Time's up,' he cried, and all the three

Fell down upon the dust and snored.

'Maybe I shall be lucky yet,

Now they are silent,' said the crane.

'Though to my feathers in the wet

I've stood as I were made of stone

And seen the rubbish run about,

It's certain there are trout somewhere

And maybe I shall take a trout

If but I do not seem to care.'

Three old hermits took the air

By a cold and desolate sea,

First was muttering a prayer,

Second rummaged for a flea;

On a windy stone, the third,

Giddy with his hundredth year,

Sang unnoticed like a bird.

'Though the Door of Death is near

And what waits behind the door,

Three times in a single day

I, though upright on the shore,

Fall asleep when I should pray.'

So the first but now the second,

'We're but given what we have earned

When all thoughts and deeds are reckoned,

So it's plain to be discerned

[46] That the shades of holy men,

Who have failed being weak of will,

Pass the Door of Birth again,

And are plagued by crowds, until

They've the passion to escape.'

Moaned the other, 'They are thrown

Into some most fearful shape.'

But the second mocked his moan:

'They are not changed to anything,

Having loved God once, but maybe,

To a poet or a king

Or a witty lovely lady.'

While he'd rummaged rags and hair,

Caught and cracked his flea, the third,

Giddy with his hundredth year

Sang unnoticed like a bird.

'Time to put off the world and go somewhere

And find my health again in the sea air,'

Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,

'And make my soul before my pate is bare.'

'And get a comfortable wife and house

To rid me of the devil in my shoes,'

Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,

'And the worse devil that is between my thighs.'

'And though I'd marry with a comely lass,

[48] She need not be too comely—let it pass,'

Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,

'But there's a devil in a looking-glass.'

'Nor should she be too rich, because the rich

Are driven by wealth as beggars by the itch,'

Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,

'And cannot have a humorous happy speech.'

'And there I'll grow respected at my ease,

And hear amid the garden's nightly peace,'

Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,

'The wind-blown clamor of the barnacle-geese.'

'The Man that I praise,'

Cries out the empty well,

'Lives all his days

Where a hand on the bell

Can call the milch-cows

To the comfortable door of his house.

Who but an idiot would praise

Dry stones in a well?'

'The Man that I praise,'

Cries out the leafless tree,

'Has married and stays

By an old hearth, and he

On naught has set store

But children and dogs on the floor.

Who but an idiot would praise

A withered tree?'

As I came over Windy Gap

They threw a halfpenny into my cap,

For I am running to Paradise;

And all that I need do is to wish

And somebody puts his hand in the dish

To throw me a bit of salted fish:

And there the king is but as the beggar.

My brother Mourteen is worn out

With skelping his big brawling lout,

And I am running to Paradise;

A poor life do what he can,

And though he keep a dog and a gun,

A serving maid and a serving man:

And there the king is but as the beggar.

[51] Poor men have grown to be rich men,

And rich men grown to be poor again,

And I am running to Paradise;

And many a darling wit's grown dull

That tossed a bare heel when at school,

Now it has filled an old sock full:

And there the king is but as the beggar.

The wind is old and still at play

While I must hurry upon my way,

For I am running to Paradise;

Yet never have I lit on a friend

To take my fancy like the wind

That nobody can buy or bind:

And there the king is but as the beggar.

A one-legged, one-armed, one-eyed man,

A bundle of rags upon a crutch,

Stumbled on windy Cruachan

Cursing the wind. It was as much

As the one sturdy leg could do

To keep him upright while he cursed.

He had counted, where long years ago

Queen Maeve's nine Maines had been nursed,

A pair of lapwings, one old sheep

And not a house to the plain's edge,

When close to his right hand a heap

Of grey stones and a rocky ledge

Reminded him that he could make,

If he but shifted a few stones,

A shelter till the daylight broke.

[53] But while he fumbled with the stones

They toppled over; 'Were it not

I have a lucky wooden shin

I had been hurt'; and toppling brought

Before his eyes, where stones had been,

A dark deep hole in the rock's face.

He gave a gasp and thought to run,

Being certain it was no right place

But the Hell Mouth at Cruachan

That's stuffed with all that's old and bad,

And yet stood still, because inside

He had seen a red-haired jolly lad

In some outlandish coat beside

A ladle and a tub of beer,

Plainly no phantom by his look.

So with a laugh at his own fear

He crawled into that pleasant nook.

Young Red-head stretched himself to yawn

[54] And murmured, 'May God curse the night

That's grown uneasy near the dawn

So that it seems even I sleep light;

And who are you that wakens me?

Has one of Maeve's nine brawling sons

Grown tired of his own company?

But let him keep his grave for once

I have to find the sleep I have lost.'

And then at last being wide awake,

'I took you for a brawling ghost,

Say what you please, but from day-break

I'll sleep another century.'

The beggar deaf to all but hope

Went down upon a hand and knee

And took the wooden ladle up

And would have dipped it in the beer

But the other pushed his hand aside,

'Before you have dipped it in the beer

That sacred Goban brewed,' he cried,

'I'd have assurance that you are able

To value beer—I will have no fool

[55] Dipping his nose into my ladle

Because he has stumbled on this hole

In the bad hour before the dawn.

If you but drink that beer and say

I will sleep until the winter's gone,

Or maybe, to Midsummer Day

You will sleep that length; and at the first

I waited so for that or this—

Because the weather was a-cursed

Or I had no woman there to kiss,

And slept for half a year or so;

But year by year I found that less

Gave me such pleasure I'd forgo

Even a half hour's nothingness,

And when at one year's end I found

I had not waked a single minute,

I chose this burrow under ground.

I will sleep away all Time within it:

My sleep were now nine centuries

But for those mornings when I find

The lapwing at their foolish cries

And the sheep bleating at the wind

[56] As when I also played the fool.'

The beggar in a rage began

Upon his hunkers in the hole,

'It's plain that you are no right man

To mock at everything I love

As if it were not worth the doing.

I'd have a merry life enough

If a good Easter wind were blowing,

And though the winter wind is bad

I should not be too down in the mouth

For anything you did or said

If but this wind were in the south.'

But the other cried, 'You long for spring

Or that the wind would shift a point

And do not know that you would bring,

If time were suppler in the joint,

Neither the spring nor the south wind

But the hour when you shall pass away

And leave no smoking wick behind,

For all life longs for the Last Day

[57] And there's no man but cocks his ear

To know when Michael's trumpet cries

That flesh and bone may disappear,

And souls as if they were but sighs,

And there be nothing but God left;

But I alone being blessed keep

Like some old rabbit to my cleft

And wait Him in a drunken sleep.'

He dipped his ladle in the tub

And drank and yawned and stretched him out.

The other shouted, 'You would rob

My life of every pleasant thought

And every comfortable thing

And so take that and that.' Thereon

He gave him a great pummelling,

But might have pummelled at a stone

For all the sleeper knew or cared;

And after heaped the stones again

And cursed and prayed, and prayed and cursed:

[58] 'Oh God if he got loose!' And then

In fury and in panic fled

From the Hell Mouth at Cruachan

And gave God thanks that overhead

The clouds were brightening with the dawn.

My mother dandled me and sang,

'How young it is, how young!'

And made a golden cradle

That on a willow swung.

'He went away,' my mother sang,

'When I was brought to bed,'

And all the while her needle pulled

The gold and silver thread.

She pulled the thread and bit the thread

And made a golden gown,

And wept because she had dreamt that I

Was born to wear a crown.

[60] 'When she was got,' my mother sang,

'I heard a sea-mew cry,

And saw a flake of the yellow foam

That dropped upon my thigh.'

How therefore could she help but braid

The gold into my hair,

And dream that I should carry

The golden top of care?

Hope that you may understand!

What can books of men that wive

In a dragon-guarded land,

Paintings of the dolphin-drawn

Sea-nymphs in their pearly waggons

Do, but awake a hope to live

That had gone

With the dragons?

Toil, and grow rich,

What's that but to lie

With a foul witch

And after, drained dry,

To be brought

To the chamber where

Lies one long sought

With despair.

What's riches to him

That has made a great peacock

With the pride of his eye?

The wind-beaten, stone-grey,

And desolate Three-rock

Would nourish his whim.

Live he or die

Amid wet rocks and heather,

His ghost will be gay

Adding feather to feather

For the pride of his eye.

Pour wine and dance if Manhood still have pride,

Bring roses if the rose be yet in bloom;

The cataract smokes upon the mountain side,

Our Father Rosicross is in his tomb.

Pull down the blinds, bring fiddle and clarionet

That there be no foot silent in the room

Nor mouth from kissing, nor from wine unwet;

Our Father Rosicross is in his tomb.

In vain, in vain; the cataract still cries

[65] The everlasting taper lights the gloom;

All wisdom shut into his onyx eyes

Our Father Rosicross sleeps in his tomb.

Dance there upon the shore;

What need have you to care

For wind or water's roar?

And tumble out your hair

That the salt drops have wet;

Being young you have not known

The fool's triumph, nor yet

Love lost as soon as won,

Nor the best labourer dead

And all the sheaves to bind.

What need have you to dread

The monstrous crying of wind?

Has no one said those daring

Kind eyes should be more learn'd?

[67] Or warned you how despairing

The moths are when they are burned,

I could have warned you, but you are young,

So we speak a different tongue.

O you will take whatever's offered

And dream that all the world's a friend,

Suffer as your mother suffered,

Be as broken in the end.

But I am old and you are young,

And I speak a barbarous tongue.

The moments passed as at a play,

I had the wisdom love brings forth;

I had my share of mother wit

And yet for all that I could say,

And though I had her praise for it,

A cloud blown from the cut-throat north

Suddenly hid love's moon away.

Believing every word I said

I praised her body and her mind

Till pride had made her eyes grow bright,

And pleasure made her cheeks grow red,

And vanity her footfall light,

Yet we, for all that praise, could find

Nothing but darkness overhead.

[69] We sat as silent as a stone,

We knew, though she'd not said a word,

That even the best of love must die,

And had been savagely undone

Were it not that love upon the cry

Of a most ridiculous little bird

Tore from the clouds his marvellous moon.

Although crowds gathered once if she but showed her face,

And even old men's eyes grew dim, this hand alone,

Like some last courtier at a gypsy camping place,

Babbling of fallen majesty, records what's gone.

The lineaments, a heart that laughter has made sweet,

These, these remain, but I record what's gone. A crowd

Will gather, and not know it walks the very street

Whereon a thing once walked that seemed a burning cloud.

Now must I these three praise—

Three women that have wrought

What joy is in my days;

One that no passing thought,

Nor those unpassing cares,

No, not in these fifteen

Many times troubled years,

Could ever come between

Heart and delighted heart;

And one because her hand

Had strength that could unbind

What none can understand,

What none can have and thrive,

Youth's dreamy load, till she

So changed me that I live

Labouring in ecstasy.

And what of her that took

All till my youth was gone

[72] With scarce a pitying look?

How should I praise that one?

When day begins to break

I count my good and bad,

Being wakeful for her sake,

Remembering what she had,

What eagle look still shows,

While up from my heart's root

So great a sweetness flows

I shake from head to foot.

Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting Heaven

That seemed as though ice burned and was but the more ice,

And thereupon imagination and heart were driven

So wild that every casual thought of that and this

Vanished, and left but memories, that should be out of season

With the hot blood of youth, of love crossed long ago;

And I took all the blame out of all sense and reason,

Until I cried and trembled and rocked to and fro,

Riddled with light. Ah! when the ghost begins to quicken,

[74] Confusion of the death-bed over, is it sent

Out naked on the roads, as the books say, and stricken

By the injustice of the skies for punishment?

She lived in storm and strife,

Her soul had such desire

For what proud death may bring

That it could not endure

The common good of life,

But lived as 'twere a king

That packed his marriage day

With banneret and pennon,

Trumpet and kettledrum,

And the outrageous cannon,

To bundle time away

That the night come.

Being out of heart with government

I took a broken root to fling

Where the proud, wayward squirrel went,

Taking delight that he could spring;

And he, with that low whinnying sound

That is like laughter, sprang again

And so to the other tree at a bound.

Nor the tame will, nor timid brain,

Bred that fierce tooth and cleanly limb

And threw him up to laugh on the bough;

No government appointed him.

Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye,

In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones

Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky

With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,

And all their helms of silver hovering side by side,

And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,

Being by Calvary's turbulence unsatisfied,

The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.

A doll in the doll-maker's house

Looks at the cradle and balls:

'That is an insult to us.'

But the oldest of all the dolls

Who had seen, being kept for show,

Generations of his sort,

Out-screams the whole shelf: 'Although

There's not a man can report

Evil of this place,

The man and the woman bring

Hither to our disgrace,

A noisy and filthy thing.'

Hearing him groan and stretch

The doll-maker's wife is aware

Her husband has heard the wretch,

And crouched by the arm of his chair,

[79] She murmurs into his ear,

Head upon shoulder leant:

'My dear, my dear, oh dear,

It was an accident.'

I made my song a coat

Covered with embroideries

Out of old mythologies

From heel to throat;

But the fools caught it,

Wore it in the world's eye

As though they'd wrought it.

Song, let them take it

For there's more enterprise

In walking naked.

While I, from that reed-throated whisperer

Who comes at need, although not now as once

A clear articulation in the air

But inwardly, surmise companions

Beyond the fling of the dull ass's hoof,

—Ben Jonson's phrase—and find when June is come

At Kyle-na-no under that ancient roof

A sterner conscience and a friendlier home,

I can forgive even that wrong of wrongs,

Those undreamt accidents that have made me

—Seeing that Fame has perished this long while

Being but a part of ancient ceremony—

Notorious, till all my priceless things

Are but a post the passing dogs defile.

I swayed upon the gaudy stern

The butt end of a steering oar,

And everywhere that I could turn

Men ran upon the shore.

And though I would have hushed the crowd

There was no mother's son but said,

'What is the figure in a shroud

Upon a gaudy bed?'

And fishes bubbling to the brim

Cried out upon that thing beneath,

—It had such dignity of limb—

By the sweet name of Death.

Though I'd my finger on my lip,

What could I but take up the song?

[86] And fish and crowd and gaudy ship

Cried out the whole night long,

Crying amid the glittering sea,

Naming it with ecstatic breath,

Because it had such dignity

By the sweet name of Death.

If any man drew near

When I was young,

I thought, 'He holds her dear,'

And shook with hate and fear.

But oh, 'twas bitter wrong

If he could pass her by

With an indifferent eye.

Whereon I wrote and wrought,

And now, being grey,

I dream that I have brought

To such a pitch my thought

That coming time can say,

'He shadowed in a glass

What thing her body was.'

For she had fiery blood

When I was young,

[88] And trod so sweetly proud

As 'twere upon a cloud,

A woman Homer sung,

That life and letters seem

But an heroic dream.

I had this thought awhile ago,

'My darling cannot understand

What I have done, or what would do

In this blind bitter land.'

And I grew weary of the sun

Until my thoughts cleared up again,

Remembering that the best I have done

Was done to make it plain;

That every year I have cried, 'At length

My darling understands it all,

Because I have come into my strength,

And words obey my call.'

[90] That had she done so who can say

What would have shaken from the sieve?

I might have thrown poor words away

And been content to live.

Why should I blame her that she filled my days

With misery, or that she would of late

Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,

Or hurled the little streets upon the great,

Had they but courage equal to desire?

What could have made her peaceful with a mind

That nobleness made simple as a fire,

With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind

That is not natural in an age like this,

Being high and solitary and most stern?

Why, what could she have done being what she is?

Was there another Troy for her to burn?

Some may have blamed you that you took away

The verses that could move them on the day

When, the ears being deafened, the sight of the eyes blind

With lightning you went from me, and I could find

Nothing to make a song about but kings,

Helmets, and swords, and half-forgotten things

That were like memories of you—but now

We'll out, for the world lives as long ago;

And while we're in our laughing, weeping fit,

[93] Hurl helmets, crowns, and swords into the pit.

But, dear, cling close to me; since you were gone,

My barren thoughts have chilled me to the bone.

'Would it were anything but merely voice!'

The No King cried who after that was King,

Because he had not heard of anything

That balanced with a word is more than noise;

Yet Old Romance being kind, let him prevail

Somewhere or somehow that I have forgot,

Though he'd but cannon—Whereas we that had thought

To have lit upon as clean and sweet a tale

Have been defeated by that pledge you gave

In momentary anger long ago;

[95] And I that have not your faith, how shall I know

That in the blinding light beyond the grave

We'll find so good a thing as that we have lost?

The hourly kindness, the day's common speech,

The habitual content of each with each

When neither soul nor body has been crossed.

Ah, that Time could touch a form

That could show what Homer's age

Bred to be a hero's wage.

'Were not all her life but storm,

Would not painters paint a form

Of such noble lines,' I said,

'Such a delicate high head,

All that sternness amid charm,

All that sweetness amid strength?'

Ah, but peace that comes at length,

Came when Time had touched her form.

O heart, be at peace, because

Nor knave nor dolt can break

What's not for their applause,

Being for a woman's sake.

Enough if the work has seemed,

So did she your strength renew,

A dream that a lion had dreamed

Till the wilderness cried aloud,

A secret between you two,

Between the proud and the proud.

What, still you would have their praise!

But here's a haughtier text,

The labyrinth of her days

That her own strangeness perplexed;

And how what her dreaming gave

Earned slander, ingratitude,

[98] From self-same dolt and knave;

Aye, and worse wrong than these,

Yet she, singing upon her road,

Half lion, half child, is at peace.

The fascination of what's difficult

Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent

Spontaneous joy and natural content

Out of my heart. There's something ails our colt

That must, as if it had not holy blood,

Nor on an Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud,

Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt

As though it dragged road metal. My curse on plays

That have to be set up in fifty ways,

On the day's war with every knave and dolt,

[100] Theatre business, management of men.

I swear before the dawn comes round again

I'll find the stable and pull out the bolt.

Wine comes in at the mouth

And love comes in at the eye;

That's all we shall know for truth

Before we grow old and die.

I lift the glass to my mouth,

I look at you, and I sigh.

Though leaves are many, the root is one;

Through all the lying days of my youth

I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;

Now I may wither into the truth.

Where, where but here have Pride and Truth,

That long to give themselves for wage,

To shake their wicked sides at youth

Restraining reckless middle-age.

You say, as I have often given tongue

In praise of what another's said or sung,

'Twere politic to do the like by these;

But have you known a dog to praise his fleas?

'Put off that mask of burning gold

With emerald eyes.'

'O no, my dear, you make so bold

To find if hearts be wild and wise,

And yet not cold.'

'I would but find what's there to find,

Love or deceit.'

'It was the mask engaged your mind,

And after set your heart to beat,

Not what's behind.'

'But lest you are my enemy,

I must enquire.'

'O no, my dear, let all that be,

What matter, so there is but fire

In you, in me?'

How should the world be luckier if this house,

Where passion and precision have been one

Time out of mind, became too ruinous

To breed the lidless eye that loves the sun?

And the sweet laughing eagle thoughts that grow

Where wings have memory of wings, and all

That comes of the best knit to the best? Although

Mean roof-trees were the sturdier for its fall,

How should their luck run high enough to reach

[107] The gifts that govern men, and after these

To gradual Time's last gift, a written speech

Wrought of high laughter, loveliness and ease?

Dear Craoibhin Aoibhin, look into our case.

When we are high and airy hundreds say

That if we hold that flight they'll leave the place,

While those same hundreds mock another day

Because we have made our art of common things,

So bitterly, you'd dream they longed to look

All their lives through into some drift of wings.

You've dandled them and fed them from the book

[109] And know them to the bone; impart to us—

We'll keep the secret—a new trick to please.

Is there a bridle for this Proteus

That turns and changes like his draughty seas?

Or is there none, most popular of men,

But when they mock us that we mock again?

These are the clouds about the fallen sun,

The majesty that shuts his burning eye;

The weak lay hand on what the strong has done,

Till that be tumbled that was lifted high

And discord follow upon unison,

And all things at one common level lie.

And therefore, friend, if your great race were run

And these things came, so much the more thereby

Have you made greatness your companion,

[111] Although it be for children that you sigh:

These are the clouds about the fallen sun,

The majesty that shuts his burning eye.

There where the course is,

Delight makes all of the one mind,

The riders upon the galloping horses,

The crowd that closes in behind:

We, too, had good attendance once,

Hearers and hearteners of the work;

Aye, horsemen for companions,

Before the merchant and the clerk

Breathed on the world with timid breath.

Sing on: sometime, and at some new moon,

We'll learn that sleeping is not death,

Hearing the whole earth change its tune,

Its flesh being wild, and it again

Crying aloud as the race course is,

And we find hearteners among men

That ride upon horses.

Sickness brought me this

Thought, in that scale of his:

Why should I be dismayed

Though flame had burned the whole

World, as it were a coal,

Now I have seen it weighed

Against a soul?

All things can tempt me from this craft of verse:

One time it was a woman's face, or worse—

The seeming needs of my fool-driven land;

Now nothing but comes readier to the hand

Than this accustomed toil. When I was young,

I had not given a penny for a song

Did not the poet sing it with such airs

That one believed he had a sword upstairs;

Yet would be now, could I but have my wish,

Colder and dumber and deafer than a fish.

I whispered, 'I am too young,'

And then, 'I am old enough;'

Wherefore I threw a penny

To find out if I might love.

'Go and love, go and love, young man,

If the lady be young and fair.'

Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,

I am looped in the loops of her hair.

Oh, love is the crooked thing,

There is nobody wise enough

To find out all that is in it,

For he would be thinking of love

Till the stars had run away,

[116] And the shadows eaten the moon.

Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,

One cannot begin it too soon.

Wise Man.

Bridget, his wife.

Teigue, a fool.

Angel.

Children and Pupils.

Were it but true 'twould alter everything

Until the stream of the world had changed its course,

[128] And that and all our thoughts had run

Into some cloudy thunderous spring

They dream to be its source—

Aye, to some frenzy of the mind;

And all that we have done would be undone,

Our speculation but as the wind.

I have dreamed it twice.

Something has troubled him.

Twice have I dreamed it in a morning dream,

Now nothing serves my pupils but to come

With a like thought. Reason is growing dim;

A moment more and Frenzy will beat his drum

[129] And laugh aloud and scream;

And I must dance in the dream.

No, no, but it is like a hawk, a hawk of the air,

It has swooped down—and this swoop makes the third—

And what can I, but tremble like a bird?

Pardon me, Fool,

I had forgotten who I spoke to.

Well, there are your four pennies—Fool you are called,

[138] And all day long they cry, 'Come hither, Fool.'

Or else it's, 'Fool, be gone.'

Or, 'Fool, stand there.'

Or, 'Fool, go sit in the corner.'

And all the while

What were they all but fools before I came?

What are they now, but mirrors that seem men,

Because of my image? Fool, hold up your head.

What foolish stories they have told of the ghosts

That fumbled with the clothes upon the bed,

Or creaked and shuffled in the corridor,

Or else, if they were pious bred,

Of angels from the skies,

[139] That coming through the door,

Or, it may be, standing there,

Would solidly out stare

The steadiest eyes with their unnatural eyes,

Aye, on a man's own floor.

Yet it is strange, the strangest thing I have known,

That I should still be haunted by the notion

That there's a crisis of the spirit wherein

We get new sight, and that they know some trick

[140] To turn our thoughts for their own ends to frenzy.

Why do you put your finger to your lip,

And creep away?

(Wise Man sees Angel.) What are you? Who are you?

I think I saw some like you in my dreams,

When but a child. That thing about your head,—

That brightness in your hair—that flowery branch;

But I have done with dreams, I have done with dreams.

I am the crafty one that you have called.

How that I called?

I am the messenger.

What message could you bring to one like me?

That you will die when the last grain of sand

Has fallen through this glass.

I have a wife.

Children and pupils that I cannot leave:

Why must I die, my time is far away?

You have to die because no soul has passed

The heavenly threshold since you have opened school,

But grass grows there, and rust upon the hinge;

[142] And they are lonely that must keep the watch.

And whither shall I go when I am dead?

You have denied there is a purgatory,

Therefore that gate is closed; you have denied

There is a heaven, and so that gate is closed.

Where then? For I have said there is no hell.

Hell is the place of those who have denied;

They find there what they planted and what dug,

[143] A Lake of Spaces, and a Wood of Nothing,

And wander there and drift, and never cease

Wailing for substance.

Pardon me, blessed Angel,

I have denied and taught the like to others.

But how could I believe before my sight

Had come to me?

It is too late for pardon.

Had I but met your gaze as now I met it—

But how can you that live but where we go

In the uncertainty of dizzy dreams

[144] Know why we doubt? Parting, sickness and death,

The rotting of the grass, tempest and drouth,

These are the messengers that came to me.

Why are you silent? You carry in your hands

God's pardon, and you will not give it me.

Why are you silent? Were I not afraid,

I'd kiss your hands—no, no, the hem of your dress.

Only when all the world has testified,

May soul confound it, crying out in joy,

And laughing on its lonely precipice.

What's dearth and death and sickness to the soul

That knows no virtue but itself? Nor could it,

[145] So trembling with delight and mother-naked,

Live unabashed if the arguing world stood by.

It is as hard for you to understand

Why we have doubted, as it is for us

To banish doubt—what folly have I said?

There can be nothing that you do not know:

Give me a year—a month—a week—a day,

I would undo what I have done—an hour—

Give me until the sand has run in the glass.

Though you may not undo what you have done,

I have this power—if you but find one soul,

[146] Before the sands have fallen, that still believes,

One fish to lie and spawn among the stones

Till the great fisher's net is full again,

You may, the purgatorial fire being passed,

Spring to your peace.

'Who stole your wits away

And where are they gone?'

My pupils come,

Before you have begun to climb the sky

I shall have found that soul. They say they doubt,

But what their mothers dinned into their ears

Cannot have been so lightly rooted up;

Besides, I can disprove what I once proved—

[147] And yet give me some thought, some argument,

More mighty than my own.

Farewell—farewell,

For I am weary of the weight of time.

Master, master, you must choose the subject.

Here is a subject—where have the Fool's wits gone? (singing)

'Who dragged your wits away

Where no one knows?

Or have they run off

On their own pair of shoes?'

The Master will find your wits,

And when they are found, you must not beg for pennies.

They are hidden somewhere in the badger's hole,

But you must carry an old candle end

If you would find them.

They are up above the clouds.

'I'll find your wits again,

Come, for I saw them roll,

To where old badger mumbles

In the black hole.'

'No, but an angel stole them

The night that you were born,

And now they are but a rag,

On the moon's horn.'

Can you not see that he is troubled?

What do you think of when alone at night?

Do not the things your mothers spoke about,

Before they took the candle from the bedside,

Rush up into the mind and master it,

Till you believe in them against your will?

You answer for us.

Be careful what you say;

If he persuades you to an argument,

He will but turn us all to mockery.

We had no minds until you made them for us;

[151] Our bodies only were our mothers' work.

You answer with incredible things. It is certain

That there is one,—though it may be but one—

Believes in God and in some heaven and hell—

In all those things we put into our prayers.

We thought those things before our minds were born,

But that was long ago—we are not children.

You are afraid to tell me what you think

Because I am hot and angry when I am crossed.

I do not blame you for it; but have no fear,

[152] For if there's one that sat on smiling there,

As though my arguments were sweet as milk

Yet found them bitter, I will thank him for it,

If he but speak his mind.

There is no one, Master,

There is not one but found them sweet as milk.

The things that have been told us in our childhood

Are not so fragile.

We are no longer children.

We all believe in you and in what you have taught.

All, all, all, all, in you, nothing but you.

I have deceived you—where shall I go for words—

I have no thoughts—my mind has been swept bare.

The messengers that stand in the fiery cloud,

Fling themselves out, if we but dare to question,

And after that, the Babylonian moon

Blots all away.

I take his words to mean

That visionaries, and martyrs when they are raised

Above translunary things, and there enlightened,

[154] As the contention is, may lose the light,

And flounder in their speech when the eyes open.

How well he imitates their trick of speech.

Their air of mystery.

Their empty gaze,

As though they'd looked upon some winged thing,

And would not condescend to mankind after.

Master, we have all learnt that truth is learnt

When the intellect's deliberate and cold,

[155] As it were a polished mirror that reflects

An unchanged world; and not when the steel melts,

Bubbling and hissing, till there's naught but fume.

When it is melted, when it all fumes up,

They walk, as when beside those three in the furnace

The form of the fourth.

Master, there's none among us

That has not heard your mockery of these,

Or thoughts like these, and we have not forgot.

Something incredible has happened—some one has come

[156] Suddenly like a grey hawk out of the air,

And all that I declared untrue is true.

You'd think the way he says it, that he felt it.

There's not a mummer to compare with him.

He's something like a man.

Give us some proof.

What proof have I to give, but that an angel

An instant ago was standing on that spot.

You dreamed it.

I was awake as I am now.

I may be dreaming now for all I know.

He wants to show we have no certain proof

Of anything in the world.

There is this proof

That shows we are awake—we have all one world

While every dreamer has a world of his own,

And sees what no one else can.

Teigue sees angels.

So when the Master says he has seen an angel,

He may have seen one.

Both may still be dreamers;

Unless it's proved the angels were alike.

What sort are the angels, Teigue?

That will prove nothing,

Unless we are sure prolonged obedience

Has made one angel like another angel

As they were eggs.

The Master's silent now:

For he has found that to dispute with us—

Seeing that he has taught us what we know—

Is but to reason with himself. Let us away,

And find if there is one believer left.

Yes, yes. Find me but one that still believes

The things that we were told when we were children.

He'll mock and maul him.

From the first I knew

He wanted somebody to argue with.

I have no reason left. All dark, all dark!

Here, Master, is the very man you want.

[160] He said, when we were studying the book,

That maybe after all the monks were right,

And you mistaken, and if we but gave him time,

He'd prove that it was so.

I never said it.

Dear friend, dear friend, do you believe in God?

Master, they have invented this to mock me.

You are afraid of me.

They know well, Master,

That all I said was but to make them argue.

They've pushed me in to make a mock of me,

Because they knew I could take either side

And beat them at it.

If you believe in God,

You are my soul's one friend.

Mistress or wife

Can give us but our good or evil luck

Amid the howling world, but you shall give

Eternity, and those sweet-throated things

That drift above the moon.

How strange he is.

The angel that stood there upon that spot,

Said that my soul was lost unless I found out

One that believed.

Cease mocking at me, Master,

For I am certain that there is no God

Nor immortality, and they that said it

Made a fantastic tale from a starved dream

To plague our hearts. Will that content you, Master?

The giddy glass is emptier every moment,

And you stand there, debating, laughing and wrangling.

[163] Out of my sight! Out of my sight, I say.

I'll call my wife, for what can women do,

That carry us in the darkness of their bodies,

But mock the reason that lets nothing grow

Unless it grow in light. Bridget, Bridget.

A woman never ceases to believe,

Say what we will. Bridget, come quickly, Bridget.

Wife, what do you believe in? Tell me the truth,

And not—as is the habit with you all—

Something you think will please me. Do you pray?

[164] Sometimes when you're alone in the house, do you pray?

But sometimes, when the children are asleep

And I am in the school, do you not think

About the Martyrs and the saints and the angels,

[165] And all the things that you believed in once?

My God,—my God! I will go out myself.

My pupils said that they would find a man

Whose faith I never shook—they may have found him.

Therefore I will go out—but if I go,

The glass will let the sands run out unseen.

I cannot go—I cannot leave the glass.

Go call my pupils—I can explain all now,

Only when all our hold on life is troubled,

[166] Only in spiritual terror can the Truth

Come through the broken mind—as the pease burst

Out of a broken pease-cod.

Say to them,

That Nature would lack all in her most need,

Could not the soul find truth as in a flash,

Upon the battle-field, or in the midst

Of overwhelming waves, and say to them—

But no, they would but answer as I bid.

Look out and see if there is any one

There in the street—I cannot leave the glass,

[167] For somebody might shake it, and the sand

If it were shaken might run down on the instant.

Go out and find if they have found a man

Who did not understand me when I taught,

Or did not listen.

Strange that I should be blind to the great secret,

And that so simple a man might write it out

Upon a blade of grass or bit of rush

With naught but berry juice, and laugh to himself

Writing it out, because it was so simple.

Come to me, children. Do not be afraid.

[170] I want to know if you believe in Heaven,

God or the soul—no, do not tell me yet;

You need not be afraid I shall be angry,

Say what you please—so that it is your thought—

I wanted you to know before you spoke,

That I shall not be angry.

Go to your mother, go—yet do not go.

What can she say? If I am dumb you are lost;

And yet, because the sands are running out,

I have but a moment to show it all in. Children,

The sap would die out of the blades of grass

Had they a doubt. They understand it all,

Being the fingers of God's certainty,

Yet can but make their sign into the air;

But could they find their tongues they'd show it all;

But what am I to say that am but one,

[172]

When they are millions and they will not speak—

But they are gone; what made them run away?

Look at me, tell me if my face is changed,

Is there a notch of the fiend's nail upon it

Already? Is it terrible to sight?

Because the moment's near.

I dare not look,

I dare not know the moment when they come.

No, no, I dare not. (Covers glass.)

Will there be a footfall,

Or will there be a sort of rending sound,

Or else a cracking, as though an iron claw

[173] Had gripped the threshold stone?

What are you doing?

You have heard everything, and that is why

You'd find what hour it is—you'd find that out,

That you may look upon a fleet of devils

Dragging my soul away. You shall not stop,

[174] I will have no one here when they come in,

I will have no one sitting there—no one—

And yet—and yet—there is something strange about you.

I half remember something. What is it?

Do you believe in God and in the soul?

Speak, speak, for underneath the cover there

The sand is running from the upper glass,

And when the last grain's through, I shall be lost.

There's but one pinch of sand, and I am lost

If you are not he I seek.

Yes, I remember now. You spoke of angels.

You said but now that you had seen an angel.

You are the one I seek, and I am saved.

The last hope is gone,

And now that it's too late I see it all,

We perish into God and sink away

Into reality—the rest's a dream.

I know enough, that know God's will prevails.

Be silent. May God's will prevail on the instant,

Although His will be my eternal pain.

I have no question:

It is enough, I know what fixed the station

Of star and cloud.

And knowing all, I cry

That what so God has willed

On the instant be fulfilled,

Though that be my damnation.

[179] The stream of the world has changed its course,

And with the stream my thoughts have run

Into some cloudy thunderous spring

That is its mountain source—

Aye, to some frenzy of the mind,

For all that we have done's undone,

Our speculation but as the wind.

'I hear the wind a blow

I hear the grass a grow,

And all that I know, I know.'

But I will not speak, I will run away.