Delphi Complete Poetry and Plays of W. B. Yeats (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)

by W. B. Yeats

  Paudeen. It is he would have got leave for the Gael to be as high as the Gall. Believe me, he was in the prophecies. Let you not be comparing yourself with the like of him.

  Nanny. Why wouldn’t I be comparing myself? Look at all that was against me in the world; would you be matching me against a man of his sort that had the people shouting for him and that had nothing to do but to die and to go to heaven?

  Johnny B. The day you go to heaven that you may never come back alive out of it! But it is not yourself will ever hear the saints hammering at their musics! It is you will be moving through the ages chains upon you, and you in the form of a dog or a monster! I tell you, that one will go through purgatory as quick as lightning through a thorn bush.

  Nanny. That’s the way, that’s the way:

  Three that are watching my time to run

  The worm, the devil, and my son.

  To see a loop around their neck

  It’s that would make my heart to leap!

  Johnny B. Five white candles. I wouldn’t begrudge them to him, indeed. If he had held out and held up, it is my belief he would have freed Ireland!

  Paudeen. Wait till the full light of the day and you’ll see the burying he’ll have. It is not in this place we will be waking him. I’ll make a call to the two hundred Ribbons he was to lead on to the attack on the barracks at Aughanish. They will bring him marching to his grave upon the hill. He had surely some gift from the other world, I wouldn’t say but he had power from the other side.

  Andrew [coming in, very shaky]. Well, it was a great night he gave to the village, and it is long till it will be forgotten. I tell you the whole of the neighbours are up against him. There is no one at all this morning to set the mills going. There was no bread baked in the night-time; the horses are not fed in the stalls; the cows are not milked in the sheds. I met no man able to make a curse this night but he put it on my own head and on the head of the boy that is lying there before us.... Is there no sign of life in him at all?

  Johnny B. What way would there be a sign of life and the life gone out of him this three hours or more?

  Andrew. He was lying in his sleep for a while yesterday, and he wakened again after another while.

  Nanny. He will not waken. I tell you I held his hand in my own and it getting cold as if you were pouring on it the coldest cold water, and no running in his blood. He is gone sure enough, and the life is gone out of him.

  Andrew. Maybe so, maybe so. It seems to me yesterday his cheeks were bloomy all the while, and now he is as pale as wood-ashes. Sure we all must come to it at the last. Well, my white-headed darling, it is you were the bush among us all, and you to be cut down in your prime. Gentle and simple, everyone liked you. It is no narrow heart you had; it is you were for spending and not for getting. It is you made a good wake for yourself, scattering your estate in one night only in beer and in wine for the whole province; and that you may be sitting in the middle of paradise and in the chair of the graces!

  Johnny B. Amen to that. It’s pity I didn’t think the time I sent for yourself to send the little lad of a messenger looking for a priest to overtake him. It might be in the end the Almighty is the best man for us all!

  Andrew. Sure I sent him on myself to bid the priest to come. Living or dead, I would wish to do all that is rightful for the last and the best of my own race and generation.

  Biddy [jumping up]. Is it the priest you are bringing in among us? Where is the sense in that? Aren’t we robbed enough up to this with the expense of the candles and the like?

  Johnny B. If it is that poor, starved priest he called to that came talking in secret signs to the man that is gone, it is likely he will ask nothing for what he has to do. There is many a priest is a Whiteboy in his heart.

  Nanny. I tell you, if you brought him tied in a bag he would not say an Our Father for you, without you having a half crown at the top of your fingers.

  Biddy. There is no priest is any good at all but a spoiled priest; a one that would take a drop of drink, it is he would have courage to face the hosts of trouble. Rout them out he would, the same as a shoal of fish from out the weeds. It’s best not to vex a priest, or to run against them at all.

  Nanny. It’s yourself humbled yourself well to one the time you were sick in the gaol and had like to die, and he bade you to give over the throwing of the cups.

  Biddy. Ah, plaster of Paris I gave him. I took to it again and I free upon the roads.

  Nanny. Much good you are doing with it to yourself or any other one. Aren’t you after telling that corpse no later than yesterday that he was coming within the best day of his life?

  Johnny B. Whist, let ye! Here is the priest coming.

  [Father John comes in.]

  Father John. It is surely not true that he is dead?

  Johnny B. The spirit went from him about the middle hour of the night. We brought him here to this sheltered place. We were loth to leave him without friends.

  Father John. Where is he?

  Johnny B. [taking up sacks]. Lying there, stiff and stark. He has a very quiet look, as if there was no sin at all or no great trouble upon his mind.

  Father John [kneels and touches him]. He is not dead.

  Biddy [pointing to Nanny]. He is dead. If it was letting on he was, he would not have let that one rob him and search him the way she did.

  Father John. It has the appearance of death, but it is not death. He is in a trance.

  Paudeen. Is it heaven and hell he is walking at this time to be bringing back newses of the sinners in pain?

  Biddy. I was thinking myself it might away he was, riding on white horses with the riders of the forths.

  Johnny B. He will have great wonders to tell out the time he will rise up from the ground. It is a pity he not to waken at this time and to lead us on to overcome the troop of the English. Sure those that are in a trance get strength that they can walk on water.

  Andrew. It was Father John wakened him yesterday the time he was lying in the same way. Wasn’t I telling you it was for that I called to him?

  Biddy. Waken him now till they’ll see did I tell any lie in my foretelling. I knew well by the signs he was coming within the best day of his life.

  Paudeen. And not dead at all! We’ll be marching to attack Dublin itself within a week. The horn will blow for him, and all good men will gather to him. Hurry on, Father, and waken him.

  Father John. I will not waken him. I will not bring him back from where he is.

  Johnny B. And how long will it be before he will waken of himself?

  Father John. Maybe to-day, maybe to-morrow; it is hard to be certain.

  Biddy. If it is away he is, he might be away seven years. To be lying like a stump of a tree and using no food and the world not able to knock a word out of him, I know the signs of it well.

  Johnny B. We cannot be waiting and watching through seven years. If the business he has started is to be done, we have to go on here and now. The time there is any delay, that is the time the Government will get information. Waken him now, Father, and you’ll get the blessing of the generations.

  Father John. I will not bring him back. God will bring him back in His own good time. For all I know he may be seeing the hidden things of God.

  Johnny B. He might slip away in his dream. It is best to raise him up now.

  Andrew. Waken him, Father John. I thought he was surely dead this time; and what way could I go face Thomas through all that is left of my lifetime after me standing up to face him the way I did? And if I do take a little drop of an odd night, sure I’d be very lonesome if I did not take it. All the world knows it’s not for love of what I drink, but for love of the people that do be with me! Waken him, Father, or maybe I would waken him myself. [Shakes him.]

  Father John. Lift your hand from touching him. Leave him to himself and to the power of God.

  Johnny B. If you will not bring him back, why wouldn’t we ourselves do it? Go on now, it is best for you to do it yourself.
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br />   Father John. I woke him yesterday. He was angry with me; he could not get to the heart of the command.

  Johnny B. If he did not, he got a command from myself that satisfied him, and a message.

  Father John. He did ... he took it from you ... and how do I know what devil’s message it may have been that brought him into that devil’s work, destruction and drunkenness and burnings! That was not a message from heaven! It was I awoke him; it was I kept him from hearing what was maybe a divine message, a voice of truth; and he heard you speak, and he believed the message was brought by you. You have made use of your deceit and his mistaking ... you have left him without house or means to support him, you are striving to destroy and to drag him to entire ruin. I will not help you, I would rather see him die in his trance and go into God’s hands than awake him and see him go into hell’s mouth with vagabonds and outcasts like you!

  Johnny B. [turning to Biddy]. You should have knowledge, Biddy Lally, of the means to bring back a man that is away.

  Biddy. The power of the earth will do it through its herbs, and the power of the air will do it kindling fire into flame.

  Johnny B. Rise up and make no delay. Stretch out and gather a handful of an herb that will bring him back from whatever place he is in.

  Biddy. Where is the use of herbs and his teeth clenched the way he could not use them?

  Johnny B. Take fire so in the devil’s name and put it to the soles of his feet. [Takes lighted sod from fire.]

  Father John. Let him alone, I say!

  [Dashes away the sod.]

  Johnny B. I will not leave him alone! I will not give in to leave him swooning there and the country waiting for him to awake!

  Father John. I tell you I awoke him! I sent him into thieves’ company! I will not have him wakened again and evil things, it may be, waiting to take hold of him! Back from him, back, I say! Will you dare to lay a hand on me? You cannot do it! You cannot touch him against my will!

  Biddy. Mind yourself; don’t be bringing us under the curse of the church.

  [Johnny falls back. Martin moves.]

  Father John. It is God has him in His care. It is He is awaking him. [Martin has risen to his elbow.] Do not touch him, do not speak to him, he may be hearing great secrets.

  Martin. That music, I must go nearer ... sweet, marvellous music ... louder than the trampling of the unicorns ... far louder, though the mountain is shaking with their feet ... high, joyous music.

  Father John. Hush, he is listening to the music of heaven!

  Martin. Take me to you, musicians, wherever you are! I will go nearer to you; I hear you better now, more and more joyful; that is strange, it is strange.

  Father John. He is getting some secret.

  Martin. It is the music of paradise, that is certain, somebody said that. It is certainly the music of paradise. Ah, now I hear, now I understand. It is made of the continual clashing of swords!

  Johnny B. That is the best music. We will clash them sure enough. We will clash our swords and our pikes on the bayonets of the red soldiers. It is well you rose up from the dead to lead us! Come on now, come on!

  Martin. Who are you? Ah, I remember.... Where are you asking me to come to?

  Paudeen. To come on, to be sure, to the attack on the barracks at Aughanish. To carry on the work you took in hand last night.

  Martin. What work did I take in hand last night? Oh, yes, I remember ... some big house ... we burned it down.... But I had not understood the vision when I did that. I had not heard the command right. That was not the work I was sent to do.

  Paudeen. Rise up now and bid us what to do. Your great name itself will clear the road before you. It is you yourself will have freed all Ireland before the stooks will be in stacks!

  Martin. Listen, I will explain ... I have misled you. It is only now I have the whole vision plain. As I lay there I saw through everything, I know all. It was but a frenzy, that going out to burn and to destroy. What have I to do with the foreign army? What I have to pierce is the wild heart of time. My business is not reformation but revelation.

  Johnny B. If you are going to turn back now from leading us, you are no better than any other traitor that ever gave up the work he took in hand. Let you come and face now the two hundred men you brought out, daring the power of the law last night, and give them your reason for failing them.

  Martin. I was mistaken when I set out to destroy church and law. The battle we have to fight is fought out in our own minds. There is a fiery moment, perhaps once in a lifetime, and in that moment we see the only thing that matters. It is in that moment the great battles are lost and won, for in that moment we are a part of the host of heaven.

  Paudeen. Have you betrayed us to the naked hangman with your promises and with your drink? If you brought us out here to fail us and to ridicule us, it is the last day you will live!

  Johnny B. The curse of my heart on you! It would be right to send you to your own place on the flagstone of the traitors in hell. When once I have made an end of you, I will be as well satisfied to be going to my death for it as if I was going home!

  Martin. Father John, Father John, can you not hear? Can you not see? Are you blind? Are you deaf?

  Father John. What is it? What is it?

  Martin. There on the mountain, a thousand white unicorns trampling; a thousand riders with their swords drawn ... the swords clashing! Oh, the sound of the swords, the sound of the clashing of the swords! [He goes slowly off stage.]

  [Johnny B. takes up a stone to throw at him.]

  Father John [seizing his arm]. Stop ... do you not see he is beyond the world?

  Biddy. Keep your hand off him, Johnny Bacach. If he is gone wild and cracked, that’s natural. Those that have been wakened from a trance on a sudden are apt to go bad and light in the head.

  Paudeen. If it is madness is on him, it is not he himself should pay the penalty.

  Biddy. To prey on the mind it does, and rises into the head. There are some would go over any height and would have great power in their madness. It is maybe to some secret cleft he is going to get knowledge of the great cure for all things, or of the Plough that was hidden in the old times, the Golden Plough.

  Paudeen. It seemed as if he was talking through honey. He had the look of one that had seen great wonders. It is maybe among the old heroes of Ireland he went raising armies for our help.

  Father John. God take him in His care and keep him from lying spirits and from all delusions.

  Johnny B. We have got candles here, Father. We had them to put around his body. Maybe they would keep away the evil things of the air.

  Paudeen. Light them so, and he will say out a Mass for him the same as in a lime-washed church.

  [They light the candles on the rock. Thomas comes in.]

  Thomas. Where is he? I am come to warn him. The destruction he did in the night-time has been heard of. The soldiers are out after him and the constables ... there are two of the constables not far off ... there are others on every side ... they heard he was here in the mountain ... where is he?

  Father John. He has gone up the path.

  Thomas. Hurry after him! Tell him to hide himself ... this attack he had a hand in is a hanging crime.... Tell him to hide himself, to come to me when all is quiet ... bad as his doings are, he is my own brother’s son; I will get him on to a ship that will be going to France.

  Father John. That will be best; send him back to the Brothers and to the wise Bishops. They can unravel this tangle. I cannot; I cannot be sure of the truth.

  Thomas. Here are the constables; he will see them and get away.... Say no word.... The Lord be praised that he is out of sight.

  [Constables come in.]

  Constable. The man we are looking for, where is he? He was seen coming here along with you. You have to give him up into the power of the law.

  Johnny B. We will not give him up! Go back out of this or you will be sorry.

  Paudeen. We are not in dread of you or the like of
you.

  Biddy. Throw them down over the rocks!

  Nanny. Give them to the picking of the crows!

  All. Down with the law!

  Father John. Hush! He is coming back. [To Constables.] Stop, stop ... leave him to himself. He is not trying to escape; he is coming towards you.

  Paudeen. There is a sort of a brightness about him. I misjudged him calling him a traitor. It is not to this world he belongs at all. He is over on the other side.

  [Martin has come in. He stands higher than the others upon some rocks.]

  Martin. Ex calix meus inebrians quam praeclarus est!