Poems

Puis elle s'enferma et recommanda qu'on ne vint pas la déranger.

Trois jours se passèrent; elle n'appela pas; elle ne sortit pas.

Quand on ouvrit sa porte, on la trouva raide et froide: elle était morte de douleur.

Mais la vente de cette âme si adorable dans sa charité fut déclarée nulle par le Seigneur: car elle avait sauvé ses concitoyens de la morte éternelle.

Après la huitaine, des vaisseaux nombreux amenèrent à l'Irlande affamée d'immenses provisions de grains.

La famine n'était plus possible. Quant aux marchands, ils disparurent de leur hôtellerie, sans qu'on sût jamais ce qu'ils étaient devenus.

Toutefois, les pêcheurs de la Blackwater prétendent qu'ils sont enchainés dans une prison souterraine par ordre de Lucifer jusqu'au moment où ils pourront livrer l'âme de Ketty qui leur a échappé. Je vous dis la légende telle que je la sais.

– Mais les pauvres l'ont raconté d'âge en âge et les enfants de Cork et de Dublin chantent encore la ballade dont voici les derniers couplets: —

Pour sauver les pauvres qu'elle aimeKetty donnaSon esprit, sa croyance même:Satan payaCette âme au dévoûment sublime,En écus d'or,Disons pour racheter son crime,Confiteor.Mais l'ange qui se fit coupablePar charitéAu séjour d'amour ineffableEst remonté.Satan vaincu n'eut pas de priseSur ce cœur d'or;Chantons sous la nef de l'église,Confiteor.

N'est ce pas que ce récit, né de l'imagination des poètes catholiques de la verte Erin, est une véritable récit de carême?

The Countess Cathleen was acted in Dublin in 1899, with Mr. Marcus St. John and Mr. Trevor Lowe as the First and Second Demon, Mr. Valentine Grace as Shemus Rua, Master Charles Sefton as Teig, Madame San Carola as Mary, Miss Florence Farr as Aleel, Miss Anna Mather as Oona, Mr. Charles Holmes as the Herdsman, Mr. Jack Wilcox as the Gardener, Mr. Walford as a Peasant, Miss Dorothy Paget as a Spirit, Miss M. Kelly as a Peasant Woman, Mr. T.E. Wilkinson as a Servant, and Miss May Whitty as The Countess Kathleen. They had to face a very vehement opposition stirred up by a politician and a newspaper, the one accusing me in a pamphlet, the other in long articles day after day, of blasphemy because of the language of the demons or of Shemus Rua, and because I made a woman sell her soul and yet escape damnation, and of a lack of patriotism because I made Irish men and women, who, it seems, never did such a thing, sell theirs. The politician or the newspaper persuaded some forty Catholic students to sign a protest against the play, and a Cardinal, who avowed that he had not read it, to make another, and both politician and newspaper made such obvious appeals to the audience to break the peace, that a score or so of police were sent to the theatre to see that they did not. I had, however, no reason to regret the result, for the stalls, containing almost all that was distinguished in Dublin, and a gallery of artisans alike insisted on the freedom of literature.

After the performance in 1899 I added the love scene between Aleel and the Countess, and in this new form the play was revived in New York by Miss Wycherley as well as being played a good deal in England and America by amateurs. Now at last I have made a complete revision to make it suitable for performance at the Abbey Theatre. The first two scenes are almost wholly new, and throughout the play I have added or left out such passages as a stage experience of some years showed me encumbered the action; the play in its first form having been written before I knew anything of the theatre. I have left the old end, however, in the version printed in the body of this book, because the change for dramatic purposes has been made for no better reason than that audiences – even at the Abbey Theatre – are almost ignorant of Irish mythology – or because a shallow stage made the elaborate vision of armed angels upon a mountain-side impossible. The new end is particularly suited to the Abbey stage, where the stage platform can be brought out in front of the proscenium and have a flight of steps at one side up which the Angel comes, crossing towards the back of the stage at the opposite side. The principal lighting is from two arc lights in the balcony which throw their lights into the faces of the players, making footlights unnecessary. The room at Shemus Rua's house is suggested by a great grey curtain – a colour which becomes full of rich tints under the stream of light from the arcs. The two or more arches in the third scene permit the use of a gauze. The short front scene before the last is just long enough when played with incidental music to allow the scene set behind it to be changed. The play when played without interval in this way lasts a little over an hour.

The play was performed at the Abbey Theatre for the first time on December 14, 1911, Miss Maire O'Neill taking the part of the Countess, and the last scene from the going out of the Merchants was as follows: —

(MERCHANTS rush out. ALEEL crawls into the middle of the room; the twilight has fallen and gradually darkens as the scene goes on.)

ALEELThey're rising up – they're rising through the earth,Fat Asmodel and giddy Belial,And all the fiends. Now they leap in the air.But why does Hell's gate creak so? Round and round.Hither and hither, to and fro they're running.

(He moves about as though the air was full of spirits. OONA enters.)

Crouch down, old heron, out of the blind storm.OONAWhere is the Countess Cathleen? All this dayHer eyes were full of tears, and when for a momentHer hand was laid upon my hand, it trembled.And now I do not know where she is gone.ALEELCathleen has chosen other friends than us,And they are rising through the hollow world.Demons are out, old heron.OONAGod guard her soul.ALEELShe's bartered it away this very hour,As though we two were never in the world.

(He kneels beside her, but does not seem to hear her words. The PEASANTS return. They carry the COUNTESS CATHLEEN and lay her upon the ground before OONA and ALEEL. She lies there as if dead.)

OONAO, that so many pitchers of rough clayShould prosper and the porcelain break in two!

(She kisses the hands of CATHLEEN.)

A PEASANTWe were under the tree where the path turnsWhen she grew pale as death and fainted away.CATHLEENO, hold me, and hold me tightly, for the stormIs dragging me away.

(OONA takes her in her arms. A woman begins to wail.)

PEASANTSHush!PEASANTSHush!PEASANT WOMENHush!OTHER PEASANT WOMENHush!CATHLEEN (half rising)Lay all the bags of money in a heap,And when I am gone, old Oona, share them outTo every man and woman: judge, and giveAccording to their needs.A PEASANT WOMANAnd will she giveEnough to keep my children through the dearth?ANOTHER PEASANT WOMANO, Queen of Heaven, and all you blessed saints,Let us and ours be lost, so she be shriven.CATHLEENBend down your faces, Oona and Aleel;I gaze upon them as the swallow gazesUpon the nest under the eave, beforeShe wander the loud waters. Do not weepToo great a while, for there is many a candleOn the High Altar though one fall. Aleel,Who sang about the dancers of the woods,That know not the hard burden of the world,Having but breath in their kind bodies, farewell!And farewell, Oona, you who played with meAnd bore me in your arms about the houseWhen I was but a child – and therefore happy,Therefore happy even like those that dance.The storm is in my hair and I must go.

(She dies.)

OONABring me the looking-glass.

(A woman brings it to her out of inner room. OONA holds glass over the lips of CATHLEEN. All is silent for a moment, then she speaks in a half-scream.)

O, she is dead!A PEASANTShe was the great white lily of the world.A PEASANTShe was more beautiful than the pale stars.AN OLD PEASANT WOMANThe little plant I loved is broken in two.

(ALEEL takes looking-glass from OONA and flings it upon floor, so that it is broken in many pieces.)

ALEELI shatter you in fragments, for the faceThat brimmed you up with beauty is no more;And die, dull heart, for you that were a mirrorAre but a ball of passionate dust again!And level earth and plumy sea, rise up!And haughty sky, fall down!A PEASANT WOMANPull him upon his knees,His curses will pluck lightning on our heads.ALEELAngels and devils clash in the middle air,And brazen swords clang upon brazen helms.Look, look, a spear has gone through Belial's eye!

(A winged ANGEL, carrying a torch and a sword, enters from the R. with eyes fixed upon some distant thing. The ANGEL is about to pass out to the L. when ALEEL speaks. The ANGEL stops a moment and turns.)

Look no more on the half-closed gates of Hell,But speak to me whose mind is smitten of God,That it may be no more with mortal things:And tell of her who lies there.

(The ANGEL turns again and is about to go, but is seized by ALEEL.)

Till you speakYou shall not drift into eternity.THE ANGELThe light beats down; the gates of pearl are wide.And she is passing to the floor of peace,And Mary of the seven times wounded heartHas kissed her lips, and the long blessed hairHas fallen on her face; the Light of LightsLooks always on the motive, not the deed,The Shadow of Shadows on the deed alone.

(ALEEL releases the ANGEL and kneels.)

OONATell them to walk upon the floor of peace,That I would die and go to her I love;The years like great black oxen tread the world,And God the herdsman goads them on behind,And I am broken by their passing feet.

Down by the Salley Gardens.– An extension of three lines sung to me by an old woman at Ballisodare.

Findrinny (Findruine).– A kind of white bronze.

Finvarra (Finbar).– The king of the faeries of Connaught.

Hell.– In the older Irish books Hell is always cold, and it may be because the Fomoroh, or evil powers, ruled over the north and the winter. Christianity adopted as far as possible the Pagan symbolism in Ireland as elsewhere, and Irish poets, when they spoke of "the cold flagstone of Hell," may have repeated Pagan symbolism. The folk-tales, and Keating in his description of Hell, make use, however, of the ordinary symbolism of fire.

The Lamentation of the Pensioner.– This poem is little more than a translation into verse of the very words of an old Wicklow peasant. Fret means doom or destiny.

The Land of Heart's Desire.– This little play was produced at the Avenue Theatre in the spring of 1894, with the following cast: – Maurteen Bruin, Mr. James Welch; Shawn Bruin, Mr. A.E.W. Mason; Father Hart, Mr. G.R. Foss; Bridget Bruin, Miss Charlotte Morland; Maire Bruin, Miss Winifred Fraser; A Faery Child, Miss Dorothy Paget. It ran for a little over six weeks. It was revived in America in 1901, when it was taken on tour by Mrs. Lemoyne. It has been played two or three times professionally since then in America and a great many times in England and America by amateurs. Till lately it was not part of the repertory of the Abbey Theatre, for I had grown to dislike it without knowing what I disliked in it. This winter, however, I have made many revisions and now it plays well enough to give me pleasure. It is printed in this book in the new form, which was acted for the first time on February 22, 1912, at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. At the Abbey Theatre, where the platform of the stage comes out in front of the curtain, the curtain falls before the priest's last words. He remains outside the curtain and the words are spoken to the audience like an epilogue.

The Meditation of the Old Fisherman.– This poem is founded upon some things a fisherman said to me when out fishing in Sligo Bay.

Northern Cold.– The Fomor, the powers of death and darkness and cold and evil, came from the north.

Nuala.– The wife of Finvarra.

Rose.– The rose is a favourite symbol with the Irish poets, and has given a name to several poems both Gaelic and English, and is used in love poems, in addresses to Ireland like Mr. Aubrey de Vere's poem telling how "The little black rose shall be red at last," and in religious poems, like the old Gaelic one which speaks of "the Rose of Friday," meaning the Rose of Austerity.

Salley.– Willow.

Seven Hazel-trees.– There was once a well overshadowed by seven sacred hazel-trees, in the midst of Ireland. A certain woman plucked their fruit, and seven rivers arose out of the well and swept her away. In my poems this well is the source of all the waters of this world, which are therefore seven-fold.

The Wanderings of Usheen.– The poem is founded upon the middle Irish dialogues of S. Patric and Usheen and a certain Gaelic poem of the last century. The events it describes, like the events in most of the poems in this volume, are supposed to have taken place rather in the indefinite period, made up of many periods, described by the folk-tales, than in any particular century; it therefore, like the later Fenian stories themselves, mixes much that is mediæval with much that is ancient. The Gaelic poems do not make Usheen go to more than one island, but a story in Silva Gadelica describes "four paradises," an island to the north, an island to the west, an island to the south, and Adam's paradise in the east.