transcriber's note obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this text. for a complete list, please see the bottom of this document. mosada. a dramatic poem. by w. b. yeats. with a frontispiece portrait of the author by j. b. yeats. _reprinted from the dublin university review._ dublin: printed by sealy, bryers, and walker, 94, 95 and 96 middle abbey street. 1886. [illustration] mosada. "_and my lord cardinal hath had strange days in his youth._" _extract from a memoir of the fifteenth century._ mosada, a moorish lady. ebremar, a monk. cola, a lame boy. monks and inquisitors. scene i. _a little moorish room in the village of azubia. in the centre of the room a chafing dish._ _mosada._ [_alone_] three times the roses have grown less and less, as slowly autumn climbed the golden throne where sat old summer fading into song, and thrice the peaches flushed upon the walls, and thrice the corn around the sickles flamed, since 'mong my people, tented on the hills, he stood a messenger. in april's prime (swallows were flashing their white breasts above or perching on the tents, a-weary still from waste seas cross'd, yet ever garrulous) along the velvet vale i saw him come: in autumn, when far down the mountain slopes the heavy clusters of the grapes were full, i saw him sigh and turn and pass away; for i and all my people were accurst of his sad god; and down among the grass hiding my face, i cried long, bitterly. twas evening, and the cricket nation sang around my head and danced among the grass; and all was dimness till a dying leaf slid circling down and softly touched my lips with dew as though 'twere sealing them for death. yet somewhere in the footsore world we meet we two before we die, for azolar the star-taught moor said thus it was decreed by those wan stars that sit in company above the alpujarras on their thrones, that when the stars of our nativity draw star to star, as on that eve he passed down the long valleys from my people's tents, we meet--we two. [_she opens the casement--the mingled sound of the voices and laughter of the apple gatherers floats in._] how merry all these are among the fruit. but yon, lame cola crouches away from all the others. now the sun-a-shining on the little crucifix of silver hanging round lame cola's neck-sinks down at last with yonder minaret of the alhambra black athwart his disk; and cola seeing, knows the sign and comes. thus do i burn these precious herbs whose smoke pours up and floats in fragrance o'er my head in coil on coil of azure. [_enter cola._] all is ready. _cola._ mosada, it is then so much the worse. i will not share your sin. _mosada._ it is no sin that you shall see on yonder glowing cloud pictured, where wander the beloved feet whose footfall i have longed for, three sad summers-why these new fears? _cola._ the servant of the lord, the dark still man, has come, and says 'tis sin. _mosada._ they say the wish itself is half the sin. then has this one been sinned full many times, yet 'tis no sin--my father taught it me. he was a man most learned and most mild, who, dreaming to a wondrous age, lived on tending the roses round his lattice door. for years his days had dawned and faded thus among the plants; the flowery silence fell deep in his soul, like rain upon a soil worn by the solstice fierce, and made it pure. would he teach any sin? _cola._ gaze in the cloud yourself. _mosada._ none but the innocent can see. _cola._ they say i am all ugliness; lame-footed i am; one shoulder turned awry--why then should i be good? but you are beautiful. _mosada._ i cannot see. _cola._ the beetles, and the bats, and spiders, are my friends, i'm theirs, and they are not good; but you are like the butterflies. _mosada._ i cannot see! i cannot see! but you shall see a thing to talk on when you're old, under a lemon tree beside your door; and all the elders sitting in the sun, will wondering listen, and this tale shall ease for long, the burthen of their talking griefs. _cola._ upon my knees i pray you, let it sleep, the vision. _mosada._ you're pale and weeping, child. be not afraid, you'll see no fearful thing. thus, thus i beckon from her viewless fields-thus beckon to our aid a phantom fair and calm, robed all in raiment moony white. she was a great enchantress once of yore, whose dwelling was a tree-wrapt island, lulled far out upon the water world and ringed with wonderful white sand, where never yet were furled the wings of ships. there in a dell a lily blanchèd place, she sat and sang, and in her singing wove around her head white lilies, and her song flew forth afar along the sea; and many a man grew hushed in his own house or 'mong the merchants grey, hearing the far off singing guile and groaned, and manned an argosy and sailing died. in the far isle she sang herself asleep at last. but now i wave her to my side. _cola._ stay, stay, or i will hold your white arms down. ah me, i cannot reach them--here and there darting you wave them, darting in the vapour. heard you? your lute upon the wall has sounded! i feel a finger drawn across my cheek! _mosada._ the phantoms come; ha ha! they come, they come! i wave them hither, my breast heaves with joy. ah! now i'm eastern-hearted once again, and while they gather round my beckoning arms, i'll sing the songs the dusky lovers sing, wandering in sultry palaces of ind, a lotus in their hands-[_the door is flung open. enter the officers of the inquisition._] _first inquisitor._ young moorish girl taken in magic. in the church's name i here arrest thee. _mosada._ it is allah's will. touch not this boy, for he is innocent. _cola._ forgive! for i have told them everything. they said i'd burn in hell unless i told them all, and let them find you in the vapour. [_she turns away--he clings to her dress._] forgive me! _mosada._ it was allah's will. _second inquisitor._ now cords. _mosada._ no need to bind my hands. where are ye, sirs, for ye are hid with vapours? _second inquisitor._ round the stake the vapour is much thicker. _cola._ god! the stake! ye said that ye would fright her from her sin-no more; take me instead of her, great sirs. she was my only friend; i'm lame you know-one shoulder twisted, and the children cry names after me. _first inquisitor._ lady- _mosada._ i come. _cola_ [_following._] forgive. forgive, or i will die. _mosada_ [_stooping and kissing him_]. 'twas allah's will. scene ii. _a room, the building of the inquisition of granada, lit by stained window, picturing st. james of spain._ _monks and inquisitors._ _first monk._ will you not hear my last new song? _first inquisitor._ hush, hush! so she must burn you say. _second inquisitor._ she must in truth. _first inquisitor._ will he not spare her life? how would one matter when there are many? _second monk._ ebremar will stamp this heathen horde away. you need not hope; and know you not she kissed that pious child with poisonous lips, and he is pining since? _first monk._ you're full of wordiness. come, hear my song. _second monk._ in truth an evil race; why strive for her, a little moorish girl? _second inquisitor._ small worth. _first monk._ my song- _first inquisitor._ i had a sister like her once my friend. [_touching the first monk on the shoulder._] where is our brother peter? when you're nigh, he is not far. i'd have him speak for her. i saw his jovial mood bring once a smile to sainted ebremar's sad eyes. i think he loves our brother peter in his heart. if peter would but ask her life--who knows? _first monk._ he digs his cabbages. he brings to mind that song i've made--is of a russian tale of holy peter of the burning gate: a saint of russia in a vision saw [_sings_] a stranger new arisen wait by the door of peter's gate, and he shouted open wide thy sacred door, but peter cried, no, thy home is deepest hell, deeper than the deepest well. then the stranger softly crew cock-a-doodle-doodle-doo! answered peter: enter in friend; but 'twere a deadly sin ever more to speak a word of any unblessed earthly bird. _first inquisitor._ be still, i hear the step of ebremar. yonder he comes; bright-eyed, and hollow-cheeked from fasting--see, the red light slanting down from the great painted window wraps his brow, as with an aureole. [_ebremar enters--they all bow to him._] _first inquisitor._ my suit to you- _ebremar._ i will not hear; the moorish girl must die. i will burn heresy from this mad earth, and- _first inquisitor._ mercy is the manna of the world. _ebremar._ the wages of sin is death. _second monk._ no use. _first inquisitor._ my lord, if it must be, i pray descend yourself into the dungeon 'neath our feet and importune with weighty words this moor, that she foreswear her heresies and save her soul from seas of endless flame in hell. _ebremar._ i speak alone with servants of the cross and dying men--and yet--but no, farewell. _second monk._ no use. _ebremar._ away! [_they go._] hear oh! thou enduring god, who giveth to the golden-crested wren her hanging mansion. give to me, i pray, the burthen of thy truth. reach down thy hands and fill me with thy rage, that i may bruise the heathen. yea, and shake the sullen kings upon their thrones. the lives of men shall flow as quiet as the little rivulets beneath the sheltering shadow of thy church, and thou shalt bend, enduring god, the knees of the great warriors whose names have sung the world to its fierce infancy again. scene iii. _the dungeon of the inquisition. the morning of the auto-da-fe dawns dimly through a barred window. a few faint stars are shining. swallows are circling in the dimness without._ _mosada._ oh! swallows, swallows, swallows, will ye fly this eve, to-morrow, or to-morrow night above the farm-house by the little lake that's rustling in the reeds with patient pushes, soft as a long dead footstep whispering through the brain. my brothers will be passing down quite soon the cornfield, where the poppies grow, to their farm-work; how silent all will be. but no, in this warm weather, 'mong the hills, will be the faint far thunder-sound as though the world were dreaming in its summer sleep; that will be later, day is scarcely dawning. and hassan will be with them--he was so small, a weak, thin child, when last i saw him there. he will be taller now--'twas long ago. the men are busy in the glimmering square. i hear the murmur as they raise the beams to build the circling seats, where high in air soon will the churchmen nod above the crowd. i'm not of that pale company whose feet ere long shall falter through the noisy square, and not come thence--for here in this small ring, hearken, ye swallows! i have hoarded up a poison drop. the toy of fancy once, a fashion with us moorish maids, begot of dreaming and of watching by the door the shadows pass; but now, i love my ring, for it alone of all the world will do my bidding. [_sucks poison from the ring._] now 'tis done, and i am glad and free--'twill thieve away with sleepy mood my thoughts, and yonder brightening patch of sky with three bars crossed, and these four walls my world, and yon few stars, grown dim like eyes of lovers the noisy world divides. how soon a deed so small makes one grow weak and tottering. where shall i lay me down? that question is a weighty question, for it is the last. not there, for there a spider weaves her web. nay here, i'll lay me down where i can watch the burghers of the night fade one by one, ... yonder a leaf of apple blossom circles in the gloom, floating from yon barred window. new comer, thou'rt welcome. lie there close against my fingers. i wonder which is whitest, they or thou. 'tis thou, for they've grown blue around the nails. my blossom, i am dying, and the stars are dying too. they were full seven stars; two only now they are, two side by side. oh! allah, it was thus they shone that night, when my lost lover left these arms. my vallence, we meet at last, the ministering stars of our nativity hang side by side, and throb within the circles of green dawn. too late, too late, for i am near to death. i try to lift mine arms--they fall again. this death is heavy in my veins like sleep. i cannot even crawl along the flags a little nearer those bright stars. tell me, is it your message, stars, that when death comes my soul shall touch with his, and the two flames be one? i think all's finished now and sealed. [_after a pause enter ebremar._] _ebremar._ young moorish girl, thy final hour is here, cast off thy heresies and save thy soul from dateless pain. she sleeps-[_starting._] mosada--thou-oh god!--awake, thou shalt not die. she sleeps. her head cast backward in her unloosed hair. look up, look up, thy vallence is by thee. a fearful paleness creeps across her breast and out-spread arms. [_casting himself down by her._] be not so pale, dear love. oh! can my kisses bring a flush no more upon thy face. how heavily thy head hangs on my breast. listen, we shall be safe. we'll fly from this before the morning star. dear heart, there is a secret way that leads its paven length towards the river's marge, where lies a shallop in the yellow reeds. awake, awake, and we will sail afar, afar along the fleet white river's face-alone with our own whispers and replies-alone among the murmurs of the dawn. among thy nation none shall know that i was ebremar, whose thoughts were fixed on god, and heaven, and holiness. _mosada._ let's talk and grieve, for that's the sweetest music for sad souls. day's dead, all flame-bewildered, and the hills in list'ning silence gazing on our grief. i never knew an eve so marvellous still. _ebremar._ her dreams are talking with old years. awake, grieve not, for vallence kneels beside thee- _mosada._ vallence, 'tis late, wait one more day; below the hills the foot-worn way is long, and it grows dark. it is the darkest eve i ever knew. _ebremar._ i kneel by thee--no parting now--look up. she smiles--is happy with her wandering griefs. _mosada._ so you must go; kiss me before you go. oh! would the busy minutes might fold up their thieving wings that we might never part. i never knew a night so honey sweet. _ebremar._ there is no leave taking. i go no more. safe on the breast of vallence is thy head unhappy one. _mosada._ go not. go not. go not. for night comes fast; look down on me, my love, and see how thick the dew lies on my face. i never knew a night so dew-bedrowned. _ebremar._ oh! hush the wandering music of thy mind. look on me once. why sink your eyelids so? why do you hang so heavy in my arms? love, will you die when we have met? one look give to thy vallence. _mosada._ vallence--he has gone from here, along the shadowy way that winds companioning the river's pilgrim torch. i'll see him longer if i stand out here upon the mountain's brow. [_she tries to stand and totters. ebremar supports her, and she stands pointing down as if into a visionary valley._] yonder he treads the path o'er-muffled with the leaves--dead leaves, like happy thoughts grown sad in evil days. he fades among the mists; how fast they come, and pour upon the world! ah! well a day! poor love and sorrow with their arms thrown round each other's necks, and whispering as they go, still wander through the world. he's gone, he's gone. i'm weary--weary, and 'tis very cold. i'll draw my cloak around me; it is cold. i never knew a night so bitter cold. [_dies._] _ebremar._ mosada! oh, mosada! [_enter monks and inquisitors._] _first inquisitor._ my lord, you called. _ebremar._ not i. this maid is dead. _first monk._ from poison, for you cannot trust these moors. you're pale, my lord. _first inquisitor._ [_aside_] his lips are quivering. the flame that shone within his eyes but now has flickered and gone out. _ebremar._ i am not well. 'twill pass. i'll see the other prisoners now, and importune their souls to penitence, so they escape from hell. but pardon me. your hood is threadbare--see that it be changed before we take our seats above the crowd. _first monk._ i always said you could not trust these moors. [_they go._] w. b. yeats. printed by sealy, bryers and walker, 94, 95, and 96 middle abbey street, dublin. transcriber's notes page 5: "my friend," amended to "my friend." page 6: "first inqusitor" amended to "first inquisitor" page 10: "kn ewa" amended to "knew a" seven poems and a fragment by william butler yeats. [illustration] the cuala press dundrum mcmxxii table of contents all souls' night page 1 suggested by a picture of a black centaur 6 thoughts upon the present state of the world 7 the new faces 14 a prayer for my son 14 cuchulain the girl and the fool 16 the wheel 18 a new end for 'the king's threshold' 18 notes note on 'thoughts upon the present state of the world' section six 23 note on the new end to 'the king's threshold' 24 seven poems and a fragment: by william butler yeats. all souls' night 'tis all souls' night and the great christ church bell, and many a lesser bell, sound through the room, for it is now midnight; and two long glasses brimmed with muscatel bubble upon the table. a ghost may come, for it is a ghost's right, his element is so fine being sharpened by his death, to drink from the wine-breath while our gross palates drink from the whole wine. i need some mind that, if the cannon sound from every quarter of the world, can stay wound in mind's pondering, as mummies in the mummy-cloth are wound; because i have a marvellous thing to say, a certain marvellous thing none but the living mock, though not for sober ear; it may be all that hear should laugh and weep an hour upon the clock. h--'s the first i call. he loved strange thought and knew that sweet extremity of pride that's called platonic love, and that to such a pitch of passion wrought nothing could bring him, when his lady died, anodyne for his love. words were but wasted breath; one dear hope had he: the inclemency of that or the next winter would be death. two thoughts were so mixed up i could not tell whether of her or god he thought the most, but think that his mind's eye, when upward turned, on one sole image fell, and that a slight companionable ghost, wild with divinity, had so lit up the whole immense miraculous house, the bible promised us, it seemed a gold-fish swimming in a bowl. on florence emery i call the next, who finding the first wrinkles on a face admired and beautiful, and knowing that the future would be vexed with 'minished beauty, multiplied commonplace, preferred to teach a school, away from neighbour or friend among dark skins, and there permit foul years to wear hidden from eyesight to the unnoticed end. before that end much had she ravelled out from a discourse in figurative speech by some learned indian on the soul's journey. how it is whirled about, wherever the orbit of the moon can reach, until it plunged into the sun; and there free and yet fast, being both chance and choice, forget its broken toys and sink into its own delight at last. and i call up macgregor from the grave, for in my first hard springtime we were friends, although of late estranged. i thought him half a lunatic, half knave, and told him so, but friendship never ends; and what if mind seem changed, and it seem changed with the mind, when thoughts rise up unbid on generous things that he did and i grow half contented to be blind. he had much industry at setting out, much boisterous courage, before loneliness had driven him crazed; for meditations upon unknown thought make human intercourse grow less and less; they are neither paid nor praised. but he'd object to the host, the glass because my glass; a ghost-lover he was and may have grown more arrogant being a ghost. but names are nothing. what matter who it be, so that his elements have grown so fine the fume of muscatel can give his sharpened palate ecstasy no living man can drink from the whole wine. i have mummy truths to tell whereat the living mock, though not for sober ear, for maybe all that hear should laugh and weep an hour upon the clock. such thought--such thought have i that hold it tight till meditation master all its parts, nothing can stay my glance until that glance run in the world's despite to where the damned have howled away their hearts, and where the blessed dance; such thought, that in it bound i need no other thing wound in mind's wandering, as mummies in the mummy-cloth are wound. suggested by a picture of a black centaur your hooves have stamped at the black margin of the wood, even where the horrible green parrots call and swing. my works are all stamped down into the sultry mud. i knew that horse play, knew it for a murderous thing. what wholesome sun has ripened is wholesome food to eat and that alone, yet i being driven half insane because of some green wing, gathered old mummy wheat in the mad abstract dark and ground it grain by grain and after baked it slowly in an oven; but now i bring full flavoured wine out of a barrel found where seven ephesian topers slept and never knew when alexander's empire past, they slept so sound. stretch out your limbs and sleep a long saturnian sleep; i have loved you better than my soul for all my words, and there is none so fit to keep a watch and keep unwearied eyes upon those horrible green birds. thoughts upon the present state of the world. i many ingenious lovely things are gone that seemed sheer miracle to the multitude; above the murderous treachery of the moon or all that wayward ebb and flow. there stood amid the ornamental bronze and stone an ancient image made of olive wood; and gone are phidias' carven ivories and all his golden grasshoppers and bees. we too had many pretty toys when young; a law indifferent to blame or praise to bribe or threat; habits that made old wrong melt down, as it were wax in the sun's rays; public opinion ripening for so long we thought it would outlive all future days. o what fine thought we had because we thought that the worst rogues and rascals had died out. all teeth were drawn, all ancient tricks unlearned, and a great army but a showy thing; what matter that no cannon had been turned into a ploughshare; parliament and king thought that unless a little powder burned the trumpeters might burst with trumpeting and yet it lack all glory; and perchance the guardsmen's drowsy chargers would not prance. now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmare rides upon sleep: a drunken soldiery can leave the mother, murdered at her door, to crawl in her own blood, and go scot-free; the night can sweat with terror as before we pieced our thoughts into philosophy, and planned to bring the world under a rule who are but weasels fighting in a hole. he who can read the signs nor sink unmanned into the half-deceit of some intoxicant from shallow wits, who knows no work can stand, whether health, wealth or peace of mind were spent on master work of intellect or hand, no honour leave its mighty monument, has but one comfort left: all triumph would but break upon his ghostly solitude. and other comfort were a bitter wound: to be in love and love what vanishes. greeks were but lovers; all that country round none dared admit, if such a thought were his, incendiary or bigot could be found to burn that stump on the acropolis, or break in bits the famous ivories or traffic in the grasshoppers or bees? ii when loie fuller's chinese dancers enwound a shining web, a floating ribbon of cloth, it seemed that a dragon of air had fallen among dancers, had whirled them round or hurried them off on its own furious path; so the platonic year whirls out new right and wrong whirls in the old instead; all men are dancers and their tread goes to the barbarous clangour of gong. iii some moralist or mythological poet compares the solitary soul to a swan; i am content with that, contented that a troubled mirror show it before that brief gleam of its life be gone, an image of its state; the wings half spread for flight, the breast thrust out in pride whether to play or to ride those winds that clamour of approaching night. a man in his own secret meditation is lost amid the labyrinth that he has made in art or politics; some platonist affirms that in the station where we should cast off body and trade the ancient habit sticks, and that if our works could but vanish with our breath that were a lucky death, for triumph can but mar our solitude. the swan has leaped into the desolate heaven: that image can bring wildness, bring a rage to end all things, to end what my laborious life imagined, even the half imagined, the half written page; o but we dreamed to mend whatever mischief seemed to afflict mankind, but now that winds of winter blow learn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed. iv we, who seven years ago talked of honour and of truth, shriek with pleasure if we show the weasel's twist, the weasel's tooth. v come let us mock at the great that had such burdens on the mind and toiled so hard and late to leave some monument behind, nor thought of the levelling wind. come let us mock at the wise; with all those calendars whereon they fixed old aching eyes, they never saw how seasons run, and now but gape at the sun. come let us mock at the good that fancied goodness might be gay, grown tired of their solitude, upon some brand-new happy day: wind shrieked--and where are they? mock mockers after that that would not lift a hand maybe to help good, wise or great to bar that foul storm out, for we traffic in mockery. vi violence upon the roads: violence of horses; some few have handsome riders, are garlanded on delicate sensitive ear or tossing mane, but wearied running round and round in their courses all break and vanish, and evil gathers head: herodias' daughters have returned again a sudden blast of dusty wind and after thunder of feet, tumult of images, their purpose in the labyrinth of the wind; and should some crazy hand dare touch a daughter all turn with amorous cries, or angry cries, according to the wind, for all are blind. but now wind drops, dust settles; thereupon there lurches past, his great eyes without thought under the shadow of stupid straw-pale locks, that insolent fiend robert artisson to whom the love-lorn lady kyteler brought bronzed peacock feathers, red combs of her cocks. the new faces if you, that have grown old were the first dead neither caltapa tree nor scented lime should hear my living feet, nor would i tread where we wrought that shall break the teeth of time. let the new faces play what tricks they will in the old rooms; night can outbalance day, our shadows rove the garden gravel still, the living seem more shadowy than they. a prayer for my son bid a strong ghost stand at the head that my michael may sleep sound, nor cry, nor turn in the bed till his morning meal come round; and may departing twilight keep all dread afar till morning's back that his mother may not lack her fill of sleep. bid the ghost have sword in hand: there are malicious things, although few dream that they exist, who have planned his murder, for they know of some most haughty deed or thought that waits upon his future days, and would through hatred of the bays bring that to nought. though you can fashion everything from nothing every day, and teach the morning stars to sing, you have lacked articulate speech to tell your simplest want, and known, wailing upon a woman's knee, all of that worst ignominy of flesh and bone; and when through all the town there ran the servants of your enemy a woman and a man, unless the holy writings lie, have borne you through the smooth and rough and through the fertile and waste, protecting till the danger past with human love. cuchulain the girl and the fool the girl. i am jealous of the looks men turn on you for all men love your worth; and i must rage at my own image in the looking-glass that's so unlike myself that when you praise it it is as though you praise another, or even mock me with praise of my mere opposite; and when i wake towards morn i dread myself for the heart cries that what deception wins my cruelty must keep; and so begone if you have seen that image and not my worth. cuchulain. all men have praised my strength but not my worth. the girl. if you are no more strength than i am beauty i will find out some cavern in the hills and live among the ancient holy men, for they at least have all men's reverence and have no need of cruelty to keep what no deception won. cuchulain. i have heard them say that men have reverence for their holiness and not their worth. the girl. god loves us for our worth; but what care i that long for a man's love. the fool by the roadside. when my days that have from cradle run to grave from grave to cradle run instead; when thoughts that a fool has wound upon a spool are but loose thread, are but loose thread; when cradle and spool are past and i mere shade at last coagulate of stuff transparent like the wind, i think that i may find a faithful love, a faithful love. the wheel through winter-time we call on spring, and through the spring on summer call, and when abounding hedges sing declare that winter's best of all; and after that there's nothing good because the spring-time has not come- nor know that what disturbs our blood is but its longing for the tomb. a new end for 'the king's threshold' youngest pupil. die seanchan and proclaim the right of the poets. seanchan. come nearer me, that i may know how face differs from face, and touch you with my hands. o more than kin, o more than children could be, for children are but born out of our blood and share our frailty. o my chicks, my chicks, that i have nourished underneath my wings and fed upon my soul. (he stands up and begins to walk down steps) i need no help. he needs no help that joy has lifted up like some miraculous beast out of ezekiel. the man that dies has the chief part in the story, and i will mock and mock and mock that image yonder that evil picture in the sky--no, no- i have all my strength again, i will outface it. o look upon the moon that's standing there in the blue daylight--notice her complexion because it is the white of leprosy and the contagion that afflicts mankind falls from the moon. when i and these are dead we should be carried to some windy hill to lie there with uncovered face awhile that mankind and that leper there may know dead faces laugh. (he falls and then half rises.) king, king, dead faces laugh. (he dies) oldest pupil. king, king, he is dead; some strange triumphant thought so filled his heart with joy that it has burst being grown too mighty for our frailty, and we who gaze grow like him and abhor the moments that come between us and that death you promised us. king. take up his body. go where you please and lay it where you please, so that i cannot see his face or any that cried him towards his death. youngest pupil. dead faces laugh! the ancient right is gone, the new remains and that is death. (they go towards the king holding out their halters) we are impatient men, so gather up the halters in your hands. king. drive them away. (he goes into the palace. the soldiers block the way before the pupils.) soldier. here is no place for you, for he and his pretensions now are finished. begone before the men at arms are bidden to hurl you from the door. oldest pupil. take up his body and cry that driven from the populous door he seeks high waters and the mountain birds to claim a portion of their solitude. (they make a litter with cloak and staffs and lay seanchan on it.) youngest pupil. and cry that when they took his ancient right they took all common sleep; therefore he claims the mountain for his mattress and his pillow. oldest pupil. and there he can sleep on, not noticing although the world be changed from worse to worse, amid the changeless clamour of the curlew. (they raise the litter on their shoulders and move a few steps) youngest pupil. (motioning to them to stop) yet make triumphant music; sing aloud for coming times will bless what he has blessed and curse what he has cursed. oldest pupil. no, no, be still; or pluck a solemn music from the strings. you wrong his greatness speaking so of triumph. youngest pupil. o silver trumpets, be you lifted up and cry to the great race that is to come. long-throated swans upon the waves of time sing loudly, for beyond the wall of the world that race may hear our music and awake. oldest pupil. (motioning the musicians to lower their trumpets) not what it leaves behind it in the light but what it carries with it to the dark exalts the soul; nor song nor trumpet-blast can call up races from the worsening world to mend the wrong and mar the solitude of the great shade we follow to the tomb. (fedelm and the pupils go out carrying the litter. some play a mournful music.) note on 'thoughts upon the present state of the world' section six. the country people see at times certain apparitions whom they name now 'fallen angels' now 'ancient inhabitants of the country,' and describe as riding at whiles 'with flowers upon the heads of the horses.' i have assumed in the sixth poem that these horsemen, now that the times worsen, give way to worse. my last symbol robert artisson was an evil spirit much run after in kilkenny at the start of the fourteenth century. are not those who travel in the whirling dust also in the platonic year?--w. b. y. note on the new end to 'the king's threshold' upon the revival of this play at the abbey theatre a few weeks ago it was played with this new end. there were a few other changes. i had originally intended to end the play tragically and would have done so but for a friend who used to say 'o do write comedy & have a few happy moments in the theatre.' my unhappy moments were because a tragic effect is very fragile and a wrong intonation, or even a wrong light or costume will spoil it all. however the play remained always of the nature of tragedy and so subject to vicissitude. here ends, 'seven poems and a fragment:' by william butler yeats: with a decoration by t. sturge moore. five hundred copies of this book have been printed and published by elizabeth corbet yeats on paper made in ireland, at the cuala press, churchtown, dundrum, in the county of dublin, ireland. finished in the third week of april in the year nineteen hundred and twenty-two. little blue book no. 335 edited by e. haldeman-julius the land of heart's desire w.b. yeats haldeman-julius company girard, kansas printed in the united states of america the land of heart's desire persons maurteen bruin. shawn bruin. father hart. bridget bruin. maire bruin. a faery child. _the scene is laid in the barony of kilmacowen in the county of sligo, and the time is the end of eighteenth century. the characters are supposed to speak in gaelic._ the land of heart's desire _the kitchen of_ maurteen brain's _house. an open grate with a turf fire is at the left side of the room, with a table in front of it. there is a door leading to the open air at the back, and another door a little to its left, leading into an inner room. there is a window, a settle, and a large dresser on the right side of the room, and a great bowl of primroses on the sill of the window._ maurteen bruin, father hart; _and_ bridget bruin _are sitting at the table._ shawn bruin _is setting the table for supper._ maire bruin _sits on the settle reading a yellow manuscript._ bridget bruin. because i bade her go and feed the calves, she took that old book down out of the thatch and has been doubled over it all day. we would be deafened by her groans and moans had she to work as some do, father hart, get up at dawn like me, and mend and scour; or ride abroad in the boisterous night like you, the pyx and blessed bread under your arm. shawn bruin. you are too cross. bridget bruin. the young side with the young. maurteen bruin. she quarrels with my wife a bit at times, and is too deep just now in the old book; but do not blame her greatly; she will grow as quiet as a puff-ball in a tree when but the moons of marriage dawn and die for half a score of times. father hart their hearts are wild as be the hearts of birds, till children come. bridget bruin. she would not mind the griddle, milk the cow, or even lay the knives and spread the cloth. father hart. i never saw her read a book before: what may it be? maurteen bruin. i do not rightly know: it has been in the thatch for fifty years. my father told me my grandfather wrote it, killed a red heifer and bound it with the hide. but draw your chair this way--supper is spread; and little good he got out of the book, because it filled his house with roaming bards, and roaming ballad-makers and the like, and wasted all his goods.--here is the wine; the griddle bread's beside you, father hart. colleen, what have you got there in the book that you must leave the bread to cool? had i, or had my father, read or written books there were no stockings full of silver and gold to come, when i am dead, to shawn and you. father hart. you should not fill your head with foolish dreams. what are you reading? maire bruin. how a princess edene, a daughter of a king of ireland, heard a voice singing on a may eve like this, and followed, half awake and half asleep, until she came into the land of faery, where nobody gets old and godly and grave, where nobody gets old and crafty and wise, where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue; and she is still there, busied with a dance. deep in the dewy shadow of a wood, or where stars walk upon a mountain top. maurteen bruin. persuade the colleen to put by the book: my grandfather would mutter just such things, and he was no judge of a dog or horse, and any idle boy could blarney him. just speak your mind. father hart. put it away, my colleen. god spreads the heavens above us like great wings, and gives a little round of deeds and days, and then come the wrecked angels and set snares, and bait them with light hopes and heavy dreams, until the heart is puffed with pride and goes, half shuddering and half joyous, from god's peace; and it was some wrecked angel, blind tears, who flattered edene's heart with merry words. my colleen, i have seen some other girls restless and ill at ease, but years went by and they grew like their neighbours and were glad in minding children, working at the churn, and gossiping of weddings and of wakes; for life moves out of a red flare of dreams into a common light of common hours, until old age bring the red flare again. shawn bruin. yet do not blame her greatly, father hart, for she is dull while i am in the fields, and mother's tongue were harder still to bear, but for her fancies: this is may eve too, when the good people post about the world, and surely one may think of them to-night. maire, have you the primroses to fling before the door to make a golden path for them to bring good luck into the house. remember, they may steal new-married brides upon may eve. maire bruin _(going over to the window and taking the flowers from the bowl.)_ here are the primroses. [_she goes to the door and strews the primroses outside._ father hart. you do well, daughter, because god permits great power to the good people on may eve. maurteen bruin. they can work all their will with primroses-change them to golden money, or little flames to burn up those who do them any wrong. maire bruin. i had no sooner flung them by the door than the wind cried and hurried them away. bridget bruin. may god have mercy on us! maire bruin. the good people will not be lucky to the house this year, but i am glad that i was courteous to them, for are not they, likewise, children of god? father hart. no, child; they are the children of the fiend, and they have power until the end of time, when god shall fight with them a great pitched battle and hack them into pieces. maire bruin. he will smile, father, perhaps, and open his great door, father hart. did but the lawless angels see that door they would fall, slain by everlasting peace; and when such angels knock upon our doors who goes with them must drive through the same storm. [_a knock at the door._ maire bruin _opens it and then goes to the dresser and fills a porringer with milk and hands it through the door and takes it back empty and closes the door._ maire bruin. a little queer old woman cloaked in green who came to beg a porringer of milk. bridget bruin. the good people go asking milk and fire upon may eve--woe on the house that gives for they have power upon it for a year. i knew you would bring evil on the house maurteen bruin. who was she? maire bruin. both the tongue and face were strange. maurteen bruin. some strangers came last week to clover hill; she must be one of them. bridget bruin. i am afraid. maurteen bruin. the priest will keep all harm out of the house. father hart. the cross will keep all harm out of the house while it hangs there. maurteen bruin. come, sit beside me, colleen, and cut away your dreams of discontent, for i would have you light up my last days like a bright torch of pine, and when i die i will make you the wealthiest hereabout; for hid away where nobody can find i have a stocking full of silver and gold. bridget bruin. you are the fool of every pretty face, and i must pinch and pare that my son's wife may have all kinds of ribbons for her head. maurteen bruin. do not be cross; she is a right good girl! the butter's by your elbow, father hart. my colleen, have not fate and time and change done well for me and for old bridget there? we have a hundred acres of good land, and sit beside each other at the fire, the wise priest of our parish to our right, and you and our dear son to left of us. to sit beside the board and drink good wine and watch the turf smoke coiling from the fire and feel content and wisdom in your heart, this is the best of life; when we are young we long to tread a way none trod before, but find the excellent old way through love and through the care of children to the hour for bidding fate and time and change good-bye. [a _knock at the door._ maire bruin _opens it and then takes a sod of turf out of the hearth in the tongs and passes it through the door and closes the door and remains standing by it._ maire bruin. a little queer old man in a green coat, who asked a burning sod to light his pipe. bridget bruin. you have now given milk and fire and brought for all you know, evil upon the house. before you married you were idle and fine, and went about with ribbons on your head; and now you are a good-for-nothing wife. shawn bruin. be quiet, mother! maurteen bruin. you are much too cross! maire bruin. what do i care if i have given this house, where i must hear all day a bitter tongue, into the power of faeries! bridget bruin. you know, well how calling the good people by that name or talking of them over much at all may bring all kinds of evil on the house. maire bruin. come, faeries, take me out of this dull house! let me have all the freedom i have lost-work when i will and idle when i will! faeries, came take me out of this dull world, for i would ride with you upon the wind, run on the top of the dishevelled tide, and dance upon the mountains like a flame! father hart. you cannot know the meaning of your words! maire bruin. father, i am right weary of four tongues: a tongue that is too crafty and too wise, a tongue that is too godly and too grave, a tongue that is more bitter than the tide, and a kind tongue too full of drowsy love, of drowsy love and my captivity. [shawn bruin _comes over to her and leads her to the settle._ shawn bruin. do not blame me: i often lie awake thinking that all things trouble your bright head-how beautiful it is--such broad pale brows under a cloudy blossoming of hair! sit down beside me here--these are too old, and have forgotten they were ever young. maire bruin. o, you are the great door-post of this house, and i the red nasturtium climbing up. [_she takes_ shawn's _hand but looks shyly at the priest and lets it go._ father hart. good daughter, take his hand--by love alone god binds us to himself and to the hearth and shuts us from the waste beyond his peace, from maddening freedom and bewildering light. shawn bruin. would that the world were mine to give it you with every quiet hearth and barren waste, the maddening freedom of its woods and tides, and the bewildering lights upon its hills. maire bruin. then i would take and break it in my hands to see you smile watching it crumble away. shawn bruin. then i would mould a world of fire and dew with no one bitter, grave, or over wise, and nothing marred or old to do you wrong. and crowd the enraptured quiet of the sky with candles burning to your lonely face. maire bruin. your looks are all the candles that i need. shawn bruin. once a fly dancing in a beam o' the sun, or the light wind blowing out of the dawn, could fill your heart with dreams none other knew, but now the indissoluble sacrament has mixed your heart that was most proud and cold with my warm heart for ever; and sun and moor, must fade and heaven be rolled up like a scroll; but your white spirit still walk by my spirit. for not a power in earth and heaven and hell can break this bond binding heart unto heart. [a voice _sings in the distance._ maire bruin. did you hear something call? o, guard me close, because i have said wicked things to-night. a voice (_close to the door_). the wind blows out of the gates of the day, the wind blows over the lonely of heart and the lonely of heart is withered away, while the faeries dance in a place apart, shaking their milk-white feet in a ring, tossing their milk-white arms in the air; for they hear the wind laugh, and murmur, and sing of a land where even the old are fair, and even the wise are merry of tongue; but i heard a reed of coolaney say, 'when the wind has laughed and murmured and sung, the lonely of heart must wither away!' maurteen bruin. i am right happy, and would make all else be happy too. i hear a child outside, and will go bring her in out of the cold. [_he opens the door. a_ child _dressed in a green jacket with a red cap comes into the house._ the child. i tire of winds and waters and pale lights! maurteen bruin. you are most welcome. it is cold out there, who'd think to face such cold on a may eve. the child. and when i tire of this warm little house, there is one here who must away, away, to where the woods, the stars, and the white streams are holding a continual festival. maurteen bruin. o listen to her dreamy and strange talk, come to the fire. the child. i'll sit upon your knee, for i have run from where the winds are born, and long-to rest my feet a little while. [_she sits upon his knee._ bridget bruin. how pretty you are! maurteen bruin. your hair is wet with dew! bridget bruin. i'll chafe your poor chilled feet. maurteen bruin. you must have come a long long way, for i have never seen your pretty face, and must be tired and hungry; here is some bread and wine. the child. they are both nasty. old mother, have you nothing nice for me? bridget bruin. i have some honey! [_she goes into the next room._ maurteen bruin. you are a dear child; the mother was quite cross before you came. [bridget _returns with the honey, and goes to the dresser and fills a porringer with milk._ bridget bruin. she is the child of gentle people; look at her white hands and at her pretty dress. i've brought you some new milk, but wait awhile and i will put it by the fire to warm, for things well fitted for poor folk like us would never please a high-born child like you. the child. old mother, my old mother, the green dawn brightens above while you blow up the fire; and evening finds you spreading the white cloth. the young may lie in bed and dream and hope, but you work on because your heart is old. bridget bruin. the young are idle. the child. old father, you are wise, and all the years have gathered in your heart to whisper of the wonders that are gone. the young must sigh through many a dream and hope, but you are wise because your heart is old. maurteen bruin. o, who would think to find so young a child loving old age and wisdom. [bridget _gives her more bread and honey._ the child. no more, mother. maurteen bruin. what a small bite; the milk is ready now; what a small sip! the child. put on my shoes, old mother, for i would like to dance now i have dined. the reeds are dancing by coolaney lake, and i would like to dance until the reeds and the loud wind, the white wave on the shore, and all the stars have danced themselves to sleep. [bridget _having put on her shoes, she gets off the old man's knees and is about to dance, but suddenly sees the crucifix and shrieks and covers her eyes._ what is that ugly thing on the black cross? father hart. you cannot know how naughty your words are! that is our blessed lord! the child. hide it away! bridget bruin. i have begun to be afraid again! the child. hide it away! maurteen bruin. that would be wickedness! bridget bruin. that would be sacrilege! the child the tortured thing! hide it away. maurteen bruin. her parents are to blame. father hart. that is the image of the son of god. [_the_ child _puts her arm round his neck lovingly and kisses him. the child. hide it away! hide it away! maurteen bruin. no! no! father hart. because you are so young and little a child i will go take it down. the child. hide it away, and cover it out of sight and out of mind. father hart (_takes it down and carries it towards the inner room)._ since you have come into this barony i will instruct you in our blessed faith: being a clever child you will soon learn. (_to the others.) we must be tender with all budding things, our maker let no thought of calvary trouble the morning stars in their first song. [_puts the crucifix in the inner room._ the child. o, what a nice, smooth floor to dance upon! the wind is blowing on the waving reeds, the wind is blowing on the heart of man. [_she dances, swaying about like the reeds._ maire (_to_ shawn bruin). just now when she came near i thought i heard other small steps beating upon the floor, and a faint music blowing in the wind-invisible pipes giving her feet the time. shawn bruin. i heard no step but hers. maire bruin. look to the bolt! because the unholy powers are abroad. maurteen bruin (_to the_ child). come over here, and if you promise me not to talk wickedly of holy things i'll give you something. the child. bring it me, old father! [maurteen bruin _goes into the next room._ father hart. i will have queen cakes when you come to me! [maurteen bruin _returns and lays a piece of money on the table. the_ child _makes a gesture of refusal._ maurteen bruin. it will buy lots of toys; see how it glitters! the child. come, tell me, do you love me? maurteen bruin. i love you! the child. ah! but you love this fireside! father hart. i love you. the child. but you love him above. bridget bruin. she is blaspheming. the child (_to_ maire). and do you likewise love me? maire bruin. i don't know. the child. you love that great tall fellow over there: yet i could make you ride upon the winds, run on the top of the dishevelled tide, and dance upon the mountains like a flame! maire bruin. queen of the angels and kind saints defend us! some dreadful fate has fallen: before she came the wind cried out and took the primroses. and i gave milk and fire, and when she came she made you hide the blessed crucifix; she wears, too, the green jacket and red cap of the unholy creatures of the raths. father hart. you fear because of her wild, pretty prates; she knows no better. (_to the_ child) child, how old are you? the child. my own dear people live a long, long time, so i am young; but measure by your years and i am older than the eagle cock who blinks and blinks on ballydawley hill, and he's the oldest thing under the moon. at times i merely care to dance and dance-at times grow wiser than the eagle cock. father hart. what are you? the child. i am of the faery people. i sent my messengers for milk and fire, and then i heard one call to me and came. [_they all except_ maire bruin _gather about the priest for protection._ maire bruin _stays on the settle as if in a trance of terror. the_ child _takes primroses from the great bowl and begins to strew them between herself and the priest and about_ maire bruin. _during the following dialogue_ shawn bruin _goes more than once to the brink of the primroses, but shrinks back to the others timidly._ father hart. i will confront this mighty spirit alone. [_they cling to him and hold him back._ the child (_while she strews the primroses.) no one whose heart is heavy with human tears can cross these little cressets of the wood. father hart. be not afraid, the father is with us, and all the nine angelic hierarchies, the holy martyrs and the innocents, the adoring magi in their coats of mail, and he who died and rose on the third day, and mary with her seven times wounded heart. [_the_ child _ceases strewing the primroses, and kneels upon the settle beside_ maire _and puts her arms about her neck._ cry daughter to the angels and the saints. the child. you shall go with me, newly-married bride, and gaze upon a merrier multitude: white-armed nuala and ardroe the wise, feacra of the hurtling foam, and him who is the ruler of the western host, finvarra, and their land of heart's desire, where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood, but joy is wisdom, time an endless song. i kiss you and the world begins to fade. father hart. daughter, i call you unto home and love! the child. stay, and come with me, newly-married bride, for, if you hear him, you grow like the rest: bear children, cook, be mindful of the churn, and wrangle over butter, fowl, and eggs, and sit at last there, old and bitter of tongue, watching the white stars war upon your hopes. father hart. daughter, i point you out the way to heaven! the child. but i can lead you, newly-married bride, where nobody gets old and crafty and wise, where nobody gets old and godly and grave, where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue, and where kind tongues bring no captivity, for we are only true to the far lights we follow singing, over valley and hill. father hart. by the dear name of the one crucified, i bid you, maire bruin, come to me. the child. i keep you in the name of your own heart! [_she leaves the settle, and stooping takes up a mass of primroses and kisses them._ we have great power to-night, dear golden folk for he took down and hid the crucifix. and my invisible brethren fill the house; i hear their footsteps going up and down. o, they shall soon rule all the hearts of men and own all lands; last night they merrily danced about his chapel belfrey! (_to_ maire.) come away, i hear my brethren bidding us away! father hart. i will go fetch the crucifix again. [_they hang about him in terror and prevent him from moving._ bridget bruin. the enchanted flowers will kill us if you go. maurteen bruin. they turn the flowers to little twisted flames. shawn bruin. the little twisted flames burn up the heart. the child. i hear them call us, newly-married bride. maire bruin. i will go with you. father hart. she is lost, alas, the child (_standing by the door_). then, follow but the heavy body of clay, and clinging mortal hope must fall from you; for we who ride the winds, run on the waves, and dance upon the mountains, are more light than dewdrops on the banners of the dawn. maire bruin. then take my soul. [shawn bruin _goes over to her._ shawn bruin. beloved, do not leave me! what will my life be if you go with her? remember when i met you by the well and took your hand in mine and spoke of love. maire bruin. dear face! dear voice! the child. come, newly-married bride! maire bruin. i always loved her world--and yet--and yet i think that i would stay if i could stay. [_sinks into his arms. the child (_from the door_). white bird, white bird, come with me, little bird! maire bruin. she calls my soul! the child. come with me, little bird! maire bruin. i can hear songs and dancing! shawn bruin. stay with me! maire bruin. dear, i would stay--and yet and yet-the child. white bird! come, little bird with crest of gold! maire bruin (_very softly_). and yet-the child. come, little bird with silver feet! shawn bruin. dead, dead! father hart. thus do the evil spirits snatch their prey almost out of the very hand of god; and day by day their power is more and more, and men and women leave old paths, for pride comes knocking with thin knuckles on the heart. a voice _sings outside_-the wind blows out of the gates of the day, the wind blows over the lonely of heart, and the lonely of heart is withered away, while the faeries dance in a place apart, shaking their milk-white feet in a ring, tossing their milk-white arms in the air; for they hear the wind laugh and murmur and sing of a land where even the old are fair, and even the wise are merry of tongue; but i heard a reed of coolaney say, 'when the wind has laughed and murmured and sung, the lonely of heart must wither away.' [_the song is taken up by many voices, who sing loudly, as if in triumph. some of the voices seem to come from within the house._ the hour-glass a morality by w. b. yeats dramatis personae a wise man a fool some pupils an angel the wise man's wife and two children the hour-glass scene: a large room with a door at the back and another at the side opening to an inner room. a desk and a chair in the middle. an hour-glass on a bracket near the door. a creepy stool near it. some benches. the wise man sitting at his desk. wise man [turning over the pages of a book]. where is that passage i am to explain to my pupils to-day? here it is, and the book says that it was written by a beggar on the walls of babylon: "there are two living countries, the one visible and the one invisible; and when it is winter with us it is summer in that country; and when the november winds are up among us it is lambing-time there." i wish that my pupils had asked me to explain any other passage, for this is a hard passage. [the fool comes in and stands at the door, holding out his hat. he has a pair of shears in the other hand.] it sounds to me like foolishness; and yet that cannot be, for the writer of this book, where i have found so much knowledge, would not have set it by itself on this page, and surrounded it with so many images and so many deep colors and so much fine gilding, if it had been foolishness. fool. give me a penny. wise man. [turns to another page.] here he has written: "the learned in old times forgot the visible country." that i understand, but i have taught my learners better. fool. won't you give me a penny? wise man. what do you want? the words of the wise saracen will not teach you much. fool. such a great wise teacher as you are will not refuse a penny to a fool. wise man. what do you know about wisdom? fool. oh, i know! i know what i have seen. wise man. what is it you have seen? fool. when i went by kilcluan where the bells used to be ringing at the break of every day, i could hear nothing but the people snoring in their houses. when i went by tubbervanach where the young men used to be climbing the hill to the blessed well, they were sitting at the crossroads playing cards. when i went by carrigoras where the friars used to be fasting and serving the poor, i saw them drinking wine and obeying their wives. and when i asked what misfortune had brought all these changes, they said it was no misfortune, but it was the wisdom they had learned from your teaching. wise man. run round to the kitchen, and my wife will give you something to eat. fool. that is foolish advice for a wise man to give. wise man. why, fool? fool. what is eaten is gone. i want pennies for my bag. i must buy bacon in the shops, and nuts in the market, and strong drink for the time when the sun is weak. and i want snares to catch the rabbits and the squirrels and the bares, and a pot to cook them in. wise man. go away. i have other things to think of now than giving you pennies. fool. give me a penny and i will bring you luck. bresal the fisherman lets me sleep among the nets in his loft in the winter-time because he says i bring him luck; and in the summer-time the wild creatures let me sleep near their nests and their holes. it is lucky even to look at me or to touch me, but it is much more lucky to give me a penny. [holds out his hand.] if i wasn't lucky, i'd starve. wise man. what have you got the shears for? fool. i won't tell you. if i told you, you would drive them away. wise man. whom would i drive away? fool. i won't tell you. wise man. not if i give you a penny? fool. no. wise man. not if i give you two pennies. fool. you will be very lucky if you give me two pennies, but i won't tell you. wise man. three pennies? fool. four, and i will tell you! wise man. very well, four. but i will not call you teigue the fool any longer. fool. let me come close to you where nobody will hear me. but first you must promise you will not drive them away. [wise man nods.] every day men go out dressed in black and spread great black nets over the hill, great black nets. wise man. why do they do that? fool. that they may catch the feet of the angels. but every morning, just before the dawn, i go out and cut the nets with my shears, and the angels fly away. wise man. ah, now i know that you are teigue the fool. you have told me that i am wise, and i have never seen an angel. fool. i have seen plenty of angels. wise man. do you bring luck to the angels too. fool. oh, no, no! no one could do that. but they are always there if one looks about one; they are like the blades of grass. wise man. when do you see them? fool. when one gets quiet; then something wakes up inside one, something happy and quiet like the stars--not like the seven that move, but like the fixed stars. [he points upward.] wise man. and what happens then? fool. then all in a minute one smells summer flowers, and tall people go by, happy and laughing, and their clothes are the color of burning sods. wise man. is it long since you have seen them, teigue the fool? fool. not long, glory be to god! i saw one coming behind me just now. it was not laughing, but it had clothes the color of burning sods, and there was something shining about its head. wise man. well, there are your four pennies. you, a fool, say "glory be to god," but before i came the wise men said it. run away now. i must ring the bell for my scholars. fool. four pennies! that means a great deal of luck. great teacher, i have brought you plenty of luck! [he goes out shaking the bag.] wise man. though they call him teigue the fool, he is not more foolish than everybody used to be, with their dreams and their preachings and their three worlds; but i have overthrown their three worlds with the seven sciences. [he touches the books with his hands.] with philosophy that was made for the lonely star, i have taught them to forget theology; with architecture, i have hidden the ramparts of their cloudy heaven; with music, the fierce planets' daughter whose hair is always on fire, and with grammar that is the moon's daughter, i have shut their ears to the imaginary harpings and speech of the angels; and i have made formations of battle with arithmetic that have put the hosts of heaven to the rout. but, rhetoric and dialectic, that have been born out of the light star and out of the amorous star, you have been my spearman and my catapult! oh! my swift horseman! oh! my keen darting arguments, it is because of you that i have overthrown the hosts of foolishness! [an angel, in a dress the color of embers, and carrying a blossoming apple bough in his hand and with a gilded halo about his head, stands upon the threshold.] before i came, men's minds were stuffed with folly about a heaven where birds sang the hours, and about angels that came and stood upon men's thresholds. but i have locked the visions into heaven and turned the key upon them. well, i must consider this passage about the two countries. my mother used to say something of the kind. she would say that when our bodies sleep our souls awake, and that whatever withers here ripens yonder, and that harvests are snatched from us that they may feed invisible people. but the meaning of the book must be different, for only fools and women have thoughts like that; their thoughts were never written upon the walls of babylon. [he sees the angel.] what are you? who are you? i think i saw some that were like you in my dreams when i was a child--that bright thing, that dress that is the color of embers! but i have done with dreams, i have done with dreams. angel. i am the angel of the most high god. wise man. why have you come to me? angel. i have brought you a message. wise man. what message have you got for me? angel. you will die within the hour. you will die when the last grains have fallen in this glass. [he turns the hour-glass.] wise man. my time to die has not come. i have my pupils. i have a young wife and children that i cannot leave. why must i die? angel. you must die because no souls have passed over the threshold of heaven since you came into this country. the threshold is grassy, and the gates are rusty, and the angels that keep watch there are lonely. wise man. where will death bring me to? angel. the doors of heaven will not open to you, for you have denied the existence of heaven; and the doors of purgatory will not open to you, for you have denied the existence of purgatory. wise man. but i have also denied the existence of hell! angel. hell is the place of those who deny. wise man [kneeling]. i have indeed denied everything and have taught others to deny. i have believed in nothing but what my senses told me. but, oh! beautiful angel, forgive me, forgive me! angel. you should have asked forgiveness long ago. wise man. had i seen your face as i see it now, oh! beautiful angel, i would have believed, i would have asked forgiveness. maybe you do not know how easy it is to doubt. storm, death, the grass rotting, many sicknesses, those are the messengers that came to me. oh! why are you silent? you carry the pardon of the most high; give it to me! i would kiss your hands if i were not afraid-no, no, the hem of your dress! angel. you let go undying hands too long ago to take hold of them now. wise man. you cannot understand. you live in that country people only see in their dreams. you live in a country that we can only dream about. maybe it is as hard for you to understand why we disbelieve as it is for us to believe. oh! what have i said! you know everything! give me time to undo what i have done. give me a year--a month--a day--an hour! give me this hour's end, that i may undo what i have done! angel. you cannot undo what you have done. yet i have this power with my message. if you can find one that believes before the hour's end, you shall come to heaven after the years of purgatory. for, from one fiery seed, watched over by those that sent me, the harvest can come again to heap the golden threshing-floor. but now farewell, for i am weary of the weight of time. wise man. blessed be the father, blessed be the son, blessed be the spirit, blessed be the messenger they have sent! angel [at the door and pointing at the hour-glass]. in a little while the uppermost glass will be empty. [goes out.] wise man. everything will be well with me. i will call my pupils; they only say they doubt. [pulls the bell.] they will be here in a moment. i hear their feet outside on the path. they want to please me; they pretend that they disbelieve. belief is too old to be overcome all in a minute. besides, i can prove what i once disproved. [another pull at the bell.] they are coming now. i will go to my desk. i will speak quietly, as if nothing had happened. [he stands at the desk with a fixed look in his eyes.] [enter pupils and the fool.] fool. leave me alone. leave me alone. who is that pulling at my bag? king's son, do not pull at my bag. a young man. did your friends the angels give you that bag? why don't they fill your bag for you? fool. give me pennies! give me some pennies! a young man. let go his cloak, it is coming to pieces. what do you want pennies for, with that great bag at your waist? fool. i want to buy bacon in the shops, and nuts in the market, and strong drink for the time when the sun is weak, and snares to catch rabbits and the squirrels that steal the nuts, and hares, and a great pot to cook them in. a young man. why don't your friends tell you where buried treasures are? another. why don't they make you dream about treasures? if one dreams three times, there is always treasure. fool [holding out his hat]. give me pennies! give me pennies! [they throw pennies into his hat. he is standing close to the door, that he may hold out his hat to each newcomer.] a young man. master, will you have teigue the fool for a scholar? another young man. teigue, will you give us pennies if we teach you lessons? no, he goes to school for nothing on the mountains. tell us what you learn on the mountains, teigue? wise man. be silent all. [he has been standing silent, looking away.] stand still in your places, for there is something i would have you tell me. [a moment's pause. they all stand round in their places. teigue still stands at the door.] wise man. is there any one amongst you who believes in god? in heaven? or in purgatory? or in hell? all the young men. no one; master! no one! wise man. i knew you would all say that; but do not be afraid. i will not be angry. tell me the truth. do you not believe? a young man. we once did, but you have taught us to know better. wise man. oh! teaching, teaching does not go very deep! the heart remains unchanged under it all. you believe just as you always did, and you are afraid to tell me. a young man. no, no, master. wise man. if you tell me that you believe i shall be glad and not angry. a young man. [to his neighbor.] he wants somebody to dispute with. his neighbor. i knew that from the beginning. a young man. that is not the subject for to-day; you were going to talk about the words the beggar wrote upon the walls of babylon. wise man. if there is one amongst you that believes, he will be my best friend. surely there is one amongst you. [they are all silent.] surely what you learned at your mother's knees has not been so soon forgotten. a young man. master, till you came, no teacher in this land was able to get rid of foolishness and ignorance. but every one has listened to you, every one has learned the truth. you have had your last disputation. another. what a fool you made of that monk in the market-place! he had not a word to say. wise man. [comes from his desk and stands among them in the middle of the room.] pupils, dear friends, i have deceived you all this time. it was i myself who was ignorant. there is a god. there is a heaven. there is fire that passes, and there is fire that lasts for ever. [teigue, through all this, is sitting on a stool by the door, reckoning on his fingers what he will buy with his money.] a young man [to another]. he will not be satisfied till we dispute with him. [to the wise man.] prove it, master. have you seen them? wise man [in a low, solemn voice]. just now, before you came in, some one came to the door, and when i looked up i saw an angel standing there. a young man. you were in a dream. anybody can see an angel in his dreams. wise man. oh, my god! it was not a dream. i was awake, waking as i am now. i tell you i was awake as i am now. a young man. some dream when they are awake, but they are the crazy, and who would believe what they say? forgive me, master, but that is what you taught me to say. that is what you said to the monk when he spoke of the visions of the saints and the martyrs. another young man. you see how well we remember your teaching. wise man. out, out from my sight! i want some one with belief. i must find that grain the angel spoke of before i die. i tell you i must find it, and you answer me with arguments. out with you, or i will beat you with my stick! [the young men laugh.] a young man. how well he plays at faith! he is like the monk when he had nothing more to say. wise man. out, out, or i will lay this stick about your shoulders! out with you, though you are a king's son! [they begin to hurry out.] a young man. come, come; he wants us to find some one who will dispute with him. [all go out.] wise man [alone. he goes to the door at the side]. i will call my wife. she will believe; women always believe. [he opens the door and calls.] bridget! bridget! [bridget comes in wearing her apron, her sleeves turned up from her floury arms.] bridget, tell me the truth; do not say what you think will please me. do you sometimes say your prayers? bridget. prayers! no, you taught me to leave them off long ago. at first i was sorry, but i am glad now, for i am sleepy in the evenings. wise man. but do you not believe in god? bridget. oh, a good wife only believes what her husband tells her! wise man. but sometimes when you are alone, when i am in the school and the children asleep, do you not think about the saints, about the things you used to believe in? what do you think of when you are alone? bridget [considering]. i think about nothing. sometimes i wonder if the pig is fattening well, or i go out to see if the crows are picking up the chickens' food. wise man. oh, what can i do! is there nobody who believes? i must go and find somebody! [he goes toward the door but with his eyes fixed on the hour-glass.] i cannot go out; i cannot leave that! bridget. you want somebody to get up argument with. wise man. oh, look out of the door and tell me if there is anybody there in the street. i cannot leave this glass; somebody might shake it! then the sand would fall quickly. bridget. i don't understand what you are saying. [looks out.] there is a crowd of people talking to your pupils. wise man. oh, run out, bridget, and see if they have found somebody that believes! bridget [wiping her arms in her apron and pulling down her sleeves]. it's a hard thing to be married to a man of learning that must be always having arguments. [goes out and shouts through the kitchen door.] don't be meddling with the bread, children, while i'm out. wise man. [kneels down.] "salvum me fac, deus--salvum--salvum...." i have forgotten it all. it is thirty years since i said a prayer. i must pray in the common tongue, like a clown begging in the market like teigue the fool! [he prays.] help me, father, son, and spirit! [bridget enters, followed by the fool, who is holding out his hat to her.] fool. give me something; give me a penny to buy bacon in the shops, and nuts in the market, and strong drink for the time when the sun grows weak. bridget. i have no pennies. [to the wise man.] your pupils cannot find anybody to argue with you. there is nobody in the whole country who had enough belief to fill a pipe with since you put down the monk. can't you be quiet now and not always be wanting to have arguments? it must be terrible to have a mind like that. wise man. i am lost! i am lost! bridget. leave me alone now; i have to make the bread for you and the children. wise man. out of this, woman, out of this, i say! [bridget goes through the kitchen door.] will nobody find a way to help me! but she spoke of my children. i had forgotten them. they will believe. it is only those who have reason that doubt; the young are full of faith. bridget, bridget, send my children to me! bridget [inside]. your father wants you, run to him now. [the two children came in. they stand together a little way from the threshold of the kitchen door, looking timidly at their father.] wise man. children, what do you believe? is there a heaven? is there a hell? is there a purgatory? first child. we haven't forgotten, father. the other child. oh, no, father. [they both speak together as if in school.] there is no heaven; there is no hell; there is nothing we cannot see. first child. foolish people used to think that there were, but you are very learned and you have taught us better. wise man. you are just as bad as the others, just as bad as the others! out of the room with you, out of the room! [the children begin to cry and run away.] go away, go away! i will teach you better--no, i will never teach you again. go to your mother--no, she will not be able to teach them.... help them, o god! [alone.] the grains are going very quickly. there is very little sand in the uppermost glass. somebody will come for me in a moment; perhaps he is at the door now! all creatures that have reason doubt. o that the grass and the planets could speak! somebody has said that they would wither if they doubted. o speak to me, o grass blades! o fingers of god's certainty, speak to me. you are millions and you will not speak. i dare not know the moment the messenger will come for me. i will cover the glass. [he covers it and brings it to the desk, and the fool, is sitting by the door fiddling with some flowers which he has stuck in his hat. he has begun to blow a dandelion head.] what are you doing? fool. wait a moment. [he blows.] four, five, six. wise man. what are you doing that for? fool. i am blowing at the dandelion to find out what time it is. wise man. you have heard everything! that is why you want to find out what hour it is! you are waiting to see them coming through the door to carry me away. [fool goes on blowing.] out through the door with you! i will have no one here when they come. [he seizes the fool by the shoulders, and begins to force him out through the door, then suddenly changes his mind.] no, i have something to ask you. [he drags him back into the room.] is there a heaven? is there a hell? is there a purgatory? fool. so you ask me now. i thought when you were asking your pupils, i said to myself, if he would ask teigue the fool, teigue could tell him all about it, for teigue has learned all about it when he has been cutting the nets. wise man. tell me; tell me! fool. i said, teigue knows everything. not even the owls and the hares that milk the cows have teigue's wisdom. but teigue will not speak; he says nothing. wise man. tell me, tell me! for under the cover the grains are falling, and when they are all fallen i shall die; and my soul will be lost if i have not found somebody that believes! speak, speak! fool [looking wise]. no, no, i won't tell you what is in my mind, and i won't tell you what is in my bag. you might steal away my thoughts. i met a bodach on the road yesterday, and he said, "teigue, tell me how many pennies are in your bag. i will wager three pennies that there are not twenty pennies in your bag; let me put in my hand and count them." but i pulled the strings tighter, like this; and when i go to sleep every night i hide the bag where no one knows. wise man. [goes toward the hour-glass as if to uncover it.] no, no, i have not the courage! [he kneels.] have pity upon me, fool, and tell me! fool. ah! now, that is different. i am not afraid of you now. but i must come near you; somebody in there might hear what the angel said. wise man. oh, what did the angel tell you? fool. once i was alone on the hills, and an angel came by and he said, "teigue the fool, do not forget the three fires: the fire that punishes, the fire that purifies, and the fire wherein the soul rejoices for ever!" wise man. he believes! i am saved! help me. the sand has run out. i am dying.... [fool helps him to his chair.] i am going from the country of the seven wandering stars, and i am going to the country of the fixed stars! ring the bell. [fool rings the bell.] are they coming ? ah! now i hear their feet.... i will speak to them. i understand it all now. one sinks in on god: we do not see the truth; god sees the truth in us. i cannot speak, i am too weak. tell them, fool, that when the life and the mind are broken, the truth comes through them like peas through a broken peascod. but no, i will pray--yet i cannot pray. pray fool, that they may be given a sign and save their souls alive. your prayers are better than mine. [fool bows his head. wise man's head sinks on his arm on the books. pupils enter.] a young man. look at the fool turned bell-ringer! another. what have you called us in for, teigue? what are you going to tell us? another. no wonder he has had dreams! see, he is fast asleep now. [goes over and touches the wise man.] oh, he is dead! fool. do not stir! he asked for a sign that you might be saved. [all are silent for a moment.] look what has come from his mouth... a little winged thing... a little shining thing. it has gone to the door. [the angel appears in the doorway, stretches out her hands and closes them again.] the angel has taken it in her hands... she will open her hands in the garden of paradise. [they all kneel.] the land of heart's desire by w. b. yeats 1912 first edition ............................ 1894 second edition (in "poems" by w. b. yeats) 1895 third edition ,, ,, 1899 fourth edition ,, ,, 1901 fifth edition ,, ,, 1904 sixth edition ,, ,, 1908 seventh edition (revised) ................ 1912 (all rights reserved.) to florence farr the land of heart's desire o rose, thou art sick. william blake maurteen bruin bridget bruin shawn bruin mary bruin father hart a faery child the scene is laid in the barony of kilmacowen, in the county of sligo, and at a remote time. the land of heart's desire scene.--a room with a hearth on the floor in the middle of a deep alcove to the right. there are benches in the alcove and a table; and a crucifix on the wall. the alcove is full of a glow of light from the fire. there is an open door facing the audience to the left, and to the left of this a bench. through the door one can see the forest. it is night, but the moon or a late sunset glimmers through the trees and carries the eye far off into a vague, mysterious world. maurteen bruin, shawn bruin, and bridget bruin sit in the alcove at the table or about the fire. they are dressed in the costume of some remote time, and near them sits an old priest, father hart. he may be dressed as a friar. there is food and drink upon the table. mary bruin stands by the door reading a book. if she looks up she can see through the door into the wood. bridget. because i bid her clean the pots for supper she took that old book down out of the thatch; she has been doubled over it ever since. we should be deafened by her groans and moans had she to work as some do, father hart; get up at dawn like me and mend and scour; or ride abroad in the boisterous night like you, the pyx and blessed bread under your arm. shawn. mother, you are too cross. bridget. you've married her, and fear to vex her and so take her part. maurteen (to father hart) it is but right that youth should side with youth she quarrels with my wife a bit at times, and is too deep just now in the old book but do not blame her greatly; she will grow as quiet as a puff-ball in a tree when but the moons of marriage dawn and die for half a score of times. father hart. their hearts are wild, as be the hearts of birds, till children come. bridget. she would not mind the kettle, milk the cow, or even lay the knives and spread the cloth. shawn. mother, if only-maurteen. shawn, this is half empty; go, bring up the best bottle that we have. father hart. i never saw her read a book before, what can it be? maurteen (to shawn) what are you waiting for? you must not shake it when you draw the cork it's precious wine, so take your time about it. (shawn goes.) (to priest) there was a spaniard wrecked at ocris head, when i was young, and i have still some bottles. he cannot bear to hear her blamed; the book has lain up in the thatch these fifty years; my father told me my grandfather wrote it, and killed a heifer for the binding of it-but supper's spread, and we can talk and eat. it was little good he got out of the book, because it filled his house with rambling fiddlers, and rambling ballad-makers and the like. the griddle-bread is there in front of you. colleen, what is the wonder in that book, that you must leave the bread to cool? had i or had my father read or written books there was no stocking stuffed with yellow guineas to come when i am dead to shawn and you. father hart. you should not fill your head with foolish dreams. what are you reading? mary. how a princess edane, a daughter of a king of ireland, heard a voice singing on a may eve like this, and followed half awake and half asleep, until she came into the land of faery, where nobody gets old and godly and grave, where nobody gets old and crafty and wise, where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue. and she is still there, busied with a dance deep in the dewy shadow of a wood, or where stars walk upon a mountain-top. maurteen. persuade the colleen to put down the book; my grandfather would mutter just such things, and he was no judge of a dog or a horse, and any idle boy could blarney him; just speak your mind. father hart. put it away, my colleen; god spreads the heavens above us like great wings and gives a little round of deeds and days, and then come the wrecked angels and set snares, and bait them with light hopes and heavy dreams, until the heart is puffed with pride and goes half shuddering and half joyous from god's peace; and it was some wrecked angel, blind with tears, who flattered edane's heart with merry words. my colleen, i have seen some other girls restless and ill at ease, but years went by and they grew like their neighbours and were glad in minding children, working at the churn, and gossiping of weddings and of wakes; for life moves out of a red flare of dreams into a common light of common hours, until old age bring the red flare again. maurteen. that's true--but she's too young to know it's true. bridget. she's old enough to know that it is wrong to mope and idle. maurteen. i've little blame for her; she's dull when my big son is in the fields, and that and maybe this good woman's tongue have driven her to hide among her dreams like children from the dark under the bed-clothes. bridget. she'd never do a turn if i were silent. maurteen. and maybe it is natural upon may eve to dream of the good people. but tell me, girl, if you've the branch of blessed quicken wood that women hang upon the post of the door that they may send good luck into the house? remember they may steal new-married brides after the fall of twilight on may eve, or what old women mutter at the fire is but a pack of lies. father hart. it may be truth we do not know the limit of those powers god has permitted to the evil spirits for some mysterious end. you have done right. (to mary); it's well to keep old innocent customs up. (mary bruin has taken a bough of quicken wood from a seat and hung it on a nail in the doorpost. a girl child strangely dressed, perhaps in faery green, comes out of the wood and takes it away.) mary. i had no sooner hung it on the nail before a child ran up out of the wind; she has caught it in her hand and fondled it; her face is pale as water before dawn. father hart. whose child can this be? maurteen. no one's child at all. she often dreams that some one has gone by, when there was nothing but a puff of wind. mary. they have taken away the blessed quicken wood, they will not bring good luck into the house; yet i am glad that i was courteous to them, for are not they, likewise, children of god? father hart. colleen, they are the children of the fiend, and they have power until the end of time, when god shall fight with them a great pitched battle and hack them into pieces. mary. he will smile, father, perhaps, and open his great door. father hart. did but the lawless angels see that door they would fall, slain by everlasting peace; and when such angels knock upon our doors, who goes with them must drive through the same storm. (a thin old arm comes round the door-post and knocks and beckons. it is clearly seen in the silvery light. mary bruin goes to door and stands in it for a moment. maurteen bruin is busy filling father hart's plate. bridget bruin stirs the fire.) mary (coming to table) there's somebody out there that beckoned me and raised her hand as though it held a cup, and she was drinking from it, so it may be that she is thirsty. (she takes milk from the table and carries it to the door.) father hart. that will be the child that you would have it was no child at all. bridget. and maybe, father, what he said was true; for there is not another night in the year so wicked as to-night. maurteen. nothing can harm us while the good father's underneath our roof. mary. a little queer old woman dressed in green. bridget. the good people beg for milk and fire upon may eve--woe to the house that gives, for they have power upon it for a year. maurteen. hush, woman, hush! bridget. she's given milk away. i knew she would bring evil on the house. maurteen. who was it? mary. both the tongue and face were strange. maurteen. some strangers came last week to clover hill; she must be one of them. bridget. i am afraid. father hart. the cross will keep all evil from the house while it hangs there. maurteen. come, sit beside me, colleen, and put away your dreams of discontent, for i would have you light up my last days, like the good glow of the turf; and when i die you'll be the wealthiest hereabout, for, colleen, i have a stocking full of yellow guineas hidden away where nobody can find it. bridget. you are the fool of every pretty face, and i must spare and pinch that my son's wife may have all kinds of ribbons for her head. maurteen. do not be cross; she is a right good girl! the butter is by your elbow, father hart. my colleen, have not fate and time and change done well for me and for old bridget there? we have a hundred acres of good land, and sit beside each other at the fire. i have this reverend father for my friend, i look upon your face and my son's face-we've put his plate by yours--and here he comes, and brings with him the only thing we have lacked, abundance of good wine. (shawn comes in.) stir up the fire, and put new turf upon it till it blaze; to watch the turf-smoke coiling from the fire, and feel content and wisdom in your heart, this is the best of life; when we are young we long to tread a way none trod before, but find the excellent old way through love, and through the care of children, to the hour for bidding fate and time and change goodbye. (mary takes a sod of turf from the fire and goes out through the door. shawn follows her and meets her coming in.) shawn. what is it draws you to the chill o' the wood? there is a light among the stems of the trees that makes one shiver. mary. a little queer old man made me a sign to show he wanted fire to light his pipe. bridget. you've given milk and fire upon the unluckiest night of the year and brought, for all you know, evil upon the house. before you married you were idle and fine and went about with ribbons on your head; and now--no, father, i will speak my mind she is not a fitting wife for any man-shawn. be quiet, mother! maurteen. you are much too cross. mary. what do i care if i have given this house, where i must hear all day a bitter tongue, into the power of faeries bridget. you know well how calling the good people by that name, or talking of them over much at all, may bring all kinds of evil on the house. mary. come, faeries, take me out of this dull house! let me have all the freedom i have lost; work when i will and idle when i will! faeries, come take me out of this dull world, for i would ride with you upon the wind, run on the top of the dishevelled tide, and dance upon the mountains like a flame. father hart. you cannot know the meaning of your words. mary. father, i am right weary of four tongues: a tongue that is too crafty and too wise, a tongue that is too godly and too grave, a tongue that is more bitter than the tide, and a kind tongue too full of drowsy love, of drowsy love and my captivity. (shawn bruin leads her to a seat at the left of the door.) shawn. do not blame me; i often lie awake thinking that all things trouble your bright head. how beautiful it is--your broad pale forehead under a cloudy blossoming of hair! sit down beside me here--these are too old, and have forgotten they were ever young. mary. o, you are the great door-post of this house, and i the branch of blessed quicken wood, and if i could i'd hang upon the post, till i had brought good luck into the house. (she would put her arms about him, but looks shyly at the priest and lets her arms fall.) father hart. my daughter, take his hand--by love alone god binds us to himself and to the hearth, that shuts us from the waste beyond his peace from maddening freedom and bewildering light. shawn. would that the world were mine to give it you, and not its quiet hearths alone, but even all that bewilderment of light and freedom. if you would have it. mary. i would take the world and break it into pieces in my hands to see you smile watching it crumble away. shawn. then i would mould a world of fire and dew with no one bitter, grave or over wise, and nothing marred or old to do you wrong, and crowd the enraptured quiet of the sky with candles burning to your lonely face. mary/ your looks are all the candles that i need. shawn. once a fly dancing in a beam of the sun, or the light wind blowing out of the dawn, could fill your heart with dreams none other knew, but now the indissoluble sacrament has mixed your heart that was most proud and cold with my warm heart for ever; the sun and moon must fade and heaven be rolled up like a scroll but your white spirit still walk by my spirit. (a voice singing in the wood.) maurteen. there's some one singing. why, it's but a child. it sang, "the lonely of heart is withered away." a strange song for a child, but she sings sweetly. listen, listen! (goes to door.) mary. o, cling close to me, because i have said wicked things to-night. the voice. the wind blows out of the gates of the day, the wind blows over the lonely of heart, and the lonely of heart is withered away. while the faeries dance in a place apart, shaking their milk-white feet in a ring, tossing their milk-white arms in the air for they hear the wind laugh and murmur and sing of a land where even the old are fair, and even the wise are merry of tongue but i heard a reed of coolaney say, when the wind has laughed and murmured and sung the lonely of heart is withered away maurteen. being happy, i would have all others happy, so i will bring her in out of the cold. (he brings in the faery child.) the child. i tire of winds and waters and pale lights. maurteen. and that's no wonder, for when night has fallen the wood's a cold and a bewildering place, but you are welcome here. the child. i am welcome here. for when i tire of this warm little house there is one here that must away, away. maurteen. o, listen to her dreamy and strange talk. are you not cold? the child. i will crouch down beside you, for i have run a long, long way this night. bridget. you have a comely shape. maurteen. your hair is wet. bridget. i'll warm your chilly feet. maurteen. you have come indeed a long, long way--for i have never seen your pretty face--and must be tired and hungry, here is some bread and wine. the child. the wine is bitter. old mother, have you no sweet food for me? bridget. i have some honey. (she goes into the next room.) maurteen. you have coaxing ways, the mother was quite cross before you came. (bridget returns with the honey and fills porringer with milk.) bridget. she is the child of gentle people; look at her white hands and at her pretty dress. i've brought you some new milk, but wait a while and i will put it to the fire to warm, for things well fitted for poor folk like us would never please a high-born child like you. the child. from dawn, when you must blow the fire ablaze, you work your fingers to the bone, old mother. the young may lie in bed and dream and hope, but you must work your fingers to the bone because your heart is old. bridget. the young are idle. the child. your memories have made you wise, old father; the young must sigh through many a dream and hope, but you are wise because your heart is old. (bridget gives her more bread and honey.) maurteen. o, who would think to find so young a girl loving old age and wisdom? the child. no more, mother. maurteen. what a small bite! the milk is ready now. (hands it to her.) what a small sip! the child. put on my shoes, old mother. now i would like to dance now i have eaten, the reeds are dancing by coolaney lake, and i would like to dance until the reeds and the white waves have danced themselves asleep. (bridget puts on the shoes, and the child is about to dance, but suddenly sees the crucifix and shrieks and covers her eyes.) what is that ugly thing on the black cross? father hart. you cannot know how naughty your words are! that is our blessed lord. the child. hide it away, bridget. i have begun to be afraid again. the child. hide it away! maurteen. that would be wickedness! bridget. that would be sacrilege! the child. the tortured thing hide it away! maurteen. her parents are to blame. father hart. that is the image of the son of god. the child (caressing him) hide it away, hide it away! maurteen. no, no. father hart. because you are so young and like a bird, that must take fright at every stir of the leaves, i will go take it down. the child. hide it away! and cover it out of sight and out of mind! (father hart takes crucifix from wall and carries it towards inner room.) father hart. since you have come into this barony, i will instruct you in our blessed faith and being so keen witted you'll soon learn. (to the others.) we must be tender to all budding things, our maker let no thought of calvary trouble the morning stars in their first song. (puts crucifix in inner room.) the child. here is level ground for dancing; i will dance. (sings.) "the wind blows out of the gates of the day, the wind blows over the lonely of heart, and the lonely of heart is withered away." (she dances.) mary (to shawn). just now when she came near i thought i heard other small steps beating upon the floor, and a faint music blowing in the wind, invisible pipes giving her feet the tune. shawn. i heard no steps but hers. mary. i hear them now, the unholy powers are dancing in the house. maurteen. come over here, and if you promise me not to talk wickedly of holy things i will give you something. the child. bring it me, old father. maurteen. here are some ribbons that i bought in the town for my son's wife--but she will let me give them to tie up that wild hair the winds have tumbled. the child. come, tell me, do you love me? maurteen. yes, i love you. the child. ah, but you love this fireside. do you love me? father hart. when the almighty puts so great a share of his own ageless youth into a creature, to look is but to love. the child. but you love him? bridget. she is blaspheming. the child. and do you love me too mary. i do not know. the child. you love that young man there, yet i could make you ride upon the winds, run on the top of the dishevelled tide, and dance upon the mountains like a flame. mary. queen of angels and kind saints defend us! some dreadful thing will happen. a while ago she took away the blessed quicken wood. father hart. you fear because of her unmeasured prattle; she knows no better. child, how old are you? the child. when winter sleep is abroad my hair grows thin, my feet unsteady. when the leaves awaken my mother carries me in her golden arms; i'll soon put on my womanhood and marry the spirits of wood and water, but who can tell when i was born for the first time? i think i am much older than the eagle cock that blinks and blinks on ballygawley hill, and he is the oldest thing under the moon. father hart. o she is of the faery people. the child. one called, i sent my messengers for milk and fire, she called again and after that i came. (all except shawn and mary bruin gather behind the priest for protection.) shawn (rising) though you have made all these obedient, you have not charmed my sight and won from me a wish or gift to make you powerful; i'll turn you from the house. father hart. no, i will face her. the child. because you took away the crucifix i am so mighty that there's none can pass, unless i will it, where my feet have danced or where i've whirled my finger-tops. (shawn tries to approach her and cannot.) maurteen. look, look! there something stops him--look how he moves his hands as though he rubbed them on a wall of glass! father hart. i will confront this mighty spirit alone. be not afraid, the father is with us, the holy martyrs and the innocents, the adoring magi in their coats of mail, and he who died and rose on the third day and all the nine angelic hierarchies. (the child kneels upon the settle beside mary and puts her arms about her.) cry, daughter, to the angels and the saints. the child. you shall go with me, newly-married bride, and gaze upon a merrier multitude. white-armed nuala, aengus of the birds, feacra of the hurtling foam, and him who is the ruler of the western host, finvarra, and their land of heart's desire, where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood, but joy is wisdom, time an endless song. i kiss you and the world begins to fade. shawn. awake out of that trance--and cover up your eyes and ears. father hart. she must both look and listen, for only the soul's choice can save her now. come over to me, daughter; stand beside me; think of this house and of your duties in it. the child. stay and come with me, newly-married bride, for if you hear him you grow like the rest; bear children, cook, and bend above the churn, and wrangle over butter, fowl, and eggs, until at last, grown old and bitter of tongue, you're crouching there and shivering at the grave. father hart. daughter, i point you out the way to heaven. the child. but i can lead you, newly-married bride, where nobody gets old and crafty and wise, where nobody gets old and godly and grave, where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue, and where kind tongues bring no captivity; for we are but obedient to the thoughts that drift into the mind at a wink of the eye. father hart. . by the dear name of the one crucified, i bid you, mary bruin, come to me. the child. i keep you in the name of your own heart. father hart. it is because i put away the crucifix that i am nothing, and my power is nothing, i'll bring it here again. maurteen (clinging to him) no! bridget. do not leave us. father hart. o, let me go before it is too late; it is my sin alone that brought it all. (singing outside.) the child. i hear them sing, "come, newly-married bride, come, to the woods and waters and pale lights." mary. i will go with you. father hart. she is lost, alas! the child (standing by the door) but clinging mortal hope must fall from you, for we who ride the winds, run on the waves, and dance upon the mountains are more light than dewdrops on the banner of the dawn. mary. o, take me with you. shawn. beloved, i will keep you. i've more than words, i have these arms to hold you, nor all the faery host, do what they please, shall ever make me loosen you from these arms. mary. dear face! dear voice! the child. come, newly-married bride. mary. i always loved her world--and yet--and yet-the child. white bird, white bird, come with me, little bird. mary. she calls me! the child. come with me, little bird. (distant dancing figures appear in the wood.) mary. i can hear songs and dancing. shawn. stay with me. mary. i think that i would stay--and yet--and yet-the child. come, little bird, with crest of gold.' mary (very soft,) and yet-the child. come, little bird with silver feet! (mary bruin dies, and the child goes.) shawn. she is dead! bridget. come from that image; body and soul are gone you have thrown your arms about a drift of leaves, or bole of an ash-tree changed into her image. father hart. thus do the spirits of evil snatch their prey, almost out of the very hand of god; and day by day their power is more and more, and men and women leave old paths, for pride comes knocking with thin knuckles on the heart. (outside there are dancing figures, and it may be a white bird, and many voices singing.) "the wind blows out of the gates of the day, the wind blows over the lonely of heart, and the lonely of heart is withered away; while the faeries dance in a place apart, shaking their milk-white feet in a ring, tossing their milk-white arms in the air; for they hear the wind laugh and murmur and sing of a land where even the old are fair, and even the wise are merry of tongue; but i heard a reed of coolaney say-when the wind has laughed and murmured and sung, the lonely of heart is withered away."' note 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. w. b. yeats. abbey theatre, dublin. march, 1912. two plays for dancers by w. b. yeats the cuala press mcmxix two plays for dancers preface in a note at the end of my last book 'the wild swans at coole' (cuala press.) i explained why i preferred this kind of drama, and where i had found my models, and where and how my first play after this kind was performed, and when and how i would have it performed in the future. i can but refer the reader to the note or to the long introduction to 'certain noble plays of japan' (cuala press.) w. b. yeats. october 11th. 1918 p. s. that i might write 'the dreaming of the bones,' mr. w. a. henderson with great kindness wrote out for me all historical allusions to dervorgilla. the dreaming of the bones the stage is any bare place in a room close to the wall. a screen with a pattern of mountain and sky can stand against the wall, or a curtain with a like pattern hang upon it, but the pattern must only symbolize or suggest. one musician enters and then two others, the first stands singing while the others take their places. then all three sit down against the wall by their instruments, which are already there--a drum, a zither, and a flute. or they unfold a cloth as in 'the hawk's well,' while the instruments are carried in. first musician (or all three musicians, singing) why does my heart beat so? did not a shadow pass? it passed but a moment ago. who can have trod in the grass? what rogue is night-wandering? have not old writers said that dizzy dreams can spring from the dry bones of the dead? and many a night it seems that all the valley fills with those fantastic dreams. they overflow the hills, so passionate is a shade, like wine that fills to the top a grey-green cup of jade, or maybe an agate cup. (speaking) the hour before dawn and the moon covered up. the little village of abbey is covered up; the little narrow trodden way that runs from the white road to the abbey of corcomroe is covered up; and all about the hills are like a circle of agate or of jade. somewhere among great rocks on the scarce grass birds cry, they cry their loneliness. even the sunlight can be lonely here, even hot noon is lonely. i hear a footfall- a young man with a lantern comes this way. he seems an aran fisher, for he wears the flannel bawneen and the cow-hide shoe. he stumbles wearily, and stumbling prays. (a young man enters, praying in irish) once more the birds cry in their loneliness, but now they wheel about our heads; and now they have dropped on the grey stone to the north-east. (a man and a girl both in the costume of a past time, come in. they wear heroic masks) young man (raising his lantern) who is there? i cannot see what you are like, come to the light. stranger but what have you to fear? young man and why have you come creeping through the dark. (the girl blows out lantern) the wind has blown my lantern out. where are you? i saw a pair of heads against the sky and lost them after, but you are in the right i should not be afraid in county clare; and should be or should not be have no choice, i have to put myself into your hands, now that my candle's out. stranger you have fought in dublin? young man i was in the post office, and if taken i shall be put against a wall and shot. stranger you know some place of refuge, have some plan or friend who will come to meet you? young man i am to lie at daybreak on the mountain and keep watch until an aran coracle puts in at muckanish or at the rocky shore under finvarra, but would break my neck if i went stumbling there alone in the dark. stranger we know the pathways that the sheep tread out, and all the hiding-places of the hills, and that they had better hiding-places once. young man you'd say they had better before english robbers cut down the trees or set them upon fire for fear their owners might find shelter there. what is that sound? stranger an old horse gone astray he has been wandering on the road all night. young man i took him for a man and horse. police are out upon the roads. in the late rising i think there was no man of us but hated to fire at soldiers who but did their duty and were not of our race, but when a man is born in ireland and of irish stock when he takes part against us-stranger i will put you safe, no living man shall set his eyes upon you. i will not answer for the dead. young man the dead? stranger for certain days the stones where you must lie have in the hour before the break of day been haunted. young man but i was not born at midnight. stranger many a man born in the full daylight can see them plain, will pass them on the high-road or in the crowded market-place of the town, and never know that they have passed. young man my grandam would have it they did penance everywhere or lived through their old lives again. stranger in a dream; and some for an old scruple must hang spitted upon the swaying tops of lofty trees; some are consumed in fire, some withered up by hail and sleet out of the wintry north, and some but live through their old lives again. young man well, let them dream into what shape they please and fill waste mountains with the invisible tumult of the fantastic conscience. i have no dread; they cannot put me into jail or shoot me, and seeing that their blood has returned to fields that have grown red from drinking blood like mine they would not if they could betray. stranger this pathway runs to the ruined abbey of corcomroe; the abbey passed, we are soon among the stone and shall be at the ridge before the cocks of aughanish or bailevlehan or grey aughtmana shake their wings and cry. (they go round the stage once) first musician (speaking) they've passed the shallow well and the flat stone fouled by the drinking cattle, the narrow lane where mourners for five centuries have carried noble or peasant to his burial. an owl is crying out above their heads. (singing) why should the heart take fright what sets it beating so? the bitter sweetness of the night has made it but a lonely thing. red bird of march, begin to crow, up with the neck and clap the wing, red cock, and crow. (they go once round the stage. the first musician speaks.) and now they have climbed through the long grassy field and passed the ragged thorn trees and the gap in the ancient hedge; and the tomb-nested owl at the foot's level beats with a vague wing. (singing) my head is in a cloud; i'd let the whole world go. my rascal heart is proud remembering and remembering. red bird of march, begin to crow, up with the neck and clap the wing red cock and crow. (they go round the stage. the first musician speaks.) they are among the stones above the ash above the briar and thorn and the scarce grass; hidden amid the shadow far below them the cat-headed bird is crying out. (singing) the dreaming bones cry out because the night winds blow and heaven's a cloudy blot; calamity can have its fling. red bird of march begin to crow, up with the neck and clap the wing red cock and crow. the stranger we're almost at the summit and can rest. the road is a faint shadow there; and there the abbey lies amid its broken tombs. in the old days we should have heard a bell calling the monks before day broke to pray; and when the day has broken on the ridge, the crowing of its cocks. young man is there no house famous for sanctity or architectural beauty in clare or kerry, or in all wide connacht the enemy has not unroofed? stranger close to the altar broken by wind and frost and worn by time donogh o'brien has a tomb, a name in latin. he wore fine clothes and knew the secrets of women but he rebelled against the king of thomond and died in his youth. young man and why should he rebel? the king of thomond was his rightful master. it was men like donogh who made ireland weak- my curse on all that troop, and when i die i'll leave my body, if i have any choice, far from his ivy tod and his owl; have those who, if your tale is true, work out a penance upon the mountain-top where i am to hide, come from the abbey graveyard? the girl they have not that luck, but are more lonely, those that are buried there, warred in the heat of the blood; if they were rebels some momentary impulse made them rebels or the comandment of some petty king who hated thomond. being but common sinners, no callers in of the alien from oversea they and their enemies of thomond's party mix in a brief dream battle above their bones, or make one drove or drift in amity, or in the hurry of the heavenly round forget their earthly names; these are alone being accursed. young man and if what seems is true and there are more upon the other side than on this side of death, many a ghost must meet them face to face and pass the word even upon this grey and desolate hill. young girl until this hour no ghost or living man has spoken though seven centuries have run since they, weary of life and of men's eyes, flung down their bones in some forgotten place being accursed. young man i have heard that there are souls who, having sinned after a monstrous fashion take on them, being dead, a monstrous image to drive the living, should they meet its face, crazy, and be a terror to the dead. young girl but these were comely even in their middle life and carry, now that they are dead, the image of their first youth, for it was in that youth their sin began. young man i have heard of angry ghosts who wander in a wilful solitude. the girl these have no thought but love; nor joy but that upon the instant when their penance draws to its height and when two hearts are wrung nearest to breaking, if hearts of shadows break, his eyes can mix with hers; nor any pang that is so bitter as that double glance, being accursed. young man but what is this strange penance- that when their eyes have met can wring them most? the girl though eyes can meet, their lips can never meet. young man and yet it seems they wander side by side. but doubtless you would say that when lips meet and have not living nerves, it is no meeting. the girl although they have no blood or living nerves who once lay warm and live the live-long night in one another's arms, and know their part in life, being now but of the people of dreams, is a dreams part; although they are but shadows hovering between a thorn tree and a stone who have heaped up night on winged night; although no shade however harried and consumed would change his own calamity for theirs, their manner of life were blessed could their lips a moment meet; but when he has bent his head close to her head or hand would slip in hand the memory of their crime flows up between and drives them apart. young man the memory of a crime- he took her from a husband's house it may be, but does the penance for a passionate sin last for so many centuries? the girl no, no, the man she chose, the man she was chosen by cared little and cares little from whose house they fled towards dawn amid the flights of arrows or that it was a husband's and a king's; and how if that were all could she lack friends on crowded roads or on the unpeopled hill? helen herself had opened wide the door where night by night she dreams herself awake and gathers to her breast a dreaming man. young man what crime can stay so in the memory? what crime can keep apart the lips of lovers wandering and alone? the girl her king and lover was overthrown in battle by her husband and for her sake and for his own, being blind and bitter and bitterly in love, he brought a foreign army from across the sea. young man you speak of dermot and of dervorgilla who brought the norman in? the girl yes, yes i spoke of that most miserable, most accursed pair who sold their country into slavery, and yet they were not wholly miserable and accursed if somebody of their race at last would say: 'i have forgiven them.' young man oh, never, never will dermot and dervorgilla be forgiven. the girl if someone of their race forgave at last lip would be pressed on lip. young man oh, never, never will dermot and dervorgilla be forgiven. you have told your story well, so well indeed i could not help but fall into the mood and for a while believe that it was true or half believe, but better push on now. the horizon to the east is growing bright. (they go once round stage) so here we're on the summit. i can see the aran islands, connemara hills, and galway in the breaking light; there too the enemy has toppled wall and roof and torn from ancient walls to boil his pot the oaken panelling that had been dear to generations of children and old men. but for that pair for whom you would have my pardon it might be now like bayeux or like caen or little italian town amid its walls for though we have neither coal nor iron ore to make us rich and cover heaven with smoke our country, if that crime were uncommitted had been most beautiful. why do you dance? why do you gaze and with so passionate eyes one on the other and then turn away covering your eyes and weave it in a dance, who are you? what are you? you are not natural. the girl seven hundred years our lips have never met. young man why do you look so strangely at one another, so strangely and so sweetly? the girl seven hundred years. young man so strangely and so sweetly. all the ruin, all, all their handiwork is blown away as though the mountain air had blown it away because their eyes have met. they cannot hear, being folded up and hidden in their dance. the dance is changing now. they have dropped their eyes, they have covered up their eyes as though their hearts had suddenly been broken--never, never shall dermot and dervorgilla be forgiven. they have drifted in the dance from rock to rock. they have raised their hands as though to snatch the sleep that lingers always in the abyss of the sky though they can never reach it. a cloud floats up and covers all the mountain head in a moment. and now it lifts and they are swept away. i had almost yielded and forgiven it all- this is indeed a place of terrible temptation. (the musicians begin unfolding and folding a black cloth. the first musician comes forward to the front of the stage, at the centre. he holds the cloth before him. the other two come one on either side and unfold it. they afterwards fold it up in the same way. while it is unfolded, the young man leaves the stage.) the musicians i (singing) at the grey round of the hill music of a lost kingdom runs, runs and is suddenly still. the winds out of clare-galway carry it: suddenly it is still. i have heard in the night air a wandering airy music; and moidered in that snare a man is lost of a sudden, in that sweet wandering snare. what finger first began music of a lost kingdom. they dreamed that laughed in the sun. dry bones that dream are bitter, they dream and darken our sun. those crazy fingers play a wandering airy music; our luck is withered away, and wheat in the wheat-ear withered, and the wind blows it away. ii my heart ran wild when it heard the curlew cry before dawn and the eddying cat-headed bird; but now the night is gone. i have heard from far below the strong march birds a-crow, stretch neck and clap the wing, red cocks, and crow. the only jealousy of emer enter musicians, who are dressed as in the earlier play. they have the same musical instruments, which can either be already upon the stage or be brought in by the first musician before he stands in the centre with the cloth between his hands, or by a player when the cloth is unfolded. the stage as before can be against the wall of any room. first musician (during the unfolding and folding of the cloth) a woman's beauty is like a white frail bird, like a white sea-bird alone at daybreak after stormy night between two furrows upon the ploughed land: a sudden storm and it was thrown between dark furrows upon the ploughed land. how many centuries spent the sedentary soul in toils of measurement beyond eagle or mole, beyond hearing or seeing, or archimedes guess, to raise into being that loveliness? a strange unserviceable thing, a fragile, exquisite, pale shell, that the vast troubled waters bring to the loud sands before day has broken. the storm arose and suddenly fell amid the dark before day had broken. what death? what discipline? what bonds no man could unbind being imagined within the labyrinth of the mind? what pursuing or fleeing? what wounds, what bloody press? dragged into being this loveliness. (when the cloth is folded again the musicians take their place against wall. the folding of the cloth shows on one side of the stage the curtained bed or litter on which lies a man in his grave-clothes. he wears an heroic mask. another man with exactly similar clothes and mask crouches near the front. emer is sitting beside the bed.) first musician (speaking) i call before the eyes a roof with cross-beams darkened by smoke. a fisher's net hangs from a beam, a long oar lies against the wall. i call up a poor fisher's house. a man lies dead or swooning, that amorous man, that amorous, violent man, renowned cuchulain, queen emer at his side. at her own bidding all the rest have gone. but now one comes on hesitating feet, young eithne inguba, cuchulain's mistress. she stands a moment in the open door, beyond the open door the bitter sea, the shining, bitter sea is crying out, (singing) white shell, white wing i will not choose for my friend a frail unserviceable thing that drifts and dreams, and but knows that waters are without end and that wind blows. emer (speaking) come hither, come sit down beside the bed you need not be afraid, for i myself sent for you, eithne inguba. eithne inguba no, madam, i have too deeply wronged you to sit there. emer of all the people in the world we two, and we alone, may watch together here, because we have loved him best. eithne inguba and is he dead? emer although they have dressed him out in his grave-clothes and stretched his limbs, cuchulain is not dead; the very heavens when that day's at hand, so that his death may not lack ceremony, will throw out fires, and the earth grow red with blood. there shall not be a scullion but foreknows it like the world's end. eithne inguba how did he come to this? emer towards noon in the assembly of the kings he met with one who seemed a while most dear. the kings stood round; some quarrel was blown up; he drove him out and killed him on the shore at baile's tree, and he who was so killed was his own son begot on some wild woman when he was young, or so i have heard it said; and thereupon, knowing what man he had killed, and being mad with sorrow, he ran out; and after to his middle in the foam with shield before him and with sword in hand, he fought the deathless sea. the kings looked on and not a king dared stretch an arm, or even dared call his name, but all stood wondering in that dumb stupor like cattle in a gale, until at last, as though he had fixed his eyes on a new enemy, he waded out until the water had swept over him; but the waves washed his senseless image up and laid it at this door. eithne inguba how pale he looks! emer he is not dead. eithne inguba you have not kissed his lips nor laid his head upon your breast. emer it may be an image has been put into his place, a sea-born log bewitched into his likeness, or some stark horseman grown too old to ride among the troops of mananan, son of the sea, now that his joints are stiff. eithne inguba cry out his name. all that are taken from our sight, they say, loiter amid the scenery of their lives for certain hours or days, and should he hear he might, being angry drive the changeling out. emer it is hard to make them hear amid their darkness, and it is long since i could call him home; i am but his wife, but if you cry aloud with that sweet voice that is so dear to him he cannot help but listen. eithne inguba he loves me best, being his newest love, but in the end will love the woman best who loved him first and loved him through the years when love seemed lost. emer i have that hope, the hope that some day and somewhere we'll sit together at the hearth again. eithne inguba women like me when the violent hour is over are flung into some corner like old nut shells. cuchulain, listen. emer no, not yet for first i'll cover up his face to hide the sea; and throw new logs upon the hearth and stir the half burnt logs until they break in flame. old mananan's unbridled horses come out of the sea and on their backs his horsemen but all the enchantments of the dreaming foam dread the hearth fire. (she pulls the curtains of the bed so as to hide the sick man's face, that the actor may change his mask unseen. she goes to one side of platform and moves her hand as though putting logs on a fire and stirring it into a blaze. while she makes these movements the musicians play, marking the movements with drum and flute perhaps. having finished she stands beside the imaginary fire at a distance from cuchulain & eithne inguba.) call on cuchulain now. eithne inguba can you not hear my voice. emer bend over him. call out dear secrets till you have touched his heart if he lies there; and if he is not there till you have made him jealous. eithne inguba cuchulain, listen. emer you speak too timidly; to be afraid because his wife is but three paces off when there is so great a need were but to prove the man that chose you made but a poor choice. we're but two women struggling with the sea. eithne inguba o my beloved pardon me, that i have been ashamed and you in so great need. i have never sent a message or called out, scarce had a longing for your company but you have known and come; and if indeed you are lying there stretch out your arms and speak; open your mouth and speak for to this hour my company has made you talkative. why do you mope, and what has closed your ears. our passion had not chilled when we were parted on the pale shore under the breaking dawn. he will not hear me: or his ears are closed and no sound reaches him. emer then kiss that image the pressure of your mouth upon his mouth may reach him where he is. eithne inguba (starting back) it is no man. i felt some evil thing that dried my heart when my lips touched it. emer no, his body stirs; the pressure of your mouth has called him home; he has thrown the changeling out. eithne inguba (going further off) look at that arm that arm is withered to the very socket. emer (going up to the bed) what do you come for and from where? figure of cuchulain i have come from mananan's court upon a bridleless horse. emer what one among the sidhe has dared to lie upon cuchulain's bed and take his image? figure of cuchulain i am named bricriu--not the man--that bricriu, maker of discord among gods and men, called bricriu of the sidhe. emer come for what purpose? figure of cuchulain (sitting up and showing its distorted face. eithne inguba goes out) i show my face and everything he loves must fly away. emer you people of the wind are full of lying speech and mockery. i have not fled your face. figure of cuchulain you are not loved. emer and therefore have no dread to meet your eyes and to demand him of you. figure of cuchulain for that i have come. you have but to pay the price and he is free. emer do the sidhe bargain? figure of cuchulain when they set free a captive they take in ransom a less valued thing. the fisher when some knowledgeable man restores to him his wife, or son, or daughter, knows he must lose a boat or net, or it may be the cow that gives his children milk; and some have offered their own lives. i do not ask your life, or any valuable thing; you spoke but now of the mere chance that some day you'd sit together by the hearth again; renounce that chance, that miserable hour, and he shall live again. emer i do not question but you have brought ill luck on all he loves and now, because i am thrown beyond your power unless your words are lies, you come to bargain. figure of cuchulain you loved your power when but newly married and i love mine although i am old and withered; you have but to put yourself into that power and he shall live again. emer no, never, never. figure of cuchulain you dare not be accursed yet he has dared. emer i have but two joyous thoughts, two things i prize, a hope, a memory, and now you claim that hope. figure of cuchulain he'll never sit beside you at the hearth or make old bones, but die of wounds and toil on some far shore or mountain, a strange woman beside his mattress. emer you ask for my one hope that you may bring your curse on all about him. figure of cuchulain you've watched his loves and you have not been jealous knowing that he would tire, but do those tire that love the sidhe? emer what dancer of the sidhe what creature of the reeling moon has pursued him? figure of cuchulain i have but to touch your eyes and give them sight; but stand at my left side. (he touches her eyes with his left hand, the right being withered) emer my husband there. figure of cuchulain but out of reach--i have dissolved the dark that hid him from your eyes but not that other that's hidden you from his. emer husband, husband! figure of cuchulain be silent, he is but a phantom now and he can neither touch, nor hear, nor see; the longing and the cries have drawn him hither. he heard no sound, heard no articulate sound; they could but banish rest, and make him dream, and in that dream, as do all dreaming shades before they are accustomed to their freedom, he has taken his familiar form, and yet he crouches there not knowing where he is or at whose side he is crouched. (a woman of the sidhe has entered and stands a little inside the door) emer who is this woman? figure of cuchulain she has hurried from the country-under-wave and dreamed herself into that shape that he may glitter in her basket; for the sidhe are fishers also and they fish for men with dreams upon the hook. emer and so that woman has hid herself in this disguise and made herself into a lie. figure of cuchulain a dream is body; the dead move ever towards a dreamless youth and when they dream no more return no more; and those more holy shades that never lived but visit you in dreams. emer i know her sort. they find our men asleep, weary with war, or weary with the chase and kiss their lips and drop their hair upon them, from that hour our men, who yet knew nothing of it all, are lonely, and when at fall of night we press their hearts upon our hearts their hearts are cold. (she draws a knife from her girdle) figure of cuchulain and so you think to wound her with a knife. she has an airy body. look and listen; i have not given you eyes and ears for nothing. (the woman of the sidhe moves round the crouching ghost of cuchulain at front of stage in a dance that grows gradually quicker, as he slowly awakes. at moments she may drop her hair upon his head but she does not kiss him. she is accompanied by string and flute and drum. her mask and clothes must suggest gold or bronze or brass or silver so that she seems more an idol than a human being. this suggestion may be repeated in her movements. her hair too, must keep the metallic suggestion.) ghost of cuchulain who is it stands before me there shedding such light from limb and hair as when the moon complete at last with every labouring crescent past, and lonely with extreme delight, flings out upon the fifteenth night? woman of the sidhe because i long i am not complete. what pulled your hands about your feet and your head down upon your knees, and hid your face? ghost of cuchulain old memories: a dying boy, with handsome face upturned upon a beaten place; a sacred yew-tree on a strand; a woman that held in steady hand in all the happiness of her youth before her man had broken troth, a burning wisp to light the door; and many a round or crescent more; dead men and women. memories have pulled my head upon my knees. woman of the sidhe could you that have loved many a woman that did not reach beyond the human, lacking a day to be complete, love one that though her heart can beat, lacks it but by an hour or so. ghost of cuchulain i know you now for long ago i met you on the mountain side, beside a well that seemed long dry, beside old thorns where the hawk flew. i held out arms and hands but you, that now seem friendly, fled away half woman and half bird of prey. woman of the sidhe hold out your arms and hands again you were not so dumbfounded when i was that bird of prey and yet i am all woman now. ghost of cuchulain i am not the young and passionate man i was and though that brilliant light surpass all crescent forms, my memories weigh down my hands, abash my eyes. woman of the sidhe then kiss my mouth. though memory be beauty's bitterest enemy i have no dread for at my kiss memory on the moment vanishes: nothing but beauty can remain. ghost of cuchulain and shall i never know again intricacies of blind remorse? woman of the sidhe time shall seem to stay his course, for when your mouth and my mouth meet all my round shall be complete imagining all its circles run; and there shall be oblivion even to quench cuchulain's drouth, even to still that heart. ghost of cuchulain your mouth. (they are about to kiss, he turns away) o emer, emer. woman of the sidhe so then it is she made you impure with memory. ghost of cuchulain still in that dream i see you stand, a burning wisp in your right hand, to wait my coming to the house, as when our parents married us. woman of the sidhe being among the dead you love her that valued every slut above her while you still lived. ghost of cuchulain o my lost emer. woman of the sidhe and there is not a loose-tongued schemer but could draw you if not dead, from her table and her bed. how could you be fit to wive with flesh and blood, being born to live where no one speaks of broken troth for all have washed out of their eyes wind blown dirt of their memories to improve their sight? ghost of cuchulain your mouth, your mouth. (their lips approach but cuchulain turns away as emer speaks.) emer if he may live i am content, content that he shall turn on me, if but the dead will set him free that i may speak with him at whiles, eyes that the cold moon or the harsh sea or what i know not's made indifferent. ghost of cuchulain what a wise silence has fallen in this dark! i know you now in all your ignorance of all whereby a lover's quiet is rent. what dread so great as that he should forget the least chance sight or sound, or scratch or mark on an old door, or frail bird heard and seen in the incredible clear light love cast all round about her some forlorn lost day? that face, though fine enough, is a fool's face and there's a folly in the deathless sidhe beyond man's reach. woman of the sidhe i told you to forget after my fashion; you would have none of it; so now you may forget in a man's fashion. there's an unbridled horse at the sea's edge. mount; it will carry you in an eye's wink to where the king of country-under-wave, old mananan, nods above the board and moves his chessmen in a dream. demand your life and come again on the unbridled horse. ghost of cuchulain forgive me those rough words. how could you know that man is held to those whom he has loved by pain they gave, or pain that he has given, intricacies of pain. woman of the sidhe i am ashamed that being of the deathless shades i chose a man so knotted to impurity. (the ghost of cuchulain goes out) woman of the sidhe (to figure of cuchulain) to you that have no living light, but dropped from a last leprous crescent of the moon, i owe it all. figure of cuchulain because you have failed i must forego your thanks, i that took pity upon your love and carried out your plan to tangle all his life and make it nothing that he might turn to you. woman of the sidhe was it from pity you taught the woman to prevail against me? figure of cuchulain you know my nature--by what name i am called. woman of the sidhe was it from pity that you hid the truth that men are bound to women by the wrongs they do or suffer? figure of cuchulain you know what being i am. woman of the sidhe i have been mocked and disobeyed--your power was more to you than my good-will, and now i'll have you learn what my ill-will can do; i lay you under bonds upon the instant to stand before our king and face the charge and take the punishment. figure of cuchulain i'll stand there first. and tell my story first, and mananan knows that his own harsh sea made my heart cold. woman of the sidhe my horse is there and shall outrun your horse. (the figure of cuchulain falls back, the woman of the sidhe goes out. drum taps, music resembling horse hoofs.) eithne inguba (entering quickly) i heard the beat of hoofs, but saw no horse, and then came other hoofs and after that i heard low angry cries and thereupon i ceased to be afraid. emer cuchulain wakes. (the figure turns round. it once more wears the heroic mask.) cuchulain eithne inguba take me in your arms, i have been in some strange place and am afraid. (the first musician comes to the front of stage, the others from each side and unfold the cloth singing) the musicians what makes her heart beat thus, plain to be understood i have met in a man's house a statue of solitude, moving there and walking; its strange heart beating fast for all our talking. o still that heart at last. o bitter reward! of many a tragic tomb! and we though astonished are dumb and give but a sigh and a word a passing word. although the door be shut and all seem well enough, although wide world hold not a man but will give you his love. the moment he has looked at you, he that has loved the best may turn from a statue his too human breast. o bitter reward! of many a tragic tomb! and we though astonished are dumb or give but a sigh and a word a passing word. what makes your heart so beat? some one should stay at her side. when beauty is complete her own thought will have died and danger not be diminished; dimmed at three quarter light when moon's round is finished the stars are out of sight. o bitter reward! of many a tragic tomb! and we though astonished are dumb or give but a sigh and a word a passing word. (when the cloth is folded again the stage is bare.) * * * * * here ends, 'two plays for dancers,' by william butler yeats. four hundred copies of this book have been printed and published by elizabeth corbet yeats on paper made in ireland, at the cuala press, churchtown, dundrum, in the county of dublin, ireland. finished on the tenth day of january in the year nineteen hundred and nineteen. the green helmet and other poems the green helmet and other poems by william butler yeats new york the macmillan company london: macmillan & co., ltd. 1912 _all rights reserved_ copyright, 1911, by william butler yeats copyright, 1912, by the macmillan co. _set up and electrotyped. published october, 1912_ the green helmet and other poems his dream 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? 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. a woman homer sung 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 gray, 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, and trod so sweetly proud as 'twere upon a cloud, a woman homer sung, that life and letters seem but an heroic dream. that the night come 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. the consolation 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." 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. friends 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 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. no second troy 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? reconciliation 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, 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. king and no king "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; 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. the cold heaven 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, 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? peace 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, so much sternness and such charm, till they had changed us to like strength?" ah, but peace that comes at length, came when time had touched her form. against unworthy praise 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, 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 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, theatre business, management of men. i swear before the dawn comes round again i'll find the stable and pull out the bolt. a drinking song 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. the coming of wisdom with time 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. on hearing that the students of our new university have joined the ancient order of hibernians and the agitation against immoral literature 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. to a poet, who would have me praise certain bad poets, imitators of his and mine 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 where's the wild dog that has praised his fleas? the attack on the "play boy" once, when midnight smote the air, eunuchs ran through hell and met round about hell's gate, to stare at great juan riding by, and like these to rail and sweat, maddened by that sinewy thigh. a lyric from an unpublished play "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?" upon a house shaken by the land agitation 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 the gifts that govern men, and after these to gradual time's last gift, a written speech wrought of high laughter, loveliness and ease? at the abbey theatre _imitated from ronsard_ 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 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 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, although it be for children that you sigh: these are the clouds about the fallen sun, the majesty that shuts his burning eye. at galway races out yonder, where the race course is, delight makes all of the one mind, riders upon the swift horses, the field 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. a friend's illness 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 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. the young man's song 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, and the shadows eaten the moon; ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny, one cannot begin it too soon. the green helmet _an heroic farce_ the persons of the play laegaire laegaire's wife conall conall's wife cuchulain laeg, _cuchulain's chariot-driver_ emer red man, _a spirit_ horse boys and scullions, black men, etc. the green helmet _an heroic farce_ scene: _a house made of logs. there are two windows at the back and a door which cuts off one of the corners of the room. through the door one can see low rocks which make the ground outside higher than it is within, and beyond the rocks a misty moon-lit sea. through the windows one can see nothing but the sea. there is a great chair at the opposite side to the door, and in front of it a table with cups and a flagon of ale. here and there are stools._ _at the abbey theatre the house is orange red and the chairs and tables and flagons black, with a slight purple tinge which is not clearly distinguishable from the black. the rocks are black with a few green touches. the sea is green and luminous, and all the characters except the red man and the black men are dressed in various shades of green, one or two with touches of purple which look nearly black. the black men all wear dark purple and have eared caps, and at the end their eyes should look green from the reflected light of the sea. the red man is altogether in red. he is very tall, and his height increased by horns on the green helmet. the effect is intentionally violent and startling._ laegaire what is that? i had thought that i saw, though but in the wink of an eye, a cat-headed man out of connaught go pacing and spitting by; but that could not be. conall you have dreamed it--there's nothing out there. i killed them all before daybreak--i hoked them out of their lair; i cut off a hundred heads with a single stroke of my sword, and then i danced on their graves and carried away their hoard. laegaire does anything stir on the sea? conall not even a fish or a gull: i can see for a mile or two, now that the moon's at the full. [_a distant shout._] laegaire ah--there--there is someone who calls us. conall but from the landward side, and we have nothing to fear that has not come up from the tide; the rocks and the bushes cover whoever made that noise, but the land will do us no harm. laegaire it was like cuchulain's voice. conall but that's an impossible thing. laegaire an impossible thing indeed. conall for he will never come home, he has all that he could need in that high windy scotland--good luck in all that he does. here neighbour wars on neighbour and why there is no man knows, and if a man is lucky all wish his luck away, and take his good name from him between a day and a day. laegaire i would he'd come for all that, and make his young wife know that though she may be his wife, she has no right to go before your wife and my wife, as she would have gone last night had they not caught at her dress, and pulled her as was right; and she makes light of us though our wives do all that they can. she spreads her tail like a peacock and praises none but her man. conall a man in a long green cloak that covers him up to the chin comes down through the rocks and hazels. laegaire cry out that he cannot come in. conall he must look for his dinner elsewhere, for no one alive shall stop where a shame must alight on us two before the dawn is up. laegaire no man on the ridge of the world must ever know that but us two. conall [_outside door_] go away, go away, go away. young man [_outside door_] i will go when the night is through and i have eaten and slept and drunk to my heart's delight. conall a law has been made that none shall sleep in this house to-night. young man who made that law? conall we made it, and who has so good a right? who else has to keep the house from the shape-changers till day? young man then i will unmake the law, so get you out of the way. [_he pushes past conall and goes into house_] conall i thought that no living man could have pushed me from the door, nor could any living man do it but for the dip in the floor; and had i been rightly ready there's no man living could do it, dip or no dip. laegaire go out--if you have your wits, go out, a stone's throw further on you will find a big house where our wives will give you supper, and you'll sleep sounder there, for it's a luckier house. young man i'll eat and sleep where i will. laegaire go out or i will make you. young man [_forcing up laegaire's arm, passing him and putting his shield on the wall over the chair_] not till i have drunk my fill. but may some dog defend me for a cat of wonder's up. laegaire and conall are here, the flagon full to the top, and the cups-laegaire it is cuchulain. cuchulain the cups are dry as a bone. [_he sits on chair and drinks_] conall go into scotland again, or where you will, but begone from this unlucky country that was made when the devil spat. cuchulain if i lived here a hundred years, could a worse thing come than that laegaire and conall should know me and bid me begone to my face? conall we bid you begone from a house that has fallen on shame and disgrace. cuchulain i am losing patience, conall--i find you stuffed with pride, the flagon full to the brim, the front door standing wide; you'd put me off with words, but the whole thing's plain enough, you are waiting for some message to bring you to war or love in that old secret country beyond the wool-white waves, or it may be down beneath them in foam-bewildered caves where nine forsaken sea queens fling shuttles to and fro; but beyond them, or beneath them, whether you will or no, i am going too. laegaire better tell it all out to the end; he was born to luck in the cradle, his good luck may amend the bad luck we were born to. conall i'll lay the whole thing bare. you saw the luck that he had when he pushed in past me there. does anything stir on the sea? laegaire not even a fish or a gull. conall you were gone but a little while. we were there and the ale-cup full. we were half drunk and merry, and midnight on the stroke when a wide, high man came in with a red foxy cloak, with half-shut foxy eyes and a great laughing mouth, and he said when we bid him drink, that he had so great a drouth he could drink the sea. cuchulain i thought he had come from one of you out of some connaught rath, and would lap up milk and mew; but if he so loved water i have the tale awry. conall you would not be so merry if he were standing by, for when we had sung or danced as he were our next of kin he promised to show us a game, the best that ever had been; and when we had asked what game, he answered, "why, whip off my head! then one of you two stoop down, and i'll whip off his," he said. "a head for a head," he said, "that is the game that i play." cuchulain how could he whip off a head when his own had been whipped away? conall we told him it over and over, and that ale had fuddled his wit, but he stood and laughed at us there, as though his sides would split, till i could stand it no longer, and whipped off his head at a blow, being mad that he did not answer, and more at his laughing so, and there on the ground where it fell it went on laughing at me. laegaire till he took it up in his hands-conall and splashed himself into the sea. cuchulain i have imagined as good when i've been as deep in the cup. laegaire you never did. cuchulain and believed it. conall cuchulain, when will you stop boasting of your great deeds, and weighing yourself with us two, and crying out to the world whatever we say or do, that you've said or done a better?--nor is it a drunkard's tale, though we said to ourselves at first that it all came out of the ale, and thinking that if we told it we should be a laughing-stock, swore we should keep it secret. laegaire but twelve months upon the clock. conall a twelvemonth from the first time. laegaire and the jug full up to the brim: for we had been put from our drinking by the very thought of him. conall we stood as we're standing now. laegaire the horns were as empty. conall when he ran up out of the sea with his head on his shoulders again. cuchulain why, this is a tale worth telling. conall and he called for his debt and his right, and said that the land was disgraced because of us two from that night if we did not pay him his debt. laegaire what is there to be said when a man with a right to get it has come to ask for your head? conall if you had been sitting there you had been silent like us. laegaire he said that in twelve months more he would come again to this house and ask his debt again. twelve months are up to-day. conall he would have followed after if we had run away. laegaire will he tell every mother's son that we have broken our word? cuchulain whether he does or does not we'll drive him out with the sword, and take his life in the bargain if he but dare to scoff. conall how can you fight with a head that laughs when you've whipped it off? laegaire or a man that can pick it up and carry it out in his hand? conall he is coming now, there's a splash and a rumble along the strand as when he came last. cuchulain come, and put all your backs to the door. [_a tall, red-headed, red-cloaked man stands upon the threshold against the misty green of the sea; the ground, higher without than within the house, makes him seem taller even than he is. he leans upon a great two-handed sword_] laegaire it is too late to shut it, for there he stands once more and laughs like the sea. cuchulain old herring--you whip off heads! why, then whip off your own, for it seems you can clap it on again. or else go down in the sea, go down in the sea, i say, find that old juggler manannan and whip his head away; or the red man of the boyne, for they are of your own sort, or if the waves have vexed you and you would find a sport of a more irish fashion, go fight without a rest a caterwauling phantom among the winds of the west. but what are you waiting for? into the water, i say! if there's no sword can harm you, i've an older trick to play, an old five-fingered trick to tumble you out of the place; i am sualtim's son cuchulain--what, do you laugh in my face? red man so you too think me in earnest in wagering poll for poll! a drinking joke and a gibe and a juggler's feat, that is all, to make the time go quickly--for i am the drinker's friend, the kindest of all shape-changers from here to the world's end, the best of all tipsy companions. and now i bring you a gift: i will lay it there on the ground for the best of you all to lift, [_he lays his helmet on the ground_] and wear upon his own head, and choose for yourselves the best. o! laegaire and conall are brave, but they were afraid of my jest. well, maybe i jest too grimly when the ale is in the cup. there, i'm forgiven now- [_then in a more solemn voice as he goes out_] let the bravest take it up. [_conall takes up helmet and gazes at it with delight_] laegaire [_singing, with a swaggering stride_] laegaire is best; between water and hill, he fought in the west with cat heads, until at the break of day all fell by his sword, and he carried away their hidden hoard. [_he seizes the helmet_] conall give it me, for what did you find in the bag but the straw and the broken delf and the bits of dirty rag you'd taken for good money? cuchulain no, no, but give it me. [_he takes helmet_] conall the helmet's mine or laegaire's--you're the youngest of us three. cuchulain [_filling helmet with ale_] i did not take it to keep it--the red man gave it for one, but i shall give it to all--to all of us three or to none; that is as you look upon it--we will pass it to and fro, and time and time about, drink out of it and so stroke into peace this cat that has come to take our lives. now it is purring again, and now i drink to your wives, and i drink to emer, my wife. [_a great noise without and shouting_] why, what in god's name is that noise? conall what else but the charioteers and the kitchen and stable boys shouting against each other, and the worst of all is your own, that chariot-driver, laeg, and they'll keep it up till the dawn, and there's not a man in the house that will close his eyes to-night, or be able to keep them from it, or know what set them to fight. [_a noise of horns without_] there, do you hear them now? such hatred has each for each they have taken the hunting horns to drown one other's speech for fear the truth may prevail.--here's your good health and long life, and, though she be quarrelsome, good health to emer, your wife. [_the charioteers, stable boys and kitchen boys come running in. they carry great horns, ladles and the like_] laeg i am laeg, cuchulain's driver, and my master's cock of the yard. another conall would scatter his feathers. [_confused murmurs_] laegaire [_to_ cuchulain] no use, they won't hear a word. conall they'll keep it up till the dawn. another it is laegaire that is the best, for he fought with cats in connaught while conall took his rest and drained his ale pot. another laegaire--what does a man of his sort care for the like of us! he did it for his own sport. another it was all mere luck at the best. another but conall, i say-another let me speak. laeg you'd be dumb if the cock of the yard would but open his beak. another before your cock was born, my master was in the fight. laeg go home and praise your grand-dad. they took to the horns for spite, for i said that no cock of your sort had been born since the fight began. another conall has got it, the best man has got it, and i am his man. cuchulain who was it started this quarrel? a stable boy it was laeg. another it was laeg done it all. laeg a high, wide, foxy man came where we sat in the hall, getting our supper ready, with a great voice like the wind, and cried that there was a helmet, or something of the kind, that was for the foremost man upon the ridge of the earth. so i cried your name through the hall, [_the others cry out and blow horns, partly drowning the rest of his speech_] but they denied its worth, preferring laegaire or conall, and they cried to drown my voice; but i have so strong a throat that i drowned all their noise till they took to the hunting horns and blew them into my face, and as neither side would give in--we would settle it in this place. let the helmet be taken from conall. a stable boy no, conall is the best man here. another give it to laegaire that made the murderous cats pay dear. cuchulain it has been given to none: that our rivalry might cease, we have turned that murderous cat into a cup of peace. i drank the first; and then conall; give it to laegaire now, [_conall gives helmet to laegaire_] that it may purr in his hand and all of our servants know that since the ale went in, its claws went out of sight. a servant that's well--i will stop my shouting. another cuchulain is in the right; i am tired of this big horn that has made me hoarse as a rook. laeg cuchulain, you drank the first. another by drinking the first he took the whole of the honours himself. laeg cuchulain, you drank the first. another if laegaire drink from it now he claims to be last and worst. another cuchulain and conall have drunk. another he is lost if he taste a drop. laegaire [_laying helmet on table_] did you claim to be better than us by drinking first from the cup? cuchulain [_his words are partly drowned by the murmurs of the crowd though he speaks very loud_] that juggler from the sea, that old red herring it is who has set us all by the ears--he brought the helmet for this, and because we would not quarrel he ran elsewhere to shout that conall and laegaire wronged me, till all had fallen out. [_the murmur grows less so that his words are heard_] who knows where he is now or who he is spurring to fight? so get you gone, and whatever may cry aloud in the night, or show itself in the air, be silent until morn. a servant cuchulain is in the right--i am tired of this big horn. cuchulain go! [_the servants turn toward the door but stop on hearing the voices of women outside_] laegaire's wife [_without_] mine is the better to look at. conall's wife [_without_] but mine is better born. emer [_without_] my man is the pithier man. cuchulain old hurricane, well done! you've set our wives to the game that they may egg us on; we are to kill each other that you may sport with us. ah, now, they've begun to wrestle as to who'll be first at the house. [_the women come to the door struggling_] emer no, i have the right of place for i married the better man. conall's wife [_pulling emer back_] my nails in your neck and shoulder. laegaire's wife and go before me if you can. my husband fought in the west. conall's wife [_kneeling in the door so as to keep the others out who pull at her_] but what did he fight with there but sidelong and spitting and helpless shadows of the dim air? and what did he carry away but straw and broken delf? laegaire's wife your own man made up that tale trembling alone by himself, drowning his terror. emer [_forcing herself in front_] i am emer, it is i go first through the door. no one shall walk before me, or praise any man before my man has been praised. cuchulain [_spreading his arms across the door so as to close it_] come, put an end to their quarrelling: one is as fair as the other, and each one the wife of a king. break down the painted boards between the sill and the floor that they come in together, each one at her own door. [_laegaire and conall begin to break out the bottoms of the windows, then their wives go to the windows, each to the window where her husband is. emer stands at the door and sings while the boards are being broken out_] emer nothing that he has done, his mind that is fire, his body that is sun, have set my head higher than all the world's wives. himself on the wind is the gift that he gives, therefore womenkind, when their eyes have met mine, grow cold and grow hot, troubled as with wine by a secret thought, preyed upon, fed upon by jealousy and desire. i am moon to that sun, i am steel to that fire, [_the windows are now broken down to floor. cuchulain takes his spear from the door, and the three women come in at the same moment_] emer cuchulain, put off this sloth and awake: i will sing till i've stiffened your lip against every knave that would take a share of your honour. laegaire's wife you lie, for your man would take from my man. conall's wife [_to laegaire's wife_] you say that, you double-face, and your own husband began. cuchulain [_taking up helmet from table_] town land may rail at town land till all have gone to wrack, the very straws may wrangle till they've thrown down the stack; the very door-posts bicker till they've pulled in the door, the very ale-jars jostle till the ale is on the floor, but this shall help no further. [_he throws helmet into the sea_] laegaire's wife it was not for your head, and so you would let none wear it, but fling it away instead. conall's wife but you shall answer for it, for you've robbed my man by this. conall you have robbed us both, cuchulain. laegaire the greatest wrong there is on the wide ridge of the world has been done to us two this day. emer [_drawing her dagger_] who is for cuchulain? cuchulain silence! emer who is for cuchulain, i say? [_she sings the same words as before, flourishing her dagger about. while she is singing, conall's wife and laegaire's wife draw their daggers and run at her, but cuchulain forces them back. laegaire and conall draw their swords to strike cuchulain_] laegaire's wife [_crying out so as to be heard through emer's singing_] deafen her singing with horns! conall's wife cry aloud! blow horns! make a noise! laegaire's wife blow horns, clap hands, or shout, so that you smother her voice! [_the horse boys and scullions blow their horns or fight among themselves. there is a deafening noise and a confused fight. suddenly three black hands come through the windows and put out the torches. it is now pitch dark, but for a faint light outside the house which merely shows that there are moving forms, but not who or what they are, and in the darkness one can hear low terrified voices_] a voice coal-black, and headed like cats, they came up over the strand. another voice and i saw one stretch to a torch and cover it with his hand. another voice another sooty fellow has plucked the moon from the air. [_a light gradually comes into the house from the sea, on which the moon begins to show once more. there is no light within the house, and the great beams of the walls are dark and full of shadows, and the persons of the play dark too against the light. the red man is seen standing in the midst of the house. the black cat-headed men crouch and stand about the door. one carries the helmet, one the great sword_] red man i demand the debt that's owing. let some man kneel down there that i may cut his head off, or all shall go to wrack. cuchulain he played and paid with his head and it's right that we pay him back, and give him more than he gave, for he comes in here as a guest: so i will give him my head. [_emer begins to keen_] little wife, little wife, be at rest. alive i have been far off in all lands under sun, and been no faithful man; but when my story is done my fame shall spring up and laugh, and set you high above all. emer [_putting her arms about him_] it is you, not your fame, that i love. cuchulain [_tries to put her from him_] you are young, you are wise, you can call some kinder and comelier man that will sit at home in the house. emer live and be faithless still. cuchulain [_throwing her from him_] would you stay the great barnacle-goose when its eyes are turned to the sea and its beak to the salt of the air? emer [_lifting her dagger to stab herself_] i, too, on the grey wing's path. cuchulain [_seizing dagger_] do you dare, do you dare, do you dare? bear children and sweep the house. [_forcing his way through the servants who gather round_] wail, but keep from the road. [_he kneels before red man. there is a pause_] quick to your work, old radish, you will fade when the cocks have crowed. [_a black cat-headed man holds out the helmet. the red man takes it_] red man i have not come for your hurt, i'm the rector of this land, and with my spitting cat-heads, my frenzied moon-bred band, age after age i sift it, and choose for its championship the man who hits my fancy. [_he places the helmet on cuchulain's head_] and i choose the laughing lip that shall not turn from laughing whatever rise or fall, the heart that grows no bitterer although betrayed by all; the hand that loves to scatter; the life like a gambler's throw; and these things i make prosper, till a day come that i know, when heart and mind shall darken that the weak may end the strong, and the long remembering harpers have matter for their song. [illustration] the tables of the law; & the adoration of the magi _five hundred and ten copies printed; type distributed._ _no._ 311 the tables of the law; & the adoration of the magi by william butler yeats the shakespeare head press stratford-upon-avon mcmxiv the tables of the law the tables of the law i 'will you permit me, aherne,' i said, 'to ask you a question, which i have wanted to ask you for years, and have not asked because we have grown nearly strangers? why did you refuse the berretta, and almost at the last moment? when you and i lived together, you cared neither for wine, women, nor money, and had thoughts for nothing but theology and mysticism.' i had watched through dinner for a moment to put my question, and ventured now, because he had thrown off a little of the reserve and indifference which, ever since his last return from italy, had taken the place of our once close friendship. he had just questioned me, too, about certain private and almost sacred things, and my frankness had earned, i thought, a like frankness from him. when i began to speak he was lifting to his lips a glass of that old wine which he could choose so well and valued so little; and while i spoke, he set it slowly and meditatively upon the table and held it there, its deep red light dyeing his long delicate fingers. the impression of his face and form, as they were then, is still vivid with me, and is inseparable from another and fanciful impression: the impression of a man holding a flame in his naked hand. he was to me, at that moment, the supreme type of our race, which, when it has risen above, or is sunken below, the formalisms of half-education and the rationalisms of conventional affirmation and denial, turns away, unless my hopes for the world and for the church have made me blind, from practicable desires and intuitions towards desires so unbounded that no human vessel can contain them, intuitions so immaterial that their sudden and far-off fire leaves heavy darkness about hand and foot. he had the nature, which is half monk, half soldier of fortune, and must needs turn action into dreaming, and dreaming into action; and for such there is no order, no finality, no contentment in this world. when he and i had been students in paris, we had belonged to a little group which devoted itself to speculations about alchemy and mysticism. more orthodox in most of his beliefs than michael robartes, he had surpassed him in a fanciful hatred of all life, and this hatred had found expression in the curious paradox--half borrowed from some fanatical monk, half invented by himself--that the beautiful arts were sent into the world to overthrow nations, and finally life herself, by sowing everywhere unlimited desires, like torches thrown into a burning city. this idea was not at the time, i believe, more than a paradox, a plume of the pride of youth; and it was only after his return to ireland that he endured the fermentation of belief which is coming upon our people with the reawakening of their imaginative life. presently he stood up, saying: 'come, and i will show you, for you at any rate will understand,' and taking candles from the table, he lit the way into the long paved passage that led to his private chapel. we passed between the portraits of the jesuits and priests--some of no little fame--his family had given to the church; and engravings and photographs of pictures that had especially moved him; and the few paintings his small fortune, eked out by an almost penurious abstinence from the things most men desire, had enabled him to buy in his travels. the pictures that i knew best, for they had hung there longest, whether reproductions or originals, were of the sienese school, which he had studied for a long time, claiming that it alone of the schools of the world pictured not the world but what is revealed to saints in their dreams and visions. the sienese alone among italians, he would say, could not or would not represent the pride of life, the pleasure in swift movement or sustaining strength, or voluptuous flesh. they were so little interested in these things that there often seemed to be no human body at all under the robe of the saint, but they could represent by a bowed head, or uplifted face, man's reverence before eternity as no others could, and they were at their happiest when mankind had dwindled to a little group silhouetted upon a golden abyss, as if they saw the world habitually from far off. when i had praised some school that had dipped deeper into life, he would profess to discover a more intense emotion than life knew in those dark outlines. 'put even francesca, who felt the supernatural as deeply,' he would say, 'beside the work of siena, and one finds a faint impurity in his awe, a touch of ghostly terror, where love and humbleness had best been all.' he had often told me of his hope that by filling his mind with those holy pictures he would help himself to attain at last to vision and ecstasy, and of his disappointment at never getting more than dreams of a curious and broken beauty. but of late he had added pictures of a different kind, french symbolistic pictures which he had bought for a few pounds from little-known painters, english and french pictures of the school of the english pre-raphaelites; and now he stood for a moment and said, 'i have changed my taste. i am fascinated a little against my will by these faces, where i find the pallor of souls trembling between the excitement of the flesh and the excitement of the spirit, and by landscapes that are created by heightening the obscurity and disorder of nature. these landscapes do not stir the imagination to the energies of sanctity but as to orgiac dancing and prophetic frenzy.' i saw with some resentment new images where the old ones had often made that long gray, dim, empty, echoing passage become to my eyes a vestibule of eternity. almost every detail of the chapel, which we entered by a narrow gothic door, whose threshold had been worn smooth by the secret worshippers of the penal times, was vivid in my memory; for it was in this chapel that i had first, and when but a boy, been moved by the mediævalism which is now, i think, the governing influence in my life. the only thing that seemed new was a square bronze box which stood upon the altar before the six unlighted candles and the ebony crucifix, and was like those made in ancient times of more precious substances to hold the sacred books. aherne made me sit down on an oak bench, and having bowed very low before the crucifix, took the bronze box from the altar, and sat down beside me with the box upon his knees. 'you will perhaps have forgotten,' he said, 'most of what you have read about joachim of flora, for he is little more than a name to even the well read. he was an abbot in cortale in the twelfth century, and is best known for his prophecy, in a book called _expositio in apocalypsin_, that the kingdom of the father was passed, the kingdom of the son passing, the kingdom of the spirit yet to come. the kingdom of the spirit was to be a complete triumph of the spirit, the _spiritualis intelligentia_ he called it, over the dead letter. he had many followers among the more extreme franciscans, and these were accused of possessing a secret book of his called the _liber inducens in evangelium æternum_. again and again groups of visionaries were accused of possessing this terrible book, in which the freedom of the renaissance lay hidden, until at last pope alexander iv. had it found and cast into the flames. i have here the greatest treasure the world contains. i have a copy of that book; and see what great artists have made the robes in which it is wrapped. the greater portion of the book itself is illuminated in the byzantine style, which so few care for to-day, but which moves me because these tall, emaciated angels and saints seem to have less relation to the world about us than to an abstract pattern of flowing lines that suggest an imagination absorbed in the contemplation of eternity. even if you do not care for so formal an art, you cannot help seeing that work where there is so much gold, and of that purple colour which has gold dissolved in it, was valued at a great price in its day. but it was only at the renaissance the labour was spent upon it which has made it the priceless thing it is. the wooden boards of the cover show by the astrological allegories painted upon them, as by the style of painting itself, some craftsman of the school of francesco cossi of ferrara, but the gold clasps and hinges are known to be the work of benvenuto cellini, who made likewise the bronze box and covered it with gods and demons, whose eyes are closed, to signify an absorption in the inner light.' i took the book in my hands and began turning over the gilded, many-coloured pages, holding it close to the candle to discover the texture of the paper. 'where did you get this amazing book?' i said. 'if genuine, and i cannot judge by this light, you have discovered one of the most precious things in the world.' 'it is certainly genuine,' he replied. 'when the original was destroyed, one copy alone remained, and was in the hands of a lute-player of florence, and from him it passed to his son, and so from generation to generation until it came to the lute-player who was father to benvenuto cellini, and from benvenuto cellini to that cardinal of ferrara who released him from prison, and from him to a natural son, so from generation to generation, the story of its wandering passing on with it, until it came into the possession of the family of aretino, and to giulio aretino, an artist and worker in metals, and student of the kabalistic heresies of pico della mirandola. he spent many nights with me at rome, discussing philosophy; and at last i won his confidence so perfectly that he showed me this, his greatest treasure; and, finding how much i valued it, and feeling that he himself was growing old and beyond the help of its teaching, he sold it to me for no great sum, considering its great preciousness.' 'what is the doctrine?' i said. 'some mediæval straw-splitting about the nature of the trinity, which is only useful to-day to show how many things are unimportant to us, which once shook the world?' 'i could never make you understand,' he said, with a sigh, 'that nothing is unimportant in belief, but even you will admit that this book goes to the heart. do you see the tables on which the commandments were written in latin?' i looked to the end of the room, opposite to the altar, and saw that the two marble tablets were gone, and that two large empty tablets of ivory, like large copies of the little tablets we set over our desks, had taken their place. 'it has swept the commandments of the father away,' he went on, 'and displaced the commandments of the son by the commandments of the holy spirit. the first book is called _fractura tabularum_. in the first chapter it mentions the names of the great artists who made them graven things and the likeness of many things, and adored them and served them; and the second the names of the great wits who took the name of the lord their god in vain; and that long third chapter, set with the emblems of sanctified faces, and having wings upon its borders, is the praise of breakers of the seventh day and wasters of the six days, who yet lived comely and pleasant days. those two chapters tell of men and women who railed upon their parents, remembering that their god was older than the god of their parents; and that which has the sword of michael for an emblem commends the kings that wrought secret murder and so won for their people a peace that was _amore somnoque gravata et vestibus versicoloribus_, heavy with love and sleep and many-coloured raiment; and that with the pale star at the closing has the lives of the noble youths who loved the wives of others and were transformed into memories, which have transformed many poorer hearts into sweet flames; and that with the winged head is the history of the robbers who lived upon the sea or in the desert, lives which it compares to the twittering of the string of a bow, _nervi stridentis instar_; and those two last, that are fire and gold, are devoted to the satirists who bore false witness against their neighbours and yet illustrated eternal wrath, and to those that have coveted more than other men the house of god, and all things that are his, which no man has seen and handled, except in madness and in dreams. 'the second book is called _lex secreta_, and describes the true inspiration of action, the only eternal evangel; and ends with a vision, which he saw among the mountains of la sila, of his disciples sitting throned in the blue deep of the air, and laughing aloud, with a laughter that was like the rustling of the wings of time: _c[oe]lis in cæruleis ridentes sedebant discipuli mei super thronos: talis erat risus, qualis temporis pennati susurrus_.' 'i know little of joachim of flora,' i said, 'except that dante set him in paradise among the great doctors. if he held a heresy so singular, i cannot understand how no rumours of it came to the ears of dante; and dante made no peace with the enemies of the church.' 'joachim of flora acknowledged openly the authority of the church, and even asked that all his published writings, and those to be published by his desire after his death, should be submitted to the censorship of the pope. he considered that those whose work was to live and not to reveal were children and that the pope was their father; but he taught in secret that certain others, and in always increasing numbers, were elected, not to live, but to reveal that hidden substance of god which is colour and music and softness and a sweet odour; and that these have no father but the holy spirit. just as poets and painters and musicians labour at their works, building them with lawless and lawful things alike, so long as they embody the beauty that is beyond the grave, these children of the holy spirit labour at their moments with eyes upon the shining substance on which time has heaped the refuse of creation; for the world only exists to be a tale in the ears of coming generations; and terror and content, birth and death, love and hatred, and the fruit of the tree, are but instruments for that supreme art which is to win us from life and gather us into eternity like doves into their dove-cots. 'i shall go away in a little while and travel into many lands, that i may know all accidents and destinies, and when i return will write my secret law upon those ivory tablets, just as poets and romance writers have written the principles of their art in prefaces; and when i know what principle of life, discoverable at first by imagination and instinct, i am to express, i will gather my pupils that they may discover their law in the study of my law, as poets and painters discover their own art of expression by the study of some master. i know nothing certain as yet but this--i am to become completely alive, that is, completely passionate, for beauty is only another name for perfect passion. i shall create a world where the whole lives of men shall be articulated and simplified as if seventy years were but one moment, or as they were the leaping of a fish or the opening of a flower.' he was pacing up and down, and i listened to the fervour of his words and watched the excitement of his gestures with not a little concern. i had been accustomed to welcome the most singular speculations, and had always found them as harmless as the persian cat who half closes her meditative eyes and stretches out her long claws before my fire. but now i would battle in the interests of orthodoxy, even of the commonplace: and yet could find nothing better to say than: 'it is not necessary to judge everyone by the law, for we have also christ's commandment of love.' he turned and said, looking at me with shining eyes: 'jonathan swift made a soul for the gentlemen of this city by hating his neighbour as himself.' 'at any rate, you cannot deny that to teach so dangerous a doctrine is to accept a terrible responsibility.' 'leonardo da vinci,' he replied, 'has this noble sentence: "the hope and desire of returning home to one's former state is like the moth's desire for the light; and the man who with constant longing awaits each new month and new year, deeming that the things he longs for are ever too late in coming, does not perceive that he is longing for his own destruction." how, then, can the pathway which will lead us into the heart of god be other than dangerous? why should you, who are no materialist, cherish the continuity and order of the world as those do who have only the world? you do not value the writers who will express nothing unless their reason understands how it will make what is called the right more easy; why, then, will you deny a like freedom to the supreme art, the art which is the foundation of all arts? yes, i shall send out of this chapel saints, lovers, rebels and prophets: souls who will surround themselves with peace, as with a nest made with grass; and others over whom i shall weep. the dust shall fall for many years over this little box; and then i shall open it; and the tumults, which are, perhaps, the flames of the last day, shall come from under the lid.' i did not reason with him that night, because his excitement was great and i feared to make him angry; and when i called at his house a few days later, he was gone and his house was locked up and empty. i have deeply regretted my failure both to combat his heresy and to test the genuineness of his strange book. since my conversion i have indeed done penance for an error which i was only able to measure after some years. ii i was walking along one of the dublin quays, on the side nearest the river, about ten years after our conversation, stopping from time to time to turn over the books upon an old bookstall, and thinking, curiously enough, of the terrible destiny of michael robartes, and his brotherhood; when i saw a tall and bent man walking slowly along the other side of the quay. i recognized, with a start, in a lifeless mask with dim eyes, the once resolute and delicate face of owen aherne. i crossed the quay quickly, but had not gone many yards before he turned away, as though he had seen me, and hurried down a side street; i followed, but only to lose him among the intricate streets on the north side of the river. during the next few weeks i inquired of everybody who had once known him, but he had made himself known to nobody; and i knocked, without result, at the door of his old house; and had nearly persuaded myself that i was mistaken, when i saw him again in a narrow street behind the four courts, and followed him to the door of his house. i laid my hand on his arm; he turned quite without surprise; and indeed it is possible that to him, whose inner life had soaked up the outer life, a parting of years was a parting from forenoon to afternoon. he stood holding the door half open, as though he would keep me from entering; and would perhaps have parted from me without further words had i not said: 'owen aherne, you trusted me once, will you not trust me again, and tell me what has come of the ideas we discussed in this house ten years ago?--but perhaps you have already forgotten them.' 'you have a right to hear,' he said, 'for since i have told you the ideas, i should tell you the extreme danger they contain, or rather the boundless wickedness they contain; but when you have heard this we must part, and part for ever, because i am lost, and must be hidden!' i followed him through the paved passage, and saw that its corners were choked, and the pictures gray, with dust and cobwebs; and that the dust and cobwebs which covered the ruby and sapphire of the saints on the window had made it very dim. he pointed to where the ivory tablets glimmered faintly in the dimness, and i saw that they were covered with small writing, and went up to them and began to read the writing. it was in latin, and was an elaborate casuistry, illustrated with many examples, but whether from his own life or from the lives of others i do not know. i had read but a few sentences when i imagined that a faint perfume had begun to fill the room, and turning round asked owen aherne if he were lighting the incense. 'no,' he replied, and pointed where the thurible lay rusty and empty on one of the benches; as he spoke the faint perfume seemed to vanish, and i was persuaded i had imagined it. 'has the philosophy of the _liber inducens in evangelium æternum_ made you very unhappy?' i said. 'at first i was full of happiness,' he replied, 'for i felt a divine ecstasy, an immortal fire in every passion, in every hope, in every desire, in every dream; and i saw, in the shadows under leaves, in the hollow waters, in the eyes of men and women, its image, as in a mirror; and it was as though i was about to touch the heart of god. then all changed and i was full of misery, and i said to myself that i was caught in the glittering folds of an enormous serpent, and was falling with him through a fathomless abyss, and that henceforth the glittering folds were my world; and in my misery it was revealed to me that man can only come to that heart through the sense of separation from it which we call sin, and i understood that i could not sin, because i had discovered the law of my being, and could only express or fail to express my being, and i understood that god has made a simple and an arbitrary law that we may sin and repent!' he had sat down on one of the wooden benches and now became silent, his bowed head and hanging arms and listless body having more of dejection than any image i have met with in life or in any art. i went and stood leaning against the altar, and watched him, not knowing what i should say; and i noticed his black closely-buttoned coat, his short hair, and shaven head, which preserved a memory of his priestly ambition, and understood how catholicism had seized him in the midst of the vertigo he called philosophy; and i noticed his lightless eyes and his earth-coloured complexion, and understood how she had failed to do more than hold him on the margin: and i was full of an anguish of pity. 'it may be,' he went on, 'that the angels whose hearts are shadows of the divine heart, and whose bodies are made of the divine intellect, may come to where their longing is always by a thirst for the divine ecstasy, the immortal fire, that is in passion, in hope, in desire, in dreams; but we whose hearts perish every moment, and whose bodies melt away like a sigh, must bow and obey!' i went nearer to him and said: 'prayer and repentance will make you like other men.' 'no, no,' he said, 'i am not among those for whom christ died, and this is why i must be hidden. i have a leprosy that even eternity cannot cure. i have seen the whole, and how can i come again to believe that a part is the whole? i have lost my soul because i have looked out of the eyes of the angels.' suddenly i saw, or imagined that i saw, the room darken, and faint figures robed in purple, and lifting faint torches with arms that gleamed like silver, bending, above owen aherne; and i saw, or imagined that i saw, drops, as of burning gum, fall from the torches, and a heavy purple smoke, as of incense, come pouring from the flames and sweeping about us. owen aherne, more happy than i who have been half initiated into the order of the alchemical rose, and protected perhaps by his great piety, had sunk again into dejection and listlessness, and saw none of these things; but my knees shook under me, for the purple-robed figures were less faint every moment, and now i could hear the hissing of the gum in the torches. they did not appear to see me, for their eyes were upon owen aherne; and now and again i could hear them sigh as though with sorrow for his sorrow, and presently i heard words which i could not understand except that they were words of sorrow, and sweet as though immortal was talking to immortal. then one of them waved her torch, and all the torches waved, and for a moment it was as though some great bird made of flames had fluttered its plumage, and a voice cried as from far up in the air: 'he has charged even his angels with folly, and they also bow and obey; but let your heart mingle with our hearts, which are wrought of divine ecstasy, and your body with our bodies, which are wrought of divine intellect.' and at that cry i understood that the order of the alchemical rose was not of this earth, and that it was still seeking over this earth for whatever souls it could gather within its glittering net; and when all the faces turned towards me, and i saw the mild eyes and the unshaken eyelids, i was full of terror, and thought they were about to fling their torches upon me, so that all i held dear, all that bound me to spiritual and social order, would be burnt up, and my soul left naked and shivering among the winds that blow from beyond this world and from beyond the stars; and then a faint voice cried, 'why do you fly from our torches that were made out of the trees under which christ wept in the garden of gethsemane? why do you fly from our torches that were made out of sweet wood, after it had perished from the world and come to us who made it of old times with our breath?' it was not until the door of the house had closed behind my flight, and the noise of the street was breaking on my ears, that i came back to myself and to a little of my courage; and i have never dared to pass the house of owen aherne from that day, even though i believe him to have been driven into some distant country by the spirits whose name is legion, and whose throne is in the indefinite abyss, and whom he obeys and cannot see. the adoration of the magi the adoration of the magi i was sitting reading late into the night a little after my last meeting with aherne, when i heard a light knocking on my front door. i found upon the doorstep three very old men with stout sticks in their hands, who said they had been told i should be up and about, and that they were to tell me important things. i brought them into my study, and when the peacock curtains had closed behind us, i set their chairs for them close to the fire, for i saw that the frost was on their great-coats of frieze and upon the long beards that flowed almost to their waists. they took off their great-coats, and leaned over the fire warming their hands, and i saw that their clothes had much of the country of our time, but a little also, as it seemed to me, of the town life of a more courtly time. when they had warmed themselves--and they warmed themselves, i thought, less because of the cold of the night than because of a pleasure in warmth for the sake of warmth--they turned towards me, so that the light of the lamp fell full upon their weather-beaten faces, and told the story i am about to tell. now one talked and now another, and they often interrupted one another, with a desire like that of countrymen, when they tell a story, to leave no detail untold. when they had finished they made me take notes of whatever conversation they had quoted, so that i might have the exact words, and got up to go. when i asked them where they were going, and what they were doing, and by what names i should call them, they would tell me nothing, except that they had been commanded to travel over ireland continually, and upon foot and at night, that they might live close to the stones and the trees and at the hours when the immortals are awake. i have let some years go by before writing out this story, for i am always in dread of the illusions which come of that inquietude of the veil of the temple, which m. mallarmé considers a characteristic of our times; and only write it now because i have grown to believe that there is no dangerous idea which does not become less dangerous when written out in sincere and careful english. the three old men were three brothers, who had lived in one of the western islands from their early manhood, and had cared all their lives for nothing except for those classical writers and old gaelic writers who expounded an heroic and simple life; night after night in winter, gaelic story-tellers would chant old poems to them over the poteen; and night after night in summer, when the gaelic story-tellers were at work in the fields or away at the fishing, they would read to one another virgil and homer, for they would not enjoy in solitude, but as the ancients enjoyed. at last a man, who told them he was michael robartes, came to them in a fishing boat, like st. brandan drawn by some vision and called by some voice; and spoke of the coming again of the gods and the ancient things; and their hearts, which had never endured the body and pressure of our time, but only of distant times, found nothing unlikely in anything he told them, but accepted all simply and were happy. years passed, and one day, when the oldest of the old men, who travelled in his youth and thought sometimes of other lands, looked out on the grey waters, on which the people see the dim outline of the islands of the young--the happy islands where the gaelic heroes live the lives of homer's phæacians--a voice came out of the air over the waters and told him of the death of michael robartes. they were still mourning when the next oldest of the old men fell asleep while reading out the fifth eclogue of virgil, and a strange voice spoke through him, and bid them set out for paris, where a woman lay dying, who would reveal to them the secret names of the gods, which can be perfectly spoken only when the mind is steeped in certain colours and certain sounds and certain odours; but at whose perfect speaking the immortals cease to be cries and shadows, and walk and talk with one like men and women. they left their island, at first much troubled at all they saw in the world, and came to paris, and there the youngest met a person in a dream, who told him they were to wander about at hazard until those who had been guiding their footsteps had brought them to a street and a house, whose likeness was shown him in the dream. they wandered hither and thither for many days, but one morning they came into some narrow and shabby streets, on the south of the seine, where women with pale faces and untidy hair looked at them out of the windows; and just as they were about to turn back because wisdom could not have alighted in so foolish a neighbourhood, they came to the street and the house of the dream. the oldest of the old men, who still remembered some of the modern languages he had known in his youth, went up to the door and knocked, but when he had knocked, the next in age to him said it was not a good house, and could not be the house they were looking for, and urged him to ask for some one they knew was not there and go away. the door was opened by an old over-dressed woman, who said, 'o, you are her three kinsmen from ireland. she has been expecting you all day.' the old men looked at one another and followed her upstairs, passing doors from which pale and untidy women thrust out their heads, and into a room where a beautiful woman lay asleep in a bed, with another woman sitting by her. the old woman said: 'yes they have come at last; now she will be able to die in peace,' and went out. 'we have been deceived by devils,' said one of the old men, 'for the immortals would not speak through a woman like this.' 'yes,' said another, 'we have been deceived by devils, and we must go away quickly.' 'yes,' said the third, 'we have been deceived by devils, but let us kneel down for a little, for we are by the deathbed of one that has been beautiful.' they knelt down, and the woman who sat by the bed, and seemed to be overcome with fear and awe, lowered her head. they watched for a little the face upon the pillow and wondered at its look, as of unquenchable desire, and at the porcelain-like refinement of the vessel in which so malevolent a flame had burned. suddenly the second oldest of them crowed like a cock, and until the room seemed to shake with the crowing. the woman in the bed still slept on in her death-like sleep, but the woman who sat by her head crossed herself and grew pale, and the youngest of the old men cried out: 'a devil has gone into him, and we must begone or it will go into us also.' before they could rise from their knees a resonant chanting voice came from the lips that had crowed and said: 'i am not a devil, but i am hermes the shepherd of the dead, and i run upon the errands of the gods, and you have heard my sign, that has been my sign from the old days. bow down before her from whose lips the secret names of the immortals, and of the things near their hearts, are about to come, that the immortals may come again into the world. bow down, and understand that when they are about to overthrow the things that are to-day and bring the things that were yesterday, they have no one to help them, but one whom the things that are to-day have cast out. bow down and very low, for they have chosen for their priestess this woman in whose heart all follies have gathered, and in whose body all desires have awaked; this woman who has been driven out of time, and has lain upon the bosom of eternity. after you have bowed down the old things shall be again, and another argo shall carry heroes over sea, and another achilles beleaguer another troy.' the voice ended with a sigh, and immediately the old man awoke out of sleep, and said: 'has a voice spoken through me, as it did when i fell asleep over my virgil, or have i only been asleep?' the oldest of them said: 'a voice has spoken through you. where has your soul been while the voice was speaking through you?' 'i do not know where my soul has been, but i dreamed i was under the roof of a manger, and i looked down and i saw an ox and an ass; and i saw a red cock perching on the hay-rack; and a woman hugging a child; and three old men, in armour, studded with rubies, kneeling with their heads bowed very low in front of the woman and the child. while i was looking the cock crowed and a man with wings on his heels swept up through the air, and as he passed me, cried out: "foolish old men, you had once all the wisdom of the stars." i do not understand my dream or what it would have us do, but you who have heard the voice out of the wisdom of my sleep know what we have to do.' then the oldest of the old men told him they were to take the parchments they had brought with them out of their pockets and spread them on the ground. when they had spread them on the ground, they took out of their pockets their pens, made of three feathers, which had fallen from the wing of the old eagle that is believed to have talked of wisdom with st. patrick. 'he meant, i think,' said the youngest, as he put their ink-bottles by the side of the rolls of parchment, 'that when people are good the world likes them and takes possession of them, and so eternity comes through people who are not good or who have been forgotten. perhaps christianity was good and the world liked it, so now it is going away and the immortals are beginning to awake.' 'what you say has no wisdom,' said the oldest, 'because if there are many immortals, there cannot be only one immortal.' then the woman in the bed sat up and looked about her with wild eyes; and the oldest of the old men said: 'lady, we have come to write down the secret names,' and at his words a look of great joy came into her face. presently she began to speak slowly, and yet eagerly, as though she knew she had but a little while to live, and in the gaelic of their own country; and she spoke to them many secret powerful names, and of the colours, and odours, and weapons, and instruments of music and instruments of handicraft belonging to the owners of those names; but most about the sidhe of ireland and of their love for the cauldron, and the whetstone, and the sword, and the spear. then she tossed feebly for a while and moaned, and when she spoke again it was in so faint a murmur that the woman who sat by the bed leaned down to listen, and while she was listening the spirit went out of the body. then the oldest of the old men said in french to the woman who was still bending over the bed: 'there must have been yet one name which she had not given us, for she murmured a name while the spirit was going out of the body,' and the woman said, 'she was but murmuring over the name of a symbolist painter she was fond of. he used to go to something he called the black mass, and it was he who taught her to see visions and to hear voices. she met him for the first time a few months ago, and we have had no peace from that day because of her talk about visions and about voices. why! it was only last night that i dreamed i saw a man with a red beard and red hair, and dressed in red, standing by my bedside. he held a rose in one hand, and tore it in pieces with the other hand, and the petals drifted about the room, and became beautiful people who began to dance slowly. when i woke up i was all in a heat with terror.' this is all the old men told me, and when i think of their speech and of their silence, of their coming and of their going, i am almost persuaded that had i gone out of the house after they had gone out of it, i should have found no footsteps on the snow. they may, for all i or any man can say, have been themselves immortals: immortal demons, come to put an untrue story into my mind for some purpose i do not understand. whatever they were i have turned into a pathway which will lead me from them and from the order of the alchemical rose. i no longer live an elaborate and haughty life, but seek to lose myself among the prayers and the sorrows of the multitude. i pray best in poor chapels, where the frieze coats brush by me as i kneel, and when i pray against the demons i repeat a prayer which was made i know not how many centuries ago to help some poor gaelic man or woman who had suffered with a suffering like mine. _seacht b-páidreacha fó seacht chuir muire faoi n-a mac, chuir brigbid faoi n-a brat, chuir dia faoi n-a neart, eidir sinn 'san sluagh sidhe, eidir sinn 'san sluagh gaoith._ seven paters seven times, send mary by her son, send bridget by her mantle, send god by his strength, between us and the faery host, between us and the demons of the air. _printed by_ a. h. bullen, _at the shakespeare head press, stratford-upon-avon_. transcriber's note: one printer's error or misspelling was found and fixed: page 5. in the original book: orgaic dancing changed in this ebook to: orgiac dancing rosa alchemica by w.b. yeats o blessed and happy he, who knowing the mysteries of the gods, sanctifies his life, and purifies his soul, celebrating orgies in the mountains with holy purifications.--_euripides._ rosa alchemica. i it is now more than ten years since i met, for the last time, michael robartes, and for the first time and the last time his friends and fellow students; and witnessed his and their tragic end, and endured those strange experiences, which have changed me so that my writings have grown less popular and less intelligible, and driven me almost to the verge of taking the habit of st. dominic. i had just published rosa alchemica, a little work on the alchemists, somewhat in the manner of sir thomas browne, and had received many letters from believers in the arcane sciences, upbraiding what they called my timidity, for they could not believe so evident sympathy but the sympathy of the artist, which is half pity, for everything which has moved men's hearts in any age. i had discovered, early in my researches, that their doctrine was no merely chemical phantasy, but a philosophy they applied to the world, to the elements and to man himself; and that they sought to fashion gold out of common metals merely as part of an universal transmutation of all things into some divine and imperishable substance; and this enabled me to make my little book a fanciful reverie over the transmutation of life into art, and a cry of measureless desire for a world made wholly of essences. i was sitting dreaming of what i had written, in my house in one of the old parts of dublin; a house my ancestors had made almost famous through their part in the politics of the city and their friendships with the famous men of their generations; and was feeling an unwonted happiness at having at last accomplished a long-cherished design, and made my rooms an expression of this favourite doctrine. the portraits, of more historical than artistic interest, had gone; and tapestry, full of the blue and bronze of peacocks, fell over the doors, and shut out all history and activity untouched with beauty and peace; and now when i looked at my crevelli and pondered on the rose in the hand of the virgin, wherein the form was so delicate and precise that it seemed more like a thought than a flower, or at the grey dawn and rapturous faces of my francesca, i knew all a christian's ecstasy without his slavery to rule and custom; when i pondered over the antique bronze gods and goddesses, which i had mortgaged my house to buy, i had all a pagan's delight in various beauty and without his terror at sleepless destiny and his labour with many sacrifices; and i had only to go to my bookshelf, where every book was bound in leather, stamped with intricate ornament, and of a carefully chosen colour: shakespeare in the orange of the glory of the world, dante in the dull red of his anger, milton in the blue grey of his formal calm; and i could experience what i would of human passions without their bitterness and without satiety. i had gathered about me all gods because i believed in none, and experienced every pleasure because i gave myself to none, but held myself apart, individual, indissoluble, a mirror of polished steel: i looked in the triumph of this imagination at the birds of hera, glowing in the firelight as though they were wrought of jewels; and to my mind, for which symbolism was a necessity, they seemed the doorkeepers of my world, shutting out all that was not of as affluent a beauty as their own; and for a moment i thought as i had thought in so many other moments, that it was possible to rob life of every bitterness except the bitterness of death; and then a thought which had followed this thought, time after time, filled me with a passionate sorrow. all those forms: that madonna with her brooding purity, those rapturous faces singing in the morning light, those bronze divinities with their passionless dignity, those wild shapes rushing from despair to despair, belonged to a divine world wherein i had no part; and every experience, however profound, every perception, however exquisite, would bring me the bitter dream of a limitless energy i could never know, and even in my most perfect moment i would be two selves, the one watching with heavy eyes the other's moment of content. i had heaped about me the gold born in the crucibles of others; but the supreme dream of the alchemist, the transmutation of the weary heart into a weariless spirit, was as far from me as, i doubted not, it had been from him also. i turned to my last purchase, a set of alchemical apparatus which, the dealer in the rue le peletier had assured me, once belonged to raymond lully, and as i joined the _alembic_ to the _athanor_ and laid the _lavacrum maris_ at their side, i understood the alchemical doctrine, that all beings, divided from the great deep where spirits wander, one and yet a multitude, are weary; and sympathized, in the pride of my connoisseurship, with the consuming thirst for destruction which made the alchemist veil under his symbols of lions and dragons, of eagles and ravens, of dew and of nitre, a search for an essence which would dissolve all mortal things. i repeated to myself the ninth key of basilius valentinus, in which he compares the fire of the last day to the fire of the alchemist, and the world to the alchemist's furnace, and would have us know that all must be dissolved before the divine substance, material gold or immaterial ecstasy, awake. i had dissolved indeed the mortal world and lived amid immortal essences, but had obtained no miraculous ecstasy. as i thought of these things, i drew aside the curtains and looked out into the darkness, and it seemed to my troubled fancy that all those little points of light filling the sky were the furnaces of innumerable divine alchemists, who labour continually, turning lead into gold, weariness into ecstasy, bodies into souls, the darkness into god; and at their perfect labour my mortality grew heavy, and i cried out, as so many dreamers and men of letters in our age have cried, for the birth of that elaborate spiritual beauty which could alone uplift souls weighted with so many dreams. ii my reverie was broken by a loud knocking at the door, and i wondered the more at this because i had no visitors, and had bid my servants do all things silently, lest they broke the dream of my inner life. feeling a little curious, i resolved to go to the door myself, and, taking one of the silver candlesticks from the mantlepiece, began to descend the stairs. the servants appeared to be out, for though the sound poured through every corner and crevice of the house there was no stir in the lower rooms. i remembered that because my needs were so few, my part in life so little, they had begun to come and go as they would, often leaving me alone for hours. the emptiness and silence of a world from which i had driven everything but dreams suddenly overwhelmed me, and i shuddered as i drew the bolt. i found before me michael robartes, whom i had not seen for years, and whose wild red hair, fierce eyes, sensitive, tremulous lips and rough clothes, made him look now, just as they used to do fifteen years before, something between a debauchee, a saint, and a peasant. he had recently come to ireland, he said, and wished to see me on a matter of importance: indeed, the only matter of importance for him and for me. his voice brought up before me our student years in paris, and remembering the magnetic power he had once possessed over me, a little fear mingled with much annoyance at this irrelevant intrusion, as i led the way up the wide staircase, where swift had passed joking and railing, and curran telling stories and quoting greek, in simpler days, before men's minds, subtilized and complicated by the romantic movement in art and literature, began to tremble on the verge of some unimagined revelation. i felt that my hand shook, and saw that the light of the candle wavered and quivered more than it need have upon the maenads on the old french panels, making them look like the first beings slowly shaping in the formless and void darkness. when the door had closed, and the peacock curtain, glimmering like many-coloured flame, fell between us and the world, i felt, in a way i could not understand, that some singular and unexpected thing was about to happen. i went over to the mantlepiece, and finding that a little chainless bronze censer, set, upon the outside, with pieces of painted china by orazio fontana, which i had filled with antique amulets, had fallen upon its side and poured out its contents, i began to gather the amulets into the bowl, partly to collect my thoughts and partly with that habitual reverence which seemed to me the due of things so long connected with secret hopes and fears. 'i see,' said michael robartes, 'that you are still fond of incense, and i can show you an incense more precious than any you have ever seen,' and as he spoke he took the censer out of my hand and put the amulets in a little heap between the _athanor_ and the _alembic_. i sat down, and he sat down at the side of the fire, and sat there for awhile looking into the fire, and holding the censer in his hand. 'i have come to ask you something,' he said, 'and the incense will fill the room, and our thoughts, with its sweet odour while we are talking. i got it from an old man in syria, who said it was made from flowers, of one kind with the flowers that laid their heavy purple petals upon the hands and upon the hair and upon the feet of christ in the garden of gethsemane, and folded him in their heavy breath, until he cried against the cross and his destiny.' he shook some dust into the censer out of a small silk bag, and set the censer upon the floor and lit the dust which sent up a blue stream of smoke, that spread out over the ceiling, and flowed downwards again until it was like milton's banyan tree. it filled me, as incense often does, with a faint sleepiness, so that i started when he said, 'i have come to ask you that question which i asked you in paris, and which you left paris rather than answer.' he had turned his eyes towards me, and i saw them glitter in the firelight, and through the incense, as i replied: 'you mean, will i become an initiate of your order of the alchemical rose? i would not consent in paris, when i was full of unsatisfied desire, and now that i have at last fashioned my life according to my desire, am i likely to consent?' 'you have changed greatly since then,' he answered. 'i have read your books, and now i see you among all these images, and i understand you better than you do yourself, for i have been with many and many dreamers at the same cross-ways. you have shut away the world and gathered the gods about you, and if you do not throw yourself at their feet, you will be always full of lassitude, and of wavering purpose, for a man must forget he is miserable in the bustle and noise of the multitude in this world and in time; or seek a mystical union with the multitude who govern this world and time.' and then he murmured something i could not hear, and as though to someone i could not see. for a moment the room appeared to darken, as it used to do when he was about to perform some singular experiment, and in the darkness the peacocks upon the doors seemed to glow with a more intense colour. i cast off the illusion, which was, i believe, merely caused by memory, and by the twilight of incense, for i would not acknowledge that he could overcome my now mature intellect; and i said: 'even if i grant that i need a spiritual belief and some form of worship, why should i go to eleusis and not to calvary?' he leaned forward and began speaking with a slightly rhythmical intonation, and as he spoke i had to struggle again with the shadow, as of some older night than the night of the sun, which began to dim the light of the candles and to blot out the little gleams upon the corner of picture-frames and on the bronze divinities, and to turn the blue of the incense to a heavy purple; while it left the peacocks to glimmer and glow as though each separate colour were a living spirit. i had fallen into a profound dream-like reverie in which i heard him speaking as at a distance. 'and yet there is no one who communes with only one god,' he was saying, 'and the more a man lives in imagination and in a refined understanding, the more gods does he meet with and talk with, and the more does he come under the power of roland, who sounded in the valley of roncesvalles the last trumpet of the body's will and pleasure; and of hamlet, who saw them perishing away, and sighed; and of faust, who looked for them up and down the world and could not find them; and under the power of all those countless divinities who have taken upon themselves spiritual bodies in the minds of the modern poets and romance writers, and under the power of the old divinities, who since the renaissance have won everything of their ancient worship except the sacrifice of birds and fishes, the fragrance of garlands and the smoke of incense. the many think humanity made these divinities, and that it can unmake them again; but we who have seen them pass in rattling harness, and in soft robes, and heard them speak with articulate voices while we lay in deathlike trance, know that they are always making and unmaking humanity, which is indeed but the trembling of their lips.' he had stood up and begun to walk to and fro, and had become in my waking dream a shuttle weaving an immense purple web whose folds had begun to fill the room. the room seemed to have become inexplicably silent, as though all but the web and the weaving were at an end in the world. 'they have come to us; they have come to us,' the voice began again; 'all that have ever been in your reverie, all that you have met with in books. there is lear, his head still wet with the thunder-storm, and he laughs because you thought yourself an existence who are but a shadow, and him a shadow who is an eternal god; and there is beatrice, with her lips half parted in a smile, as though all the stars were about to pass away in a sigh of love; and there is the mother of the god of humility who cast so great a spell over men that they have tried to unpeople their hearts that he might reign alone, but she holds in her hand the rose whose every petal is a god; and there, o swiftly she comes! is aphrodite under a twilight falling from the wings of numberless sparrows, and about her feet are the grey and white doves.' in the midst of my dream i saw him hold out his left arm and pass his right hand over it as though he stroked the wings of doves. i made a violent effort which seemed almost to tear me in two, and said with forced determination: 'you would sweep me away into an indefinite world which fills me with terror; and yet a man is a great man just in so far as he can make his mind reflect everything with indifferent precision like a mirror.' i seemed to be perfectly master of myself, and went on, but more rapidly: 'i command you to leave me at once, for your ideas and phantasies are but the illusions that creep like maggots into civilizations when they begin to decline, and into minds when they begin to decay.' i had grown suddenly angry, and seizing the _alembic_ from the table, was about to rise and strike him with it, when the peacocks on the door behind him appeared to grow immense; and then the _alembic_ fell from my fingers and i was drowned in a tide of green and blue and bronze feathers, and as i struggled hopelessly i heard a distant voice saying: 'our master avicenna has written that all life proceeds out of corruption.' the glittering feathers had now covered me completely, and i knew that i had struggled for hundreds of years, and was conquered at last. i was sinking into the depth when the green and blue and bronze that seemed to fill the world became a sea of flame and swept me away, and as i was swirled along i heard a voice over my head cry, 'the mirror is broken in two pieces,' and another voice answer, 'the mirror is broken in four pieces,' and a more distant voice cry with an exultant cry, 'the mirror is broken into numberless pieces'; and then a multitude of pale hands were reaching towards me, and strange gentle faces bending above me, and half wailing and half caressing voices uttering words that were forgotten the moment they were spoken. i was being lifted out of the tide of flame, and felt my memories, my hopes, my thoughts, my will, everything i held to be myself, melting away; then i seemed to rise through numberless companies of beings who were, i understood, in some way more certain than thought, each wrapped in his eternal moment, in the perfect lifting of an arm, in a little circlet of rhythmical words, in dreaming with dim eyes and half-closed eyelids. and then i passed beyond these forms, which were so beautiful they had almost ceased to be, and, having endured strange moods, melancholy, as it seemed, with the weight of many worlds, i passed into that death which is beauty herself, and into that loneliness which all the multitudes desire without ceasing. all things that had ever lived seemed to come and dwell in my heart, and i in theirs; and i had never again known mortality or tears, had i not suddenly fallen from the certainty of vision into the uncertainty of dream, and become a drop of molten gold falling with immense rapidity, through a night elaborate with stars, and all about me a melancholy exultant wailing. i fell and fell and fell, and then the wailing was but the wailing of the wind in the chimney, and i awoke to find myself leaning upon the table and supporting my head with my hands. i saw the _alembic_ swaying from side to side in the distant corner it had rolled to, and michael robartes watching me and waiting. 'i will go wherever you will,' i said, 'and do whatever you bid me, for i have been with eternal things.' 'i knew,' he replied, 'you must need answer as you have answered, when i heard the storm begin. you must come to a great distance, for we were commanded to build our temple between the pure multitude by the waves and the impure multitude of men.' iii i did not speak as we drove through the deserted streets, for my mind was curiously empty of familiar thoughts and experiences; it seemed to have been plucked out of the definite world and cast naked upon a shoreless sea. there were moments when the vision appeared on the point of returning, and i would half-remember, with an ecstasy of joy or sorrow, crimes and heroisms, fortunes and misfortunes; or begin to contemplate, with a sudden leaping of the heart, hopes and terrors, desires and ambitions, alien to my orderly and careful life; and then i would awake shuddering at the thought that some great imponderable being had swept through my mind. it was indeed days before this feeling passed perfectly away, and even now, when i have sought refuge in the only definite faith, i feel a great tolerance for those people with incoherent personalities, who gather in the chapels and meeting-places of certain obscure sects, because i also have felt fixed habits and principles dissolving before a power, which was _hysterica passio_ or sheer madness, if you will, but was so powerful in its melancholy exultation that i tremble lest it wake again and drive me from my new-found peace. when we came in the grey light to the great half-empty terminus, it seemed to me i was so changed that i was no more, as man is, a moment shuddering at eternity, but eternity weeping and laughing over a moment; and when we had started and michael robartes had fallen asleep, as he soon did, his sleeping face, in which there was no sign of all that had so shaken me and that now kept me wakeful, was to my excited mind more like a mask than a face. the fancy possessed me that the man behind it had dissolved away like salt in water, and that it laughed and sighed, appealed and denounced at the bidding of beings greater or less than man. 'this is not michael robartes at all: michael robartes is dead; dead for ten, for twenty years perhaps,' i kept repeating to myself. i fell at last into a feverish sleep, waking up from time to time when we rushed past some little town, its slated roofs shining with wet, or still lake gleaming in the cold morning light. i had been too pre-occupied to ask where we were going, or to notice what tickets michael robartes had taken, but i knew now from the direction of the sun that we were going westward; and presently i knew also, by the way in which the trees had grown into the semblance of tattered beggars flying with bent heads towards the east, that we were approaching the western coast. then immediately i saw the sea between the low hills upon the left, its dull grey broken into white patches and lines. when we left the train we had still, i found, some way to go, and set out, buttoning our coats about us, for the wind was bitter and violent. michael robartes was silent, seeming anxious to leave me to my thoughts; and as we walked between the sea and the rocky side of a great promontory, i realized with a new perfection what a shock had been given to all my habits of thought and of feelings, if indeed some mysterious change had not taken place in the substance of my mind, for the grey waves, plumed with scudding foam, had grown part of a teeming, fantastic inner life; and when michael robartes pointed to a square ancient-looking house, with a much smaller and newer building under its lee, set out on the very end of a dilapidated and almost deserted pier, and said it was the temple of the alchemical rose, i was possessed with the phantasy that the sea, which kept covering it with showers of white foam, was claiming it as part of some indefinite and passionate life, which had begun to war upon our orderly and careful days, and was about to plunge the world into a night as obscure as that which followed the downfall of the classical world. one part of my mind mocked this phantastic terror, but the other, the part that still lay half plunged in vision, listened to the clash of unknown armies, and shuddered at unimaginable fanaticisms, that hung in those grey leaping waves. we had gone but a few paces along the pier when we came upon an old man, who was evidently a watchman, for he sat in an overset barrel, close to a place where masons had been lately working upon a break in the pier, and had in front of him a fire such as one sees slung under tinkers' carts. i saw that he was also a voteen, as the peasants say, for there was a rosary hanging from a nail on the rim of the barrel, and i saw i shuddered, and i did not know why i shuddered. we had passed him a few yards when i heard him cry in gaelic, 'idolaters, idolaters, go down to hell with your witches and your devils; go down to hell that the herrings may come again into the bay'; and for some moments i could hear him half screaming and half muttering behind us. 'are you not afraid,' i said, 'that these wild fishing people may do some desperate thing against you?' 'i and mine,' he answered, 'are long past human hurt or help, being incorporate with immortal spirits, and when we die it shall be the consummation of the supreme work. a time will come for these people also, and they will sacrifice a mullet to artemis, or some other fish to some new divinity, unless indeed their own divinities, the dagda, with his overflowing cauldron, lug, with his spear dipped in poppy-juice lest it rush forth hot for battle. aengus, with the three birds on his shoulder, bodb and his red swineherd, and all the heroic children of dana, set up once more their temples of grey stone. their reign has never ceased, but only waned in power a little, for the sidhe still pass in every wind, and dance and play at hurley, and fight their sudden battles in every hollow and on every hill; but they cannot build their temples again till there have been martyrdoms and victories, and perhaps even that long-foretold battle in the valley of the black pig.' keeping close to the wall that went about the pier on the seaward side, to escape the driving foam and the wind, which threatened every moment to lift us off our feet, we made our way in silence to the door of the square building. michael robartes opened it with a key, on which i saw the rust of many salt winds, and led me along a bare passage and up an uncarpeted stair to a little room surrounded with bookshelves. a meal would be brought, but only of fruit, for i must submit to a tempered fast before the ceremony, he explained, and with it a book on the doctrine and method of the order, over which i was to spend what remained of the winter daylight. he then left me, promising to return an hour before the ceremony. i began searching among the bookshelves, and found one of the most exhaustive alchemical libraries i have ever seen. there were the works of morienus, who hid his immortal body under a shirt of hair-cloth; of avicenna, who was a drunkard and yet controlled numberless legions of spirits; of alfarabi, who put so many spirits into his lute that he could make men laugh, or weep, or fall in deadly trance as he would; of lully, who transformed himself into the likeness of a red cock; of flamel, who with his wife parnella achieved the elixir many hundreds of years ago, and is fabled to live still in arabia among the dervishes; and of many of less fame. there were very few mystics but alchemical mystics, and because, i had little doubt, of the devotion to one god of the greater number and of the limited sense of beauty, which robartes would hold an inevitable consequence; but i did notice a complete set of facsimiles of the prophetical writings of william blake, and probably because of the multitudes that thronged his illumination and were 'like the gay fishes on the wave when the moon sucks up the dew.' i noted also many poets and prose writers of every age, but only those who were a little weary of life, as indeed the greatest have been everywhere, and who cast their imagination to us, as a something they needed no longer now that they were going up in their fiery chariots. presently i heard a tap at the door, and a woman came in and laid a little fruit upon the table. i judged that she had once been handsome, but her cheeks were hollowed by what i would have held, had i seen her anywhere else, an excitement of the flesh and a thirst for pleasure, instead of which it doubtless was an excitement of the imagination and a thirst for beauty. i asked her some question concerning the ceremony, but getting no answer except a shake of the head, saw that i must await initiation in silence. when i had eaten, she came again, and having laid a curiously wrought bronze box on the table, lighted the candles, and took away the plates and the remnants. so soon as i was alone, i turned to the box, and found that the peacocks of hera spread out their tails over the sides and lid, against a background, on which were wrought great stars, as though to affirm that the heavens were a part of their glory. in the box was a book bound in vellum, and having upon the vellum and in very delicate colours, and in gold, the alchemical rose with many spears thrusting against it, but in vain, as was shown by the shattered points of those nearest to the petals. the book was written upon vellum, and in beautiful clear letters, interspersed with symbolical pictures and illuminations, after the manner of the _splendor solis_. the first chapter described how six students, of celtic descent, gave themselves separately to the study of alchemy, and solved, one the mystery of the pelican, another the mystery of the green dragon, another the mystery of the eagle, another that of salt and mercury. what seemed a succession of accidents, but was, the book declared, the contrivance of preternatural powers, brought them together in the garden of an inn in the south of france, and while they talked together the thought came to them that alchemy was the gradual distillation of the contents of the soul, until they were ready to put off the mortal and put on the immortal. an owl passed, rustling among the vine-leaves overhead, and then an old woman came, leaning upon a stick, and, sitting close to them, took up the thought where they had dropped it. having expounded the whole principle of spiritual alchemy, and bid them found the order of the alchemical rose, she passed from among them, and when they would have followed she was nowhere to be seen. they formed themselves into an order, holding their goods and making their researches in common, and, as they became perfect in the alchemical doctrine, apparitions came and went among them, and taught them more and more marvellous mysteries. the book then went on to expound so much of these as the neophyte was permitted to know, dealing at the outset and at considerable length with the independent reality of our thoughts, which was, it declared, the doctrine from which all true doctrines rose. if you imagine, it said, the semblance of a living being, it is at once possessed by a wandering soul, and goes hither and thither working good or evil, until the moment of its death has come; and gave many examples, received, it said, from many gods. eros had taught them how to fashion forms in which a divine soul could dwell, and whisper what they would into sleeping minds; and ate, forms from which demonic beings could pour madness, or unquiet dreams, into sleeping blood; and hermes, that if you powerfully imagined a hound at your bedside it would keep watch there until you woke, and drive away all but the mightiest demons, but that if your imagination was weakly, the hound would be weakly also, and the demons prevail, and the hound soon die; and aphrodite, that if you made, by a strong imagining, a dove crowned with silver and had it flutter over your head, its soft cooing would make sweet dreams of immortal love gather and brood over mortal sleep; and all divinities alike had revealed with many warnings and lamentations that all minds are continually giving birth to such beings, and sending them forth to work health or disease, joy or madness. if you would give forms to the evil powers, it went on, you were to make them ugly, thrusting out a lip, with the thirsts of life, or breaking the proportions of a body with the burdens of life; but the divine powers would only appear in beautiful shapes, which are but, as it were, shapes trembling out of existence, folding up into a timeless ecstasy, drifting with half-shut eyes, into a sleepy stillness. the bodiless souls who descended into these forms were what men called the moods; and worked all great changes in the world; for just as the magician or the artist could call them when he would, so they could call out of the mind of the magician or the artist, or if they were demons, out of the mind of the mad or the ignoble, what shape they would, and through its voice and its gestures pour themselves out upon the world. in this way all great events were accomplished; a mood, a divinity, or a demon, first descending like a faint sigh into men's minds and then changing their thoughts and their actions until hair that was yellow had grown black, or hair that was black had grown yellow, and empires moved their border, as though they were but drifts of leaves. the rest of the book contained symbols of form, and sound, and colour, and their attribution to divinities and demons, so that the initiate might fashion a shape for any divinity or any demon, and be as powerful as avicenna among those who live under the roots of tears and of laughter. iv a couple of hours after sunset michael robartes returned and told me that i would have to learn the steps of an exceedingly antique dance, because before my initiation could be perfected i had to join three times in a magical dance, for rhythm was the wheel of eternity, on which alone the transient and accidental could be broken, and the spirit set free. i found that the steps, which were simple enough, resembled certain antique greek dances, and having been a good dancer in my youth and the master of many curious gaelic steps, i soon had them in my memory. he then robed me and himself in a costume which suggested by its shape both greece and egypt, but by its crimson colour a more passionate life than theirs; and having put into my hands a little chainless censer of bronze, wrought into the likeness of a rose, by some modern craftsman, he told me to open a small door opposite to the door by which i had entered. i put my hand to the handle, but the moment i did so the fumes of the incense, helped perhaps by his mysterious glamour, made me fall again into a dream, in which i seemed to be a mask, lying on the counter of a little eastern shop. many persons, with eyes so bright and still that i knew them for more than human, came in and tried me on their faces, but at last flung me into a corner with a little laughter; but all this passed in a moment, for when i awoke my hand was still upon the handle. i opened the door, and found myself in a marvellous passage, along whose sides were many divinities wrought in a mosaic, not less beautiful than the mosaic in the baptistery at ravenna, but of a less severe beauty; the predominant colour of each divinity, which was surely a symbolic colour, being repeated in the lamps that hung from the ceiling, a curiously-scented lamp before every divinity. i passed on, marvelling exceedingly how these enthusiasts could have created all this beauty in so remote a place, and half persuaded to believe in a material alchemy, by the sight of so much hidden wealth; the censer filling the air, as i passed, with smoke of ever-changing colour. i stopped before a door, on whose bronze panels were wrought great waves in whose shadow were faint suggestions of terrible faces. those beyond it seemed to have heard our steps, for a voice cried: 'is the work of the incorruptible fire at an end?' and immediately michael robartes answered: 'the perfect gold has come from the _athanor_.' the door swung open, and we were in a great circular room, and among men and women who were dancing slowly in crimson robes. upon the ceiling was an immense rose wrought in mosaic; and about the walls, also in mosaic, was a battle of gods and angels, the gods glimmering like rubies and sapphires, and the angels of the one greyness, because, as michael robartes whispered, they had renounced their divinity, and turned from the unfolding of their separate hearts, out of love for a god of humility and sorrow. pillars supported the roof and made a kind of circular cloister, each pillar being a column of confused shapes, divinities, it seemed, of the wind, who rose as in a whirling dance of more than human vehemence, and playing upon pipes and cymbals; and from among these shapes were thrust out hands, and in these hands were censers. i was bid place my censer also in a hand and take my place and dance, and as i turned from the pillars towards the dancers, i saw that the floor was of a green stone, and that a pale christ on a pale cross was wrought in the midst. i asked robartes the meaning of this, and was told that they desired 'to trouble his unity with their multitudinous feet.' the dance wound in and out, tracing upon the floor the shapes of petals that copied the petals in the rose overhead, and to the sound of hidden instruments which were perhaps of an antique pattern, for i have never heard the like; and every moment the dance was more passionate, until all the winds of the world seemed to have awakened under our feet. after a little i had grown weary, and stood under a pillar watching the coming and going of those flame-like figures; until gradually i sank into a half-dream, from which i was awakened by seeing the petals of the great rose, which had no longer the look of mosaic, falling slowly through the incense-heavy air, and, as they fell, shaping into the likeness of living beings of an extraordinary beauty. still faint and cloud-like, they began to dance, and as they danced took a more and more definite shape, so that i was able to distinguish beautiful grecian faces and august egyptian faces, and now and again to name a divinity by the staff in his hand or by a bird fluttering over his head; and soon every mortal foot danced by the white foot of an immortal; and in the troubled eyes that looked into untroubled shadowy eyes, i saw the brightness of uttermost desire as though they had found at length, after unreckonable wandering, the lost love of their youth. sometimes, but only for a moment, i saw a faint solitary figure with a rosa veiled face, and carrying a faint torch, flit among the dancers, but like a dream within a dream, like a shadow of a shadow, and i knew by an understanding born from a deeper fountain than thought, that it was eros himself, and that his face was veiled because no man or woman from the beginning of the world has ever known what love is, or looked into his eyes, for eros alone of divinities is altogether a spirit, and hides in passions not of his essence if he would commune with a mortal heart. so that if a man love nobly he knows love through infinite pity, unspeakable trust, unending sympathy; and if ignobly through vehement jealousy, sudden hatred, and unappeasable desire; but unveiled love he never knows. while i thought these things, a voice cried to me from the crimson figures: 'into the dance! there is none that can be spared out of the dance; into the dance! into the dance! that the gods may make them bodies out of the substance of our hearts'; and before i could answer, a mysterious wave of passion, that seemed like the soul of the dance moving within our souls, alchemica took hold of me, and i was swept, neither consenting nor refusing, into the midst. i was dancing with an immortal august woman, who had black lilies in her hair, and her dreamy gesture seemed laden with a wisdom more profound than the darkness that is between star and star, and with a love like the love that breathed upon the waters; and as we danced on and on, the incense drifted over us and round us, covering us away as in the heart of the world, and ages seemed to pass, and tempests to awake and perish in the folds of our robes and in her heavy hair. suddenly i remembered that her eyelids had never quivered, and that her lilies had not dropped a black petal, or shaken from their places, and understood with a great horror that i danced with one who was more or less than human, and who was drinking up my soul as an ox drinks up a wayside pool; and i fell, and darkness passed over me. v i awoke suddenly as though something had awakened me, and saw that i was lying on a roughly painted floor, and that on the ceiling, which was at no great distance, was a roughly painted rose, and about me on the walls half-finished paintings. the pillars and the censers had gone; and near me a score of sleepers lay wrapped in disordered robes, their upturned faces looking to my imagination like hollow masks; and a chill dawn was shining down upon them from a long window i had not noticed before; and outside the sea roared. i saw michael robartes lying at a little distance and beside him an overset bowl of wrought bronze which looked as though it had once held incense. as i sat thus, i heard a sudden tumult of angry men and women's voices mix with the roaring of the sea; and leaping to my feet, i went quickly to michael robartes, and tried to shake him out of his sleep. i then seized him by the shoulder and tried to lift him, but he fell backwards, and sighed faintly; and the voices became louder and angrier; and there was a sound of heavy blows upon the door, which opened on to the pier. suddenly i heard a sound of rending wood, and i knew it had begun to give, and i ran to the door of the room. i pushed it open and came out upon a passage whose bare boards clattered under my feet, and found in the passage another door which led into an empty kitchen; and as i passed through the door i heard two crashes in quick succession, and knew by the sudden noise of feet and the shouts that the door which opened on to the pier had fallen inwards. i ran from the kitchen and out into a small yard, and from this down some steps which descended the seaward and sloping side of the pier, and from the steps clambered along the water's edge, with the angry voices ringing in my ears. this part of the pier had been but lately refaced with blocks of granite, so that it was almost clear of seaweed; but when i came to the old part, i found it so slippery with green weed that i had to climb up on to the roadway. i looked towards the temple of the alchemical rose, where the fishermen and the women were still shouting, but somewhat more faintly, and saw that there was no one about the door or upon the pier; but as i looked, a little crowd hurried out of the door and began gathering large stones from where they were heaped up in readiness for the next time a storm shattered the pier, when they would be laid under blocks of granite. while i stood watching the crowd, an old man, who was, i think, the voteen, pointed to me, and screamed out something, and the crowd whitened, for all the faces had turned towards me. i ran, and it was well for me that pullers of the oar are poorer men with their feet than with their arms and their bodies; and yet while i ran i scarcely heard the following feet or the angry voices, for many voices of exultation and lamentation, which were forgotten as a dream is forgotten the moment they were heard, seemed to be ringing in the air over my head. there are moments even now when i seem to hear those voices of exultation and lamentation, and when the indefinite world, which has but half lost its mastery over my heart and my intellect, seems about to claim a perfect mastery; but i carry the rosary about my neck, and when i hear, or seem to hear them, i press it to my heart and say: 'he whose name is legion is at our doors deceiving our intellects with subtlety and flattering our hearts with beauty, and we have no trust but in thee'; and then the war that rages within me at other times is still, and i am at peace. the wild swans at coole [illustration] the macmillan company new york boston chicago dallas atlanta san francisco macmillan & co., limited london bombay calcutta melbourne the macmillan co. of canada, ltd. toronto the wild swans at coole by w. b. yeats new york the macmillan company 1919 _all rights reserved_ copyright, 1917 and 1918, by margaret c. anderson. copyright, 1918, by harriet monroe. copyright, 1918 and 1919, by the macmillan company. set up and electrotyped. published march, 1919. norwood press j. s. cushing co.--berwick & smith co. norwood, mass., u.s.a. preface this book is, in part, a reprint of _the wild swans at coole_, printed a year ago on my sister's hand-press at dundrum, co. dublin. i have not, however, reprinted a play which may be a part of a book of new plays suggested by the dance plays of japan, and i have added a number of new poems. michael robartes and john aherne, whose names occur in one or other of these, are characters in some stories i wrote years ago, who have once again become a part of the phantasmagoria through which i can alone express my convictions about the world. i have the fancy that i read the name john aherne among those of men prosecuted for making a disturbance at the first production of "the play boy," which may account for his animosity to myself. w. b. y. ballylee, co. galway, _september 1918_. contents page the wild swans at coole 1 in memory of major robert gregory 4 an irish airman foresees his death 13 men improve with the years 14 the collar-bone of a hare 15 under the round tower 17 solomon to sheba 19 the living beauty 21 a song 22 to a young beauty 23 to a young girl 24 the scholars 25 tom o'roughley 26 the sad shepherd 27 lines written in dejection 39 the dawn 40 on woman 41 the fisherman 44 the hawk 46 memory 47 her praise 48 the people 50 his phoenix 54 a thought from propertius 58 broken dreams 59 a deep-sworn vow 63 presences 64 the balloon of the mind 66 to a squirrel at kyle-na-gno 67 on being asked for a war poem 68 in memory of alfred pollexfen 69 upon a dying lady 72 ego dominus tuus 79 a prayer on going into my house 86 the phases of the moon 88 the cat and the moon 102 the saint and the hunchback 104 two songs of a fool 106 another song of a fool 108 the double vision of michael robartes 109 note 115 the wild swans at coole the trees are in their autumn beauty, the woodland paths are dry, under the october twilight the water mirrors a still sky; upon the brimming water among the stones are nine and fifty swans. the nineteenth autumn has come upon me since i first made my count; i saw, before i had well finished, all suddenly mount and scatter wheeling in great broken rings upon their clamorous wings. i have looked upon those brilliant creatures, and now my heart is sore. all's changed since i, hearing at twilight, the first time on this shore, the bell-beat of their wings above my head, trod with a lighter tread. unwearied still, lover by lover, they paddle in the cold, companionable streams or climb the air; their hearts have not grown old; passion or conquest, wander where they will, attend upon them still. but now they drift on the still water mysterious, beautiful; among what rushes will they build, by what lake's edge or pool delight men's eyes, when i awake some day to find they have flown away? in memory of major robert gregory 1 now that we're almost settled in our house i'll name the friends that cannot sup with us beside a fire of turf in the ancient tower, and having talked to some late hour climb up the narrow winding stair to bed: discoverers of forgotten truth or mere companions of my youth, all, all are in my thoughts to-night, being dead. 2 always we'd have the new friend meet the old, and we are hurt if either friend seem cold, and there is salt to lengthen out the smart in the affections of our heart, and quarrels are blown up upon that head; but not a friend that i would bring this night can set us quarrelling, for all that come into my mind are dead. 3 lionel johnson comes the first to mind, that loved his learning better than mankind, though courteous to the worst; much falling he brooded upon sanctity till all his greek and latin learning seemed a long blast upon the horn that brought a little nearer to his thought a measureless consummation that he dreamed. 4 and that enquiring man john synge comes next, that dying chose the living world for text and never could have rested in the tomb but that, long travelling, he had come towards nightfall upon certain set apart in a most desolate stony place, towards nightfall upon a race passionate and simple like his heart. 5 and then i think of old george pollexfen, in muscular youth well known to mayo men for horsemanship at meets or at race-courses, that could have shown how purebred horses and solid men, for all their passion, live but as the outrageous stars incline by opposition, square and trine; having grown sluggish and contemplative. 6 they were my close companions many a year, a portion of my mind and life, as it were, and now their breathless faces seem to look out of some old picture-book; i am accustomed to their lack of breath, but not that my dear friend's dear son, our sidney and our perfect man, could share in that discourtesy of death. 7 for all things the delighted eye now sees were loved by him; the old storm-broken trees that cast their shadows upon road and bridge; the tower set on the stream's edge; the ford where drinking cattle make a stir nightly, and startled by that sound the water-hen must change her ground; he might have been your heartiest welcomer. 8 when with the galway foxhounds he would ride from castle taylor to the roxborough side or esserkelly plain, few kept his pace; at mooneen he had leaped a place so perilous that half the astonished meet had shut their eyes, and where was it he rode a race without a bit? and yet his mind outran the horses' feet. 9 we dreamed that a great painter had been born to cold clare rock and galway rock and thorn, to that stern colour and that delicate line that are our secret discipline wherein the gazing heart doubles her might. soldier, scholar, horseman, he, and yet he had the intensity to have published all to be a world's delight. 10 what other could so well have counselled us in all lovely intricacies of a house as he that practised or that understood all work in metal or in wood, in moulded plaster or in carven stone? soldier, scholar, horseman, he, and all he did done perfectly as though he had but that one trade alone. 11 some burn damp fagots, others may consume the entire combustible world in one small room as though dried straw, and if we turn about the bare chimney is gone black out because the work had finished in that flare. soldier, scholar, horseman, he, as 'twere all life's epitome. what made us dream that he could comb grey hair? 12 i had thought, seeing how bitter is that wind that shakes the shutter, to have brought to mind all those that manhood tried, or childhood loved, or boyish intellect approved, with some appropriate commentary on each; until imagination brought a fitter welcome; but a thought of that late death took all my heart for speech. an irish airman foresees his death i know that i shall meet my fate somewhere among the clouds above; those that i fight i do not hate those that i guard i do not love; my country is kiltartan cross, my countrymen kiltartan's poor, no likely end could bring them loss or leave them happier than before. nor law, nor duty bade me fight, nor public man, nor angry crowds, a lonely impulse of delight drove to this tumult in the clouds; i balanced all, brought all to mind, the years to come seemed waste of breath, a waste of breath the years behind in balance with this life, this death. men improve with the years i am worn out with dreams; a weather-worn, marble triton among the streams; and all day long i look upon this lady's beauty as though i had found in book a pictured beauty, pleased to have filled the eyes or the discerning ears, delighted to be but wise, for men improve with the years; and yet and yet is this my dream, or the truth? o would that we had met when i had my burning youth; but i grow old among dreams, a weather-worn, marble triton among the streams. the collar-bone of a hare would i could cast a sail on the water where many a king has gone and many a king's daughter, and alight at the comely trees and the lawn, the playing upon pipes and the dancing, and learn that the best thing is to change my loves while dancing and pay but a kiss for a kiss. i would find by the edge of that water the collar-bone of a hare worn thin by the lapping of water, and pierce it through with a gimlet and stare at the old bitter world where they marry in churches, and laugh over the untroubled water at all who marry in churches, through the white thin bone of a hare. under the round tower 'although i'd lie lapped up in linen a deal i'd sweat and little earn if i should live as live the neighbours,' cried the beggar, billy byrne; 'stretch bones till the daylight come on great-grandfather's battered tomb.' upon a grey old battered tombstone in glendalough beside the stream, where the o'byrnes and byrnes are buried, he stretched his bones and fell in a dream of sun and moon that a good hour bellowed and pranced in the round tower; of golden king and silver lady, bellowing up and bellowing round, till toes mastered a sweet measure, mouth mastered a sweet sound, prancing round and prancing up until they pranced upon the top. that golden king and that wild lady sang till stars began to fade, hands gripped in hands, toes close together, hair spread on the wind they made; that lady and that golden king could like a brace of blackbirds sing. 'it's certain that my luck is broken,' that rambling jailbird billy said; 'before nightfall i'll pick a pocket and snug it in a feather-bed, i cannot find the peace of home on great-grandfather's battered tomb.' solomon to sheba sang solomon to sheba, and kissed her dusky face, 'all day long from mid-day we have talked in the one place, all day long from shadowless noon we have gone round and round in the narrow theme of love like an old horse in a pound.' to solomon sang sheba, planted on his knees, 'if you had broached a matter that might the learned please, you had before the sun had thrown our shadows on the ground discovered that my thoughts, not it, are but a narrow pound.' sang solomon to sheba, and kissed her arab eyes, 'there's not a man or woman born under the skies dare match in learning with us two, and all day long we have found there's not a thing but love can make the world a narrow pound.' the living beauty i'll say and maybe dream i have drawn content- seeing that time has frozen up the blood, the wick of youth being burned and the oil spent- from beauty that is cast out of a mould in bronze, or that in dazzling marble appears, appears, and when we have gone is gone again, being more indifferent to our solitude than 'twere an apparition. o heart, we are old, the living beauty is for younger men, we cannot pay its tribute of wild tears. a song i thought no more was needed youth to prolong than dumb-bell and foil to keep the body young. oh, who could have foretold that the heart grows old? though i have many words, what woman's satisfied, i am no longer faint because at her side? oh, who could have foretold that the heart grows old? i have not lost desire but the heart that i had, i thought 'twould burn my body laid on the death-bed. but who could have foretold that the heart grows old? to a young beauty dear fellow-artist, why so free with every sort of company, with every jack and jill? choose your companions from the best; who draws a bucket with the rest soon topples down the hill. you may, that mirror for a school, be passionate, not bountiful as common beauties may, who were not born to keep in trim with old ezekiel's cherubim but those of beaujolet. i know what wages beauty gives, how hard a life her servant lives, yet praise the winters gone; there is not a fool can call me friend, and i may dine at journey's end with landor and with donne. to a young girl my dear, my dear, i know more than another what makes your heart beat so; not even your own mother can know it as i know, who broke my heart for her when the wild thought, that she denies and has forgot, set all her blood astir and glittered in her eyes. the scholars bald heads forgetful of their sins, old, learned, respectable bald heads edit and annotate the lines that young men, tossing on their beds, rhymed out in love's despair to flatter beauty's ignorant ear. they'll cough in the ink to the world's end; wear out the carpet with their shoes earning respect; have no strange friend; if they have sinned nobody knows. lord, what would they say should their catullus walk that way? tom o'roughley 'though logic choppers rule the town, and every man and maid and boy has marked a distant object down, an aimless joy is a pure joy,' or so did tom o'roughley say that saw the surges running by, 'and wisdom is a butterfly and not a gloomy bird of prey. 'if little planned is little sinned but little need the grave distress. what's dying but a second wind? how but in zigzag wantonness could trumpeter michael be so brave?' or something of that sort he said, 'and if my dearest friend were dead i'd dance a measure on his grave.' the sad shepherd shepherd that cry's from the first cuckoo of the year i wished before it ceased. goatherd nor bird nor beast could make me wish for anything this day, being old, but that the old alone might die, and that would be against god's providence. let the young wish. but what has brought you here? never until this moment have we met where my goats browse on the scarce grass or leap from stone to stone. shepherd i am looking for strayed sheep; something has troubled me and in my trouble i let them stray. i thought of rhyme alone, for rhyme can beat a measure out of trouble and make the daylight sweet once more; but when i had driven every rhyme into its place the sheep had gone from theirs. goatherd i know right well what turned so good a shepherd from his charge. shepherd he that was best in every country sport and every country craft, and of us all most courteous to slow age and hasty youth is dead. goatherd the boy that brings my griddle cake brought the bare news. shepherd he had thrown the crook away and died in the great war beyond the sea. goatherd he had often played his pipes among my hills and when he played it was their loneliness, the exultation of their stone, that cried under his fingers. shepherd i had it from his mother, and his own flock was browsing at the door. goatherd how does she bear her grief? there is not a shepherd but grows more gentle when he speaks her name, remembering kindness done, and how can i, that found when i had neither goat nor grazing new welcome and old wisdom at her fire till winter blasts were gone, but speak of her even before his children and his wife. shepherd she goes about her house erect and calm between the pantry and the linen chest, or else at meadow or at grazing overlooks her labouring men, as though her darling lived but for her grandson now; there is no change but such as i have seen upon her face watching our shepherd sports at harvest-time when her son's turn was over. goatherd sing your song, i too have rhymed my reveries, but youth is hot to show whatever it has found and till that's done can neither work nor wait. old goatherds and old goats, if in all else youth can excel them in accomplishment, are learned in waiting. shepherd you cannot but have seen that he alone had gathered up no gear, set carpenters to work on no wide table, on no long bench nor lofty milking shed as others will, when first they take possession, but left the house as in his father's time as though he knew himself, as it were, a cuckoo, no settled man. and now that he is gone there's nothing of him left but half a score of sorrowful, austere, sweet, lofty pipe tunes. goatherd you have put the thought in rhyme. shepherd i worked all day and when 'twas done so little had i done that maybe 'i am sorry' in plain prose had sounded better to your mountain fancy. [_he sings._ 'like the speckled bird that steers thousands of leagues oversea, and runs for a while or a while half-flies upon his yellow legs through our meadows, he stayed for a while; and we had scarcely accustomed our ears to his speech at the break of day, had scarcely accustomed our eyes to his shape in the lengthening shadows, where the sheep are thrown in the pool, when he vanished from ears and eyes. i had wished a dear thing on that day i heard him first, but man is a fool.' goatherd you sing as always of the natural life, and i that made like music in my youth hearing it now have sighed for that young man and certain lost companions of my own. shepherd they say that on your barren mountain ridge you have measured out the road that the soul treads when it has vanished from our natural eyes; that you have talked with apparitions. goatherd indeed my daily thoughts since the first stupor of youth have found the path my goats' feet cannot find. shepherd sing, for it may be that your thoughts have plucked some medicable herb to make our grief less bitter. goatherd they have brought me from that ridge seed pods and flowers that are not all wild poppy. [_sings._ 'he grows younger every second that were all his birthdays reckoned much too solemn seemed; because of what he had dreamed, or the ambitions that he served, much too solemn and reserved. jaunting, journeying to his own dayspring, he unpacks the loaded pern of all 'twas pain or joy to learn, of all that he had made. the outrageous war shall fade; at some old winding whitethorn root he'll practice on the shepherd's flute, or on the close-cropped grass court his shepherd lass, or run where lads reform our day-time till that is their long shouting play-time; knowledge he shall unwind through victories of the mind, till, clambering at the cradle side, he dreams himself his mother's pride, all knowledge lost in trance of sweeter ignorance.' shepherd when i have shut these ewes and this old ram into the fold, we'll to the woods and there cut out our rhymes on strips of new-torn bark but put no name and leave them at her door. to know the mountain and the valley grieve may be a quiet thought to wife and mother, and children when they spring up shoulder high. lines written in dejection when have i last looked on the round green eyes and the long wavering bodies of the dark leopards of the moon? all the wild witches those most noble ladies, for all their broom-sticks and their tears, their angry tears, are gone. the holy centaurs of the hills are banished; and i have nothing but harsh sun; heroic mother moon has vanished, and now that i have come to fifty years i must endure the timid sun. the dawn i would be ignorant as the dawn that has looked down on that old queen measuring a town with the pin of a brooch, or on the withered men that saw from their pedantic babylon the careless planets in their courses, the stars fade out where the moon comes, and took their tablets and did sums; i would be ignorant as the dawn that merely stood, rocking the glittering coach above the cloudy shoulders of the horses; i would be--for no knowledge is worth a straw- ignorant and wanton as the dawn. on woman may god be praised for woman that gives up all her mind, a man may find in no man a friendship of her kind that covers all he has brought as with her flesh and bone, nor quarrels with a thought because it is not her own. though pedantry denies it's plain the bible means that solomon grew wise while talking with his queens. yet never could, although they say he counted grass, count all the praises due when sheba was his lass, when she the iron wrought, or when from the smithy fire it shuddered in the water: harshness of their desire that made them stretch and yawn, pleasure that comes with sleep, shudder that made them one. what else he give or keep god grant me--no, not here, for i am not so bold to hope a thing so dear now i am growing old, but when if the tale's true the pestle of the moon that pounds up all anew brings me to birth again- to find what once i had and know what once i have known, until i am driven mad, sleep driven from my bed, by tenderness and care, pity, an aching head, gnashing of teeth, despair; and all because of some one perverse creature of chance, and live like solomon that sheba led a dance. the fisherman although i can see him still, the freckled man who goes to a grey place on a hill in grey connemara clothes at dawn to cast his flies, it's long since i began to call up to the eyes this wise and simple man. all day i'd looked in the face what i had hoped 'twould be to write for my own race and the reality; the living men that i hate, the dead man that i loved, the craven man in his seat, the insolent unreproved, and no knave brought to book who has won a drunken cheer, the witty man and his joke aimed at the commonest ear, the clever man who cries the catch-cries of the clown, the beating down of the wise and great art beaten down. maybe a twelvemonth since suddenly i began, in scorn of this audience, imagining a man and his sun-freckled face, and grey connemara cloth, climbing up to a place where stone is dark under froth, and the down turn of his wrist when the flies drop in the stream: a man who does not exist, a man who is but a dream; and cried, 'before i am old i shall have written him one poem maybe as cold and passionate as the dawn.' the hawk 'call down the hawk from the air; let him be hooded or caged till the yellow eye has grown mild, for larder and spit are bare, the old cook enraged, the scullion gone wild.' 'i will not be clapped in a hood, nor a cage, nor alight upon wrist, now i have learnt to be proud hovering over the wood in the broken mist or tumbling cloud.' 'what tumbling cloud did you cleave, yellow-eyed hawk of the mind, last evening? that i, who had sat dumbfounded before a knave, should give to my friend a pretence of wit.' memory one had a lovely face, and two or three had charm, but charm and face were in vain because the mountain grass cannot but keep the form where the mountain hare has lain. her praise she is foremost of those that i would hear praised. i have gone about the house, gone up and down as a man does who has published a new book or a young girl dressed out in her new gown, and though i have turned the talk by hook or crook until her praise should be the uppermost theme, a woman spoke of some new tale she had read, a man confusedly in a half dream as though some other name ran in his head. she is foremost of those that i would hear praised. i will talk no more of books or the long war but walk by the dry thorn until i have found some beggar sheltering from the wind, and there manage the talk until her name come round. if there be rags enough he will know her name and be well pleased remembering it, for in the old days, though she had young men's praise and old men's blame, among the poor both old and young gave her praise. the people 'what have i earned for all that work,' i said, 'for all that i have done at my own charge? the daily spite of this unmannerly town, where who has served the most is most defamed, the reputation of his lifetime lost between the night and morning. i might have lived, and you know well how great the longing has been, where every day my footfall should have lit in the green shadow of ferrara wall; or climbed among the images of the past- the unperturbed and courtly images- evening and morning, the steep street of urbino to where the duchess and her people talked the stately midnight through until they stood in their great window looking at the dawn; i might have had no friend that could not mix courtesy and passion into one like those that saw the wicks grow yellow in the dawn; i might have used the one substantial right my trade allows: chosen my company, and chosen what scenery had pleased me best.' thereon my phoenix answered in reproof, 'the drunkards, pilferers of public funds, all the dishonest crowd i had driven away, when my luck changed and they dared meet my face, crawled from obscurity, and set upon me those i had served and some that i had fed; yet never have i, now nor any time, complained of the people.' all i could reply was: 'you, that have not lived in thought but deed, can have the purity of a natural force, but i, whose virtues are the definitions of the analytic mind, can neither close the eye of the mind nor keep my tongue from speech.' and yet, because my heart leaped at her words, i was abashed, and now they come to mind after nine years, i sink my head abashed. his phoenix there is a queen in china, or maybe it's in spain, and birthdays and holidays such praises can be heard of her unblemished lineaments, a whiteness with no stain, that she might be that sprightly girl who was trodden by a bird; and there's a score of duchesses, surpassing womankind, or who have found a painter to make them so for pay and smooth out stain and blemish with the elegance of his mind: i knew a phoenix in my youth so let them have their day. the young men every night applaud their gaby's laughing eye, and ruth st. denis had more charm although she had poor luck, from nineteen hundred nine or ten, pavlova's had the cry, and there's a player in the states who gathers up her cloak and flings herself out of the room when juliet would be bride with all a woman's passion, a child's imperious way, and there are--but no matter if there are scores beside: i knew a phoenix in my youth so let them have their day. there's margaret and marjorie and dorothy and nan, a daphne and a mary who live in privacy; one's had her fill of lovers, another's had but one, another boasts, 'i pick and choose and have but two or three.' if head and limb have beauty and the instep's high and light, they can spread out what sail they please for all i have to say, be but the breakers of men's hearts or engines of delight: i knew a phoenix in my youth so let them have their day. there'll be that crowd to make men wild through all the centuries, and maybe there'll be some young belle walk out to make men wild who is my beauty's equal, though that my heart denies, but not the exact likeness, the simplicity of a child, and that proud look as though she had gazed into the burning sun, and all the shapely body no tittle gone astray, i mourn for that most lonely thing; and yet god's will be done, i knew a phoenix in my youth so let them have their day. a thought from propertius she might, so noble from head to great shapely knees, the long flowing line, have walked to the altar through the holy images at pallas athene's side, or been fit spoil for a centaur drunk with the unmixed wine. broken dreams there is grey in your hair. young men no longer suddenly catch their breath when you are passing; but maybe some old gaffer mutters a blessing because it was your prayer recovered him upon the bed of death. for your sole sake--that all heart's ache have known, and given to others all heart's ache, from meagre girlhood's putting on burdensome beauty--for your sole sake heaven has put away the stroke of her doom, so great her portion in that peace you make by merely walking in a room. your beauty can but leave among us vague memories, nothing but memories. a young man when the old men are done talking will say to an old man, 'tell me of that lady the poet stubborn with his passion sang us when age might well have chilled his blood.' vague memories, nothing but memories, but in the grave all, all, shall be renewed. the certainty that i shall see that lady leaning or standing or walking in the first loveliness of womanhood, and with the fervour of my youthful eyes, has set me muttering like a fool. you are more beautiful than any one and yet your body had a flaw: your small hands were not beautiful, and i am afraid that you will run and paddle to the wrist in that mysterious, always brimming lake where those that have obeyed the holy law paddle and are perfect; leave unchanged the hands that i have kissed for old sakes' sake. the last stroke of midnight dies. all day in the one chair from dream to dream and rhyme to rhyme i have ranged in rambling talk with an image of air: vague memories, nothing but memories. a deep-sworn vow others because you did not keep that deep-sworn vow have been friends of mine; yet always when i look death in the face, when i clamber to the heights of sleep, or when i grow excited with wine, suddenly i meet your face. presences this night has been so strange that it seemed as if the hair stood up on my head. from going-down of the sun i have dreamed that women laughing, or timid or wild, in rustle of lace or silken stuff, climbed up my creaking stair. they had read all i had rhymed of that monstrous thing returned and yet unrequited love. they stood in the door and stood between my great wood lecturn and the fire till i could hear their hearts beating: one is a harlot, and one a child that never looked upon man with desire, and one it may be a queen. the balloon of the mind hands, do what you're bid; bring the balloon of the mind that bellies and drags in the wind into its narrow shed. to a squirrel at kyle-na-gno come play with me; why should you run through the shaking tree as though i'd a gun to strike you dead? when all i would do is to scratch your head and let you go. on being asked for a war poem i think it better that in times like these a poet keep his mouth shut, for in truth we have no gift to set a statesman right; he has had enough of meddling who can please a young girl in the indolence of her youth, or an old man upon a winter's night. in memory of alfred pollexfen five-and-twenty years have gone since old william pollexfen laid his strong bones down in death by his wife elizabeth in the grey stone tomb he made. and after twenty years they laid in that tomb by him and her, his son george, the astrologer; and masons drove from miles away to scatter the acacia spray upon a melancholy man who had ended where his breath began. many a son and daughter lies far from the customary skies, the mall and eades's grammar school, in london or in liverpool; but where is laid the sailor john? that so many lands had known: quiet lands or unquiet seas where the indians trade or japanese. he never found his rest ashore, moping for one voyage more. where have they laid the sailor john? and yesterday the youngest son, a humorous, unambitious man, was buried near the astrologer; and are we now in the tenth year? since he, who had been contented long, a nobody in a great throng, decided he would journey home, now that his fiftieth year had come, and 'mr. alfred' be again upon the lips of common men who carried in their memory his childhood and his family. at all these death-beds women heard a visionary white sea-bird lamenting that a man should die; and with that cry i have raised my cry. upon a dying lady i her courtesy with the old kindness, the old distinguished grace she lies, her lovely piteous head amid dull red hair propped upon pillows, rouge on the pallor of her face. she would not have us sad because she is lying there, and when she meets our gaze her eyes are laughter-lit, her speech a wicked tale that we may vie with her matching our broken-hearted wit against her wit, thinking of saints and of petronius arbiter. ii certain artists bring her dolls and drawings bring where our beauty lies a new modelled doll, or drawing, with a friend's or an enemy's features, or maybe showing her features when a tress of dull red hair was flowing over some silken dress cut in the turkish fashion, or it may be like a boy's. we have given the world our passion we have naught for death but toys. iii she turns the dolls' faces to the wall because to-day is some religious festival they had a priest say mass, and even the japanese, heel up and weight on toe, must face the wall --pedant in passion, learned in old courtesies, vehement and witty she had seemed--; the venetian lady who had seemed to glide to some intrigue in her red shoes, her domino, her panniered skirt copied from longhi; the meditative critic; all are on their toes, even our beauty with her turkish trousers on. because the priest must have like every dog his day or keep us all awake with baying at the moon, we and our dolls being but the world were best away. iv the end of day she is playing like a child and penance is the play, fantastical and wild because the end of day shows her that some one soon will come from the house, and say- though play is but half-done- 'come in and leave the play.'-v her race she has not grown uncivil as narrow natures would and called the pleasures evil happier days thought good; she knows herself a woman no red and white of a face, or rank, raised from a common unreckonable race; and how should her heart fail her or sickness break her will with her dead brother's valour for an example still. vi her courage when her soul flies to the predestined dancing-place (i have no speech but symbol, the pagan speech i made amid the dreams of youth) let her come face to face, while wondering still to be a shade, with grania's shade all but the perils of the woodland flight forgot that made her dermuid dear, and some old cardinal pacing with half-closed eyelids in a sunny spot who had murmured of giorgione at his latest breath- aye and achilles, timor, babar, barhaim, all who have lived in joy and laughed into the face of death. vii her friends bring her a christmas tree pardon, great enemy, without an angry thought we've carried in our tree, and here and there have bought till all the boughs are gay, and she may look from the bed on pretty things that may please a fantastic head. give her a little grace, what if a laughing eye have looked into your face- it is about to die. ego dominus tuus hic on the grey sand beside the shallow stream under your old wind-beaten tower, where still a lamp burns on beside the open book that michael robartes left, you walk in the moon and though you have passed the best of life still trace enthralled by the unconquerable delusion magical shapes. ille by the help of an image i call to my own opposite, summon all that i have handled least, least looked upon. hic and i would find myself and not an image. ille that is our modern hope and by its light we have lit upon the gentle, sensitive mind and lost the old nonchalance of the hand; whether we have chosen chisel, pen or brush we are but critics, or but half create, timid, entangled, empty and abashed lacking the countenance of our friends. hic and yet the chief imagination of christendom dante alighieri so utterly found himself that he has made that hollow face of his more plain to the mind's eye than any face but that of christ. ille and did he find himself, or was the hunger that had made it hollow a hunger for the apple on the bough most out of reach? and is that spectral image the man that lapo and that guido knew? i think he fashioned from his opposite an image that might have been a stony face, staring upon a bedouin's horse-hair roof from doored and windowed cliff, or half upturned among the coarse grass and the camel dung. he set his chisel to the hardest stone. being mocked by guido for his lecherous life, derided and deriding, driven out to climb that stair and eat that bitter bread, he found the unpersuadable justice, he found the most exalted lady loved by a man. hic yet surely there are men who have made their art out of no tragic war, lovers of life, impulsive men that look for happiness and sing when they have found it. ille no, not sing, for those that love the world serve it in action, grow rich, popular and full of influence, and should they paint or write still it is action: the struggle of the fly in marmalade. the rhetorician would deceive his neighbours, the sentimentalist himself; while art is but a vision of reality. what portion in the world can the artist have who has awakened from the common dream but dissipation and despair? hic and yet no one denies to keats love of the world; remember his deliberate happiness. ille his art is happy but who knows his mind? i see a schoolboy when i think of him, with face and nose pressed to a sweet-shop window, for certainly he sank into his grave his senses and his heart unsatisfied, and made--being poor, ailing and ignorant, shut out from all the luxury of the world, the coarse-bred son of a livery stable-keeper-luxuriant song. hic why should you leave the lamp burning alone beside an open book, and trace these characters upon the sands; a style is found by sedentary toil and by the imitation of great masters. ille because i seek an image, not a book. those men that in their writings are most wise own nothing but their blind, stupefied hearts. i call to the mysterious one who yet shall walk the wet sands by the edge of the stream and look most like me, being indeed my double, and prove of all imaginable things the most unlike, being my anti-self, and standing by these characters disclose all that i seek; and whisper it as though he were afraid the birds, who cry aloud their momentary cries before it is dawn, would carry it away to blasphemous men. a prayer on going into my house god grant a blessing on this tower and cottage and on my heirs, if all remain unspoiled, no table, or chair or stool not simple enough for shepherd lads in galilee; and grant that i myself for portions of the year may handle nothing and set eyes on nothing but what the great and passionate have used throughout so many varying centuries. we take it for the norm; yet should i dream sinbad the sailor's brought a painted chest, or image, from beyond the loadstone mountain that dream is a norm; and should some limb of the devil destroy the view by cutting down an ash that shades the road, or setting up a cottage planned in a government office, shorten his life, manacle his soul upon the red sea bottom. the phases of the moon _an old man cocked his ear upon a bridge; he and his friend, their faces to the south, had trod the uneven road. their boots were soiled, their connemara cloth worn out of shape; they had kept a steady pace as though their beds, despite a dwindling and late risen moon, were distant. an old man cocked his ear._ aherne what made that sound? robartes a rat or water-hen splashed, or an otter slid into the stream. we are on the bridge; that shadow is the tower, and the light proves that he is reading still. he has found, after the manner of his kind, mere images; chosen this place to live in because, it may be, of the candle light from the far tower where milton's platonist sat late, or shelley's visionary prince: the lonely light that samuel palmer engraved, an image of mysterious wisdom won by toil; and now he seeks in book or manuscript what he shall never find. aherne why should not you who know it all ring at his door, and speak just truth enough to show that his whole life will scarcely find for him a broken crust of all those truths that are your daily bread; and when you have spoken take the roads again? robartes he wrote of me in that extravagant style he had learnt from pater, and to round his tale said i was dead; and dead i chose to be. aherne sing me the changes of the moon once more; true song, though speech: 'mine author sung it me.' robartes twenty-and-eight the phases of the moon, the full and the moon's dark and all the crescents, twenty-and-eight, and yet but six-and-twenty the cradles that a man must needs be rocked in: for there's no human life at the full or the dark. from the first crescent to the half, the dream but summons to adventure and the man is always happy like a bird or a beast; but while the moon is rounding towards the full he follows whatever whim's most difficult among whims not impossible, and though scarred as with the cat-o'-nine-tails of the mind, his body moulded from within his body grows comelier. eleven pass, and then athenae takes achilles by the hair, hector is in the dust, nietzsche is born, because the heroes' crescent is the twelfth. and yet, twice born, twice buried, grow he must, before the full moon, helpless as a worm. the thirteenth moon but sets the soul at war in its own being, and when that war's begun there is no muscle in the arm; and after under the frenzy of the fourteenth moon the soul begins to tremble into stillness, to die into the labyrinth of itself! aherne sing out the song; sing to the end, and sing the strange reward of all that discipline. robartes all thought becomes an image and the soul becomes a body: that body and that soul too perfect at the full to lie in a cradle, too lonely for the traffic of the world: body and soul cast out and cast away beyond the visible world. aherne all dreams of the soul end in a beautiful man's or woman's body. robartes have you not always known it? aherne the song will have it that those that we have loved got their long fingers from death, and wounds, or on sinai's top, or from some bloody whip in their own hands. they ran from cradle to cradle till at last their beauty dropped out of the loneliness of body and soul. robartes the lovers' heart knows that. aherne it must be that the terror in their eyes is memory or foreknowledge of the hour when all is fed with light and heaven is bare. robartes when the moon's full those creatures of the full are met on the waste hills by country men who shudder and hurry by: body and soul estranged amid the strangeness of themselves, caught up in contemplation, the mind's eye fixed upon images that once were thought, for separate, perfect, and immovable images can break the solitude of lovely, satisfied, indifferent eyes. _and thereupon with aged, high-pitched voice aherne laughed, thinking of the man within, his sleepless candle and laborious pen._ robartes and after that the crumbling of the moon. the soul remembering its loneliness shudders in many cradles; all is changed, it would be the world's servant, and as it serves, choosing whatever task's most difficult among tasks not impossible, it takes upon the body and upon the soul the coarseness of the drudge. aherne before the full it sought itself and afterwards the world. robartes because you are forgotten, half out of life, and never wrote a book your thought is clear. reformer, merchant, statesman, learned man, dutiful husband, honest wife by turn, cradle upon cradle, and all in flight and all deformed because there is no deformity but saves us from a dream. aherne and what of those that the last servile crescent has set free? robartes because all dark, like those that are all light, they are cast beyond the verge, and in a cloud, crying to one another like the bats; and having no desire they cannot tell what's good or bad, or what it is to triumph at the perfection of one's own obedience; and yet they speak what's blown into the mind; deformed beyond deformity, unformed, insipid as the dough before it is baked, they change their bodies at a word. aherne and then? robartes when all the dough has been so kneaded up that it can take what form cook nature fancy the first thin crescent is wheeled round once more. aherne but the escape; the song's not finished yet. robartes hunchback and saint and fool are the last crescents. the burning bow that once could shoot an arrow out of the up and down, the wagon wheel of beauty's cruelty and wisdom's chatter, out of that raving tide is drawn betwixt deformity of body and of mind. aherne were not our beds far off i'd ring the bell, stand under the rough roof-timbers of the hall beside the castle door, where all is stark austerity, a place set out for wisdom that he will never find; i'd play a part; he would never know me after all these years but take me for some drunken country man; i'd stand and mutter there until he caught 'hunchback and saint and fool,' and that they came under the three last crescents of the moon, and then i'd stagger out. he'd crack his wits day after day, yet never find the meaning. _and then he laughed to think that what seemed hard should be so simple--a bat rose from the hazels and circled round him with its squeaky cry, the light in the tower window was put out._ the cat and the moon the cat went here and there and the moon spun round like a top, and the nearest kin of the moon the creeping cat looked up. black minnaloushe stared at the moon, for wander and wail as he would the pure cold light in the sky troubled his animal blood. minnaloushe runs in the grass, lifting his delicate feet. do you dance, minnaloushe, do you dance? when two close kindred meet what better than call a dance, maybe the moon may learn, tired of that courtly fashion, a new dance turn. minnaloushe creeps through the grass from moonlit place to place, the sacred moon overhead has taken a new phase. does minnaloushe know that his pupils will pass from change to change, and that from round to crescent, from crescent to round they range? minnaloushe creeps through the grass alone, important and wise, and lifts to the changing moon his changing eyes. the saint and the hunchback hunchback stand up and lift your hand and bless a man that finds great bitterness in thinking of his lost renown. a roman caesar is held down under this hump. saint god tries each man according to a different plan. i shall not cease to bless because i lay about me with the taws that night and morning i may thrash greek alexander from my flesh, augustus caesar, and after these that great rogue alcibiades. hunchback to all that in your flesh have stood and blessed, i give my gratitude, honoured by all in their degrees, but most to alcibiades. two songs of a fool i a speckled cat and a tame hare eat at my hearthstone and sleep there; and both look up to me alone for learning and defence as i look up to providence. i start out of my sleep to think some day i may forget their food and drink; or, the house door left unshut, the hare may run till it's found the horn's sweet note and the tooth of the hound. i bear a burden that might well try men that do all by rule, and what can i that am a wandering witted fool but pray to god that he ease my great responsibilities. ii i slept on my three-legged stool by the fire, the speckled cat slept on my knee; we never thought to enquire where the brown hare might be, and whether the door were shut. who knows how she drank the wind stretched up on two legs from the mat, before she had settled her mind to drum with her heel and to leap: had i but awakened from sleep and called her name she had heard, it may be, and had not stirred, that now, it may be, has found the horn's sweet note and the tooth of the hound. another song of a fool this great purple butterfly, in the prison of my hands, has a learning in his eye not a poor fool understands. once he lived a schoolmaster with a stark, denying look, a string of scholars went in fear of his great birch and his great book. like the clangour of a bell, sweet and harsh, harsh and sweet, that is how he learnt so well to take the roses for his meat. the double vision of michael robartes i on the grey rock of cashel the mind's eye has called up the cold spirits that are born when the old moon is vanished from the sky and the new still hides her horn. under blank eyes and fingers never still the particular is pounded till it is man, when had i my own will? oh, not since life began. constrained, arraigned, baffled, bent and unbent by these wire-jointed jaws and limbs of wood, themselves obedient, knowing not evil and good; obedient to some hidden magical breath. they do not even feel, so abstract are they, so dead beyond our death, triumph that we obey. ii on the grey rock of cashel i suddenly saw a sphinx with woman breast and lion paw, a buddha, hand at rest, hand lifted up that blest; and right between these two a girl at play that it may be had danced her life away, for now being dead it seemed that she of dancing dreamed. although i saw it all in the mind's eye there can be nothing solider till i die; i saw by the moon's light now at its fifteenth night. one lashed her tail; her eyes lit by the moon gazed upon all things known, all things unknown, in triumph of intellect with motionless head erect. that other's moonlit eyeballs never moved, being fixed on all things loved, all things unloved, yet little peace he had for those that love are sad. oh, little did they care who danced between, and little she by whom her dance was seen so that she danced. no thought, body perfection brought, for what but eye and ear silence the mind with the minute particulars of mankind? mind moved yet seemed to stop as 'twere a spinning-top. in contemplation had those three so wrought upon a moment, and so stretched it out that they, time overthrown, were dead yet flesh and bone. iii i knew that i had seen, had seen at last that girl my unremembering nights hold fast or else my dreams that fly, if i should rub an eye, and yet in flying fling into my meat a crazy juice that makes the pulses beat as though i had been undone by homer's paragon who never gave the burning town a thought; to such a pitch of folly i am brought, being caught between the pull of the dark moon and the full, the commonness of thought and images that have the frenzy of our western seas. thereon i made my moan, and after kissed a stone, and after that arranged it in a song seeing that i, ignorant for so long, had been rewarded thus in cormac's ruined house. note "_unpack the loaded pern_," p. 36. when i was a child at sligo i could see above my grandfather's trees a little column of smoke from "the pern mill," and was told that "pern" was another name for the spool, as i was accustomed to call it, on which thread was wound. one could not see the chimney for the trees, and the smoke looked as if it came from the mountain, and one day a foreign sea-captain asked me if that was a burning mountain. w. b. y. printed in the united states of america. +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | transcriber's note | | | | page 64: "lecturn" _sic_--alternative spelling confirmed. | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ two hundred copies of this book have been printed. discoveries; a volume of essays by william butler yeats. dun emer press dundrum mcmvii contents prophet, priest and king page 1 personality and the intellectual essences 5 the musician and the orator 9 a banjo player 10 the looking-glass 11 the tree of life 12 the praise of old wives' tales 15 the play of modern manners 16 has the drama of contemporary life a root of its own 18 why the blind man in ancient times was made a poet 20 concerning saints and artists 24 the subject matter of drama 27 the two kinds of asceticism 30 in the serpent's mouth 32 the black and the white arrows 33 his mistress's eyebrows 33 the tresses of the hair 35 a tower on the apennine 36 the thinking of the body 37 religious belief necessary to symbolic art 39 the holy places 41 discoveries prophet, priest and king the little theatrical company i write my plays for had come to a west of ireland town and was to give a performance in an old ball-room, for there was no other room big enough. i went there from a neighbouring country house and arriving a little before the players, tried to open a window. my hands were black with dirt in a moment and presently a pane of glass and a part of the window frame came out in my hands. everything in this room was half in ruins, the rotten boards cracked under my feet, and our new proscenium and the new boards of the platform looked out of place, and yet the room was not really old, in spite of the musicians' gallery over the stage. it had been built by some romantic or philanthropic landlord some three or four generations ago, and was a memory of we knew not what unfinished scheme. from there i went to look for the players and called for information on a young priest, who had invited them, and taken upon himself the finding of an audience. he lived in a high house with other priests, and as i went in i noticed with a whimsical pleasure a broken pane of glass in the fan-light over the door, for he had once told me the story of an old woman who a good many years ago quarrelled with the bishop, got drunk, and hurled a stone through the painted glass. he was a clever man, who read meredith and ibsen, but some of his books had been packed in the fire-grate by his house-keeper, instead of the customary view of an italian lake or the coloured tissue-paper. the players, who had been giving a performance in a neighbouring town, had not yet come, or were unpacking their costumes and properties at the hotel he had recommended them. we should have time, he said, to go through the half-ruined town and to visit the convent schools and the cathedral, where, owing to his influence, two of our young irish sculptors had been set to carve an altar and the heads of pillars. i had only heard of this work, and i found its strangeness and simplicity--one of them had been rodin's pupil--could not make me forget the meretriciousness of the architecture and the commercial commonplace of the inlaid pavements. the new movement had seized on the cathedral midway in its growth, and the worst of the old & the best of the new were side by side without any sign of transition. the convent school was, as other like places have been to me--a long room in a workhouse hospital at portumna, in particular--a delight to the imagination and the eyes. a new floor had been put into some ecclesiastical building and the light from a great mullioned window, cut off at the middle, fell aslant upon rows of clean and seemingly happy children. the nuns, who show in their own convents, where they can put what they like, a love of what is mean and pretty, make beautiful rooms where the regulations compel them to do all with a few colours and a few flowers. i think it was that day, but am not sure, that i had lunch at a convent and told fairy stories to a couple of nuns, and i hope it was not mere politeness that made them seem to have a child's interest in such things. a good many of our audience, when the curtain went up in the old ball-room, were drunk, but all were attentive for they had a great deal of respect for my friend and there were other priests there. presently the man at the door opposite to the stage strayed off somewhere and i took his place and when boys came up offering two or three pence and asking to be let into the sixpenny seats i let them join the melancholy crowd. the play professed to tell of the heroic life of ancient ireland but was really full of sedentary refinement and the spirituality of cities. every emotion was made as dainty footed and dainty fingered as might be, and a love and pathos where passion had faded into sentiment, emotions of pensive and harmless people, drove shadowy young men through the shadows of death and battle. i watched it with growing rage. it was not my own work, but i have sometimes watched my own work with a rage made all the more salt in the mouth from being half despair. why should we make so much noise about ourselves and yet have nothing to say that was not better said in that work-house dormitory, where a few flowers and a few coloured counterpanes and the coloured walls had made a severe and gracious beauty? presently the play was changed and our comedian began to act a little farce, and when i saw him struggle to wake into laughter an audience, out of whom the life had run as if it were water, i rejoiced, as i had over that broken window-pane. here was something secular, abounding, even a little vulgar, for he was gagging horribly, condescending to his audience, though not without contempt. we had our supper in the priest's house, and a government official who had come down from dublin, partly out of interest in this attempt 'to educate the people,' and partly because it was his holiday and it was necessary to go somewhere, entertained us with little jokes. somebody, not i think a priest, talked of the spiritual destiny of our race and praised the night's work, for the play was refined and the people really very attentive, and he could not understand my discontent; but presently he was silenced by the patter of jokes. i had my breakfast by myself the next morning, for the players had got up in the middle of the night and driven some ten miles to catch an early train to dublin, and were already on their way to their shops and offices. i had brought the visitor's book of the hotel to turn over its pages while waiting for my bacon and eggs, and found several pages full of obscenities, scrawled there some two or three weeks before, by dublin visitors it seemed, for a notorious dublin street was mentioned. nobody had thought it worth his while to tear out the page or block out the lines, and as i put the book away impressions that had been drifting through my mind for months rushed up into a single thought. 'if we poets are to move the people, we must reintegrate the human spirit in our imagination. the english have driven away the kings, and turned the prophets into demagogues and you cannot have health among a people if you have not prophet, priest and king.' personality and the intellectual essences my work in ireland has continually set this thought before me, 'how can i make my work mean something to vigorous and simple men whose attention is not given to art but to a shop, or teaching in a national school, or dispensing medicine?' i had not wanted to 'elevate them' or 'educate them,' as these words are understood, but to make them understand my vision, and i had not wanted a large audience, certainly not what is called a national audience, but enough people for what is accidental and temporary to lose itself in the lump. in england where there have been so many changing activities and so much systematic education one only escapes from crudities and temporary interests among students, but here there is the right audience could one but get its ears. i have always come to this certainty, what moves natural men in the arts is what moves them in life, and that is, intensity of personal life, intonations that show them in a book or a play, the strength, the essential moment of a man who would be exciting in the market or at the dispensary door. they must go out of the theatre with the strength they live by strengthened with looking upon some passion that could, whatever its chosen way of life, strike down an enemy, fill a long stocking with money or move a girl's heart. they have not much to do with the speculations of science, though they have a little, or with the speculations of metaphysics, though they have a little. their legs will tire on the road if there is nothing in their hearts but vague sentiment, and though it is charming to have an affectionate feeling about flowers, that will not pull the cart out of the ditch. an exciting person, whether the hero of a play or the maker of poems, will display the greatest volume of personal energy, and this energy must seem to come out of the body as out of the mind. we must say to ourselves continually when we imagine a character, 'have i given him the roots, as it were, of all faculties necessary for life?' and only when one is certain of that may one give him the one faculty that fills the imagination with joy. i even doubt if any play had ever a great popularity that did not use, or seem to use, the bodily energies of its principal actor to the full. villon the robber could have delighted these irishmen with plays and songs, if he and they had been born to the same traditions of word and symbol, but shelley could not; and as men came to live in towns and to read printed books and to have many specialised activities, it has become more possible to produce shelleys and less and less possible to produce villons. the last villon dwindled into robert burns because the highest faculties had faded, taking the sense of beauty with them, into some sort of vague heaven & left the lower to lumber where they best could. in literature, partly from the lack of that spoken word which knits us to normal man, we have lost in personality, in our delight in the whole man--blood, imagination, intellect, running together--but have found a new delight, in essences, in states of mind, in pure imagination, in all that comes to us most easily in elaborate music. there are two ways before literature--upward into ever-growing subtlety, with verhaeren, with mallarmé, with maeterlinck, until at last, it may be, a new agreement among refined and studious men gives birth to a new passion, and what seems literature becomes religion; or downward, taking the soul with us until all is simplified and solidified again. that is the choice of choices--the way of the bird until common eyes have lost us, or to the market carts; but we must see to it that the soul goes with us, for the bird's song is beautiful, and the traditions of modern imagination, growing always more musical, more lyrical, more melancholy, casting up now a shelley, now a swinburne, now a wagner, are it may be the frenzy of those that are about to see what the magic hymn printed by the abbé de villars has called the crown of living and melodious diamonds. if the carts have hit our fancy we must have the soul tight within our bodies, for it has grown so fond of a beauty accumulated by subtle generations that it will for a long time be impatient with our thirst for mere force, mere personality, for the tumult of the blood. if it begin to slip away we must go after it, for shelley's chapel of the morning star is better than burns's beer house--surely it was beer not barleycorn--except at the day's weary end; and it is always better than that uncomfortable place where there is no beer, the machine shop of the realists. the musician and the orator walter pater says music is the type of all the arts, but somebody else, i forget now who, that oratory is their type. you will side with the one or the other according to the nature of your energy, and i in my present mood am all for the man who, with an average audience before him, uses all means of persuasion--stories, laughter, tears, and but so much music as he can discover on the wings of words. i would even avoid the conversation of the lovers of music, who would draw us into the impersonal land of sound and colour, and would have no one write with a sonata in his memory. we may even speak a little evil of musicians, having admitted that they will see before we do that melodious crown. we may remind them that the housemaid does not respect the piano-tuner as she does the plumber, and of the enmity that they have aroused among all poets. music is the most impersonal of things and words the most personal, and that is why musicians do not like words. they masticate them for a long time, being afraid they would not be able to digest them, and when the words are so broken and softened and mixed with spittle, that they are not words any longer, they swallow them. a banjo player a girl has been playing on the banjo. she is pretty and if i didn't listen to her i could have watched her, and if i didn't watch her i could have listened. her voice, the movements of her body, the expression of her face all said the same thing. a player of a different temper and body would have made all different and might have been delightful in some other way. a movement not of music only but of life came to its perfection. i was delighted and i did not know why until i thought 'that is the way my people, the people i see in the mind's eye, play music, and i like it because it is all personal, as personal as villon's poetry.' the little instrument is quite light and the player can move freely and express a joy that is not of the fingers and the mind only but of the whole being; and all the while her movements call up into the mind, so erect and natural she is, whatever is most beautiful in her daily life. nearly all the old instruments were like that, even the organ was once a little instrument and when it grew big our wise forefathers gave it to god in the cathedrals where it befits him to be everything. but if you sit at the piano it is the piano, the mechanism, that is the important thing, and nothing of you means anything but your fingers and your intellect. the looking-glass i have just been talking to a girl with a shrill monotonous voice and an abrupt way of moving. she is fresh from school where they have taught her history and geography 'whereby a soul can be discerned,' but what is the value of an education, or even in the long run of a science, that does not begin with the personality, the habitual self, and illustrate all by that? somebody should have taught her to speak for the most part on whatever note of her voice is most musical, and soften those harsh notes by speaking, not singing, to some stringed instrument, taking note after note and, as it were, caressing her words a little as if she loved the sound of them, and have taught her after this some beautiful pantomimic dance, till it had grown a habit to live for eye and ear. a wise theatre might make a training in strong and beautiful life the fashion, teaching before all else the heroic discipline of the looking-glass, for is not beauty, even as lasting love, one of the most difficult of the arts? the tree of life we artists have taken over-much to heart that old commandment about seeking after the kingdom of heaven. verlaine told me that he had tried to translate 'in memoriam,' but could not because tennyson was 'too noble, too anglais, and when he should have been broken-hearted had many reminiscences.' about that time i found in some english review an essay of his on shakespeare. 'i had once a fine shakespeare,' he wrote, or some such words, 'but i have it no longer. i write from memory.' one wondered in what vicissitude he had sold it, and for what money; and an image of the man rose in the imagination. to be his ordinary self as much as possible, not a scholar or even a reader, that was certainly his pose; and in the lecture he gave at oxford he insisted 'that the poet should hide nothing of himself,' though he must speak it all with 'a care of that dignity which should manifest itself, if not in the perfection of form, at all events with an invisible, insensible, but effectual endeavour after this lofty and severe quality, i was about to say this virtue.' it was this feeling for his own personality, his delight in singing his own life, even more than that life itself, which made the generation i belong to compare him to villon. it was not till after his death that i understood the meaning his words should have had for me, for while he lived i was interested in nothing but states of mind, lyrical moments, intellectual essences. i would not then have been as delighted as i am now by that banjo-player, or as shocked as i am now by that girl whose movements have grown abrupt, and whose voice has grown harsh by the neglect of all but external activities. i had not learned what sweetness, what rhythmic movement, there is in those who have become the joy that is themselves. without knowing it i had come to care for nothing but impersonal beauty. i had set out on life with the thought of putting my very self into poetry, and had understood this as a representation of my own visions and an attempt to cut away the non-essential, but as i imagined the visions outside myself my imagination became full of decorative landscape and of still life. i thought of myself as something unmoving and silent living in the middle of my own mind and body, a grain of sand in bloomsbury or in connacht that satan's watch fiends cannot find. then one day i understood quite suddenly, as the way is, that i was seeking something unchanging and unmixed and always outside myself, a stone or an elixir that was always out of reach, and that i myself was the fleeting thing that held out its hand. the more i tried to make my art deliberately beautiful, the more did i follow the opposite of myself, for deliberate beauty is like a woman always desiring man's desire. presently i found that i entered into myself and pictured myself and not some essence when i was not seeking beauty at all, but merely to lighten the mind of some burden of love or bitterness thrown upon it by the events of life. we are only permitted to desire life, and all the rest should be our complaints or our praise of that exacting mistress who can awake our lips into song with her kisses. but we must not give her all, we must deceive her a little at times, for, as le sage says in 'the devil on two sticks,' the false lovers who do not become melancholy or jealous with honest passion have the happiest mistress and are rewarded the soonest and by the most beautiful. our deceit will give us style, mastery, that dignity, that lofty and severe quality verlaine spoke of. to put it otherwise, we should ascend out of common interests, the thoughts of the newspapers, of the market-place, of men of science, but only so far as we can carry the normal, passionate, reasoning self, the personality as a whole. we must find some place upon the tree of life high enough for the forked branches to keep it safe, and low enough to be out of the little wind-tossed boughs and twigs, for the phoenix nest, for the passion that is exaltation and not negation of the will, for the wings that are always upon fire. the praise of old wives' tales an art may become impersonal because it has too much circumstance or too little, because the world is too little or too much with it, because it is too near the ground or too far up among the branches. i met an old man out fishing a year ago who said to me 'don quixote and odysseus are always near to me;' that is true for me also, for even hamlet and lear and oedipus are more cloudy. no playwright ever has made or ever will make a character that will follow us out of the theatre as don quixote follows us out of the book, for no playwright can be wholly episodical, and when one constructs, bringing one's characters into complicated relations with one another, something impersonal comes into the story. society, fate, 'tendency,' something not quite human begins to arrange the characters and to excite into action only so much of their humanity as they find it necessary to show to one another. the common heart will always love better the tales that have something of an old wives' tale and that look upon their hero from every side as if he alone were wonderful, as a child does with a new penny. in plays of a comedy too extravagant to photograph life, or written in verse, the construction is of a necessity woven out of naked motives and passions, but when an atmosphere of modern reality has to be built up as well, and the tendency, or fate, or society has to be shown as it is about ourselves the characters grow fainter and we have to read the book many times or see the play many times before we can remember them. even then they are only possible in a certain drawing-room and among such and such people, and we must carry all that lumber in our heads. i thought tolstoi's 'war and peace' the greatest story i had ever read, and yet it has gone from me; even lancelot, ever a shadow, is more visible in my memory than all its substance. the play of modern manners of all artistic forms that have had a large share of the world's attention the worst is the play about modern educated people. except where it is superficial or deliberately argumentative it fills one's soul with a sense of commonness as with dust. it has one mortal ailment. it cannot become impassioned, that is to say vital, without making somebody gushing and sentimental. educated and well-bred people do not wear their hearts upon their sleeves and they have no artistic and charming language except light persiflage and no powerful language at all, and when they are deeply moved they look silently into the fireplace. again and again i have watched some play of this sort with growing curiosity through the opening scene. the minor people argue, chaff one another, hint sometimes at some deeper stream of life just as we do in our houses, and i am content. but all the time i have been wondering why the chief character, the man who is to bear the burden of fate, is gushing, sentimental and quite without ideas. then the great scene comes and i understand that he cannot be well-bred or self-possessed or intellectual, for if he were he would draw a chair to the fire and there would be no duologue at the end of the third act. ibsen understood the difficulty and made all his characters a little provincial that they might not put each other out of countenance, and made a leading article sort of poetry, phrases about vine leaves and harps in the air it was possible to believe them using in their moments of excitement, and if the play needed more than that they could always do something stupid. they could go out and hoist a flag as they do at the end of little eyolf. one only understands that this manner, deliberately adopted one doubts not, had gone into his soul and filled it with dust, when one has noticed that he could no longer create a man of genius. the happiest writers are those that, knowing this form of play is slight and passing, keep to the surface, never showing anything but the arguments and the persiflage of daily observation, or now and then, instead of the expression of passion, a stage picture, a man holding a woman's hand or sitting with his head in his hands in dim light by the red glow of a fire. it was certainly an understanding of the slightness of the form, of its incapacity for the expression of the deeper sorts of passion, that made the french invent the play with a thesis, for where there is a thesis people can grow hot in argument, almost the only kind of passion that displays itself in our daily life. the novel of contemporary educated life is upon the other hand a permanent form because having the power of psychological description it can follow the thought of a man who is looking into the grate. has the drama of contemporary life a root of its own in watching a play about modern educated people with its meagre language and its action crushed into the narrow limits of possibility i have found myself constantly saying: 'maybe it has its power to move, slight as that is, from being able to suggest fundamental contrasts and passions which romantic and poetical literature have shown to be beautiful.' a man facing his enemies alone in a quarrel over the purity of the water in a norwegian spa and using no language but that of the newspapers can call up into our minds, let us say, the passion of coriolanus. the lovers and fighters of old imaginative literature are more vivid experiences in the soul than anything but one's own ruling passion that is itself riddled by their thought as by lightning, and even two dumb figures on the roads can call up all that glory. put the man who has no knowledge of literature before a play of this kind and he will say as he has said in some form or other in every age at the first shock of naturalism, 'what has brought me out to hear nothing but the words we use at home when we are talking of the rates?' and he will prefer to it any play where there is visible beauty or mirth, where life is exciting, at high tide as it were. it is not his fault that he will prefer in all likelihood a worse play although its kind may be greater, for we have been following the lure of science for generations and forgotten him and his. i come always back to this thought. there is something of an old wives' tale in fine literature. the makers of it are like an old peasant telling stories of the great famine or the hangings of '98 or his own memories. he has felt something in the depth of his mind and he wants to make it as visible and powerful to our senses as possible. he will use the most extravagant words or illustrations if they suit his purpose. or he will invent a wild parable and the more his mind is on fire or the more creative it is the less will he look at the outer world or value it for its own sake. it gives him metaphors and examples and that is all. he is even a little scornful of it, for it seems to him while the fit is on that the fire has gone out of it and left it but white ashes. i cannot explain it, but i am certain that every high thing was invented in this way, between sleeping and waking, as it were, and that peering and peeping persons are but hawkers of stolen goods. how else could their noses have grown so ravenous or their eyes so sharp? why the blind man in ancient times was made a poet a description in the iliad or the odyssey, unlike one in the æneid or in most modern writers, is the swift and natural observation of a man as he is shaped by life. it is a refinement of the primary hungers and has the least possible of what is merely scholarly or exceptional. it is, above all, never too observant, too professional, and when the book is closed we have had our energies enriched, for we have been in the mid-current. we have never seen anything odysseus could not have seen while his thought was of the cyclops, or achilles when briseis moved him to desire. in the art of the greatest periods there is something careless and sudden in all habitual moods though not in their expression, because these moods are a conflagration of all the energies of active life. in primitive times the blind man became a poet as he becomes a fiddler in our villages, because he had to be driven out of activities all his nature cried for, before he could be contented with the praise of life. and often it is villon or verlaine with impediments plain to all, who sings of life with the ancient simplicity. poets of coming days when once more it will be possible to write as in the great epochs will recognise that their sacrifice shall be to refuse what blindness and evil name, or imprisonment at the outsetting, denied to men who missed thereby the sting of a deliberate refusal. the poets of the ages of silver need no refusal of life, the dome of many-coloured glass is already shattered while they live. they look at life deliberately and as if from beyond life, and the greatest of them need suffer nothing but the sadness that the saints have known. this is their aim, and their temptation is not a passionate activity, but the approval of their fellows, which comes to them in full abundance only when they delight in the general thoughts that hold together a cultivated middle-class, where irresponsibilities of position and poverty are lacking; the things that are more excellent among educated men who have political preoccupations, augustus cæsar's affability, all that impersonal fecundity which muddies the intellectual passions. ben jonson says in the poetaster, that even the best of men without promethean fire is but a hollow statue, and a studious man will commonly forget after some forty winters that of a certainty promethean fire will burn somebody's fingers. it may happen that poets will be made more often by their sins than by their virtues, for general praise is unlucky, as the villages know, and not merely as i imagine--for i am superstitious about these things--because the praise of all but an equal enslaves and adds a pound to the ball at the ankle with every compliment. all energy that comes from the whole man is as irregular as the lightning, for the communicable and forecastable and discoverable is a part only, a hungry chicken under the breast of the pelican, and the test of poetry is not in reason but in a delight not different from the delight that comes to a man at the first coming of love into the heart. i knew an old man who had spent his whole life cutting hazel and privet from the paths, and in some seventy years he had observed little but had many imaginations. he had never seen like a naturalist, never seen things as they are, for his habitual mood had been that of a man stirred in his affairs; and shakespeare, tintoretto, though the times were running out when tintoretto painted, nearly all the great men of the renaissance, looked at the world with eyes like his. their minds were never quiescent, never as it were in a mood for scientific observations, always an exaltation, never--to use known words--founded upon an elimination of the personal factor; and their attention and the attention of those they worked for dwelt constantly with what is present to the mind in exaltation. i am too modern fully to enjoy tintoretto's creation of the milky way, i cannot fix my thoughts upon that glowing and palpitating flesh intently enough to forget, as i can the make-believe of a fairy tale, that heavy drapery hanging from a cloud, though i find my pleasure in king lear heightened by the make-believe that comes upon it all when the fool says: 'this prophecy merlin shall make, for i live before his time:'--and i always find it quite natural, so little does logic in the mere circumstance matter in the finest art, that richard's & richmond's tents should be side by side. i saw with delight the 'knight of the burning pestle' when mr. carr revived it, and found it none the worse because the apprentice acted a whole play upon the spur of the moment and without committing a line to heart. when ben bronson's 'epicoene' rammed a century of laughter into the two hours' traffic, i found with amazement that almost every journalist had put logic on the seat, where our lady imagination should pronounce that unjust and favouring sentence her woman's heart is ever plotting, & had felt bound to cherish none but reasonable sympathies and to resent the baiting of that grotesque old man. i have been looking over a book of engravings made in the eighteenth century from those wall-pictures of herculaneum and pompeii that were, it seems, the work of journeymen copying from finer paintings, for the composition is always too good for the execution. i find in great numbers an indifference to obvious logic, to all that the eye sees at common moments. perseus shows andromeda the death she lived by in a pool, and though the lovers are carefully drawn the reflection is upside down that we may see it the better. there is hardly an old master who has not made known to us in some like way how little he cares for what every fool can see and every knave can praise. the men who imagined the arts were not less superstitious in religion, understanding the spiritual relations, but not the mechanical, and finding nothing that need strain the throat in those gnats the floods of noah and deucalion, and in joshua's moon at ascalon. concerning saints and artists i took the indian hemp with certain followers of st. martin on the ground floor of a house in the latin quarter. i had never taken it before, and was instructed by a boisterous young poet, whose english was no better than my french. he gave me a little pellet, if i am not forgetting, an hour before dinner, and another after we had dined together at some restaurant. as we were going through the streets to the meeting-place of the martinists, i felt suddenly that a cloud i was looking at floated in an immense space, and for an instant my being rushed out, as it seemed, into that space with ecstasy. i was myself again immediately, but the poet was wholly above himself, and presently he pointed to one of the street lamps now brightening in the fading twilight, and cried at the top of his voice, 'why do you look at me with your great eye?' there were perhaps a dozen people already much excited when we arrived; and after i had drunk some cups of coffee and eaten a pellet or two more, i grew very anxious to dance, but did not, as i could not remember any steps. i sat down and closed my eyes; but no, i had no visions, nothing but a sensation of some dark shadow which seemed to be telling me that some day i would go into a trance and so out of my body for a while, but not yet. i opened my eyes and looked at some red ornament on the mantelpiece, and at once the room was full of harmonies of red, but when a blue china figure caught my eye the harmonies became blue upon the instant. i was puzzled, for the reds were all there, nothing had changed, but they were no longer important or harmonious; and why had the blues so unimportant but a moment ago become exciting and delightful? thereupon it struck me that i was seeing like a painter, and that in the course of the evening every one there would change through every kind of artistic perception. after a while a martinist ran towards me with a piece of paper on which he had drawn a circle with a dot in it, and pointing at it with his finger he cried out, 'god, god!' some immeasurable mystery had been revealed, and his eyes shone; and at some time or other a lean and shabby man, with rather a distinguished face, showed me his horoscope and pointed with an ecstasy of melancholy at its evil aspects. the boisterous poet, who was an old eater of the indian hemp, had told me that it took one three months growing used to it, three months more enjoying it, and three months being cured of it. these men were in their second period; but i never forgot myself, never really rose above myself for more than a moment, and was even able to feel the absurdity of that gaiety, an herr nordau among the men of genius but one that was abashed at his own sobriety. the sky outside was beginning to grey when there came a knocking at the window shutters. somebody opened the window, and a woman in evening dress, who was not a little bewildered to find so many people, was helped down into the room. she had been at a student's ball unknown to her husband, who was asleep overhead, and had thought to have crept home unobserved, but for a confederate at the window. all those talking or dancing men laughed in a dreamy way; and she, understanding that there was no judgment in the laughter of men that had no thought but of the spectacle of the world, blushed, laughed and darted through the room and so upstairs. alas that the hangman's rope should be own brother to that indian happiness that keeps alone, were it not for some stray cactus, mother of as many dreams, an immemorial impartiality and simpleness. the subject matter of drama i read this sentence a few days ago, or one like it, in an obituary of ibsen: 'let nobody again go back to the old ballad material of shakespeare, to murders, and ghosts, for what interests us on the stage is modern experience and the discussion of our interests;' and in another part of the article ibsen was blamed because he had written of suicides and in other ways made use of 'the morbid terror of death.' dramatic literature has for a long time been left to the criticism of journalists, and all these, the old stupid ones and the new clever ones, have tried to impress upon it their absorption in the life of the moment, their delight in obvious originality & in obvious logic, their shrinking from the ancient and insoluble. the writer i have quoted is much more than a journalist, but he has lived their hurried life, and instinctively turns to them for judgement. he is not thinking of the great poets and painters, of the cloud of witnesses, who are there that we may become, through our understanding of their minds, spectators of the ages, but of this age. drama is a means of expression, not a special subject matter, and the dramatist is as free to choose, where he has a mind to, as the poet of 'endymion' or as the painter of mary magdalene at the door of simon the pharisee. so far from the discussion of our interests and the immediate circumstance of our life being the most moving to the imagination, it is what is old and far off that stirs us the most deeply. there is a sentence in 'the marriage of heaven and hell' that is meaningless until we understand blake's system of correspondences. 'the best wine is the oldest, the best water the newest.' water is experience, immediate sensation, and wine is emotion, and it is with the intellect, as distinguished from imagination, that we enlarge the bounds of experience and separate it from all but itself, from illusion, from memory, and create among other things science and good journalism. emotion, on the other hand, grows intoxicating and delightful after it has been enriched with the memory of old emotions, with all the uncounted flavours of old experience, and it is necessarily an antiquity of thought, emotions that have been deepened by the experiences of many men of genius, that distinguishes the cultivated man. the subject-matter of his meditation and invention is old, and he will disdain a too conscious originality in the arts as in those matters of daily life where, is it not balzac who says, 'we are all conservatives?' he is above all things well bred, and whether he write or paint will not desire a technique that denies or obtrudes his long and noble descent. corneille and racine did not deny their masters, and when dante spoke of his master virgil there was no crowing of the cock. in their day imitation was conscious or all but conscious, and while originality was but so much the more a part of the man himself, so much the deeper because unconscious, no quick analysis could find out their miracle, that needed it may be generations to reveal; but it is our imitation that is unconscious and that waits the certainties of time. the more religious the subject-matter of an art, the more will it be as it were stationary, and the more ancient will be the emotion that it arouses and the circumstances that it calls up before our eyes. when in the middle ages the pilgrim to st. patrick's purgatory found himself on the lakeside, he found a boat made out of a hollow tree to ferry him to the cave of vision. in religious painting and poetry, crowns and swords of an ancient pattern take upon themselves new meanings, and it is impossible to separate our idea of what is noble from a mystic stair, where not men and women, but robes, jewels, incidents, ancient utilities float upward slowly over the all but sleeping mind, putting on emotional and spiritual life as they ascend until they are swallowed up by some far glory that they even were too modern and momentary to endure. all art is dream, and what the day is done with is dreaming ripe, and what art moulds religion accepts, and in the end all is in the wine cup, all is in the drunken phantasy, and the grapes begin to stammer. the two kinds of asceticism it is not possible to separate an emotion or a spiritual state from the image that calls it up and gives it expression. michael angelo's moses, velasquez' philip the second, the colour purple, a crucifix, call into life an emotion or state that vanishes with them because they are its only possible expression, and that is why no mind is more valuable than the images it contains. the imaginative writer differs from the saint in that he identifies himself--to the neglect of his own soul, alas!--with the soul of the world, and frees himself from all that is impermanent in that soul, an ascetic not of women and wine, but of the newspapers. that which is permanent in the soul of the world upon the other hand, the great passions that trouble all and have but a brief recurring life of flower and seed in any man, is the renunciation of the saint who seeks not an eternal art, but his own eternity. the artist stands between the saint and the world of impermanent things, and just in so far as his mind dwells on what is impermanent in his sense, on all that 'modern experience and the discussion of our interests,' that is to say on what never recurs, as desire and hope, terror and weariness, spring and autumn recur in varying rhythms, will his mind become critical, as distinguished from creative, and his emotions wither. he will think less of what he sees and more of his own attitude towards it, and will express this attitude by an essentially critical selection and emphasis. i am not quite sure of my memory but i think that mr. ricketts has said in his book on the prado that he feels the critic in velasquez for the first time in painting, and we all feel the critic in whistler and degas, in browning, even in mr. swinburne, in the finest art of all ages but the greatest. the end for art is the ecstasy awakened by the presence before an ever changing mind of what is permanent in the world, or by the arousing of that mind itself into the very delicate and fastidious mood habitual with it when it is seeking those permanent & recurring things. there is a little of both ecstasies at all times, but at this time we have a small measure of the creative impulse itself, of the divine vision, a great one of 'the lost traveller's dream under the hill,' perhaps because all the old simple things have been painted or written, and they will only have meaning for us again when a new race or a new civilisation has made us look upon all with new eyesight. in the serpent's mouth there is an old saying that god is a circle whose centre is everywhere. if that is true, the saint goes to the centre, the poet and artist to the ring where everything comes round again. the poet must not seek for what is still and fixed, for that has no life for him; and if he did his style would become cold and monotonous, and his sense of beauty faint and sickly, as are both style and beauty to my imagination in the prose and poetry of newman, but be content to find his pleasure in all that is for ever passing away that it may come again, in the beauty of woman, in the fragile flowers of spring, in momentary heroic passion, in whatever is most fleeting, most impassioned, as it were, for its own perfection, most eager to return in its glory. yet perhaps he must endure the impermanent a little, for these things return, but not wholly, for no two faces are alike, and, it may be, had we more learned eyes, no two flowers. is it that all things are made by the struggle of the individual and the world, of the unchanging and the returning, and that the saint and the poet are over all, and that the poet has made his home in the serpent's mouth? the black and the white arrows instinct creates the recurring and the beautiful, all the winding of the serpent; but reason, the most ugly man, as blake called it, is a drawer of the straight line, the maker of the arbitrary and the impermanent, for no recurring spring will ever bring again yesterday's clock. sanctity has its straight line also, darting from the centre, and with these arrows the many-coloured serpent, theme of all our poetry, is maimed and hunted. he that finds the white arrow shall have wisdom older than the serpent, but what of the black arrow. how much knowledge, how heavy a quiver of the crow-feathered ebony rods can the soul endure? his mistress's eyebrows the preoccupation of our art and literature with knowledge, with the surface of life, with the arbitrary, with mechanism, has arisen out of the root. a careful, but not necessarily very subtle man could foretell the history of any religion if he knew its first principle, and that it would live long enough to fulfil itself. the mind can never do the same thing twice over, and having exhausted simple beauty and meaning, it passes to the strange and hidden, and at last must find its delight, having outrun its harmonies in the emphatic and discordant. when i was a boy at the art school i watched an older student late returned from paris, with a wonder that had no understanding in it. he was very amorous, and every new love was the occasion of a new picture, and every new picture was uglier than its forerunner. he was excited about his mistress's eyebrows, as was fitting, but the interest of beauty had been exhausted by the logical energies of art, which destroys where it has rummaged, and can but discover, whether it will or no. we cannot discover our subject-matter by deliberate intellect, for when a subject-matter ceases to move us we must go elsewhere, and when it moves us, even though it be 'that old ballad material of shakespeare' or even 'the morbid terror of death,' we can laugh at reason. we must not ask is the world interested in this or that, for nothing is in question but our own interest, and we can understand no other. our place in the hierarchy is settled for us by our choice of a subject-matter, and all good criticism is hieratic, delighting in setting things above one another, epic and drama above lyric and so on, and not merely side by side. but it is our instinct and not our intellect that chooses. we can deliberately refashion our characters, but not our painting or our poetry. if our characters also were not unconsciously refashioned so completely by the unfolding of the logical energies of art, that even simple things have in the end a new aspect in our eyes, the arts would not be among those things that return for ever. the ballads that bishop percy gathered returned in the ancient mariner, and the delight in the world of old greek sculptors sprang into a more delicate loveliness in that archaistic head of the young athlete down the long corridor to your left hand as you go into the british museum. civilisation too, will not that also destroy where it has loved, until it shall bring the simple and natural things again and a new argo with all the gilding on her bows sail out to find another fleece? the tresses of the hair hafiz cried to his beloved, 'i made a bargain with that brown hair before the beginning of time, and it shall not be broken through unending time,' and it may be that mistress nature knows that we have lived many times, and that whatsoever changes and winds into itself belongs to us. she covers her eyes away from us, but she lets us play with the tresses of her hair. a tower on the apennine the other day i was walking towards urbino where i was to spend the night, having crossed the apennines from san sepolcro, and had come to a level place on the mountain top near the journey's end. my friends were in a carriage somewhere behind, on a road which was still ascending in great loops, and i was alone amid a visionary fantastic impossible scenery. it was sunset and the stormy clouds hung upon mountain after mountain, and far off on one great summit a cloud darker than the rest glimmered with lightning. away to the south a mediæval tower, with no building near nor any sign of life, rose upon its solitary summit into the clouds. i saw suddenly in the mind's eye an old man, erect and a little gaunt, standing in the door of the tower, while about him broke a windy light. he was the poet who had at last, because he had done so much for the word's sake, come to share in the dignity of the saint. he had hidden nothing of himself but he had taken care of 'that dignity ... the perfection of form ... this lofty and severe quality ... this virtue.' and though he had but sought it for the word's sake, or for a woman's praise, it had come at last into his body and his mind. certainly as he stood there he knew how from behind that laborious mood, that pose, that genius, no flower of himself but all himself, looked out as from behind a mask that other who alone of all men, the country people say, is not a hair's breadth more nor less than six feet high. he has in his ears well instructed voices and seeming solid sights are before his eyes, and not as we say of many a one, speaking in metaphor, but as this were delphi or eleusis, and the substance and the voice come to him among his memories which are of women's faces; for was it columbanus or another that wrote 'there is one among the birds that is perfect, and one perfect among the fish.' the thinking of the body those learned men who are a terror to children and an ignominious sight in lovers' eyes, all those butts of a traditional humour where there is something of the wisdom of peasants, are mathematicians, theologians, lawyers, men of science of various kinds. they have followed some abstract reverie, which stirs the brain only and needs that only, and have therefore stood before the looking-glass without pleasure and never known those thoughts that shape the lines of the body for beauty or animation, and wake a desire for praise or for display. there are two pictures of venice side by side in the house where i am writing this, a canaletto that has little but careful drawing and a not very emotional pleasure in clean bright air, and a franz francken, where the blue water, that in the other stirs one so little, can make one long to plunge into the green depth where a cloud shadow falls. neither painting could move us at all, if our thought did not rush out to the edges of our flesh, and it is so with all good art, whether the victory of samothrace which reminds the soles of our feet of swiftness, or the odyssey that would send us out under the salt wind, or the young horsemen on the parthenon, that seem happier than our boyhood ever was, and in our boyhood's way. art bids us touch and taste and hear and see the world, and shrinks from what blake calls mathematic form, from every abstract thing, from all that is of the brain only, from all that is not a fountain jetting from the entire hopes, memories, and sensations of the body. its morality is personal, knows little of any general law, has no blame for little musgrave, no care for lord barnard's house, seems lighter than a breath and yet is hard and heavy, for if a man is not ready to face toil and risk, and in all gaiety of heart, his body will grow unshapely and his heart lack the wild will that stirs desire. it approved before all men those that talked or wrestled or tilted under the walls of urbino, or sat in the wide window seats discussing all things, with love ever in their thought, when the wise duchess ordered all, and the lady emilia gave the theme. religious belief necessary to symbolic art all art is sensuous, but when a man puts only his contemplative nature, and his more vague desires into his art, the sensuous images through which it speaks become broken, fleeting, uncertain, or are chosen for their distance from general experience, and all grows unsubstantial & fantastic. when imagination moves in a dim world like the country of sleep in love's nocturne and 'siren there winds her dizzy hair and sings' we go to it for delight indeed but in our weariness. if we are to sojourn there that world must grow consistent with itself, emotion must be related to emotion by a system of ordered images, as in the divine comedy. it must grow to be symbolic, that is, for the soul can only achieve a distinct separated life where many related objects at once distinguish and arouse its energies in their fullness. all visionaries have entered into such a world in trances, and all ideal art has trance for warranty. shelley seemed to matthew arnold to beat his ineffectual wings in the void, and i only made my pleasure in him contented pleasure by massing in my imagination his recurring images of towers and rivers, and caves with fountains in them, and that one star of his, till his world had grown solid underfoot and consistent enough for the soul's habitation. but even then i lacked something to compensate my imagination for geographical and historical reality, for the testimony of our ordinary senses, and found myself wishing for and trying to imagine, as i had also when reading keats' endymion, a crowd of believers who could put into all those strange sights the strength of their belief and the rare testimony of their visions. a little crowd had been sufficient, and i would have had shelley a sectary that his revelation might have found the only sufficient evidence of religion, miracle. all symbolic art should arise out of a real belief, and that it cannot do so in this age proves that this age is a road and not a resting place for the imaginative arts. i can only understand others by myself, and i am certain that there are many who are not moved as they desire to be by that solitary light burning in the tower of prince athanais, because it has not entered into men's prayers nor lighted any through the sacred dark of religious contemplation. lyrical poems even when they but speak of emotions common to all need, if not a religious belief like the spiritual arts, a life that has leisure for itself, and a society that is quickly stirred that our emotion may be strengthened by the emotion of others. all circumstance that makes emotion at once dignified and visible, increases the poet's power, and i think that is why i have always longed for some stringed instrument, and a listening audience not drawn out of the hurried streets but from a life where it would be natural to murmur over again the singer's thought. when i heard ivette guilbert the other day, who has the lyre or as good, i was not content, for she sang among people whose life had nothing it could share with an exquisite art that should rise out of life as the blade out of the spearshaft, a song out of the mood, the fountain from its pool, all art out of the body, laughter from a happy company. i longed to make all things over again, that she might sing in some great hall, where there was no one that did not love life and speak of it continually. the holy places when all art was struck out of personality, whether as in our daily business or in the adventure of religion, there was little separation between holy and common things, and just as the arts themselves passed quickly from passion to divine contemplation, from the conversation of peasants to that of princes, the one song remembering the drunken miller and but half forgetting cambynskan bold; so did a man feel himself near sacred presences when he turned his plough from the slope of cruachmaa or of olympus. the occupations and the places known to homer or to hesiod, those pure first artists, might, as it were, if but the fashioners hands had loosened, have changed before the poem's end to symbols and vanished, winged and unweary, into the unchanging worlds where religion only can discover life as well as peace. a man of that unbroken day could have all the subtlety of shelley, & yet use no image unknown among the common people, and speak no thought that was not a deduction from the common thought. unless the discovery of legendary knowledge and the returning belief in miracle, or what we must needs call so, can bring once more a new belief in the sanctity of common ploughland, and new wonders that reward no difficult ecclesiastical routine but the common, wayward, spirited man, we may never see again a shelley and a dickens in the one body, but be broken to the end. we have grown jealous of the body, and we dress it in dull unshapely clothes, that we may cherish aspiration alone. moliere being but the master of common sense lived ever in the common daylight, but shakespeare could not, & shakespeare seems to bring us to the very market-place, when we remember shelley's dizzy and landor's calm disdain of usual daily things. and at last we have villiers de l'isle adam crying in the ecstasy of a supreme culture, of a supreme refusal, 'as for living, our servants will do that for us.' one of the means of loftiness, of marmorean stillness has been the choice of strange and far away places, for the scenery of art, but this choice has grown bitter to me, and there are moments when i cannot believe in the reality of imaginations that are not inset with the minute life of long familiar things and symbols and places. i have come to think of even shakespeare's journeys to rome or to verona as the outflowing of an unrest, a dissatisfaction with natural interests, an unstable equilibrium of the whole european mind that would not have come had constantinople wall been built of better stone. i am orthodox and pray for a resurrection of the body, and am certain that a man should find his holy land where he first crept upon the floor, and that familiar woods and rivers should fade into symbol with so gradual a change that he never discover, no not even in ecstasy itself, that he is beyond space, and that time alone keeps him from primum mobile, the supernal eden, and the white rose over all. here ends discoveries; written by william butler yeats. printed, upon paper made in ireland, by elizabeth c. yeats, esther ryan and beatrice cassidy, and published by elizabeth c. yeats, at the dun emer press, in the house of evelyn gleeson at dundrum, in the county of dublin, ireland. finished on the twelfth day of september, in the year 1907. html version by al haines. synge and the ireland of his time by william butler yeats with a note concerning a walk through connemara with him by jack butler yeats churchtown dundrum mcmxi preface at times during synge's last illness, lady gregory and i would speak of his work and always find some pleasure in the thought that unlike ourselves, who had made our experiments in public, he would leave to the world nothing to be wished away--nothing that was not beautiful or powerful in itself, or necessary as an expression of his life and thought. when he died we were in much anxiety, for a letter written before his last illness, and printed in the selection of his poems published at the cuala press, had shown that he was anxious about the fate of his manuscripts and scattered writings. on the evening of the night he died he had asked that i might come to him the next day; and my diary of the days following his death shows how great was our anxiety. presently however, all seemed to have come right, for the executors sent me the following letter that had been found among his papers, and promised to carry out his wishes. 'may 4th, 1908 'dear yeats, 'this is only to go to you if anything should go wrong with me under the operation or after it. i am a little bothered about my 'papers.' i have a certain amount of verse that i think would be worth preserving, possibly also the 1st and 3rd acts of 'deirdre,' and then i have a lot of kerry and wicklow articles that would go together into a book. the other early stuff i wrote i have kept as a sort of curiosity, but i am anxious that it should not get into print. i wonder could you get someone--say ... who is now in dublin to go through them for you and do whatever you and lady gregory think desirable. it is rather a hard thing to ask you but i do not want my good things destroyed or my bad things printed rashly--especially a morbid thing about a mad fiddler in paris which i hate. do what you can--good luck. 'j.m. synge' in the summer of 1909, the executors sent me a large bundle of papers, cuttings from newspapers and magazines, manuscript and typewritten prose and verse, put together and annotated by synge himself before his last illness. i spent a portion of each day for weeks reading and re-reading early dramatic writing, poems, essays, and so forth, and with the exception of ninety pages which have been published without my consent, made consulting lady gregory from time to time the selection of his work published by messrs. maunsel. it is because of these ninety pages, that neither lady gregory's name nor mine appears in any of the books, and that the introduction which i now publish, was withdrawn by me after it had been advertised by the publishers. before the publication of the books the executors discovered a scrap of paper with a sentence by j.m. synge saying that selections might be taken from his essays on the congested districts. i do not know if this was written before his letter to me, which made no mention of them, or contained his final directions. the matter is unimportant, for the publishers decided to ignore my offer to select as well as my original decision to reject, and for this act of theirs they have given me no reasons except reasons of convenience, which neither lady gregory nor i could accept. w.b. yeats. * * * * * j.m. synge and the ireland of his time on saturday, january 26th, 1907, i was lecturing in aberdeen, and when my lecture was over i was given a telegram which said, 'play great success.' it had been sent from dublin after the second act of 'the playboy of the western world,' then being performed for the first time. after one in the morning, my host brought to my bedroom this second telegram, 'audience broke up in disorder at the word shift.' i knew no more until i got the dublin papers on my way from belfast to dublin on tuesday morning. on the monday night no word of the play had been heard. about forty young men had sat on the front seats of the pit, and stamped and shouted and blown trumpets from the rise to the fall of the curtain. on the tuesday night also the forty young men were there. they wished to silence what they considered a slander upon ireland's womanhood. irish women would never sleep under the same roof with a young man without a chaperon, nor admire a murderer, nor use a word like 'shift;' nor could anyone recognise the country men and women of davis and kickham in these poetical, violent, grotesque persons, who used the name of god so freely, and spoke of all things that hit their fancy. a patriotic journalism which had seen in synge's capricious imagination the enemy of all it would have young men believe, had for years prepared for this hour, by that which is at once the greatest and most ignoble power of journalism, the art of repeating a name again and again with some ridiculous or evil association. the preparation had begun after the first performance of 'the shadow of the glen,' synge's first play, with an assertion made in ignorance but repeated in dishonesty, that he had taken his fable and his characters, not from his own mind nor that profound knowledge of cot and curragh he was admitted to possess, but 'from a writer of the roman decadence.' some spontaneous dislike had been but natural, for genius like his can but slowly, amid what it has of harsh and strange, set forth the nobility of its beauty, and the depth of its compassion; but the frenzy that would have silenced his master-work was, like most violent things artificial, the defence of virtue by those that have but little, which is the pomp and gallantry of journalism and its right to govern the world. as i stood there watching, knowing well that i saw the dissolution of a school of patriotism that held sway over my youth, synge came and stood beside me, and said, 'a young doctor has just told me that he can hardly keep himself from jumping on to a seat, and pointing out in that howling mob those whom he is treating for venereal disease.' ii thomas davis, whose life had the moral simplicity which can give to actions the lasting influence that style alone can give to words, had understood that a country which has no national institutions must show its young men images for the affections, although they be but diagrams of what it should be or may be. he and his school imagined the soldier, the orator, the patriot, the poet, the chieftain, and above all the peasant; and these, as celebrated in essay and songs and stories, possessed so many virtues that no matter how england, who as mitchell said 'had the ear of the world,' might slander us, ireland, even though she could not come at the world's other ear, might go her way unabashed. but ideas and images which have to be understood and loved by large numbers of people, must appeal to no rich personal experience, no patience of study, no delicacy of sense; and if at rare moments some 'memory of the dead' can take its strength from one; at all other moments manner and matter will be rhetorical, conventional, sentimental; and language, because it is carried beyond life perpetually, will be as wasted as the thought, with unmeaning pedantries and silences, and a dread of all that has salt and savour. after a while, in a land that has given itself to agitation over-much, abstract thoughts are raised up between men's minds and nature, who never does the same thing twice, or makes one man like another, till minds, whose patriotism is perhaps great enough to carry them to the scaffold, cry down natural impulse with the morbid persistence of minds unsettled by some fixed idea. they are preoccupied with the nation's future, with heroes, poets, soldiers, painters, armies, fleets, but only as these things are understood by a child in a national school, while a secret feeling that what is so unreal needs continual defence makes them bitter and restless. they are like some state which has only paper money, and seeks by punishments to make it buy whatever gold can buy. they no longer love, for only life is loved, and at last, a generation is like an hysterical woman who will make unmeasured accusations and believe impossible things, because of some logical deduction from a solitary thought which has turned a portion of her mind to stone. iii even if what one defends be true, an attitude of defence, a continual apology, whatever the cause, makes the mind barren because it kills intellectual innocence; that delight in what is unforeseen, and in the mere spectacle of the world, the mere drifting hither and thither that must come before all true thought and emotion. a zealous irishman, especially if he lives much out of ireland, spends his time in a never-ending argument about oliver cromwell, the danes, the penal laws, the rebellion of 1798, the famine, the irish peasant, and ends by substituting a traditional casuistry for a country; and if he be a catholic, yet another casuistry that has professors, schoolmasters, letter-writing priests, and the authors of manuals to make the meshes fine, comes between him and english literature, substituting arguments and hesitations for the excitement at the first reading of the great poets which should be a sort of violent imaginative puberty. his hesitations and arguments may have been right, the catholic philosophy may be more profound than milton's morality, or shelley's vehement vision; but none the less do we lose life by losing that recklessness castiglione thought necessary even in good manners, and offend our lady truth, who would never, had she desired an anxious courtship, have digged a well to be her parlour. i admired though we were always quarrelling on some matter, j.f. taylor, the orator, who died just before the first controversy over these plays. it often seemed to me that when he spoke ireland herself had spoken, one got that sense of surprise that comes when a man has said what is unforeseen because it is far from the common thought, and yet obvious because when it has been spoken, the gate of the mind seems suddenly to roll back and reveal forgotten sights and let loose lost passions. i have never heard him speak except in some irish literary or political society, but there at any rate, as in conversation, i found a man whose life was a ceaseless reverie over the religious and political history of ireland. he saw himself pleading for his country before an invisible jury, perhaps of the great dead, against traitors at home and enemies abroad, and a sort of frenzy in his voice and the moral elevation of his thoughts gave him for the moment style and music. one asked oneself again and again, 'why is not this man an artist, a man of genius, a creator of some kind?' the other day under the influence of memory, i read through his one book, a life of owen roe o'neill, and found there no sentence detachable from its context because of wisdom or beauty. everything was argued from a premise; and wisdom, and style, whether in life or letters come from the presence of what is self-evident, from that which requires but statement, from what blake called 'naked beauty displayed.' the sense of what was unforeseen and obvious, the rolling backward of the gates had gone with the living voice, with the nobility of will that made one understand what he saw and felt in what was now but argument and logic. i found myself in the presence of a mind like some noisy and powerful machine, of thought that was no part of wisdom but the apologetic of a moment, a woven thing, no intricacy of leaf and twig, of words with no more of salt and of savour than those of a jesuit professor of literature, or of any other who does not know that there is no lasting writing which does not define the quality, or carry the substance of some pleasure. how can one, if one's mind be full of abstractions and images created not for their own sake but for the sake of party, even if there were still the need, find words that delight the ear, make pictures to the mind's eye, discover thoughts that tighten the muscles, or quiver and tingle in the flesh, and stand like st. michael with the trumpet that calls the body to resurrection? iv young ireland had taught a study of our history with the glory of ireland for event, and this for lack, when less than taylor studied, of comparison with that of other countries wrecked the historical instinct. an old man with an academic appointment, who was a leader in the attack upon synge, sees in the 11th century romance of deirdre a re-telling of the first five act tragedy outside the classic languages, and this tragedy from his description of it was certainly written on the elizabethan model; while an allusion to a copper boat, a marvel of magic like cinderella's slipper, persuades him that the ancient irish had forestalled the modern dockyards in the making of metal ships. the man who doubted, let us say, our fabulous ancient kings running up to adam, or found but mythology in some old tale, was as hated as if he had doubted the authority of scripture. above all no man was so ignorant, that he had not by rote familiar arguments and statistics to drive away amid familiar applause, all those had they but found strange truth in the world or in their mind, whose knowledge has passed out of memory and become an instinct of hand or eye. there was no literature, for literature is a child of experience always, of knowledge never; and the nation itself, instead of being a dumb struggling thought seeking a mouth to utter it or hand to show it, a teeming delight that would re-create the world, had become, at best, a subject of knowledge. v taylor always spoke with confidence though he was no determined man, being easily flattered or jostled from his way; and this, putting as it were his fiery heart into his mouth made him formidable. and i have noticed that all those who speak the thoughts of many, speak confidently, while those who speak their own thoughts are hesitating and timid, as though they spoke out of a mind and body grown sensitive to the edge of bewilderment among many impressions. they speak to us that we may give them certainty, by seeing what they have seen; and so it is, that enlargement of experience does not come from those oratorical thinkers, or from those decisive rhythms that move large numbers of men, but from writers that seem by contrast as feminine as the soul when it explores in blake's picture the recesses of the grave, carrying its faint lamp trembling and astonished; or as the muses who are never pictured as one-breasted amazons, but as women needing protection. indeed, all art which appeals to individual man and awaits the confirmation of his senses and his reveries, seems when arrayed against the moral zeal, the confident logic, the ordered proof of journalism, a trifling, impertinent, vexatious thing, a tumbler who has unrolled his carpet in the way of a marching army. vi i attack things that are as dear to many as some holy image carried hither and thither by some broken clan, and can but say that i have felt in my body the affections i disturb, and believed that if i could raise them into contemplation i would make possible a literature, that finding its subject-matter all ready in men's minds would be, not as ours is, an interest for scholars, but the possession of a people. i have founded societies with this aim, and was indeed founding one in paris when i first met with j.m. synge, and i have known what it is to be changed by that i would have changed, till i became argumentative and unmannerly, hating men even in daily life for their opinions. and though i was never convinced that the anatomies of last year's leaves are a living forest, or thought a continual apologetic could do other than make the soul a vapour and the body a stone; or believed that literature can be made by anything but by what is still blind and dumb within ourselves, i have had to learn how hard in one who lives where forms of expression and habits of thought have been born, not for the pleasure of begetting but for the public good, is that purification from insincerity, vanity, malignity, arrogance, which is the discovery of style. but it became possible to live when i had learnt all i had not learnt in shaping words, in defending synge against his enemies, and knew that rich energies, fine, turbulent or gracious thoughts, whether in life or letters, are but love-children. vii synge seemed by nature unfitted to think a political thought, and with the exception of one sentence, spoken when i first met him in paris, that implied some sort of nationalist conviction, i cannot remember that he spoke of politics or showed any interest in men in the mass, or in any subject that is studied through abstractions and statistics. often for months together he and i and lady gregory would see no one outside the abbey theatre, and that life, lived as it were in a ship at sea, suited him, for unlike those whose habit of mind fits them to judge of men in the mass, he was wise in judging individual men, and as wise in dealing with them as the faint energies of ill-health would permit; but of their political thoughts he long understood nothing. one night when we were still producing plays in a little hall, certain members of the company told him that a play on the rebellion of '98 would be a great success. after a fortnight he brought them a scenario which read like a chapter out of rabelais. two women, a protestant and a catholic, take refuge in a cave, and there quarrel about religion, abusing the pope or queen elizabeth and henry viii, but in low voices, for the one fears to be ravished by the soldiers, the other by the rebels. at last one woman goes out because she would sooner any fate than such wicked company. yet, i doubt if he would have written at all if he did not write of ireland, and for it, and i know that he thought creative art could only come from such preoccupation. once, when in later years, anxious about the educational effect of our movement, i proposed adding to the abbey company a second company to play international drama, synge, who had not hitherto opposed me, thought the matter so important that he did so in a formal letter. i had spoken of a german municipal theatre as my model, and he said that the municipal theatres all over europe gave fine performances of old classics but did not create (he disliked modern drama for its sterility of speech, and perhaps ignored it) and that we would create nothing if we did not give all our thoughts to ireland. yet in ireland he loved only what was wild in its people, and in 'the grey and wintry sides of many glens.' all the rest, all that one reasoned over, fought for, read of in leading articles, all that came from education, all that came down from young ireland--though for this he had not lacked a little sympathy--first wakened in him perhaps that irony which runs through all he wrote, but once awakened, he made it turn its face upon the whole of life. the women quarrelling in the cave would not have amused him, if something in his nature had not looked out on most disputes, even those wherein he himself took sides, with a mischievous wisdom. he told me once that when he lived in some peasant's house, he tried to make those about him forget that he was there, and it is certain that he was silent in any crowded room. it is possible that low vitality helped him to be observant and contemplative, and made him dislike, even in solitude, those thoughts which unite us to others, much as we all dislike, when fatigue or illness has sharpened the nerves, hoardings covered with advertisements, the fronts of big theatres, big london hotels, and all architecture which has been made to impress the crowd. what blindness did for homer, lameness for hephaestus, asceticism for any saint you will, bad health did for him by making him ask no more of life than that it should keep him living, and above all perhaps by concentrating his imagination upon one thought, health itself. i think that all noble things are the result of warfare; great nations and classes, of warfare in the visible world, great poetry and philosophy, of invisible warfare, the division of a mind within itself, a victory, the sacrifice of a man to himself. i am certain that my friend's noble art, so full of passion and heroic beauty, is the victory of a man who in poverty and sickness created from the delight of expression, and in the contemplation that is born of the minute and delicate arrangement of images, happiness, and health of mind. some early poems have a morbid melancholy, and he himself spoke of early work he had destroyed as morbid, for as yet the craftmanship was not fine enough to bring the artist's joy which is of one substance with that of sanctity. in one poem he waits at some street corner for a friend, a woman perhaps, and while he waits and gradually understands that nobody is coming, sees two funerals and shivers at the future; and in another written on his 25th birthday, he wonders if the 25 years to come shall be as evil as those gone by. later on, he can see himself as but a part of the spectacle of the world and mix into all he sees that flavour of extravagance, or of humour, or of philosophy, that makes one understand that he contemplates even his own death as if it were another's, and finds in his own destiny but as it were a projection through a burning glass of that general to men. there is in the creative joy an acceptance of what life brings, because we have understood the beauty of what it brings, or a hatred of death for what it takes away, which arouses within us, through some sympathy perhaps with all other men, an energy so noble, so powerful, that we laugh aloud and mock, in the terror or the sweetness of our exaltation, at death and oblivion. in no modern writer that has written of irish life before him, except it may be miss edgeworth in 'castle rackrent,' was there anything to change a man's thought about the world or stir his moral nature, for they but play with pictures, persons, and events, that whether well or ill observed are but an amusement for the mind where it escapes from meditation, a child's show that makes the fables of his art as significant by contrast as some procession painted on an egyptian wall; for in these fables, an intelligence, on which the tragedy of the world had been thrust in so few years, that life had no time to brew her sleepy drug, has spoken of the moods that are the expression of its wisdom. all minds that have a wisdom come of tragic reality seem morbid to those that are accustomed to writers who have not faced reality at all; just as the saints, with that obscure night of the soul, which fell so certainly that they numbered it among spiritual states, one among other ascending steps, seem morbid to the rationalist and the old-fashioned protestant controversialist. the thought of journalists, like that of the irish novelists, is neither healthy nor unhealthy, for it has not risen to that state where either is possible, nor should we call it happy; for who would have sought happiness, if happiness were not the supreme attainment of man, in heroic toils, in the cell of the ascetic, or imagined it above the cheerful newspapers, above the clouds? viii not that synge brought out of the struggle with himself any definite philosophy, for philosophy in the common meaning of the word is created out of an anxiety for sympathy or obedience, and he was that rare, that distinguished, that most noble thing, which of all things still of the world is nearest to being sufficient to itself, the pure artist. sir philip sidney complains of those who could hear 'sweet tunes' (by which he understands could look upon his lady) and not be stirred to 'ravishing delight.' 'or if they do delight therein, yet are so closed with wit, as with sententious lips to set a title vain on it; oh let them hear these sacred tunes, and learn in wonder's schools to be, in things past bonds of wit, fools if they be not fools!' ireland for three generations has been like those churlish logicians. everything is argued over, everything has to take its trial before the dull sense and the hasty judgment, and the character of the nation has so changed that it hardly keeps but among country people, or where some family tradition is still stubborn, those lineaments that made borrow cry out as he came from among the irish monks, his friends and entertainers for all his spanish bible scattering, 'oh, ireland, mother of the bravest soldiers and of the most beautiful women!' it was as i believe, to seek that old ireland which took its mould from the duellists and scholars of the 18th century and from generations older still, that synge returned again and again to aran, to kerry, and to the wild blaskets. ix 'when i got up this morning' he writes, after he had been a long time in innismaan, 'i found that the people had gone to mass and latched the kitchen door from the outside, so that i could not open it to give myself light. 'i sat for nearly an hour beside the fire with a curious feeling that i should be quite alone in this little cottage. i am so used to sitting here with the people that i have never felt the room before as a place where any man might live and work by himself. after a while as i waited, with just light enough from the chimney to let me see the rafters and the greyness of the walls, i became indescribably mournful, for i felt that this little corner on the face of the world, and the people who live in it, have a peace and dignity from which we are shut for ever.' this life, which he describes elsewhere as the most primitive left in europe, satisfied some necessity of his nature. before i met him in paris he had wandered over much of europe, listening to stories in the black forest, making friends with servants and with poor people, and this from an aesthetic interest, for he had gathered no statistics, had no money to give, and cared nothing for the wrongs of the poor, being content to pay for the pleasure of eye and ear with a tune upon the fiddle. he did not love them the better because they were poor and miserable, and it was only when he found innismaan and the blaskets, where there is neither riches nor poverty, neither what he calls 'the nullity of the rich' nor 'the squalor of the poor' that his writing lost its old morbid brooding, that he found his genius and his peace. here were men and women who under the weight of their necessity lived, as the artist lives, in the presence of death and childhood, and the great affections and the orgiastic moment when life outleaps its limits, and who, as it is always with those who have refused or escaped the trivial and the temporary, had dignity and good manners where manners mattered. here above all was silence from all our great orator took delight in, from formidable men, from moral indignation, from the 'sciolist' who 'is never sad,' from all in modern life that would destroy the arts; and here, to take a thought from another playwright of our school, he could love time as only women and great artists do and need never sell it. x as i read 'the aran islands' right through for the first time since he showed it me in manuscript, i come to understand how much knowledge of the real life of ireland went to the creation of a world which is yet as fantastic as the spain of cervantes. here is the story of 'the playboy,' of 'the shadow of the glen;' here is the 'ghost on horseback' and the finding of the young man's body of 'riders to the sea,' numberless ways of speech and vehement pictures that had seemed to owe nothing to observation, and all to some overflowing of himself, or to some mere necessity of dramatic construction. i had thought the violent quarrels of 'the well of the saints' came from his love of bitter condiments, but here is a couple that quarrel all day long amid neighbours who gather as for a play. i had defended the burning of christy mahon's leg on the ground that an artist need but make his characters self-consistent, and yet, that too was observation, for 'although these people are kindly towards each other and their children, they have no sympathy for the suffering of animals, and little sympathy for pain when the person who feels it is not in danger.' i had thought it was in the wantonness of fancy martin dhoul accused the smith of plucking his living ducks, but a few lines further on, in this book where moral indignation is unknown, i read, 'sometimes when i go into a cottage, i find all the women of the place down on their knees plucking the feathers from live ducks and geese.' he loves all that has edge, all that is salt in the mouth, all that is rough to the hand, all that heightens the emotions by contest, all that stings into life the sense of tragedy; and in this book, unlike the plays where nearness to his audience moves him to mischief, he shows it without thought of other taste than his. it is so constant, it is all set out so simply, so naturally, that it suggests a correspondence between a lasting mood of the soul and this life that shares the harshness of rocks and wind. the food of the spiritual-minded is sweet, an indian scripture says, but passionate minds love bitter food. yet he is no indifferent observer, but is certainly kind and sympathetic to all about him. when an old and ailing man, dreading the coming winter, cries at his leaving, not thinking to see him again; and he notices that the old man's mitten has a hole in it where the palm is accustomed to the stick, one knows that it is with eyes full of interested affection as befits a simple man and not in the curiosity of study. when he had left the blaskets for the last time, he travelled with a lame pensioner who had drifted there, why heaven knows, and one morning having missed him from the inn where they were staying, he believed he had gone back to the island and searched everywhere and questioned everybody, till he understood of a sudden that he was jealous as though the island were a woman. the book seems dull if you read much at a time, as the later kerry essays do not, but nothing that he has written recalls so completely to my senses the man as he was in daily life; and as i read, there are moments when every line of his face, every inflection of his voice, grows so clear in memory that i cannot realize that he is dead. he was no nearer when we walked and talked than now while i read these unarranged, unspeculating pages, wherein the only life he loved with his whole heart reflects itself as in the still water of a pool. thought comes to him slowly, and only after long seemingly unmeditative watching, and when it comes, (and he had the same character in matters of business) it is spoken without hesitation and never changed. his conversation was not an experimental thing, an instrument of research, and this made him silent; while his essays recall events, on which one feels that he pronounces no judgment even in the depth of his own mind, because the labour of life itself had not yet brought the philosophic generalization, which was almost as much his object as the emotional generalization of beauty. a mind that generalizes rapidly, continually prevents the experience that would have made it feel and see deeply, just as a man whose character is too complete in youth seldom grows into any energy of moral beauty. synge had indeed no obvious ideals, as these are understood by young men, and even as i think disliked them, for he once complained to me that our modern poetry was but the poetry 'of the lyrical boy,' and this lack makes his art have a strange wildness and coldness, as of a man born in some far-off spacious land and time. xi there are artists like byron, like goethe, like shelley, who have impressive personalities, active wills and all their faculties at the service of the will; but he belonged to those who like wordsworth, like coleridge, like goldsmith, like keats, have little personality, so far as the casual eye can see, little personal will, but fiery and brooding imagination. i cannot imagine him anxious to impress, or convince in any company, or saying more than was sufficient to keep the talk circling. such men have the advantage that all they write is a part of knowledge, but they are powerless before events and have often but one visible strength, the strength to reject from life and thought all that would mar their work, or deafen them in the doing of it; and only this so long as it is a passive act. if synge had married young or taken some profession, i doubt if he would have written books or been greatly interested in a movement like ours; but he refused various opportunities of making money in what must have been an almost unconscious preparation. he had no life outside his imagination, little interest in anything that was not its chosen subject. he hardly seemed aware of the existence of other writers. i never knew if he cared for work of mine, and do not remember that i had from him even a conventional compliment, and yet he had the most perfect modesty and simplicity in daily intercourse, self-assertion was impossible to him. on the other hand, he was useless amidst sudden events. he was much shaken by the playboy riot; on the first night confused and excited, knowing not what to do, and ill before many days, but it made no difference in his work. he neither exaggerated out of defiance nor softened out of timidity. he wrote on as if nothing had happened, altering 'the tinker's wedding' to a more unpopular form, but writing a beautiful serene 'deirdre,' with, for the first time since his 'riders to the sea,' no touch of sarcasm or defiance. misfortune shook his physical nature while it left his intellect and his moral nature untroubled. the external self, the mask, the persona was a shadow, character was all. xii he was a drifting silent man full of hidden passion, and loved wild islands, because there, set out in the light of day, he saw what lay hidden in himself. there is passage after passage in which he dwells upon some moment of excitement. he describes the shipping of pigs at kilronan on the north island for the english market: 'when the steamer was getting near, the whole drove was moved down upon the slip and the curraghs were carried out close to the sea. then each beast was caught in its turn and thrown on its side, while its legs were hitched together in a single knot, with a tag of rope remaining, by which it could be carried. probably the pain inflicted was not great, yet the animals shut their eyes and shrieked with almost human intonations, till the suggestion of the noise became so intense that the men and women who were merely looking on grew wild with excitement, and the pigs waiting their turn foamed at the mouth and tore each other with their teeth. after a while there was a pause. the whole slip was covered with amass of sobbing animals, with here and there a terrified woman crouching among the bodies and patting some special favourite, to keep it quiet while the curraghs were being launched. then the screaming began again while the pigs were carried out and laid in their places, with a waistcoat tied round their feet to keep them from damaging the canvas. they seemed to know where they were going, and looked up at me over the gunnel with an ignoble desperation that made me shudder to think that i had eaten this whimpering flesh. when the last curragh went out, i was left on the slip with a band of women and children, and one old boar who sat looking out over the sea. the women were over-excited, and when i tried to talk to them they crowded round me and began jeering and shrieking at me because i am not married. a dozen screamed at a time, and so rapidly that i could not understand all they were saying, yet i was able to make out that they were taking advantage of the absence of their husbands to give me the full volume of their contempt. some little boys who were listening threw themselves down, writhing with laughter among the sea-weed, and the young girls grew red and embarrassed and stared down in the surf.' the book is full of such scenes. now it is a crowd going by train to the parnell celebration, now it is a woman cursing her son who made himself a spy for the police, now it is an old woman keening at a funeral. kindred to his delight in the harsh grey stones, in the hardship of the life there, in the wind and in the mist, there is always delight in every moment of excitement, whether it is but the hysterical excitement of the women over the pigs, or some primary passion. once indeed, the hidden passion instead of finding expression by its choice among the passions of others, shows itself in the most direct way of all, that of dream. 'last night,' he writes, at innismaan, 'after walking in a dream among buildings with strangely intense light on them, i heard a faint rhythm of music beginning far away on some stringed instrument. it came closer to me, gradually increasing in quickness and volume with an irresistibly definite progression. when it was quite near the sound began to move in my nerves and blood, to urge me to dance with them. i knew that if i yielded i would be carried away into some moment of terrible agony, so i struggled to remain quiet, holding my knees together with my hands. the music increased continually, sounding like the strings of harps tuned to a forgotten scale, and having a resonance as searching as the strings of the 'cello. then the luring excitement became more powerful than my will, and my limbs moved in spite of me. in a moment i was swept away in a whirlwind of notes. my breath and my thoughts and every impulse of my body became a form of the dance, till i could not distinguish between the instrument or the rhythm and my own person or consciousness. for a while it seemed an excitement that was filled with joy; then it grew into an ecstasy where all existence was lost in the vortex of movement. i could not think that there had been a life beyond the whirling of the dance. then with a shock, the ecstasy turned to agony and rage. i struggled to free myself but seemed only to increase the passion of the steps i moved to. when i shrieked i could only echo the notes of the rhythm. at last, with a movement of uncontrollable frenzy i broke back to consciousness and awoke. i dragged myself trembling to the window of the cottage and looked out. the moon was glittering across the bay and there was no sound anywhere on the island.' xiii in all drama which would give direct expression to reverie, to the speech of the soul with itself, there is some device that checks the rapidity of dialogue. when oedipus speaks out of the most vehement passions, he is conscious of the presence of the chorus, men before whom he must keep up appearances 'children latest born of cadmus' line' who do not share his passion. nobody is hurried or breathless. we listen to reports and discuss them, taking part as it were in a council of state. nothing happens before our eyes. the dignity of greek drama, and in a lesser degree of that of corneille and racine depends, as contrasted with the troubled life of shakespearean drama, on an almost even speed of dialogue, and on a so continuous exclusion of the animation of common life, that thought remains lofty and language rich. shakespeare, upon whose stage everything may happen, even the blinding of gloster, and who has no formal check except what is implied in the slow, elaborate structure of blank verse, obtains time for reverie by an often encumbering euphuism, and by such a loosening of his plot as will give his characters the leisure to look at life from without. maeterlinck, to name the first modern of the old way who comes to mind--reaches the same end, by choosing instead of human beings persons who are as faint as a breath upon a looking-glass, symbols who can speak a language slow and heavy with dreams because their own life is but a dream. modern drama, on the other hand, which accepts the tightness of the classic plot, while expressing life directly, has been driven to make indirect its expression of the mind, which it leaves to be inferred from some common-place sentence or gesture as we infer it in ordinary life; and this is, i believe, the cause of the perpetual disappointment of the hope imagined this hundred years that france or spain or germany or scandinavia will at last produce the master we await. the divisions in the arts are almost all in the first instance technical, and the great schools of drama have been divided from one another by the form or the metal of their mirror, by the check chosen for the rapidity of dialogue. synge found the check that suited his temperament in an elaboration of the dialects of kerry and aran. the cadence is long and meditative, as befits the thought of men who are much alone, and who when they meet in one another's houses--as their way is at the day's end--listen patiently, each man speaking in turn and for some little time, and taking pleasure in the vaguer meaning of the words and in their sound. their thought, when not merely practical, is as full of traditional wisdom and extravagant pictures as that of some aeschylean chorus, and no matter what the topic is, it is as though the present were held at arms length. it is the reverse of rhetoric, for the speaker serves his own delight, though doubtless he would tell you that like raftery's whiskey-drinking it was but for the company's sake. a medicinal manner of speech too, for it could not even express, so little abstract it is and so rammed with life, those worn generalizations of national propaganda. 'i'll be telling you the finest story you'd hear any place from dundalk to ballinacree with great queens in it, making themselves matches from the start to the end, and they with shiny silks on them ... i've a grand story of the great queens of ireland, with white necks on them the like of sarah casey, and fine arms would hit you a slap.... what good am i this night, god help me? what good are the grand stories i have when it's few would listen to an old woman, few but a girl maybe would be in great fear the time her hour was come, or a little child wouldn't be sleeping with the hunger on a cold night.' that has the flavour of homer, of the bible, of villon, while cervantes would have thought it sweet in the mouth though not his food. this use of irish dialect for noble purpose by synge, and by lady gregory, who had it already in her cuchulain of muirthemne, and by dr. hyde in those first translations he has not equalled since, has done much for national dignity. when i was a boy i was often troubled and sorrowful because scottish dialect was capable of noble use, but the irish of obvious roystering humour only; and this error fixed on my imagination by so many novelists and rhymers made me listen badly. synge wrote down words and phrases wherever he went, and with that knowledge of irish which made all our country idioms easy to his hand, found it so rich a thing, that he had begun translating into it fragments of the great literatures of the world, and had planned a complete version of the imitation of christ. it gave him imaginative richness and yet left to him the sting and tang of reality. how vivid in his translation from villon are those 'eyes with a big gay look out of them would bring folly from a great scholar.' more vivid surely than anything in swinburne's version, and how noble those words which are yet simple country speech, in which his petrarch mourns that death came upon laura just as time was making chastity easy, and the day come when 'lovers may sit together and say out all things arc in their hearts,' and 'my sweet enemy was making a start, little by little, to give over her great wariness, the way she was wringing a sweet thing out of my sharp sorrow.' xiv once when i had been saying that though it seemed to me that a conventional descriptive passage encumbered the action at the moment of crisis. i liked 'the shadow of the glen' better than 'riders to the sea' that is, for all the nobility of its end, its mood of greek tragedy, too passive in suffering; and had quoted from matthew arnold's introduction to 'empedocles on etna,' synge answered, 'it is a curious thing that "the riders to the sea" succeeds with an english but not with an irish audience, and "the shadow of the glen" which is not liked by an english audience is always liked in ireland, though it is disliked there in theory.' since then 'the riders to the sea' has grown into great popularity in dublin, partly because with the tactical instinct of an irish mob, the demonstrators against 'the playboy' both in the press and in the theatre, where it began the evening, selected it for applause. it is now what shelley's 'cloud' was for many years, a comfort to those who do not like to deny altogether the genius they cannot understand. yet i am certain that, in the long run, his grotesque plays with their lyric beauty, their violent laughter, 'the playboy of the western world' most of all, will be loved for holding so much of the mind of ireland. synge has written of 'the playboy' 'anyone who has lived in real intimacy with the irish peasantry will know that the wildest sayings in this play are tame indeed compared with the fancies one may hear at any little hillside cottage of geesala, or carraroe, or dingle bay.' it is the strangest, the most beautiful expression in drama of that irish fantasy, which overflowing through all irish literature that has come out of ireland itself (compare the fantastic irish account of the battle of clontarf with the sober norse account) is the unbroken character of irish genius. in modern days this genius has delighted in mischievous extravagance, like that of the gaelic poet's curse upon his children, 'there are three things that i hate, the devil that is waiting for my soul, the worms that are waiting for my body, my children, who are waiting for my wealth and care neither for my body nor my soul: oh, christ hang all in the same noose!' i think those words were spoken with a delight in their vehemence that took out of anger half the bitterness with all the gloom. an old man on the aran islands told me the very tale on which 'the playboy' is founded, beginning with the words, 'if any gentleman has done a crime we'll hide him. there was a gentleman that killed his father, & i had him in my own house six months till he got away to america.' despite the solemnity of his slow speech his eyes shone as the eyes must have shone in that trinity college branch of the gaelic league, which began every meeting with prayers for the death of an old fellow of college who disliked their movement, or as they certainly do when patriots are telling how short a time the prayers took to the killing of him. i have seen a crowd, when certain dublin papers had wrought themselves into an imaginary loyalty, so possessed by what seemed the very genius of satiric fantasy, that one all but looked to find some feathered heel among the cobble stones. part of the delight of crowd or individual is always that somebody will be angry, somebody take the sport for gloomy earnest. we are mocking at his solemnity, let us therefore so hide our malice that he may be more solemn still, and the laugh run higher yet. why should we speak his language and so wake him from a dream of all those emotions which men feel because they should, and not because they must? our minds, being sufficient to themselves, do not wish for victory but are content to elaborate our extravagance, if fortune aid, into wit or lyric beauty, and as for the rest 'there are nights when a king like conchobar would spit upon his arm-ring and queens will stick out their tongues at the rising moon.' this habit of the mind has made oscar wilde and mr. bernard shaw the most celebrated makers of comedy to our time, and if it has sounded plainer still in the conversation of the one, and in some few speeches of the other, that is but because they have not been able to turn out of their plays an alien trick of zeal picked up in struggling youth. yet, in synge's plays also, fantasy gives the form and not the thought, for the core is always as in all great art, an over-powering vision of certain virtues, and our capacity for sharing in that vision is the measure of our delight. great art chills us at first by its coldness or its strangeness, by what seems capricious, and yet it is from these qualities it has authority, as though it had fed on locust and wild honey. the imaginative writer shows us the world as a painter does his picture, reversed in a looking-glass that we may see it, not as it seems to eyes habit has made dull, but as we were adam and this the first morning; and when the new image becomes as little strange as the old we shall stay with him, because he has, beside the strangeness, not strange to him, that made us share his vision, sincerity that makes us share his feeling. to speak of one's emotions without fear or moral ambition, to come out from under the shadow of other men's minds, to forget their needs, to be utterly oneself, that is all the muses care for. villon, pander, thief, and man-slayer, is as immortal in their eyes, and illustrates in the cry of his ruin as great a truth as dante in abstract ecstasy, and touches our compassion more. all art is the disengaging of a soul from place and history, its suspension in a beautiful or terrible light, to await the judgement, and yet, because all its days were a last day, judged already. it may show the crimes of italy as dante did, or greek mythology like keats, or kerry and galway villages, and so vividly that ever after i shall look at all with like eyes, and yet i know that cino da pistoia thought dante unjust, that keats knew no greek, that those country men and women are neither so lovable nor so lawless as 'mine author sung it me;' that i have added to my being, not my knowledge. xv i wrote the most of these thoughts in my diary on the coast of normandy, and as i finished came upon mont saint michel, and thereupon doubted for a day the foundation of my school. here i saw the places of assembly, those cloisters on the rock's summit, the church, the great halls where monks, or knights, or men at arms sat at meals, beautiful from ornament or proportion. i remembered ordinances of the popes forbidding drinking-cups with stems of gold to these monks who had but a bare dormitory to sleep in. even when imagining, the individual had taken more from his fellows and his fathers than he gave; one man finishing what another had begun; and all that majestic fantasy, seeming more of egypt than of christendom, spoke nothing to the solitary soul, but seemed to announce whether past or yet to come an heroic temper of social men, a bondage of adventure and of wisdom. then i thought more patiently and i saw that what had made these but as one and given them for a thousand years the miracles of their shrine and temporal rule by land and sea, was not a condescension to knave or dolt, an impoverishment of the common thought to make it serviceable and easy, but a dead language and a communion in whatever, even to the greatest saint, is of incredible difficulty. only by the substantiation of the soul i thought, whether in literature or in sanctity, can we come upon those agreements, those separations from all else that fasten men together lastingly; for while a popular and picturesque burns and scott can but create a province, and our irish cries and grammars serve some passing need, homer, shakespeare, dante, goethe and all who travel in their road with however poor a stride, define races and create everlasting loyalties. synge, like all of the great kin, sought for the race, not through the eyes or in history, or even in the future, but where those monks found god, in the depths of the mind, and in all art like his, although it does not command--indeed because it does not--may lie the roots of far-branching events. only that which does not teach, which does not cry out, which does not persuade, which does not condescend, which does not explain is irresistible. it is made by men who expressed themselves to the full, and it works through the best minds; whereas the external and picturesque and declamatory writers, that they may create kilts and bagpipes and newspapers and guide-books, leave the best minds empty, and in ireland and scotland england runs into the hole. it has no array of arguments and maxims, because the great and the simple (and the muses have never known which of the two most pleases them) need their deliberate thought for the day's work, and yet will do it worse if they have not grown into or found about them, most perhaps in the minds of women, the nobleness of emotion, associated with the scenery and events of their country, by those great poets, who have dreamed it in solitude, and who to this day in europe are creating indestructible spiritual races, like those religion has created in the east. w. b. yeats. september 14th. 1910. * * * * * with synge in connemara i had often spent a day walking with john synge, but a year or two ago i travelled for a month alone through the west of ireland with him. he was the best companion for a roadway any one could have, always ready and always the same; a bold walker, up hill and down dale, in the hot sun and the pelting rain. i remember a deluge on the erris peninsula, where we lay among the sand hills and at his suggestion heaped sand upon ourselves to try and keep dry. when we started on our journey, as the train steamed out of dublin, synge said: 'now the elder of us two should be in command on this trip.' so we compared notes and i found that he was two months older than myself. so he was boss and whenever it was a question whether we should take the road to the west or the road to the south, it was synge who finally decided. synge was fond of little children and animals. i remember how glad he was to stop and lean on a wall in gorumna and watch a woman in afield shearing a sheep. it was an old sheep and must have often been sheared before by the same hand, for the woman hardly held it; she just knelt beside it and snipped away. i remember the sheep raised its lean old head to look at the stranger, and the woman just put her hand on its cheek and gently pressed its head down on the grass again. synge was delighted with the narrow paths made of sods of grass alongside the newly-metalled roads, because he thought they had been put there to make soft going for the bare feet of little children. children knew, i think, that he wished them well. in bellmullet on saint john's eve, when we stood in the market square watching the fire-play, flaming sods of turf soaked in paraffine, hurled to the sky and caught and skied again, and burning snakes of hay-rope, i remember a little girl in the crowd, in an ecstasy of pleasure and dread, clutched synge by the hand and stood close in his shadow until the fiery games were done. his knowledge of gaelic was a great assistance to him in talking to the people. i remember him holding a great conversation in irish and english with an innkeeper's wife in a mayo inn. she had lived in america in lincoln's day. she told us what living cost in america then, and of her life there; her little old husband sitting by and putting in an odd word. by the way, the husband was a wonderful gentle-mannered man, for we had luncheon in his house of biscuits and porter, and rested there an hour, waiting for a heavy shower to blow away; and when we said good-bye and our feet were actually on the road, synge said, 'did we pay for what we had?' so i called back to the innkeeper, 'did we pay you?' and he said quietly, 'not yet sir.' synge was always delighted to hear and remember any good phrase. i remember his delight at the words of a local politician who told us how he became a nationalist. 'i was,' he said plucking a book from the mantlepiece (i remember the book--it was 'paul and virginia') and clasping it to his breast--'i was but a little child with my little book going to school, and by the house there i saw the agent. he took the unfortunate tenant and thrun him in the road, and i saw the man's wife come out crying and the agent's wife thrun her in the channel, and when i saw that, though i was but a child, i swore i'd be a nationalist. i swore by heaven, and i swore by hell and all the rivers that run through them.' synge must have read a great deal at one time, but he was not a man you would see often with a book in his hand; he would sooner talk, or rather listen to talk--almost anyone's talk. synge was always ready to go anywhere with one, and when there to enjoy what came. he went with me to see an ordinary melodrama at the queen's theatre, dublin, and he delighted to see how the members of the company could by the vehemence of their movements and the resources of their voices hold your attention on a play where everything was commonplace. he enjoyed seeing the contrite villain of the piece come up from the bottom of the gulch, hurled there by the adventuress, and flash his sweating blood-stained face up against the footlights; and, though he told us he had but a few short moments to live, roar his contrition with the voice of a bull. synge had travelled a great deal in italy in tracks he beat out for himself, and in germany and in france, but he only occasionally spoke to me about these places. i think the irish peasant had all his heart. he loved them in the east as well as he loved them in the west, but the western men on the aran islands and in the blaskets fitted in with his humour more than any; the wild things they did and said were a joy to him. synge was by spirit well equipped for the roads. though his health was often bad, he had beating under his ribs a brave heart that carried him over rough tracks. he gathered about him very little gear, and cared nothing for comfort except perhaps that of a good turf fire. he was, though young in years, 'an old dog for a hard road and not a young pup for a tow-path.' he loved mad scenes. he told me how once at the fair of tralee he saw an old tinker-woman taken by the police, and she was struggling with them in the centre of the fair; when suddenly, as if her garments were held together with one cord, she hurled every shred of clothing from her, ran down the street and screamed, 'let this be the barrack yard,' which was perfectly understood by the crowd as suggesting that the police strip and beat their prisoners when they get them shut in, in the barrack yard. the young men laughed, but the old men hurried after the naked fleeting figure trying to throw her clothes on her as she ran. but all wild sights appealed to synge, he did not care whether they were typical of anything else or had any symbolical meaning at all. if he had lived in the days of piracy he would have been the fiddler in a pirate-schooner, him they called 'the music--' 'the music' looked on at every thing with dancing eyes but drew no sword, and when the schooner was taken and the pirates hung at cape corso castle or the island of saint christopher's, 'the music' was spared because he _was_ 'the music.' jack b. yeats the wind among the reeds _the_ wind among the reeds _by_ william butler yeats london · elkin mathews vigo street · w · mdcccciii fourth edition. page the hosting of the sidhe 1 the everlasting voices 3 the moods 4 aedh tells of the rose in his heart 5 the host of the air 7 breasal the fisherman 10 a cradle song 11 into the twilight 13 the song of wandering aengus 15 the song of the old mother 17 the fiddler of dooney 18 the heart of the woman 20 aedh laments the loss of love 21 mongan laments the change that has come upon him and his beloved 22 michael robartes bids his beloved be at peace 24 hanrahan reproves the curlew 26 michael robartes remembers forgotten beauty 27 a poet to his beloved 29 aedh gives his beloved certain rhymes 30 to my heart, bidding it have no fear 31 the cap and bells 32 the valley of the black pig 35 michael robartes asks forgiveness because of his many moods 37 aedh tells of a valley full of lovers 40 aedh tells of the perfect beauty 42 aedh hears the cry of the sedge 43 aedh thinks of those who have spoken evil of his beloved 44 the blessed 45 the secret rose 47 hanrahan laments because of his wanderings 51 the travail of passion 52 the poet pleads with his friend for old friends 54 hanrahan speaks to the lovers of his songs in coming days 55 aedh pleads with the elemental powers 57 aedh wishes his beloved were dead 59 aedh wishes for the cloths of heaven 60 mongan thinks of his past greatness 61 notes 65 the hosting of the sidhe the host is riding from knocknarea and over the grave of clooth-na-bare; caolte tossing his burning hair and niamh calling _away, come away: empty your heart of its mortal dream. the winds awaken, the leaves whirl round, our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound, our breasts are heaving, our eyes are a-gleam, our arms are waving, our lips are apart; and if any gaze on our rushing band, we come between him and the deed of his hand, we come between him and the hope of his heart_. the host is rushing 'twixt night and day, and where is there hope or deed as fair? caolte tossing his burning hair, and niamh calling _away, come away_. the everlasting voices o sweet everlasting voices be still; go to the guards of the heavenly fold and bid them wander obeying your will flame under flame, till time be no more; have you not heard that our hearts are old, that you call in birds, in wind on the hill, in shaken boughs, in tide on the shore? o sweet everlasting voices be still. the moods time drops in decay, like a candle burnt out, and the mountains and woods have their day, have their day; what one in the rout of the fire-born moods, has fallen away? aedh tells of the rose in his heart all things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old, the cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart, the heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould, are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart. the wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told; i hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart, with the earth and the sky and the water, remade, like a casket of gold for my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart. the host of the air o'driscoll drove with a song, the wild duck and the drake, from the tall and the tufted reeds of the drear hart lake. and he saw how the reeds grew dark at the coming of night tide, and dreamed of the long dim hair of bridget his bride. he heard while he sang and dreamed a piper piping away, and never was piping so sad, and never was piping so gay. and he saw young men and young girls who danced on a level place and bridget his bride among them, with a sad and a gay face. the dancers crowded about him, and many a sweet thing said, and a young man brought him red wine and a young girl white bread. but bridget drew him by the sleeve, away from the merry bands, to old men playing at cards with a twinkling of ancient hands. the bread and the wine had a doom, for these were the host of the air; he sat and played in a dream of her long dim hair. he played with the merry old men and thought not of evil chance, until one bore bridget his bride away from the merry dance. he bore her away in his arms, the handsomest young man there, and his neck and his breast and his arms were drowned in her long dim hair. o'driscoll scattered the cards and out of his dream awoke: old men and young men and young girls were gone like a drifting smoke; but he heard high up in the air a piper piping away, and never was piping so sad, and never was piping so gay. breasal the fisherman although you hide in the ebb and flow of the pale tide when the moon has set, the people of coming days will know about the casting out of my net, and how you have leaped times out of mind over the little silver cords, and think that you were hard and unkind, and blame you with many bitter words. a cradle song the danann children laugh, in cradles of wrought gold, and clap their hands together, and half close their eyes, for they will ride the north when the ger-eagle flies, with heavy whitening wings, and a heart fallen cold: i kiss my wailing child and press it to my breast, and hear the narrow graves calling my child and me. desolate winds that cry over the wandering sea; desolate winds that hover in the flaming west; desolate winds that beat the doors of heaven, and beat the doors of hell and blow there many a whimpering ghost; o heart the winds have shaken; the unappeasable host is comelier than candles before maurya's feet. into the twilight out-worn heart, in a time out-worn, come clear of the nets of wrong and right; laugh heart again in the gray twilight, sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn. your mother eire is always young, dew ever shining and twilight gray; though hope fall from you and love decay, burning in fires of a slanderous tongue. come, heart, where hill is heaped upon hill: for there the mystical brotherhood of sun and moon and hollow and wood and river and stream work out their will; and god stands winding his lonely horn, and time and the world are ever in flight; and love is less kind than the gray twilight, and hope is less dear than the dew of the morn. the song of wandering aengus i went out to the hazel wood, because a fire was in my head, and cut and peeled a hazel wand, and hooked a berry to a thread; and when white moths were on the wing, and moth-like stars were flickering out, i dropped the berry in a stream and caught a little silver trout. when i had laid it on the floor i went to blow the fire a-flame, but something rustled on the floor, and someone called me by my name: it had become a glimmering girl with apple blossom in her hair who called me by my name and ran and faded through the brightening air. though i am old with wandering through hollow lands and hilly lands, i will find out where she has gone, and kiss her lips and take her hands; and walk among long dappled grass, and pluck till time and times are done, the silver apples of the moon, the golden apples of the sun. the song of the old mother i rise in the dawn, and i kneel and blow till the seed of the fire flicker and glow; and then i must scrub and bake and sweep till stars are beginning to blink and peep; and the young lie long and dream in their bed of the matching of ribbons for bosom and head, and their day goes over in idleness, and they sigh if the wind but lift a tress: while i must work because i am old, and the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold. the fiddler of dooney when i play on my fiddle in dooney, folk dance like a wave of the sea; my cousin is priest in kilvarnet, my brother in moharabuiee. i passed my brother and cousin: they read in their books of prayer; i read in my book of songs i bought at the sligo fair. when we come at the end of time, to peter sitting in state, he will smile on the three old spirits, but call me first through the gate; for the good are always the merry, save by an evil chance, and the merry love the fiddle and the merry love to dance: and when the folk there spy me, they will all come up to me, with 'here is the fiddler of dooney!' and dance like a wave of the sea. the heart of the woman o what to me the little room that was brimmed up with prayer and rest; he bade me out into the gloom, and my breast lies upon his breast. o what to me my mother's care, the house where i was safe and warm; the shadowy blossom of my hair will hide us from the bitter storm. o hiding hair and dewy eyes, i am no more with life and death, my heart upon his warm heart lies, my breath is mixed into his breath. aedh laments the loss of love pale brows, still hands and dim hair, i had a beautiful friend and dreamed that the old despair would end in love in the end: she looked in my heart one day and saw your image was there; she has gone weeping away. mongan laments the change that has come upon him and his beloved do you not hear me calling, white deer with no horns! i have been changed to a hound with one red ear; i have been in the path of stones and the wood of thorns, for somebody hid hatred and hope and desire and fear under my feet that they follow you night and day. a man with a hazel wand came without sound; he changed me suddenly; i was looking another way; and now my calling is but the calling of a hound; and time and birth and change are hurrying by. i would that the boar without bristles had come from the west and had rooted the sun and moon and stars out of the sky and lay in the darkness, grunting, and turning to his rest. michael robartes bids his beloved be at peace i hear the shadowy horses, their long manes a-shake, their hoofs heavy with tumult, their eyes glimmering white; the north unfolds above them clinging, creeping night, the east her hidden joy before the morning break, the west weeps in pale dew and sighs passing away, the south is pouring down roses of crimson fire: o vanity of sleep, hope, dream, endless desire, the horses of disaster plunge in the heavy clay: beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast, drowning love's lonely hour in deep twilight of rest, and hiding their tossing manes and their tumultuous feet. hanrahan reproves the curlew o, curlew, cry no more in the air, or only to the waters in the west; because your crying brings to my mind passion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hair that was shaken out over my breast: there is enough evil in the crying of wind. michael robartes remembers forgotten beauty when my arms wrap you round i press my heart upon the loveliness that has long faded from the world; the jewelled crowns that kings have hurled in shadowy pools, when armies fled; the love-tales wove with silken thread by dreaming ladies upon cloth that has made fat the murderous moth; the roses that of old time were woven by ladies in their hair, the dew-cold lilies ladies bore through many a sacred corridor where such gray clouds of incense rose that only the gods' eyes did not close: for that pale breast and lingering hand come from a more dream-heavy land, a more dream-heavy hour than this; and when you sigh from kiss to kiss i hear white beauty sighing, too, for hours when all must fade like dew but flame on flame, deep under deep, throne over throne, where in half sleep their swords upon their iron knees brood her high lonely mysteries. a poet to his beloved i bring you with reverent hands the books of my numberless dreams; white woman that passion has worn as the tide wears the dove-gray sands, and with heart more old than the horn that is brimmed from the pale fire of time: white woman with numberless dreams i bring you my passionate rhyme. aedh gives his beloved certain rhymes fasten your hair with a golden pin, and bind up every wandering tress; i bade my heart build these poor rhymes: it worked at them, day out, day in, building a sorrowful loveliness out of the battles of old times. you need but lift a pearl-pale hand, and bind up your long hair and sigh; and all men's hearts must burn and beat; and candle-like foam on the dim sand, and stars climbing the dew-dropping sky, live but to light your passing feet. to my heart, bidding it have no fear be you still, be you still, trembling heart; remember the wisdom out of the old days: _him who trembles before the flame and the flood, and the winds that blow through the starry ways, let the starry winds and the flame and the flood cover over and hide, for he has no part with the proud, majestical multitude._ the cap and bells the jester walked in the garden: the garden had fallen still; he bade his soul rise upward and stand on her window-sill. it rose in a straight blue garment, when owls began to call: it had grown wise-tongued by thinking of a quiet and light footfall; but the young queen would not listen; she rose in her pale night gown; she drew in the heavy casement and pushed the latches down. he bade his heart go to her, when the owls called out no more; in a red and quivering garment it sang to her through the door. it had grown sweet-tongued by dreaming, of a flutter of flower-like hair; but she took up her fan from the table and waved it off on the air. 'i have cap and bells,' he pondered, 'i will send them to her and die;' and when the morning whitened he left them where she went by. she laid them upon her bosom, under a cloud of her hair, and her red lips sang them a love song: till stars grew out of the air. she opened her door and her window, and the heart and the soul came through, to her right hand came the red one, to her left hand came the blue. they set up a noise like crickets, a chattering wise and sweet, and her hair was a folded flower and the quiet of love in her feet. the valley of the black pig the dews drop slowly and dreams gather: unknown spears suddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes, and then the clash of fallen horsemen and the cries of unknown perishing armies beat about my ears. we who still labour by the cromlec on the shore, the grey cairn on the hill, when day sinks drowned in dew, being weary of the world's empires, bow down to you master of the still stars and of the flaming door. michael robartes asks forgiveness because of his many moods if this importunate heart trouble your peace with words lighter than air, or hopes that in mere hoping flicker and cease; crumple the rose in your hair; and cover your lips with odorous twilight and say, 'o hearts of wind-blown flame! 'o winds, elder than changing of night and day, 'that murmuring and longing came, 'from marble cities loud with tabors of old 'in dove-gray faery lands; 'from battle banners fold upon purple fold, 'queens wrought with glimmering hands; 'that saw young niamh hover with love-lorn face 'above the wandering tide; 'and lingered in the hidden desolate place, 'where the last phoenix died 'and wrapped the flames above his holy head; 'and still murmur and long: 'o piteous hearts, changing till change be dead 'in a tumultuous song:' and cover the pale blossoms of your breast with your dim heavy hair, and trouble with a sigh for all things longing for rest the odorous twilight there. aedh tells of a valley full of lovers i dreamed that i stood in a valley, and amid sighs, for happy lovers passed two by two where i stood; and i dreamed my lost love came stealthily out of the wood with her cloud-pale eyelids falling on dream-dimmed eyes: i cried in my dream '_o women bid the young men lay 'their heads on your knees, and drown their eyes with your hair, 'or remembering hers they will find no other face fair 'till all the valleys of the world have been withered away._' aedh tells of the perfect beauty o cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes the poets labouring all their days to build a perfect beauty in rhyme are overthrown by a woman's gaze and by the unlabouring brood of the skies: and therefore my heart will bow, when dew is dropping sleep, until god burn time, before the unlabouring stars and you. aedh hears the cry of the sedge i wander by the edge of this desolate lake where wind cries in the sedge _until the axle break that keeps the stars in their round and hands hurl in the deep the banners of east and west and the girdle of light is unbound, your breast will not lie by the breast of your beloved in sleep_. aedh thinks of those who have spoken evil of his beloved half close your eyelids, loosen your hair, and dream about the great and their pride; they have spoken against you everywhere, but weigh this song with the great and their pride; i made it out of a mouthful of air, their children's children shall say they have lied. the blessed cumhal called out, bending his head, till dathi came and stood, with a blink in his eyes at the cave mouth, between the wind and the wood. and cumhal said, bending his knees, 'i have come by the windy way 'to gather the half of your blessedness 'and learn to pray when you pray. 'i can bring you salmon out of the streams 'and heron out of the skies.' but dathi folded his hands and smiled with the secrets of god in his eyes. and cumhal saw like a drifting smoke all manner of blessed souls, women and children, young men with books, and old men with croziers and stoles. 'praise god and god's mother,' dathi said, 'for god and god's mother have sent 'the blessedest souls that walk in the world 'to fill your heart with content.' 'and which is the blessedest,' cumhal said, 'where all are comely and good? 'is it these that with golden thuribles 'are singing about the wood?' 'my eyes are blinking,' dathi said, 'with the secrets of god half blind, 'but i can see where the wind goes 'and follow the way of the wind; 'and blessedness goes where the wind goes, 'and when it is gone we are dead; 'i see the blessedest soul in the world 'and he nods a drunken head. 'o blessedness comes in the night and the day 'and whither the wise heart knows; 'and one has seen in the redness of wine 'the incorruptible rose, 'that drowsily drops faint leaves on him 'and the sweetness of desire, 'while time and the world are ebbing away 'in twilights of dew and of fire.' the secret rose far off, most secret, and inviolate rose, enfold me in my hour of hours; where those who sought thee in the holy sepulchre, or in the wine vat, dwell beyond the stir and tumult of defeated dreams; and deep among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep men have named beauty. thy great leaves enfold the ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold of the crowned magi; and the king whose eyes saw the pierced hands and rood of elder rise in druid vapour and make the torches dim; till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and him who met fand walking among flaming dew by a gray shore where the wind never blew, and lost the world and emer for a kiss; and him who drove the gods out of their liss, and till a hundred morns had flowered red, feasted and wept the barrows of his dead; and the proud dreaming king who flung the crown and sorrow away, and calling bard and clown dwelt among wine-stained wanderers in deep woods; and him who sold tillage, and house, and goods, and sought through lands and islands numberless years, until he found with laughter and with tears, a woman, of so shining loveliness, that men threshed corn at midnight by a tress, a little stolen tress. i, too, await the hour of thy great wind of love and hate. when shall the stars be blown about the sky, like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die? surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows, far off, most secret, and inviolate rose? hanrahan laments because of his wanderings o where is our mother of peace nodding her purple hood? for the winds that awakened the stars are blowing through my blood. i would that the death-pale deer had come through the mountain side, and trampled the mountain away, and drunk up the murmuring tide; for the winds that awakened the stars are blowing through my blood, and our mother of peace has forgot me under her purple hood. the travail of passion when the flaming lute-thronged angelic door is wide; when an immortal passion breathes in mortal clay; our hearts endure the scourge, the plaited thorns, the way crowded with bitter faces, the wounds in palm and side, the hyssop-heavy sponge, the flowers by kidron stream: we will bend down and loosen our hair over you, that it may drop faint perfume, and be heavy with dew, lilies of death-pale hope, roses of passionate dream. the poet pleads with his friend for old friends though you are in your shining days, voices among the crowd and new friends busy with your praise, be not unkind or proud, but think about old friends the most: time's bitter flood will rise, your beauty perish and be lost for all eyes but these eyes. hanrahan speaks to the lovers of his songs in coming days o, colleens, kneeling by your altar rails long hence, when songs i wove for my beloved hide the prayer, and smoke from this dead heart drifts through the violet air and covers away the smoke of myrrh and frankincense; bend down and pray for the great sin i wove in song, till maurya of the wounded heart cry a sweet cry, and call to my beloved and me: 'no longer fly 'amid the hovering, piteous, penitential throng.' aedh pleads with the elemental powers the powers whose name and shape no living creature knows have pulled the immortal rose; and though the seven lights bowed in their dance and wept, the polar dragon slept, his heavy rings uncoiled from glimmering deep to deep: when will he wake from sleep? great powers of falling wave and wind and windy fire, with your harmonious choir encircle her i love and sing her into peace, that my old care may cease; unfold your flaming wings and cover out of sight the nets of day and night. dim powers of drowsy thought, let her no longer be like the pale cup of the sea, when winds have gathered and sun and moon burned dim above its cloudy rim; but let a gentle silence wrought with music flow whither her footsteps go. aedh wishes his beloved were dead were you but lying cold and dead, and lights were paling out of the west, you would come hither, and bend your head, and i would lay my head on your breast; and you would murmur tender words, forgiving me, because you were dead: nor would you rise and hasten away, though you have the will of the wild birds, but know your hair was bound and wound about the stars and moon and sun: o would beloved that you lay under the dock-leaves in the ground, while lights were paling one by one. aedh wishes for the cloths of heaven had i the heavens' embroidered cloths, enwrought with golden and silver light, the blue and the dim and the dark cloths of night and light and the half light, i would spread the cloths under your feet: but i, being poor, have only my dreams; i have spread my dreams under your feet; tread softly because you tread on my dreams. mongan thinks of his past greatness i have drunk ale from the country of the young and weep because i know all things now: i have been a hazel tree and they hung the pilot star and the crooked plough among my leaves in times out of mind: i became a rush that horses tread: i became a man, a hater of the wind, knowing one, out of all things, alone, that his head would not lie on the breast or his lips on the hair of the woman that he loves, until he dies; although the rushes and the fowl of the air cry of his love with their pitiful cries. notes the hosting of the sidhe. the powerful and wealthy called the gods of ancient ireland the tuatha de danaan, or the tribes of the goddess danu, but the poor called them, and still sometimes call them, the sidhe, from aes sidhe or sluagh sidhe, the people of the faery hills, as these words are usually explained. sidhe is also gaelic for wind, and certainly the sidhe have much to do with the wind. they journey in whirling winds, the winds that were called the dance of the daughters of herodias in the middle ages, herodias doubtless taking the place of some old goddess. when the country people see the leaves whirling on the road they bless themselves, because they believe the sidhe to be passing by. they are almost always said to wear no covering upon their heads, and to let their hair stream out; and the great among them, for they have great and simple, go much upon horseback. if any one becomes too much interested in them, and sees them over much, he loses all interest in ordinary things. i shall write a great deal elsewhere about such enchanted persons, and can give but an example or two now. a woman near gort, in galway, says: 'there is a boy, now, of the cloran's; but i wouldn't for the world let them think i spoke of him; it's two years since he came from america, and since that time he never went to mass, or to church, or to fairs, or to market, or to stand on the cross roads, or to hurling, or to nothing. and if any one comes into the house, it's into the room he'll slip, not to see them; and as to work, he has the garden dug to bits, and the whole place smeared with cow dung; and such a crop as was never seen; and the alders all plaited till they look grand. one day he went as far as the chapel; but as soon as he got to the door he turned straight round again, as if he hadn't power to pass it. i wonder he wouldn't get the priest to read a mass for him, or something; but the crop he has is grand, and you may know well he has some to help him.' one hears many stories of the kind; and a man whose son is believed to go out riding among them at night tells me that he is careless about everything, and lies in bed until it is late in the day. a doctor believes this boy to be mad. those that are at times 'away,' as it is called, know all things, but are afraid to speak. a countryman at kiltartan says, 'there was one of the lydons--john--was away for seven years, lying in his bed, but brought away at nights, and he knew everything; and one, kearney, up in the mountains, a cousin of his own, lost two hoggets, and came and told him, and he knew the very spot where they were, and told him, and he got them back again. but _they_ were vexed at that, and took away the power, so that he never knew anything again, no more than another.' this wisdom is the wisdom of the fools of the celtic stories, that was above all the wisdom of the wise. lomna, the fool of fiann, had so great wisdom that his head, cut from his body, was still able to sing and prophesy; and a writer in the 'encyclopædia britannica' writes that tristram, in the oldest form of the tale of tristram and iseult, drank wisdom, and madness the shadow of wisdom, and not love, out of the magic cup. the great of the old times are among the tribes of danu, and are kings and queens among them. caolte was a companion of fiann; and years after his death he appeared to a king in a forest, and was a flaming man, that he might lead him in the darkness. when the king asked him who he was, he said, 'i am your candlestick.' i do not remember where i have read this story, and i have, maybe, half forgotten it. niam was a beautiful woman of the tribes of danu, that led oisin to the country of the young, as their country is called; i have written about her in 'the wandering of usheen;' and he came back, at last, to bitterness and weariness. knocknarea is in sligo, and the country people say that maeve, still a great queen of the western sidhe, is buried in the cairn of stones upon it. i have written of clooth-na-bare in 'the celtic twilight.' she 'went all over the world, seeking a lake deep enough to drown her faery life, of which she had grown weary, leaping from hill to hill, and setting up a cairn of stones wherever her feet lighted, until, at last, she found the deepest water in the world in little lough ia, on the top of the bird mountain, in sligo.' i forget, now, where i heard this story, but it may have been from a priest at collooney. clooth-na-bare would mean the old woman of bare, but is evidently a corruption of cailleac bare, the old woman bare, who, under the names bare, and berah, and beri, and verah, and dera, and dhira, appears in the legends of many places. mr. o'grady found her haunting lough liath high up on the top of a mountain of the fews, the slieve fuadh, or slieve g-cullain of old times, under the name of the cailleac buillia. he describes lough liath as a desolate moon-shaped lake, with made wells and sunken passages upon its borders, and beset by marsh and heather and gray boulders, and closes his 'flight of the eagle' with a long rhapsody upon mountain and lake, because of the heroic tales and beautiful old myths that have hung about them always. he identifies the cailleac buillia with that meluchra who persuaded fionn to go to her amid the waters of lough liath, and so changed him with her enchantments, that, though she had to free him because of the threats of the fiana, his hair was ever afterwards as white as snow. to this day the tribes of the goddess danu that are in the waters beckon to men, and drown them in the waters; and bare, or dhira, or meluchra, or whatever name one likes the best, is, doubtless, the name of a mistress among them. meluchra was daughter of cullain; and cullain mr. o'grady calls, upon i know not what authority, a form of lir, the master of waters. the people of the waters have been in all ages beautiful and changeable and lascivious, or beautiful and wise and lonely, for water is everywhere the signature of the fruitfulness of the body and of the fruitfulness of dreams. the white hair of fionn may be but another of the troubles of those that come to unearthly wisdom and earthly trouble, and the threats and violence of the fiana against her, a different form of the threats and violence the country people use, to make the tribes of danu give up those that are 'away.' bare is now often called an ugly old woman; but dr. joyce says that one of her old names was aebhin, which means beautiful. aebhen was the goddess of the tribes of northern leinster; and the lover she had made immortal, and who loved her perfectly, left her, and put on mortality, to fight among them against the stranger, and died on the strand of clontarf. 'aedh,' 'hanrahan' and 'michael robartes' in these poems. these are personages in 'the secret rose;' but, with the exception of some of hanrahan's and one of aedh's poems, the poems are not out of that book. i have used them in this book more as principles of the mind than as actual personages. it is probable that only students of the magical tradition will understand me when i say that 'michael robartes' is fire reflected in water, and that hanrahan is fire blown by the wind, and that aedh, whose name is not merely the irish form of hugh, but the irish for fire, is fire burning by itself. to put it in a different way, hanrahan is the simplicity of an imagination too changeable to gather permanent possessions, or the adoration of the shepherds; and michael robartes is the pride of the imagination brooding upon the greatness of its possessions, or the adoration of the magi; while aedh is the myrrh and frankincense that the imagination offers continually before all that it loves. aedh pleads with the elemental powers. mongan thinks of his past greatness. aedh hears the cry of the sedge. the rose has been for many centuries a symbol of spiritual love and supreme beauty. the count goblet d'alviella thinks that it was once a symbol of the sun,--itself a principal symbol of the divine nature, and the symbolic heart of things. the lotus was in some eastern countries imagined blossoming upon the tree of life, as the flower of life, and is thus represented in assyrian bas-reliefs. because the rose, the flower sacred to the virgin mary, and the flower that apuleius' adventurer ate, when he was changed out of the ass's shape and received into the fellowship of isis, is the western flower of life, i have imagined it growing upon the tree of life. i once stood beside a man in ireland when he saw it growing there in a vision, that seemed to have rapt him out of his body. he saw the garden of eden walled about, and on the top of a high mountain, as in certain mediæval diagrams, and after passing the tree of knowledge, on which grew fruit full of troubled faces, and through whose branches flowed, he was told, sap that was human souls, he came to a tall, dark tree, with little bitter fruits, and was shown a kind of stair or ladder going up through the tree, and told to go up; and near the top of the tree, a beautiful woman, like the goddess of life associated with the tree in assyria, gave him a rose that seemed to have been growing upon the tree. one finds the rose in the irish poets, sometimes as a religious symbol, as in the phrase, 'the rose of friday,' meaning the rose of austerity, in a gaelic poem in dr. hyde's 'religious songs of connacht;' and, i think, as a symbol of woman's beauty in the gaelic song, 'roseen dubh;' and a symbol of ireland in mangan's adaptation of 'roseen dubh,' 'my dark rosaleen,' and in mr. aubrey de vere's 'the little black rose.' i do not know any evidence to prove whether this symbol came to ireland with mediæval christianity, or whether it has come down from celtic times. i have read somewhere that a stone engraved with a celtic god, who holds what looks like a rose in one hand, has been found somewhere in england; but i cannot find the reference, though i certainly made a note of it. if the rose was really a symbol of ireland among the gaelic poets, and if 'roseen dubh' is really a political poem, as some think, one may feel pretty certain that the ancient celts associated the rose with eire, or fotla, or banba--goddesses who gave their names to ireland--or with some principal god or goddess, for such symbols are not suddenly adopted or invented, but come out of mythology. i have made the seven lights, the constellation of the bear, lament for the theft of the rose, and i have made the dragon, the constellation draco, the guardian of the rose, because these constellations move about the pole of the heavens, the ancient tree of life in many countries, and are often associated with the tree of life in mythology. it is this tree of life that i have put into the 'song of mongan' under its common irish form of a hazel; and, because it had sometimes the stars for fruit, i have hung upon it 'the crooked plough' and the 'pilot' star, as gaelic-speaking irishmen sometimes call the bear and the north star. i have made it an axle-tree in 'aedh hears the cry of the sedge,' for this was another ancient way of representing it. the host of the air. some writers distinguish between the sluagh gaoith, the host of the air, and sluagh sidhe, the host of the sidhe, and describe the host of the air as of a peculiar malignancy. dr. joyce says, 'of all the different kinds of goblins ... air demons were most dreaded by the people. they lived among clouds, and mists, and rocks, and hated the human race with the utmost malignity.' a very old arann charm, which contains the words 'send god, by his strength, between us and the host of the sidhe, between us and the host of the air,' seems also to distinguish among them. i am inclined, however, to think that the distinction came in with christianity and its belief about the prince of the air, for the host of the sidhe, as i have already explained, are closely associated with the wind. they are said to steal brides just after their marriage, and sometimes in a blast of wind. a man in galway says, 'at aughanish there were two couples came to the shore to be married, and one of the newly married women was in the boat with the priest, and they going back to the island; and a sudden blast of wind came, and the priest said some blessed words that were able to save himself, but the girl was swept.' this woman was drowned; but more often the persons who are taken 'get the touch,' as it is called, and fall into a half dream, and grow indifferent to all things, for their true life has gone out of the world, and is among the hills and the forts of the sidhe. a faery doctor has told me that his wife 'got the touch' at her marriage because there was one of them wanted her; and the way he knew for certain was, that when he took a pitchfork out of the rafters, and told her it was a broom, she said, 'it is a broom.' she was, the truth is, in the magical sleep, to which people have given a new name lately, that makes the imagination so passive that it can be moulded by any voice in any world into any shape. a mere likeness of some old woman, or even old animal, some one or some thing the sidhe have no longer a use for, is believed to be left instead of the person who is 'away;' this some one or some thing can, it is thought, be driven away by threats, or by violence (though i have heard country women say that violence is wrong), which perhaps awakes the soul out of the magical sleep. the story in the poem is founded on an old gaelic ballad that was sung and translated for me by a woman at ballisodare in county sligo; but in the ballad the husband found the keeners keening his wife when he got to his house. she was 'swept' at once; but the sidhe are said to value those the most whom they but cast into a half dream, which may last for years, for they need the help of a living person in most of the things they do. there are many stories of people who seem to die and be buried--though the country people will tell you it is but some one or some thing put in their place that dies and is buried--and yet are brought back afterwards. these tales are perhaps memories of true awakenings out of the magical sleep, moulded by the imagination, under the influence of a mystical doctrine which it understands too literally, into the shape of some well-known traditional tale. one does not hear them as one hears the others, from the persons who are 'away,' or from their wives or husbands; and one old man, who had often seen the sidhe, began one of them with 'maybe it is all vanity.' here is a tale that a friend of mine heard in the burren hills, and it is a type of all:-'there was a girl to be married, and she didn't like the man, and she cried when the day was coming, and said she wouldn't go along with him. and the mother said, "get into the bed, then, and i'll say that you're sick." and so she did. and when the man came the mother said to him, "you can't get her, she's sick in the bed." and he looked in and said, "that's not my wife that's in the bed, it's some old hag." and the mother began to cry and to roar. and he went out and got two hampers of turf, and made a fire, that they thought he was going to burn the house down. and when the fire was kindled, "come out now," says he, "and we'll see who you are, when i'll put you on the fire." and when she heard that, she gave one leap, and was out of the house, and they saw, then, it was an old hag she was. well, the man asked the advice of an old woman, and she bid him go to a faery-bush that was near, and he might get some word of her. so he went there at night, and saw all sorts of grand people, and they in carriages or riding on horses, and among them he could see the girl he came to look for. so he went again to the old woman, and she said, "if you can get the three bits of blackthorn out of her hair, you'll get her again." so that night he went again, and that time he only got hold of a bit of her hair. but the old woman told him that was no use, and that he was put back now, and it might be twelve nights before he'd get her. but on the fourth night he got the third bit of blackthorn, and he took her, and she came away with him. he never told the mother he had got her; but one day she saw her at a fair, and, says she, "that's my daughter; i know her by the smile and by the laugh of her," and she with a shawl about her head. so the husband said, "you're right there, and hard i worked to get her." she spoke often of the grand things she saw underground, and how she used to have wine to drink, and to drive out in a carriage with four horses every night. and she used to be able to see her husband when he came to look for her, and she was greatly afraid he'd get a drop of the wine, for then he would have come underground and never left it again. and she was glad herself to come to earth again, and not to be left there.' the old gaelic literature is full of the appeals of the tribes of the goddess danu to mortals whom they would bring into their country; but the song of midher to the beautiful etain, the wife of the king who was called echaid the ploughman, is the type of all. 'o beautiful woman, come with me to the marvellous land where one listens to a sweet music, where one has spring flowers in one's hair, where the body is like snow from head to foot, where no one is sad or silent, where teeth are white and eyebrows are black ... cheeks red like foxglove in flower.... ireland is beautiful, but not so beautiful as the great plain i call you to. the beer of ireland is heady, but the beer of the great plain is much more heady. how marvellous is the country i am speaking of! youth does not grow old there. streams with warm flood flow there; sometimes mead, sometimes wine. men are charming and without a blot there, and love is not forbidden there. o woman, when you come into my powerful country you will wear a crown of gold upon your head. i will give you the flesh of swine, and you will have beer and milk to drink, o beautiful woman. o beautiful woman, come with me!' a cradle song. michael robartes asks forgiveness because of his many moods. i use the wind as a symbol of vague desires and hopes, not merely because the sidhe are in the wind, or because the wind bloweth as it listeth, but because wind and spirit and vague desire have been associated everywhere. a highland scholar tells me that his country people use the wind in their talk and in their proverbs as i use it in my poem. the song of wandering aengus. the tribes of the goddess danu can take all shapes, and those that are in the waters take often the shape of fish. a woman of burren, in galway, says, 'there are more of them in the sea than on the land, and they sometimes try to come over the side of the boat in the form of fishes, for they can take their choice shape.' at other times they are beautiful women; and another galway woman says, 'surely those things are in the sea as well as on land. my father was out fishing one night off tyrone. and something came beside the boat that had eyes shining like candles. and then a wave came in, and a storm rose all in a minute, and whatever was in the wave, the weight of it had like to sink the boat. and then they saw that it was a woman in the sea that had the shining eyes. so my father went to the priest, and he bid him always to take a drop of holy water and a pinch of salt out in the boat with him, and nothing could harm him.' the poem was suggested to me by a greek folk song; but the folk belief of greece is very like that of ireland, and i certainly thought, when i wrote it, of ireland, and of the spirits that are in ireland. an old man who was cutting a quickset hedge near gort, in galway, said, only the other day, 'one time i was cutting timber over in inchy, and about eight o'clock one morning, when i got there, i saw a girl picking nuts, with her hair hanging down over her shoulders; brown hair; and she had a good, clean face, and she was tall, and nothing on her head, and her dress no way gaudy, but simple. and when she felt me coming she gathered herself up, and was gone, as if the earth had swallowed her up. and i followed her, and looked for her, but i never could see her again from that day to this, never again.' the county galway people use the word 'clean' in its old sense of fresh and comely. michael robartes bids his beloved be at peace. november, the old beginning of winter, or of the victory of the fomor, or powers of death, and dismay, and cold, and darkness, is associated by the irish people with the horse-shaped púcas, who are now mischievous spirits, but were once fomorian divinities. i think that they may have some connection with the horses of mannannan, who reigned over the country of the dead, where the fomorian tethra reigned also; and the horses of mannannan, though they could cross the land as easily as the sea, are constantly associated with the waves. some neo-platonist, i forget who, describes the sea as a symbol of the drifting indefinite bitterness of life, and i believe there is like symbolism intended in the many irish voyages to the islands of enchantment, or that there was, at any rate, in the mythology out of which these stories have been shaped. i follow much irish and other mythology, and the magical tradition, in associating the north with night and sleep, and the east, the place of sunrise, with hope, and the south, the place of the sun when at its height, with passion and desire, and the west, the place of sunset, with fading and dreaming things. mongan laments the change that has come upon him and his beloved. hanrahan laments because of his wanderings. my deer and hound are properly related to the deer and hound that flicker in and out of the various tellings of the arthurian legends, leading different knights upon adventures, and to the hounds and to the hornless deer at the beginning of, i think, all tellings of oisin's journey to the country of the young. the hound is certainly related to the hounds of annwvyn or of hades, who are white, and have red ears, and were heard, and are, perhaps, still heard by welsh peasants following some flying thing in the night winds; and is probably related to the hounds that irish country people believe will awake and seize the souls of the dead if you lament them too loudly or too soon, and to the hound the son of setanta killed, on what was certainly, in the first form of the tale, a visit to the celtic hades. an old woman told a friend and myself that she saw what she thought were white birds, flying over an enchanted place, but found, when she got near, that they had dog's heads; and i do not doubt that my hound and these dog-headed birds are of the same family. i got my hound and deer out of a last century gaelic poem about oisin's journey to the country of the young. after the hunting of the hornless deer, that leads him to the seashore, and while he is riding over the sea with niam, he sees amid the waters--i have not the gaelic poem by me, and describe it from memory--a young man following a girl who has a golden apple, and afterwards a hound with one red ear following a deer with no horns. this hound and this deer seem plain images of the desire of man 'which is for the woman,' and 'the desire of the woman which is for the desire of the man,' and of all desires that are as these. i have read them in this way in 'the wanderings of usheen' or oisin, and have made my lover sigh because he has seen in their faces 'the immortal desire of immortals.' a solar mythologist would perhaps say that the girl with the golden apple was once the winter, or night, carrying the sun away, and the deer without horns, like the boar without bristles, darkness flying the light. he would certainly, i think, say that when cuchullain, whom professor rhys calls a solar hero, hunted the enchanted deer of slieve fuadh, because the battle fury was still on him, he was the sun pursuing clouds, or cold, or darkness. i have understood them in this sense in 'hanrahan laments because of his wandering,' and made hanrahan long for the day when they, fragments of ancestral darkness, will overthrow the world. the desire of the woman, the flying darkness, it is all one! the image--a cross, a man preaching in the wilderness, a dancing salome, a lily in a girl's hand, a flame leaping, a globe with wings, a pale sunset over still waters--is an eternal act; but our understandings are temporal and understand but a little at a time. the man in my poem who has a hazel wand may have been aengus, master of love; and i have made the boar without bristles come out of the west, because the place of sunset was in ireland, as in other countries, a place of symbolic darkness and death. the cap and bells. i dreamed this story exactly as i have written it, and dreamed another long dream after it, trying to make out its meaning, and whether i was to write it in prose or verse. the first dream was more a vision than a dream, for it was beautiful and coherent, and gave me the sense of illumination and exaltation that one gets from visions, while the second dream was confused and meaningless. the poem has always meant a great deal to me, though, as is the way with symbolic poems, it has not always meant quite the same thing. blake would have said 'the authors are in eternity,' and i am quite sure they can only be questioned in dreams. the valley of the black pig. all over ireland there are prophecies of the coming rout of the enemies of ireland, in a certain valley of the black pig, and these prophecies are, no doubt, now, as they were in the fenian days, a political force. i have heard of one man who would not give any money to the land league, because the battle could not be until the close of the century; but, as a rule, periods of trouble bring prophecies of its near coming. a few years before my time, an old man who lived at lisadell, in sligo, used to fall down in a fit and rave out descriptions of the battle; and a man in sligo has told me that it will be so great a battle that the horses shall go up to their fetlocks in blood, and that their girths, when it is over, will rot from their bellies for lack of a hand to unbuckle them. the battle is a mythological battle, and the black pig is one with the bristleless boar, that killed dearmod, in november, upon the western end of ben bulben; misroide macdatha's sow, whose carving brought on so great a battle; 'the croppy black sow,' and 'the cutty black sow' of welsh november rhymes ('celtic heathendom,' pages 509-516); the boar that killed adonis; the boar that killed attis; and the pig embodiment of typhon ('golden bough,' ii. pages 26, 31). the pig seems to have been originally a genius of the corn, and, seemingly because the too great power of their divinity makes divine things dangerous to mortals, its flesh was forbidden to many eastern nations; but as the meaning of the prohibition was forgotten, abhorrence took the place of reverence, pigs and boars grew into types of evil, and were described as the enemies of the very gods they once typified ('golden bough,' ii. 26-31, 56-57). the pig would, therefore, become the black pig, a type of cold and of winter that awake in november, the old beginning of winter, to do battle with the summer, and with the fruit and leaves, and finally, as i suggest; and as i believe, for the purposes of poetry; of the darkness that will at last destroy the gods and the world. the country people say there is no shape for a spirit to take so dangerous as the shape of a pig; and a galway blacksmith--and blacksmiths are thought to be especially protected--says he would be afraid to meet a pig on the road at night; and another galway man tells this story: 'there was a man coming the road from gort to garryland one night, and he had a drop taken; and before him, on the road, he saw a pig walking; and having a drop in, he gave a shout, and made a kick at it, and bid it get out of that. and by the time he got home, his arm was swelled from the shoulder to be as big as a bag, and he couldn't use his hand with the pain of it. and his wife brought him, after a few days, to a woman that used to do cures at rahasane. and on the road all she could do would hardly keep him from lying down to sleep on the grass. and when they got to the woman she knew all that happened; and, says she, it's well for you that your wife didn't let you fall asleep on the grass, for if you had done that but even for one instant, you'd be a lost man.' it is possible that bristles were associated with fertility, as the tail certainly was, for a pig's tail is stuck into the ground in courland, that the corn may grow abundantly, and the tails of pigs, and other animal embodiments of the corn genius, are dragged over the ground to make it fertile in different countries. professor rhys, who considers the bristleless boar a symbol of darkness and cold, rather than of winter and cold, thinks it was without bristles because the darkness is shorn away by the sun. it may have had different meanings, just as the scourging of the man-god has had different though not contradictory meanings in different epochs of the world. the battle should, i believe, be compared with three other battles; a battle the sidhe are said to fight when a person is being taken away by them; a battle they are said to fight in november for the harvest; the great battle the tribes of the goddess danu fought, according to the gaelic chroniclers, with the fomor at moy tura, or the towery plain. i have heard of the battle over the dying both in county galway and in the isles of arann, an old arann fisherman having told me that it was fought over two of his children, and that he found blood in a box he had for keeping fish, when it was over; and i have written about it, and given examples elsewhere. a faery doctor, on the borders of galway and clare, explained it as a battle between the friends and enemies of the dying, the one party trying to take them, the other trying to save them from being taken. it may once, when the land of the sidhe was the only other world, and when every man who died was carried thither, have always accompanied death. i suggest that the battle between the tribes of the goddess danu, the powers of light, and warmth, and fruitfulness, and goodness, and the fomor, the powers of darkness, and cold, and barrenness, and badness upon the towery plain, was the establishment of the habitable world, the rout of the ancestral darkness; that the battle among the sidhe for the harvest is the annual battle of summer and winter; that the battle among the sidhe at a man's death is the battle of life and death; and that the battle of the black pig is the battle between the manifest world and the ancestral darkness at the end of all things; and that all these battles are one, the battle of all things with shadowy decay. once a symbolism has possessed the imagination of large numbers of men, it becomes, as i believe, an embodiment of disembodied powers, and repeats itself in dreams and visions, age after age. the secret rose. i find that i have unintentionally changed the old story of conchobar's death. he did not see the crucifixion in a vision, but was told about it. he had been struck by a ball, made of the dried brain of a dead enemy, and hurled out of a sling; and this ball had been left in his head, and his head had been mended, the book of leinster says, with thread of gold because his hair was like gold. keating, a writer of the time of elizabeth, says, 'in that state did he remain seven years, until the friday on which christ was crucified, according to some historians; and when he saw the unusual changes of the creation and the eclipse of the sun and the moon at its full, he asked of bucrach, a leinster druid, who was along with him, what was it that brought that unusual change upon the planets of heaven and earth. "jesus christ, the son of god," said the druid, "who is now being crucified by the jews." "that is a pity," said conchobar; "were i in his presence i would kill those who were putting him to death." and with that he brought out his sword, and rushed at a woody grove which was convenient to him, and began to cut and fell it; and what he said was, that if he were among the jews that was the usage he would give them, and from the excessiveness of his fury which seized upon him, the ball started out of his head, and some of the brain came after it, and in that way he died. the wood of lanshraigh, in feara rois, is the name by which that shrubby wood is called.' i have imagined cuchullain meeting fand 'walking among flaming dew.' the story of their love is one of the most beautiful of our old tales. two birds, bound one to another with a chain of gold, came to a lake side where cuchullain and the host of uladh was encamped, and sang so sweetly that all the host fell into a magic sleep. presently they took the shape of two beautiful women, and cast a magical weakness upon cuchullain, in which he lay for a year. at the year's end an aengus, who was probably aengus the master of love, one of the greatest of the children of the goddess danu, came and sat upon his bedside, and sang how fand, the wife of mannannan, the master of the sea, and of the islands of the dead, loved him; and that if he would come into the country of the gods, where there was wine and gold and silver, fand, and laban her sister, would heal him of his magical weakness. cuchullain went to the country of the gods, and, after being for a month the lover of fand, made her a promise to meet her at a place called 'the yew at the strand's end,' and came back to the earth. emer, his mortal wife, won his love again, and mannannan came to 'the yew at the strand's end,' and carried fand away. when cuchullain saw her going, his love for her fell upon him again, and he went mad, and wandered among the mountains without food or drink, until he was at last cured by a druid drink of forgetfulness. i have founded the man 'who drove the gods out of their liss,' or fort, upon something i have read about caolte after the battle of gabra, when almost all his companions were killed, driving the gods out of their liss, either at osraighe, now ossory, or at eas ruaidh, now asseroe, a waterfall at ballyshannon, where ilbreac, one of the children of the goddess danu, had a liss. i am writing away from most of my books, and have not been able to find the passage; but i certainly read it somewhere. i have founded 'the proud dreaming king' upon fergus, the son of roigh, the legendary poet of 'the quest of the bull of cualge,' as he is in the ancient story of deirdre, and in modern poems by ferguson. he married nessa, and ferguson makes him tell how she took him 'captive in a single look.' 'i am but an empty shade, far from life and passion laid; yet does sweet remembrance thrill all my shadowy being still.' presently, because of his great love, he gave up his throne to conchobar, her son by another, and lived out his days feasting, and fighting, and hunting. his promise never to refuse a feast from a certain comrade, and the mischief that came by his promise, and the vengeance he took afterwards, are a principal theme of the poets. i have explained my imagination of him in 'fergus and the druid,' and in a little song in the second act of 'the countess kathleen.' * * * * * i have founded him 'who sold tillage, and house, and goods,' upon something in 'the red pony,' a folk tale in mr. larminie's 'west irish folk tales.' a young man 'saw a light before him on the high road. when he came as far, there was an open box on the road, and a light coming up out of it. he took up the box. there was a lock of hair in it. presently he had to go to become the servant of a king for his living. there were eleven boys. when they were going out into the stable at ten o'clock, each of them took a light but he. he took no candle at all with him. each of them went into his own stable. when he went into his stable he opened the box. he left it in a hole in the wall. the light was great. it was twice as much as in the other stables.' the king hears of it, and makes him show him the box. the king says, 'you must go and bring me the woman to whom the hair belongs.' in the end, the young man, and not the king, marries the woman. in the seven woods by the same writer the secret rose the celtic twilight poems the wind among the reeds the shadowy waters ideas of good and evil in the seven woods being poems chiefly of the irish heroic age by w. b. yeats new york the macmillan company london: macmillan & co., ltd. 1903 _all rights reserved_ copyright, 1903, by the macmillan company. set up, electrotyped, and published august, 1903. norwood press j. s. cushing & co.--berwick & smith co. norwood, mass. u.s.a. in the seven woods in the seven woods: being poems chiefly of the irish heroic age. in the seven woods. i have heard the pigeons of the seven woods make their faint thunder, and the garden bees hum in the lime tree flowers; and put away the unavailing outcries and the old bitterness that empty the heart. i have forgot awhile tara uprooted, and new commonness upon the throne and crying about the streets and hanging its paper flowers from post to post, because it is alone of all things happy. i am contented for i know that quiet wanders laughing and eating her wild heart among pigeons and bees, while that great archer, who but awaits his hour to shoot, still hangs a cloudy quiver over parc-na-lee. august, 1902. the old age of queen maeve. maeve the great queen was pacing to and fro, between the walls covered with beaten bronze, in her high house at cruachan; the long hearth, flickering with ash and hazel, but half showed where the tired horse-boys lay upon the rushes, or on the benches underneath the walls, in comfortable sleep; all living slept but that great queen, who more than half the night had paced from door to fire and fire to door. though now in her old age, in her young age she had been beautiful in that old way that's all but gone; for the proud heart is gone and the fool heart of the counting-house fears all but soft beauty and indolent desire. she could have called over the rim of the world whatever woman's lover had hit her fancy, and yet had been great bodied and great limbed, fashioned to be the mother of strong children; and she'd had lucky eyes and a high heart, and wisdom that caught fire like the dried flax, at need, and made her beautiful and fierce, sudden and laughing. o unquiet heart, why do you praise another, praising her, as if there were no tale but your own tale worth knitting to a measure of sweet sound? have i not bid you tell of that great queen who has been buried some two thousand years? when night was at its deepest, a wild goose cried from the porter's lodge, and with long clamour shook the ale horns and shields upon their hooks; but the horse-boys slept on, as though some power had filled the house with druid heaviness; and wondering who of the many changing sidhe had come as in the old times to counsel her, maeve walked, yet with slow footfall being old, to that small chamber by the outer gate. the porter slept although he sat upright with still and stony limbs and open eyes. maeve waited, and when that ear-piercing noise broke from his parted lips and broke again, she laid a hand on either of his shoulders, and shook him wide awake, and bid him say who of the wandering many-changing ones had troubled his sleep. but all he had to say was that, the air being heavy and the dogs more still than they had been for a good month, he had fallen asleep, and, though he had dreamed nothing, he could remember when he had had fine dreams. it was before the time of the great war over the white-horned bull, and the brown bull. she turned away; he turned again to sleep that no god troubled now, and, wondering what matters were afoot among the sidhe, maeve walked through that great hall, and with a sigh lifted the curtain of her sleeping room, remembering that she too had seemed divine to many thousand eyes, and to her own one that the generations had long waited that work too difficult for mortal hands might be accomplished. bunching the curtain up she saw her husband ailell sleeping there, and thought of days when he'd had a straight body, and of that famous fergus, nessa's husband, who had been the lover of her middle life. suddenly ailell spoke out of his sleep, and not with his own voice or a man's voice, but with the burning, live, unshaken voice of those that it may be can never age. he said, 'high queen of cruachan and mag ai a king of the great plain would speak with you.' and with glad voice maeve answered him, 'what king of the far wandering shadows has come to me? as in the old days when they would come and go about my threshold to counsel and to help.' the parted lips replied, 'i seek your help, for i am aengus and i am crossed in love.' 'how may a mortal whose life gutters out help them that wander with hand clasping hand by rivers where nor rain nor hail has dimmed their haughty images, that cannot fade although their beauty's like a hollow dream.' 'i come from the undimmed rivers to bid you call the children of the maines out of sleep, and set them digging into anbual's hill. we shadows, while they uproot his earthy house, will overthrow his shadows and carry off caer, his blue eyed daughter that i love. i helped your fathers when they built these walls and i would have your help in my great need, queen of high cruachan.' 'i obey your will with speedy feet and a most thankful heart: for you have been, o aengus of the birds, our giver of good counsel and good luck.' and with a groan, as if the mortal breath could but awaken sadly upon lips that happier breath had moved, her husband turned face downward, tossing in a troubled sleep; but maeve, and not with a slow feeble foot, came to the threshold of the painted house, where her grandchildren slept, and cried aloud, until the pillared dark began to stir with shouting and the clang of unhooked arms. she told them of the many-changing ones; and all that night, and all through the next day to middle night, they dug into the hill. at middle night great cats with silver claws, bodies of shadow and blind eyes like pearls, came up out of the hole, and red-eared hounds with long white bodies came out of the air suddenly, and ran at them and harried them. the maines' children dropped their spades, and stood with quaking joints and terror strucken faces, till maeve called out, 'these are but common men. the maines' children have not dropped their spades because earth crazy for its broken power casts up a show and the winds answer it with holy shadows.' her high heart was glad, and when the uproar ran along the grass she followed with light footfall in the midst, till it died out where an old thorn tree stood. friend of these many years, you too had stood with equal courage in that whirling rout; for you, although you've not her wandering heart, have all that greatness, and not hers alone. for there is no high story about queens in any ancient book but tells of you, and when i've heard how they grew old and died or fell into unhappiness i've said; 'she will grow old and die and she has wept!' and when i'd write it out anew, the words, half crazy with the thought, she too has wept! outrun the measure. i'd tell of that great queen who stood amid a silence by the thorn until two lovers came out of the air with bodies made out of soft fire. the one about whose face birds wagged their fiery wings said, 'aengus and his sweetheart give their thanks to maeve and to maeve's household, owing all in owing them the bride-bed that gives peace.' then maeve, 'o aengus, master of all lovers, a thousand years ago you held high talk with the first kings of many pillared cruachan. o when will you grow weary.' they had vanished, but out of the dark air over her head there came a murmur of soft words and meeting lips. baile and aillinn. argument. baile and aillinn were lovers, but aengus, the master of love, wishing them to be happy in his own land among the dead, told to each a story of the other's death, so that their hearts were broken and they died. i hardly hear the curlew cry, nor the grey rush when wind is high, before my thoughts begin to run on the heir of ulad, buan's son, baile who had the honey mouth, and that mild woman of the south, aillinn, who was king lugaid's heir. their love was never drowned in care of this or that thing, nor grew cold because their bodies had grown old; being forbid to marry on earth they blossomed to immortal mirth. about the time when christ was born, when the long wars for the white horn and the brown bull had not yet come, young baile honey-mouth, whom some called rather baile little-land, rode out of emain with a band of harpers and young men, and they imagined, as they struck the way to many pastured muirthemne, that all things fell out happily and there, for all that fools had said, baile and aillinn would be wed. they found an old man running there, he had ragged long grass-yellow hair; he had knees that stuck out of his hose; he had puddle water in his shoes; he had half a cloak to keep him dry; although he had a squirrel's eye. o wandering birds and rushy beds you put such folly in our heads with all this crying in the wind no common love is to our mind, and our poor kate or nan is less than any whose unhappiness awoke the harp strings long ago. yet they that know all things but know that all life had to give us is a child's laughter, a woman's kiss. who was it put so great a scorn in the grey reeds that night and morn are trodden and broken by the herds, and in the light bodies of birds that north wind tumbles to and fro and pinches among hail and snow? that runner said, 'i am from the south; i run to baile honey-mouth to tell him how the girl aillinn rode from the country of her kin and old and young men rode with her: for all that country had been astir if anybody half as fair had chosen a husband anywhere but where it could see her every day. when they had ridden a little way an old man caught the horse's head with "you must home again and wed with somebody in your own land." a young man cried and kissed her hand "o lady, wed with one of us;" and when no face grew piteous for any gentle thing she spake she fell and died of the heart-break.' because a lover's heart's worn out being tumbled and blown about by its own blind imagining, and will believe that anything that is bad enough to be true, is true, baile's heart was broken in two; and he being laid upon green boughs was carried to the goodly house where the hound of ulad sat before the brazen pillars of his door; his face bowed low to weep the end of the harper's daughter and her friend; for although years had passed away he always wept them on that day, for on that day they had been betrayed; and now that honey-mouth is laid under a cairn of sleepy stone before his eyes, he has tears for none, although he is carrying stone, but two for whom the cairn's but heaped anew. we hold because our memory is so full of that thing and of this that out of sight is out of mind. but the grey rush under the wind and the grey bird with crooked bill have such long memories that they still remember deirdre and her man, and when we walk with kate or nan about the windy water side our heart can hear the voices chide. how could we be so soon content who know the way that naoise went? and they have news of deirdre's eyes who being lovely was so wise, ah wise, my heart knows well how wise. now had that old gaunt crafty one, gathering his cloak about him, run where aillinn rode with waiting maids who amid leafy lights and shades dreamed of the hands that would unlace their bodices in some dim place when they had come to the marriage bed; and harpers pondering with bowed head a music that had thought enough of the ebb of all things to make love grow gentle without sorrowings; and leather-coated men with slings who peered about on every side; and amid leafy light he cried, 'he is well out of wind and wave, they have heaped the stones above his grave in muirthemne and over it in changeless ogham letters writ baile that was of rury's seed. but the gods long ago decreed no waiting maid should ever spread baile and aillinn's marriage bed, for they should clip and clip again where wild bees hive on the great plain. therefore it is but little news that put this hurry in my shoes.' and hurrying to the south he came to that high hill the herdsmen name the hill seat of leighin, because some god or king had made the laws that held the land together there, in old times among the clouds of the air. that old man climbed; the day grew dim; two swans came flying up to him linked by a gold chain each to each and with low murmuring laughing speech alighted on the windy grass. they knew him: his changed body was tall, proud and ruddy, and light wings were hovering over the harp strings that etain, midhir's wife, had wove in the hid place, being crazed by love. what shall i call them? fish that swim scale rubbing scale where light is dim by a broad water-lily leaf; or mice in the one wheaten sheaf forgotten at the threshing place; or birds lost in the one clear space of morning light in a dim sky; or it may be, the eyelids of one eye or the door pillars of one house, or two sweet blossoming apple boughs that have one shadow on the ground; or the two strings that made one sound where that wise harper's finger ran; for this young girl and this young man have happiness without an end because they have made so good a friend. they know all wonders, for they pass the towery gates of gorias and findrias and falias and long-forgotten murias, among the giant kings whose hoard cauldron and spear and stone and sword was robbed before earth gave the wheat; wandering from broken street to street they come where some huge watcher is and tremble with their love and kiss. they know undying things, for they wander where earth withers away, though nothing troubles the great streams but light from the pale stars, and gleams from the holy orchards, where there is none but fruit that is of precious stone, or apples of the sun and moon. what were our praise to them: they eat quiet's wild heart, like daily meat, who when night thickens are afloat on dappled skins in a glass boat far out under a windless sky, while over them birds of aengus fly, and over the tiller and the prow and waving white wings to and fro awaken wanderings of light air to stir their coverlet and their hair. and poets found, old writers say, a yew tree where his body lay, but a wild apple hid the grass with its sweet blossom where hers was; and being in good heart, because a better time had come again after the deaths of many men, and that long fighting at the ford, they wrote on tablets of thin board, made of the apple and the yew, all the love stories that they knew. let rush and bird cry out their fill of the harper's daughter if they will, beloved, i am not afraid of her she is not wiser nor lovelier, and you are more high of heart than she for all her wanderings over-sea; but i'd have bird and rush forget those other two, for never yet has lover lived but longed to wive like them that are no more alive. the arrow. i thought of your beauty and this arrow made out of a wild thought is in my marrow. there's no man may look upon her, no man, as when newly grown to be a woman, blossom pale, she pulled down the pale blossom at the moth hour and hid it in her bosom. this beauty's kinder yet for a reason i could weep that the old is out of season. the folly of being comforted. one that is ever kind said yesterday: 'your well beloved's hair has threads of grey and little shadows come about her eyes; time can but make it easier to be wise though now it's hard, till trouble is at an end; and so be patient, be wise and patient, friend.' but heart, there is no comfort, not a grain. time can but make her beauty over again because of that great nobleness of hers; the fire that stirs about her, when she stirs burns but more clearly; o she had not these ways when all the wild summer was in her gaze. o heart, o heart, if she'd but turn her head, you'd know the folly of being comforted. the withering of the boughs. i cried when the moon was murmuring to the birds, 'let peewit call and curlew cry where they will, i long for your merry and tender and pitiful words, for the roads are unending and there is no place to my mind.' the honey-pale moon lay low on the sleepy hill and i fell asleep upon lonely echtge of streams; no boughs have withered because of the wintry wind, the boughs have withered because i have told them my dreams. i know of the leafy paths that the witches take, who come with their crowns of pearl and their spindles of wool, and their secret smile, out of the depths of the lake; and of apple islands where the danaan kind wind and unwind their dances when the light grows cool on the island lawns, their feet where the pale foam gleams; no boughs have withered because of the wintry wind, the boughs have withered because i have told them my dreams. i know of the sleepy country, where swans fly round coupled with golden chains and sing as they fly, a king and a queen are wandering there, and the sound has made them so happy and hopeless, so deaf and so blind with wisdom, they wander till all the years have gone by; i know, and the curlew and peewit on echtge of streams; no boughs have withered because of the wintry wind, the boughs have withered because i have told them my dreams. adam's curse. we sat together at one summer's end that beautiful mild woman your close friend and you and i, and talked of poetry. i said 'a line will take us hours maybe, yet if it does not seem a moment's thought our stitching and unstitching has been naught. better go down upon your marrow bones and scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones like an old pauper in all kinds of weather; for to articulate sweet sounds together is to work harder than all these and yet be thought an idler by the noisy set of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen the martyrs call the world.' that woman then murmured with her young voice, for whose mild sake there's many a one shall find out all heartache in finding that it's young and mild and low. 'there is one thing that all we women know although we never heard of it at school, that we must labour to be beautiful.' i said, 'it's certain there is no fine thing since adam's fall but needs much labouring. there have been lovers who thought love should be so much compounded of high courtesy that they would sigh and quote with learned looks precedents out of beautiful old books; yet now it seems an idle trade enough.' we sat grown quiet at the name of love. we saw the last embers of daylight die and in the trembling blue-green of the sky a moon, worn as if it had been a shell washed by time's waters as they rose and fell about the stars and broke in days and years. i had a thought for no one's but your ears; that you were beautiful and that i strove to love you in the old high way of love; that it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown as weary hearted as that hollow moon. the song of red hanrahan. the old brown thorn trees break in two high over cummen strand under a bitter black wind that blows from the left hand, our courage breaks like an old tree in a black wind and dies; but we have hidden in our hearts the flame out of the eyes of cathleen the daughter of houlihan. the wind has bundled up the clouds high over knocknarea and thrown the thunder on the stones for all that maeve can say. angers that are like noisy clouds have set our hearts abeat; but we have all bent low and low and kissed the quiet feet of cathleen the daughter of houlihan. the yellow pool has overflowed high up on clooth-na-bare, for the wet winds are blowing out of the clinging air; like heavy flooded waters our bodies and our blood; but purer than a tall candle before the holy rood is cathleen the daughter of houlihan. the old men admiring themselves in the water. i heard the old, old men say 'everything alters, and one by one we drop away.' they had hands like claws, and their knees were twisted like the old thorn trees by the waters. i heard the old, old men say 'all that's beautiful drifts away like the waters.' under the moon. i have no happiness in dreaming of brycelinde; nor avalon the grass green hollow, nor joyous isle, where one found lancelot crazed and hid him for a while, nor ulad when naoise had thrown a sail upon the wind, nor lands that seem too dim to be burdens on the heart, land-under-wave, where out of the moon's light and the sun's seven old sisters wind the threads of the long lived ones, land-of-the-tower, where aengus has thrown the gates apart, and wood-of-wonders, where one kills an ox at dawn to find it when night falls laid on a golden bier: therein are many queens like branwen, and guinivere; and niam, and laban, and fand, who could change to an otter or fawn and the wood-woman whose lover was changed to a blue-eyed hawk; and whether i go in my dreams by woodland, or dun, or shore, or on the unpeopled waves with kings to pull at the oar, i hear the harp string praise them or hear their mournful talk. because of a story i heard under the thin horn of the third moon, that hung between the night and the day, to dream of women whose beauty was folded in dismay, even in an old story, is a burden not to be borne. the players ask for a blessing on the psalteries and themselves. three voices together hurry to bless the hands that play, the mouths that speak, the notes and strings, o masters of the glittering town! o! lay the shrilly trumpet down, though drunken with the flags that sway over the ramparts and the towers, and with the waving of your wings. first voice maybe they linger by the way; one gathers up his purple gown; one leans and mutters by the wall; he dreads the weight of mortal hours. second voice o no, o no, they hurry down like plovers that have heard the call. third voice o, kinsmen of the three in one, o, kinsmen bless the hands that play. the notes they waken shall live on when all this heavy history's done. our hands, our hands must ebb away. three voices together the proud and careless notes live on but bless our hands that ebb away. the rider from the north. from the play of the country of the young. there's many a strong farmer whose heart would break in two if he could see the townland that we are riding to; boughs have their fruit and blossom, at all times of the year, rivers are running over with red beer and brown beer. an old man plays the bagpipes in a golden and silver wood, queens, their eyes blue like the ice, are dancing in a crowd. the little fox he murmured, 'o what is the world's bane?' the sun was laughing sweetly, the moon plucked at my rein; but the little red fox murmured, 'o do not pluck at his rein, he is riding to the townland that is the world's bane.' when their hearts are so high, that they would come to blows, they unhook their heavy swords from golden and silver boughs; but all that are killed in battle awaken to life again; it is lucky that their story is not known among men. for o the strong farmers that would let the spade lie, for their hearts would be like a cup that somebody had drunk dry. the little fox he murmured, 'o what is the world's bane?' the sun was laughing sweetly, the moon plucked at my rein; but the little red fox murmured, 'o do not pluck at his rein, he is riding to the townland that is the world's bane.' michael will unhook his trumpet from a bough overhead, and blow a little noise when the supper has been spread. gabriel will come from the water with a fish tail, and talk of wonders that have happened on wet roads where men walk, and lift up an old horn of hammered silver, and drink till he has fallen asleep upon the starry brink. the little fox he murmured, 'o what is the world's bane?' the sun was laughing sweetly, the moon plucked at my rein; but the little red fox murmured, 'o do not pluck at his rein, he is riding to the townland, that is the world's bane.' i made some of these poems walking about among the seven woods, before the big wind of nineteen hundred and three blew down so many trees, & troubled the wild creatures, & changed the look of things; and i thought out there a good part of the play which follows. the first shape of it came to me in a dream, but it changed much in the making, foreshadowing, it may be, a change that may bring a less dream-burdened will into my verses. i never re-wrote anything so many times; for at first i could not make these wills that stream into mere life poetical. but now i hope to do easily much more of the kind, and that our new irish players will find the buskin and the sock. on baile's strand: a play. the persons of the play. cuchullain, the king of muirthemne. concobar, the high king of ullad. daire, a king. fintain, a blind man. barach, a fool. a young man. young kings and old kings. scene: a great hall by the sea close to dundalgan. there are two great chairs on either side of the hall, each raised a little from the ground, and on the back of the one chair is carved and painted a woman with a fish's tail, and on the back of the other a hound. there are smaller chairs and benches raised in tiers round the walls. there is a great ale vat at one side near a small door, & a large door at the back through which one can see the sea. barach, a tall thin man with long ragged hair, dressed in skins, comes in at the side door. he is leading fintain, a fat blind man, who is somewhat older. barach. i will shut the door, for this wind out of the sea gets into my bones, and if i leave but an inch for the wind there is one like a flake of sea-frost that might come into the house. fintain. what is his name, fool? barach. it's a woman from among the riders of the sidhe. it's boann herself from the river. she has left the dagda's bed, and gone through the salt of the sea & up here to the strand of baile, and all for love of me. let her keep her husband's bed, for she'll have none of me. nobody knows how lecherous these goddesses are. i see her in every kind of shape but oftener than not she's in the wind and cries 'give a kiss and put your arms about me.' but no, she'll have no more of me. yesterday when i put out my lips to kiss her, there was nothing there but the wind. she's bad, fintain. o, she's bad. i had better shut the big door too. (he is going towards the big door but turns hearing fintain's voice.) fintain. (who has been feeling about with his stick.) what's this and this? barach. they are chairs. fintain. and this? barach. why, that's a bench. fintain. and this? barach. a big chair. fintain. (feeling the back of the chair.) there is a sea-woman carved upon it. barach. and there is another big chair on the other side of the hall. fintain. lead me to it. (he mutters while the fool is leading him.) that is what the high king concobar has on his shield. the high king will be coming. they have brought out his chair. (he begins feeling the back of the other chair.) and there is a dog's head on this. they have brought out our master's chair. now i know what the horse-boys were talking about. we must not stay here. the kings are going to meet here. now that concobar and our master, that is his chief man, have put down all the enemies of ullad, they are going to build up emain again. they are going to talk over their plans for building it. were you ever in concobar's town before it was burnt? o, he is a great king, for though emain was burnt down, every war had made him richer. he has gold and silver dishes, and chessboards and candle-sticks made of precious stones. fool, have they taken the top from the ale vat? barach. they have. fintain. then bring me a horn of ale quickly, for the kings will be here in a minute. now i can listen. tell me what you saw this morning? barach. about the young man and the fighting? fintain. yes. barach. and after that we can go and eat the fowl, for i am hungry. fintain. time enough, time enough. you're in as great a hurry as when you brought me to aine's seat, where the mad dogs gather when the moon's at the full. go on with your story. barach. i was creeping under a ditch, with the fowl in my leather bag, keeping to the shore where the farmer could not see me, when i came upon a ship drawn up upon the sands, a great red ship with a woman's head upon it. fintain. a ship out of aoife's country. they have all a woman's head on the bow. barach. there was a young man with a pale face and red hair standing beside it. some of our people came up whose turn it was to guard the shore. i heard them ask the young man his name. he said he was under bonds not to tell it. then words came between them, and they fought, & the young man killed half of them, and the others ran away. fintain. it matters nothing to us, but he has come at last. barach. who has come? fintain. i know who that young man is. there is not another like him in the world. i saw him when i had my eyesight. barach. you saw him? fintain. i used to be in aoife's country when i had my eyesight. barach. that was before you went on shipboard and were blinded for putting a curse on the wind? fintain. queen aoife had a son that was red haired and pale faced like herself, and everyone said that he would kill cuchullain some day, but i would not have that spoken of. barach. nobody could do that. who was his father? fintain. nobody but aoife knew that, not even he himself. barach. not even he himself! was aoife a goddess & lecherous? fintain. i overheard her telling that she never had but one lover, and that he was the only man who overcame her in battle. there were some who thought him one of the riders of the sidhe, because the child was great of limb and strong beyond others. the child was begotten over the mountains; but come nearer and i will tell you something. barach. you have thought something? fintain. when i hear the young girls talking about the colour of cuchullain's eyes, & how they have seven colours, i have thought about it. that young man has aoife's face and hair, but he has cuchullain's eyes. barach. how can he have cuchullain's eyes? fintain. he is cuchullain's son. barach. and his mother has sent him hither to fight his father. fintain. it is all quite plain. cuchullain went into aoife's country when he was a young man that he might learn skill in arms, and there he became aoife's lover. barach. and now she hates him because he went away, and has sent the son to kill the father. i knew she was a goddess. fintain. and she never told him who his father was, that he might do it. i have thought it all out, fool. i know a great many things because i listen when nobody is noticing and i keep my wits awake. what ails you now? barach. i have remembered that i am hungry. fintain. well, forget it again, and i will tell you about aoife's country. it is full of wonders. there are a great many queens there who can change themselves into wolves and into swine and into white hares, and when they are in their own shapes they are stronger than almost any man; and there are young men there who have cat's eyes and if a bird chirrup or a mouse squeak they cannot keep them shut even though it is bedtime and they sleepy; and listen, for this is a great wonder, a very great wonder, there is a long narrow bridge, and when anybody goes to cross it, that the queens do not like, it flies up as this bench would if you were to sit on the end of it. everybody who goes there to learn skill in arms has to cross it. it was in that country too that cuchullain got his spear made out of dragon bones. there were two dragons fighting in the foam of the sea, & their grandam was the moon, and six queens came along the shore. barach. i won't listen to your story. fintain. it is a very wonderful story. wait till you hear what the six queens did. their right hands were all made of silver. barach. no, i will have my dinner first. you have eaten the fowl i left in front of the fire. the last time you sent me to steal something you made me forget all about it till you had eaten it up. fintain. no, there is plenty for us both. barach. come with me where it is. fintain. (who is being led towards the door at the back by barach.) o, it is all right, it is in a safe place. barach. it is a fine fowl. it was the biggest in the yard. fintain. it had a good smell, but i hope that the wild dogs have not smelt it. (voices are heard outside the door at the side.) here is our master. let us stay and talk with him. perhaps cuchullain will give you a new cap with a feather. he told me that he would give you a new cap with a feather, a feather with an eye that looks at you, a peacock's feather. barach. no, no. (he begins pulling fintain towards the door.) fintain. if you do not get it now, you may never get it, for the young man may kill him. barach. no, no, i am hungry. what a head you have, blind man. who but you would have remembered that the hen-wife slept for a little at noon every day. fintain. (who is being led along very slowly and unwillingly.) yes, i have a good head. the fowl should be done just right, but one never knows when a wild dog may come out of the woods. (they go out through the big door at the back. as they go out cuchullain & certain young kings come in at the side door. cuchullain though still young is a good deal older than the others. they are all very gaily dressed, and have their hair fastened with balls of gold. the young men crowd about cuchullain with wondering attention.) first young king. you have hurled that stone beyond our utmost mark time after time, but yet you are not weary. second young king. he has slept on the bare ground of fuad's hill this week past, waiting for the bulls and the deer. cuchullain. well, why should i be weary? first young king. it is certain his father was the god who wheels the sun, and not king sualtam. third young king. (to a young king who is beside him.) he came in the dawn, and folded dectara in a sudden fire. fourth young king. and yet the mother's half might well grow weary, and it new come from labours over sea. third young king. he has been on islands walled about with silver, and fought with giants. (they gather about the ale vat and begin to drink.) cuchullain. who was it that went out? third young king. as we came in? cuchullain. yes. third young king. barach and blind fintain. cuchullain. they always flock together; the blind man has need of the fool's eyesight and strong body, while the poor fool has need of the other's wit, and night and day is up to his ears in mischief that the blind man imagines. there's no hen-yard but clucks and cackles when he passes by as if he'd been a fox. if i'd that ball that's in your hair and the big stone again, i'd keep them tossing, though the one is heavy and the other light in the hand. a trick i learnt when i was learning arms in aoife's country. first young king. what kind of woman was that aoife? cuchullain. comely. first young king. but i have heard that she was never married, and yet that's natural, for i have never known a fighting woman, but made her favours cheap, or mocked at love till she grew sandy dry. cuchullain. what manner of woman do you like the best? a gentle or a fierce. first young king. a gentle surely. cuchullain. i think that a fierce woman's better, a woman that breaks away when you have thought her won, for i'd be fed and hungry at one time. i think that all deep passion is but a kiss in the mid battle, and a difficult peace 'twixt oil and water, candles and dark night, hill-side and hollow, the hot-footed sun, and the cold sliding slippery-footed moon, a brief forgiveness between opposites that have been hatreds for three times the age of his long 'stablished ground. here's concobar; so i'll be done, but keep beside me still, for while he talks of hammered bronze and asks what wood is best for building, we can talk of a fierce woman. (concobar, a man much older than cuchullain, has come in through the great door at the back. he has many kings about him. one of these kings, daire, a stout old man, is somewhat drunk.) concobar. (to one of those about him.) has the ship gone yet? we have need of more bronze workers and that ship i sent to africa for gold is late. cuchullain. i knew their talk. concobar. (seeing cuchullain.) you are before us, king. cuchullain. so much the better, for i welcome you into my muirthemne. concobar. but who are these? the odour from their garments when they stir is like a wind out of an apple garden. cuchullain. my swordsmen and harp players and fine dancers, my bosom friends. concobar. i should have thought, cuchullain, my graver company would better match your greatness and your years; but i waste breath in harping on that tale. cuchullain. you do, great king. because their youth is the kind wandering wave that carries me about the world; and if it sank, my sword would lose its lightness. concobar. yet, cuchullain, emain should be the foremost town of the world. cuchullain. it is the foremost town. concobar. no, no, it's not. nothing but men can make towns great, and he, the one over-topping man that's in the world, keeps far away. daire. he will not hear you, king, and we old men had best keep company with one another. i'll fill the horn for you. concobar. i will not drink, old fool. you have drunk a horn at every door we came to. daire. you'd better drink, for old men light upon their youth again in the brown ale. when i have drunk enough, i am like cuchullain as one pea another, and live like a bird's flight from tree to tree. concobar. we'll to our chairs for we have much to talk of, and we have ullad and muirthemne, and here is conall muirthemne in the nick of time. (he goes to the back of stage to welcome a company of kings who come in through the great door. the other kings gradually get into their places. cuchullain sits in his great chair with certain of the young men standing around him. others of the young men, however, remain with daire at the ale vat. daire holds out the horn of ale to one or two of the older kings as they pass him going to their places. they pass him by, most of them silently refusing.) daire. will you not drink? an old king. not till the council's over. a young king. but i'll drink, daire. another young king. fill me a horn too, daire. another young king. if i'd drunk half that you have drunk to-day, i'd be upon all fours. daire. that would be natural when mother earth had given you this good milk from her great breasts. cuchullain. (to one of the young kings beside him) one is content awhile with a soft warm woman who folds up our lives in silky network. then, one knows not why, but one's away after a flinty heart. the young king. how long can the net keep us? cuchullain. all our lives if there are children, and a dozen moons if there are none, because a growing child has so much need of watching it can make a passion that's as changeable as the sea change till it holds the wide earth to its heart. at least i have heard a father say it, but i being childless do not know it. come nearer yet; though he is ringing that old silver rod we'll have our own talk out. they cannot hear us. (concobar who is now seated in his great chair, opposite cuchullain, beats upon the pillar of the house that is nearest to him with a rod of silver, till the kings have become silent. cuchullain alone continues to talk in a low voice to those about him, but not so loud as to disturb the silence. concobar rises and speaks standing.) concobar. i have called you hither, kings of ullad, and kings of muirthemne and connall muirthemne, and tributary kings, for now there is peace- it's time to build up emain that was burned at the outsetting of these wars; for we, being the foremost men, should have high chairs and be much stared at and wondered at, and speak out of more laughing overflowing hearts than common men. it is the art of kings to make what's noble nobler in men's eyes by wide uplifted roofs, where beaten gold, that's ruddy with desire, marries pale silver among the shadowing beams; and many a time i would have called you hither to this work, but always, when i'd all but summoned you, some war or some rebellion would break out. daire. where's maine morgor and old usnach's children, and that high-headed even-walking queen, and many near as great that got their death because you hated peace. i can remember the people crying out when deirdre passed and maine morgor had a cold grey eye. well, well, i'll throw this heel-tap on the ground, for it may be they are thirsty. a king. be silent, fool. another king. be silent, daire. concobar. let him speak his mind. i have no need to be afraid of ghosts, for i have made but necessary wars. i warred to strengthen emain, or because when wars are out they marry and beget and have their generations like mankind and there's no help for it; but i'm well content that they have ended and left the town so great, that its mere name shall be in times to come like a great ale vat where the men of the world shall drink no common ale but the hard will, the unquenchable hope, the friendliness of the sword. (he takes thin boards on which plans have been carved by those about him.) give me the building plans, and have you written that we--cuchullain is looking in his shield; it may be the pale riders of the wind throw pictures on it, or that mananan, his father's friend and sometime fosterer, foreknower of all things, has cast a vision, out of the cold dark of the rich sea, foretelling emain's greatness. cuchullain. no, great king, i looked on this out of mere idleness, imagining a woman that i loved. (the sound of a trumpet without.) concobar. open the door, for that is a herald's trumpet. (the great door at the back is flung open; a young man who is fully armed and carries a shield with a woman's head painted on it, stands upon the threshold. behind him are trumpeters. he walks into the centre of the hall, the trumpeting ceases.) what is your message? young man. i am of aoife's army. first king. queen aoife and her army have fallen upon us. second king. out swords! out swords! third king. they are about the house. fourth king. rush out! rush out! before they have fired the thatch. young man. aoife is far away. i am alone. i have come alone in the midst of you to weigh this sword against cuchullain's sword. (there is a murmur amongst the kings.) concobar. and are you noble? for if of common seed you cannot weigh your sword against his sword but in mixed battle. young man. i am under bonds to tell my name to no man, but it's noble. concobar. but i would know your name and not your bonds. you cannot speak in the assembly house if you are not noble. a king. answer the high king. young man. (drawing his sword.) i will give no other proof than the hawk gives that it's no sparrow. (he is silent a moment then speaks to all.) yet look upon me, kings; i too am of that ancient seed and carry the signs about this body and in these bones. cuchullain. to have shown the hawk's grey feather is enough and you speak highly too. (cuchullain comes down from his great chair. he remains standing on the steps of the chair. the young kings gather about him and begin to arm him.) give me that helmet! i'd thought they had grown weary sending champions. that coat will do. i'd half forgotten, boy, how all those great kings came into the mouse-trap that had been baited with maeve's pretty daughter. how findabair, that blue-eyed findabair- but the tale is worthy of a winter's night. that buckle should be tighter. give me your shield. there is good level ground at baile's yew-tree some dozen yards from here, and it's but truth that i am sad to-day and this fight welcome. (he looks hard at the young man, and then steps down on to the floor of the assembly house. he grasps the young man by the shoulder.) hither into the light. (turning to one of the young kings) that's the very tint of her that i was speaking of but now: not a pin's difference. (to the young man) you are from the north where there are many that have that tint of hair red brown, the light red brown. come nearer, boy! for i would have another look at you. there's more likeness, a pale, a stone pale cheek. what brought you, boy? have you no fear of death? young man. whether i live or die is in the gods' hands. cuchullain. that is all words, all words, a young man's talk; i am their plough, their harrow, their very strength, for he that's in the sun begot this body upon a mortal woman, and i have heard tell it seemed as if he had outrun the moon, that he must always follow through waste heaven, he loved so happily. he'll be but slow to break a tree that was so sweetly planted. let's see that arm; i'll see it if i like. that arm had a good father and a good mother but it is not like this. young man. you are mocking me. you think i am not worthy to be fought, but i'll not wrangle but with this talkative knife. cuchullain. put up your sword, i am not mocking you. i'd have you for my friend, but if it's not because you have a hot heart and a cold eye i cannot tell the reason. you've got her fierceness, and nobody is as fierce as those pale women. (to the young kings) we'll keep him here in muirthemne awhile. a young king. you are the leader of our pack and therefore may cry what you will. cuchullain. you'll stop with us and we will hunt the deer and the wild bulls and, when we have grown weary, light our fires in sandy places where the wool-white foam is murmuring and breaking, and it may be that long-haired women will come out of the dunes to dance in the yellow fire-light. you hang your head, young man, as if it was not a good life; and yet what's better than to hurl the spear, and hear the long-remembering harp, and dance; friendship grows quicker in the murmuring dark; but i can see there's no more need for words and that you'll be my friend now. first old king. concobar, forbid their friendship, for it will get twisted to a reproach against us. concobar. until now i'd never need to cry cuchullain on and would not now. first old king. they'll say his manhood's quenched. cuchullain. i'll give you gifts, but i'll have something too, an arm-ring or the like, and if you will we'll fight it out when you are older, boy. an old king. aoife will make some story out of this. cuchullain. well, well, what matter, i'll have that arm-ring, boy. young man. there is no man i'd sooner have my friend than you whose name has gone about the world as if it had been the wind, but aoife'd say i had turned coward. cuchullain. i'll give you gifts that aoife'll know and all her people know to have been my gifts. mananan son of the sea gave me this heavy purple cloak. nine queens of the land-under-wave had woven it out of the fleeces of the sea. o! tell her i was afraid, or tell her what you will. no! tell her that i heard a raven croak on the north side of the house and was afraid. an old king. some witch of the air has troubled cuchullain's mind. cuchullain. no witchcraft, his head is like a woman's head i had a fancy for. second old king. a witch of the air can make a leaf confound us with memories. they have gone to school to learn the trick of it. cuchullain. but there's no trick in this. that arm-ring, boy. third old king. he shall not go unfought, i'll fight with him. fourth old king. no! i will fight with him. first old king. i claim the fight, for when we sent an army to her land-second old king. i claim the fight, for one of aoife's galleys stole my great cauldron and a herd of pigs. third old king. no, no, i claim it, for at lammas' time-cuchullain. back! back! put up your swords! put up your swords! there's none alive that shall accept a challenge i have refused. laegaire, put up your sword. young man. no, let them come, let any three together. if they've a mind to, i'll try it out with four. cuchullain. that's spoken as i'd spoken it at your age, but you are in my house. whatever man would fight with you shall fight it out with me. they're dumb. they're dumb. how many of you would meet (drawing his sword) this mutterer, this old whistler, this sand-piper, this edge that's greyer than the tide, this mouse that's gnawing at the timbers of the world, this, this--boy, i would meet them all in arms if i'd a son like you. he would avenge me when i have withstood for the last time the men whose fathers, brothers, sons, and friends i have killed upholding ullad; when the four provinces have gathered with the ravens over them. but i'd need no avenger. you and i would scatter them like water from a dish. young man. we'll stand by one another from this out. here is the ring. cuchullain. no, turn and turn about but my turn is first, because i am the older. cliodna embroidered these bird wings, but fand made all these little golden eyes with the hairs that she had stolen out of aengus' beard, and therefore none that has this cloak about him is crossed in love. the heavy inlaid brooch that buan hammered has a merit too. (he begins spreading the cloak out on a bench, showing it to the young man. suddenly concobar beats with his silver rod on a pillar beside his chair. all turn towards him.) concobar. (in a loud voice.) no more of that, i will not have this friendship. cuchullain is my man and i forbid it; he shall not go unfought for i myself-cuchullain. (seizing concobar.) you shall not stir, high king, i'll hold you there. concobar. witchcraft has maddened you. the kings. (shouting.) yes, witchcraft, witchcraft. a king. you saw another's head upon his shoulders all of a sudden, a woman's head, cuchullain, then raised your hand against the king of ullad. cuchullain. (letting concobar go, and looking wildly about him.) yes, yes, all of a sudden, all of a sudden. daire. why, there's no witchcraft in it, i myself have made a hundred of these sudden friendships and fought it out next day. but that was folly, for now that i am old i know it is best to live in comfort. a king. pull the fool away. daire. i'll throw a heel-tap to the one that dies. concobar. some witch is floating in the air above us. cuchullain. yes, witchcraft, witchcraft and the power of witchcraft. (to the young man) why did you do it? was it calatin's daughters? out, out, i say, for now it's sword on sword. young man. but, but, i did not. cuchullain. out, i say, out, out! sword upon sword. (he goes towards the door at back, followed by young man. he turns on the threshold and cries out, looking at the young man.) that hair my hands were drowned in! (he goes out, followed by young man. the other kings begin to follow them out.) a king. i saw him fight with ferdiad. second king. we'll be too late they're such a long time getting through the door. third king. run quicker, quicker. daire. i was at the smith's when he that was the boy setanta then- (sound of fighting outside.) third king. he will have killed him. they have begun the fight! (they all go out, leaving the house silent and empty. there is a pause during which one hears the clashing of the swords. barach and fintain come in from side door. barach is dragging fintain.) barach. you have eaten it, you have eaten it, you have left me nothing but the bones. fintain. o, that i should have to endure such a plague. o, i ache all over. o, i am pulled in pieces. this is the way you pay me all the good i have done you! barach. you have eaten it, you have told me lies about a wild dog. nobody has seen a wild dog about the place this twelve month. lie there till the kings come. o, i will tell concobar and cuchullain and all the kings about you! fintain. what would have happened to you but for me, and you without your wits. if i did not take care of you what would you do for food and warmth! barach. you take care of me? you stay safe and send me into every kind of danger. you sent me down the cliff for gull's eggs while you warmed your blind eyes in the sun. and then you ate all that were good for food. you left me the eggs that were neither egg nor bird. (the blind man tries to rise. barach makes him lie down again.) keep quiet now till i shut the door. there is some noise outside. there are swords crossing; a high vexing noise so that i can't be listening to myself. (he goes to the big door at the back and shuts it.) why can't they be quiet, why can't they be quiet. ah, you would get away, would you? (he follows the blind man who has been crawling along the wall and makes him lie down close to the king's chair.) lie there, lie there. no, you won't get away. lie there till the kings come, i'll tell them all about you. i shall tell it all. how you sit warming yourself, when you have made me light a fire of sticks, while i sit blowing it with my mouth. do you not always make me take the windy side of the bush when it blows and the rainy side when it rains? fintain. o good fool, listen to me. think of the care i have taken of you. i have brought you to many a warm hearth, where there was a good welcome for you, but you would not stay there, you were always wandering about. barach. the last time you brought me in, it was not i who wandered away, but you that got put out because you took the crubeen out of the pot, when you thought nobody was looking. keep quiet now, keep quiet till i shut the door. here is cuchullain, now you will be beaten. i am going to tell him everything. cuchullain. (comes in and says to the fool) give me that horn. (the fool gives him a horn which cuchullain fills with ale and drinks.) fintain. do not listen to him, listen to me. cuchullain. what are you wrangling over? barach. he is fat and good for nothing. he has left me the bones and the feathers. cuchullain. what feathers? barach. i left him turning a fowl at the fire. he ate it all. he left me nothing but the bones and feathers. fintain. do not believe him. you do not know how vain this fool is. i gave him the feathers, because i thought he would like nothing so well. (barach is sitting on a bench playing with a heap of feathers which he has taken out of the breast of his coat.) barach. (singing) when you were an acorn on the tree top-fintain. where would he be but for me? i must be always thinking, thinking to get food for the two of us, and when we've got it, if the moon's at the full or the tide on the turn, he'll leave the rabbit in its snare till it is full of maggots, or let the trout slip through his hands back into the water. barach. (singing) when you were an acorn on the tree top, then was i an eagle cock; now that you are a withered old block, still am i an eagle cock! fintain. listen to him now! that's the sort of talk i have to put up with day out day in. (the fool is putting the feathers into his hair. cuchullain takes a handful of feathers out of the heap and out of the fool's hair and begins to wipe the blood from his sword with them.) barach. he has taken my feathers to wipe his sword. it is blood that he is wiping from his sword! fintain. whose blood? whose blood? cuchullain. that young champion's. fintain. he that came out of aoife's country? cuchullain. the kings are standing round his body. fintain. did he fight long? cuchullain. he thought to have saved himself with witchcraft. barach. that blind man there said he would kill you. he came from aoife's country to kill you. that blind man said they had taught him every kind of weapon that he might do it. but i always knew that you would kill him. cuchullain. (to the blind man.) you knew him, then? fintain. i saw him when i had my eyes, in aoife's country. cuchullain. you were in aoife's country? fintain. i knew him and his mother there. cuchullain. he was about to speak of her when he died. fintain. he was a queen's son. cuchullain. what queen, what queen? (he seizes the blind man.) was it scathach? there were many queens. all the rulers there were queens. fintain. no, not scathach. cuchullain. it was uathach then. speak, speak! fintain. i cannot speak, you are clutching me too tightly. (cuchullain lets him go.) i cannot remember who it was. i am not certain. it was some queen. barach. he said a while ago that the young man was aoife's son. cuchullain. she? no, no, she had no son when i was there. barach. that blind man there said that she owned him for her son. cuchullain. i had rather he had been some other woman's son. what father had he? a soldier out of alba? she was an amorous woman, a proud pale amorous woman. fintain. none knew whose son he was. cuchullain. none knew? did you know, old listener at doors? fintain. no, no, i knew nothing. barach. he said a while ago that he heard aoife boast that she'd never but the one lover, and he the only man that had overcome her in battle. (a pause.) fintain. somebody is trembling. why are you trembling, fool? the bench is shaking, why are you trembling? is cuchullain going to hurt us? it was not i who told you, cuchullain. barach. it is cuchullain who is trembling. he is shaking the bench with his knees. cuchullain. he was my son, and i have killed my son. (a pause.) 'twas they that did it, the pale windy people, where, where, where? my sword against the thunder. but no, for they have always been my friends; and though they love to blow a smoking coal till it's all flame, the wars they blow aflame are full of glory, and heart uplifting pride, and not like this; the wars they love awaken old fingers and the sleepy strings of harps. who did it then? are you afraid; speak out, for i have put you under my protection and will reward you well. dubthach the chafer. he had an old grudge. no, for he is with maeve. laegaire did it. why do you not speak? what is this house? (a pause.) now i remember all. fintain. he will kill us. o, i am afraid! cuchullain. (who is before concobar's chair.) 'twas you who did it, you who sat up there with that old branch of silver, like a magpie nursing a stolen spoon. magpie, magpie, a maggot that is eating up the earth! (begins hacking at the chair with his sword.) no, but a magpie for he's flown away. where did he fly to? fintain. he is outside the door. cuchullain. outside the door? fintain. he is under baile's yew-tree. cuchullain. concobar, concobar, the sword into your heart. (he goes out. a pause. the fool goes to the great door at back and looks out after him.) barach. he is going up to king concobar; they are all under the tree. no, no, he is standing still. there is a great wave going to break and he is looking at it. ah! now he is running down to the sea, but he is holding up his sword as if he were going into a fight. (a pause.) well struck, well struck! fintain. what is he doing now? barach. o! he is fighting the waves. fintain. he sees king concobar's crown on every one of them. barach. there, he has struck at a big one. he has struck the crown off it, he has made the foam fly. there again another big one. (shouting without.) fintain. where are the kings? what are the kings doing? barach. they are shouting and running down to the shore, and the people are running out of the houses, they are all running. fintain. you say they are running out of the houses, there will be nobody left in the houses. listen, fool. barach. there, he is down! he is up again! he is going out into the deep water. fintain. come here, fool; come here, i say. barach. (coming towards him but looking backward towards the door.) what is it? fintain. there will be nobody in the houses. come this way, come quickly; the ovens will be full; we will put our hands into the ovens. (they go out.) essays, etc. _by_ william butler yeats "leader of one of the most notable contemporary movements--the celtic revival in ireland, decidedly a force to be reckoned with both at the present moment and in the future."--_boston transcript._ the celtic twilight with portrait and some new chapters. $1.50, _net_. "subtle, elusive, keen with insight, and beautiful with the haunting beauty of the aptly chosen word ... a veritable contribution to literature."--_the new york herald._ ideas of good and evil cloth. 12mo. $1.50, _net_. "the best book of its kind that has appeared since maeterlinck's 'buried temple,' full of deep thought, of excellent criticism, and of beautiful writing."--london letter to the _chicago evening post_. where there is nothing vol. i. of "plays for an irish theatre." cloth. $1.25, _net_. large paper limited edition (100 numbered copies) on japanese vellum, $5.00, _net_. the macmillan company, publishers 66 fifth avenue, new york stories of red hanrahan by w.b. yeats contents. stories of red hanrahan: red hanrahan the twisting of the rope hanrahan and cathleen the daughter of hoolihan red hanrahan's curse hanrahan's vision the death of hanrahan i owe thanks to lady gregory, who helped me to rewrite the stories of red hanrahan in the beautiful country speech of kiltartan, and nearer to the tradition of the people among whom he, or some likeness of him, drifted and is remembered. red hanrahan. hanrahan, the hedge schoolmaster, a tall, strong, red-haired young man, came into the barn where some of the men of the village were sitting on samhain eve. it had been a dwelling-house, and when the man that owned it had built a better one, he had put the two rooms together, and kept it for a place to store one thing or another. there was a fire on the old hearth, and there were dip candles stuck in bottles, and there was a black quart bottle upon some boards that had been put across two barrels to make a table. most of the men were sitting beside the fire, and one of them was singing a long wandering song, about a munster man and a connaught man that were quarrelling about their two provinces. hanrahan went to the man of the house and said, 'i got your message'; but when he had said that, he stopped, for an old mountainy man that had a shirt and trousers of unbleached flannel, and that was sitting by himself near the door, was looking at him, and moving an old pack of cards about in his hands and muttering. 'don't mind him,' said the man of the house; 'he is only some stranger came in awhile ago, and we bade him welcome, it being samhain night, but i think he is not in his right wits. listen to him now and you will hear what he is saying.' they listened then, and they could hear the old man muttering to himself as he turned the cards, 'spades and diamonds, courage and power; clubs and hearts, knowledge and pleasure.' 'that is the kind of talk he has been going on with for the last hour,' said the man of the house, and hanrahan turned his eyes from the old man as if he did not like to be looking at him. 'i got your message,' hanrahan said then; '"he is in the barn with his three first cousins from kilchriest," the messenger said, "and there are some of the neighbours with them."' 'it is my cousin over there is wanting to see you,' said the man of the house, and he called over a young frieze-coated man, who was listening to the song, and said, 'this is red hanrahan you have the message for.' 'it is a kind message, indeed,' said the young man, 'for it comes from your sweetheart, mary lavelle.' 'how would you get a message from her, and what do you know of her?' 'i don't know her, indeed, but i was in loughrea yesterday, and a neighbour of hers that had some dealings with me was saying that she bade him send you word, if he met any one from this side in the market, that her mother has died from her, and if you have a mind yet to join with herself, she is willing to keep her word to you.' 'i will go to her indeed,' said hanrahan. 'and she bade you make no delay, for if she has not a man in the house before the month is out, it is likely the little bit of land will be given to another.' when hanrahan heard that, he rose up from the bench he had sat down on. 'i will make no delay indeed,' he said, 'there is a full moon, and if i get as far as gilchreist to-night, i will reach to her before the setting of the sun to-morrow.' when the others heard that, they began to laugh at him for being in such haste to go to his sweetheart, and one asked him if he would leave his school in the old lime-kiln, where he was giving the children such good learning. but he said the children would be glad enough in the morning to find the place empty, and no one to keep them at their task; and as for his school he could set it up again in any place, having as he had his little inkpot hanging from his neck by a chain, and his big virgil and his primer in the skirt of his coat. some of them asked him to drink a glass before he went, and a young man caught hold of his coat, and said he must not leave them without singing the song he had made in praise of venus and of mary lavelle. he drank a glass of whiskey, but he said he would not stop but would set out on his journey. 'there's time enough, red hanrahan,' said the man of the house. 'it will be time enough for you to give up sport when you are after your marriage, and it might be a long time before we will see you again.' 'i will not stop,' said hanrahan; 'my mind would be on the roads all the time, bringing me to the woman that sent for me, and she lonesome and watching till i come.' some of the others came about him, pressing him that had been such a pleasant comrade, so full of songs and every kind of trick and fun, not to leave them till the night would be over, but he refused them all, and shook them off, and went to the door. but as he put his foot over the threshold, the strange old man stood up and put his hand that was thin and withered like a bird's claw on hanrahan's hand, and said: 'it is not hanrahan, the learned man and the great songmaker, that should go out from a gathering like this, on a samhain night. and stop here, now,' he said, 'and play a hand with me; and here is an old pack of cards has done its work many a night before this, and old as it is, there has been much of the riches of the world lost and won over it.' one of the young men said, 'it isn't much of the riches of the world has stopped with yourself, old man,' and he looked at the old man's bare feet, and they all laughed. but hanrahan did not laugh, but he sat down very quietly, without a word. then one of them said, 'so you will stop with us after all, hanrahan'; and the old man said: 'he will stop indeed, did you not hear me asking him?' they all looked at the old man then as if wondering where he came from. 'it is far i am come,' he said, 'through france i have come, and through spain, and by lough greine of the hidden mouth, and none has refused me anything.' and then he was silent and nobody liked to question him, and they began to play. there were six men at the boards playing, and the others were looking on behind. they played two or three games for nothing, and then the old man took a fourpenny bit, worn very thin and smooth, out from his pocket, and he called to the rest to put something on the game. then they all put down something on the boards, and little as it was it looked much, from the way it was shoved from one to another, first one man winning it and then his neighbour. and some-times the luck would go against a man and he would have nothing left, and then one or another would lend him something, and he would pay it again out of his winnings, for neither good nor bad luck stopped long with anyone. and once hanrahan said as a man would say in a dream, 'it is time for me to be going the road'; but just then a good card came to him, and he played it out, and all the money began to come to him. and once he thought of mary lavelle, and he sighed; and that time his luck went from him, and he forgot her again. but at last the luck went to the old man and it stayed with him, and all they had flowed into him, and he began to laugh little laughs to himself, and to sing over and over to himself, 'spades and diamonds, courage and power,' and so on, as if it was a verse of a song. and after a while anyone looking at the men, and seeing the way their bodies were rocking to and fro, and the way they kept their eyes on the old man's hands, would think they had drink taken, or that the whole store they had in the world was put on the cards; but that was not so, for the quart bottle had not been disturbed since the game began, and was nearly full yet, and all that was on the game was a few sixpenny bits and shillings, and maybe a handful of coppers. 'you are good men to win and good men to lose,' said the old man, 'you have play in your hearts.' he began then to shuffle the cards and to mix them, very quick and fast, till at last they could not see them to be cards at all, but you would think him to be making rings of fire in the air, as little lads would make them with whirling a lighted stick; and after that it seemed to them that all the room was dark, and they could see nothing but his hands and the cards. and all in a minute a hare made a leap out from between his hands, and whether it was one of the cards that took that shape, or whether it was made out of nothing in the palms of his hands, nobody knew, but there it was running on the floor of the barn, as quick as any hare that ever lived. some looked at the hare, but more kept their eyes on the old man, and while they were looking at him a hound made a leap out between his hands, the same way as the hare did, and after that another hound and another, till there was a whole pack of them following the hare round and round the barn. the players were all standing up now, with their backs to the boards, shrinking from the hounds, and nearly deafened with the noise of their yelping, but as quick as the hounds were they could not overtake the hare, but it went round, till at the last it seemed as if a blast of wind burst open the barn door, and the hare doubled and made a leap over the boards where the men had been playing, and went out of the door and away through the night, and the hounds over the boards and through the door after it. then the old man called out, 'follow the hounds, follow the hounds, and it is a great hunt you will see to-night,' and he went out after them. but used as the men were to go hunting after hares, and ready as they were for any sport, they were in dread to go out into the night, and it was only hanrahan that rose up and that said, 'i will follow, i will follow on.' 'you had best stop here, hanrahan,' the young man that was nearest him said, 'for you might be going into some great danger.' but hanrahan said, 'i will see fair play, i will see fair play,' and he went stumbling out of the door like a man in a dream, and the door shut after him as he went. he thought he saw the old man in front of him, but it was only his own shadow that the full moon cast on the road before him, but he could hear the hounds crying after the hare over the wide green fields of granagh, and he followed them very fast for there was nothing to stop him; and after a while he came to smaller fields that had little walls of loose stones around them, and he threw the stones down as he crossed them, and did not wait to put them up again; and he passed by the place where the river goes under ground at ballylee, and he could hear the hounds going before him up towards the head of the river. soon he found it harder to run, for it was uphill he was going, and clouds came over the moon, and it was hard for him to see his way, and once he left the path to take a short cut, but his foot slipped into a boghole and he had to come back to it. and how long he was going he did not know, or what way he went, but at last he was up on the bare mountain, with nothing but the rough heather about him, and he could neither hear the hounds nor any other thing. but their cry began to come to him again, at first far off and then very near, and when it came quite close to him, it went up all of a sudden into the air, and there was the sound of hunting over his head; then it went away northward till he could hear nothing more at all. 'that's not fair,' he said, 'that's not fair.' and he could walk no longer, but sat down on the heather where he was, in the heart of slieve echtge, for all the strength had gone from him, with the dint of the long journey he had made. and after a while he took notice that there was a door close to him, and a light coming from it, and he wondered that being so close to him he had not seen it before. and he rose up, and tired as he was he went in at the door, of and although it was night time outside, it was daylight he found within. and presently he met with an old man that had been gathering summer thyme and yellow flag-flowers, and it seemed as if all the sweet smells of the summer were with them. and the old man said: 'it is a long time you have been coming to us, hanrahan the learned man and the great songmaker.' and with that he brought him into a very big shining house, and every grand thing hanrahan had ever heard of, and every colour he had ever seen, were in it. there was a high place at the end of the house, and on it there was sitting in a high chair a woman, the most beautiful the world ever saw, having a long pale face and flowers about it, but she had the tired look of one that had been long waiting. and there was sitting on the step below her chair four grey old women, and the one of them was holding a great cauldron in her lap; and another a great stone on her knees, and heavy as it was it seemed light to her; and another of them had a very long spear that was made of pointed wood; and the last of them had a sword that was without a scabbard. red hanrahan stood looking at them for a long hanrahan-time, but none of them spoke any word to him or looked at him at all. and he had it in his mind to ask who that woman in the chair was, that was like a queen, and what she was waiting for; but ready as he was with his tongue and afraid of no person, he was in dread now to speak to so beautiful a woman, and in so grand a place. and then he thought to ask what were the four things the four grey old women were holding like great treasures, but he could not think of the right words to bring out. then the first of the old women rose up, holding the cauldron between her two hands, and she said 'pleasure,' and hanrahan said no word. then the second old woman rose up with the stone in her hands, and she said 'power'; and the third old woman rose up with the spear in her hand, and she said 'courage'; and the last of the old women rose up having the sword in her hands, and she said 'knowledge.' and everyone, after she had spoken, waited as if for hanrahan to question her, but he said nothing at all. and then the four old women went out of the door, bringing their tour treasures with them, and as they went out one of them said, 'he has no wish for us'; and another said, 'he is weak, he is weak'; and another said, 'he is afraid'; and the last said, 'his wits are gone from him.' and then they all said 'echtge, daughter of the silver hand, must stay in her sleep. it is a pity, it is a great pity.' and then the woman that was like a queen gave a very sad sigh, and it seemed to hanrahan as if the sigh had the sound in it of hidden streams; and if the place he was in had been ten times grander and more shining than it was, he could not have hindered sleep from coming on him; and he staggered like a drunken man and lay down there and then. when hanrahan awoke, the sun was shining on his face, but there was white frost on the grass around him, and there was ice on the edge of the stream he was lying by, and that goes running on through daire-caol and druim-da-rod. he knew by the shape of the hills and by the shining of lough greine in the distance that he was upon one of the hills of slieve echtge, but he was not sure how he came there; for all that had happened in the barn had gone from him, and all of his journey but the soreness of his feet and the stiffness in his bones. it was a year after that, there were men of the village of cappaghtagle sitting by the fire in a house on the roadside, and red hanrahan that was now very thin and worn and his hair very long and wild, came to the half-door and asked leave to come in and rest himself; and they bid him welcome because it was samhain night. he sat down with them, and they gave him a glass of whiskey out of a quart bottle; and they saw the little inkpot hanging about his neck, and knew he was a scholar, and asked for stories about the greeks. he took the virgil out of the big pocket of his coat, but the cover was very black and swollen with the wet, and the page when he opened it was very yellow, but that was no great matter, for he looked at it like a man that had never learned to read. some young man that was there began to laugh at him then, and to ask why did he carry so heavy a book with him when he was not able to read it. it vexed hanrahan to hear that, and he put the virgil back in his pocket and asked if they had a pack of cards among them, for cards were better than books. when they brought out the cards he took them and began to shuffle them, and while he was shuffling them something seemed to come into his mind, and he put his hand to his face like one that is trying to remember, and he said: 'was i ever here before, or where was i on a night like this?' and then of a sudden he stood up and let the cards fall to the floor, and he said, 'who was it brought me a message from mary lavelle?' 'we never saw you before now, and we never heard of mary lavelle,' said the man of the house. 'and who is she,' he said, 'and what is it you are talking about?' 'it was this night a year ago, i was in a barn, and there were men playing cards, and there was money on the table, they were pushing it from one to another here and there--and i got a message, and i was going out of the door to look for my sweetheart that wanted me, mary lavelle.' and then hanrahan called out very loud: 'where have i been since then? where was i for the whole year?' 'it is hard to say where you might have been in that time,' said the oldest of the men, 'or what part of the world you may have travelled; and it is like enough you have the dust of many roads on your feet; for there are many go wandering and forgetting like that,' he said, 'when once they have been given the touch.' 'that is true,' said another of the men. 'i knew a woman went wandering like that through the length of seven years; she came back after, and she told her friends she had often been glad enough to eat the food that was put in the pig's trough. and it is best for you to go to the priest now,' he said, 'and let him take off you whatever may have been put upon you.' 'it is to my sweetheart i will go, to mary lavelle,' said hanrahan; 'it is too long i have delayed, how do i know what might have happened her in the length of a year?' he was going out of the door then, but they all told him it was best for him to stop the night, and to get strength for the journey; and indeed he wanted that, for he was very weak, and when they gave him food he eat it like a man that had never seen food before, and one of them said, 'he is eating as if he had trodden on the hungry grass.' it was in the white light of the morning he set out, and the time seemed long to him till he could get to mary lavelle's house. but when he came to it, he found the door broken, and the thatch dropping from the roof, and no living person to be seen. and when he asked the neighbours what had happened her, all they could say was that she had been put out of the house, and had married some labouring man, and they had gone looking for work to london or liverpool or some big place. and whether she found a worse place or a better he never knew, but anyway he never met with her or with news of her again. the twisting of the rope. hanrahan was walking the roads one time near kinvara at the fall of day, and he heard the sound of a fiddle from a house a little way off the roadside. he turned up the path to it, for he never had the habit of passing by any place where there was music or dancing or good company, without going in. the man of the house was standing at the door, and when hanrahan came near he knew him and he said: 'a welcome before you, hanrahan, you have been lost to us this long time.' but the woman of the house came to the door and she said to her husband: 'i would be as well pleased for hanrahan not to come in to-night, for he has no good name now among the priests, or with women that mind themselves, and i wouldn't wonder from his walk if he has a drop of drink taken.' but the man said, 'i will never turn away hanrahan of the poets from my door,' and with that he bade him enter. there were a good many neighbours gathered in the house, and some of them remembered hanrahan; but some of the little lads that were in the corners had only heard of him, and they stood up to have a view of him, and one of them said: 'is not that hanrahan that had the school, and that was brought away by them?' but his mother put her hand over his mouth and bade him be quiet, and not be saying things like that. 'for hanrahan is apt to grow wicked,' she said, 'if he hears talk of that story, or if anyone goes questioning him.' one or another called out then, asking him for a song, but the man of the house said it was no time to ask him for a song, before he had rested himself; and he gave him whiskey in a glass, and hanrahan thanked him and wished him good health and drank it off. the fiddler was tuning his fiddle for another dance, and the man of the house said to the young men, they would all know what dancing was like when they saw hanrahan dance, for the like of it had never been seen since he was there before. hanrahan said he would not dance, he had better use for his feet now, travelling as he was through the five provinces of ireland. just as he said that, there came in at the half-door oona, the daughter of the house, having a few bits of bog deal from connemara in her arms for the fire. she threw them on the hearth and the flame rose up, and showed her to be very comely and smiling, and two or three of the young men rose up and asked for a dance. but hanrahan crossed the floor and brushed the others away, and said it was with him she must dance, after the long road he had travelled before he came to her. and it is likely he said some soft word in her ear, for she said nothing against it, and stood out with him, and there were little blushes in her cheeks. then other couples stood up, but when the dance was going to begin, hanrahan chanced to look down, and he took notice of his boots that were worn and broken, and the ragged grey socks showing through them; and he said angrily it was a bad floor, and the music no great things, and he sat down in the dark place beside the hearth. but if he did, the girl sat down there with him. the dancing went on, and when that dance was over another was called for, and no one took much notice of oona and red hanrahan for a while, in the corner where they were. but the mother grew to be uneasy, and she called to oona to come and help her to set the table in the inner room. but oona that had never refused her before, said she would come soon, but not yet, for she was listening to whatever he was saying in her ear. the mother grew yet more uneasy then, and she would come nearer them, and let on to be stirring the fire or sweeping the hearth, and she would listen for a minute to hear what the poet was saying to her child. and one time she heard him telling about white-handed deirdre, and how she brought the sons of usnach to their death; and how the blush in her cheeks was not so red as the blood of kings' sons that was shed for her, and her sorrows had never gone out of mind; and he said it was maybe the memory of her that made the cry of the plover on the bog as sorrowful in the ear of the poets as the keening of young men for a comrade. and there would never have been that memory of her, he said, if it was not for the poets that had put her beauty in their songs. and the next time she did not well understand what he was saying, but as far as she could hear, it had the sound of poetry though it was not rhymed, and this is what she heard him say: 'the sun and the moon are the man and the girl, they are my life and your life, they are travelling and ever travelling through the skies as if under the one hood. it was god made them for one another. he made your life and my life before the beginning of the world, he made them that they might go through the world, up and down, like the two best dancers that go on with the dance up and down the long floor of the barn, fresh and laughing, when all the rest are tired out and leaning against the wall.' the old woman went then to where her husband was playing cards, but he would take no notice of her, and then she went to a woman of the neighbours and said: 'is there no way we can get them from one another?' and without waiting for an answer she said to some young men that were talking together: 'what good are you when you cannot make the best girl in the house come out and dance with you? and go now the whole of you,' she said, 'and see can you bring her away from the poet's talk.' but oona would not listen to any of them, but only moved her hand as if to send them away. then they called to hanrahan and said he had best dance with the girl himself, or let her dance with one of them. when hanrahan heard what they were saying he said: 'that is so, i will dance with her; there is no man in the house must dance with her but myself.' he stood up with her then, and led her out by the hand, and some of the young men were vexed, and some began mocking at his ragged coat and his broken boots. but he took no notice, and oona took no notice, but they looked at one another as if all the world belonged to themselves alone. but another couple that had been sitting together like lovers stood out on the floor at the same time, holding one another's hands and moving their feet to keep time with the music. but hanrahan turned his back on them as if angry, and in place of dancing he began to sing, and as he sang he held her hand, and his voice grew louder, and the mocking of the young men stopped, and the fiddle stopped, and there was nothing heard but his voice that had in it the sound of the wind. and what he sang was a song he had heard or had made one time in his wanderings on slieve echtge, and the words of it as they can be put into english were like this: o death's old bony finger will never find us there in the high hollow townland where love's to give and to spare; where boughs have fruit and blossom at all times of the year; where rivers are running over with red beer and brown beer. an old man plays the bagpipes in a gold and silver wood; queens, their eyes blue like the ice, are dancing in a crowd. and while he was singing it oona moved nearer to him, and the colour had gone from her cheek, and her eyes were not blue now, but grey with the tears that were in them, and anyone that saw her would have thought she was ready to follow him there and then from the west to the east of the world. but one of the young men called out: 'where is that country he is singing about? mind yourself, oona, it is a long way off, you might be a long time on the road before you would reach to it.' and another said: 'it is not to the country of the young you will be going if you go with him, but to mayo of the bogs.' oona looked at him then as if she would question him, but he raised her hand in his hand, and called out between singing and shouting: 'it is very near us that country is, it is on every side; it may be on the bare hill behind it is, or it may be in the heart of the wood.' and he said out very loud and clear: 'in the heart of the wood; oh, death will never find us in the heart of the wood. and will you come with me there, oona?' he said. but while he was saying this the two old women had gone outside the door, and oona's mother was crying, and she said: 'he has put an enchantment on oona. can we not get the men to put him out of the house?' 'that is a thing you cannot do, said the other woman,' for he is a poet of the gael, and you know well if you would put a poet of the gael out of the house, he would put a curse on you that would wither the corn in the fields and dry up the milk of the cows, if it had to hang in the air seven years.' 'god help us,' said the mother, 'and why did i ever let him into the house at all, and the wild name he has!' 'it would have been no harm at all to have kept him outside, but there would great harm come upon you if you put him out by force. but listen to the plan i have to get him out of the house by his own doing, without anyone putting him from it at all.' it was not long after that the two women came in again, each of them having a bundle of hay in her apron. hanrahan was not singing now, but he was talking to oona very fast and soft, and he was saying: 'the house is narrow but the world is wide, and there is no true lover that need be afraid of night or morning or sun or stars or shadows of evening, or any earthly thing.' 'hanrahan,' said the mother then, striking him on the shoulder, 'will you give me a hand here for a minute?' 'do that, hanrahan,' said the woman of the neighbours, 'and help us to make this hay into a rope, for you are ready with your hands, and a blast of wind has loosened the thatch on the haystack.' 'i will do that for you,' said he, and he took the little stick in his hands, and the mother began giving out the hay, and he twisting it, but he was hurrying to have done with it, and to be free again. the women went on talking and giving out the hay, and encouraging him, and saying what a good twister of a rope he was, better than their own neighbours or than anyone they had ever seen. and hanrahan saw that oona was watching him, and he began to twist very quick and with his head high, and to boast of the readiness of his hands, and the learning he had in his head, and the strength in his arms. and as he was boasting, he went backward, twisting the rope always till he came to the door that was open behind him, and without thinking he passed the threshold and was out on the road. and no sooner was he there than the mother made a sudden rush, and threw out the rope after him, and she shut the door and the half-door and put a bolt upon them. she was well pleased when she had done that, and laughed out loud, and the neighbours laughed and praised her. but they heard him beating at the door, and saying words of cursing outside it, and the mother had but time to stop oona that had her hand upon the bolt to open it. she made a sign to the fiddler then, and he began a reel, and one of the young men asked no leave but caught hold of oona and brought her into the thick of the dance. and when it was over and the fiddle had stopped, there was no sound at all of anything outside, but the road was as quiet as before. as to hanrahan, when he knew he was shut out and that there was neither shelter nor drink nor a girl's ear for him that night, the anger and the courage went out of him, and he went on to where the waves were beating on the strand. he sat down on a big stone, and he began swinging his right arm and singing slowly to himself, the way he did always to hearten himself when every other thing failed him. and whether it was that time or another time he made the song that is called to this day 'the twisting of the rope,' and that begins, 'what was the dead cat that put me in this place,' is not known. but after he had been singing awhile, mist and shadows seemed to gather about him, sometimes coming out of the sea, and sometimes moving upon it. it seemed to him that one of the shadows was the queen-woman he had seen in her sleep at slieve echtge; not in her sleep now, but mocking, and calling out to them that were behind her: 'he was weak, he was weak, he had no courage.' and he felt the strands of the rope in his hand yet, and went on twisting it, but it seemed to him as he twisted, that it had all the sorrows of the world in it. and then it seemed to him as if the rope had changed in his dream into a great water-worm that came out of the sea, and that twisted itself about him, and held him closer and closer, and grew from big to bigger till the whole of the earth and skies were wound up in it, and the stars themselves were but the shining of the ridges of its skin. and then he got free of it, and went on, shaking and unsteady, along the edge of the strand, and the grey shapes were flying here and there around him. and this is what they were saying, 'it is a pity for him that refuses the call of the daughters of the sidhe, for he will find no comfort in the love of the women of the earth to the end of life and time, and the cold of the grave is in his heart for ever. it is death he has chosen; let him die, let him die, let him die.' hanrahan and cathleen the daughter of hoolihan. it was travelling northward hanrahan was one time, giving a hand to a farmer now and again in the hurried time of the year, and telling his stories and making his share of songs at wakes and at weddings. he chanced one day to overtake on the road to collooney one margaret rooney, a woman he used to know in munster when he was a young man. she had no good name at that time, and it was the priest routed her out of the place at last. he knew her by her walk and by the colour of her eyes, and by a way she had of putting back the hair off her face with her left hand. she had been wandering about, she said, selling herrings and the like, and now she was going back to sligo, to the place in the burrough where she was living with another woman, mary gillis, who had much the same story as herself. she would be well pleased, she said, if he would come and stop in the house with them, and be singing his songs to the bacachs and blind men and fiddlers of the burrough. she remembered him well, she said, and had a wish for him; and as to mary gillis, she had some of his songs off by heart, so he need not be afraid of not getting good treatment, and all the bacachs and poor men that heard him would give him a share of their own earnings for his stories and his songs while he was with them, and would carry his name into all the parishes of ireland. he was glad enough to go with her, and to find a woman to be listening to the story of his troubles and to be comforting him. it was at the moment of the fall of day when every man may pass as handsome and every woman as comely. she put her arm about him when he told her of the misfortune of the twisting of the rope, and in the half light she looked as well as another. they kept in talk all the way to the burrough, and as for mary gillis, when she saw him and heard who he was, she went near crying to think of having a man with so great a name in the house. hanrahan was well pleased to settle down with them for a while, for he was tired with wandering; and since the day he found the little cabin fallen in, and mary lavelle gone from it, and the thatch scattered, he had never asked to have any place of his own; and he had never stopped long enough in any place to see the green leaves come where he had seen the old leaves wither, or to see the wheat harvested where he had seen it sown. it was a good change to him to have shelter from the wet, and a fire in the evening time, and his share of food put on the table without the asking. he made a good many of his songs while he was living there, so well cared for and so quiet, the most of them were love songs, but some were songs of repentance, and some were songs about ireland and her griefs, under one name or another. every evening the bacachs and beggars and blind men and fiddlers would gather into the house and listen to his songs and his poems, and his stories about the old time of the fianna, and they kept them in their memories that were never spoiled with books; and so they brought his name to every wake and wedding and pattern in the whole of connaught. he was never so well off or made so much of as he was at that time. one evening of december he was singing a little song that he said he had heard from the green plover of the mountain, about the fair-haired boys that had left limerick, and that were wandering and going astray in all parts of the world. there were a good many people in the room that night, and two or three little lads that had crept in, and sat on the floor near the fire, and were too busy with the roasting of a potato in the ashes or some such thing to take much notice of him; but they remembered long afterwards when his name had gone up, the sound of his voice, and what way he had moved his hand, and the look of him as he sat on the edge of the bed, with his shadow falling on the whitewashed wall behind him, and as he moved going up as high as the thatch. and they knew then that they had looked upon a king of the poets of the gael, and a maker of the dreams of men. of a sudden his singing stopped, and his eyes grew misty as if he was looking at some far thing. mary gillis was pouring whiskey into a mug that stood on a table beside him, and she left off pouring and said, 'is it of leaving us you are thinking?' margaret rooney heard what she said, and did not know why she said it, and she took the words too much in earnest and came over to him, and there was dread in her heart that she was going to lose so wonderful a poet and so good a comrade, and a man that was thought so much of, and that brought so many to her house. 'you would not go away from us, my heart?' she said, catching him by the hand. 'it is not of that i am thinking,' he said, 'but of ireland and the weight of grief that is on her.' and he leaned his head against his hand, and began to sing these words, and the sound of his voice was like the wind in a lonely place. the old brown thorn trees break in two high over cummen strand under a bitter black wind that blows from the left hand; our courage breaks like an old tree in a black wind and dies, but we have hidden in our hearts the flame out of the eyes of cathleen the daughter of hoolihan. the winds was bundled up the clouds high over knocknarea and thrown the thunder on the stones for all that maeve can say; angers that are like noisy clouds have set our hearts abeat, but we have all bent low and low and kissed the quiet feet of cathleen the daughter of hoolihan. the yellow pool has overflowed high upon clooth-na-bare, for the wet winds are blowing out of the clinging air; like heavy flooded waters our bodies and our blood, but purer than a tall candle before the holy rood is cathleen the daughter of hoolihan. while he was singing, his voice began to break, and tears came rolling down his cheeks, and margaret rooney put down her face into her hands and began to cry along with him. then a blind beggar by the fire shook his rags with a sob, and after that there was no one of them all but cried tears down. red hanrahan's curse. one fine may morning a long time after hanrahan had left margaret rooney's house, he was walking the road near collooney, and the sound of the birds singing in the bushes that were white with blossom set him singing as he went. it was to his own little place he was going, that was no more than a cabin, but that pleased him well. for he was tired of so many years of wandering from shelter to shelter at all times of the year, and although he was seldom refused a welcome and a share of what was in the house, it seemed to him sometimes that his mind was getting stiff like his joints, and it was not so easy to him as it used to be to make fun and sport through the night, and to set all the boys laughing with his pleasant talk, and to coax the women with his songs. and a while ago, he had turned into a cabin that some poor man had left to go harvesting and had never come to again. and when he had mended the thatch and made a bed in the corner with a few sacks and bushes, and had swept out the floor, he was well content to have a little place for himself, where he could go in and out as he liked, and put his head in his hands through the length of an evening if the fret was on him, and loneliness after the old times. one by one the neighbours began to send their children in to get some learning from him, and with what they brought, a few eggs or an oaten cake or a couple of sods of turf, he made out a way of living. and if he went for a wild day and night now and again to the burrough, no one would say a word, knowing him to be a poet, with wandering in his heart. it was from the burrough he was coming that may morning, light-hearted enough, and singing some new song that had come to him. but it was not long till a hare ran across his path, and made away into the fields, through the loose stones of the wall. and he knew it was no good sign a hare to have crossed his path, and he remembered the hare that had led him away to slieve echtge the time mary lavelle was waiting for him, and how he had never known content for any length of time since then. 'and it is likely enough they are putting some bad thing before me now,' he said. and after he said that he heard the sound of crying in the field beside him, and he looked over the wall. and there he saw a young girl sitting under a bush of white hawthorn, and crying as if her heart would break. her face was hidden in her hands, but her soft hair and her white neck and the young look of her, put him in mind of bridget purcell and margaret gillane and maeve connelan and oona curry and celia driscoll, and the rest of the girls he had made songs for and had coaxed the heart from with his flattering tongue. she looked up, and he saw her to be a girl of the neighbours, a farmer's daughter. 'what is on you, nora?' he said. 'nothing you could take from me, red hanrahan.' 'if there is any sorrow on you it is i myself should be well able to serve you,' he said then, 'for it is i know the history of the greeks, and i know well what sorrow is and parting, and the hardship of the world. and if i am not able to save you from trouble,' he said, 'there is many a one i have saved from it with the power that is in my songs, as it was in the songs of the poets that were before me from the beginning of the world. and it is with the rest of the poets i myself will be sitting and talking in some far place beyond the world, to the end of life and time,' he said. the girl stopped her crying, and she said, 'owen hanrahan, i often heard you have had sorrow and persecution, and that you know all the troubles of the world since the time you refused your love to the queen-woman in slieve echtge; and that she never left you in quiet since. but when it is people of this earth that have harmed you, it is yourself knows well the way to put harm on them again. and will you do now what i ask you, owen hanrahan?' she said. 'i will do that indeed,' said he. 'it is my father and my mother and my brothers,' she said, 'that are marrying me to old paddy doe, because he has a farm of a hundred acres under the mountain. and it is what you can do, hanrahan,' she said, 'put him into a rhyme the same way you put old peter kilmartin in one the time you were young, that sorrow may be over him rising up and lying down, that will put him thinking of collooney churchyard and not of marriage. and let you make no delay about it, for it is for to-morrow they have the marriage settled, and i would sooner see the sun rise on the day of my death than on that day.' 'i will put him into a song that will bring shame and sorrow over him; but tell me how many years has he, for i would put them in the song?' 'o, he has years upon years. he is as old as you yourself, red hanrahan.' 'as old as myself,' said hanrahan, and his voice was as if broken; 'as old as myself; there are twenty years and more between us! it is a bad day indeed for owen hanrahan when a young girl with the blossom of may in her cheeks thinks him to be an old man. and my grief!' he said, 'you have put a thorn in my heart.' he turned from her then and went down the road till he came to a stone, and he sat down on it, for it seemed as if all the weight of the years had come on him in the minute. and he remembered it was not many days ago that a woman in some house had said: 'it is not red hanrahan you are now but yellow hanrahan, for your hair is turned to the colour of a wisp of tow.' and another woman he had asked for a drink had not given him new milk but sour; and sometimes the girls would be whispering and laughing with young ignorant men while he himself was in the middle of giving out his poems or his talk. and he thought of the stiffness of his joints when he first rose of a morning, and the pain of his knees after making a journey, and it seemed to him as if he was come to be a very old man, with cold in the shoulders and speckled shins and his wind breaking and he himself withering away. and with those thoughts there came on him a great anger against old age and all it brought with it. and just then he looked up and saw a great spotted eagle sailing slowly towards ballygawley, and he cried out: 'you, too, eagle of ballygawley, are old, and your wings are full of gaps, and i will put you and your ancient comrades, the pike of dargan lake and the yew of the steep place of the strangers into my rhyme, that there may be a curse on you for ever.' there was a bush beside him to the left, flowering like the rest, and a little gust of wind blew the white blossoms over his coat. 'may blossoms,' he said, gathering them up in the hollow of his hand, 'you never know age because you die away in your beauty, and i will put you into my rhyme and give you my blessing.' he rose up then and plucked a little branch from the bush, and carried it in his hand. but it is old and broken he looked going home that day with the stoop in his shoulders and the darkness in his face. when he got to his cabin there was no one there, and he went and lay down on the bed for a while as he was used to do when he wanted to make a poem or a praise or a curse. and it was not long he was in making it this time, for the power of the curse-making bards was upon him. and when he had made it he searched his mind how he could send it out over the whole countryside. some of the scholars began coming in then, to see if there would be any school that day, and hanrahan rose up and sat on the bench by the hearth, and they all stood around him. they thought he would bring out the virgil or the mass book or the primer, but instead of that he held up the little branch of hawthorn he had in his hand yet. 'children,' he said, 'this is a new lesson i have for you to-day. 'you yourselves and the beautiful people of the world are like this blossom, and old age is the wind that comes and blows the blossom away. and i have made a curse upon old age and upon the old men, and listen now while i give it out to you.' and this is what he said- the poet, owen hanrahan, under a bush of may calls down a curse on his own head because it withers grey; then on the speckled eagle cock of ballygawley hill, because it is the oldest thing that knows of cark and ill; and on the yew that has been green from the times out of mind by the steep place of the strangers and the gap of the wind; and on the great grey pike that broods in castle dargan lake having in his long body a many a hook and ache; then curses he old paddy bruen of the well of bride because no hair is on his head and drowsiness inside. then paddy's neighbour, peter hart, and michael gill, his friend, because their wandering histories are never at an end. and then old shemus cullinan, shepherd of the green lands because he holds two crutches between his crooked hands; then calls a curse from the dark north upon old paddy doe, who plans to lay his withering head upon a breast of snow, who plans to wreck a singing voice and break a merry heart, he bids a curse hang over him till breath and body part; but he calls down a blessing on the blossom of the may, because it comes in beauty, and in beauty blows away. he said it over to the children verse by verse till all of them could say a part of it, and some that were the quickest could say the whole of it. 'that will do for to-day,' he said then. 'and what you have to do now is to go out and sing that song for a while, to the tune of the green bunch of rushes, to everyone you meet, and to the old men themselves.' 'i will do that,' said one of the little lads; 'i know old paddy doe well. last saint john's eve we dropped a mouse down his chimney, but this is better than a mouse.' 'i will go into the town of sligo and sing it in the street,' said another of the boys. 'do that,' said hanrahan, 'and go into the burrough and tell it to margaret rooney and mary gillis, and bid them sing to it, and to make the beggars and the bacachs sing it wherever they go.' the children ran out then, full of pride and of mischief, calling out the song as they ran, and hanrahan knew there was no danger it would not be heard. he was sitting outside the door the next morning, looking at his scholars as they came by in twos and threes. they were nearly all come, and he was considering the place of the sun in the heavens to know whether it was time to begin, when he heard a sound that was like the buzzing of a swarm of bees in the air, or the rushing of a hidden river in time of flood. then he saw a crowd coming up to the cabin from the road, and he took notice that all the crowd was made up of old men, and that the leaders of it were paddy bruen, michael gill and paddy doe, and there was not one in the crowd but had in his hand an ash stick or a blackthorn. as soon as they caught sight of him, the sticks began to wave hither and thither like branches in a storm, and the old feet to run. he waited no longer, but made off up the hill behind the cabin till he was out of their sight. after a while he came back round the hill, where he was hidden by the furze growing along a ditch. and when he came in sight of his cabin he saw that all the old men had gathered around it, and one of them was just at that time thrusting a rake with a wisp of lighted straw on it into the thatch. 'my grief,' he said, 'i have set old age and time and weariness and sickness against me, and i must go wandering again. and, o blessed queen of heaven,' he said, 'protect me from the eagle of ballygawley, the yew tree of the steep place of the strangers, the pike of castle dargan lake, and from the lighted wisps of their kindred, the old men!' hanrahan's vision. it was in the month of june hanrahan was on the road near sligo, but he did not go into the town, but turned towards beinn bulben; for there were thoughts of the old times coming upon him, and he had no mind to meet with common men. and as he walked he was singing to himself a song that had come to him one time in his dreams: o death's old bony finger will never find us there in the high hollow townland where love's to give and to spare; where boughs have fruit and blossom at all times of the year; where rivers are running over with red beer and brown beer. an old man plays the bagpipes in a gold and silver wood; queens, their eyes blue like the ice, are dancing in a crowd. the little fox he murmured, 'o what of the world's bane?' the sun was laughing sweetly, the moon plucked at my rein; but the little red fox murmured, 'o do not pluck at his rein, he is riding to the townland that is the world's bane.' when their hearts are so high that they would come to blows, they unhook their heavy swords from golden and silver boughs: but all that are killed in battle awaken to life again: it is lucky that their story is not known among men. for o, the strong farmers that would let the spade lie, their hearts would be like a cup that somebody had drunk dry. michael will unhook his trumpet from a bough overhead, and blow a little noise when the supper has been spread. gabriel will come from the water with a fish tail, and talk of wonders that have happened on wet roads where men walk, and lift up an old horn of hammered silver, and drink till he has fallen asleep upon the starry brink. hanrahan had begun to climb the mountain then, and he gave over singing, for it was a long climb for him, and every now and again he had to sit down and to rest for a while. and one time he was resting he took notice of a wild briar bush, with blossoms on it, that was growing beside a rath, and it brought to mind the wild roses he used to bring to mary lavelle, and to no woman after her. and he tore off a little branch of the bush, that had buds on it and open blossoms, and he went on with his song: the little fox he murmured, 'o what of the world's bane?' the sun was laughing sweetly, the moon plucked at my rein; but the little red fox murmured, 'o do not pluck at his rein, he is riding to the townland that is the world's bane.' and he went on climbing the hill, and left the rath, and there came to his mind some of the old poems that told of lovers, good and bad, and of some that were awakened from the sleep of the grave itself by the strength of one another's love, and brought away to a life in some shadowy place, where they are waiting for the judgment and banished from the face of god. and at last, at the fall of day, he came to the steep gap of the strangers, and there he laid himself down along a ridge of rock, and looked into the valley, that was full of grey mist spreading from mountain to mountain. and it seemed to him as he looked that the mist changed to shapes of shadowy men and women, and his heart began to beat with the fear and the joy of the sight. and his hands, that were always restless, began to pluck off the leaves of the roses on the little branch, and he watched them as they went floating down into the valley in a little fluttering troop. suddenly he heard a faint music, a music that had more laughter in it and more crying than all the music of this world. and his heart rose when he heard that, and he began to laugh out loud, for he knew that music was made by some who had a beauty and a greatness beyond the people of this world. and it seemed to him that the little soft rose leaves as they went fluttering down into the valley began to change their shape till they looked like a troop of men and women far off in the mist, with the colour of the roses on them. and then that colour changed to many colours, and what he saw was a long line of tall beautiful young men, and of queen-women, that were not going from him but coming towards him and past him, and their faces were full of tenderness for all their proud looks, and were very pale and worn, as if they were seeking and ever seeking for high sorrowful things. and shadowy arms were stretched out of the mist as if to take hold of them, but could not touch them, for the quiet that was about them could not be broken. and before them and beyond them, but at a distance as if in reverence, there were other shapes, sinking and rising and coming and going, and hanrahan knew them by their whirling flight to be the sidhe, the ancient defeated gods; and the shadowy arms did not rise to take hold of them, for they were of those that can neither sin nor obey. and they all lessened then in the distance, and they seemed to be going towards the white door that is in the side of the mountain. the mist spread out before him now like a deserted sea washing the mountains with long grey waves, but while he was looking at it, it began to fill again with a flowing broken witless life that was a part of itself, and arms and pale heads covered with tossing hair appeared in the greyness. it rose higher and higher till it was level with the edge of the steep rock, and then the shapes grew to be solid, and a new procession half lost in mist passed very slowly with uneven steps, and in the midst of each shadow there was something shining in the starlight. they came nearer and nearer, and hanrahan saw that they also were lovers, and that they had heart-shaped mirrors instead of hearts, and they were looking and ever looking on their own faces in one another's mirrors. they passed on, sinking downward as they passed, and other shapes rose in their place, and these did not keep side by side, but followed after one another, holding out wild beckoning arms, and he saw that those who were followed were women, and as to their heads they were beyond all beauty, but as to their bodies they were but shadows without life, and their long hair was moving and trembling about them, as if it lived with some terrible life of its own. and then the mist rose of a sudden and hid them, and then a light gust of wind blew them away towards the north-east, and covered hanrahan at the same time with a white wing of cloud. he stood up trembling and was going to turn away from the valley, when he saw two dark and half-hidden forms standing as if in the air just beyond the rock, and one of them that had the sorrowful eyes of a beggar said to him in a woman's voice, 'speak to me, for no one in this world or any other world has spoken to me for seven hundred years.' 'tell me who are those that have passed by,' said hanrahan. 'those that passed first,' the woman said, 'are the lovers that had the greatest name in the old times, blanad and deirdre and grania and their dear comrades, and a great many that are not so well known but are as well loved. and because it was not only the blossom of youth they were looking for in one another, but the beauty that is as lasting as the night and the stars, the night and the stars hold them for ever from the warring and the perishing, in spite of the wars and the bitterness their love brought into the world. and those that came next,' she said, 'and that still breathe the sweet air and have the mirrors in their hearts, are not put in songs by the poets, because they sought only to triumph one over the other, and so to prove their strength and beauty, and out of this they made a kind of love. and as to the women with shadow-bodies, they desired neither to triumph nor to love but only to be loved, and there is no blood in their hearts or in their bodies until it flows through them from a kiss, and their life is but for a moment. all these are unhappy, but i am the unhappiest of all, for i am dervadilla, and this is dermot, and it was our sin brought the norman into ireland. and the curses of all the generations are upon us, and none are punished as we are punished. it was but the blossom of the man and of the woman we loved in one another, the dying beauty of the dust and not the everlasting beauty. when we died there was no lasting unbreakable quiet about us, and the bitterness of the battles we brought into ireland turned to our own punishment. we go wandering together for ever, but dermot that was my lover sees me always as a body that has been a long time in the ground, and i know that is the way he sees me. ask me more, ask me more, for all the years have left their wisdom in my heart, and no one has listened to me for seven hundred years.' a great terror had fallen upon hanrahan, and lifting his arms above his head he screamed out loud three times, and the cattle in the valley lifted their heads and lowed, and the birds in the wood at the edge of the mountain awaked out of their sleep and fluttered through the trembling leaves. but a little below the edge of the rock, the troop of rose leaves still fluttered in the air, for the gateway of eternity had opened and shut again in one beat of the heart. the death of hanrahan. hanrahan, that was never long in one place, was back again among the villages that are at the foot of slieve echtge, illeton and scalp and ballylee, stopping sometimes in one house and sometimes in another, and finding a welcome in every place for the sake of the old times and of his poetry and his learning. there was some silver and some copper money in the little leather bag under his coat, but it was seldom he needed to take anything from it, for it was little he used, and there was not one of the people that would have taken payment from him. his hand had grown heavy on the blackthorn he leaned on, and his cheeks were hollow and worn, but so far as food went, potatoes and milk and a bit of oaten cake, he had what he wanted of it; and it is not on the edge of so wild and boggy a place as echtge a mug of spirits would be wanting, with the taste of the turf smoke on it. he would wander about the big wood at kinadife, or he would sit through many hours of the day among the rushes about lake belshragh, listening to the streams from the hills, or watching the shadows in the brown bog pools; sitting so quiet as not to startle the deer that came down from the heather to the grass and the tilled fields at the fall of night. as the days went by it seemed as if he was beginning to belong to some world out of sight and misty, that has for its mearing the colours that are beyond all other colours and the silences that are beyond all silences of this world. and sometimes he would hear coming and going in the wood music that when it stopped went from his memory like a dream; and once in the stillness of midday he heard a sound like the clashing of many swords, that went on for long time without any break. and at the fall of night and at moonrise the lake would grow to be like a gateway of silver and shining stones, and there would come from its silence the faint sound of keening and of frightened laughter broken by the wind, and many pale beckoning hands. he was sitting looking into the water one evening in harvest time, thinking of all the secrets that were shut into the lakes and the mountains, when he heard a cry coming from the south, very faint at first, but getting louder and clearer as the shadow of the rushes grew longer, till he could hear the words, 'i am beautiful, i am beautiful; the birds in the air, the moths under the leaves, the flies over the water look at me, for they never saw any one so beautiful as myself. i am young; i am young: look upon me, mountains; look upon me, perishing woods, for my body will shine like the white waters when you have been hurried away. you and the whole race of men, and the race of the beasts and the race of the fish and the winged race are dropping like a candle that is nearly burned out, but i laugh out because i am in my youth.' the voice would break off from time to time, as if tired, and then it would begin again, calling out always the same words, 'i am beautiful, i am beautiful.' presently the bushes at the edge of the little lake trembled for a moment, and a very old woman forced her way among them, and passed by hanrahan, walking with very slow steps. her face was of the colour of earth, and more wrinkled than the face of any old hag that was ever seen, and her grey hair was hanging in wisps, and the rags she was wearing did not hide her dark skin that was roughened by all weathers. she passed by him with her eyes wide open, and her head high, and her arms hanging straight beside her, and she went into the shadow of the hills towards the west. a sort of dread came over hanrahan when he saw her, for he knew her to be one winny byrne, that went begging from place to place crying always the same cry, and he had often heard that she had once such wisdom that all the women of the neighbours used to go looking for advice from her, and that she had a voice so beautiful that men and women would come from every part to hear her sing at a wake or a wedding; and that the others, the great sidhe, had stolen her wits one samhain night many years ago, when she had fallen asleep on the edge of a rath, and had seen in her dreams the servants of echtge of the hills. and as she vanished away up the hillside, it seemed as if her cry, 'i am beautiful, i am beautiful,' was coming from among the stars in the heavens. there was a cold wind creeping among the rushes, and hanrahan began to shiver, and he rose up to go to some house where there would be a fire on the hearth. but instead of turning down the hill as he was used, he went on up the hill, along the little track that was maybe a road and maybe the dry bed of a stream. it was the same way winny had gone, and it led to the little cabin where she stopped when she stopped in any place at all. he walked very slowly up the hill as if he had a great load on his back, and at last he saw a light a little to the left, and he thought it likely it was from winny's house it was shining, and he turned from the path to go to it. but clouds had come over the sky, and he could not well see his way, and after he had gone a few steps his foot slipped and he fell into a bog drain, and though he dragged himself out of it, holding on to the roots of the heather, the fall had given him a great shake, and he felt better fit to lie down than to go travelling. but he had always great courage, and he made his way on, step by step, till at last he came to winny's cabin, that had no window, but the light was shining from the door. he thought to go into it and to rest for a while, but when he came to the door he did not see winny inside it, but what he saw was four old grey-haired women playing cards, but winny herself was not among them. hanrahan sat down on a heap of turf beside the door, for he was tired out and out, and had no wish for talking or for card-playing, and his bones and his joints aching the way they were. he could hear the four women talking as they played, and calling out their hands. and it seemed to him that they were saying, like the strange man in the barn long ago: 'spades and diamonds, courage and power. clubs and hearts, knowledge and pleasure.' and he went on saying those words over and over to himself; and whether or not he was in his dreams, the pain that was in his shoulder never left him. and after a while the four women in the cabin began to quarrel, and each one to say the other had not played fair, and their voices grew from loud to louder, and their screams and their curses, till at last the whole air was filled with the noise of them around and above the house, and hanrahan, hearing it between sleep and waking, said: 'that is the sound of the fighting between the friends and the ill-wishers of a man that is near his death. and i wonder,' he said, 'who is the man in this lonely place that is near his death.' it seemed as if he had been asleep a long time, and he opened his eyes, and the face he saw over him was the old wrinkled face of winny of the cross road. she was looking hard at him, as if to make sure he was not dead, and she wiped away the blood that had grown dry on his face with a wet cloth, and after a while she partly helped him and partly lifted him into the cabin, and laid him down on what served her for a bed. she gave him a couple of potatoes from a pot on the fire, and, what served him better, a mug of spring water. he slept a little now and again, and sometimes he heard her singing to herself as she moved about the house, and so the night wore away. when the sky began to brighten with the dawn he felt for the bag; where his little store of money was, and held it out to her, and she took out a bit of copper and a bit of silver money, but she let it drop again as if it was nothing to her, maybe because it was not money she was used to beg for, but food and rags; or maybe because the rising of the dawn was filling her with pride and a new belief in her own great beauty. she went out and cut a few armfuls of heather, and brought it in and heaped it over hanrahan, saying something about the cold of the morning, and while she did that he took notice of the wrinkles in her face, and the greyness of her hair, and the broken teeth that were black and full of gaps. and when he was well covered with the heather she went out of the door and away down the side of the mountain, and he could hear her cry, 'i am beautiful, i am beautiful,' getting less and less as she went, till at last it died away altogether. hanrahan lay there through the length of the day, in his pains and his weakness, and when the shadows of the evening were falling he heard her voice again coming up the hillside, and she came in and boiled the potatoes and shared them with him the same way as before. and one day after another passed like that, and the weight of his flesh was heavy about him. but little by little as he grew weaker he knew there were some greater than himself in the room with him, and that the house began to be filled with them; and it seemed to him they had all power in their hands, and that they might with one touch of the hand break down the wall the hardness of pain had built about him, and take him into their own world. and sometimes he could hear voices, very faint and joyful, crying from the rafters or out of the flame on the hearth, and other times the whole house was filled with music that went through it like a wind. and after a while his weakness left no place for pain, and there grew up about him a great silence like the silence in the heart of a lake, and there came through it like the flame of a rushlight the faint joyful voices ever and always. one morning he heard music somewhere outside the door, and as the day passed it grew louder and louder until it drowned the faint joyful voices, and even winny's cry upon the hillside at the fall of evening. about midnight and in a moment, the walls seemed to melt away and to leave his bed floating on a pale misty light that shone on every side as far as the eye could see; and after the first blinding of his eyes he saw that it was full of great shadowy figures rushing here and there. at the same time the music came very clearly to him, and he knew that it was but the continual clashing of swords. 'i am after my death,' he said, 'and in the very heart of the music of heaven. o cheruhim and seraphim, receive my soul!' at his cry the light where it was nearest to him filled with sparks of yet brighter light, and he saw that these were the points of swords turned towards his heart; and then a sudden flame, bright and burning like god's love or god's hate, swept over the light and went out and he was in darkness. at first he could see nothing, for all was as dark as if there was black bog earth about him, but all of a sudden the fire blazed up as if a wisp of straw had been thrown upon it. and as he looked at it, the light was shining on the big pot that was hanging from a hook, and on the flat stone where winny used to bake a cake now and again, and on the long rusty knife she used to be cutting the roots of the heather with, and on the long blackthorn stick he had brought into the house himself. and when he saw those four things, some memory came into hanrahan's mind, and strength came back to him, and he rose sitting up in the bed, and he said very loud and clear: 'the cauldron, the stone, the sword, the spear. what are they? who do they belong to? and i have asked the question this time,' he said. and then he fell back again, weak, and the breath going from him. winny byrne, that had been tending the fire, came over then, having her eyes fixed on the bed; and the faint laughing voices began crying out again, and a pale light, grey like a wave, came creeping over the room, and he did not know from what secret world it came. he saw winny's withered face and her withered arms that were grey like crumbled earth, and weak as he was he shrank back farther towards the wall. and then there came out of the mud-stiffened rags arms as white and as shadowy as the foam on a river, and they were put about his body, and a voice that he could hear well but that seemed to come from a long way off said to him in a whisper: 'you will go looking for me no more upon the breasts of women.' 'who are you?' he said then. 'i am one of the lasting people, of the lasting unwearied voices, that make my dwelling in the broken and the dying, and those that have lost their wits; and i came looking for you, and you are mine until the whole world is burned out like a candle that is spent. and look up now,' she said, 'for the wisps that are for our wedding are lighted.' he saw then that the house was crowded with pale shadowy hands, and that every hand was holding what was sometimes like a wisp lighted for a marriage, and sometimes like a tall white candle for the dead. when the sun rose on the morning of the morrow winny of the cross roads rose up from where she was sitting beside the body, and began her begging from townland to townland, singing the same song as she walked, 'i am beautiful, i am beautiful. the birds in the air, the moths under the leaves, the flies over the water look at me. look at me, perishing woods, for my body will be shining like the lake water after you have been hurried away. you and the old race of men, and the race of the beasts, and the race of the fish, and the winged race, are wearing away like a candle that has been burned out. but i laugh out loud, because i am in my youth.' she did not come back that night or any night to the cabin, and it was not till the end of two days that the turf cutters going to the bog found the body of red owen hanrahan, and gathered men to wake him and women to keen him, and gave him a burying worthy of so great a poet. per amica silentia lunae other works of william butler yeats poems and plays, 2 volumes: i--lyrics. $2.00. ii--dramatic poems. $2.00. the celtic twilight. $1.50. ideas of good and evil. $1.50. stories of red hanrahan. $1.25. reveries over childhood and youth. illustrated. $2.00. responsibilities and other poems. $1.25. the tables of the law. $1.25. the hour glass and other plays. $1.25. the green helmet and other poems. $1.25. the cutting of an agate. $1.50. the macmillan company. per amica silentia lunae _special limited edition_ per amica silentia lunae by william butler yeats new york the macmillan company 1918 _all rights reserved_ copyright, 1918, by the macmillan company. set up and electrotyped. published january, 1918. norwood press j. s. cushing co.--berwick & smith co. norwood, mass., u.s.a. prologue my dear "maurice"--you will remember that afternoon in calvados last summer when your black persian "minoulooshe," who had walked behind us for a good mile, heard a wing flutter in a bramble-bush? for a long time we called her endearing names in vain. she seemed resolute to spend her night among the brambles. she had interrupted a conversation, often interrupted before, upon certain thoughts so long habitual that i may be permitted to call them my convictions. when i came back to london my mind ran again and again to those conversations and i could not rest till i had written out in this little book all that i had said or would have said. read it some day when "minoulooshe" is asleep. w. b. yeats. _may_ 11, 1917. ego dominus tuus hic on the grey sand beside the shallow stream, under your old wind-beaten tower, where still a lamp burns on above the open book that michael robartes left, you walk in the moon, and, though you have passed the best of life, still trace, enthralled by the unconquerable delusion, magical shapes. ille by the help of an image i call to my own opposite, summon all that i have handled least, least looked upon. hic and i would find myself and not an image. ille that is our modern hope, and by its light we have lit upon the gentle, sensitive mind and lost the old nonchalance of the hand; whether we have chosen chisel, pen, or brush, we are but critics, or but half create, timid, entangled, empty, and abashed, lacking the countenance of our friends. hic and yet, the chief imagination of christendom, dante alighieri, so utterly found himself, that he has made that hollow face of his more plain to the mind's eye than any face but that of christ. ille and did he find himself, or was the hunger that had made it hollow a hunger for the apple on the bough most out of reach? and is that spectral image the man that lapo and that guido knew? i think he fashioned from his opposite an image that might have been a stony face, staring upon a beduin's horse-hair roof, from doored and windowed cliff, or half upturned among the coarse grass and the camel dung. he set his chisel to the hardest stone; being mocked by guido for his lecherous life, derided and deriding, driven out to climb that stair and eat that bitter bread, he found the unpersuadable justice, he found the most exalted lady loved by a man. hic yet surely there are men who have made their art out of no tragic war; lovers of life, impulsive men, that look for happiness, and sing when they have found it. ille no, not sing, for those that love the world serve it in action, grow rich, popular, and full of influence; and should they paint or write still is it action, the struggle of the fly in marmalade. the rhetorician would deceive his neighbours, the sentimentalist himself; while art is but a vision of reality. what portion in the world can the artist have, who has awakened from the common dream, but dissipation and despair? hic and yet, no one denies to keats love of the world, remember his deliberate happiness. ille his art is happy, but who knows his mind? i see a schoolboy, when i think of him, with face and nose pressed to a sweetshop window, for certainly he sank into his grave, his senses and his heart unsatisfied; and made--being poor, ailing and ignorant, shut out from all the luxury of the world, the ill-bred son of a livery stable keeper- luxuriant song. hic why should you leave the lamp burning alone beside an open book, and trace these characters upon the sand? a style is found by sedentary toil, and by the imitation of great masters. ille because i seek an image, not a book; those men that in their writings are most wise own nothing but their blind, stupefied hearts. i call to the mysterious one who yet shall walk the wet sand by the water's edge, and look most like me, being indeed my double, and prove of all imaginable things the most unlike, being my anti-self, and, standing by these characters, disclose all that i seek; and whisper it as though he were afraid the birds, who cry aloud their momentary cries before it is dawn, would carry it away to blasphemous men. _december_ 1915. per amica silentia lunae anima hominis i when i come home after meeting men who are strange to me, and sometimes even after talking to women, i go over all i have said in gloom and disappointment. perhaps i have overstated everything from a desire to vex or startle, from hostility that is but fear; or all my natural thoughts have been drowned by an undisciplined sympathy. my fellow-diners have hardly seemed of mixed humanity, and how should i keep my head among images of good and evil, crude allegories. but when i shut my door and light the candle, i invite a marmorean muse, an art, where no thought or emotion has come to mind because another man has thought or felt something different, for now there must be no reaction, action only, and the world must move my heart but to the heart's discovery of itself, and i begin to dream of eyelids that do not quiver before the bayonet: all my thoughts have ease and joy, i am all virtue and confidence. when i come to put in rhyme what i have found it will be a hard toil, but for a moment i believe i have found myself and not my anti-self. it is only the shrinking from toil perhaps that convinces me that i have been no more myself than is the cat the medicinal grass it is eating in the garden. how could i have mistaken for myself an heroic condition that from early boyhood has made me superstitious? that which comes as complete, as minutely organised, as are those elaborate, brightly lighted buildings and sceneries appearing in a moment, as i lie between sleeping and waking, must come from above me and beyond me. at times i remember that place in dante where he sees in his chamber the "lord of terrible aspect," and how, seeming "to rejoice inwardly that it was a marvel to see, speaking, he said, many things among the which i could understand but few, and of these this: ego dominus tuus"; or should the conditions come, not as it were in a gesture--as the image of a man--but in some fine landscape, it is of boehme, maybe, that i think, and of that country where we "eternally solace ourselves in the excellent beautiful flourishing of all manner of flowers and forms, both trees and plants, and all kinds of fruit." ii when i consider the minds of my friends, among artists and emotional writers, i discover a like contrast. i have sometimes told one close friend that her only fault is a habit of harsh judgment with those who have not her sympathy, and she has written comedies where the wickedest people seem but bold children. she does not know why she has created that world where no one is ever judged, a high celebration of indulgence, but to me it seems that her ideal of beauty is the compensating dream of a nature wearied out by over-much judgment. i know a famous actress who in private life is like the captain of some buccaneer ship holding his crew to good behaviour at the mouth of a blunderbuss, and upon the stage she excels in the representation of women who stir to pity and to desire because they need our protection, and is most adorable as one of those young queens imagined by maeterlinck who have so little will, so little self, that they are like shadows sighing at the edge of the world. when i last saw her in her own house she lived in a torrent of words and movements, she could not listen, and all about her upon the walls were women drawn by burne-jones in his latest period. she had invited me in the hope that i would defend those women, who were always listening, and are as necessary to her as a contemplative buddha to a japanese samurai, against a french critic who would persuade her to take into her heart in their stead a post-impressionist picture of a fat, ruddy, nude woman lying upon a turkey carpet. there are indeed certain men whose art is less an opposing virtue than a compensation for some accident of health or circumstance. during the riots over the first production of the _playboy of the western world_ synge was confused, without clear thought, and was soon ill--indeed the strain of that week may perhaps have hastened his death--and he was, as is usual with gentle and silent men, scrupulously accurate in all his statements. in his art he made, to delight his ear and his mind's eye, voluble daredevils who "go romancing through a romping lifetime ... to the dawning of the judgment day." at other moments this man, condemned to the life of a monk by bad health, takes an amused pleasure in "great queens ... making themselves matches from the start to the end." indeed, in all his imagination he delights in fine physical life, in life where the moon pulls up the tide. the last act of _deirdre of the sorrows_, where his art is at its noblest, was written upon his death-bed. he was not sure of any world to come, he was leaving his betrothed and his unwritten play--"oh, what a waste of time," he said to me; he hated to die, and in the last speeches of deirdre and in the middle act he accepted death and dismissed life with a gracious gesture. he gave to deirdre the emotion that seemed to him most desirable, most difficult, most fitting, and maybe saw in those delighted seven years, now dwindling from her, the fulfilment of his own life. iii when i think of any great poetical writer of the past (a realist is an historian and obscures the cleavage by the record of his eyes) i comprehend, if i know the lineaments of his life, that the work is the man's flight from his entire horoscope, his blind struggle in the network of the stars. william morris, a happy, busy, most irascible man, described dim colour and pensive emotion, following, beyond any man of his time, an indolent muse; while savage landor topped us all in calm nobility when the pen was in his hand, as in the daily violence of his passion when he had laid it down. he had in his _imaginary conversations_ reminded us, as it were, that the venus de milo is a stone, and yet he wrote when the copies did not come from the printer as soon as he expected: "i have ... had the resolution to tear in pieces all my sketches and projects and to forswear all future undertakings. i have tried to sleep away my time and pass two-thirds of the twenty-four hours in bed. i may speak of myself as a dead man." i imagine keats to have been born with that thirst for luxury common to many at the outsetting of the romantic movement, and not able, like wealthy beckford, to slake it with beautiful and strange objects. it drove him to imaginary delights; ignorant, poor, and in poor health, and not perfectly well-bred, he knew himself driven from tangible luxury; meeting shelley, he was resentful and suspicious because he, as leigh hunt recalls, "being a little too sensitive on the score of his origin, felt inclined to see in every man of birth his natural enemy." iv some thirty years ago i read a prose allegory by simeon solomon, long out of print and unprocurable, and remember or seem to remember a sentence, "a hollow image of fulfilled desire." all happy art seems to me that hollow image, but when its lineaments express also the poverty or the exasperation that set its maker to the work, we call it tragic art. keats but gave us his dream of luxury; but while reading dante we never long escape the conflict, partly because the verses are at moments a mirror of his history, and yet more because that history is so clear and simple that it has the quality of art. i am no dante scholar, and i but read him in shadwell or in dante rossetti, but i am always persuaded that he celebrated the most pure lady poet ever sung and the divine justice, not merely because death took that lady and florence banished her singer, but because he had to struggle in his own heart with his unjust anger and his lust; while unlike those of the great poets, who are at peace with the world and at war with themselves, he fought a double war. "always," says boccaccio, "both in youth and maturity he found room among his virtues for lechery"; or as matthew arnold preferred to change the phrase, "his conduct was exceeding irregular." guido cavalcanti, as rossetti translates him, finds "too much baseness" in his friend: "and still thy speech of me, heartfelt and kind, hath made me treasure up thy poetry; but now i dare not, for thy abject life, make manifest that i approve thy rhymes." and when dante meets beatrice in eden, does she not reproach him because, when she had taken her presence away, he followed in spite of warning dreams, false images, and now, to save him in his own despite, she has "visited ... the portals of the dead," and chosen virgil for his courier? while gino da pistoia complains that in his _commedia_ his "lovely heresies ... beat the right down and let the wrong go free": "therefore his vain decrees, wherein he lied, must be like empty nutshells flung aside; yet through the rash false witness set to grow, french and italian vengeance on such pride may fall like anthony on cicero." dante himself sings to giovanni guirino "at the approach of death"; "the king, by whose rich grave his servants be with plenty beyond measure set to dwell, ordains that i my bitter wrath dispel, and lift mine eyes to the great consistory." v we make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry. unlike the rhetoricians, who get a confident voice from remembering the crowd they have won or may win, we sing amid our uncertainty; and, smitten even in the presence of the most high beauty by the knowledge of our solitude, our rhythm shudders. i think, too, that no fine poet, no matter how disordered his life, has ever, even in his mere life, had pleasure for his end. johnson and dowson, friends of my youth, were dissipated men, the one a drunkard, the other a drunkard and mad about women, and yet they had the gravity of men who had found life out and were awakening from the dream; and both, one in life and art and one in art and less in life, had a continual preoccupation with religion. nor has any poet i have read of or heard of or met with been a sentimentalist. the other self, the anti-self or the antithetical self, as one may choose to name it, comes but to those who are no longer deceived, whose passion is reality. the sentimentalists are practical men who believe in money, in position, in a marriage bell, and whose understanding of happiness is to be so busy whether at work or at play, that all is forgotten but the momentary aim. they find their pleasure in a cup that is filled from lethe's wharf, and for the awakening, for the vision, for the revelation of reality, tradition offers us a different word--ecstasy. an old artist wrote to me of his wanderings by the quays of new york, and how he found there a woman nursing a sick child, and drew her story from her. she spoke, too, of other children who had died: a long tragic story. "i wanted to paint her," he wrote, "if i denied myself any of the pain i could not believe in my own ecstasy." we must not make a false faith by hiding from our thoughts the causes of doubt, for faith is the highest achievement of the human intellect, the only gift man can make to god, and therefore it must be offered in sincerity. neither must we create, by hiding ugliness, a false beauty as our offering to the world. he only can create the greatest imaginable beauty who has endured all imaginable pangs, for only when we have seen and foreseen what we dread shall we be rewarded by that dazzling unforeseen wing-footed wanderer. we could not find him if he were not in some sense of our being and yet of our being but as water with fire, a noise with silence. he is of all things not impossible the most difficult, for that only which comes easily can never be a portion of our being, "soon got, soon gone," as the proverb says. i shall find the dark grow luminous, the void fruitful when i understand i have nothing, that the ringers in the tower have appointed for the hymen of the soul a passing bell. the last knowledge has often come most quickly to turbulent men, and for a season brought new turbulence. when life puts away her conjuring tricks one by one, those that deceive us longest may well be the wine-cup and the sensual kiss, for our chambers of commerce and of commons have not the divine architecture of the body, nor has their frenzy been ripened by the sun. the poet, because he may not stand within the sacred house but lives amid the whirlwinds that beset its threshold, may find his pardon. vi i think the christian saint and hero, instead of being merely dissatisfied, make deliberate sacrifice. i remember reading once an autobiography of a man who had made a daring journey in disguise to russian exiles in siberia, and his telling how, very timid as a child, he schooled himself by wandering at night through dangerous streets. saint and hero cannot be content to pass at moments to that hollow image and after become their heterogeneous selves, but would always, if they could, resemble the antithetical self. there is a shadow of type on type, for in all great poetical styles there is saint or hero, but when it is all over dante can return to his chambering and shakespeare to his "pottle pot." they sought no impossible perfection but when they handled paper or parchment. so too will saint or hero, because he works in his own flesh and blood and not in paper or parchment, have more deliberate understanding of that other flesh and blood. some years ago i began to believe that our culture, with its doctrine of sincerity and self-realisation, made us gentle and passive, and that the middle ages and the renaissance were right to found theirs upon the imitation of christ or of some classic hero. st. francis and caesar borgia made themselves over-mastering, creative persons by turning from the mirror to meditation upon a mask. when i had this thought i could see nothing else in life. i could not write the play i had planned, for all became allegorical, and though i tore up hundreds of pages in my endeavour to escape from allegory, my imagination became sterile for nearly five years and i only escaped at last when i had mocked in a comedy my own thought. i was always thinking of the element of imitation in style and in life, and of the life beyond heroic imitation. i find in an old diary: "i think all happiness depends on the energy to assume the mask of some other life, on a re-birth as something not one's self, something created in a moment and perpetually renewed; in playing a game like that of a child where one loses the infinite pain of self-realisation, in a grotesque or solemn painted face put on that one may hide from the terror of judgment.... perhaps all the sins and energies of the world are but the world's flight from an infinite blinding beam"; and again at an earlier date: "if we cannot imagine ourselves as different from what we are, and try to assume that second self, we cannot impose a discipline upon ourselves though we may accept one from others. active virtue, as distinguished from the passive acceptance of a code, is therefore theatrical, consciously dramatic, the wearing of a mask.... wordsworth, great poet though he be, is so often flat and heavy partly because his moral sense, being a discipline he had not created, a mere obedience, has no theatrical element. this increases his popularity with the better kind of journalists and politicians who have written books." vii i thought the hero found hanging upon some oak of dodona an ancient mask, where perhaps there lingered something of egypt, and that he changed it to his fancy, touching it a little here and there, gilding the eyebrows or putting a gilt line where the cheekbone comes; that when at last he looked out of its eyes he knew another's breath came and went within his breath upon the carven lips, and that his eyes were upon the instant fixed upon a visionary world: how else could the god have come to us in the forest? the good, unlearned books say that he who keeps the distant stars within his fold comes without intermediary, but plutarch's precepts and the experience of old women in soho, ministering their witchcraft to servant girls at a shilling apiece, will have it that a strange living man may win for daemon an illustrious dead man; but now i add another thought: the daemon comes not as like to like but seeking its own opposite, for man and daemon feed the hunger in one another's hearts. because the ghost is simple, the man heterogeneous and confused, they are but knit together when the man has found a mask whose lineaments permit the expression of all the man most lacks, and it may be dreads, and of that only. the more insatiable in all desire, the more resolute to refuse deception or an easy victory, the more close will be the bond, the more violent and definite the antipathy. viii i think that all religious men have believed that there is a hand not ours in the events of life, and that, as somebody says in _wilhelm meister_, accident is destiny; and i think it was heraclitus who said: the daemon is our destiny. when i think of life as a struggle with the daemon who would ever set us to the hardest work among those not impossible, i understand why there is a deep enmity between a man and his destiny, and why a man loves nothing but his destiny. in an anglo-saxon poem a certain man is called, as though to call him something that summed up all heroism, "doom eager." i am persuaded that the daemon delivers and deceives us, and that he wove that netting from the stars and threw the net from his shoulder. then my imagination runs from daemon to sweetheart, and i divine an analogy that evades the intellect. i remember that greek antiquity has bid us look for the principal stars, that govern enemy and sweetheart alike, among those that are about to set, in the seventh house as the astrologers say; and that it may be "sexual love," which is "founded upon spiritual hate," is an image of the warfare of man and daemon; and i even wonder if there may not be some secret communion, some whispering in the dark between daemon and sweetheart. i remember how often women, when in love, grow superstitious, and believe that they can bring their lovers good luck; and i remember an old irish story of three young men who went seeking for help in battle into the house of the gods at slieve-na-mon. "you must first be married," some god told them, "because a man's good or evil luck comes to him through a woman." i sometimes fence for half-an-hour at the day's end, and when i close my eyes upon the pillow i see a foil playing before me, the button to my face. we meet always in the deep of the mind, whatever our work, wherever our reverie carries us, that other will. ix the poet finds and makes his mask in disappointment, the hero in defeat. the desire that is satisfied is not a great desire, nor has the shoulder used all its might that an unbreakable gate has never strained. the saint alone is not deceived, neither thrusting with his shoulder nor holding out unsatisfied hands. he would climb without wandering to the antithetical self of the world, the indian narrowing his thought in meditation or driving it away in contemplation, the christian copying christ, the antithetical self of the classic world. for a hero loves the world till it breaks him, and the poet till it has broken faith; but while the world was yet debonair, the saint has turned away, and because he renounced experience itself, he will wear his mask as he finds it. the poet or the hero, no matter upon what bark they found their mask, so teeming their fancy, somewhat change its lineaments, but the saint, whose life is but a round of customary duty, needs nothing the whole world does not need, and day by day he scourges in his body the roman and christian conquerors: alexander and caesar are famished in his cell. his nativity is neither in disappointment nor in defeat, but in a temptation like that of christ in the wilderness, a contemplation in a single instant perpetually renewed of the kingdom of the world; all, because all renounced, continually present showing their empty thrones. edwin ellis, remembering that christ also measured the sacrifice, imagined himself in a fine poem as meeting at golgotha the phantom of "christ the less," the christ who might have lived a prosperous life without the knowledge of sin, and who now wanders "companionless a weary spectre day and night." "i saw him go and cried to him 'eli, thou hast forsaken me.' the nails were burning through each limb, he fled to find felicity." and yet is the saint spared, despite his martyr's crown and his vigil of desire, defeat, disappointed love, and the sorrow of parting. "o night, that did'st lead thus, o night, more lovely than the dawn of light, o night, that broughtest us lover to lover's sight, lover with loved in marriage of delight! upon my flowery breast, wholly for him, and save himself for none, there did i give sweet rest to my beloved one; the fanning of the cedars breathed thereon. when the first morning air blew from the tower, and waved his locks aside, his hand, with gentle care, did wound me in the side, and in my body all my senses died. all things i then forgot, my cheek on him who for my coming came; all ceased and i was not, leaving my cares and shame among the lilies, and forgetting them."[1] x it is not permitted to a man, who takes up pen or chisel, to seek originality, for passion is his only business, and he cannot but mould or sing after a new fashion because no disaster is like another. he is like those phantom lovers in the japanese play who, compelled to wander side by side and never mingle, cry: "we neither wake nor sleep and passing our nights in a sorrow which is in the end a vision, what are these scenes of spring to us?" if when we have found a mask we fancy that it will not match our mood till we have touched with gold the cheek, we do it furtively, and only where the oaks of dodona cast their deepest shadow, for could he see our handiwork the daemon would fling himself out, being our enemy. xi many years ago i saw, between sleeping and waking, a woman of incredible beauty shooting an arrow into the sky, and from the moment when i made my first guess at her meaning i have thought much of the difference between the winding movement of nature and the straight line, which is called in balzac's _seraphita_ the "mark of man," but comes closer to my meaning as the mark of saint or sage. i think that we who are poets and artists, not being permitted to shoot beyond the tangible, must go from desire to weariness and so to desire again, and live but for the moment when vision comes to our weariness like terrible lightning, in the humility of the brutes. i do not doubt those heaving circles, those winding arcs, whether in one man's life or in that of an age, are mathematical, and that some in the world, or beyond the world, have foreknown the event and pricked upon the calendar the life-span of a christ, a buddha, a napoleon: that every movement, in feeling or in thought, prepares in the dark by its own increasing clarity and confidence its own executioner. we seek reality with the slow toil of our weakness and are smitten from the boundless and the unforeseen. only when we are saint or sage, and renounce experience itself, can we, in the language of the christian caballa, leave the sudden lightning and the path of the serpent and become the bowman who aims his arrow at the centre of the sun. xii the doctors of medicine have discovered that certain dreams of the night, for i do not grant them all, are the day's unfulfilled desire, and that our terror of desires condemned by the conscience has distorted and disturbed our dreams. they have only studied the breaking into dream of elements that have remained unsatisfied without purifying discouragement. we can satisfy in life a few of our passions and each passion but a little, and our characters indeed but differ because no two men bargain alike. the bargain, the compromise, is always threatened, and when it is broken we become mad or hysterical or are in some way deluded; and so when a starved or banished passion shows in a dream we, before awaking, break the logic that had given it the capacity of action and throw it into chaos again. but the passions, when we know that they cannot find fulfilment, become vision; and a vision, whether we wake or sleep, prolongs its power by rhythm and pattern, the wheel where the world is butterfly. we need no protection, but it does, for if we become interested in ourselves, in our own lives, we pass out of the vision. whether it is we or the vision that create the pattern, who set the wheel turning, it is hard to say, but certainly we have a hundred ways of keeping it near us: we select our images from past times, we turn from our own age and try to feel chaucer nearer than the daily paper. it compels us to cover all it cannot incorporate, and would carry us when it comes in sleep to that moment when even sleep closes her eyes and dreams begin to dream; and we are taken up into a clear light and are forgetful even of our own names and actions and yet in perfect possession of ourselves murmur like faust, "stay, moment," and murmur in vain. xiii a poet, when he is growing old, will ask himself if he cannot keep his mask and his vision without new bitterness, new disappointment. could he if he would, knowing how frail his vigour from youth up, copy landor who lived loving and hating, ridiculous and unconquered, into extreme old age, all lost but the favour of his muses. the mother of the muses we are taught is memory; she has left me; they remain and shake my shoulder urging me to sing. surely, he may think, now that i have found vision and mask i need not suffer any longer. he will buy perhaps some small old house where like ariosto he can dig his garden, and think that in the return of birds and leaves, or moon and sun, and in the evening flight of the rooks he may discover rhythm and pattern like those in sleep and so never awake out of vision. then he will remember wordsworth withering into eighty years, honoured and empty-witted, and climb to some waste room and find, forgotten there by youth, some bitter crust. _february_ 25, 1917. anima mundi i i have always sought to bring my mind close to the mind of indian and japanese poets, old women in connaught, mediums in soho, lay brothers whom i imagine dreaming in some mediaeval monastery the dreams of their village, learned authors who refer all to antiquity; to immerse it in the general mind where that mind is scarce separable from what we have begun to call "the subconscious"; to liberate it from all that comes of councils and committees, from the world as it is seen from universities or from populous towns; and that i might so believe i have murmured evocations and frequented mediums, delighted in all that displayed great problems through sensuous images, or exciting phrases, accepting from abstract schools but a few technical words that are so old they seem but broken architraves fallen amid bramble and grass, and have put myself to school where all things are seen: _a tenedo tacitae per amica silentia lunae_. at one time i thought to prove my conclusions by quoting from diaries where i have recorded certain strange events the moment they happened, but now i have changed my mind--i will but say like the arab boy that became vizier: "o brother, i have taken stock in the desert sand and of the sayings of antiquity." ii there is a letter of goethe's, though i cannot remember where, that explains evocation, though he was but thinking of literature. he described some friend who had complained of literary sterility as too intelligent. one must allow the images to form with all their associations before one criticises. "if one is critical too soon," he wrote, "they will not form at all." if you suspend the critical faculty, i have discovered, either as the result of training, or, if you have the gift, by passing into a slight trance, images pass rapidly before you. if you can suspend also desire, and let them form at their own will, your absorption becomes more complete and they are more clear in colour, more precise in articulation, and you and they begin to move in the midst of what seems a powerful light. but the images pass before you linked by certain associations, and indeed in the first instance you have called them up by their association with traditional forms and sounds. you have discovered how, if you can but suspend will and intellect, to bring up from the "subconscious" anything you already possess a fragment of. those who follow the old rule keep their bodies still and their minds awake and clear, dreading especially any confusion between the images of the mind and the objects of sense; they seek to become, as it were, polished mirrors. i had no natural gift for this clear quiet, as i soon discovered, for my mind is abnormally restless; and i was seldom delighted by that sudden luminous definition of form which makes one understand almost in spite of oneself that one is not merely imagining. i therefore invented a new process. i had found that after evocation my sleep became at moments full of light and form, all that i had failed to find while awake; and i elaborated a symbolism of natural objects that i might give myself dreams during sleep, or rather visions, for they had none of the confusion of dreams, by laying upon my pillow or beside my bed certain flowers or leaves. even to-day, after twenty years, the exaltations and the messages that came to me from bits of hawthorn or some other plant seem of all moments of my life the happiest and the wisest. after a time, perhaps because the novelty wearing off the symbol lost its power, or because my work at the irish theatre became too exciting, my sleep lost its responsiveness. i had fellow-scholars, and now it was i and now they who made some discovery. before the mind's eye, whether in sleep or waking, came images that one was to discover presently in some book one had never read, and after looking in vain for explanation to the current theory of forgotten personal memory, i came to believe in a great memory passing on from generation to generation. but that was not enough, for these images showed intention and choice. they had a relation to what one knew and yet were an extension of one's knowledge. if no mind was there, why should i suddenly come upon salt and antimony, upon the liquefaction of the gold, as they were understood by the alchemists, or upon some detail of cabalistic symbolism verified at last by a learned scholar from his never-published manuscripts, and who can have put together so ingeniously, working by some law of association and yet with clear intention and personal application, certain mythological images. they had shown themselves to several minds, a fragment at a time, and had only shown their meaning when the puzzle picture had been put together. the thought was again and again before me that this study had created a contact or mingling with minds who had followed a like study in some other age, and that these minds still saw and thought and chose. our daily thought was certainly but the line of foam at the shallow edge of a vast luminous sea: henry more's _anima mundi_, wordsworth's "immortal sea which brought us hither ... and near whose edge the children sport," and in that sea there were some who swam or sailed, explorers who perhaps knew all its shores. iii i had always to compel myself to fix the imagination upon the minds behind the personifications, and yet the personifications were themselves living and vivid. the minds that swayed these seemingly fluid images had doubtless form, and those images themselves seemed, as it were, mirrored in a living substance whose form is but change of form. from tradition and perception, one thought of one's own life as symbolised by earth, the place of heterogeneous things, the images as mirrored in water and the images themselves one could divine but as air; and beyond it all there was, i felt confident, certain aims and governing loves, the fire that makes all simple. yet the images themselves were fourfold, and one judged their meaning in part from the predominance of one out of the four elements, or that of the fifth element, the veil hiding another four, a bird born out of the fire. iv i longed to know something even if it were but the family and christian names of those minds that i could divine, and that yet remained always as it seemed impersonal. the sense of contact came perhaps but two or three times with clearness and certainty, but it left among all to whom it came some trace, a sudden silence, as it were, in the midst of thought or perhaps at moments of crisis a faint voice. were our masters right when they declared so solidly that we should be content to know these presences that seemed friendly and near but as "the phantom" in coleridge's poem, and to think of them perhaps, as having, as st. thomas says, entered upon the eternal possession of themselves in one single moment? "all look and likeness caught from earth, all accident of kin and birth, had passed away. there was no trace of ought on that illumined face, upraised beneath the rifted stone, but of one spirit all her own; she, she herself and only she, shone through her body visibly." v one night i heard a voice that said: "the love of god for every human soul is infinite, for every human soul is unique; no other can satisfy the same need in god." our masters had not denied that personality outlives the body or even that its rougher shape may cling to us a while after death, but only that we should seek it in those who are dead. yet when i went among the country people, i found that they sought and found the old fragilities, infirmities, physiognomies that living stirred affection. the spiddal knowledgeable man, who had his knowledge from his sister's ghost, noticed every hallowe'en, when he met her at the end of the garden, that her hair was greyer. had she perhaps to exhaust her allotted years in the neighbourhood of her home, having died before her time? because no authority seemed greater than that of this knowledge running backward to the beginning of the world, i began that study of spiritism so despised by stanislas de gaeta, the one eloquent learned scholar who has written of magic in our generation. vi i know much that i could never have known had i not learnt to consider in the after life what, there as here, is rough and disjointed; nor have i found that the mediums in connaught and soho have anything i cannot find some light on in henry more, who was called during his life the holiest man now walking upon the earth. all souls have a vehicle or body, and when one has said that, with more and the platonists one has escaped from the abstract schools who seek always the power of some church or institution, and found oneself with great poetry, and superstition which is but popular poetry, in a pleasant dangerous world. beauty is indeed but bodily life in some ideal condition. the vehicle of the human soul is what used to be called the animal spirits, and henry more quotes from hippocrates this sentence: "the mind of man is ... not nourished from meats and drinks from the belly, but by a clear luminous substance that redounds by separation from the blood." these animal spirits fill up all parts of the body and make up the body of air, as certain writers of the seventeenth century have called it. the soul has a plastic power, and can after death, or during life, should the vehicle leave the body for a while, mould it to any shape it will by an act of imagination, though the more unlike to the habitual that shape is, the greater the effort. to living and dead alike, the purity and abundance of the animal spirits are a chief power. the soul can mould from these an apparition clothed as if in life, and make it visible by showing it to our mind's eye, or by building into its substance certain particles drawn from the body of a medium till it is as visible and tangible as any other object. to help that building the ancients offered fragrant gum, the odour of flowers, and it may be pieces of virgin wax. the half materialised vehicle slowly exudes from the skin in dull luminous drops or condenses from a luminous cloud, the light fading as weight and density increase. the witch, going beyond the medium, offered to the slowly animating phantom certain drops of her blood. the vehicle once separate from the living man or woman may be moulded by the souls of others as readily as by its own soul, and even it seems by the souls of the living. it becomes a part for a while of that stream of images which i have compared to reflections upon water. but how does it follow that souls who never have handled the modelling tool or the brush, make perfect images? those materialisations who imprint their powerful faces upon paraffin wax, leave there sculpture that would have taken a good artist, making and imagining, many hours. how did it follow that an ignorant woman could, as henry more believed, project her vehicle in so good a likeness of a hare, that horse and hound and huntsman followed with the bugle blowing? is not the problem the same as of those finely articulated scenes and patterns that come out of the dark, seemingly completed in the winking of an eye, as we are lying half asleep, and of all those elaborate images that drift in moments of inspiration or evocation before the mind's eye? our animal spirits or vehicles are but as it were a condensation of the vehicle of _anima mundi_, and give substance to its images in the faint materialisation of our common thought, or more grossly when a ghost is our visitor. it should be no great feat, once those images have dipped into our vehicle, to take their portraits in the photographic camera. henry more will have it that a hen scared by a hawk when the cock is treading, hatches out a hawkheaded chicken (i am no stickler for the fact), because before the soul of the unborn bird could give the shape "the deeply impassioned fancy of the mother" called from the general cistern of form a competing image. "the soul of the world," he runs on, "interposes and insinuates into all generations of things while the matter is fluid and yielding, which would induce a man to believe that she may not stand idle in the transformation of the vehicle of the daemons, but assist the fancies and desires, and so help to clothe them and to utter them according to their own pleasures; or it may be sometimes against their wills as the unwieldiness of the mother's fancy forces upon her a monstrous birth." though images appear to flow and drift, it may be that we but change in our relation to them, now losing, now finding with the shifting of our minds; and certainly henry more speaks by the book, claiming that those images may be hard to the right touch as "pillars of crystal" and as solidly coloured as our own to the right eyes. shelley, a good platonist, seems in his earliest work to set this general soul in the place of god, an opinion, one may find from more's friend cudworth now affirmed, now combated, by classic authority; but more would steady us with a definition. the general soul as apart from its vehicle is "a substance incorporeal but without sense and animadversion pervading the whole matter of the universe and exercising a plastic power therein, according to the sundry predispositions and occasions, in the parts it works upon, raising such phenomena in the world, by directing the parts of the matter and their motion as cannot be resolved into mere mechanical powers." i must assume that "sense and animadversion," perception and direction, are always faculties of individual soul, and that, as blake said, "god only acts or is in existing beings or men." vii the old theological conception of the individual soul as bodiless or abstract led to what henry more calls "contradictory debate" as to how many angels "could dance booted and spurred upon the point of a needle," and made it possible for rationalist physiology to persuade us that our thought has no corporeal existence but in the molecules of the brain. shelley was of opinion that the "thoughts which are called real or external objects" differed but in regularity of occurrence from "hallucinations, dreams and ideas of madmen," and noticed that he had dreamed, therefore lessening the difference, "three several times between intervals of two or more years the same precise dream." if all our mental images no less than apparitions (and i see no reason to distinguish) are forms existing in the general vehicle of _anima mundi_, and mirrored in our particular vehicle, many crooked things are made straight. i am persuaded that a logical process, or a series of related images, has body and period, and i think of _anima mundi_ as a great pool or garden where it spreads through allotted growth like a great water plant or branches more fragrantly in the air. indeed as spenser's garden of adonis: "there is the first seminary of all things that are born to live and die according to their kynds." the soul by changes of "vital congruity," more says, draws to it a certain thought, and this thought draws by its association the sequence of many thoughts, endowing them with a life in the vehicle meted out according to the intensity of the first perception. a seed is set growing, and this growth may go on apart from the power, apart even from the knowledge of the soul. if i wish to "transfer" a thought i may think, let us say, of cinderella's slipper, and my subject may see an old woman coming out of a chimney; or going to sleep i may wish to wake at seven o'clock and, though i never think of it again, i shall wake upon the instant. the thought has completed itself, certain acts of logic, turns, and knots in the stem have been accomplished out of sight and out of reach as it were. we are always starting these parasitic vegetables and letting them coil beyond our knowledge, and may become, like that lady in balzac who, after a life of sanctity, plans upon her deathbed to fly with her renounced lover. after death a dream, a desire she had perhaps ceased to believe in, perhaps ceased almost to remember, must have recurred again and again with its anguish and its happiness. we can only refuse to start the wandering sequence or, if start it does, hold it in the intellectual light where time gallops, and so keep it from slipping down into the sluggish vehicle. the toil of the living is to free themselves from an endless sequence of objects, and that of the dead to free themselves from an endless sequence of thoughts. one sequence begets another, and these have power because of all those things we do, not for their own sake but for an imagined good. viii spiritism, whether of folk-lore or of the sã©ance room, the visions of swedenborg, and the speculation of the platonists and japanese plays, will have it that we may see at certain roads and in certain houses old murders acted over again, and in certain fields dead huntsmen riding with horse and hound, or ancient armies fighting above bones or ashes. we carry to _anima mundi_ our memory, and that memory is for a time our external world; and all passionate moments recur again and again, for passion desires its own recurrence more than any event, and whatever there is of corresponding complacency or remorse is our beginning of judgment; nor do we remember only the events of life, for thoughts bred of longing and of fear, all those parasitic vegetables that have slipped through our fingers, come again like a rope's end to smite us upon the face; and as cornelius agrippa writes: "we may dream ourselves to be consumed in flame and persecuted by daemons," and certain spirits have complained that they would be hard put to it to arouse those who died, believing they could not awake till a trumpet shrilled. a ghost in a japanese play is set afire by a fantastic scruple, and though a buddhist priest explains that the fire would go out of itself if the ghost but ceased to believe in it, it cannot cease to believe. cornelius agrippa called such dreaming souls hobgoblins, and when hamlet refused the bare bodkin because of what dreams may come, it was from no mere literary fancy. the soul can indeed, it appears, change these objects built about us by the memory, as it may change its shape; but the greater the change, the greater the effort and the sooner the return to the habitual images. doubtless in either case the effort is often beyond its power. years ago i was present when a woman consulted madame blavatsky for a friend who saw her newly-dead husband nightly as a decaying corpse and smelt the odour of the grave. when he was dying, said madame blavatsky, he thought the grave the end, and now that he is dead cannot throw off that imagination. a brahmin once told an actress friend of mine that he disliked acting, because if a man died playing hamlet, he would be hamlet in eternity. yet after a time the soul partly frees itself and becomes "the shape changer" of the legends, and can cast, like the mediaeval magician, what illusions it would. there is an irish countryman in one of lady gregory's books who had eaten with a stranger on the road, and some while later vomited, to discover he had but eaten chopped up grass. one thinks, too, of the spirits that show themselves in the images of wild creatures. ix the dead, as the passionate necessity wears out, come into a measure of freedom and may turn the impulse of events, started while living, in some new direction, but they cannot originate except through the living. then gradually they perceive, although they are still but living in their memories, harmonies, symbols, and patterns, as though all were being refashioned by an artist, and they are moved by emotions, sweet for no imagined good but in themselves, like those of children dancing in a ring; and i do not doubt that they make love in that union which swedenborg has said is of the whole body and seems from far off an incandescence. hitherto shade has communicated with shade in moments of common memory that recur like the figures of a dance in terror or in joy, but now they run together like to like, and their covens and fleets have rhythm and pattern. this running together and running of all to a centre and yet without loss of identity, has been prepared for by their exploration of their moral life, of its beneficiaries and its victims, and even of all its untrodden paths, and all their thoughts have moulded the vehicle and become event and circumstance. x there are two realities, the terrestrial and the condition of fire. all power is from the terrestrial condition, for there all opposites meet and there only is the extreme of choice possible, full freedom. and there the heterogeneous is, and evil, for evil is the strain one upon another of opposites; but in the condition of fire is all music and all rest. between is the condition of air where images have but a borrowed life, that of memory or that reflected upon them when they symbolise colours and intensities of fire, the place of shades who are "in the whirl of those who are fading," and who cry like those amorous shades in the japanese play: "that we may acquire power even in our faint substance, we will show forth even now, and though it be but in a dream, our form of repentance." after so many rhythmic beats the soul must cease to desire its images, and can, as it were, close its eyes. when all sequence comes to an end, time comes to an end, and the soul puts on the rhythmic or spiritual body or luminous body and contemplates all the events of its memory and every possible impulse in an eternal possession of itself in one single moment. that condition is alone animate, all the rest is phantasy, and from thence come all the passions, and some have held, the very heat of the body. time drops in decay, like a candle burnt out, and the mountains and the woods have their day, have their day. what one, in the rout of the fire-born moods, has fallen away? xi the soul cannot have much knowledge till it has shaken off the habit of time and of place, but till that hour it must fix its attention upon what is near, thinking of objects one after another as we run the eye or the finger over them. its intellectual power cannot but increase and alter as its perceptions grow simultaneous. yet even now we seem at moments to escape from time in what we call prevision, and from place when we see distant things in a dream and in concurrent dreams. a couple of years ago, while in meditation, my head seemed surrounded by a conventional sun's rays, and when i went to bed i had a long dream of a woman with her hair on fire. i awoke and lit a candle, and discovered presently from the odour that in doing so i had set my own hair on fire. i dreamed very lately that i was writing a story, and at the same time i dreamed that i was one of the characters in that story and seeking to touch the heart of some girl in defiance of the author's intention; and concurrently with all that, i was as another self trying to strike with the button of a foil a great china jar. the obscurity of the prophetic books of william blake, which were composed in a state of vision, comes almost wholly from these concurrent dreams. everybody has some story or some experience of the sudden knowledge in sleep or waking of some event, a misfortune for the most part happening to some friend far off. xii the dead living in their memories, are, i am persuaded, the source of all that we call instinct, and it is their love and their desire, all unknowing, that make us drive beyond our reason, or in defiance of our interest it may be; and it is the dream martens that, all unknowing, are master-masons to the living martens building about church windows their elaborate nests; and in their turn, the phantoms are stung to a keener delight from a concord between their luminous pure vehicle and our strong senses. it were to reproach the power or the beneficence of god, to believe those children of alexander who died wretchedly could not throw an urnful to the heap, nor that caesarea[2] murdered in childhood, whom cleopatra bore to caesar, nor that so brief-lived younger pericles aspasia bore being so nobly born. xiii because even the most wise dead can but arrange their memories as we arrange pieces upon a chess-board and obey remembered words alone, he who would turn magician is forbidden by the zoroastrian oracle to change "barbarous words" of invocation. communication with _anima mundi_ is through the association of thoughts or images or objects; and the famous dead and those of whom but a faint memory lingers, can still--and it is for no other end that, all unknowing, we value posthumous fame--tread the corridor and take the empty chair. a glove or a name can call their bearer; the shadows come to our elbow amid their old undisturbed habitations, and "materialisation" itself is easier, it may be, among walls, or by rocks and trees, that carry upon them particles the vehicles cast off in some extremity while they had still animate bodies. certainly the mother returns from the grave, and with arms that may be visible and solid, for a hurried moment, can comfort a neglected child or set the cradle rocking; and in all ages men have known and affirmed that when the soul is troubled, those that are a shade and a song: "live there, and live like winds of light on dark or stormy air." xiv awhile they live again those passionate moments, not knowing they are dead, and then they know and may awake or half awake to be our visitors. how is their dream changed as time drops away and their senses multiply? does their stature alter, do their eyes grow more brilliant? certainly the dreams stay the longer, the greater their passion when alive: helen may still open her chamber door to paris or watch him from the wall, and know she is dreaming but because nights and days are poignant or the stars unreckonably bright. surely of the passionate dead we can but cry in words ben jonson meant for none but shakespeare: "so rammed" are they "with life they can but grow in life with being." xv the inflowing from their mirrored life, who themselves receive it from the condition of fire, falls upon the winding path called the path of the serpent, and that inflowing coming alike to men and to animals is called natural. there is another inflow which is not natural but intellectual, and is from the fire; and it descends through souls who pass for a lengthy or a brief period out of the mirror life, as we in sleep out of the bodily life, and though it may fall upon a sleeping serpent, it falls principally upon straight paths. in so far as a man is like all other men, the inflow finds him upon the winding path, and in so far as he is a saint or sage, upon the straight path. xvi daemon and man are opposites; man passes from heterogeneous objects to the simplicity of fire, and the daemon is drawn to objects because through them he obtains power, the extremity of choice. for only in men's minds can he meet even those in the condition of fire who are not of his own kin. he, by using his mediatorial shades, brings man again and again to the place of choice, heightening temptation that the choice may be as final as possible, imposing his own lucidity upon events, leading his victim to whatever among works not impossible is the most difficult. he suffers with man as some firm-souled man suffers with the woman he but loves the better because she is extravagant and fickle. his descending power is neither the winding nor the straight line but zigzag, illuminating the passive and active properties, the tree's two sorts of fruit: it is the sudden lightning, for all his acts of power are instantaneous. we perceive in a pulsation of the artery, and after slowly decline. xvii each daemon is drawn to whatever man or, if its nature is more general, to whatever nation it most differs from, and it shapes into its own image the antithetical dream of man or nation. the jews had already shown by the precious metals, by the ostentatious wealth of solomon's temple, the passion that has made them the money-lenders of the modern world. if they had not been rapacious, lustful, narrow and persecuting beyond the people of their time, the incarnation had been impossible; but it was an intellectual impulse from the condition of fire that shaped their antithetical self into that of the classic world. so always it is an impulse from some daemon that gives to our vague, unsatisfied desire, beauty, a meaning and a form all can accept. xviii only in rapid and subtle thought, or in faint accents heard in the quiet of the mind, can the thought of the spirit come to us but little changed; for a mind, that grasps objects simultaneously according to the degree of its liberation, does not think the same thought with the mind that sees objects one after another. the purpose of most religious teaching, of the insistence upon the submission to god's will above all, is to make certain of the passivity of the vehicle where it is most pure and most tenuous. when we are passive where the vehicle is coarse, we become mediumistic, and the spirits who mould themselves in that coarse vehicle can only rarely and with great difficulty speak their own thoughts and keep their own memory. they are subject to a kind of drunkenness and are stupefied, old writers said, as if with honey, and readily mistake our memory for their own, and believe themselves whom and what we please. we bewilder and overmaster them, for once they are among the perceptions of successive objects, our reason, being but an instrument created and sharpened by those objects, is stronger than their intellect, and they can but repeat with brief glimpses from another state, our knowledge and our words. xix a friend once dreamed that she saw many dragons climbing upon the steep side of a cliff and continually falling. henry more thought that those who, after centuries of life, failed to find the rhythmic body and to pass into the condition of fire, were born again. edmund spenser, who was among more's masters, affirmed that nativity without giving it a cause: "after that they againe retourned beene, they in that garden planted be agayne, and grow afresh, as they had never seene fleshy corruption, nor mortal payne. some thousand years so doen they ther remayne, and then of him are clad with other hew, or sent into the chaungeful world agayne, till thither they retourn where first they grew: so like a wheele, around they roam from old to new." the dead who speak to us deny metempsychosis, perhaps because they but know a little better what they knew alive; while the dead in asia, for perhaps no better reason, affirm it, and so we are left amid plausibilities and uncertainties. xx but certainly it is always to the condition of fire, where emotion is not brought to any sudden stop, where there is neither wall nor gate, that we would rise; and the mask plucked from the oak-tree is but my imagination of rhythmic body. we may pray to that last condition by any name so long as we do not pray to it as a thing or a thought, and most prayers call it man or woman or child: "for mercy has a human heart, pity a human face." within ourselves reason and will, who are the man and woman, hold out towards a hidden altar, a laughing or crying child. xxi when i remember that shelley calls our minds "mirrors of the fire for which all thirst," i cannot but ask the question all have asked, "what or who has cracked the mirror?" i begin to study the only self that i can know, myself, and to wind the thread upon the perne again. at certain moments, always unforeseen, i become happy, most commonly when at hazard i have opened some book of verse. sometimes it is my own verse when, instead of discovering new technical flaws, i read with all the excitement of the first writing. perhaps i am sitting in some crowded restaurant, the open book beside me, or closed, my excitement having over-brimmed the page. i look at the strangers near as if i had known them all my life, and it seems strange that i cannot speak to them: everything fills me with affection, i have no longer any fears or any needs; i do not even remember that this happy mood must come to an end. it seems as if the vehicle had suddenly grown pure and far extended and so luminous that one half imagines that the images from _anima mundi_, embodied there and drunk with that sweetness, would, as some country drunkard who had thrown a wisp into his own thatch, burn up time. it may be an hour before the mood passes, but latterly i seem to understand that i enter upon it the moment i cease to hate. i think the common condition of our life is hatred--i know that this is so with me--irritation with public or private events or persons. there is no great matter in forgetfulness of servants, or the delays of tradesmen, but how forgive the ill-breeding of carlyle, or the rhetoric of swinburne, or that woman who murmurs over the dinner-table the opinion of her daily paper? and only a week ago last sunday, i hated the spaniel who disturbed a partridge on her nest, a trout who took my bait and yet broke away unhooked. the books say that our happiness comes from the opposite of hate, but i am not certain, for we may love unhappily. and plainly, when i have closed a book too stirred to go on reading, and in those brief intense visions of sleep, i have something about me that, though it makes me love, is more like innocence. i am in the place where the daemon is, but i do not think he is with me until i begin to make a new personality, selecting among those images, seeking always to satisfy a hunger grown out of conceit with daily diet; and yet as i write the words, "i select," i am full of uncertainty, not knowing when i am the finger, when the clay. once, twenty years ago, i seemed to awake from sleep to find my body rigid, and to hear a strange voice speaking these words through my lips as through lips of stone: "we make an image of him who sleeps, and it is not him who sleeps, and we call it emmanuel." xxii as i go up and down my stair and pass the gilded moorish wedding-chest where i keep my "barbarous words," i wonder will i take to them once more, for i am baffled by those voices that still speak as to odysseus but as the bats; or now that i shall in a little be growing old, to some kind of simple piety like that of an old woman. _may_ 9, 1917. epilogue my dear "maurice"--i was often in france before you were born or when you were but a little child. when i went for the first or second time mallarmã© had just written: "all our age is full of the trembling of the veil of the temple." one met everywhere young men of letters who talked of magic. a distinguished english man of letters asked me to call with him on stanislas de gaeta because he did not dare go alone to that mysterious house. i met from time to time with the german poet doukenday, a grave swede whom i only discovered after years to have been strindberg, then looking for the philosopher's stone in a lodging near the luxembourg; and one day in the chambers of stuart merrill the poet, i spoke with a young arabic scholar who displayed a large, roughly-made gold ring which had grown to the shape of his finger. its gold had no hardening alloy, he said, because it was made by his master, a jewish rabbi, of alchemical gold. my critical mind--was it friend or enemy?--mocked, and yet i was delighted. paris was as legendary as connaught. this new pride, that of the adept, was added to the pride of the artist. villiers de l'isle adam, the haughtiest of men, had but lately died. i had read his _axel_ slowly and laboriously as one reads a sacred book--my french was very bad--and had applauded it upon the stage. as i could not follow the spoken words, i was not bored even where axel and the commander discussed philosophy for a half-hour instead of beginning their duel. if i felt impatient it was only that they delayed the coming of the adept janus, for i hoped to recognise the moment when axel cries: "i know that lamp, it was burning before solomon"; or that other when he cries: "as for living, our servants will do that for us." the movement of letters had been haughty even before magic had touched it. rimbaud had sung: "am i an old maid that i should fear the embrace of death?" and everywhere in paris and in london young men boasted of the garret, and claimed to have no need of what the crowd values. last summer you, who were at the age i was when first i heard of mallarmã© and of verlaine, spoke much of the french poets young men and women read to-day. claudel i already somewhat knew, but you read to me for the first time from jammes a dialogue between a poet and a bird, that made us cry, and a whole volume of peguy's _mystã¨re de la charitã© de jeanne d'arc_. nothing remained the same but the preoccupation with religion, for these poets submitted everything to the pope, and all, even claudel, a proud oratorical man, affirmed that they saw the world with the eyes of vine-dressers and charcoal-burners. it was no longer the soul, self-moving and self-teaching--the magical soul--but mother france and mother church. have not my thoughts run through a like round, though i have not found my tradition in the catholic church, which was not the church of my childhood, but where the tradition is, as i believe, more universal and more ancient? w. b. y. _may_ 11, 1917. printed in the united states of america. the following pages contain advertisements of books by the same author or on kindred subjects. responsibilities by william butler yeats _cloth, $1.25_ "william butler yeats is by far the biggest poetic personality living among us at present. he is great both as a lyric and dramatist poet." --_john masefield._ "this poetry has the rhythm that is incantation and sorcery, that is not of the senses nor of the spirit, but of a mingling which is exaltation." --_chicago evening post._ under the title of "responsibilities" william butler yeats brings together some of his recent poems. notable still for his freshness of thought, his keen originality, and his purely poetic conception of thoughts and facts, mr. yeats sometimes makes us wonder how he has so long been able to hold his style above the ever rising level of modern poetry. no man stands so apart in his own perfection as does this irish poet and playwright, in his art of discovering truths remote and beautiful. serious, vital thoughts he veils, as the genuine poet, in a cloak of fine rhythmical expression. it is, after all, as a poet that the majority of people like to think of mr. yeats, and this splendid collection, the first in a number of years, is assured of a warm welcome. by william butler yeats the cutting of an agate _12mo, $1.50_ "mr. yeats is probably the most important as well as the most widely known of the men concerned directly in the so-called celtic renaissance. more than this, he stands among the few men to be reckoned with in modern poetry."--_new york herald._ the green helmet and other poems _decorated cloth, 12mo, $1.25_ the initial piece in this volume is a deliciously conceived heroic farce, quaint in humor and sprightly in action. it tells of the difficulty in which two simple irish folk find themselves when they enter into an agreement with an apparition of the sea, who demands that they knock off his head and who maintains that after they have done that he will knock off theirs. there is a real meaning in the play which it will not take the thoughtful reader long to discover. besides this there are a number of shorter poems, notably one in which mr. yeats answers the critics of "the playboy of the western world." lyrical and dramatic poems in two volumes _vol. i. lyrical poems, $2.00 leather, $2.25_ _vol. ii. plays (revised), $2.00 leather, $2.25_ the two-volume edition of the irish poet's works included everything he has done in verse up to the present time. the first volume contains his lyrics; the second includes all of his five dramas in verse: "the countess cathleen," "the land of heart's desire," "the king's threshold," "on baile's strand," and "the shadowy waters." reveries over childhood and youth _$2.00_ in this book the celebrated irish author gives us his reminiscences of his childhood and youth. the memories are written, as is to be expected, in charming prose. they have the appeal invariably attached to the account of a sensitive childhood. the hour glass and other plays _$1.25_ "the hour glass" is one of mr. yeats' noble and effective plays, and with the other plays in the volume, make a small, but none the less representative collection. stories of red hanrahan _$1.25_ these tales belong to the realm of pure lyrical expression. they are mysterious and shadowy, full of infinite subtleties and old wisdom of folklore, and sad with the gray wistful celtic sadness. "lovers of mr. yeats's suggestive and delicate writing will find him at his best in this volume."--_springfield republican._ ideas of good and evil _$1.50_ essays on art and life, wherein are set forth much of yeats' philosophy, his love of beauty, his hope for ireland and for irish artistic achievement. the celtic twilight _$1.50_ a collection of tales from irish life and of irish fancy, retold from peasants' stories with no additions except an occasional comment. the works of rabindranath tagore bolpur edition hungry stones and other stories. fruit gathering. chitra: a play in one act. the crescent moon: child poems. the gardener: love poems. gitanjali: religious poems. the king of the dark chamber: a play. the songs of kabir. sadhana: the realization of life. the post office: a play. each volume decorated cloth, $1.50; leather, $2.00. this new edition of the works of rabindranath tagore will recommend itself to those who desire to possess the various poems and plays of the great hindu writer in the best possible printings and bindings. great care has been taken with the physical appearance of the books. in addition to the special design that has been made for the cover, there are special end papers and decorated title pages in each book. altogether this edition promises to become the standard one of this distinguished poet and seer. the macmillan company publishers 64-66 fifth avenue new york footnotes: [1] translated by arthur symons from _san juan de la cruz_. [2] i have no better authority for caesarea than landor's play. the countess cathleen by w. b. yeats 1912 first edition............................ 1892 second edition (in "poems" by w. b. yeats) 1895 third edition ,, ,, 1899 fourth edition ,, ,, 1901 fifth edition ,, ,, 1904 sixth edition ,, ,, 1908 seventh edition (revised)................ 1912 (all rights reserved.) to maud gonne "the sorrowful are dumb for thee" lament of morion shehone for miss mary bourke shemus rua, a peasant mary, his wife teig, his son aleel, a poet the countess cathleen oona, her foster mother two demons disguised as merchants peasants, servants, angelical beings, spirits the scene is laid in ireland and in old times. scene 1 scene--a room with lighted fire, and a door into the open air, through which one sees, perhaps, the trees of a wood, and these trees should be painted in flat colour upon a gold or diapered sky. the walls are of one colour. the scene should have the effect of missal painting. mary, a woman of forty years or so, is grinding a quern. mary. what can have made the grey hen flutter so? (teig, a boy of fourteen, is coming in with turf, which he lays beside the hearth.) teig. they say that now the land is famine struck the graves are walking. mary. there is something that the hen hears. teig. and that is not the worst; at tubber-vanach a woman met a man with ears spread out, and they moved up and down like a bat's wing. mary. what can have kept your father all this while? teig. two nights ago, at carrick-orus churchyard, a herdsman met a man who had no mouth, nor eyes, nor ears; his face a wall of flesh; he saw him plainly by the light of the moon. mary. look out, and tell me if your father's coming. (teig goes to door.) teig. mother! mary. what is it? teig. in the bush beyond, there are two birds--if you can call them birds-i could not see them rightly for the leaves. but they've the shape and colour of horned owls and i'm half certain they've a human face. mary. mother of god, defend us! teig. they're looking at me. what is the good of praying? father says. god and the mother of god have dropped asleep. what do they care, he says, though the whole land squeal like a rabbit under a weasel's tooth? mary. you'll bring misfortune with your blasphemies upon your father, or yourself, or me. i would to god he were home--ah, there he is. (shemus comes in.) what was it kept you in the wood? you know i cannot get all sorts of accidents out of my mind till you are home again. shemus. i'm in no mood to listen to your clatter. although i tramped the woods for half a day, i've taken nothing, for the very rats, badgers, and hedgehogs seem to have died of drought, and there was scarce a wind in the parched leaves. teig. then you have brought no dinner. shemus. after that i sat among the beggars at the cross-roads, and held a hollow hand among the others. mary. what, did you beg? shemus. i had no chance to beg, for when the beggars saw me they cried out they would not have another share their alms, and hunted me away with sticks and stones. teig. you said that you would bring us food or money. shemus. what's in the house? teig. a bit of mouldy bread. mary. there's flour enough to make another loaf. teig. and when that's gone? mary. there is the hen in the coop. shemus. my curse upon the beggars, my curse upon them! teig. and the last penny gone. shemus. when the hen's gone, what can we do but live on sorrel and dock) and dandelion, till our mouths are green? mary. god, that to this hour's found bit and sup, will cater for us still. shemus. his kitchen's bare. there were five doors that i looked through this day and saw the dead and not a soul to wake them. mary. maybe he'd have us die because he knows, when the ear is stopped and when the eye is stopped, that every wicked sight is hid from the eye, and all fool talk from the ear. shemus. who's passing there? and mocking us with music? (a stringed instrument without.) teig. a young man plays it, there's an old woman and a lady with him. shemus. what is the trouble of the poor to her? nothing at all or a harsh radishy sauce for the day's meat. mary. god's pity on the rich, had we been through as many doors, and seen the dishes standing on the polished wood in the wax candle light, we'd be as hard, and there's the needle's eye at the end of all. shemus. my curse upon the rich. teig. they're coming here. shemus. then down upon that stool, down quick, i say, and call up a whey face and a whining voice, and let your head be bowed upon your knees. mary. had i but time to put the place to rights. (cathleen, oona, and aleel enter.) cathleen. god save all here. there is a certain house, an old grey castle with a kitchen garden, a cider orchard and a plot for flowers, somewhere among these woods. mary. we know it, lady. a place that's set among impassable walls as though world's trouble could not find it out. cathleen. it may be that we are that trouble, for we-although we've wandered in the wood this hour-have lost it too, yet i should know my way, for i lived all my childhood in that house. mary. then you are countess cathleen? cathleen. and this woman, oona, my nurse, should have remembered it, for we were happy for a long time there. oona. the paths are overgrown with thickets now, or else some change has come upon my sight. cathleen. and this young man, that should have known the woods-because we met him on their border but now, wandering and singing like a wave of the sea-is so wrapped up in dreams of terrors to come that he can give no help. mary. you have still some way, but i can put you on the trodden path your servants take when they are marketing. but first sit down and rest yourself awhile, for my old fathers served your fathers, lady, longer than books can tell--and it were strange if you and yours should not be welcome here. cathleen. and it were stranger still were i ungrateful for such kind welcome but i must be gone, for the night's gathering in. shemus. it is a long while since i've set eyes on bread or on what buys it. cathleen. so you are starving even in this wood, where i had thought i would find nothing changed. but that's a dream, for the old worm o' the world can eat its way into what place it pleases. (she gives money.) teig. beautiful lady, give me something too; i fell but now, being weak with hunger and thirst, and lay upon the threshold like a log. cathleen. i gave for all and that was all i had. look, my purse is empty. i have passed by starving men and women all this day, and they have had the rest; but take the purse, the silver clasps on't may be worth a trifle. but if you'll come to-morrow to my house you shall have twice the sum. (aleel begins to play.) shemus (muttering). what, music, music! cathleen. ah, do not blame the finger on the string; the doctors bid me fly the unlucky times and find distraction for my thoughts, or else pine to my grave. shemus. i have said nothing, lady. why should the like of us complain? oona. have done. sorrows that she's but read of in a book weigh on her mind as if they had been her own. (oona, mary, and cathleen go out. aleel looks defiantly at shemus.) aleel. (singing) impetuous heart, be still, be still, your sorrowful love can never be told, cover it up with a lonely tune, he that could bend all things to his will has covered the door of the infinite fold with the pale stars and the wandering moon. (he takes a step towards the door and then turns again.) shut to the door before the night has fallen, for who can say what walks, or in what shape some devilish creature flies in the air, but now two grey-horned owls hooted above our heads. (he goes out, his singing dies away. mary comes in. shemus has been counting the money.) teig. there's no good luck in owls, but it may be that the ill luck's to fall upon their heads. mary. you never thanked her ladyship. shemus. thank her, for seven halfpence and a silver bit? teig. but for this empty purse? shemus. what's that for thanks, or what's the double of it that she promised? with bread and flesh and every sort of food up to a price no man has heard the like of and rising every day. mary. we have all she had; she emptied out the purse before our eyes. shemus (to mary, who has gone to close the door) leave that door open. mary. when those that have read books, and seen the seven wonders of the world, fear what's above or what's below the ground, it's time that poverty should bolt the door. shemus. i'll have no bolts, for there is not a thing that walks above the ground or under it i had not rather welcome to this house than any more of mankind, rich or poor. teig. so that they brought us money. shemus. i heard say there's something that appears like a white bird, a pigeon or a seagull or the like, but if you hit it with a stone or a stick it clangs as though it had been made of brass; and that if you dig down where it was scratching you'll find a crock of gold. teig. but dream of gold for three nights running, and there's always gold. shemus. you might be starved before you've dug it out. teig. but maybe if you called, something would come, they have been seen of late. mary. is it call devils? call devils from the wood, call them in here? shemus. so you'd stand up against me, and you'd say who or what i am to welcome here. (he hits her.) that is to show who's master. teig. call them in. mary. god help us all! shemus. pray, if you have a mind to. it's little that the sleepy ears above care for your words; but i'll call what i please. teig. there is many a one, they say, had money from them. shemus. (at door) whatever you are that walk the woods at night, so be it that you have not shouldered up out of a grave--for i'll have nothing human-and have free hands, a friendly trick of speech, i welcome you. come, sit beside the fire. what matter if your head's below your arms or you've a horse's tail to whip your flank, feathers instead of hair, that's but a straw, come, share what bread and meat is in the house, and stretch your heels and warm them in the ashes. and after that, let's share and share alike and curse all men and women. come in, come in. what, is there no one there? (turning from door) and yet they say they are as common as the grass, and ride even upon the book in the priest's hand. (teig lifts one arm slowly and points toward the door and begins moving backwards. shemus turns, he also sees something and begins moving backward. mary does the same. a man dressed as an eastern merchant comes in carrying a small carpet. he unrolls it and sits cross-legged at one end of it. another man dressed in the same way follows, and sits at the other end. this is done slowly and deliberately. when they are seated they take money out of embroidered purses at their girdles and begin arranging it on the carpet. teig. you speak to them. shemus. no, you. teig. 'twas you that called them. shemus. (coming nearer) i'd make so bold, if you would pardon it, to ask if there's a thing you'd have of us. although we are but poor people, if there is, why, if there is-first merchant. we've travelled a long road, for we are merchants that must tramp the world, and now we look for supper and a fire and a safe corner to count money in. shemus. i thought you were.... but that's no matter now-there had been words between my wife and me because i said i would be master here, and ask in what i pleased or who i pleased and so.... but that is nothing to the point, because it's certain that you are but merchants. first merchant. we travel for the master of all merchants. shemus. yet if you were that i had thought but now i'd welcome you no less. be what you please and you'll have supper at the market rate, that means that what was sold for but a penny is now worth fifty. (merchants begin putting money on carpet.) first merchant. our master bids us pay so good a price, that all who deal with us shall eat, drink, and be merry. shemus. (to mary) bestir yourself, go kill and draw the fowl, while teig and i lay out the plates and make a better fire. mary. i will not cook for you. shemus. not cook! not cook! do not be angry. she wants to pay me back because i struck her in that argument. but she'll get sense again. since the dearth came we rattle one on another as though we were knives thrown into a basket to be cleaned. mary. i will not cook for you, because i know in what unlucky shape you sat but now outside this door. teig. it's this, your honours: because of some wild words my father said she thinks you are not of those who cast a shadow. shemus. i said i'd make the devils of the wood welcome, if they'd a mind to eat and drink; but it is certain that you are men like us. first merchant. it's strange that she should think we cast no shadow, for there is nothing on the ridge of the world that's more substantial than the merchants are that buy and sell you. mary. if you are not demons, and seeing what great wealth is spread out there, give food or money to the starving poor. first merchant. if we knew how to find deserving poor we'd do our share. mary. but seek them patiently. first merchant. we know the evils of mere charity. mary. those scruples may befit a common time. i had thought there was a pushing to and fro, at times like this, that overset the scale and trampled measure down. first merchant. but if already we'd thought of a more prudent way than that? second merchant. if each one brings a bit of merchandise, we'll give him such a price he never dreamt of. mary. where shall the starving come at merchandise? first merchant. we will ask nothing but what all men have. mary. their swine and cattle, fields and implements are sold and gone. first merchant. they have not sold all yet. for there's a vaporous thing--that may be nothing, but that's the buyer's risk--a second self, they call immortal for a story's sake. shemus. you come to buy our souls? teig. i'll barter mine. why should we starve for what may be but nothing? mary. teig and shemus-shemus. what can it be but nothing? what has god poured out of his bag but famine? satan gives money. teig. yet no thunder stirs. first merchant. there is a heap for each. (shemus goes to take money.) but no, not yet, for there's a work i have to set you to. shemus. so then you're as deceitful as the rest, and all that talk of buying what's but a vapour is fancy bred. i might have known as much, because that's how the trick-o'-the-loop man talks. first merchant. that's for the work, each has its separate price; but neither price is paid till the work's done. teig. the same for me. mary. oh, god, why are you still? first merchant. you've but to cry aloud at every cross-road, at every house door, that we buy men's souls, and give so good a price that all may live in mirth and comfort till the famine's done, because we are christian men. shemus. come, let's away. treig> i shall keep running till i've earned the price. second merchant. (who has risen and gone towards fire) stop, for we obey a generous master, that would be served by comfortable men. and here's your entertainment on the road. (trig and shemus have stopped. teig takes the money. they go out.) mary. destroyers of souls, god will destroy you quickly. you shall at last dry like dry leaves and hang nailed like dead vermin to the doors of god. second merchant. curse to your fill, for saints will have their dreams. first merchantm though we're but vermin that our master sent to overrun the world, he at the end shall pull apart the pale ribs of the moon and quench the stars in the ancestral night. mary. god is all powerful. second merchant. pray, you shall need him. you shall eat dock and grass, and dandelion, till that low threshold there becomes a wall, and when your hands can scarcely drag your body we shall be near you. (mary faints.) (the first merchant takes up the carpet, spreads it before the fire and stands in front of it warming his hands.) first merchant. our faces go unscratched, for she has fainted. wring the neck o' that fowl, scatter the flour and search the shelves for bread. we'll turn the fowl upon the spit and roast it, and eat the supper we were bidden to, now that the house is quiet, praise our master, and stretch and warm our heels among the ashes. end of scene 1 scene 2 front scene.--a wood with perhaps distant view of turreted house at one side, but all in flat colour, without light and shade and against a diafiered or gold background. countess cathleen comes in leaning upon aleel's arm. oona follows them. cathleen. (stopping) surely this leafy corner, where one smells the wild bee's honey, has a story too? oona. there is the house at last. aleel. a man, they say, loved maeve the queen of all the invisible host, and died of his love nine centuries ago. and now, when the moon's riding at the full, she leaves her dancers lonely and lies there upon that level place, and for three days stretches and sighs and wets her long pale cheeks. cathleen. so she loves truly. aleel. no, but wets her cheeks, lady, because she has forgot his name. cathleen. she'd sleep that trouble away--though it must be a heavy trouble to forget his name-if she had better sense. oona. your own house, lady. aleel. she sleeps high up on wintry knock-na-rea in an old cairn of stones; while her poor women must lie and jog in the wave if they would sleep being water born--yet if she cry their names they run up on the land and dance in the moon till they are giddy and would love as men do, and be as patient and as pitiful. but there is nothing that will stop in their heads, they've such poor memories, though they weep for it. oh, yes, they weep; that's when the moon is full. cathleen. is it because they have short memories they live so long? aleel. what's memory but the ash that chokes our fires that have begun to sink? and they've a dizzy, everlasting fire. oona. there is your own house, lady. cathleen. why, that's true, and we'd have passed it without noticing. aleel. a curse upon it for a meddlesome house! had it but stayed away i would have known what queen maeve thinks on when the moon is pinched; and whether now--as in the old days--the dancers set their brief love on men. oona. rest on my arm. these are no thoughts for any christian ear. aleel. i am younger, she would be too heavy for you. (he begins taking his lute out of the bag, cathleen, who has turned towards oona, turns back to him.) this hollow box remembers every foot that danced upon the level grass of the world, and will tell secrets if i whisper to it. (sings.) lift up the white knee; that's what they sing, those young dancers that in a ring raved but now of the hearts that break long, long ago for their sake. oona. new friends are sweet. aleel. "but the dance changes. lift up the gown, all that sorrow is trodden down." oona. the empty rattle-pate! lean on this arm, that i can tell you is a christened arm, and not like some, if we are to judge by speech. but as you please. it is time i was forgot. maybe it is not on this arm you slumbered when you were as helpless as a worm. aleel. stay with me till we come to your own house. cathleen (sitting down) when i am rested i will need no help. aleel. i thought to have kept her from remembering the evil of the times for full ten minutes; but now when seven are out you come between. oona. talk on; what does it matter what you say, for you have not been christened? aleel. old woman, old woman, you robbed her of three minutes peace of mind, and though you live unto a hundred years, and wash the feet of beggars and give alms, and climb croaghpatrick, you shall not be pardoned. oona. how does a man who never was baptized know what heaven pardons? aleel. you are a sinful woman oona. i care no more than if a pig had grunted. (enter cathleen's steward.) steward. i am not to blame, for i had locked the gate, the forester's to blame. the men climbed in at the east corner where the elm-tree is. cathleen. i do not understand you, who has climbed? steward. then god be thanked, i am the first to tell you. i was afraid some other of the servants-though i've been on the watch--had been the first and mixed up truth and lies, your ladyship. cathleen (rising) has some misfortune happened? steward. yes, indeed. the forester that let the branches lie against the wall's to blame for everything, for that is how the rogues got into the garden. cathleen. i thought to have escaped misfortune here. has any one been killed? steward. oh, no, not killed. they have stolen half a cart-load of green cabbage. cathleen. but maybe they were starving. steward. that is certain. to rob or starve, that was the choice they had. cathleen. a learned theologian has laid down that starving men may take what's necessary, and yet be sinless. oona. sinless and a thief there should be broken bottles on the wall. cathleen. and if it be a sin, while faith's unbroken god cannot help but pardon. there is no soul but it's unlike all others in the world, nor one but lifts a strangeness to god's love till that's grown infinite, and therefore none whose loss were less than irremediable although it were the wickedest in the world. (enter teig and shemus.) steward. what are you running for? pull off your cap, do you not see who's there? shemus. i cannot wait. i am running to the world with the best news that has been brought it for a thousand years. steward. then get your breath and speak. shemus. if you'd my news you'd run as fast and be as out of breath. teig. such news, we shall be carried on men's shoulders. shemus. there's something every man has carried with him and thought no more about than if it were a mouthful of the wind; and now it's grown a marketable thing! teig. and yet it seemed as useless as the paring of one's nails. shemus. what sets me laughing when i think of it, is that a rogue who's lain in lousy straw, if he but sell it, may set up his coach. teig. (laughing) there are two gentlemen who buy men's souls. cathleen. o god! teig. and maybe there's no soul at all. steward. they're drunk or mad. teig. look at the price they give. (showing money.) shemus. (tossing up money) "go cry it all about the world," they said. "money for souls, good money for a soul." cathleen. give twice and thrice and twenty times their money, and get your souls again. i will pay all. shemus. not we! not we! for souls--if there are souls-but keep the flesh out of its merriment. i shall be drunk and merry. teig. come, let's away. (he goes.) cathleen. but there's a world to come. shemus. and if there is, i'd rather trust myself into the hands that can pay money down than to the hands that have but shaken famine from the bag. (he goes out r.) (lilting) "there's money for a soul, sweet yellow money. there's money for men's souls, good money, money." cathleen. (to aleel) go call them here again, bring them by force, beseech them, bribe, do anything you like. (aleel goes.) and you too follow, add your prayers to his. (oona, who has been praying, goes out.) steward, you know the secrets of my house. how much have i? steward. a hundred kegs of gold. cathleen. how much have i in castles? steward. as much more. cathleen. how much have i in pasture? steward. as much more. cathleen. how much have i in forests? steward. as much more. cathleen. keeping this house alone, sell all i have, go barter where you please, but come again with herds of cattle and with ships of meal. steward. god's blessing light upon your ladyship. you will have saved the land. cathleen. make no delay. (he goes l.) (aleel and oona return) cathleen. they have not come; speak quickly. aleel. one drew his knife and said that he would kill the man or woman that stopped his way; and when i would have stopped him he made this stroke at me; but it is nothing. cathleen. you shall be tended. from this day for ever i'll have no joy or sorrow of my own. oona. their eyes shone like the eyes of birds of prey. cathleen. come, follow me, for the earth burns my feet till i have changed my house to such a refuge that the old and ailing, and all weak of heart, may escape from beak and claw; all, all, shall come till the walls burst and the roof fall on us. from this day out i have nothing of my own. (she goes.) oona (taking aleel by the arm and as she speaks bandaging his wound) she has found something now to put her hand to, and you and i are of no more account than flies upon a window-pane in the winter. (they go out.) end of scene 2. scene 3 scene.--hall in the house of countess cathleen. at the left an oratory with steps leading up to it. at the right a tapestried wall, more or less repeating the form of the oratory, and a great chair with its back against the wall. in the centre are two or more arches through which one can see dimly the trees of the garden. cathleen is kneeling in front of the altar in the oratory; there is a hanging lighted lamp over the altar. aleel enters. aleel. i have come to bid you leave this castle and fly out of these woods. cathleen. what evil is there here? that is not everywhere from this to the sea? aleel. they who have sent me walk invisible. cathleen. so it is true what i have heard men say, that you have seen and heard what others cannot. aleel. i was asleep in my bed, and while i slept my dream became a fire; and in the fire one walked and he had birds about his head. cathleen. i have heard that one of the old gods walked so. aleel. it may be that he is angelical; and, lady, he bids me call you from these woods. and you must bring but your old foster-mother, and some few serving men, and live in the hills, among the sounds of music and the light of waters, till the evil days are done. for here some terrible death is waiting you, some unimagined evil, some great darkness that fable has not dreamt of, nor sun nor moon scattered. cathleen. no, not angelical. aleel. this house you are to leave with some old trusty man, and bid him shelter all that starve or wander while there is food and house room. cathleen. he bids me go where none of mortal creatures but the swan dabbles, and there 'you would pluck the harp, when the trees had made a heavy shadow about our door, and talk among the rustling of the reeds, when night hunted the foolish sun away with stillness and pale tapers. no-no-no! i cannot. although i weep, i do not weep because that life would be most happy, and here i find no way, no end. nor do i weep because i had longed to look upon your face, but that a night of prayer has made me weary. aleel (.prostrating himself before her) let him that made mankind, the angels and devils and death and plenty, mend what he has made, for when we labour in vain and eye still sees heart breaks in vain. cathleen. how would that quiet end? aleel. how but in healing? cathleen. you have seen my tears and i can see your hand shake on the floor. aleel. (faltering) i thought but of healing. he was angelical. cathleen (turning away from him) no, not angelical, but of the old gods, who wander about the world to waken the heart the passionate, proud heart--that all the angels, leaving nine heavens empty, would rock to sleep. (she goes to chapel door; aleel holds his clasped hands towards her for a moment hesitating, and then lets them fall beside him.) cathleen. do not hold out to me beseeching hands. this heart shall never waken on earth. i have sworn, by her whose heart the seven sorrows have pierced, to pray before this altar until my heart has grown to heaven like a tree, and there rustled its leaves, till heaven has saved my people. aleel. (who has risen) when one so great has spoken of love to one' so little as i, though to deny him love, what can he but hold out beseeching hands, then let them fall beside him, knowing how greatly they have overdared? (he goes towards the door of the hall. the countess cathleen takes a few steps towards him.) cathleen. if the old tales are true, queens have wed shepherds and kings beggar-maids; god's procreant waters flowing about your mind have made you more than kings or queens; and not you but i am the empty pitcher. aleel. being silent, i have said all, yet let me stay beside you. cathleen.no, no, not while my heart is shaken. no, but you shall hear wind cry and water cry, and curlews cry, and have the peace i longed for. aleel. give me your hand to kiss. cathleen. i kiss your forehead. and yet i send you from me. do not speak; there have been women that bid men to rob crowns from the country-under-wave or apples upon a dragon-guarded hill, and all that they might sift men's hearts and wills, and trembled as they bid it, as i tremble that lay a hard task on you, that you go, and silently, and do not turn your head; goodbye; but do not turn your head and look; above all else, i would not have you look. (aleel goes.) i never spoke to him of his wounded hand, and now he is gone. (she looks out.) i cannot see him, for all is dark outside. would my imagination and my heart were as little shaken as this holy flame! (she goes slowly into the chapel. the two merchants enter.) first merchant. although i bid you rob her treasury, i find you sitting drowsed and motionless, and yet you understand that while it's full she'll bid against us and so bribe the poor that our great master'll lack his merchandise. you know that she has brought into this house the old and ailing that are pinched the most at such a time and so should be bought cheap. you've seen us sitting in the house in the wood, while the snails crawled about the window-pane and the mud floor, and not a soul to buy; not even the wandering fool's nor one of those that when the world goes wrong must rave and talk, until they are as thin as a cat's ear. but all that's nothing; you sit drowsing there with your back hooked, your chin upon your knees. second merchant. how could i help it? for she prayed so hard i could not cross the threshold till her lover had turned her thoughts to dream. first merchant, well, well, to labour. there is the treasury door and time runs on. (second merchant goes out. first merchant sits cross-legged against a pillar, yawns and stretches.) first merchant. and so i must endure the weight of the world, far from my master and the revelry, that's lasted since--shaped as a worm--he bore the knowledgable pippin in his mouth to the first woman. (second merchant returns with bags.) where are those dancers gone? they knew they were to carry it on their backs. second merchant. i heard them breathing but a moment since, but now they are gone, being unsteadfast things. first merchant. they knew their work. it seems that they imagine we'd do such wrong to our great master's name as to bear burdens on our backs as men do. i'll call them, and who'll dare to disobey? come, all you elemental populace from cruachan and finbar's ancient house. come, break up the long dance under the hill, or if you lie in the hollows of the sea, leave lonely the long hoarding surges, leave the cymbals of the waves to clash alone, and shaking the sea-tangles from your hair gather about us. (the spirits gather under the arches.) second merchant. they come. be still a while. (spirits dance and sing.) first spirit. (singing) our hearts are sore, but we come because we have heard you call. second spirit. sorrow has made me dumb. first spirit. her shepherds at nightfall lay many a plate and cup down by the trodden brink, that when the dance break up we may have meat and drink. therefore our hearts are sore; and though we have heard and come our crying filled the shore. second spirit. sorrow has made me dumb. first merchant. what lies in the waves should be indifferent to good and evil, and yet it seems that these, forgetful of their pure, impartial sea, take sides with her. second merchant. hush, hush, and still your feet. you are not now upon maeve's dancing-floor. a spirit. o, look what i have found, a string of pearls! (they begin taking jewels out of bag.) second merchant. you must not touch them, put them in the bag, and now take up the bags upon your backs and carry them to shemus rua's house on the wood's border. spirits. no, no, no, no! first spirit. no, no, let us away; from this we shall not come cry out to' us who may. second spirit. sorrow has made me dumb. (they go.) second merchant. they're gone, for little do they care for me, and if i called they would but turn and mock, but you they dare not disobey. first merchant (rising) these dancers are always the most troublesome of spirits. (he comes down the stage and stands facing the arches. he makes a gesture of command. the spirits come back whimpering. they lift the bags and go out. three speak as they are taking ub the bags. first spirit. from this day out we'll never dance again. second spirit. never again. third spirit. sorrow has made me dumb. second merchant (looking into chapel door) she has heard nothing; she has fallen asleep. our lord would be well pleased if we could win her. now that the winds are heavy with our kind, might we not kill her, and bear off her spirit before the mob of angels were astir? first merchant. if we would win this turquoise for our lord it must go dropping down of its free will but i've a plan. second merchant. to take her soul to-night? first merchant. because i am of the ninth and mightiest hell where are all kings, i have a plan. (voices.) second merchant. too late; for somebody is stirring in the house; the noise that the sea creatures made as they came hither, their singing and their endless chattering, has waked the house. i hear the chairs pushed back, and many shuffling feet. all the old men and women she's gathered in the house are coming hither. a voice. (within) it was here. another voice. no, farther away. another voice. it was in the western tower. another voice. come quickly, we will search the western tower. first merchant. we still have time--they search the distant rooms. second merchant. brother, i heard a sound in there--a sound that troubles me. (going to the door of the oratory and peering through it.) upon the altar steps the countess tosses, murmuring in her sleep a broken paternoster. first merchant. do not fear, for when she has awaked the prayer will cease. second merchant. what, would you wake her? first merchant. i will speak with her, and mix with all her thoughts a thought to serve.-lady, we've news that's crying out for speech. (cathleen wakes and comes to door of the chapel.) cathleen. who calls? first merchant. we have brought news. cathleen. what are you? first merchant. we are merchants, and we know the book of the world because we have walked upon its leaves; and there have read of late matters that much concern you; and noticing the castle door stand open, came in to find an ear. cathleen. the door stands open, that no one who is famished or afraid, despair of help or of a welcome with it. but you have news, you say. first merchant. we saw a man, heavy with sickness in the bog of allen, whom you had bid buy cattle. near fair head we saw your grain ships lying all becalmed in the dark night; and not less still than they, burned all their mirrored lanthorns in the sea. cathleen.. my thanks to god, to mary and the angels, that i have money in my treasury, and can buy grain from those who have stored it up to prosper on the hunger of the poor. but you've been far and know the signs of things, when will this yellow vapour no more hang and creep about the fields, and this great heat vanish away, and grass show its green shoots? first merchant. there is no sign of change--day copies day, green things are dead--the cattle too are dead or dying--and on all the vapour hangs, and fattens with disease and glows with heat. in you is all the hope of all the land. cathleen. and heard you of the demons who buy souls? first merchant. there are some men who hold they have wolves' heads, and say their limbs--dried by the infinite flame-have all the speed of storms; others, again, say they are gross and little; while a few will have it they seem much as mortals are, but tall and brown and travelled--like us--lady, yet all agree a power is in their looks that makes men bow, and flings a casting-net about their souls, and that all men would go and barter those poor vapours, were it not you bribe them with the safety of your gold. cathleen. praise be to god, to mary, and the angels that i am wealthy! wherefore do they sell? first merchant. as we came in at the great door we saw your porter sleeping in his niche--a soul too little to be worth a hundred pence, and yet they buy it for a hundred crowns. but for a soul like yours, i heard them say, they would give five hundred thousand crowns and more. cathleen. how can a heap of crowns pay for a soul? is the green grave so terrible a thing? first merchant. some sell because the money gleams, and some because they are in terror of the grave, and some because their neighbours sold before, and some because there is a kind of joy in casting hope away, in losing joy, in ceasing all resistance, in at last opening one's arms to the eternal flames. in casting all sails out upon the wind; to this--full of the gaiety of the lost-would all folk hurry if your gold were gone. cathleen. there is something, merchant, in your voice that makes me fear. when you were telling how a man may lose his soul and lose his god your eyes were lighted up, and when you told how my poor money serves the people, both-merchants forgive me--seemed to smile. first merchant. man's sins move us to laughter only; we have seen so many lands and seen so many men. how strange that all these people should be swung as on a lady's shoe-string,--under them the glowing leagues of never-ending flame. cathleen. there is a something in you that i fear; a something not of us; but were you not born in some most distant corner of the world? (the second merchant, who has been listening at the door, comes forward, and as he comes a sound of voices and feet is heard.) second merchant. away now--they are in the passage--hurry, for they will know us, and freeze up our hearts with ave marys, and burn all our skin with holy water. first merchant. farewell; for we must ride many a mile before the morning come; our horses beat the ground impatiently. (they go out. a number of peasants enter by other door.) first peasant. forgive us, lady, but we heard a noise. second peasant. we sat by the fireside telling vanities. first peasant. we heard a noise, but though we have searched the house we have found nobody. cathleen. you are too timid. for now you are safe from all the evil times. there is no evil that can find you here. oona (entering hurriedly) ochone! ochone! the treasure room is broken in, the door stands open, and the gold is gone. (peasants raise a lamentable cry.) cathleen. be silent. (the cry ceases.) have you seen nobody? oona ochone! that my good mistress should lose all this money. cathleen. let those among you--not too old to ride-get horses and search all the country round, i'll give a farm to him who finds the thieves. (a man with keys at his girdle has come in while she speaks. there is a general murmur of the porter! the porter!") porter. demons were here. i sat beside the door in my stone niche, and two owls passed me by, whispering with human voices. old peasant. god forsakes us. cathleen. old man, old man, he never closed a door unless one opened. i am desolate, for a most sad resolve wakes in my heart but i have still my faith; therefore be silent for surely he does not forsake the world, but stands before it modelling in the clay and moulding there his image. age by age the clay wars with his fingers and pleads hard for its old, heavy, dull and shapeless ease; but sometimes--though his hand is on it still-it moves awry and demon hordes are born. (peasants cross themselves.) yet leave me now, for i am desolate, i hear a whisper from beyond the thunder. (she comes from the oratory door.) yet stay an instant. when we meet again i may have grown forgetful. oona, take these two--the larder and the dairy keys. (to the porter.) but take you this. it opens the small room of herbs for medicine, of hellebore, of vervain, monkshood, plantain, and self-heal. the book of cures is on the upper shelf. porter. why do you do this, lady; did you see your coffin in a dream? cathleen. ah, no, not that. a sad resolve wakes in me. i have heard a sound of wailing in unnumbered hovels, and i must go down, down--i know not where-pray for all men and women mad from famine; pray, you good neighbours. (the peasants all kneel. countess cathleen ascends the steps to the door of the oratory, and turning round stands there motionless for a little, and then cries in a loud voice:) mary, queen of angels, and all you clouds on clouds of saints, farewell! end of scene 3. scene 4 scene.--a wood near the castle, as in scene 2. the spirits pass one by one carrying bags. first spirit. i'll never dance another step, not one. second spirit. are all the thousand years of dancing done? third spirit. how can we dance after so great a sorrow? fourth spirit. but how shall we remember it to-morrow? fifth spirit. to think of all the things that we forget. sixth spirit. that's why we groan and why our lids are wet. (the spirits go out. a group of peasants pass.) first peasant. i have seen silver and copper, but not gold. second peasant. it's yellow and it shines. first peasant. it's beautiful. the most beautiful thing under the sun, that's what i've heard. third peasant. i have seen gold enough. fourth peasant. i would not say that it's so beautiful. first peasant. but doesn't a gold piece glitter like the sun? that's what my father, who'd seen better days, told me when i was but a little boy-so high--so high, it's shining like the sun, round and shining, that is what he said. second peasant. there's nothing in the world it cannot buy. first peasant. they've bags and bags of it. (they go out. the two merchants follow silently.) end of scene 4 scene 5 scene.--the house of shemus rua. there is an alcove at the back with curtains; in it a bed, and on the bed is the body of mary with candles round it. the two merchants while they speak put a large book upon a table, arrange money, and so on. first merchant. thanks to that lie i told about her ships and that about the herdsman lying sick, we shall be too much thronged with souls to-morrow. second merchant. what has she in her coffers now but mice? first merchant. when the night fell and i had shaped myself into the image of the man-headed owl, i hurried to the cliffs of donegal, and saw with all their canvas full of wind and rushing through the parti-coloured sea those ships that bring the woman grain and meal. they're but three days from us. second merchant. when the dew rose i hurried in like feathers to the east, and saw nine hundred oxen driven through meath with goads of iron, they're but three days from us. first merchant. three days for traffic. (peasants crowd in with teig and shemus.) shemus. come in, come in, you are welcome. that is my wife. she mocked at my great masters, and would not deal with them. now there she is; she does not even know she was a fool, so great a fool she was. teig. she would not eat one crumb of bread bought with our master's money, but lived on nettles, dock, and dandelion. shemus. there's nobody could put into her head that death is the worst thing can happen us. though that sounds simple, for her tongue grew rank with all the lies that she had heard in chapel. draw to the curtain. (teig draws it.) you'll not play the fool while these good gentlemen are there to save you. second merchant. since the drought came they drift about in a throng, like autumn leaves blown by the dreary winds. come, deal--come, deal. first merchant. who will come deal with us? shemus. they are out of spirit, sir, with lack of food, save four or five. here, sir, is one of these; the others will gain courage in good time. middle-aged-man. i come to deal--if you give honest price. first merchant (reading in a book) john maher, a man of substance, with dull mind, and quiet senses and unventurous heart. the angels think him safe." two hundred crowns, all for a soul, a little breath of wind. the man. i ask three hundred crowns. you have read there that no mere lapse of days can make me yours. first merchant. there is something more writ here--"often at night he is wakeful from a dread of growing poor, and thereon wonders if there's any man that he could rob in safety." a peasant. who'd have thought it? and i was once alone with him at midnight. another peasant. i will not trust my mother after this. first merchant. there is this crack in you--two hundred crowns. a peasant. that's plenty for a rogue. another peasant. i'd give him nothing. shemus. you'll get no more--so take what's offered you. (a general murmur, during which the middle-aged-man takes money, and slips into background, where he sinks on to a seat.) first merchant. has no one got a better soul than that? if only for the credit of your parishes, traffic with us. a woman. what will you give for mine? first merchant (reading in book) "soft, handsome, and still young "--not much, i think." it's certain that the man she's married to knows nothing of what's hidden in the jar between the hour-glass and the pepper-pot." the woman. the scandalous book. first merchant. "nor how when he's away at the horse fair the hand that wrote what's hid will tap three times upon the window-pane." the woman. and if there is a letter, that is no reason why i should have less money than the others. first merchant. you're almost safe, i give you fifty crowns (she turns to go.) a hundred, then. shemus. woman, have sense-come, come. is this a time to haggle at the price? there, take it up. there, there. that's right. (she takes them and goes into the crowd.) first merchant. come, deal, deal, deal. it is but for charity we buy such souls at all; a thousand sins made them our master's long before we came. (aleel enters.) aleel. here, take my soul, for i am tired of it. i do not ask a price. shemus. not ask a price? how can you sell your soul without a price? i would not listen to his broken wits; his love for countess cathleen has so crazed him he hardly understands what he is saying. aleel. the trouble that has come on countess cathleen, the sorrow that is in her wasted face, the burden in her eyes, have broke my wits, and yet i know i'd have you take my soul. first merchant. we cannot take your soul, for it is hers. aleel. no, but you must. seeing it cannot help her i have grown tired of it. first merchant. begone from me i may not touch it. aleel. is your power so small? and must i bear it with me all my days? may you be scorned and mocked! first merchant. drag him away. he troubles me. (teig and shemus lead aleel into the crowd.) second merchant. his gaze has filled me, brother, with shaking and a dreadful fear. first merchant. lean forward and kiss the circlet where my master's lips were pressed upon it when he sent us hither; you shall have peace once more. (second merchant kisses the gold circlet that is about the head of the first merchant.) i, too, grow weary, but there is something moving in my heart whereby i know that what we seek the most is drawing near--our labour will soon end. come, deal, deal, deal, deal, deal; are you all dumb? what, will you keep me from our ancient home and from the eternal revelry? second merchant. deal, deal. shemus. they say you beat the woman down too low. first merchant. i offer this great price: a-thousand crowns for an old woman who was always ugly. (an old peasant woman comes forward, and he takes up a book and reads.) there is but little set down here against her. "she has stolen eggs and fowl when times were bad, but when the times grew better has confessed it; she never missed her chapel of a sunday and when she could, paid dues." take up your money. old woman. god bless you, sir. (she screams.) oh, sir, a pain went through me! first merchant. that name is like a fire to all damned souls. (murmur among the peasants, who shrink back from her as she goes out.) a peasant. how she screamed out! second peasant. and maybe we shall scream so. third peasant. i tell you there is no such place as hell. first merchant. can such a trifle turn you from your profit? come, deal; come, deal. middle-aged man. master, i am afraid. first merchant. i bought your soul, and there's no sense in fear now the soul's gone. middle-aged man. give me my soul again. woman (going on her knees and clinging to merchant) and take this money too, and give me mine. second merchant. bear bastards, drink or follow some wild fancy; for sighs and cries are the soul's work, and you have none. (throws the woman off.) peasant. come, let's away. another peasant. yes, yes. another peasant. come quickly; if that woman had not screamed i would have lost my soul. another peasant. come, come away. (they turn to door, but are stopped by shouts of "countess cathleen! countess cathleen!") cathleen (entering) and so you trade once more? first merchant. in spite of you. what brings you here, saint with the sapphire eyes? cathleen. i come to barter a soul for a great price. second merchant. what matter, if the soul be worth the price? cathleen. the people starve, therefore the people go thronging to you. i hear a cry come from them and it is in my ears by night and day, and i would have five hundred thousand crowns that i may feed them till the dearth go by. first merchant.. it may be the soul's worth it. cathleen. there is more: the souls that you have bought must be set free. first merchant. we know of but one soul that's worth the price. cathleen. being my own it seems a priceless thing. second merchant. you offer us-cathleen. i offer my own soul. a peasant. do not, do not, for souls the like of ours are not precious to god as your soul is. o! what would heaven do without you, lady? another peasant. look how their claws clutch in their leathern gloves. first merchant. five hundred thousand crowns; we give the price. the gold is here; the souls even while you speak have slipped out of our bond, because your face has shed a light on them and filled their hearts. but you must sign, for we omit no form in buying a soul like yours. second merchant. sign with this quill. it was a feather growing on the cock that crowed when peter dared deny his master, and all who use it have great honour in hell. (cathleen leans forward to sign.) aleel (rushing forward and snatching the parchment from her) leave all things to the builder of the heavens. cathleen. i have no thoughts; i hear a cry--a cry. aleel (casting the parchment on the ground) i have seen a vision under a green hedge, a hedge of hips and haws-men yet shall hear the archangels rolling satan's empty skull over the mountain-tops. first merchant. take him away. (teig and shemus drag him roughly away so that he falls upon the floor among the peasants. cathleen picks up parchment and signs, then turns towards the peasants.) cathleen. take up the money, and now come with me; when we are far from this polluted place i will give everybody money enough. (she goes out, the peasants crowding round her and kissing her dress. aleel and the two merchants are left alone.) second merchant. we must away and wait until she dies, sitting above her tower as two grey owls, waiting as many years as may be, guarding our precious jewel; waiting to seize her soul. first merchant. we need but hover over her head in the air, for she has only minutes. when she signed her heart began to break. hush, hush, i hear the brazen door of hell move on its hinges, and the eternal revelry float hither to hearten us. second merchant. leap feathered on the air and meet them with her soul caught in your claws. (they rush out. aleel crawls into the middle of the room. the twilight has fallen and gradually darkens as the scene goes on. there is a distant muttering of thunder and a sound of rising storm.) aleel. the brazen door stands wide, and balor comes borne in his heavy car, and demons have lifted the age-weary eyelids from the eyes that of old turned gods to stone; barach, the traitor, comes and the lascivious race, cailitin, that cast a druid weakness and decay over sualtem's and old dectera's child; and that great king hell first took hold upon when he killed naisi and broke deirdre's heart, and all their heads are twisted to one side, for when they lived they warred on beauty and peace with obstinate, crafty, sidelong bitterness. (he moves about as though the air was full of spirits. oona enters.) crouch down, old heron, out of the blind storm. oona. where is the countess cathleen? all this day her eyes were full of tears, and when for a moment her hand was laid upon my hand it trembled, and now i do not know where she is gone. aleel. cathleen has chosen other friends than us, and they are rising through the hollow world. demons are out, old heron. oona. god guard her soul. aleel. she's bartered it away this very hour, as though we two were never in the world. and they are rising through the hollow world. (he points downward.) first, orchill, her pale, beautiful head alive, her body shadowy as vapour drifting under the dawn, for she who awoke desire has but a heart of blood when others die; about her is a vapoury multitude of women alluring devils with soft laughter behind her a host heat of the blood made sin, but all the little pink-white nails have grown to be great talons. (he seizes oona and drags her into the middle of the room and points downward with vehement gestures. the wind roars.) they begin a song and there is still some music on their tongues. oona (casting herself face downwards on the floor) o, maker of all, protect her from the demons, and if a soul must need be lost, take mine. (aleel 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.) oona. o, that so many pitchers of rough clay should prosper and the porcelain break in two! (she kisses the hands of cathleen.) a peasant. we were under the tree where the path turns, when she grew pale as death and fainted away. and while we bore her hither cloudy gusts blackened the world and shook us on our feet draw the great bolt, for no man has beheld so black, bitter, blinding, and sudden a storm. (one who is near the door draws the bolt.) cathleen. o, hold me, and hold me tightly, for the storm is dragging me away. (oona takes her in her arms. a woman begins to wail.) peasant. hush! peasants. hush! peasant women hush! other peasant women hush! cathleen (half rising) lay all the bags of money in a heap, and when i am gone, old oona, share them out to every man and woman: judge, and give according to their needs. a peasant woman. and will she give enough to keep my children through the dearth? another peasant woman. o, queen of heaven, and all you blessed saints, let us and ours be lost so she be shriven. cathleen. bend down your faces, oona and aleel; i gaze upon them as the swallow gazes upon the nest under the eave, before she wander the loud waters. do not weep too great a while, for there is many a candle on 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 me, and bore me in your arms about the house when 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.) oona. bring me the looking-glass. (a woman brings it to her out of the inner room. oona holds it over the lips of cathleen. all is silent for a moment. and then she speaks in a half scream:) o, she is dead! a peasant. she was the great white lily of the world. a peasant. she was more beautiful than the pale stars. an old peasant woman. the little plant i love is broken in two. (aleel takes looking-glass from oona and flings it upon the floor so that it is broken in many pieces.) aleel. i shatter you in fragments, for the face that brimmed you up with beauty is no more: and die, dull heart, for she whose mournful words made you a living spirit has passed away and left you but a ball of passionate dust. and you, proud earth and plumy sea, fade out! for you may hear no more her faltering feet, but are left lonely amid the clamorous war of angels upon devils. (he stands up; almost every one is kneeling, but it has grown so dark that only confused forms can be seen.) and i who weep call curses on you, time and fate and change, and have no excellent hope but the great hour when you shall plunge headlong through bottomless space. (a flash of lightning followed immediately by thunder.) a peasant woman. pull him upon his knees before his curses have plucked thunder and lightning on our heads. aleel. angels and devils clash in the middle air, and brazen swords clang upon brazen helms. (a flash of lightning followed immediately by thunder.) yonder a bright spear, cast out of a sling, has torn through balor's eye, and the dark clans fly screaming as they fled moytura of old. (everything is lost in darkness.) an old man. the almighty wrath at our great weakness and sin has blotted out the world and we must die. (the darkness is broken by a visionary light. the peasants seem to be kneeling upon the rocky slope of a mountain, and vapour full of storm and ever-changing light is sweeping above them and behind them. half in the light, haff in the shadow, stand armed angels. their armour is old and worn, and their drawn swords dim and dinted. they stand as if upon the air in formation of battle and look downward with stern faces. the peasants cast themselves on the ground.) aleel. 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. (he seizes one of the angels.) till you speak you shall not drift into eternity. the angel. the 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 heart has kissed her lips, and the long blessed hair has fallen on her face; the light of lights looks always on the motive, not the deed, the shadow of shadows on the deed alone. (aleel releases the angel and kneels.) oona. tell them who 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. (a sound of far-off horns seems to come from the heart of the light. the vision melts away, and the forms of the kneeling peasants appear faintly in the darkness.) notes i found the story of the countess cathleen in what professed to be a collection of irish folk-lore in an irish newspaper some years ago. i wrote to the compiler, asking about its source, but got no answer, but have since heard that it was translated from les matin`ees de timoth`e trimm a good many years ago, and has been drifting about the irish press ever since. l`eo lesp`es gives it as an irish story, and though the editor of folklore has kindly advertised for information, the only christian variant i know of is a donegal tale, given by mr. larminie in his west irish folk tales and romances, of a woman who goes to hell for ten years to save her husband, and stays there another ten, having been granted permission to carry away as many souls as could cling to her skirt. l`eo lesp`es may have added a few details, but i have no doubt of the essential antiquity of what seems to me the most impressive form of one of the supreme parables of the world. the parable came to the greeks in the sacrifice of alcestis, but her sacrifice was less overwhelming, less apparently irremediable. l`eo lesp`es tells the story as follows:-ce que je vais vous dire est un r`ecit du car`eme irlandais. le boiteux, l'aveugle, le paralytique des rues de dublin ou de limerick, vous le diraient mieux que moi, cher lecteur, si vous alliez le leur demander, un sixpense d'argent `a la main.-il n'est pas une jeune fille catholique `a laquelle on ne fait appris pendant les jours de pr`eparation `a la communion sainte, pas un berger des bords de la blackwater qui ne le puisse redire `a la veill`ee. il y a bien longtemps qu'il apparut tout-`a-coup dans la vielle irlande deux marchands inconnus dont personne n'avait oui parler, et qui parlaient n`eanmoins avec la plus grande perfection la langue du pays. leurs cheveux `etaient noirs et ferr`es avec de l'or et leurs robes d'une grande magnificence. tous deux semblaient avoir le m`eme age; ils paraissaient `etre des hommes de cinquante ans, car leur barbe grisormait un peu. or, `a cette `epoque, comme aujourd'hui, l'irlande `etait pauvre, car le soleil avait `et`e rare, et des r`ecoltes presque nulles. les indigents ne savaient `a quel sainte se vouer, et la mis`ere devenai de plus en plus terrible. dans l'h`otellerie o`u descendirent les marchands fastueux on chercha `a p`en`etrer leurs desseins: mais cc fut en vain, ils demeur`erent silencieux et discrets. et pendant qu'ils demeur`erent dans l'h`otellerie, ils ne cess`erent de compter et de recompter des sacs de pi`eces d'or, dont la vive clart`e s'apercevait `a travers les vitres du logis. gentlemen, leur dit l'h`otesse un jour, d'o`u vient que vous `etes si opulents, et que, venus pour secourir la mis`ere publique, vous ne fassiez pas de bonnes oeuvres? -belle h`otesse, r`epondit l'un d'eux, nous n'avons pas voulu aller au-devant d'infortunes honorables, dans la crainte d'`etre tromp`es par des mis`eres fictives: que la douleur frappe `a la porte, nous ouvrirons. le lendemain, quand on sut qu'il existait deux opulents `etrangers pr`ets `a prodiguer l'or, la foule assi`egea leur logis; mais les figures des gens qui en sortaient `etaient bien diverses. les uns avaient la fiert`e dans le regard, les autres portaient la honte au front. les deux trafiquants achetaient des `ames pour le d`emon. l'`ame d'un vieillard valait vingt pi`eces d'or, pas un penny de plus; car satan avait eu le temps d'y former hypoth`eque. l'`ame d'une `pouse en valait cinquante quand elle `etait jolie, ou cent quand elle `etait laide. l'`ame d'une jeune fille se payait des prix fous: les fleurs les plus belles et les plus pures sont les plus ch`eres. pendant ce temps, il existait dans la ville un ange de beaut`e, la comtesse ketty o'connor. elle `etait l'idole du peuple, et la providence des indigents. d`es qu'elle eut appris que des m`ecr`eants profitaient de la mis`ere publique pour d`erober des coeurs `a dieu, elle fit appeler son majordome. --master patrick, lui dit elle, combien ai-je de pi`eces d'or dans mon coffre? --cent mille. --combien de bijoux? --pour autant d'argent. --combien de ch`ateaux, de bois et de terres? --pour le double de ces sommes. --eh bien! patrick, vendez tout cc qui n'est pas or et apportez-m'en le montant. je ne veux garder `a moi que ce castel et le champs qui l'entoure. deux jours apr`es, les ordres de la pieuse ketty `etaient ex`ecues et le tr`esor `etait distribu`e aux pauvres au fur et `a mesure de leurs besoins. ceci ne faisait pas le compte, dit la tradition, des commisvoyageurs du malin esprit, qui ne trouvaient plus d'`ames `a acheter. aides par un valet infame, ils p`en`etr`erent dans la retraite de la noble dame et lui d`erob`erent le reste de son tr`esor... en vain lutta-t-elle de toutes ses forces pour sauver le contenu de son coffre, les larrons diaboliques furent les plus forts. si ketty avait eu les moyens de faire un signe de croix, ajoute la l`egende irlandaise, elle les eut mis en fuite, mais ses mains `etaient captives-le larcin fut effectu`e. alors les pauvres sollicit`erent en vain pr`es de ketty d`epouill`ee, elle ne pouvait plus secourir leur mis`ere;-elle les abandonnait `a la tentation. pourtant il n'y avait plus que huit jours `a passer pour que les grains et les fourrages arrivassent en abondance des pays d'orient. mais, huit jours, c'`etait un si`ecle: huit jours n`ecessitaient une somme immense pour subvenir aux exigences de la disette, et les pauvres allaient ou expirer dans les angoisses de la faim, ou, reniant les saintes maximes de l'evangile, vendre `a vil prix leur `ame, le plus beau pr`esent de la munificence du seigneur toutpuissant. et ketty n'avait plus une obole, car elle avait abandonn`e son ch`ateaux aux malheureux. elle passa douze heures dans les larmes et le deuil, arrachant ses cheveux couleur de soleil et meurtrissant son sein couleur du lis: puis elle se leva r`esolue, anim`ee par un vif sentiment de d`esespoir. elle se rendit chez les marchands d'`ames. --que voulez-vous? dirent ils. --vous achetez des `ames? --oui, un peu malgr`e vous, n'est ce pas, sainte aux yeux de sapbir? --aujourd'hui je viens vous proposer un march`e, reprit elle. --lequel? --j'ai une `ame `a vendre; mais elle est ch`ere. --qu'importe si elle est pr`ecieuse? l'`ame, comme le diamant, s'appr`ecie `a sa blancheur. --c'est la mienne, dit ketty. les deux envoy`es de satan tressaillirent, leurs griffes s'allong`erent sous leurs gants de cuir; leurs yeux gris `etincel`erent:--l'`ame, pure, immacul`ee, virginale de ketty c'`etait une acquisition inappr`eciable. --gentille dame, combien voulez-vouz? --cent cinquante mille `ecus d'or. --c'est fait, dirent les marchands: et ils tendirent `a ketty un parchemin cachet`e de noir, qu'elle signa en frissonnant. la somme lui fut compt`ee. des qu'elle fut rentr`ee, elle dit au majordome: --tenez, distribuez ceci. avec la somme que je vous donne les pauvres attendront la huitaine n`ecessaire et pas une de leurs `ames ne sera livr`ee au d`emon. puis elle s'enferma et recommanda qu'on ne vint pas la d`eranger. trois jours se pass`erent; elle n'appela pas; elle ne sortit pas. quand on ouvrit sa porte, on la trouva raide et froide: elle `etait morte de douleur. mais la vente de cette `ame si adorable dans sa charit`e fut d`eclar`ee nulle par le seigneur: car elle avait sauv`e ses concitoyens de la morte `eternelle. apr`es la huitaine, des vaisseaux nombreux amen`erent l'irlande affam`ee d'immenses provisions de grains. la famine n'`etait plus possible. quant aux marchands, ils disparurent de leur h`otellerie, sans qu'on s`ut jamais ce qu'ils `etaient devenus. toutefois, les p`echeurs de la blackwater pr`etendent qu'ils sont enchain`es dans une prison souterraine par ordre de lucifer jusqu'au moment o`u ils pourront livrer l'`ame de ketty qui leur a `echapp`e. je vous dis la l`egende telle que je la sais. -mais les pauvres l'ont racont`e d'`age en `age et les enfants de cork et de dublin chantent encore la ballade dont voici les derniers couplets:pour sauver les pauvres qu'elle aime ketty donna son esprit, sa croyance m`eme satan paya cette `ame au d`evoument sublime, en `ecus d'or, disons pour racheter son crime, confiteor. mais l'ange qui se fit coupable par charit`e au s`ejour d'amour ineffable est remont`e. satan vaincu n'eut pas de prise sur ce coeur d'or; chantons sous la nef de l'`eglise, confiteor. n'est ce pas que ce r`ecit, n`e de l'imagination des po`etes catholiques de la verte erin, est une v`eritable r`ecit de car`eme? 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 prosceniurn 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.) aleel. they'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. oona. where is the countess cathleen? all this day her eyes were full of tears, and when for a moment her hand was laid upon my hand, it trembled. and now i do not know where she is gone. aleel. cathleen has chosen other friends than us, and they are rising through the hollow world. demons are out, old heron. oona. god guard her soul. aleel. she'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.) oona. o, that so many pitchers of rough clay should prosper and the porcelain break in two! (she kisses the hands of cathleen.) a peasant. we were under the tree where the path turns when she grew pale as death and fainted away. cathleen. o! hold me, and hold me tightly, for the storm is dragging me away. (oona takes her in her arms. a woman begins to wail.) peasants. hush! peasants hush! peasant women. hush! other peasant women. hush! cathleen. (half rising) lay all the bags of money in a heap, and when i am gone, old oona, share them out to every man and woman: judge, and give according to their needs. a peasant woman. and will she give enough to keep my children through the dearth? another peasant woman. o, queen of heaven, and all you blessed saints, let us and ours be lost, so she be shriven. cathleen. bend down your faces, oona and aleel; i gaze upon them as the swallow gazes upon the nest under the eave, before she wander the loud waters. do not weep too great a while, for there is many a candle on 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 me and bore me in your arms about the house when 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.) oona. bring 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 peasant. she was the great white lily of the world. a peasant. she was more beautiful than the pale stars. an old peasant woman. the 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.) aleel. i shatter you in fragments, for the face that brimmed you up with beauty is no more; and die, dull heart, for you that were a mirror are but a ball of passionate dust again! and level earth and plumy sea, rise up! and haughty sky, fall down! a peasant woman. pull him upon his knees, his curses will pluck lightning on our heads. aleel. angels 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 speak you shall not drift into eternity. angel. the 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 heart has kissed her lips, and the long blessed hair has fallen on her face; the light of lights looks always on the motive, not the deed, the shadow of shadows on the deed alone. (aleel releases the angel and kneels.) oona. tell them who 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. [illustration: (front cover)] responsibilities and other poems [illustration] the macmillan company new york · boston · chicago · dallas atlanta · san francisco macmillan & co., limited london · bombay · calcutta melbourne the macmillan co. of canada, ltd. toronto responsibilities and other poems by william butler yeats =new york= the macmillan company 1916 _all rights reserved_ copyright, 1911 by william butler yeats copyright, 1904, 1908, and 1912 by the macmillan company copyright, 1916 by the macmillan company set up and electrotyped. published november, 1916. contents page responsibilities, 1912-1914- introductory rhymes 1 the grey rock 3 the two kings 11 to a wealthy man 29 september 1913 32 to a friend whose work has come to nothing 34 paudeen 35 to a shade 36 when helen lived 39 the attack on 'the playboy of the western world,' 1907 40 the three beggars 41 the three hermits 45 beggar to beggar cried 47 the well and the tree 49 running to paradise 50 the hour before dawn 52 the player queen 59 the realists 61 the witch 62 the peacock 63 the mountain tomb 64 to a child dancing in the wind 66 a memory of youth 68 fallen majesty 70 friends 71 the cold heaven 73 that the night come 75 an appointment 76 the magi 77 the dolls 78 a coat 80 closing rhymes 81 from the green helmet and other poems, 1909-1912- his dream 85 a woman homer sung 87 the consolation 89 no second troy 91 reconciliation 92 king and no king 94 peace 96 against unworthy praise 97 the fascination of what's difficult 99 a drinking song 101 the coming of wisdom with time 102 on hearing that the students of our new university have joined the ancient order of hibernians 103 to a poet 104 the mask 105 upon a house shaken by the land agitation 106 at the abbey theatre 108 these are the clouds 110 at galway races 112 a friend's illness 113 all things can tempt me 114 the young man's song 115 the hour-glass--1912 117 notes 181 '_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._ responsibilities _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;_ _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._ _january 1914._ the grey rock _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, 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, 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--_ _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, 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 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 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_ _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._ the two kings 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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.' '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, 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 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, 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- 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, 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, 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 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, 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 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, 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. to a wealthy man who promised a second subscription to the dublin municipal gallery if it were proved the people wanted pictures 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 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 that some new day may breed the best because you gave, not what they would but the right twigs for an eagle's nest! _december 1912._ september 1913 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, 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. to a friend whose work has come to nothing 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. paudeen 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. to a shade 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 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; you had enough of sorrow before death- away, away! you are safer in the tomb. _september 29th, 1914._ when helen lived 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. the attack on 'the playboy of the western world,' 1907 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. the three beggars _'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 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: 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 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.'_ the three hermits 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 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. beggar to beggar cried '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, 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 well and the tree '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?' running to paradise 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. 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. the hour before dawn 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. 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 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 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 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 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: '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. the player queen (_song from an unfinished play_) 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. '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? the realists 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? i the witch 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. ii the peacock 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. the mountain tomb 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 the everlasting taper lights the gloom; all wisdom shut into his onyx eyes our father rosicross sleeps in his tomb. to a child dancing in the wind i 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? ii has no one said those daring kind eyes should be more learn'd? 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. a memory of youth 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. 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. fallen majesty 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. friends 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 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. the cold heaven 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, 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? that the night come 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. an appointment 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. i the magi 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. ii the dolls 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, she murmurs into his ear, head upon shoulder leant: 'my dear, my dear, oh dear, it was an accident.' a coat 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._ from the green helmet and other poems his dream 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? 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. a woman homer sung 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, and trod so sweetly proud as 'twere upon a cloud, a woman homer sung, that life and letters seem but an heroic dream. the consolation 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.' 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. no second troy 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? reconciliation 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, 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. king and no king '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; 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. peace 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. against unworthy praise 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, 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 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, theatre business, management of men. i swear before the dawn comes round again i'll find the stable and pull out the bolt. a drinking song 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. the coming of wisdom with time 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. on hearing that the students of our new university have joined the ancient order of hibernians and the agitation against immoral literature 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. to a poet, who would have me praise certain bad poets, imitators of his and mine 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? the mask '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?' upon a house shaken by the land agitation 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 the gifts that govern men, and after these to gradual time's last gift, a written speech wrought of high laughter, loveliness and ease? at the abbey theatre (_imitated from ronsard_) 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 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 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, although it be for children that you sigh: these are the clouds about the fallen sun, the majesty that shuts his burning eye. at galway races 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. a friend's illness 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 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. the young man's song 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, and the shadows eaten the moon. ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny, one cannot begin it too soon. * * * * * the hour-glass new version--1912 the persons of the play wise man. bridget, his wife. teigue, a fool. angel. children and pupils. _pupils come in and stand before the stage curtain, which is still closed. one pupil carries a book._ first pupil he said we might choose the subject for the lesson. second pupil there is none of us wise enough to do that. third pupil it would need a great deal of wisdom to know what it is we want to know. fourth pupil i will question him. fifth pupil you? fourth pupil last night i dreamt that some one came and told me to question him. i was to say to him, 'you were wrong to say there is no god and no soul--maybe, if there is not much of either, there is yet some tatters, some tag on the wind--so to speak--some rag upon a bush, some bob-tail of a god.' i will argue with him,--nonsense though it be--according to my dream, and you will see how well i can argue, and what thoughts i have. first pupil i'd as soon listen to dried peas in a bladder, as listen to your thoughts. [_fool comes in._ fool give me a penny. second pupil let us choose a subject by chance. here is his big book. let us turn over the pages slowly. let one of us put down his finger without looking. the passage his finger lights on will be the subject for the lesson. fool give me a penny. third pupil (_taking up book_) how heavy it is. fourth pupil spread it on teigue's back, and then we can all stand round and see the choice. second pupil make him spread out his arms. fourth pupil down on your knees. hunch up your back. spread your arms out now, and look like a golden eagle in a church. keep still, keep still. fool give me a penny. third pupil is that the right cry for an eagle cock? second pupil i'll turn the pages--you close your eyes and put your finger down. third pupil that's it, and then he cannot blame us for the choice. first pupil there, i have chosen. fool, keep still--and if what's wise is strange and sounds like nonsense, we've made a good choice. fifth pupil the master has come. fool will anybody give a penny to a fool? [_one of the pupils draws back the stage curtain showing the master sitting at his desk. there is an hour-glass upon his desk or in a bracket on the wall. one pupil puts the book before him._ first pupil we have chosen the passage for the lesson, master. 'there are two living countries, one visible and one invisible, and when it is summer there, it is winter here, and when it is november with us, it is lambing-time there.' wise man that passage, that passage! what mischief has there been since yesterday? first pupil none, master. wise man oh yes, there has; some craziness has fallen from the wind, or risen from the graves of old men, and made you choose that subject. fourth pupil i knew that it was folly, but they would have it. third pupil had we not better say we picked it by chance? second pupil no; he would say we were children still. first pupil i have found a sentence under that one that says--as though to show it had a hidden meaning--a beggar wrote it upon the walls of babylon. wise man then find some beggar and ask him what it means, for i will have nothing to do with it. fourth pupil come, teigue, what is the old book's meaning when it says that there are sheep that drop their lambs in november? fool to be sure--everybody knows, everybody in the world knows, when it is spring with us, the trees are withering there, when it is summer with us, the snow is falling there, and have i not myself heard the lambs that are there all bleating on a cold november day--to be sure, does not everybody with an intellect know that; and maybe when it's night with us, it is day with them, for many a time i have seen the roads lighted before me. wise man the beggar who wrote that on babylon wall meant that there is a spiritual kingdom that cannot be seen or known till the faculties whereby we master the kingdom of this world wither away, like green things in winter. a monkish thought, the most mischievous thought that ever passed out of a man's mouth. first pupil if he meant all that, i will take an oath that he was spindle-shanked, and cross-eyed, and had a lousy itching shoulder, and that his heart was crosser than his eyes, and that he wrote it out of malice. second pupil let's come away and find a better subject. fourth pupil and maybe now you'll let me choose. first pupil come. wise man were it but true 'twould alter everything until the stream of the world had changed its course, 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. [_a pause._ i have dreamed it twice. first pupil something has troubled him. [_pupils go out._ wise man 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 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? fool give me a penny. wise man that i should dream it twice, and after that, that they should pick it out. fool won't you give me a penny? wise man what do you want? what can it matter to you whether the words i am reading are wisdom or sheer folly? fool such a great, wise teacher will not refuse a penny to a fool. wise man seeing that everybody is a fool when he is asleep and dreaming, why do you call me wise? fool o, i know,--i know, i know what i have seen. wise man well, to see rightly is the whole of wisdom, whatever dream be with us. fool when i went by kilcluan, where the bells used to be ringing at the break of every day, i could hear nothing but the people snoring in their houses. when i went by tubbervanach, where the young men used to be climbing the hill to the blessed well, they were sitting at the cross-roads playing cards. when i went by carrigoras, where the friars used to be fasting and serving the poor, i saw them drinking wine and obeying their wives. and when i asked what misfortune had brought all these changes, they said it was no misfortune, but that it was the wisdom they had learned from your teaching. wise man and you too have called me wise--you would be paid for that good opinion doubtless--run to the kitchen, my wife will give you food and drink. fool that's foolish advice for a wise man to give. wise man why, fool? fool what is eaten is gone--i want pennies for my bag. i must buy bacon in the shops, and nuts in the market, and strong drink for the time the sun is weak, and snares to catch the rabbits and the hares, and a big pot to cook them in. wise man i have more to think about than giving pennies to your like, so run away. fool give me a penny and i will bring you luck. the fishermen let me sleep among their nets in the loft because i bring them luck; and in the summer time, the wild creatures let me sleep near their nests and their holes. it is lucky even to look at me, but it is much more lucky to give me a penny. if i was not lucky i would starve. wise man what are the shears for? fool i won't tell you. if i told you, you would drive them away. wise man drive them away! who would i drive away? fool i won't tell you. wise man not if i give you a penny? fool no. wise man not if i give you two pennies? fool you will be very lucky if you give me two pennies, but i won't tell you. wise man three pennies? fool four, and i will tell you. wise man very well--four, but from this out i will not call you teigue the fool. fool let me come close to you, where nobody will hear me; but first you must promise not to drive them away. (_wise man nods._) every day men go out dressed in black and spread great black nets over the hills, great black nets. wise man a strange place that to fish in. fool they spread them out on the hills that they may catch the feet of the angels; but every morning just before the dawn, i go out and cut the nets with the shears and the angels fly away. wise man (_speaking with excitement_) ah, now i know that you are teigue the fool. you say that i am wise, and yet i say, there are no angels. fool i have seen plenty of angels. wise man no, no, you have not. fool they are plenty if you but look about you. they are like the blades of grass. wise man they are plenty as the blades of grass--i heard that phrase when i was but a child and was told folly. fool when one gets quiet. when one is so quiet that there is not a thought in one's head maybe, there is something that wakes up inside one, something happy and quiet, and then all in a minute one can smell summer flowers, and tall people go by, happy and laughing, but they will not let us look at their faces. oh no, it is not right that we should look at their faces. wise man you have fallen asleep upon a hill, yet, even those that used to dream of angels dream now of other things. fool i saw one but a moment ago--that is because i am lucky. it was coming behind me, but it was not laughing. wise man there's nothing but what men can see when they are awake. nothing, nothing. fool i knew you would drive them away. wise man pardon me, fool, i had forgotten who i spoke to. well, there are your four pennies--fool you are called, and all day long they cry, 'come hither, fool.' [_the fool goes close to him._ or else it's, 'fool, be gone.' [_the fool goes further off._ or, 'fool, stand there.' [_the fool straightens himself up._ or, 'fool, go sit in the corner.' [_the fool sits 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. [_fool does so._ 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, 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. [_an angel has come in. it should be played by a man if a man can be found with the right voice, and may wear a little golden domino and a halo made of metal. or the whole face may be a beautiful mask, in which case the last sentence on page 136 should not be spoken._ 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 to turn our thoughts for their own ends to frenzy. why do you put your finger to your lip, and creep away? [_fool goes out._ (_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. angel i am the crafty one that you have called. wise man how that i called? angel i am the messenger. wise man what message could you bring to one like me? angel (_turning the hour-glass_) that you will die when the last grain of sand has fallen through this glass. wise man i have a wife. children and pupils that i cannot leave: why must i die, my time is far away? angel 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; and they are lonely that must keep the watch. wise man and whither shall i go when i am dead? angel 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. wise man where then? for i have said there is no hell. angel hell is the place of those who have denied; they find there what they planted and what dug, a lake of spaces, and a wood of nothing, and wander there and drift, and never cease wailing for substance. wise man 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? angel it is too late for pardon. wise man 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 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. angel 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, so trembling with delight and mother-naked, live unabashed if the arguing world stood by. wise man 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. angel though you may not undo what you have done, i have this power--if you but find one soul, 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. [_pupils sing in the distance._ 'who stole your wits away and where are they gone?' wise man 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- and yet give me some thought, some argument, more mighty than my own. angel farewell--farewell, for i am weary of the weight of time. [_angel goes out. wise man makes a step to follow and pauses. some of his pupils come in at the other side of the stage._ first pupil master, master, you must choose the subject. [_enter other pupils with fool, about whom they dance; all the pupils may have little cushions on which presently they seat themselves._ second pupil 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?' fool give me a penny. first pupil the master will find your wits, second pupil and when they are found, you must not beg for pennies. third pupil they are hidden somewhere in the badger's hole, but you must carry an old candle end if you would find them. fourth pupil they are up above the clouds. fool give me a penny, give me a penny. first pupil (_singing_) 'i'll find your wits again, come, for i saw them roll, to where old badger mumbles in the black hole.' second pupil (_singing_) 'no, but an angel stole them the night that you were born, and now they are but a rag, on the moon's horn.' wise man be silent. first pupil can you not see that he is troubled? [_all the pupils are seated._ wise man 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? second pupil (_to first pupil_) you answer for us. third pupil (_in a whisper to first pupil_) be careful what you say; if he persuades you to an argument, he will but turn us all to mockery. first pupil we had no minds until you made them for us; our bodies only were our mothers' work. wise man 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. first pupil we thought those things before our minds were born, but that was long ago--we are not children. wise man 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, 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. first pupil there is no one, master, there is not one but found them sweet as milk. wise man the things that have been told us in our childhood are not so fragile. second pupil we are no longer children. third pupil we all believe in you and in what you have taught. other pupils all, all, all, all, in you, nothing but you. wise man 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. first pupil (_to other pupils_) i take his words to mean that visionaries, and martyrs when they are raised above translunary things, and there enlightened, as the contention is, may lose the light, and flounder in their speech when the eyes open. second pupil how well he imitates their trick of speech. third pupil their air of mystery. fourth pupil their empty gaze, as though they'd looked upon some winged thing, and would not condescend to mankind after. first pupil master, we have all learnt that truth is learnt when the intellect's deliberate and cold, 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. wise man when it is melted, when it all fumes up, they walk, as when beside those three in the furnace the form of the fourth. first pupil master, there's none among us that has not heard your mockery of these, or thoughts like these, and we have not forgot. wise man something incredible has happened--some one has come suddenly like a grey hawk out of the air, and all that i declared untrue is true. first pupil (_to other pupils_) 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. second pupil give us some proof. wise man what proof have i to give, but that an angel an instant ago was standing on that spot. [_the pupils rise._ third pupil you dreamed it. wise man i was awake as i am now. first pupil (_to the others_) i may be dreaming now for all i know. he wants to show we have no certain proof of anything in the world. second pupil 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. third pupil teigue sees angels. so when the master says he has seen an angel, he may have seen one. first pupil both may still be dreamers; unless it's proved the angels were alike. second pupil what sort are the angels, teigue? third pupil that will prove nothing, unless we are sure prolonged obedience has made one angel like another angel as they were eggs. first pupil 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. wise man yes, yes. find me but one that still believes the things that we were told when we were children. third pupil he'll mock and maul him. fourth pupil from the first i knew he wanted somebody to argue with. [_they go._ wise man i have no reason left. all dark, all dark! [_pupils return laughing. they push forward fourth pupil._ first pupil here, master, is the very man you want. 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. fourth pupil i never said it. wise man dear friend, dear friend, do you believe in god? fourth pupil master, they have invented this to mock me. wise man you are afraid of me. fourth pupil 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. wise man if you believe in god, you are my soul's one friend. [_pupils laugh._ 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. [_the pupils look at one another and are silent._ second pupil how strange he is. wise man the angel that stood there upon that spot, said that my soul was lost unless i found out one that believed. fourth pupil 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? wise man the giddy glass is emptier every moment, and you stand there, debating, laughing and wrangling. out of my sight! out of my sight, i say. [_he drives them out._ 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. [_bridget comes in wearing her apron. her sleeves turned up from her arms, which are covered with flour._ 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? sometimes when you're alone in the house, do you pray? bridget prayers--no, you taught me to leave them off long ago. at first i was sorry, but i am glad now, for i am sleepy in the evenings. wise man do you believe in god? bridget oh, a good wife only believes in what her husband tells her. wise man 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, and all the things that you believed in once? bridget i think about nothing--sometimes i wonder if the linen is bleaching white, or i go out to see if the crows are picking up the chickens' food. wise man 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, only in spiritual terror can the truth come through the broken mind--as the pease burst out of a broken pease-cod. [_he clutches bridget as she is going._ 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. bridget you want somebody to get up an argument with. wise man look out and see if there is any one there in the street--i cannot leave the glass, for somebody might shake it, and the sand if it were shaken might run down on the instant. bridget i don't understand a word you are saying. there's a crowd of people talking to your pupils. wise man go out and find if they have found a man who did not understand me when i taught, or did not listen. bridget it is a hard thing to be married to a man of learning that must always be having arguments. [_she goes out._ wise man 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. [_enter bridget followed by the fool._ fool give me something; give me a penny to buy bacon in the shops and nuts in the market, and strong drink for the time when the sun is weak. bridget i have no pennies. (_to wise man_) your pupils cannot find anybody to argue with you. there's nobody in the whole country with belief enough for a lover's oath. can't you be quiet now, and not always wanting to have arguments? it must be terrible to have a mind like that. wise man then i am lost indeed. bridget leave me alone now, i have to make the bread for you and the children. [_she goes into kitchen._ wise man children, children! bridget your father wants you, run to him. [_children run in._ wise man come to me, children. do not be afraid. 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. first child we have not forgotten, father. second child oh no, father. both children (_as if repeating a lesson_) there is nothing we cannot see, nothing we cannot touch. first child foolish people used to say that there was, but you have taught us better. wise man 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, when they are millions and they will not speak- [_children have run out._ but they are gone; what made them run away? [_the fool comes in with a dandelion._ 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. [_going to glass._ 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 had gripped the threshold stone? [_fool has begun to blow the dandelion._ what are you doing? fool wait a minute--four--five--six-wise man what are you doing that for? fool i am blowing the dandelion to find out what hour it is. wise man 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, 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? fool so you ask me now. i thought when you were asking your pupils, 'will he ask teigue the fool? yes, he will, he will; no, he will not--yes, he will.' but teigue will say nothing. teigue will say nothing. wise man tell me quickly. fool i said, 'teigue knows everything, not even the green-eyed cats and the hares that milk the cows have teigue's wisdom'; but teigue will not speak, he says nothing. wise man 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. fool i will not speak. i will not tell you what is in my mind. i will not tell you what is in my bag. you might steal away my thoughts. i met a bodach on the road yesterday, and he said, 'teigue, tell me how many pennies are in your bag; i will wager three pennies that there are not twenty pennies in your bag; let me put in my hand and count them.' but i gripped the bag the tighter, and when i go to sleep at night i hide the bag where nobody knows. wise man there's but one pinch of sand, and i am lost if you are not he i seek. fool o, what a lot the fool knows, but he says nothing. wise man 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. fool oh no. how could poor teigue see angels? oh, teigue tells one tale here, another there, and everybody gives him pennies. if teigue had not his tales he would starve. [_he breaks away and goes out._ wise man 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. [_the fool comes back._ fool there was one there--there by the threshold stone, waiting there; and he said, 'go in, teigue, and tell him everything that he asks you. he will give you a penny if you tell him.' wise man i know enough, that know god's will prevails. fool waiting till the moment had come--that is what the one out there was saying, but i might tell you what you asked. that is what he was saying. wise man 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. 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. [_he dies._ fool wise man--wise man, wake up and i will tell you everything for a penny. it is i, poor teigue the fool. why don't you wake up, and say, 'there is a penny for you, teigue'? no, no, you will say nothing. you and i, we are the two fools, we know everything, but we will not speak. [_angel enters holding a casket._ o, look what has come from his mouth! o, look what has come from his mouth--the white butterfly! he is dead, and i have taken his soul in my hands; but i know why you open the lid of that golden box. i must give it to you. there then, (_he puts butterfly in casket_) he has gone through his pains, and you will open the lid in the garden of paradise. (_he closes curtain and remains outside it._) he is gone, he is gone, he is gone, but come in, everybody in the world, and look at me. '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. [_he goes out._ * * * * * notes prefatory poem 'free of the ten and four' is an error i cannot now correct, without more rewriting than i have a mind for. some merchant in villon, i forget the reference, was 'free of the ten and four.' irish merchants exempted from certain duties by the irish parliament were, unless memory deceives me again for i am writing away from books, 'free of the eight and six.' poems beginning with that 'to a wealthy man' and ending with that 'to a shade' during the thirty years or so during which i have been reading irish newspapers, three public controversies have stirred my imagination. the first was the parnell controversy. there were reasons to justify a man's joining either party, but there were none to justify, on one side or on the other, lying accusations forgetful of past service, a frenzy of detraction. and another was the dispute over 'the playboy.' there were reasons for opposing as for supporting that violent, laughing thing, but none for the lies, for the unscrupulous rhetoric spread against it in ireland, and from ireland to america. the third prepared for the corporation's refusal of a building for sir hugh lane's famous collection of pictures. one could respect the argument that dublin, with much poverty and many slums, could not afford the £22,000 the building was to cost the city, but not the minds that used it. one frenzied man compared the pictures to troy horse which 'destroyed a city,' and innumerable correspondents described sir hugh lane and those who had subscribed many thousands to give dublin paintings by corot, manet, monet, degas, and renoir, as 'self-seekers,' 'self-advertisers,' 'picture-dealers,' 'log-rolling cranks and faddists,' and one clerical paper told 'picture-dealer lane' to take himself and his pictures out of that. a member of the corporation said there were irish artists who could paint as good if they had a mind to, and another described a half-hour in the temporary gallery in harcourt street as the most dismal of his life. some one else asked instead of these eccentric pictures to be given pictures 'like those beautiful productions displayed in the windows of our city picture shops.' another thought that we would all be more patriotic if we devoted our energy to fighting the insurance act. another would not hang them in his kitchen, while yet another described the vogue of french impressionist painting as having gone to such a length among 'log-rolling enthusiasts' that they even admired 'works that were rejected from the salon forty years ago by the finest critics in the world.' the first serious opposition began in the _irish catholic_, the chief dublin clerical paper, and mr. william murphy, the organiser of the recent lock-out and mr. healy's financial supporter in his attack upon parnell, a man of great influence, brought to its support a few days later his newspapers _the evening herald_ and _the irish independent_, the most popular of irish daily papers. he replied to my poem 'to a wealthy man' (i was thinking of a very different wealthy man) from what he described as 'paudeen's point of view,' and 'paudeen's point of view' it was. the enthusiasm for 'sir hugh lane's corots'--one paper spelled the name repeatedly 'crot'--being but 'an exotic fashion,' waited 'some satirist like gilbert' who 'killed the æsthetic craze,' and as for the rest 'there were no greater humbugs in the world than art critics and so-called experts.' as the first avowed reason for opposition, the necessities of the poor got but a few lines, not so many certainly as the objection of various persons to supply sir hugh lane with 'a monument at the city's expense,' and as the gallery was supported by mr. james larkin, the chief labour leader, and important slum workers, i assume that the purpose of the opposition was not exclusively charitable. these controversies, political, literary, and artistic, have showed that neither religion nor politics can of itself create minds with enough receptivity to become wise, or just and generous enough to make a nation. other cities have been as stupid--samuel butler laughs at shocked montreal for hiding the discobolus in a cellar--but dublin is the capital of a nation, and an ancient race has nowhere else to look for an education. goethe in _wilhelm meister_ describes a saintly and naturally gracious woman, who getting into a quarrel over some trumpery detail of religious observance, grows--she and all her little religious community--angry and vindictive. in ireland i am constantly reminded of that fable of the futility of all discipline that is not of the whole being. religious ireland--and the pious protestants of my childhood were signal examples--thinks of divine things as a round of duties separated from life and not as an element that may be discovered in all circumstance and emotion, while political ireland sees the good citizen but as a man who holds to certain opinions and not as a man of good will. against all this we have but a few educated men and the remnants of an old traditional culture among the poor. both were stronger forty years ago, before the rise of our new middle class which showed as its first public event, during the nine years of the parnellite split, how base at moments of excitement are minds without culture. 1914. 'romantic ireland's dead and gone' sounds old-fashioned now. it seemed true in 1913, but i did not foresee 1916. the late dublin rebellion, whatever one can say of its wisdom, will long be remembered for its heroism. 'they weighed so lightly what they gave,' and gave too in some cases without hope of success. july 1916. the dolls the fable for this poem came into my head while i was giving some lectures in dublin. i had noticed once again how all thought among us is frozen into 'something other than human life.' after i had made the poem, i looked up one day into the blue of the sky, and suddenly imagined, as if lost in the blue of the sky, stiff figures in procession. i remembered that they were the habitual image suggested by blue sky, and looking for a second fable called them 'the magi', complimentary forms to those enraged dolls. the hour-glass a friend suggested to me the subject of this play, an irish folk-tale from lady wilde's _ancient legends_. i have for years struggled with something which is charming in the naive legend but a platitude on the stage. i did not discover till a year ago that if the wise man humbled himself to the fool and received salvation as his reward, so much more powerful are pictures than words, no explanatory dialogue could set the matter right. i was faintly pleased when i converted a music-hall singer and kept him going to mass for six weeks, so little responsibility does one feel for those to whom one has never been introduced; but i was always ashamed when i saw any friend of my own in the theatre. now i have made my philosopher accept god's will, whatever it is, and find his courage again, and helped by the elaboration of verse, have so changed the fable that it is not false to my own thoughts of the world. * * * * * printed in the united states of america. * * * * * the following pages contain advertisements of books by the same author or on kindred subjects. * * * * * by william butler yeats reveries over childhood and youth _$2.00_ in this book the celebrated irish author gives us his reminiscences of his childhood and youth. the memories are written, as is to be expected, in charming prose. they have the appeal invariably attached to the account of a sensitive childhood. the hour glass and other plays _$1.25_ "the hour glass" is one of mr. yeats' noble and effective plays, and with the other plays in the volume, make a small, but none the less representative collection. stories of red hanrahan _$1.25_ these tales belong to the realm of pure lyrical expression. they are mysterious and shadowy, full of infinite subtleties and old wisdom of folklore, and sad with the gray wistful celtic sadness. "lovers of mr. yeats's suggestive and delicate writing will find him at his best in this volume."--_springfield republican._ ideas of good and evil _$1.50_ essays on art and life, wherein are set forth much of yeats' philosophy, his love of beauty, his hope for ireland and for irish artistic achievement. the celtic twilight _$1.50_ a collection of tales from irish life and of irish fancy, retold from peasants' stories with no additions except an occasional comment. * * * * * the macmillan company publishers 64-66 fifth avenue new york * * * * * the cutting of an agate _12mo, $1.50_ "mr. yeats is probably the most important as well as the most widely known of the men concerned directly in the so-called celtic renaissance. more than this, he stands among the few men to be reckoned with in modern poetry."--_new york herald._ the green helmet and other poems _decorated cloth, 12mo, $1.25_ the initial piece in this volume is a deliciously conceived heroic farce, quaint in humor and sprightly in action. it tells of the difficulty in which two simple irish folk find themselves when they enter into an agreement with an apparition of the sea, who demands that they knock off his head and who maintains that after they have done that he will knock off theirs. there is a real meaning in the play which it will not take the thoughtful reader long to discover. besides this there are a number of shorter poems, notably one in which mr. yeats answers the critics of "the playboy of the western world." lyrical and dramatic poems in two volumes _vol. i. lyrical poems, $1.75 leather, $2.25_ _vol. ii. plays (revised), $2.00 leather, $2.25_ the two-volume edition of the irish poet's works included everything he has done in verse up to the present time. the first volume contains his lyrics; the second includes all of his five dramas in verse: "the countess cathleen," "the land of heart's desire," "the king's threshold," "on baile's strand," and "the shadowy waters." * * * * * the macmillan company publishers 64-66 fifth avenue new york * * * * * the quest by john g. neihardt author of "the song of hugh glass" here are brought together the more important of mr. neihardt's poems. for some years there have been those--and prominent critics, too--who have quite emphatically maintained that there is no greater american poet than mr. neihardt, that in him are found those essentials which make for true art--a feeling for words, a lyric power of the first quality, an understanding of rhythm. here, for example, is the comment of the _boston transcript_ on the book just preceding this, _the song of hugh glass:_ "in this poem mr. neihardt touches life, power, beauty, spirit; the tremendous and impressive forces of nature.... the genius of american poetry is finding itself in such a poem as this.... the poem is powerfully poetic.... it is a big, sweeping thing blazing a pathway across the frontiers of our national life." californians by robinson jeffers california is now to have its part in the poetry revival. robinson jeffers is a new poet, a man whose name is as yet unknown but whose work is of such outstanding character that once it is read he is sure of acceptance by those who have admired the writings of such men as john g. neihardt, edgar lee masters, edwin arlington robinson and thomas walsh. virtually all of the poems in this first collection have their setting in california, most of them in the monterey peninsula, and they realize the scenery of the great state with vividness and richness of detail. the author's main source of inspiration has been the varying aspects of nature. * * * * * the macmillan company publishers 64-66 fifth avenue new york * * * * * poems of the great war by j. w. cunliffe here are brought together under the editorship of dr. cunliffe some of the more notable poems which have dealt with the great war. among the writers represented are rupert brooke, john masefield, lincoln colcord, william benet, wilfrid wilson gibson, hermann hagedorn, alfred noyes, rabindranath tagore, walter de la mare, vachel lindsay and owen seaman. the new poetry: an anthology edited by harriet monroe and alice corbin henderson, editors of _poetry_ probably few people are following as closely the poetry of to-day as are the editors of the _poetry magazine_ of chicago. they are eminently fitted, therefore, to prepare such a volume as this, which is intended to represent the work that is being done by the leading poets of the land. here, between the covers of one book, are brought together poems by a great many different writers, all of whom may be said to be responsible in a measure for the revival of interest in poetry in this country. the story of eleusis by louis v. ledoux this is a lyrical drama, in the greek manner, dealing with the story of persephone. mr. ledoux has constructed such a play as might well have held the attention of the assembled mystæ at eleusis. it is greek. better than this, it is also human. its beauty and its truthfulness to life will appeal alike to the lover of classical and the lover of modern dramatic poetry. * * * * * the macmillan company publishers 64-66 fifth avenue new york haines. four years by william butler yeats. four years 1887-1891. at the end of the eighties my father and mother, my brother and sisters and myself, all newly arrived from dublin, were settled in bedford park in a red-brick house with several wood mantlepieces copied from marble mantlepieces by the brothers adam, a balcony, and a little garden shadowed by a great horse-chestnut tree. years before we had lived there, when the crooked, ostentatiously picturesque streets, with great trees casting great shadows, had been anew enthusiasm: the pre-raphaelite movement at last affecting life. but now exaggerated criticism had taken the place of enthusiasm; the tiled roofs, the first in modern london, were said to leak, which they did not, & the drains to be bad, though that was no longer true; and i imagine that houses were cheap. i remember feeling disappointed because the co-operative stores, with their little seventeenth century panes, were so like any common shop; and because the public house, called 'the tabard' after chaucer's inn, was so plainly a common public house; and because the great sign of a trumpeter designed by rooke, the pre-raphaelite artist, had been freshened by some inferior hand. the big red-brick church had never pleased me, and i was accustomed, when i saw the wooden balustrade that ran along the slanting edge of the roof, where nobody ever walked or could walk, to remember the opinion of some architect friend of my father's, that it had been put there to keep the birds from falling off. still, however, it had some village characters and helped us to feel not wholly lost in the metropolis. i no longer went to church as a regular habit, but go i sometimes did, for one sunday morning i saw these words painted on a board in the porch: 'the congregation are requested to kneel during prayers; the kneelers are afterwards to be hung upon pegs provided for the purpose.' in front of every seat hung a little cushion, and these cushions were called 'kneelers.' presently the joke ran through the community, where there were many artists, who considered religion at best an unimportant accessory to good architecture and who disliked that particular church. ii i could not understand where the charm had gone that i had felt, when as a school-boy of twelve or thirteen, i had played among the unfinished houses, once leaving the marks of my two hands, blacked by a fall among some paint, upon a white balustrade. sometimes i thought it was because these were real houses, while my play had been among toy-houses some day to be inhabited by imaginary people full of the happiness that one can see in picture books. i was in all things pre-raphaelite. when i was fifteen or sixteen, my father had told me about rossetti and blake and given me their poetry to read; & once in liverpool on my way to sligo, "i had seen 'dante's dream' in the gallery there--a picture painted when rossetti had lost his dramatic power, and to-day not very pleasing to me--and its colour, its people, its romantic architecture had blotted all other pictures away." it was a perpetual bewilderment that my father, who had begun life as a pre-raphaelite painter, now painted portraits of the first comer, children selling newspapers, or a consumptive girl with a basket offish upon her head, and that when, moved perhaps by memory of his youth, he chose some theme from poetic tradition, he would soon weary and leave it unfinished. i had seen the change coming bit by bit and its defence elaborated by young men fresh from the paris art-schools. 'we must paint what is in front of us,' or 'a man must be of his own time,' they would say, and if i spoke of blake or rossetti they would point out his bad drawing and tell me to admire carolus duran and bastien-lepage. then, too, they were very ignorant men; they read nothing, for nothing mattered but 'knowing how to paint,' being in reaction against a generation that seemed to have wasted its time upon so many things. i thought myself alone in hating these young men, now indeed getting towards middle life, their contempt for the past, their monopoly of the future, but in a few months i was to discover others of my own age, who thought as i did, for it is not true that youth looks before it with the mechanical gaze of a well-drilled soldier. its quarrel is not with the past, but with the present, where its elders are so obviously powerful, and no cause seems lost if it seem to threaten that power. does cultivated youth ever really love the future, where the eye can discover no persecuted royalty hidden among oak leaves, though from it certainly does come so much proletarian rhetoric? i was unlike others of my generation in one thing only. i am very religious, and deprived by huxley and tyndall, whom i detested, of the simple-minded religion of my childhood, i had made a new religion, almost an infallible church, out of poetic tradition: a fardel of stories, and of personages, and of emotions, a bundle of images and of masks passed on from generation to generation by poets & painters with some help from philosophers and theologians. i wished for a world where i could discover this tradition perpetually, and not in pictures and in poems only, but in tiles round the chimney-piece and in the hangings that kept out the draught. i had even created a dogma: 'because those imaginary people are created out of the deepest instinct of man, to be his measure and his norm, whatever i can imagine those mouths speaking may be the nearest i can go to truth.' when i listened they seemed always to speak of one thing only: they, their loves, every incident of their lives, were steeped in the supernatural. could even titian's 'ariosto' that i loved beyond other portraits, have its grave look, as if waiting for some perfect final event, if the painters, before titian, had not learned portraiture, while painting into the corner of compositions, full of saints and madonnas, their kneeling patrons? at seventeen years old i was already an old-fashioned brass cannon full of shot, and nothing kept me from going off but a doubt as to my capacity to shoot straight. iii i was not an industrious student and knew only what i had found by accident, and i had found "nothing i cared for after titian--and titian i knew chiefly from a copy of 'the supper of emmaus' in dublin--till blake and the pre-raphaelites;" and among my father's friends were no pre-raphaelites. some indeed had come to bedford park in the enthusiasm of the first building, and others to be near those that had. there was todhunter, a well-off man who had bought my father's pictures while my father was still pre-raphaelite. once a dublin doctor he was a poet and a writer of poetical plays: a tall, sallow, lank, melancholy man, a good scholar and a good intellect; and with him my father carried on a warm exasperated friendship, fed i think by old memories and wasted by quarrels over matters of opinion. of all the survivors he was the most dejected, and the least estranged, and i remember encouraging him, with a sense of worship shared, to buy a very expensive carpet designed by morris. he displayed it without strong liking and would have agreed had there been any to find fault. if he had liked anything strongly he might have been a famous man, for a few years later he was to write, under some casual patriotic impulse, certain excellent verses now in all irish anthologies; but with him every book was a new planting and not a new bud on an old bough. he had i think no peace in himself. but my father's chief friend was york powell, a famous oxford professor of history, a broad-built, broad-headed, brown-bearded man, clothed in heavy blue cloth and looking, but for his glasses and the dim sight of a student, like some captain in the merchant service. one often passed with pleasure from todhunter's company to that of one who was almost ostentatiously at peace. he cared nothing for philosophy, nothing for economics, nothing for the policy of nations, for history, as he saw it, was a memory of men who were amusing or exciting to think about. he impressed all who met him & seemed to some a man of genius, but he had not enough ambition to shape his thought, or conviction to give rhythm to his style, and remained always a poor writer. i was too full of unfinished speculations and premature convictions to value rightly his conversation, in-formed by a vast erudition, which would give itself to every casual association of speech and company precisely because he had neither cause nor design. my father, however, found powell's concrete narrative manner a necessary completion of his own; and when i asked him, in a letter many years later, where he got his philosophy, replied 'from york powell' and thereon added, no doubt remembering that powell was without ideas, 'by looking at him.' then there was a good listener, a painter in whose hall hung a big picture, painted in his student days, of ulysses sailing home from the phaeacian court, an orange and a skin of wine at his side, blue mountains towering behind; but who lived by drawing domestic scenes and lovers' meetings for a weekly magazine that had an immense circulation among the imperfectly educated. to escape the boredom of work, which he never turned to but under pressure of necessity, and usually late at night with the publisher's messenger in the hall, he had half filled his studio with mechanical toys of his own invention, and perpetually increased their number. a model railway train at intervals puffed its way along the walls, passing several railway stations and signal boxes; and on the floor lay a camp with attacking and defending soldiers and a fortification that blew up when the attackers fired a pea through a certain window; while a large model of a thames barge hung from the ceiling. opposite our house lived an old artist who worked also for the illustrated papers for a living, but painted landscapes for his pleasure, and of him i remember nothing except that he had outlived ambition, was a good listener, and that my father explained his gaunt appearance by his descent from pocahontas. if all these men were a little like becalmed ships, there was certainly one man whose sails were full. three or four doors off, on our side of the road, lived a decorative artist in all the naive confidence of popular ideals and the public approval. he was our daily comedy. 'i myself and sir frederick leighton are the greatest decorative artists of the age,' was among his sayings, & a great lych-gate, bought from some country church-yard, reared its thatched roof, meant to shelter bearers and coffin, above the entrance to his front garden, to show that he at any rate knew nothing of discouragement. in this fairly numerous company--there were others though no other face rises before me--my father and york powell found listeners for a conversation that had no special loyalties, or antagonisms; while i could only talk upon set topics, being in the heat of my youth, and the topics that filled me with excitement were never spoken of. iv some quarter of an hour's walk from bedford park, out on the high road to richmond, lived w. e. henley, and i, like many others, began under him my education. his portrait, a lithograph by rothenstein, hangs over my mantlepiece among portraits of other friends. he is drawn standing, but, because doubtless of his crippled legs, he leans forward, resting his elbows upon some slightly suggested object--a table or a window-sill. his heavy figure and powerful head, the disordered hair standing upright, his short irregular beard and moustache, his lined and wrinkled face, his eyes steadily fixed upon some object, in complete confidence and self-possession, and yet as in half-broken reverie, all are exactly as i remember him. i have seen other portraits and they too show him exactly as i remember him, as though he had but one appearance and that seen fully at the first glance and by all alike. he was most human--human, i used to say, like one of shakespeare's characters--and yet pressed and pummelled, as it were, into a single attitude, almost into a gesture and a speech, as by some overwhelming situation. i disagreed with him about everything, but i admired him beyond words. with the exception of some early poems founded upon old french models, i disliked his poetry, mainly because he wrote _vers libre_, which i associated with tyndall and huxley and bastien-lepage's clownish peasant staring with vacant eyes at her great boots; and filled it with unimpassioned description of an hospital ward where his leg had been amputated. i wanted the strongest passions, passions that had nothing to do with observation, and metrical forms that seemed old enough to be sung by men half-asleep or riding upon a journey. furthermore, pre-raphaelitism affected him as some people are affected by a cat in the room, and though he professed himself at our first meeting without political interests or convictions, he soon grew into a violent unionist and imperialist. i used to say when i spoke of his poems: 'he is like a great actor with a bad part; yet who would look at hamlet in the grave scene if salvini played the grave-digger?' and i might so have explained much that he said and did. i meant that he was like a great actor of passion--character-acting meant nothing to me for many years--and an actor of passion will display some one quality of soul, personified again and again, just as a great poetical painter, titian, botticelli, rossetti may depend for his greatness upon a type of beauty which presently we call by his name. irving, the last of the sort on the english stage, and in modern england and france it is the rarest sort, never moved me but in the expression of intellectual pride; and though i saw salvini but once, i am convinced that his genius was a kind of animal nobility. henley, half inarticulate--'i am very costive,' he would say--beset with personal quarrels, built up an image of power and magnanimity till it became, at moments, when seen as it were by lightning, his true self. half his opinions were the contrivance of a sub-consciousness that sought always to bring life to the dramatic crisis, and expression to that point of artifice where the true self could find its tongue. without opponents there had been no drama, and in his youth ruskinism and pre-raphaelitism, for he was of my father's generation, were the only possible opponents. how could one resent his prejudice when, that he himself might play a worthy part, he must find beyond the common rout, whom he derided and flouted daily, opponents he could imagine moulded like himself? once he said to me in the height of his imperial propaganda, 'tell those young men in ireland that this great thing must go on. they say ireland is not fit for self-government but that is nonsense. it is as fit as any other european country but we cannot grant it.' and then he spoke of his desire to found and edit a dublin newspaper. it would have expounded the gaelic propaganda then beginning, though dr. hyde had as yet no league, our old stories, our modern literature--everything that did not demand any shred or patch of government. he dreamed of a tyranny but it was that of cosimo de medici. v we gathered on sunday evenings in two rooms, with folding doors between, & hung, i think, with photographs from dutch masters, and in one room there was always, i think, a table with cold meat. i can recall but one elderly man--dunn his name was--rather silent and full of good sense, an old friend of henley's. we were young men, none as yet established in his own, or in the world's opinion, and henley was our leader and our confidant. one evening i found him alone amused and exasperated. he cried: 'young a... has just been round to ask my advice. would i think it a wise thing if he bolted with mrs. b...? "have you quite determined to do it?" i asked him. "quite." "well," i said, "in that case i refuse to give you any advice."' mrs. b... was a beautiful talented woman, who, as the welsh triad said of guinevere, 'was much given to being carried off.' i think we listened to him, and often obeyed him, partly because he was quite plainly not upon the side of our parents. we might have a different ground of quarrel, but the result seemed more important than the ground, and his confident manner and speech made us believe, perhaps for the first time, in victory. and besides, if he did denounce, and in my case he certainly did, what we held in secret reverence, he never failed to associate it with things, or persons, that did not move us to reverence. once i found him just returned from some art congress in liverpool or in manchester. 'the salvation armyism of art,' he called it, & gave a grotesque description of some city councillor he had found admiring turner. henley, who hated all that ruskin praised, thereupon derided turner, and finding the city councillor the next day on the other side of the gallery, admiring some pre-raphaelite there, derided that pre-raphaelite. the third day henley discovered the poor man on a chair in the middle of the room, staring disconsolately upon the floor. he terrified us also, and certainly i did not dare, and i think none of us dared, to speak our admiration for book or picture he condemned, but he made us feel always our importance, and no man among us could do good work, or show the promise of it, and lack his praise. i can remember meeting of a sunday night charles whibley, kenneth grahame, author of 'the golden age,' barry pain, now a well known novelist, r. a. m. stevenson, art critic and a famous talker, george wyndham, later on a cabinet minister and irish chief secretary, and oscar wilde, who was some eight years or ten older than the rest. but faces and names are vague to me and, while faces that i met but once may rise clearly before me, a face met on many a sunday has perhaps vanished. kipling came sometimes, i think, but i never met him; and stepniak, the nihilist, whom i knew well elsewhere but not there, said 'i cannot go more than once a year, it is too exhausting.' henley got the best out of us all, because he had made us accept him as our judge and we knew that his judgment could neither sleep, nor be softened, nor changed, nor turned aside. when i think of him, the antithesis that is the foundation of human nature being ever in my sight, i see his crippled legs as though he were some vulcan perpetually forging swords for other men to use; and certainly i always thought of c..., a fine classical scholar, a pale and seemingly gentle man, as our chief swordsman and bravo. when henley founded his weekly newspaper, first the 'scots,' afterwards 'the national observer,' this young man wrote articles and reviews notorious for savage wit; and years afterwards when 'the national observer' was dead, henley dying & our cavern of outlaws empty, i met him in paris very sad and i think very poor. 'nobody will employ me now,' he said. 'your master is gone,' i answered, 'and you are like the spear in an old irish story that had to be kept dipped in poppy-juice that it might not go about killing people on its own account.' i wrote my first good lyrics and tolerable essays for 'the national observer' and as i always signed my work could go my own road in some measure. henley often revised my lyrics, crossing out a line or a stanza and writing in one of his own, and i was comforted by my belief that he also re-wrote kipling then in the first flood of popularity. at first, indeed, i was ashamed of being re-written and thought that others were not, and only began investigation when the editorial characteristics--epigrams, archaisms and all--appeared in the article upon paris fashions and in that upon opium by an egyptian pasha. i was not compelled to full conformity for verse is plainly stubborn; and in prose, that i might avoid unacceptable opinions, i wrote nothing but ghost or fairy stories, picked up from my mother, or some pilot at rosses point, and henley saw that i must needs mix a palette fitted to my subject matter. but if he had changed every 'has' into 'hath' i would have let him, for had not we sunned ourselves in his generosity? 'my young men out-dome and they write better than i,' he wrote in some letter praising charles whibley's work, and to another friend with a copy of my 'man who dreamed of fairyland:' 'see what a fine thing has been written by one of my lads.' vi my first meeting with oscar wilde was an astonishment. i never before heard a man talking with perfect sentences, as if he had written them all over night with labour and yet all spontaneous. there was present that night at henley's, by right of propinquity or of accident, a man full of the secret spite of dullness, who interrupted from time to time and always to check or disorder thought; and i noticed with what mastery he was foiled and thrown. i noticed, too, that the impression of artificiality that i think all wilde's listeners have recorded, came from the perfect rounding of the sentences and from the deliberation that made it possible. that very impression helped him as the effect of metre, or of the antithetical prose of the seventeenth century, which is itself a true metre, helps a writer, for he could pass without incongruity from some unforeseen swift stroke of wit to elaborate reverie. i heard him say a few nights later: 'give me "the winter's tale," "daffodils that come before the swallow dare" but not "king lear." what is "king lear" but poor life staggering in the fog?' and the slow cadence, modulated with so great precision, sounded natural to my ears. that first night he praised walter pater's 'essays on the renaissance:' 'it is my golden book; i never travel anywhere without it; but it is the very flower of decadence. the last trumpet should have sounded the moment it was written.' 'but,' said the dull man, 'would you not have given us time to read it?' 'oh no,' was the retort, 'there would have been plenty of time afterwards--in either world.' i think he seemed to us, baffled as we were by youth, or by infirmity, a triumphant figure, and to some of us a figure from another age, an audacious italian fifteenth century figure. a few weeks before i had heard one of my father's friends, an official in a publishing firm that had employed both wilde and henley as editors, blaming henley who was 'no use except under control' and praising wilde, 'so indolent but such a genius;' and now the firm became the topic of our talk. 'how often do you go to the office?' said henley. 'i used to go three times a week,' said wilde, 'for an hour a day but i have since struck off one of the days.' 'my god,' said henley, 'i went five times a week for five hours a day and when i wanted to strike off a day they had a special committee meeting.' 'furthermore,' was wilde's answer, 'i never answered their letters. i have known men come to london full of bright prospects and seen them complete wrecks in a few months through a habit of answering letters.' he too knew how to keep our elders in their place, and his method was plainly the more successful for henley had been dismissed. 'no he is not an aesthete,' henley commented later, being somewhat embarrassed by wilde's pre-raphaelite entanglement. 'one soon finds that he is a scholar and a gentleman.' and when i dined with wilde a few days afterwards he began at once, 'i had to strain every nerve to equal that man at all;' and i was too loyal to speak my thought: 'you & not he' said all the brilliant things. he like the rest of us had felt the strain of an intensity that seemed to hold life at the point of drama. he had said, on that first meeting, 'the basis of literary friendship is mixing the poisoned bowl;' and for a few weeks henley and he became close friends till, the astonishment of their meeting over, diversity of character and ambition pushed them apart, and, with half the cavern helping, henley began mixing the poisoned bowl for wilde. yet henley never wholly lost that first admiration, for after wilde's downfall he said to me: 'why did he do it? i told my lads to attack him and yet we might have fought under his banner.' vii it became the custom, both at henley's and at bedford park, to say that r. a. m. stevenson, who frequented both circles, was the better talker. wilde had been trussed up like a turkey by undergraduates, dragged up and down a hill, his champagne emptied into the ice tub, hooted in the streets of various towns and i think stoned, and no newspaper named him but in scorn; his manner had hardened to meet opposition and at times he allowed one to see an unpardonable insolence. his charm was acquired and systematised, a mask which he wore only when it pleased him, while the charm of stevenson belonged to him like the colour of his hair. if stevenson's talk became monologue we did not know it, because our one object was to show by our attention that he need never leave off. if thought failed him we would not combat what he had said, or start some new theme, but would encourage him with a question; and one felt that it had been always so from childhood up. his mind was full of phantasy for phantasy's sake and he gave as good entertainment in monologue as his cousin robert louis in poem or story. he was always 'supposing:' 'suppose you had two millions what would you do with it?' and 'suppose you were in spain and in love how would you propose?' i recall him one afternoon at our house at bedford park, surrounded by my brother and sisters and a little group of my father's friends, describing proposals in half a dozen countries. there your father did it, dressed in such and such a way with such and such words, and there a friend must wait for the lady outside the chapel door, sprinkle her with holy water and say 'my friend jones is dying for love of you.' but when it was over, those quaint descriptions, so full of laughter and sympathy, faded or remained in the memory as something alien from one's own life like a dance i once saw in a great house, where beautifully dressed children wound a long ribbon in and out as they danced. i was not of stevenson's party and mainly i think because he had written a book in praise of velasquez, praise at that time universal wherever pre-raphaelitism was accurst, and to my mind, that had to pick its symbols where its ignorance permitted, velasquez seemed the first bored celebrant of boredom. i was convinced, from some obscure meditation, that stevenson's conversational method had joined him to my elders and to the indifferent world, as though it were right for old men, and unambitious men and all women, to be content with charm and humour. it was the prerogative of youth to take sides and when wilde said: 'mr. bernard shaw has no enemies but is intensely disliked by all his friends,' i knew it to be a phrase i should never forget, and felt revenged upon a notorious hater of romance, whose generosity and courage i could not fathom. viii i saw a good deal of wilde at that time--was it 1887 or 1888?--i have no way of fixing the date except that i had published my first book 'the wanderings of usheen' and that wilde had not yet published his 'decay of lying.' he had, before our first meeting, reviewed my book and despite its vagueness of intention, and the inexactness of its speech, praised without qualification; and what was worth more than any review had talked about it, and now he asked me to eat my xmas dinner with him, believing, i imagine, that i was alone in london. he had just renounced his velveteen, and even those cuffs turned backward over the sleeves, and had begun to dress very carefully in the fashion of the moment. he lived in a little house at chelsea that the architect godwin had decorated with an elegance that owed something to whistler. there was nothing mediaeval, nor pre-raphaelite, no cupboard door with figures upon flat gold, no peacock blue, no dark background. i remember vaguely a white drawing room with whistler etchings, 'let in' to white panels, and a dining room all white: chairs, walls, mantlepiece, carpet, except for a diamond-shaped piece of red cloth in the middle of the table under a terra cotta statuette, and i think a red shaded lamp hanging from the ceiling to a little above the statuette. it was perhaps too perfect in its unity, his past of a few years before had gone too completely, and i remember thinking that the perfect harmony of his life there, with his beautiful wife and his two young children, suggested some deliberate artistic composition. he commended, & dispraised himself, during dinner by attributing characteristics like his own to his country: 'we irish are too poetical to be poets; we are a nation of brilliant failures, but we are the greatest talkers since the greeks.' when dinner was over he read me from the proofs of 'the decay of lying' and when he came to the sentence: 'schopenhauer has analysed the pessimism that characterises modern thought, but hamlet invented it. the world has become sad because a puppet was once melancholy,' i said, 'why do you change "sad" to "melancholy?"' he replied that he wanted a full sound at the close of his sentence, and i thought it no excuse and an example of the vague impressiveness that spoilt his writing for me. only when he spoke, or when his writing was the mirror of his speech, or in some simple fairytale, had he words exact enough to hold a subtle ear. he alarmed me, though not as henley did for i never left his house thinking myself fool or dunce. he flattered the intellect of every man he liked; he made me tell him long irish stories and compared my art of story-telling to homer's; and once when he had described himself as writing in the census paper 'age 19, profession genius, infirmity talent,' the other guest, a young journalist fresh from oxford or cambridge, said 'what should i have written?' and was told that it should have been 'profession talent, infirmity genius.' when, however, i called, wearing shoes a little too yellow--unblackened leather had just become fashionable--i understood their extravagence when i saw his eyes fixed upon them; an another day wilde asked me to tell his little boy a fairy story, and i had but got as far as 'once upon a time there was a giant' when the little boy screamed and ran out of the room. wilde looked grave and i was plunged into the shame of clumsiness that afflicts the young. when i asked for some literary gossip for some provincial newspaper, that paid me a few shillings a month, he explained very explicitly that writing literary gossip was no job for a gentleman. though to be compared to homer passed the time pleasantly, i had not been greatly perturbed had he stopped me with 'is it a long story?' as henley would certainly have done. i was abashed before him as wit and man of the world alone. i remember that he deprecated the very general belief in his success or his efficiency, and i think with sincerity. one form of success had gone: he was no more the lion of the season, and he had not discovered his gift for writing comedy, yet i think i knew him at the happiest moment of his life. no scandal had darkened his fame, his fame as a talker was growing among his equals, & he seemed to live in the enjoyment of his own spontaneity. one day he began: 'i have been inventing a christian heresy,' and he told a detailed story, in the style of some early father, of how christ recovered after the crucifixion and, escaping from the tomb, lived on for many years, the one man upon earth who knew the falsehood of christianity. once st. paul visited his town and he alone in the carpenters' quarter did not go to hear him preach. the other carpenters noticed that henceforth, for some unknown reason, he kept his hands covered. a few days afterwards i found wilde, with smock frocks in various colours spread out upon the floor in front of him, while a missionary explained that he did not object to the heathen going naked upon week days, but insisted upon clothes in church. he had brought the smock frocks in a cab that the only art-critic whose fame had reached central africa might select a colour; so wilde sat there weighing all with a conscious ecclesiastic solemnity. viii of late years i have often explained wilde to myself by his family history. his father, was a friend or acquaintance of my father's father and among my family traditions there is an old dublin riddle: 'why are sir william wilde's nails so black?' answer, 'because he has scratched himself.' and there is an old story still current in dublin of lady wilde saying to a servant. 'why do you put the plates on the coal-scuttle? what are the chairs meant for?' they were famous people and there are many like stories, and even a horrible folk story, the invention of some connaught peasant, that tells how sir william wilde took out the eyes of some men, who had come to consult him as an oculist, and laid them upon a plate, intending to replace them in a moment, and how the eyes were eaten by a cat. as a certain friend of mine, who has made a prolonged study of the nature of cats, said when he first heard the tale, 'catslove eyes.' the wilde family was clearly of the sort that fed the imagination of charles lever, dirty, untidy, daring, and what charles lever, who loved more normal activities, might not have valued so highly, very imaginative and learned. lady wilde, who when i knew her received her friends with blinds drawn and shutters closed that none might see her withered face, longed always perhaps, though certainly amid much self mockery, for some impossible splendour of character and circumstance. she lived near her son in level chelsea, but i have heard her say, 'i want to live on some high place, primrose hill or highgate, because i was an eagle in my youth.' i think her son lived with no self mockery at all an imaginary life; perpetually performed a play which was in all things the opposite of all that he had known in childhood and early youth; never put off completely his wonder at opening his eyes every morning on his own beautiful house, and in remembering that he had dined yesterday with a duchess and that he delighted in flaubert and pater, read homer in the original and not as a school-master reads him for the grammar. i think, too, that because of all that half-civilized blood in his veins, he could not endure the sedentary toil of creative art and so remained a man of action, exaggerating, for the sake of immediate effect, every trick learned from his masters, turning their easel painting into painted scenes. he was a parvenu, but a parvenu whose whole bearing proved that if he did dedicate every story in 'the house of pomegranates' to a lady of title, it was but to show that he was jack and the social ladder his pantomime beanstalk. "did you ever hear him say 'marquess of dimmesdale'?" a friend of his once asked me. "he does not say 'the duke of york' with any pleasure." he told me once that he had been offered a safe seat in parliament and, had he accepted, he might have had a career like that of beaconsfield, whose early style resembles his, being meant for crowds, for excitement, for hurried decisions, for immediate triumphs. such men get their sincerity, if at all, from the contact of events; the dinner table was wilde's event and made him the greatest talker of his time, and his plays and dialogues have what merit they possess from being now an imitation, now a record, of his talk. even in those days i would often defend him by saying that his very admiration for his predecessors in poetry, for browning, for swinburne and rossetti, in their first vogue while he was a very young man, made any success seem impossible that could satisfy his immense ambition: never but once before had the artist seemed so great, never had the work of art seemed so difficult. i would then compare him with benvenuto cellini who, coming after michael angelo, found nothing left to do so satisfactory as to turn bravo and assassinate the man who broke michael angelo's nose. ix i cannot remember who first brought me to the old stable beside kelmscott house, william morris' house at hammersmith, & to the debates held there upon sunday evenings by the socialist league. i was soon of the little group who had supper with morris afterwards. i met at these suppers very constantly walter crane, emery walker presently, in association with cobden sanderson, the printer of many fine books, and less constantly bernard shaw and cockerell, now of the museum of cambridge, and perhaps but once or twice hyndman the socialist and the anarchist prince krapotkin. there too one always met certain more or less educated workmen, rough of speech and manner, with a conviction to meet every turn. i was told by one of them, on a night when i had done perhaps more than my share of the talking, that i had talked more nonsense in one evening than he had heard in the whole course of his past life. i had merely preferred parnell, then at the height of his career, to michael davitt who had wrecked his irish influence by international politics. we sat round a long unpolished and unpainted trestle table of new wood in a room where hung rossetti's 'pomegranate,' a portrait of mrs. morris, and where one wall and part of the ceiling were covered by a great persian carpet. morris had said somewhere or other that carpets were meant for people who took their shoes off when they entered a house, and were most in place upon a tent floor. i was a little disappointed in the house, for morris was an old man content at last to gather beautiful things rather than to arrange a beautiful house. i saw the drawing-room once or twice and there alone all my sense of decoration, founded upon the background of rossetti's pictures, was satisfied by a big cupboard painted with a scene from chaucer by burne jones, but even there were objects, perhaps a chair or a little table, that seemed accidental, bought hurriedly perhaps, and with little thought, to make wife or daughter comfortable. i had read as a boy in books belonging to my father, the third volume of 'the earthly paradise' and 'the defence of guinevere,' which pleased me less, but had not opened either for a long time. 'the man who never laughed again' had seemed the most wonderful of tales till my father had accused me of preferring morris to keats, got angry about it and put me altogether out of countenance. he had spoiled my pleasure, for now i questioned while i read and at last ceased to read; nor had morris written as yet those prose romances that became, after his death, so great a joy that they were the only books i was ever to read slowly that i might not come too quickly to the end. it was now morris himself that stirred my interest, and i took to him first because of some little tricks of speech and body that reminded me of my old grandfather in sligo, but soon discovered his spontaneity and joy and made him my chief of men. to-day i do not set his poetry very high, but for an odd altogether wonderful line, or thought; and yet, if some angel offered me the choice, i would choose to live his life, poetry and all, rather than my own or any other man's. a reproduction of his portrait by watts hangs over my mantlepiece with henley's, and those of other friends. its grave wide-open eyes, like the eyes of some dreaming beast, remind me of the open eyes of titian's' ariosto,' while the broad vigorous body suggests a mind that has no need of the intellect to remain sane, though it give itself to every phantasy, the dreamer of the middle ages. it is 'the fool of fairy ... wide and wild as a hill,' the resolute european image that yet half remembers buddha's motionless meditation, and has no trait in common with the wavering, lean image of hungry speculation, that cannot but fill the mind's eye because of certain famous hamlets of our stage. shakespeare himself foreshadowed a symbolic change, that shows a change in the whole temperament of the world, for though he called his hamlet 'fat, and scant of breath,' he thrust between his fingers agile rapier and dagger. the dream world of morris was as much the antithesis of daily life as with other men of genius, but he was never conscious of the antithesis and so knew nothing of intellectual suffering. his intellect, unexhausted by speculation or casuistry, was wholly at the service of hand and eye, and whatever he pleased he did with an unheard of ease and simplicity, and if style and vocabulary were at times monotonous, he could not have made them otherwise without ceasing to be himself. instead of the language of chaucer and shakespeare, its warp fresh from field and market, if the woof were learned, his age offered him a speech, exhausted from abstraction, that only returned to its full vitality when written learnedly and slowly. the roots of his antithetical dream were visible enough: a never idle man of great physical strength and extremely irascible--did he not fling a badly baked plum pudding through the window upon xmas day?--a man more joyous than any intellectual man of our world, called himself 'the idle singer of an empty day' created new forms of melancholy, and faint persons, like the knights & ladies of burne jones, who are never, no, not once in forty volumes, put out of temper. a blunderer, who had said to the only unconverted man at a socialist picnic in dublin, to prove that equality came easy, 'i was brought up a gentleman and now, as you can see, associate with all sorts,' and left wounds thereby that rankled after twenty years, a man of whom i have heard it said 'he is always afraid that he is doing something wrong, and generally is,' wrote long stories with apparently no other object than that his persons might show one another, through situations of poignant difficulty, the most exquisite tact. he did not project, like henley or like wilde, an image of himself, because, having all his imagination set on making and doing, he had little self-knowledge. he imagined instead new conditions of making and doing; and, in the teeth of those scientific generalisations that cowed my boyhood, i can see some like imagining in every great change, believing that the first flying fish leaped, not because it sought 'adaptation' to the air, but out of horror of the sea. x soon after i began to attend the lectures, a french class was started in the old coach-house for certain young socialists who planned a tour in france, and i joined it and was for a time a model student constantly encouraged by the compliments of the old french mistress. i told my father of the class, and he asked me to get my sisters admitted. i made difficulties and put off speaking of the matter, for i knew that the new and admirable self i was making would turn, under family eyes, into plain rag doll. how could i pretend to be industrious, and even carry dramatization to the point of learning my lessons, when my sisters were there and knew that i was nothing of the kind? but i had no argument i could use and my sisters were admitted. they said nothing unkind, so far as i can remember, but in a week or two i was my old procrastinating idle self and had soon left the class altogether. my elder sister stayed on and became an embroideress under miss may morris, and the hangings round morris's big bed at kelmscott house, oxfordshire, with their verses about lying happily in bed when 'all birds sing in the town of the tree,' were from her needle though not from her design. she worked for the first few months at kelmscott house, hammersmith, and in my imagination i cannot always separate what i saw and heard from her report, or indeed from the report of that tribe or guild who looked up to morris as to some worshipped mediaeval king. he had no need for other people. i doubt if their marriage or death made him sad or glad, and yet no man i have known was so well loved; you saw him producing everywhere organisation and beauty, seeming, almost in the same instant, helpless and triumphant; and people loved him as children are loved. people much in his neighbourhood became gradually occupied with him, or about his affairs, and without any wish on his part, as simple people become occupied with children. i remember a man who was proud and pleased because he had distracted morris' thoughts from an attack of gout by leading the conversation delicately to the hated name of milton. he began at swinburne. 'oh, swinburne,' said morris, 'is a rhetorician; my masters have been keats and chaucer for they make pictures.' 'does not milton make pictures?' asked my informant. 'no,' was the answer, 'dante makes pictures, but milton, though he had a great earnest mind, expressed himself as a rhetorician.' 'great earnest mind,' sounded strange to me and i doubt not that were his questioner not a simple man, morris had been more violent. another day the same man started by praising chaucer, but the gout was worse and morris cursed chaucer for destroying the english language with foreign words. he had few detachable phrases and i can remember little of his speech, which many thought the best of all good talk, except that it matched his burly body and seemed within definite boundaries inexhaustible in fact and expression. he alone of all the men i have known seemed guided by some beast-like instinct and never ate strange meat. 'balzac! balzac!' he said to me once, 'oh, that was the man the french bourgeoisie read so much a few years ago.' i can remember him at supper praising wine: 'why do people say it is prosaic to be inspired by wine? has it not been made by the sunlight and the sap?' and his dispraising houses decorated by himself: 'do you suppose i like that kind of house? i would like a house like a big barn, where one ate in one corner, cooked in another corner, slept in the third corner & in the fourth received one's friends'; and his complaining of ruskin's objection to the underground railway: 'if you must have a railway the best thing you can do with it is to put it in a tube with a cork at each end.' i remember too that when i asked what led up to his movement, he replied, 'oh, ruskin and carlyle, but somebody should have been beside carlyle and punched his head every five minutes.' though i remember little, i do not doubt that, had i continued going there on sunday evenings, i should have caught fire from his words and turned my hand to some mediaeval work or other. just before i had ceased to go there i had sent my 'wanderings of usheen' to his daughter, hoping of course that it might meet his eyes, & soon after sending it i came upon him by chance in holborn. 'you write my sort of poetry,' he said and began to praise me and to promise to send his praise to 'the commonwealth,' the league organ, and he would have said more of a certainty had he not caught sight of a new ornamental cast-iron lamp-post and got very heated upon that subject. i did not read economics, having turned socialist because of morris's lectures and pamphlets, and i think it unlikely that morris himself could read economics. that old dogma of mine seemed germane to the matter. if the men and women imagined by the poets were the norm, and if morris had, in, let us say, 'news from nowhere,' then running through 'the commonwealth,' described such men and women living under their natural conditions or as they would desire to live, then those conditions themselves must be the norm, and could we but get rid of certain institutions the world would turn from eccentricity. perhaps morris himself justified himself in his own heart by as simple an argument, and was, as the socialist d... said to me one night walking home after some lecture, 'an anarchist without knowing it.' certainly i and all about me, including d... himself, were for chopping up the old king for medea's pot. morris had told us to have nothing to do with the parliamentary socialists, represented for men in general by the fabian society and hyndman's socialist democratic federation and for us in particular by d... during the period of transition mistakes must be made, and the discredit of these mistakes must be left to 'the bourgeoisie;' and besides, when you begin to talk of this measure or that other you lose sight of the goal and see, to reverse swinburne's description of tiresias, 'light on the way but darkness on the goal.' by mistakes morris meant vexatious restrictions and compromises--'if any man puts me into a labour squad, i will lie on my back and kick.' that phrase very much expresses our idea of revolutionary tactics: we all intended to lie upon our back and kick. d..., pale and sedentary, did not dislike labour squads and we all hated him with the left side of our heads, while admiring him immensely with the right. he alone was invited to entertain mrs. morris, having many tales of his irish uncles, more especially of one particular uncle who had tried to commit suicide by shutting his head into a carpet bag. at that time he was an obscure man, known only for a witty speaker at street corners and in park demonstrations. he had, with an assumed truculence and fury, cold logic, an universal gentleness, an unruffled courtesy, and yet could never close a speech without being denounced by a journeyman hatter with an italian name. converted to socialism by d..., and to anarchism by himself, with swinging arm and uplifted voice this man perhaps exaggerated our scruple about parliament. 'i lack,' said d..., 'the bump of reverence;' whereon the wild man shouted 'you 'ave a 'ole.' there are moments when looking back i somewhat confuse my own figure with that of the hatter, image of our hysteria, for i too became violent with the violent solemnity of a religious devotee. i can even remember sitting behind d... and saying some rude thing or other over his shoulder. i don't remember why i gave it up but i did quite suddenly; and i think the push may have come from a young workman who was educating himself between morris and karl marx. he had planned a history of the navy and when i had spoken of the battleship of nelson's day, had said: 'oh, that was the decadence of the battleship,' but if his naval interests were mediaeval, his ideas about religion were pure karl marx, and we were soon in perpetual argument. then gradually the attitude towards religion of almost everybody but morris, who avoided the subject altogether, got upon my nerves, for i broke out after some lecture or other with all the arrogance of raging youth. they attacked religion, i said, or some such words, and yet there must be a change of heart and only religion could make it. what was the use of talking about some near revolution putting all things right, when the change must come, if come it did, with astronomical slowness, like the cooling of the sun or, it may have been, like the drying of the moon? morris rang his chairman's bell, but i was too angry to listen, and he had to ring it a second time before i sat down. he said that night at supper: 'of course i know there must be a change of heart, but it will not come as slowly as all that. i rang my bell because you were not being understood.' he did not show any vexation, but i never returned after that night; and yet i did not always believe what i had said and only gradually gave up thinking of and planning for some near sudden change for the better. xi i spent my days at the british museum and must, i think, have been delicate, for i remember often putting off hour after hour consulting some necessary book because i shrank from lifting the heavy volumes of the catalogue; and yet to save money for my afternoon coffee and roll i often walked the whole way home to bedford park. i was compiling, for a series of shilling books, an anthology of irish fairy stories and, for an american publisher, a two volume selection from the irish novelists that would be somewhat dearer. i was not well paid, for each book cost me more than three months' reading; and i was paid for the first some twelve pounds, ('o mr. e...' said publisher to editor, 'you must never again pay so much') and for the second, twenty; but i did not think myself badly paid, for i had chosen the work for my own purposes. though i went to sligo every summer, i was compelled to live out of ireland the greater part of every year and was but keeping my mind upon what i knew must be the subject matter of my poetry. i believed that if morris had set his stories amid the scenery of his own wales (for i knew him to be of welsh extraction and supposed wrongly that he had spent his childhood there) that if shelley had nailed his prometheus or some equal symbol upon some welsh or scottish rock, their art had entered more intimately, more microscopically, as it were, into our thought, and had given perhaps to modern poetry a breadth and stability like that of ancient poetry. the statues of mausolus and artemisia at the british museum, private, half animal, half divine figures, all unlike the grecian athletes and egyptian kings in their near neighbourhood, that stand in the middle of the crowd's applause or sit above measuring it out unpersuadable justice, became to me, now or later, images of an unpremeditated joyous energy, that neither i nor any other man, racked by doubt and enquiry, can achieve; and that yet, if once achieved, might seem to men and women of connemara or of galway their very soul. in our study of that ruined tomb, raised by a queen to her dead lover, and finished by the unpaid labour of great sculptors after her death from grief, or so runs the tale, we cannot distinguish the handiworks of scopas and praxiteles; and i wanted to create once more an art, where the artist's handiwork would hide as under those half anonymous chisels, or as we find it in some old scots ballads or in some twelfth or thirteenth century arthurian romance. that handiwork assured, i had martyred no man for modelling his own image upon pallas athena's buckler; for i took great pleasure in certain allusions to the singer's life one finds in old romances and ballads, and thought his presence there all the more poignant because we discover it half lost, like portly chaucer riding behind his maunciple and his pardoner. wolfram von eschenbach, singing his german parsival, broke off some description of a famished city to remember that in his own house at home the very mice lacked food, and what old ballad singer was it who claimed to have fought by day in the very battle he sang by night? so masterful indeed was that instinct that when the minstrel knew not who his poet was he must needs make up a man: 'when any stranger asks who is the sweetest of singers, answer with one voice: "a blind man; he dwells upon rocky chios; his songs shall be the most beautiful for ever."' elaborate modern psychology sounds egotistical, i thought, when it speaks in the first person, but not those simple emotions which resemble the more, the more powerful they are, everybody's emotion, and i was soon to write many poems where an always personal emotion was woven into a general pattern of myth and symbol. when the fenian poet says that his heart has grown cold and callous, 'for thy hapless fate, dear ireland, and sorrows of my own,' he but follows tradition, and if he does not move us deeply, it is because he has no sensuous musical vocabulary that comes at need, without compelling him to sedentary toil and so driving him out from his fellows. i thought to create that sensuous, musical vocabulary, and not for myself only but that i might leave it to later irish poets, much as a mediaeval japanese painter left his style as an inheritance to his family, and was careful to use a traditional manner and matter; yet did something altogether different, changed by that toil, impelled by my share in cain's curse, by all that sterile modern complication, by my 'originality' as the newspapers call it. morris set out to make a revolution that the persons of his 'well at the world's end' or his 'waters of the wondrous isles,' always, to my mind, in the likeness of artemisia and her man, might walk his native scenery; and i, that my native scenery might find imaginary inhabitants, half planned a new method and a new culture. my mind began drifting vaguely towards that doctrine of 'the mask' which has convinced me that every passionate man (i have nothing to do with mechanist, or philanthropist, or man whose eyes have no preference) is, as it were, linked with another age, historical or imaginary, where alone he finds images that rouse his energy. napoleon was never of his own time, as the naturalistic writers and painters bid all men be, but had some roman emperor's image in his head and some condottiere's blood in his heart; and when he crowned that head at rome with his own hands, he had covered, as may be seen from david's painting, his hesitation with that emperor's old suit. xii i had various women friends on whom i would call towards five o'clock, mainly to discuss my thoughts that i could not bring to a man without meeting some competing thought, but partly because their tea & toast saved my pennies for the 'bus ride home; but with women, apart from their intimate exchanges of thought, i was timid and abashed. i was sitting on a seat in front of the british museum feeding pigeons, when a couple of girls sat near and began enticing my pigeons away, laughing and whispering to one another, and i looked straight in front of me, very indignant, and presently went into the museum without turning my head towards them. since then i have often wondered if they were pretty or merely very young. sometimes i told myself very adventurous love stories with myself for hero, and at other times i planned out a life of lonely austerity, and at other times mixed the ideals and planned a life of lonely austerity mitigated by periodical lapses. i had still the ambition, formed in sligo in my teens, of living in imitation of thoreau on innisfree, a little island in lough gill, and when walking through fleet street very homesick i heard a little tinkle of water and saw a fountain in a shop window which balanced a little ball upon its jet and began to remember lake water. from the sudden remembrance came my poem 'innisfree,' my first lyric with anything in its rhythm of my own music. i had begun to loosen rhythm as an escape from rhetoric, and from that emotion of the crowd that rhetoric brings, but i only understood vaguely and occasionally that i must, for my special purpose, use nothing but the common syntax. a couple of years later i would not have written that first line with its conventional archaism--'arise and go'--nor the inversion in the last stanza. passing another day by the new law courts, a building that i admired because it was gothic,--'it is not very good,' morris had said, 'but it is better than any thing else they have got and so they hate it.'--i grew suddenly oppressed by the great weight of stone, and thought, 'there are miles and miles of stone and brick all round me,' and presently added, 'if john the baptist, or his like, were to come again and had his mind set upon it, he could make all these people go out into some wilderness leaving their buildings empty,' and that thought, which does not seem very valuable now, so enlightened the day that it is still vivid in the memory. i spent a few days at oxford copying out a seventeenth century translation of _poggio's liber facetiarum_ or the _hypneroto-machia_ of _poliphili_ for a publisher; i forget which, for i copied both; and returned very pale to my troubled family. i had lived upon bread and tea because i thought that if antiquity found locust and wild honey nutritive, my soul was strong enough to need no better. i was always planning some great gesture, putting the whole world into one scale of the balance and my soul into the other, and imagining that the whole world somehow kicked the beam. more than thirty years have passed and i have seen no forcible young man of letters brave the metropolis without some like stimulant; and all, after two or three, or twelve or fifteen years, according to obstinacy, have understood that we achieve, if we do achieve, in little diligent sedentary stitches as though we were making lace. i had one unmeasured advantage from my stimulant: i could ink my socks, that they might not show through my shoes, with a most haughty mind, imagining myself, and my torn tackle, somewhere else, in some far place 'under the canopy ... i' the city of kites and crows.' in london i saw nothing good, and constantly remembered that ruskin had said to some friend of my father's--'as i go to my work at the british museum i see the faces of the people become daily more corrupt.' i convinced myself for a time, that on the same journey i saw but what he saw. certain old women's faces filled me with horror, faces that are no longer there, or if they are, pass before me unnoticed: the fat blotched faces, rising above double chins, of women who have drunk too much beer and eaten too much meat. in dublin i had often seen old women walking with erect heads and gaunt bodies, talking to themselves in loud voices, mad with drink and poverty, but they were different, they belonged to romance: da vinci has drawn women who looked so and so carried their bodies. xiii i attempted to restore one old friend of my father's to the practice of his youth, but failed though he, unlike my father, had not changed his belief. my father brought me to dine with jack nettleship at wigmore street, once inventor of imaginative designs and now a painter of melodramatic lions. at dinner i had talked a great deal--too much, i imagine, for so young a man, or may be for any man--and on the way home my father, who had been plainly anxious that i should make a good impression, was very angry. he said i had talked for effect and that talking for effect was precisely what one must never do; he had always hated rhetoric and emphasis and had made me hate it; and his anger plunged me into great dejection. i called at nettleship's studio the next day to apologise and nettleship opened the door himself and received me with enthusiasm. he had explained to some woman guest that i would probably talk well, being an irishman, but the reality had surpassed, etc., etc. i was not flattered, though relieved at not having to apologise, for i soon discovered that what he really admired was my volubility, for he himself was very silent. he seemed about sixty, had a bald head, a grey beard, and a nose, as one of my father's friends used to say, like an opera glass, and sipped cocoa all the afternoon and evening from an enormous tea cup that must have been designed for him alone, not caring how cold the cocoa grew. years before he had been thrown from his horse while hunting and broken his arm and, because it had been badly set, suffered great pain for along time. a little whiskey would always stop the pain, and soon a little became a great deal and he found himself a drunkard, but having signed his liberty away for certain months he was completely cured. he had acquired, however, the need of some liquid which he could sip constantly. i brought him an admiration settled in early boyhood, for my father had always said, 'george wilson was our born painter but nettleship our genius,' and even had he shown me nothing i could care for, i had admired him still because my admiration was in my bones. he showed me his early designs and they, though often badly drawn, fulfilled my hopes. something of blake they certainly did show, but had in place of blake's joyous intellectual energy a saturnian passion and melancholy. 'god creating evil' the death-like head with a woman and a tiger coming from the forehead, which rossetti--or was it browning?--had described 'as the most sublime design of ancient or modern art' had been lost, but there was another version of the same thought and other designs never published or exhibited. they rise before me even now in meditation, especially a blind titan-like ghost floating with groping hands above the treetops. i wrote a criticism, and arranged for reproductions with the editor of an art magazine, but after it was written and accepted the proprietor, lifting what i considered an obsequious caw in the huxley, tyndall, carolus duran, bastien-lepage rookery, insisted upon its rejection. nettleship did not mind its rejection, saying, 'who cares for such things now? not ten people,' but he did mind my refusal to show him what i had written. though what i had written was all eulogy, i dreaded his judgment for it was my first art criticism. i hated his big lion pictures, where he attempted an art too much concerned with the sense of touch, with the softness or roughness, the minutely observed irregularity of surfaces, for his genius; and i think he knew it. 'rossetti used to call my pictures 'pot-boilers,' he said, 'but they are all--all,' and he waved his arms to the canvases, 'symbols.' when i wanted him to design gods and angels and lost spirits once more, he always came back to the point, 'nobody would be pleased.' 'everybody should have a _raison d'etre_' was one of his phrases. 'mrs ----'s articles are not good but they are her _raison d'etre_.' i had but little knowledge of art, for there was little scholarship in the dublin art school, so i overrated the quality of anything that could be connected with my general beliefs about the world. if i had been able to give angelical, or diabolical names to his lions i might have liked them also and i think that nettleship himself would have liked them better, and liking them better have become a better painter. we had the same kind of religious feeling, but i could give a crude philosophical expression to mine while he could only express his in action or with brush and pencil. he often told me of certain ascetic ambitions, very much like my own, for he had kept all the moral ambition of youth with a moral courage peculiar to himself, as for instance--'yeats, the other night i was arrested by a policeman--was walking round regent's park barefooted to keep the flesh under--good sort of thing to do--i was carrying my boots in my hand and he thought i was a burglar; and even when i explained and gave him half a crown, he would not let me go till i had promised to put on my boots before i met the next policeman.' he was very proud and shy, and i could not imagine anybody asking him questions, and so i was content to take these stories as they came, confirmations of stories i had heard in boyhood. one story in particular had stirred my imagination, for, ashamed all my boyhood of my lack of physical courage, i admired what was beyond my imitation. he thought that any weakness, even a weakness of body, had the character of sin, and while at breakfast with his brother, with whom he shared a room on the third floor of a corner house, he said that his nerves were out of order. presently he left the table, and got out through the window and on to a stone ledge that ran along the wall under the windowsills. he sidled along the ledge, and turning the corner with it, got in at a different window and returned to the table. 'my nerves,' he said, 'are better than i thought.' xiv nettleship said to me: 'has edwin ellis ever said anything about the effect of drink upon my genius?' 'no,' i answered. 'i ask,' he said, 'because i have always thought that ellis has some strange medical insight.' though i had answered 'no,' ellis had only a few days before used these words: 'nettleship drank his genius away.' ellis, but lately returned from perugia, where he had lived many years, was another old friend of my father's but some years younger than nettleship or my father. nettleship had found his simplifying image, but in his painting had turned away from it, while ellis, the son of alexander ellis, a once famous man of science, who was perhaps the last man in england to run the circle of the sciences without superficiality, had never found that image at all. he was a painter and poet, but his painting, which did not interest me, showed no influence but that of leighton. he had started perhaps a couple of years too late for pre-raphaelite influence, for no great pre-raphaelite picture was painted after 1870, and left england too soon for that of the french painters. he was, however, sometimes moving as a poet and still more often an astonishment. i have known him cast something just said into a dozen lines of musical verse, without apparently ceasing to talk; but the work once done he could not or would not amend it, and my father thought he lacked all ambition. yet he had at times nobility of rhythm--an instinct for grandeur--and after thirty years i still repeat to myself his address to mother earth: o mother of the hills, forgive our towers; o mother of the clouds, forgive our dreams and there are certain whole poems that i read from time to time or try to make others read. there is that poem where the manner is unworthy of the matter, being loose and facile, describing adam and eve fleeing from paradise. adam asks eve what she carries so carefully and eve replies that it is a little of the apple core kept for their children. there is that vision of 'christ the less,' a too hurriedly written ballad, where the half of christ, sacrificed to the divine half 'that fled to seek felicity,' wanders wailing through golgotha; and there is 'the saint and the youth' in which i can discover no fault at all. he loved complexities--'seven silences like candles round her face' is a line of his--and whether he wrote well or ill had always a manner, which i would have known from that of any other poet. he would say to me, 'i am a mathematician with the mathematics left out'--his father was a great mathematician--or 'a woman once said to me, "mr. ellis why are your poems like sums?"' and certainly he loved symbols and abstractions. he said once, when i had asked him not to mention something or other, 'surely you have discovered by this time that i know of no means whereby i can mention a fact in conversation.' he had a passion for blake, picked up in pre-raphaelite studios, and early in our acquaintance put into my hands a scrap of note paper on which he had written some years before an interpretation of the poem that begins the fields from islington to marylebone to primrose hill and st. john's wood were builded over with pillars of gold and there jerusalem's pillars stood. the four quarters of london represented blake's four great mythological personages, the zoas, and also the four elements. these few sentences were the foundation of all study of the philosophy of william blake, that requires an exact knowledge for its pursuit and that traces the connection between his system and that of swedenborg or of boehme. i recognised certain attributions, from what is sometimes called the christian cabala, of which ellis had never heard, and with this proof that his interpretation was more than phantasy, he and i began our four years' work upon the prophetic books of william blake. we took it as almost a sign of blake's personal help when we discovered that the spring of 1889, when we first joined our knowledge, was one hundred years from the publication of 'the book of thel,' the first published of the prophetic books, as though it were firmly established that the dead delight in anniversaries. after months of discussion and reading, we made a concordance of all blake's mystical terms, and there was much copying to be done in the museum & at red hill, where the descendants of blake's friend and patron, the landscape painter, john linnell, had many manuscripts. the linnellswere narrow in their religious ideas & doubtful of blake's orthodoxy, whom they held, however, in great honour, and i remember a timid old lady who had known blake when a child saying: 'he had very wrong ideas, he did not believe in the historical jesus.' one old man sat always beside us ostensibly to sharpen our pencils, but perhaps really to see that we did not steal the manuscripts, and they gave us very old port at lunch and i have upon my dining room walls their present of blake's dante engravings. going thither and returning ellis would entertain me by philosophical discussion, varied with improvised stories, at first folk tales which he professed to have picked up in scotland; and though i had read and collected many folk tales, i did not see through the deceit. i have a partial memory of two more elaborate tales, one of an italian conspirator flying barefoot from i forget what adventure through i forget what italian city, in the early morning. fearing to be recognised by his bare feet, he slipped past the sleepy porter at an hotel calling out 'number so and so' as if he were some belated guest. then passing from bedroom door to door he tried on the boots, and just as he got a pair to fit a voice cried from the room 'who is that?' 'merely me, sir,' he called back, 'taking your boots.' the other was of a martyr's bible round which the cardinal virtues had taken personal form--this a fragment of blake's philosophy. it was in the possession of an old clergyman when a certain jockey called upon him, and the cardinal virtues, confused between jockey and clergyman, devoted themselves to the jockey. as whenever he sinned a cardinal virtue interfered and turned him back to virtue, he lived in great credit and made, but for one sentence, a very holy death. as his wife and family knelt round in admiration and grief, he suddenly said 'damn.' 'o my dear,' said his wife, 'what a dreadful expression.' he answered, 'i am going to heaven' and straightway died. it was a long tale, for there were all the jockey's vain attempts to sin, as well as all the adventures of the clergyman, who became very sinful indeed, but it ended happily, for when the jockey died the cardinal virtues returned to the clergyman. i think he would talk to any audience that offered, one audience being the same as another in his eyes, and it may have been for this reason that my father called him unambitious. when he was a young man he had befriended a reformed thief and had asked the grateful thief to take him round the thieves' quarters of london. the thief, however, hurried him away from the worst saying, 'another minute and they would have found you out. if they were not the stupidest men in london, they had done so already.' ellis had gone through a no doubt romantic and witty account of all the houses he had robbed, and all the throats he had cut in one short life. his conversation would often pass out of my comprehension, or indeed i think of any man's, into a labyrinth of abstraction and subtilty, and then suddenly return with some verbal conceit or turn of wit. the mind is known to attain, in certain conditions of trance, a quickness so extraordinary that we are compelled at times to imagine a condition of unendurable intellectual intensity, from which we are saved by the merciful stupidity of the body; & i think that the mind of edwin ellis was constantly upon the edge of trance. once we were discussing the symbolism of sex, in the philosophy of blake, and had been in disagreement all the afternoon. i began talking with a new sense of conviction, and after a moment ellis, who was at his easel, threw down his brush and said that he had just seen the same explanation in a series of symbolic visions. 'in another moment,' he said, 'i should have been off.' we went into the open air and walked up and down to get rid of that feeling, but presently we came in again and i began again my explanation, ellis lying upon the sofa. i had been talking some time when mrs. ellis came into the room and said: 'why are you sitting in the dark?' ellis answered, 'but we are not,' and then added in a voice of wonder, 'i thought the lamp was lit and that i was sitting up, and i find i am in the dark and lying down.' i had seen a flicker of light over the ceiling, but had thought it a reflection from some light outside the house, which may have been the case. xv i had already met most of the poets of my generation. i had said, soon after the publication of 'the wanderings of usheen,' to the editor of a series of shilling reprints, who had set me to compile tales of the irish fairies, 'i am growing jealous of other poets, and we will all grow jealous of each other unless we know each other and so feel a share in each other's triumph.' he was a welshman, lately a mining engineer, ernest rhys, a writer of welsh translations and original poems that have often moved me greatly though i can think of no one else who has read them. he was seven or eight years older than myself and through his work as editor knew everybody who would compile a book for seven or eight pounds. between us we founded 'the rhymers' club' which for some years was to meet every night in an upper room with a sanded floor in an ancient eating house in the strand called 'the cheshire cheese.' lionel johnson, ernest dowson, victor plarr, ernest radford, john davidson, richard le gallienne, t. w. rolleston, selwyn image and two men of an older generation, edwin ellis and john todhunter, came constantly for a time, arthur symons and herbert home less constantly, while william watson joined but never came and francis thompson came once but never joined; and sometimes, if we met in a private house, which we did occasionally, oscar wilde came. it had been useless to invite him to the 'cheshire cheese' for he hated bohemia. 'olive schreiner,' he said once to me, 'is staying in the east end because that is the only place where people do not wear masks upon their faces, but i have told her that i live in the west end because nothing in life interests me but the mask.' we read our poems to one another and talked criticism and drank a little wine. i sometimes say when i speak of the club, 'we had such and such ideas, such and such a quarrel with the great victorians, we set before us such and such aims,' as though we had many philosophical ideas. i say this because i am ashamed to admit that i had these ideas and that whenever i began to talk of them a gloomy silence fell upon the room. a young irish poet, who wrote excellently but had the worst manners, was to say a few years later, 'you do not talk like a poet, you talk like a man of letters;' and if all the rhymers had not been polite, if most of them had not been to oxford or cambridge, they would have said the same thing. i was full of thought, often very abstract thought, longing all the while to be full of images, because i had gone to the art school instead of a university. yet even if i had gone to a university, and learned all the classical foundations of english literature and english culture, all that great erudition which, once accepted, frees the mind from restlessness, i should have had to give up my irish subject matter, or attempt to found a new tradition. lacking sufficient recognised precedent i must needs find out some reason for all i did. i knew almost from the start that to overflow with reasons was to be not quite well-born, and when i could i hid them, as men hide a disagreeable ancestry; and that there was no help for it, seeing that my country was not born at all. i was of those doomed to imperfect achievement, and under a curse, as it were, like some race of birds compelled to spend the time, needed for the making of the nest, in argument as to the convenience of moss and twig and lichen. le gallienne and davidson, and even symons, were provincial at their setting out, but their provincialism was curable, mine incurable; while the one conviction shared by all the younger men, but principally by johnson and horne, who imposed their personalities upon us, was an opposition to all ideas, all generalisations that can be explained and debated. e... fresh from paris would sometimes say--'we are concerned with nothing but impressions,' but that itself was a generalisation and met but stony silence. conversation constantly dwindled into 'do you like so and so's last book?' 'no, i prefer the book before it,' and i think that but for its irish members, who said whatever came into their heads, the club would not have survived its first difficult months. i knew--now ashamed that i thought 'like a man of letters,' now exasperated at their indifference to the fashion of their own river bed--that swinburne in one way, browning in another, and tennyson in a third, had filled their work with what i called 'impurities,' curiosities about politics, about science, about history, about religion; and that we must create once more the pure work. our clothes were for the most part unadventurous like our conversation, though i indeed wore a brown velveteen coat, a loose tie and a very old inverness cape, discarded by my father twenty years before and preserved by my sligo-born mother whose actions were unreasoning and habitual like the seasons. but no other member of the club, except le gallienne, who wore a loose tie, and symons, who had an inverness cape that was quite new & almost fashionable, would have shown himself for the world in any costume but 'that of an english gentleman.' 'one should be quite unnoticeable,' johnson explained to me. those who conformed most carefully to the fashion in their clothes generally departed furthest from it in their hand-writing, which was small, neat and studied, one poet--which i forget--having founded his upon the handwriting of george herbert. dowson and symons i was to know better in later years when symons became a very dear friend, and i never got behind john davidson's scottish roughness and exasperation, though i saw much of him, but from the first i devoted myself to lionel johnson. he and horne and image and one or two others shared a man-servant and an old house in charlotte street, fitzroy square, typical figures of transition, doing as an achievement of learning and of exquisite taste what their predecessors did in careless abundance. all were pre-raphaelite, and sometimes one might meet in the rooms of one or other a ragged figure, as of some fallen dynasty, simeon solomon, the pre-raphaelite painter, once the friend of rossetti and of swinburne, but fresh now from some low public house. condemned to a long term of imprisonment for a criminal offence, he had sunk into drunkenness and misery. introduced one night, however, to some man who mistook him, in the dim candle light, for another solomon, a successful academic painter and r. a., he started to his feet in a rage with 'sir, do you dare to mistake me for that mountebank?' though not one had harkened to the feeblest caw, or been spattered by the smallest dropping from any huxley, tyndall, carolus duran, bastien-lepage bundle of old twigs, i began by suspecting them of lukewarmness, and even backsliding, and i owe it to that suspicion that i never became intimate with horne, who lived to become the greatest english authority upon italian life in the fourteenth century and to write the one standard work on botticelli. connoisseur in several arts, he had designed a little church in the manner of inigo jones for a burial ground near the marble arch. though i now think his little church a masterpiece, its style was more than a century too late to hit my fancy at two or three and twenty; and i accused him of leaning towards that eighteenth century that taught a school of dolts to smooth, inlay, and clip, and fit till, like the certain wands of jacob's wit, their verses tallied. another fanaticism delayed my friendship with two men, who are now my friends and in certain matters my chief instructors. somebody, probably lionel johnson, brought me to the studio of charles ricketts and charles shannon, certainly heirs of the great generation, and the first thing i saw was a shannon picture of a lady and child arrayed in lace, silk and satin, suggesting that hated century. my eyes were full of some more mythological mother and child and i would have none of it, and i told shannon that he had not painted a mother and child but elegant people expecting visitors and i thought that a great reproach. somebody writing in 'the germ' had said that a picture of a pheasant and an apple was merely a picture of something to eat, and i was so angry with the indifference to subject, which was the commonplace of all art criticism since bastien-lepage, that i could at times see nothing else but subject. i thought that, though it might not matter to the man himself whether he loved a white woman or a black, a female pickpocket or a regular communicant of the church of england, if only he loved strongly, it certainly did matter to his relations and even under some circumstances to his whole neighbourhood. sometimes indeed, like some father in moliere, i ignored the lover's feelings altogether and even refused to admit that a trace of the devil, perhaps a trace of colour, may lend piquancy, especially if the connection be not permanent. among these men, of whom so many of the greatest talents were to live such passionate lives and die such tragic deaths, one serene man, t. w. rolleston, seemed always out of place. it was i brought him there, intending to set him to some work in ireland later on. i have known young dublin working men slip out of their workshop to see 'the second thomas davis' passing by, and even remember a conspiracy, by some three or four, to make him 'the leader of the irish race at home & abroad,' and all because he had regular features; and when all is said, alexander the great & alcibiades were personable men, and the founder of the christian religion was the only man who was neither a little too tall nor a little too short but exactly six feet high. we in ireland thought as do the plays and ballads, not understanding that, from the first moment wherein nature foresaw the birth of bastien-lepage, she has only granted great creative power to men whose faces are contorted with extravagance or curiosity or dulled with some protecting stupidity. i had now met all those who were to make the nineties of the last century tragic in the history of literature, but as yet we were all seemingly equal, whether in talent or in luck, and scarce even personalities to one another. i remember saying one night at the cheshire cheese, when more poets than usual had come, 'none of us can say who will succeed, or even who has or has not talent. the only thing certain about us is that we are too many.' xvi i have described what image--always opposite to the natural self or the natural world--wilde, henley, morris copied or tried to copy, but i have not said if i found an image for myself. i know very little about myself and much less of that anti-self: probably the woman who cooks my dinner or the woman who sweeps out my study knows more than i. it is perhaps because nature made me a gregarious man, going hither and thither looking for conversation, and ready to deny from fear or favour his dearest conviction, that i love proud and lonely images. when i was a child and went daily to the sexton's daughter for writing lessons, i found one poem in her school reader that delighted me beyond all others: a fragment of some metrical translation from aristophanes wherein the birds sing scorn upon mankind. in later years my mind gave itself to gregarious shelley's dream of a young man, his hair blanched with sorrow studying philosophy in some lonely tower, or of his old man, master of all human knowledge, hidden from human sight in some shell-strewn cavern on the mediterranean shore. one passage above all ran perpetually in my ears- some feign that he is enoch: others dream he was pre-adamite, and has survived cycles of generation and of ruin. the sage, in truth, by dreadful abstinence, and conquering penance of the mutinous flesh, deep contemplation and unwearied study, in years outstretched beyond the date of man, may have attained to sovereignty and science over those strong and secret things and thoughts which others fear and know not. mahmud i would talk with this old jew. hassan thy will is even now made known to him where he dwells in a sea-cavern 'mid the demonesi, less accessible than thou or god! he who would question him must sail alone at sunset where the stream of ocean sleeps around those foamless isles, when the young moon is westering as now, and evening airs wander upon the wave; and, when the pines of that bee-pasturing isle, green erebinthus, quench the fiery shadow of his gilt prow within the sapphire water, then must the lonely helmsman cry aloud 'ahasuerus!' and the caverns round will answer 'ahasuerus!' if his prayer be granted, a faint meteor will arise, lighting him over marmora; and a wind will rush out of the sighing pine-forest, and with the wind a storm of harmony unutterably sweet, and pilot him through the soft twilight to the bosphorus: thence, at the hour and place and circumstance fit for the matter of their conference, the jew appears. few dare, and few who dare win the desired communion. already in dublin, i had been attracted to the theosophists because they had affirmed the real existence of the jew, or of his like; and, apart from whatever might have been imagined by huxley, tyndall, carolus duran and bastien-lepage, i saw nothing against his reality. presently having heard that madame blavatsky had arrived from france, or from india, i thought it time to look the matter up. certainly if wisdom existed anywhere in the world it must be in some such lonely mind admitting no duty to us, communing with god only, conceding nothing from fear or favour. have not all peoples, while bound together in a single mind and taste, believed that such men existed and paid them that honour, or paid it to their mere shadow, which they have refused to philanthropists and to men of learning? i found madame blavatsky in a little house at norwood, with but, as she said, three followers left--the society of psychical research had just reported on her indian phenomena--and as one of the three followers sat in an outer room to keep out undesirable visitors, i was kept a long time kicking my heels. presently i was admitted and found an old woman in a plain loose dark dress: a sort of old irish peasant woman with an air of humour and audacious power. i was still kept waiting, for she was deep in conversation with a woman visitor. i strayed through folding doors into the next room and stood, in sheer idleness of mind, looking at a cuckoo clock. it was certainly stopped, for the weights were off and lying upon the ground, and yet as i stood there the cuckoo came out and cuckooed at me. i interrupted madame blavatsky to say. 'your clock has hooted me.' 'it often hoots at a stranger,' she replied. 'is there a spirit in it?' i said. 'i do not know,' she said, 'i should have to be alone to know what is in it.' i went back to the clock and began examining it and heard her say 'do not break my clock.' i wondered if there was some hidden mechanism, and i should have been put out, i suppose, had i found any, though henley had said to me, 'of course she gets up fraudulent miracles, but a person of genius has to do something; sarah bernhardt sleeps in her coffin.' presently the visitor went away and madame blavatsky explained that she was a propagandist for women's rights who had called to find out 'why men were so bad.' 'what explanation did you give her?' i said. 'that men were born bad but women made themselves so,' and then she explained that i had been kept waiting because she had mistaken me for some man whose name resembled mine and who wanted to persuade her of the flatness of the earth. when i next saw her she had moved into a house at holland park, and some time must have passed--probably i had been in sligo where i returned constantly for long visits--for she was surrounded by followers. she sat nightly before a little table covered with green baize and on this green baize she scribbled constantly with a piece of white chalk. she would scribble symbols, sometimes humorously applied, and sometimes unintelligible figures, but the chalk was intended to mark down her score when she played patience. one saw in the next room a large table where every night her followers and guests, often a great number, sat down to their vegetarian meal, while she encouraged or mocked through the folding doors. a great passionate nature, a sort of female dr. johnson, impressive, i think, to every man or woman who had themselves any richness, she seemed impatient of the formalism, of the shrill abstract idealism of those about her, and this impatience broke out in railing & many nicknames: 'o you are a flapdoodle, but then you are a theosophist and a brother. 'the most devout and learned of all her followers said to me, 'h.p.b. has just told me that there is another globe stuck on to this at the north pole, so that the earth has really a shape something like a dumb-bell.' i said, for i knew that her imagination contained all the folklore of the world, 'that must be some piece of eastern mythology.' 'o no it is not,' he said, 'of that i am certain, and there must be something in it or she would not have said it.' her mockery was not kept for her followers alone, and her voice would become harsh, and her mockery lose phantasy and humour, when she spoke of what seemed to her scientific materialism. once i saw this antagonism, guided by some kind of telepathic divination, take a form of brutal phantasy. i brought a very able dublin woman to see her and this woman had a brother, a physiologist whose reputation, though known to specialists alone, was european; and, because of this brother, a family pride in everything scientific and modern. the dublin woman scarcely opened her mouth the whole evening and her name was certainly unknown to madame blavatsky, yet i saw at once in that wrinkled old face bent over the cards, and the only time i ever saw it there, a personal hostility, the dislike of one woman for another. madame blavatsky seemed to bundle herself up, becoming all primeval peasant, and began complaining of her ailments, more especially of her bad leg. but of late her master--her 'old jew,' her 'ahasuerus,' cured it, or set it on the way to be cured. 'i was sitting here in my chair,' she said, 'when the master came in and brought something with him which he put over my knee, something warm which enclosed my knee--it was a live dog which he had cut open.' i recognised a cure used sometimes in mediaeval medicine. she had two masters, and their portraits, ideal indian heads, painted by some most incompetent artist, stood upon either side of the folding doors. one night, when talk was impersonal and general, i sat gazing through the folding doors into the dimly lighted dining-room beyond. i noticed a curious red light shining upon a picture and got up to see where the red light came from. it was the picture of an indian and as i came near it slowly vanished. when i returned to my seat, madame blavatsky said, 'what did you see?' 'a picture,' i said. 'tell it to go away.' 'it is already gone.' 'so much the better,' she said, 'i was afraid it was medium ship but it is only clairvoyance.' 'what is the difference?' 'if it had been medium ship, it would have stayed in spite of you. beware of medium ship; it is a kind of madness; i know, for i have been through it.' i found her almost always full of gaiety that, unlike the occasional joking of those about her, was illogical and incalculable and yet always kindly and tolerant. i had called one evening to find her absent, but expected every moment. she had been somewhere at the seaside for her health and arrived with a little suite of followers. she sat down at once in her big chair, and began unfolding a brown paper parcel, while all looked on full of curiosity. it contained a large family bible. 'this is a present for my maid,' she said. 'what! a bible and not even anointed!' said some shocked voice. 'well my children,' was the answer, 'what is the good of giving lemons to those who want oranges?' when i first began to frequent her house, as i soon did very constantly, i noticed a handsome clever woman of the world there, who seemed certainly very much out of place, penitent though she thought herself. presently there was much scandal and gossip, for the penitent was plainly entangled with two young men, who were expected to grow into ascetic sages. the scandal was so great that madame blavatsky had to call the penitent before her and to speak after this fashion, 'we think that it is necessary to crush the animal nature; you should live in chastity in act and thought. initiation is granted only to those who are entirely chaste,' and so to run on for some time. however, after some minutes in that vehement style, the penitent standing crushed and shamed before her, she had wound up, 'i cannot permit you more than one.' she was quite sincere, but thought that nothing mattered but what happened in the mind, and that if we could not master the mind, our actions were of little importance. one young man filled her with exasperation; for she thought that his settled gloom came from his chastity. i had known him in dublin, where he had been accustomed to interrupt long periods of asceticism, in which he would eat vegetables and drink water, with brief outbreaks of what he considered the devil. after an outbreak he would for a few hours dazzle the imagination of the members of the local theosophical society with poetical rhapsodies about harlots and street lamps, and then sink into weeks of melancholy. a fellow theosophist once found him hanging from the window pole, but cut him down in the nick of time. i said to the man who cut him down, 'what did you say to one another?' he said, 'we spent the night telling comic stories and laughing a great deal.' this man, torn between sensuality and visionary ambition, was now the most devout of all, and told me that in the middle of the night he could often hear the ringing of the little 'astral bell' whereby madame blavatsky's master called her attention, and that, although it was a low silvery sound it made the whole house shake. another night i found him waiting in the hall to show in those who had the right of entrance on some night when the discussion was private, and as i passed he whispered into my ear, 'madame blavatsky is perhaps not a real woman at all. they say that her dead body was found many years ago upon some russian battlefield.' she had two dominant moods, both of extreme activity, but one calm and philosophic, and this was the mood always on that night in the week, when she answered questions upon her system; and as i look back after thirty years i often ask myself 'was her speech automatic? was she for one night, in every week, a trance medium, or in some similar state?' in the other mood she was full of phantasy and inconsequent raillery. 'that is the greek church, a triangle like all true religion,' i recall her saying, as she chalked out a triangle on the green baize, and then, as she made it disappear in meaningless scribbles 'it spread out and became a bramble-bush like the church of rome.' then rubbing it all out except one straight line, 'now they have lopped off the branches and turned it into a broomstick arid that is protestantism.' and so it was, night after night, always varied and unforseen. i have observed a like sudden extreme change in others, half whose thought was supernatural, and laurence oliphant records some where or other like observations. i can remember only once finding her in a mood of reverie; something had happened to damp her spirits, some attack upon her movement, or upon herself. she spoke of balzac, whom she had seen but once, of alfred de musset, whom she had known well enough to dislike for his morbidity, and of george sand whom she had known so well that they had dabbled in magic together of which 'neither knew anything at all' in those days; and she ran on, as if there was nobody there to overhear her, 'i used to wonder at and pity the people who sell their souls to the devil, but now i only pity them. they do it to have somebody on their sides,' and added to that, after some words i have forgotten, 'i write, write, write as the wandering jew walks, walks, walks.' besides the devotees, who came to listen and to turn every doctrine into a new sanction for the puritanical convictions of their victorian childhood, cranks came from half europe and from all america, and they came that they might talk. one american said to me, 'she has become the most famous woman in the world by sitting in a big chair and permitting us to talk.' they talked and she played patience, and totted up her score on the green baize, and generally seemed to listen, but sometimes she would listen no more. there was a woman who talked perpetually of 'the divine spark' within her, until madame blavatsky stopped her with--'yes, my dear, you have a divine spark within you, and if you are not very careful you will hear it snore.' a certain salvation army captain probably pleased her, for, if vociferous and loud of voice, he had much animation. he had known hardship and spoke of his visions while starving in the streets and he was still perhaps a little light in the head. i wondered what he could preach to ignorant men, his head ablaze with wild mysticism, till i met a man who had heard him talking near covent garden to some crowd in the street. 'my friends,' he was saying, 'you have the kingdom of heaven within you and it would take a pretty big pill to get that out.' xvii meanwhile i had not got any nearer to proving that 'ahasuerus dwells in a sea-cavern 'mid the demonesi,' but one conclusion i certainly did come to, which i find written out in an old diary and dated 1887. madame blavatsky's 'masters' were 'trance' personalities, but by 'trance personalities' i meant something almost as exciting as 'ahasuerus' himself. years before i had found, on a table in the royal irish academy, a pamphlet on japanese art, and read there of an animal painter so remarkable that horses he had painted upon a temple wall had stepped down after and trampled the neighbouring fields of rice. somebody had come to the temple in the early morning, been startled by a shower of water drops, looked up and seen a painted horse, still wet from the dew-covered fields, but now 'trembling into stillness.' i thought that her masters were imaginary forms created by suggestion, but whether that suggestion came from madame blavatsky's own mind or from some mind, perhaps at a great distance, i did not know; and i believed that these forms could pass from madame blavatsky's mind to the minds of others, and even acquire external reality, and that it was even possible that they talked and wrote. they were born in the imagination, where blake had declared that all men live after death, and where 'every man is king or priest in his own house.' certainly the house at holland park was a romantic place, where one heard of constant apparitions and exchanged speculations like those of the middle ages, and i did not separate myself from it by my own will. the secretary, an intelligent and friendly man, asked me to come and see him, and when i did, complained that i was causing discussion and disturbance, a certain fanatical hungry face had been noticed red and tearful, & it was quite plain that i was not in full agreement with their method or their philosophy. 'i know,' he said, 'that all these people become dogmatic and fanatical because they believe what they can never prove; that their withdrawal from family life is to them a great misfortune; but what are we to do? we have been told that all spiritual influx into the society will come to an end in 1897 for exactly one hundred years. before that date our fundamental ideas must be spread through the world.' i knew the doctrine and it had made me wonder why that old woman, or rather 'the trance personalities' who directed her and were her genius, insisted upon it, for influx of some kind there must always be. did they dread heresy after the death of madame blavatsky, or had they no purpose but the greatest possible immediate effort? xviii at the british museum reading-room i often saw a man of thirty-six or thirty-seven, in a brown velveteen coat, with a gaunt resolute face, and an athletic body, who seemed before i heard his name, or knew the nature of his studies, a figure of romance. presently i was introduced, where or by what man or woman i do not remember. he was macgregor mathers, the author of the 'kabbalas unveiled,' & his studies were two only--magic and the theory of war, for he believed himself a born commander and all but equal in wisdom and in power to that old jew. he had copied many manuscripts on magic ceremonial and doctrine in the british museum, and was to copy many more in continental libraries, and it was through him mainly that i began certain studies and experiences that were to convince me that images well up before the mind's eye from a deeper source than conscious or subconscious memory. i believe that his mind in those early days did not belie his face and body, though in later years it became unhinged, for he kept a proud head amid great poverty. one that boxed with him nightly has told me that for many weeks he could knock him down, though macgregor was the stronger man, and only knew long after that during those weeks macgregor starved. with him i met an old white-haired oxfordshire clergyman, the most panic-stricken person i have ever known, though macgregor's introduction had been 'he unites us to the great adepts of antiquity.' this old man took me aside that he might say--'i hope you never invoke spirits--that is a very dangerous thing to do. i am told that even the planetary spirits turn upon us in the end.' i said, 'have you ever seen an apparition?' 'o yes, once,' he said. 'i have my alchemical laboratory in a cellar under my house where the bishop cannot see it. one day i was walking up & down there when i heard another footstep walking up and down beside me. i turned and saw a girl i had been in love with when i was a young man, but she died long ago. she wanted me to kiss her. oh no, i would not do that.' 'why not?' i said. 'oh, she might have got power over me.' 'has your alchemical research had any success?' i said. 'yes, i once made the elixir of life. a french alchemist said it had the right smell and the right colour,' (the alchemist may have been elephas levi, who visited england in the sixties, & would have said anything) 'but the first effect of the elixir is that your nails fall out and your hair falls off. i was afraid that i might have made a mistake and that nothing else might happen, so i put it away on a shelf. i meant to drink it when i was an old man, but when i got it down the other day it had all dried up.' xix i generalized a great deal and was ashamed of it. i thought that it was my business in life to bean artist and a poet, and that there could be no business comparable to that. i refused to read books, and even to meet people who excited me to generalization, but all to no purpose. i said my prayers much as in childhood, though without the old regularity of hour and place, and i began to pray that my imagination might somehow be rescued from abstraction, and become as pre-occupied with life as had been the imagination of chaucer. for ten or twelve years more i suffered continual remorse, and only became content when my abstractions had composed themselves into picture and dramatization. my very remorse helped to spoil my early poetry, giving it an element of sentimentality through my refusal to permit it any share of an intellect which i considered impure. even in practical life i only very gradually began to use generalizations, that have since become the foundation of all i have done, or shall do, in ireland. for all i know, all men may have been as timid; for i am persuaded that our intellects at twenty contain all the truths we shall ever find, but as yet we do not know truths that belong to us from opinions caught up in casual irritation or momentary phantasy. as life goes on we discover that certain thoughts sustain us in defeat, or give us victory, whether over ourselves or others, & it is these thoughts, tested by passion, that we call convictions. among subjective men (in all those, that is, who must spin a web out of their own bowels) the victory is an intellectual daily recreation of all that exterior fate snatches away, and so that fate's antithesis; while what i have called 'the mask' is an emotional antithesis to all that comes out of their internal nature. we begin to live when we have conceived life as a tragedy. xx a conviction that the world was now but a bundle of fragments possessed me without ceasing. i had tried this conviction on 'the rhymers,' thereby plunging into greater silence an already too silent evening. 'johnson,' i was accustomed to say, 'you are the only man i know whose silence has beak & claw.' i had lectured on it to some london irish society, and i was to lecture upon it later on in dublin, but i never found but one interested man, an official of the primrose league, who was also an active member of the fenian brotherhood. 'i am an extreme conservative apart from ireland,' i have heard him explain; and i have no doubt that personal experience made him share the sight of any eye that saw the world in fragments. i had been put into a rage by the followers of huxley, tyndall, carolus duran and bastien-lepage, who not only asserted the unimportance of subject, whether in art or literature, but the independence of the arts from one another. upon the other hand i delighted in every age where poet and artist confined themselves gladly to some inherited subject matter known to the whole people, for i thought that in man and race alike there is something called 'unity of being,' using that term as dante used it when he compared beauty in the _convito_ to a perfectly proportioned human body. my father, from whom i had learned the term, preferred a comparison to a musical instrument so strong that if we touch a string all the strings murmur faintly. there is not more desire, he had said, in lust than in true love; but in true love desire awakens pity, hope, affection, admiration, and, given appropriate circumstance, every emotion possible to man. when i began, however, to apply this thought to the state and to argue for a law-made balance among trades and occupations, my father displayed at once the violent free-trader and propagandist of liberty. i thought that the enemy of this unity was abstraction, meaning by abstraction not the distinction but the isolation of occupation, or class or faculty- 'call down the hawk from the air let him be hooded, or caged, till the yellow eye has grown mild, for larder and spit are bare, the old cook enraged, the scullion gone wild.' i knew no mediaeval cathedral, and westminster, being a part of abhorred london, did not interest me; but i thought constantly of homer and dante and the tombs of mausolus and artemisa, the great figures of king and queen and the lesser figures of greek and amazon, centaur and greek. i thought that all art should be a centaur finding in the popular lore its back and its strong legs. i got great pleasure too from remembering that homer was sung, and from that tale of dante hearing a common man sing some stanza from 'the divine comedy,' and from don quixote's meeting with some common man that sang ariosto. morris had never seemed to care for any poet later than chaucer; and though i preferred shakespeare to chaucer i begrudged my own preference. had not europe shared one mind and heart, until both mind and heart began to break into fragments a little before shakespeare's birth? music and verse began to fall apart when chaucer robbed verse of its speed that he might give it greater meditation, though for another generation or so minstrels were to sing his long elaborated 'troilus and cressida;' painting parted from religion in the later renaissance that it might study effects of tangibility undisturbed; while, that it might characterise, where it had once personified, it renounced, in our own age, all that inherited subject matter which we have named poetry. presently i was indeed to number character itself among the abstractions, encouraged by congreve's saying that 'passions are too powerful in the fair sex to let humour,' or as we say character, 'have its course.' nor have we fared better under the common daylight, for pure reason has notoriously made but light of practical reason, and has been made but light of in its turn, from that morning when descartes discovered that he could think better in his bed than out of it; nor needed i original thought to discover, being so late of the school of morris, that machinery had not separated from handicraft wholly for the world's good; nor to notice that the distinction of classes had become their isolation. if the london merchants of our day competed together in writing lyrics they would not, like the tudor merchants, dance in the open street before the house of the victor; nor do the great ladies of london finish their balls on the pavement before their doors as did the great venetian ladies even in the eighteenth century, conscious of an all enfolding sympathy. doubtless because fragments broke into even smaller fragments we saw one another in a light of bitter comedy, and in the arts, where now one technical element reigned and now another, generation hated generation, and accomplished beauty was snatched away when it had most engaged our affections. one thing i did not foresee, not having the courage of my own thought--the growing murderousness of the world. turning and turning in the widening gyre the falcon cannot hear the falconer; things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. xxi the huxley, tyndall, carolus duran, bastien-lepage coven asserted that an artist or a poet must paint or write in the style of his own day, and this with 'the fairy queen,' and 'lyrical ballads,' and blake's early poems in its ears, and plain to the eyes, in book or gallery, those great masterpieces of later egypt, founded upon that work of the ancient kingdom already further in time from later egypt than later egypt is from us. i knew that i could choose my style where i pleased, that no man can deny to the human mind any power, that power once achieved; and yet i did not wish to recover the first simplicity. if i must be but a shepherd building his hut among the ruins of some fallen city, i might take porphyry or shaped marble, if it lay ready to my hand, instead of the baked clay of the first builders. if chaucer's personages had disengaged themselves from chaucer's crowd, forgotten their common goal and shrine, and after sundry magnifications become, each in his turn, the centre of some elizabethan play, and a few years later split into their elements, and so given birth to romantic poetry, i need not reverse the cinematograph. i could take those separated elements, all that abstract love and melancholy, and give them a symbolical or mythological coherence. not chaucer's rough-tongued riders, but some procession of the gods! a pilgrimage no more but perhaps a shrine! might i not, with health and good luck to aid me, create some new 'prometheus unbound,' patrick or columbcille, oisin or fion, in prometheus's stead, and, instead of caucasus, croagh-patrick or ben bulben? have not all races had their first unity from a polytheism that marries them to rock and hill? we had in ireland imaginative stories, which the uneducated classes knew and even sang, and might we not make those stories current among the educated classes, re-discovering for the work's sake what i have called 'the applied arts of literature,' the association of literature, that is, with music, speech and dance; and at last, it might be, so deepen the political passion of the nation that all, artist and poet, craftsman and day labourer would accept a common design? perhaps even these images, once created and associated with river and mountain, might move of themselves, and with some powerful even turbulent life, like those painted horses that trampled the rice fields of japan. xxii i used to tell the few friends to whom i could speak these secret thoughts that i would make the attempt in ireland but fail, for our civilisation, its elements multiplying by divisions like certain low forms of life, was all powerful; but in reality i had the wildest hopes. to-day i add to that first conviction, to that first desire for unity, this other conviction, long a mere opinion vaguely or intermittently apprehended: nations, races and individual men are unified by an image, or bundle of related images, symbolical or evocative of the state of mind, which is of all states of mind not impossible, the most difficult to that man, race or nation; because only the greatest obstacle that can be contemplated without despair rouses the will to full intensity. a powerful class by terror, rhetoric, and organised sentimentality, may drive their people to war, but the day draws near when they cannot keep them there; and how shall they face the pure nations of the east when the day comes to do it with but equal arms? i had seen ireland in my own time turn from the bragging rhetoric and gregarious humour of o'connell's generation and school, and offer herself to the solitary and proud parnell as to her anti-self, buskin following hard on sock; and i had begun to hope, or to half-hope, that we might be the first in europe to seek unity as deliberately as it had been sought by theologian, poet, sculptor, architect from the eleventh to the thirteenth century. doubtless we must seek it differently, no longer considering it convenient to epitomise all human knowledge, but find it we well might, could we first find philosophy and a little passion. xxiii it was the death of parnell that convinced me that the moment had come for work in ireland, for i knew that for a time the imagination of young men would turn from politics. there was a little irish patriotic society of young people, clerks, shop-boys, shop-girls, and the like, called the southwark irish literary society. it had ceased to meet because each member of the committee had lectured so many times that the girls got the giggles whenever he stood up. i invited the committee to my father's house at bedford park and there proposed a new organisation. after a few months spent in founding, with the help of t. w. rolleston, who came to that first meeting and had a knowledge of committee work i lacked, the irish literary society, which soon included every london irish author and journalist, i went to dublin and founded there a similar society. w. b. yeats. here ends 'four years,' written by william butler yeats. four hundred copies of this book have been printed and published by elizabeth c. yeats on paper made in ireland, at the cuala press, churchtown, dundrum, in the county of dublin, ireland. finished on all hallows' eve, in the year nineteen hundred and twenty one. the secret rose: by w.b. yeats the secret rose: dedication to a.e. to the secret rose the crucifixion of the outcast out of the rose the wisdom of the king the heart of the spring the curse of the fires and of the shadows the old men of the twilight where there is nothing, there is god of costello the proud, of oona the daughter of dermott, and of the bitter tongue as for living, our servants will do that for us.--_villiers de l'isle adam._ helen, when she looked in her mirror, seeing the withered wrinkles made in her face by old age, wept, and wondered why she had twice been carried away.--_leonardo da vinci_. _my dear a.e.--i dedicate this book to you because, whether you think it well or ill written, you will sympathize with the sorrows and the ecstasies of its personages, perhaps even more than i do myself. although i wrote these stories at different times and in different manners, and without any definite plan, they have but one subject, the war of spiritual with natural order; and how can i dedicate such a book to anyone but to you, the one poet of modern ireland who has moulded a spiritual ecstasy into verse? my friends in ireland sometimes ask me when i am going to write a really national poem or romance, and by a national poem or romance i understand them to mean a poem or romance founded upon some famous moment of irish history, and built up out of the thoughts and feelings which move the greater number of patriotic irishmen. i on the other hand believe that poetry and romance cannot be made by the most conscientious study of famous moments and of the thoughts and feelings of others, but only by looking into that little, infinite, faltering, eternal flame that we call ourselves. if a writer wishes to interest a certain people among whom he has grown up, or fancies he has a duty towards them, he may choose for the symbols of his art their legends, their history, their beliefs, their opinions, because he has a right to choose among things less than himself, but he cannot choose among the substances of art. so far, however, as this book is visionary it is irish for ireland, which is still predominantly celtic, has preserved with some less excellent things a gift of vision, which has died out among more hurried and more successful nations: no shining candelabra have prevented us from looking into the darkness, and when one looks into the darkness there is always something there. w.b. yeats._ to the secret rose far off, most secret, and inviolate rose, enfold me in my hour of hours; where those who sought thee at the holy sepulchre, or in the wine-vat, dwell beyond the stir and tumult of defeated dreams; and deep among pale eyelids heavy with the sleep men have named beauty. your great leaves enfold the ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold of the crowned magi; and the king whose eyes saw the pierced hands and rood of elder rise in druid vapour and make the torches dim; till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and him who met fand walking among flaming dew, by a grey shore where the wind never blew, and lost the world and emir for a kiss; and him who drove the gods out of their liss and till a hundred morns had flowered red feasted, and wept the barrows of his dead; and the proud dreaming king who flung the crown and sorrow away, and calling bard and clown dwelt among wine-stained wanderers in deep woods; and him who sold tillage and house and goods, and sought through lands and islands numberless years until he found with laughter and with tears a woman of so shining loveliness that men threshed corn at midnight by a tress, a little stolen tress. i too await the hour of thy great wind of love and hate. when shall the stars be blown about the sky, like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die? surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows, far off, most secret, and inviolate rose? the crucifixion of the outcast. a man, with thin brown hair and a pale face, half ran, half walked, along the road that wound from the south to the town of sligo. many called him cumhal, the son of cormac, and many called him the swift, wild horse; and he was a gleeman, and he wore a short parti-coloured doublet, and had pointed shoes, and a bulging wallet. also he was of the blood of the ernaans, and his birth-place was the field of gold; but his eating and sleeping places where the four provinces of eri, and his abiding place was not upon the ridge of the earth. his eyes strayed from the abbey tower of the white friars and the town battlements to a row of crosses which stood out against the sky upon a hill a little to the eastward of the town, and he clenched his fist, and shook it at the crosses. he knew they were not empty, for the birds were fluttering about them; and he thought how, as like as not, just such another vagabond as himself was hanged on one of them; and he muttered: 'if it were hanging or bowstringing, or stoning or beheading, it would be bad enough. but to have the birds pecking your eyes and the wolves eating your feet! i would that the red wind of the druids had withered in his cradle the soldier of dathi, who brought the tree of death out of barbarous lands, or that the lightning, when it smote dathi at the foot of the mountain, had smitten him also, or that his grave had been dug by the green-haired and green-toothed merrows deep at the roots of the deep sea.' while he spoke, he shivered from head to foot, and the sweat came out upon his face, and he knew not why, for he had looked upon many crosses. he passed over two hills and under the battlemented gate, and then round by a left-hand way to the door of the abbey. it was studded with great nails, and when he knocked at it, he roused the lay brother who was the porter, and of him he asked a place in the guest-house. then the lay brother took a glowing turf on a shovel, and led the way to a big and naked outhouse strewn with very dirty rushes; and lighted a rush-candle fixed between two of the stones of the wall, and set the glowing turf upon the hearth and gave him two unlighted sods and a wisp of straw, and showed him a blanket hanging from a nail, and a shelf with a loaf of bread and a jug of water, and a tub in a far corner. then the lay brother left him and went back to his place by the door. and cumhal the son of cormac began to blow upon the glowing turf that he might light the two sods and the wisp of straw; but the sods and the straw would not light, for they were damp. so he took off his pointed shoes, and drew the tub out of the corner with the thought of washing the dust of the highway from his feet; but the water was so dirty that he could not see the bottom. he was very hungry, for he had not eaten all that day; so he did not waste much anger upon the tub, but took up the black loaf, and bit into it, and then spat out the bite, for the bread was hard and mouldy. still he did not give way to his anger, for he had not drunken these many hours; having a hope of heath beer or wine at his day's end, he had left the brooks untasted, to make his supper the more delightful. now he put the jug to his lips, but he flung it from him straightway, for the water was bitter and ill-smelling. then he gave the jug a kick, so that it broke against the opposite wall, and he took down the blanket to wrap it about him for the night. but no sooner did he touch it than it was alive with skipping fleas. at this, beside himself with anger, he rushed to the door of the guest-house, but the lay brother, being well accustomed to such outcries, had locked it on the outside; so he emptied the tub and began to beat the door with it, till the lay brother came to the door and asked what ailed him, and why he woke him out of sleep. 'what ails me!' shouted cumhal, 'are not the sods as wet as the sands of the three rosses? and are not the fleas in the blanket as many as the waves of the sea and as lively? and is not the bread as hard as the heart of a lay brother who has forgotten god? and is not the water in the jug as bitter and as ill-smelling as his soul? and is not the foot-water the colour that shall be upon him when he has been charred in the undying fires?' the lay brother saw that the lock was fast, and went back to his niche, for he was too sleepy to talk with comfort. and cumhal went on beating at the door, and presently he heard the lay brother's foot once more, and cried out at him, 'o cowardly and tyrannous race of friars, persecutors of the bard and the gleeman, haters of life and joy! o race that does not draw the sword and tell the truth! o race that melts the bones of the people with cowardice and with deceit!' 'gleeman,' said the lay brother, 'i also make rhymes; i make many while i sit in my niche by the door, and i sorrow to hear the bards railing upon the friars. brother, i would sleep, and therefore i make known to you that it is the head of the monastery, our gracious abbot, who orders all things concerning the lodging of travellers.' 'you may sleep,' said cumhal, 'i will sing a bard's curse on the abbot. 'and he set the tub upside down under the window, and stood upon it, and began to sing in a very loud voice. the singing awoke the abbot, so that he sat up in bed and blew a silver whistle until the lay brother came to him. 'i cannot get a wink of sleep with that noise,' said the abbot. 'what is happening?' 'it is a gleeman,' said the lay brother, 'who complains of the sods, of the bread, of the water in the jug, of the foot-water, and of the blanket. and now he is singing a bard's curse upon you, o brother abbot, and upon your father and your mother, and your grandfather and your grandmother, and upon all your relations.' 'is he cursing in rhyme?' 'he is cursing in rhyme, and with two assonances in every line of his curse.' the abbot pulled his night-cap off and crumpled it in his hands, and the circular brown patch of hair in the middle of his bald head looked like an island in the midst of a pond, for in connaught they had not yet abandoned the ancient tonsure for the style then coming into use. 'if we do not somewhat,' he said, 'he will teach his curses to the children in the street, and the girls spinning at the doors, and to the robbers upon ben bulben.' 'shall i go, then,' said the other, 'and give him dry sods, a fresh loaf, clean water in a jug, clean foot-water, and a new blanket, and make him swear by the blessed saint benignus, and by the sun and moon, that no bond be lacking, not to tell his rhymes to the children in the street, and the girls spinning at the doors, and the robbers upon ben bulben?' 'neither our blessed patron nor the sun and moon would avail at all,' said the abbot; 'for to-morrow or the next day the mood to curse would come upon him, or a pride in those rhymes would move him, and he would teach his lines to the children, and the girls, and the robbers. or else he would tell another of his craft how he fared in the guest-house, and he in his turn would begin to curse, and my name would wither. for learn there is no steadfastness of purpose upon the roads, but only under roofs and between four walls. therefore i bid you go and awaken brother kevin, brother dove, brother little wolf, brother bald patrick, brother bald brandon, brother james and brother peter. and they shall take the man, and bind him with ropes, and dip him in the river that he shall cease to sing. and in the morning, lest this but make him curse the louder, we will crucify him.' 'the crosses are all full,' said the lay brother. 'then we must make another cross. if we do not make an end of him another will, for who can eat and sleep in peace while men like him are going about the world? ill should we stand before blessed saint benignus, and sour would be his face when he comes to judge us at the last day, were we to spare an enemy of his when we had him under our thumb! brother, the bards and the gleemen are an evil race, ever cursing and ever stirring up the people, and immoral and immoderate in all things, and heathen in their hearts, always longing after the son of lir, and aengus, and bridget, and the dagda, and dana the mother, and all the false gods of the old days; always making poems in praise of those kings and queens of the demons, finvaragh, whose home is under cruachmaa, and red aodh of cnocna-sidhe, and cleena of the wave, and aoibhell of the grey rock, and him they call donn of the vats of the sea; and railing against god and christ and the blessed saints.' while he was speaking he crossed himself, and when he had finished he drew the nightcap over his ears, to shut out the noise, and closed his eyes, and composed himself to sleep. the lay brother found brother kevin, brother dove, brother little wolf, brother bald patrick, brother bald brandon, brother james and brother peter sitting up in bed, and he made them get up. then they bound cumhal, and they dragged him to the river, and they dipped him in it at the place which was afterwards called buckley's ford. 'gleeman,' said the lay brother, as they led him back to the guest-house, 'why do you ever use the wit which god has given you to make blasphemous and immoral tales and verses? for such is the way of your craft. i have, indeed, many such tales and verses well nigh by rote, and so i know that i speak true! and why do you praise with rhyme those demons, finvaragh, red aodh, cleena, aoibhell and donn? i, too, am a man of great wit and learning, but i ever glorify our gracious abbot, and benignus our patron, and the princes of the province. my soul is decent and orderly, but yours is like the wind among the salley gardens. i said what i could for you, being also a man of many thoughts, but who could help such a one as you?' 'friend,' answered the gleeman, 'my soul is indeed like the wind, and it blows me to and fro, and up and down, and puts many things into my mind and out of my mind, and therefore am i called the swift, wild horse.' and he spoke no more that night, for his teeth were chattering with the cold. the abbot and the friars came to him in the morning, and bade him get ready to be crucified, and led him out of the guest-house. and while he still stood upon the step a flock of great grass-barnacles passed high above him with clanking cries. he lifted his arms to them and said, 'o great grass-barnacles, tarry a little, and mayhap my soul will travel with you to the waste places of the shore and to the ungovernable sea!' at the gate a crowd of beggars gathered about them, being come there to beg from any traveller or pilgrim who might have spent the night in the guest-house. the abbot and the friars led the gleeman to a place in the woods at some distance, where many straight young trees were growing, and they made him cut one down and fashion it to the right length, while the beggars stood round them in a ring, talking and gesticulating. the abbot then bade him cut off another and shorter piece of wood, and nail it upon the first. so there was his cross for him; and they put it upon his shoulder, for his crucifixion was to be on the top of the hill where the others were. a half-mile on the way he asked them to stop and see him juggle for them; for he knew, he said, all the tricks of aengus the subtle-hearted. the old friars were for pressing on, but the young friars would see him: so he did many wonders for them, even to the drawing of live frogs out of his ears. but after a while they turned on him, and said his tricks were dull and a shade unholy, and set the cross on his shoulders again. another half-mile on the way, and he asked them to stop and hear him jest for them, for he knew, he said, all the jests of conan the bald, upon whose back a sheep's wool grew. and the young friars, when they had heard his merry tales, again bade him take up his cross, for it ill became them to listen to such follies. another half-mile on the way, he asked them to stop and hear him sing the story of white-breasted deirdre, and how she endured many sorrows, and how the sons of usna died to serve her. and the young friars were mad to hear him, but when he had ended they grew angry, and beat him for waking forgotten longings in their hearts. so they set the cross upon his back and hurried him to the hill. when he was come to the top, they took the cross from him, and began to dig a hole to stand it in, while the beggars gathered round, and talked among themselves. 'i ask a favour before i die,' says cumhal. 'we will grant you no more delays,' says the abbot. 'i ask no more delays, for i have drawn the sword, and told the truth, and lived my vision, and am content.' 'would you, then, confess?' 'by sun and moon, not i; i ask but to be let eat the food i carry in my wallet. i carry food in my wallet whenever i go upon a journey, but i do not taste of it unless i am well-nigh starved. i have not eaten now these two days.' 'you may eat, then,' says the abbot, and he turned to help the friars dig the hole. the gleeman took a loaf and some strips of cold fried bacon out of his wallet and laid them upon the ground. 'i will give a tithe to the poor,' says he, and he cut a tenth part from the loaf and the bacon. 'who among you is the poorest?' and thereupon was a great clamour, for the beggars began the history of their sorrows and their poverty, and their yellow faces swayed like gara lough when the floods have filled it with water from the bogs. he listened for a little, and, says he, 'i am myself the poorest, for i have travelled the bare road, and by the edges of the sea; and the tattered doublet of particoloured cloth upon my back and the torn pointed shoes upon my feet have ever irked me, because of the towered city full of noble raiment which was in my heart. and i have been the more alone upon the roads and by the sea because i heard in my heart the rustling of the rose-bordered dress of her who is more subtle than aengus, the subtle-hearted, and more full of the beauty of laughter than conan the bald, and more full of the wisdom of tears than white-breasted deirdre, and more lovely than a bursting dawn to them that are lost in the darkness. therefore, i award the tithe to myself; but yet, because i am done with all things, i give it unto you.' so he flung the bread and the strips of bacon among the beggars, and they fought with many cries until the last scrap was eaten. but meanwhile the friars nailed the gleeman to his cross, and set it upright in the hole, and shovelled the earth in at the foot, and trampled it level and hard. so then they went away, but the beggars stared on, sitting round the cross. but when the sun was sinking, they also got up to go, for the air was getting chilly. and as soon as they had gone a little way, the wolves, who had been showing themselves on the edge of a neighbouring coppice, came nearer, and the birds wheeled closer and closer. 'stay, outcasts, yet a little while,' the crucified one called in a weak voice to the beggars, 'and keep the beasts and the birds from me.' but the beggars were angry because he had called them outcasts, so they threw stones and mud at him, and went their way. then the wolves gathered at the foot of the cross, and the birds flew lower and lower. and presently the birds lighted all at once upon his head and arms and shoulders, and began to peck at him, and the wolves began to eat his feet. 'outcasts,' he moaned, 'have you also turned against the outcast?' out of the rose. one winter evening an old knight in rusted chain-armour rode slowly along the woody southern slope of ben bulben, watching the sun go down in crimson clouds over the sea. his horse was tired, as after a long journey, and he had upon his helmet the crest of no neighbouring lord or king, but a small rose made of rubies that glimmered every moment to a deeper crimson. his white hair fell in thin curls upon his shoulders, and its disorder added to the melancholy of his face, which was the face of one of those who have come but seldom into the world, and always for its trouble, the dreamers who must do what they dream, the doers who must dream what they do. after gazing a while towards the sun, he let the reins fall upon the neck of his horse, and, stretching out both arms towards the west, he said, 'o divine rose of intellectual flame, let the gates of thy peace be opened to me at last!' and suddenly a loud squealing began in the woods some hundreds of yards further up the mountain side. he stopped his horse to listen, and heard behind him a sound of feet and of voices. 'they are beating them to make them go into the narrow path by the gorge,' said someone, and in another moment a dozen peasants armed with short spears had come up with the knight, and stood a little apart from him, their blue caps in their hands. where do you go with the spears?' he asked; and one who seemed the leader answered: 'a troop of wood-thieves came down from the hills a while ago and carried off the pigs belonging to an old man who lives by glen car lough, and we turned out to go after them. now that we know they are four times more than we are, we follow to find the way they have taken; and will presently tell our story to de courcey, and if he will not help us, to fitzgerald; for de courcey and fitzgerald have lately made a peace, and we do not know to whom we belong.' 'but by that time,' said the knight, 'the pigs will have been eaten.' 'a dozen men cannot do more, and it was not reasonable that the whole valley should turn out and risk their lives for two, or for two dozen pigs.' 'can you tell me,' said the knight, 'if the old man to whom the pigs belong is pious and true of heart?' 'he is as true as another and more pious than any, for he says a prayer to a saint every morning before his breakfast.' 'then it were well to fight in his cause,' said the knight, 'and if you will fight against the wood-thieves i will take the main brunt of the battle, and you know well that a man in armour is worth many like these wood-thieves, clad in wool and leather.' and the leader turned to his fellows and asked if they would take the chance; but they seemed anxious to get back to their cabins. 'are the wood-thieves treacherous and impious?' 'they are treacherous in all their dealings,' said a peasant, 'and no man has known them to pray.' 'then,' said the knight, 'i will give five crowns for the head of every wood-thief killed by us in the fighting'; and he bid the leader show the way, and they all went on together. after a time they came to where a beaten track wound into the woods, and, taking this, they doubled back upon their previous course, and began to ascend the wooded slope of the mountains. in a little while the path grew very straight and steep, and the knight was forced to dismount and leave his horse tied to a tree-stem. they knew they were on the right track: for they could see the marks of pointed shoes in the soft clay and mingled with them the cloven footprints of the pigs. presently the path became still more abrupt, and they knew by the ending of the cloven foot-prints that the thieves were carrying the pigs. now and then a long mark in the clay showed that a pig had slipped down, and been dragged along for a little way. they had journeyed thus for about twenty minutes, when a confused sound of voices told them that they were coming up with the thieves. and then the voices ceased, and they understood that they had been overheard in their turn. they pressed on rapidly and cautiously, and in about five minutes one of them caught sight of a leather jerkin half hidden by a hazel-bush. an arrow struck the knight's chain-armour, but glanced off harmlessly, and then a flight of arrows swept by them with the buzzing sound of great bees. they ran and climbed, and climbed and ran towards the thieves, who were now all visible standing up among the bushes with their still quivering bows in their hands: for they had only their spears and they must at once come hand to hand. the knight was in the front and smote down first one and then another of the wood-thieves. the peasants shouted, and, pressing on, drove the wood-thieves before them until they came out on the flat top of the mountain, and there they saw the two pigs quietly grubbing in the short grass, so they ran about them in a circle, and began to move back again towards the narrow path: the old knight coming now the last of all, and striking down thief after thief. the peasants had got no very serious hurts among them, for he had drawn the brunt of the battle upon himself, as could well be seen from the bloody rents in his armour; and when they came to the entrance of the narrow path he bade them drive the pigs down into the valley, while he stood there to guard the way behind them. so in a moment he was alone, and, being weak with loss of blood, might have been ended there and then by the wood-thieves he had beaten off, had fear not made them begone out of sight in a great hurry. an hour passed, and they did not return; and now the knight could stand on guard no longer, but had to lie down upon the grass. a half-hour more went by, and then a young lad with what appeared to be a number of cock's feathers stuck round his hat, came out of the path behind him, and began to move about among the dead thieves, cutting their heads off, then he laid the heads in a heap before the knight, and said: 'o great knight, i have been bid come and ask you for the crowns you promised for the heads: five crowns a head. they bid me tell you that they have prayed to god and his mother to give you a long life, but that they are poor peasants, and that they would have the money before you die. they told me this over and over for fear i might forget it, and promised to beat me if i did.' the knight raised himself upon his elbow, and opening a bag that hung to his belt, counted out the five crowns for each head. there were thirty heads in all. 'o great knight,' said the lad, 'they have also bid me take all care of you, and light a fire, and put this ointment upon your wounds.' and he gathered sticks and leaves together, and, flashing his flint and steel under a mass of dry leaves, had made a very good blaze. then, drawing of the coat of mail, he began to anoint the wounds: but he did it clumsily, like one who does by rote what he had been told. the knight motioned him to stop, and said: 'you seem a good lad.' 'i would ask something of you for myself.' 'there are still a few crowns,' said the knight; 'shall i give them to you?' 'o no,' said the lad. 'they would be no good to me. there is only one thing that i care about doing, and i have no need of money to do it. i go from village to village and from hill to hill, and whenever i come across a good cock i steal him and take him into the woods, and i keep him there under a basket until i get another good cock, and then i set them to fight. the people say i am an innocent, and do not do me any harm, and never ask me to do any work but go a message now and then. it is because i am an innocent that they send me to get the crowns: anyone else would steal them; and they dare not come back themselves, for now that you are not with them they are afraid of the wood-thieves. did you ever hear how, when the wood-thieves are christened, the wolves are made their god-fathers, and their right arms are not christened at all?' 'if you will not take these crowns, my good lad, i have nothing for you, i fear, unless you would have that old coat of mail which i shall soon need no more.' 'there was something i wanted: yes, i remember now,' said the lad. 'i want you to tell me why you fought like the champions and giants in the stories and for so little a thing. are you indeed a man like us? are you not rather an old wizard who lives among these hills, and will not a wind arise presently and crumble you into dust?' 'i will tell you of myself,' replied the knight, 'for now that i am the last of the fellowship, 'i may tell all and witness for god. look at the rose of rubies on my helmet, and see the symbol of my life and of my hope.' and then he told the lad this story, but with always more frequent pauses; and, while he told it, the rose shone a deep blood-colour in the firelight, and the lad stuck the cock's feathers in the earth in front of him, and moved them about as though he made them actors in the play. 'i live in a land far from this, and was one of the knights of st. john,' said the old man; 'but i was one of those in the order who always longed for more arduous labours in the service of the most high. at last there came to us a knight of palestine, to whom the truth of truths had been revealed by god himself. he had seen a great rose of fire, and a voice out of the rose had told him how men would turn from the light of their own hearts, and bow down before outer order and outer fixity, and that then the light would cease, and none escape the curse except the foolish good man who could not, and the passionate wicked man who would not, think. already, the voice told him, the wayward light of the heart was shining out upon the world to keep it alive, with a less clear lustre, and that, as it paled, a strange infection was touching the stars and the hills and the grass and the trees with corruption, and that none of those who had seen clearly the truth and the ancient way could enter into the kingdom of god, which is in the heart of the rose, if they stayed on willingly in the corrupted world; and so they must prove their anger against the powers of corruption by dying in the service of the rose of god. while the knight of palestine was telling us these things we seemed to see in a vision a crimson rose spreading itself about him, so that he seemed to speak out of its heart, and the air was filled with fragrance. by this we knew that it was the very voice of god which spoke to us by the knight, and we gathered about him and bade him direct us in all things, and teach us how to obey the voice. so he bound us with an oath, and gave us signs and words whereby we might know each other even after many years, and he appointed places of meeting, and he sent us out in troops into the world to seek good causes, and die in doing battle for them. at first we thought to die more readily by fasting to death in honour of some saint; but this he told us was evil, for we did it for the sake of death, and thus took out of the hands of god the choice of the time and manner of our death, and by so doing made his power the less. we must choose our service for its excellence, and for this alone, and leave it to god to reward us at his own time and in his own manner. and after this he compelled us to eat always two at a table to watch each other lest we fasted unduly, for some among us said that if one fasted for a love of the holiness of saints and then died, the death would be acceptable. and the years passed, and one by one my fellows died in the holy land, or in warring upon the evil princes of the earth, or in clearing the roads of robbers; and among them died the knight of palestine, and at last i was alone. i fought in every cause where the few contended against the many, and my hair grew white, and a terrible fear lest i had fallen under the displeasure of god came upon me. but, hearing at last how this western isle was fuller of wars and rapine than any other land, i came hither, and i have found the thing i sought, and, behold! i am filled with a great joy.' thereat he began to sing in latin, and, while he sang, his voice grew fainter and fainter. then his eyes closed, and his lips fell apart, and the lad knew he was dead. 'he has told me a good tale,' he said, 'for there was fighting in it, but i did not understand much of it, and it is hard to remember so long a story.' and, taking the knight's sword, he began to dig a grave in the soft clay. he dug hard, and a faint light of dawn had touched his hair and he had almost done his work when a cock crowed in the valley below. 'ah,' he said, 'i must have that bird'; and he ran down the narrow path to the valley. the wisdom of the king. the high-queen of the island of woods had died in childbirth, and her child was put to nurse with a woman who lived in a hut of mud and wicker, within the border of the wood. one night the woman sat rocking the cradle, and pondering over the beauty of the child, and praying that the gods might grant him wisdom equal to his beauty. there came a knock at the door, and she got up, not a little wondering, for the nearest neighbours were in the dun of the high-king a mile away; and the night was now late. 'who is knocking?' she cried, and a thin voice answered, 'open! for i am a crone of the grey hawk, and i come from the darkness of the great wood.' in terror she drew back the bolt, and a grey-clad woman, of a great age, and of a height more than human, came in and stood by the head of the cradle. the nurse shrank back against the wall, unable to take her eyes from the woman, for she saw by the gleaming of the firelight that the feathers of the grey hawk were upon her head instead of hair. but the child slept, and the fire danced, for the one was too ignorant and the other too full of gaiety to know what a dreadful being stood there. 'open!' cried another voice, 'for i am a crone of the grey hawk, and i watch over his nest in the darkness of the great wood.' the nurse opened the door again, though her fingers could scarce hold the bolts for trembling, and another grey woman, not less old than the other, and with like feathers instead of hair, came in and stood by the first. in a little, came a third grey woman, and after her a fourth, and then another and another and another, until the hut was full of their immense bodies. they stood a long time in perfect silence and stillness, for they were of those whom the dropping of the sand has never troubled, but at last one muttered in a low thin voice: 'sisters, i knew him far away by the redness of his heart under his silver skin'; and then another spoke: 'sisters, i knew him because his heart fluttered like a bird under a net of silver cords '; and then another took up the word: 'sisters, i knew him because his heart sang like a bird that is happy in a silver cage.' and after that they sang together, those who were nearest rocking the cradle with long wrinkled fingers; and their voices were now tender and caressing, now like the wind blowing in the great wood, and this was their song: out of sight is out of mind: long have man and woman-kind, heavy of will and light of mood, taken away our wheaten food, taken away our altar stone; hail and rain and thunder alone, and red hearts we turn to grey, are true till time gutter away. when the song had died out, the crone who had first spoken, said: 'we have nothing more to do but to mix a drop of our blood into his blood.' and she scratched her arm with the sharp point of a spindle, which she had made the nurse bring to her, and let a drop of blood, grey as the mist, fall upon the lips of the child; and passed out into the darkness. then the others passed out in silence one by one; and all the while the child had not opened his pink eyelids or the fire ceased to dance, for the one was too ignorant and the other too full of gaiety to know what great beings had bent over the cradle. when the crones were gone, the nurse came to her courage again, and hurried to the dun of the high-king, and cried out in the midst of the assembly hall that the sidhe, whether for good or evil she knew not, had bent over the child that night; and the king and his poets and men of law, and his huntsmen, and his cooks, and his chief warriors went with her to the hut and gathered about the cradle, and were as noisy as magpies, and the child sat up and looked at them. two years passed over, and the king died fighting against the fer bolg; and the poets and the men of law ruled in the name of the child, but looked to see him become the master himself before long, for no one had seen so wise a child, and tales of his endless questions about the household of the gods and the making of the world went hither and thither among the wicker houses of the poor. everything had been well but for a miracle that began to trouble all men; and all women, who, indeed, talked of it without ceasing. the feathers of the grey hawk had begun to grow in the child's hair, and though, his nurse cut them continually, in but a little while they would be more numerous than ever. this had not been a matter of great moment, for miracles were a little thing in those days, but for an ancient law of eri that none who had any blemish of body could sit upon the throne; and as a grey hawk was a wild thing of the air which had never sat at the board, or listened to the songs of the poets in the light of the fire, it was not possible to think of one in whose hair its feathers grew as other than marred and blasted; nor could the people separate from their admiration of the wisdom that grew in him a horror as at one of unhuman blood. yet all were resolved that he should reign, for they had suffered much from foolish kings and their own disorders, and moreover they desired to watch out the spectacle of his days; and no one had any other fear but that his great wisdom might bid him obey the law, and call some other, who had but a common mind, to reign in his stead. when the child was seven years old the poets and the men of law were called together by the chief poet, and all these matters weighed and considered. the child had already seen that those about him had hair only, and, though they had told him that they too had had feathers but had lost them because of a sin committed by their forefathers, they knew that he would learn the truth when he began to wander into the country round about. after much consideration they decreed a new law commanding every one upon pain of death to mingle artificially the feathers of the grey hawk into his hair; and they sent men with nets and slings and bows into the countries round about to gather a sufficiency of feathers. they decreed also that any who told the truth to the child should be flung from a cliff into the sea. the years passed, and the child grew from childhood into boyhood and from boyhood into manhood, and from being curious about all things he became busy with strange and subtle thoughts which came to him in dreams, and with distinctions between things long held the same and with the resemblance of things long held different. multitudes came from other lands to see him and to ask his counsel, but there were guards set at the frontiers, who compelled all that came to wear the feathers of the grey hawk in their hair. while they listened to him his words seemed to make all darkness light and filled their hearts like music; but, alas, when they returned to their own lands his words seemed far off, and what they could remember too strange and subtle to help them to live out their hasty days. a number indeed did live differently afterwards, but their new life was less excellent than the old: some among them had long served a good cause, but when they heard him praise it and their labour, they returned to their own lands to find what they had loved less lovable and their arm lighter in the battle, for he had taught them how little a hair divides the false and true; others, again, who had served no cause, but wrought in peace the welfare of their own households, when he had expounded the meaning of their purpose, found their bones softer and their will less ready for toil, for he had shown them greater purposes; and numbers of the young, when they had heard him upon all these things, remembered certain words that became like a fire in their hearts, and made all kindly joys and traffic between man and man as nothing, and went different ways, but all into vague regret. when any asked him concerning the common things of life; disputes about the mear of a territory, or about the straying of cattle, or about the penalty of blood; he would turn to those nearest him for advice; but this was held to be from courtesy, for none knew that these matters were hidden from him by thoughts and dreams that filled his mind like the marching and counter-marching of armies. far less could any know that his heart wandered lost amid throngs of overcoming thoughts and dreams, shuddering at its own consuming solitude. among those who came to look at him and to listen to him was the daughter of a little king who lived a great way off; and when he saw her he loved, for she was beautiful, with a strange and pale beauty unlike the women of his land; but dana, the great mother, had decreed her a heart that was but as the heart of others, and when she considered the mystery of the hawk feathers she was troubled with a great horror. he called her to him when the assembly was over and told her of her beauty, and praised her simply and frankly as though she were a fable of the bards; and he asked her humbly to give him her love, for he was only subtle in his dreams. overwhelmed with his greatness, she half consented, and yet half refused, for she longed to marry some warrior who could carry her over a mountain in his arms. day by day the king gave her gifts; cups with ears of gold and findrinny wrought by the craftsmen of distant lands; cloth from over sea, which, though woven with curious figures, seemed to her less beautiful than the bright cloth of her own country; and still she was ever between a smile and a frown; between yielding and withholding. he laid down his wisdom at her feet, and told how the heroes when they die return to the world and begin their labour anew; how the kind and mirthful men of dea drove out the huge and gloomy and misshapen people from under the sea; and a multitude of things that even the sidhe have forgotten, either because they happened so long ago or because they have not time to think of them; and still she half refused, and still he hoped, because he could not believe that a beauty so much like wisdom could hide a common heart. there was a tall young man in the dun who had yellow hair, and was skilled in wrestling and in the training of horses; and one day when the king walked in the orchard, which was between the foss and the forest, he heard his voice among the salley bushes which hid the waters of the foss. 'my blossom,' it said, 'i hate them for making you weave these dingy feathers into your beautiful hair, and all that the bird of prey upon the throne may sleep easy o' nights'; and then the low, musical voice he loved answered: 'my hair is not beautiful like yours; and now that i have plucked the feathers out of your hair i will put my hands through it, thus, and thus, and thus; for it casts no shadow of terror and darkness upon my heart.' then the king remembered many things that he had forgotten without understanding them, doubtful words of his poets and his men of law, doubts that he had reasoned away, his own continual solitude; and he called to the lovers in a trembling voice. they came from among the salley bushes and threw themselves at his feet and prayed for pardon, and he stooped down and plucked the feathers out of the hair of the woman and then turned away towards the dun without a word. he strode into the hall of assembly, and having gathered his poets and his men of law about him, stood upon the dais and spoke in a loud, clear voice: 'men of law, why did you make me sin against the laws of eri? men of verse, why did you make me sin against the secrecy of wisdom, for law was made by man for the welfare of man, but wisdom the gods have made, and no man shall live by its light, for it and the hail and the rain and the thunder follow a way that is deadly to mortal things? men of law and men of verse, live according to your kind, and call eocha of the hasty mind to reign over you, for i set out to find my kindred.' he then came down among them, and drew out of the hair of first one and then another the feathers of the grey hawk, and, having scattered them over the rushes upon the floor, passed out, and none dared to follow him, for his eyes gleamed like the eyes of the birds of prey; and no man saw him again or heard his voice. some believed that he found his eternal abode among the demons, and some that he dwelt henceforth with the dark and dreadful goddesses, who sit all night about the pools in the forest watching the constellations rising and setting in those desolate mirrors. the heart of the spring. a very old man, whose face was almost as fleshless as the foot of a bird, sat meditating upon the rocky shore of the flat and hazel-covered isle which fills the widest part of the lough gill. a russet-faced boy of seventeen years sat by his side, watching the swallows dipping for flies in the still water. the old man was dressed in threadbare blue velvet, and the boy wore a frieze coat and a blue cap, and had about his neck a rosary of blue beads. behind the two, and half hidden by trees, was a little monastery. it had been burned down a long while before by sacrilegious men of the queen's party, but had been roofed anew with rushes by the boy, that the old man might find shelter in his last days. he had not set his spade, however, into the garden about it, and the lilies and the roses of the monks had spread out until their confused luxuriancy met and mingled with the narrowing circle of the fern. beyond the lilies and the roses the ferns were so deep that a child walking among them would be hidden from sight, even though he stood upon his toes; and beyond the fern rose many hazels and small oak trees. 'master,' said the boy, 'this long fasting, and the labour of beckoning after nightfall with your rod of quicken wood to the beings who dwell in the waters and among the hazels and oak-trees, is too much for your strength. rest from all this labour for a little, for your hand seemed more heavy upon my shoulder and your feet less steady under you to-day than i have known them. men say that you are older than the eagles, and yet you will not seek the rest that belongs to age.' he spoke in an eager, impulsive way, as though his heart were in the words and thoughts of the moment; and the old man answered slowly and deliberately, as though his heart were in distant days and distant deeds. 'i will tell you why i have not been able to rest,' he said. 'it is right that you should know, for you have served me faithfully these five years and more, and even with affection, taking away thereby a little of the doom of loneliness which always falls upon the wise. now, too, that the end of my labour and the triumph of my hopes is at hand, it is the more needful for you to have this knowledge.' 'master, do not think that i would question you. it is for me to keep the fire alight, and the thatch close against the rain, and strong, lest the wind blow it among the trees; and it is for me to take the heavy books from the shelves, and to lift from its corner the great painted roll with the names of the sidhe, and to possess the while an incurious and reverent heart, for right well i know that god has made out of his abundance a separate wisdom for everything which lives, and to do these things is my wisdom.' 'you are afraid,' said the old man, and his eyes shone with a momentary anger. 'sometimes at night,' said the boy, 'when you are reading, with the rod of quicken wood in your hand, i look out of the door and see, now a great grey man driving swine among the hazels, and now many little people in red caps who come out of the lake driving little white cows before them. i do not fear these little people so much as the grey man; for, when they come near the house, they milk the cows, and they drink the frothing milk, and begin to dance; and i know there is good in the heart that loves dancing; but i fear them for all that. and i fear the tall white-armed ladies who come out of the air, and move slowly hither and thither, crowning themselves with the roses or with the lilies, and shaking about their living hair, which moves, for so i have heard them tell each other, with the motion of their thoughts, now spreading out and now gathering close to their heads. they have mild, beautiful faces, but, aengus, son of forbis, i fear all these beings, i fear the people of sidhe, and i fear the art which draws them about us.' 'why,' said the old man, 'do you fear the ancient gods who made the spears of your father's fathers to be stout in battle, and the little people who came at night from the depth of the lakes and sang among the crickets upon their hearths? and in our evil day they still watch over the loveliness of the earth. but i must tell you why i have fasted and laboured when others would sink into the sleep of age, for without your help once more i shall have fasted and laboured to no good end. when you have done for me this last thing, you may go and build your cottage and till your fields, and take some girl to wife, and forget the ancient gods. i have saved all the gold and silver pieces that were given to me by earls and knights and squires for keeping them from the evil eye and from the love-weaving enchantments of witches, and by earls' and knights' and squires' ladies for keeping the people of the sidhe from making the udders of their cattle fall dry, and taking the butter from their churns. i have saved it all for the day when my work should be at an end, and now that the end is at hand you shall not lack for gold and silver pieces enough to make strong the roof-tree of your cottage and to keep cellar and larder full. i have sought through all my life to find the secret of life. i was not happy in my youth, for i knew that it would pass; and i was not happy in my manhood, for i knew that age was coming; and so i gave myself, in youth and manhood and age, to the search for the great secret. i longed for a life whose abundance would fill centuries, i scorned the life of fourscore winters. i would be--nay, i _will_ be!--like the ancient gods of the land. i read in my youth, in a hebrew manuscript i found in a spanish monastery, that there is a moment after the sun has entered the ram and before he has passed the lion, which trembles with the song of the immortal powers, and that whosoever finds this moment and listens to the song shall become like the immortal powers themselves; i came back to ireland and asked the fairy men, and the cow-doctors, if they knew when this moment was; but though all had heard of it, there was none could find the moment upon the hour-glass. so i gave myself to magic, and spent my life in fasting and in labour that i might bring the gods and the fairies to my side; and now at last one of the fairies has told me that the moment is at hand. one, who wore a red cap and whose lips were white with the froth of the new milk, whispered it into my ear. tomorrow, a little before the close of the first hour after dawn, i shall find the moment, and then i will go away to a southern land and build myself a palace of white marble amid orange trees, and gather the brave and the beautiful about me, and enter into the eternal kingdom of my youth. but, that i may hear the whole song, i was told by the little fellow with the froth of the new milk on his lips, that you must bring great masses of green boughs and pile them about the door and the window of my room; and you must put fresh green rushes upon the floor, and cover the table and the rushes with the roses and the lilies of the monks. you must do this to-night, and in the morning at the end of the first hour after dawn, you must come and find me.' 'will you be quite young then?' said the boy. 'i will be as young then as you are, but now i am still old and tired, and you must help me to my chair and to my books.' when the boy had left aengus son of forbis in his room, and had lighted the lamp which, by some contrivance of the wizard's, gave forth a sweet odour as of strange flowers, he went into the wood and began cutting green boughs from the hazels, and great bundles of rushes from the western border of the isle, where the small rocks gave place to gently sloping sand and clay. it was nightfall before he had cut enough for his purpose, and well-nigh midnight before he had carried the last bundle to its place, and gone back for the roses and the lilies. it was one of those warm, beautiful nights when everything seems carved of precious stones. sleuth wood away to the south looked as though cut out of green beryl, and the waters that mirrored them shone like pale opal. the roses he was gathering were like glowing rubies, and the lilies had the dull lustre of pearl. everything had taken upon itself the look of something imperishable, except a glow-worm, whose faint flame burnt on steadily among the shadows, moving slowly hither and thither, the only thing that seemed alive, the only thing that seemed perishable as mortal hope. the boy gathered a great armful of roses and lilies, and thrusting the glow-worm among their pearl and ruby, carried them into the room, where the old man sat in a half-slumber. he laid armful after armful upon the floor and above the table, and then, gently closing the door, threw himself upon his bed of rushes, to dream of a peaceful manhood with his chosen wife at his side, and the laughter of children in his ears. at dawn he rose, and went down to the edge of the lake, taking the hour-glass with him. he put some bread and a flask of wine in the boat, that his master might not lack food at the outset of his journey, and then sat down to wait until the hour from dawn had gone by. gradually the birds began to sing, and when the last grains of sand were falling, everything suddenly seemed to overflow with their music. it was the most beautiful and living moment of the year; one could listen to the spring's heart beating in it. he got up and went to find his master. the green boughs filled the door, and he had to make a way through them. when he entered the room the sunlight was falling in flickering circles on floor and walls and table, and everything was full of soft green shadows. but the old man sat clasping a mass of roses and lilies in his arms, and with his head sunk upon his breast. on the table, at his left hand, was a leathern wallet full of gold and silver pieces, as for a journey, and at his right hand was a long staff. the boy touched him and he did not move. he lifted the hands but they were quite cold, and they fell heavily. 'it were better for him,' said the lad, 'to have told his beads and said his prayers like another, and not to have spent his days in seeking amongst the immortal powers what he could have found in his own deeds and days had he willed. ah, yes, it were better to have said his prayers and kissed his beads!' he looked at the threadbare blue velvet, and he saw it was covered with the pollen of the flowers, and while he was looking at it a thrush, who had alighted among the boughs that were piled against the window, began to sing. the curse of the fires and of the shadows. one summer night, when there was peace, a score of puritan troopers under the pious sir frederick hamilton, broke through the door of the abbey of the white friars which stood over the gara lough at sligo. as the door fell with a crash they saw a little knot of friars, gathered about the altar, their white habits glimmering in the steady light of the holy candles. all the monks were kneeling except the abbot, who stood upon the altar steps with a great brazen crucifix in his hand. 'shoot them!' cried sir frederick hamilton, but none stirred, for all were new converts, and feared the crucifix and the holy candles. the white lights from the altar threw the shadows of the troopers up on to roof and wall. as the troopers moved about, the shadows began a fantastic dance among the corbels and the memorial tablets. for a little while all was silent, and then five troopers who were the body-guard of sir frederick hamilton lifted their muskets, and shot down five of the friars. the noise and the smoke drove away the mystery of the pale altar lights, and the other troopers took courage and began to strike. in a moment the friars lay about the altar steps, their white habits stained with blood. 'set fire to the house!' cried sir frederick hamilton, and at his word one went out, and came in again carrying a heap of dry straw, and piled it against the western wall, and, having done this, fell back, for the fear of the crucifix and of the holy candles was still in his heart. seeing this, the five troopers who were sir frederick hamilton's body-guard darted forward, and taking each a holy candle set the straw in a blaze. the red tongues of fire rushed up and flickered from corbel to corbel and from tablet to tablet, and crept along the floor, setting in a blaze the seats and benches. the dance of the shadows passed away, and the dance of the fires began. the troopers fell back towards the door in the southern wall, and watched those yellow dancers springing hither and thither. for a time the altar stood safe and apart in the midst of its white light; the eyes of the troopers turned upon it. the abbot whom they had thought dead had risen to his feet and now stood before it with the crucifix lifted in both hands high above his head. suddenly he cried with a loud voice, 'woe unto all who smite those who dwell within the light of the lord, for they shall wander among the ungovernable shadows, and follow the ungovernable fires!' and having so cried he fell on his face dead, and the brazen crucifix rolled down the steps of the altar. the smoke had now grown very thick, so that it drove the troopers out into the open air. before them were burning houses. behind them shone the painted windows of the abbey filled with saints and martyrs, awakened, as from a sacred trance, into an angry and animated life. the eyes of the troopers were dazzled, and for a while could see nothing but the flaming faces of saints and martyrs. presently, however, they saw a man covered with dust who came running towards them. 'two messengers,' he cried, 'have been sent by the defeated irish to raise against you the whole country about manor hamilton, and if you do not stop them you will be overpowered in the woods before you reach home again! they ride north-east between ben bulben and cashel-na-gael.' sir frederick hamilton called to him the five troopers who had first fired upon the monks and said, 'mount quickly, and ride through the woods towards the mountain, and get before these men, and kill them.' in a moment the troopers were gone, and before many moments they had splashed across the river at what is now called buckley's ford, and plunged into the woods. they followed a beaten track that wound along the northern bank of the river. the boughs of the birch and quicken trees mingled above, and hid the cloudy moonlight, leaving the pathway in almost complete darkness. they rode at a rapid trot, now chatting together, now watching some stray weasel or rabbit scuttling away in the darkness. gradually, as the gloom and silence of the woods oppressed them, they drew closer together, and began to talk rapidly; they were old comrades and knew each other's lives. one was married, and told how glad his wife would be to see him return safe from this harebrained expedition against the white friars, and to hear how fortune had made amends for rashness. the oldest of the five, whose wife was dead, spoke of a flagon of wine which awaited him upon an upper shelf; while a third, who was the youngest, had a sweetheart watching for his return, and he rode a little way before the others, not talking at all. suddenly the young man stopped, and they saw that his horse was trembling. 'i saw something,' he said, 'and yet i do not know but it may have been one of the shadows. it looked like a great worm with a silver crown upon his head.' one of the five put his hand up to his forehead as if about to cross himself, but remembering that he had changed his religion he put it down, and said: 'i am certain it was but a shadow, for there are a great many about us, and of very strange kinds.' then they rode on in silence. it had been raining in the earlier part of the day, and the drops fell from the branches, wetting their hair and their shoulders. in a little they began to talk again. they had been in many battles against many a rebel together, and now told each other over again the story of their wounds, and so awakened in their hearts the strongest of all fellowships, the fellowship of the sword, and half forgot the terrible solitude of the woods. suddenly the first two horses neighed, and then stood still, and would go no further. before them was a glint of water, and they knew by the rushing sound that it was a river. they dismounted, and after much tugging and coaxing brought the horses to the river-side. in the midst of the water stood a tall old woman with grey hair flowing over a grey dress. she stood up to her knees in the water, and stooped from time to time as though washing. presently they could see that she was washing something that half floated. the moon cast a flickering light upon it, and they saw that it was the dead body of a man, and, while they were looking at it, an eddy of the river turned the face towards them, and each of the five troopers recognised at the same moment his own face. while they stood dumb and motionless with horror, the woman began to speak, saying slowly and loudly: 'did you see my son? he has a crown of silver on his head, and there are rubies in the crown.' then the oldest of the troopers, he who had been most often wounded, drew his sword and cried: 'i have fought for the truth of my god, and need not fear the shadows of satan,' and with that rushed into the water. in a moment he returned. the woman had vanished, and though he had thrust his sword into air and water he had found nothing. the five troopers remounted, and set their horses at the ford, but all to no purpose. they tried again and again, and went plunging hither and thither, the horses foaming and rearing. 'let us,' said the old trooper, 'ride back a little into the wood, and strike the river higher up.' they rode in under the boughs, the ground-ivy crackling under the hoofs, and the branches striking against their steel caps. after about twenty minutes' riding they came out again upon the river, and after another ten minutes found a place where it was possible to cross without sinking below the stirrups. the wood upon the other side was very thin, and broke the moonlight into long streams. the wind had arisen, and had begun to drive the clouds rapidly across the face of the moon, so that thin streams of light seemed to be dancing a grotesque dance among the scattered bushes and small fir-trees. the tops of the trees began also to moan, and the sound of it was like the voice of the dead in the wind; and the troopers remembered the belief that tells how the dead in purgatory are spitted upon the points of the trees and upon the points of the rocks. they turned a little to the south, in the hope that they might strike the beaten path again, but they could find no trace of it. meanwhile, the moaning grew louder and louder, and the dance of the white moon-fires more and more rapid. gradually they began to be aware of a sound of distant music. it was the sound of a bagpipe, and they rode towards it with great joy. it came from the bottom of a deep, cup-like hollow. in the midst of the hollow was an old man with a red cap and withered face. he sat beside a fire of sticks, and had a burning torch thrust into the earth at his feet, and played an old bagpipe furiously. his red hair dripped over his face like the iron rust upon a rock. 'did you see my wife?' he cried, looking up a moment; 'she was washing! she was washing!' 'i am afraid of him,' said the young trooper, 'i fear he is one of the sidhe.' 'no,' said the old trooper, 'he is a man, for i can see the sun-freckles upon his face. we will compel him to be our guide'; and at that he drew his sword, and the others did the same. they stood in a ring round the piper, and pointed their swords at him, and the old trooper then told him that they must kill two rebels, who had taken the road between ben bulben and the great mountain spur that is called cashel-na-gael, and that he must get up before one of them and be their guide, for they had lost their way. the piper turned, and pointed to a neighbouring tree, and they saw an old white horse ready bitted, bridled, and saddled. he slung the pipe across his back, and, taking the torch in his hand, got upon the horse, and started off before them, as hard as he could go. the wood grew thinner and thinner, and the ground began to slope up toward the mountain. the moon had already set, and the little white flames of the stars had come out everywhere. the ground sloped more and more until at last they rode far above the woods upon the wide top of the mountain. the woods lay spread out mile after mile below, and away to the south shot up the red glare of the burning town. but before and above them were the little white flames. the guide drew rein suddenly, and pointing upwards with the hand that did not hold the torch, shrieked out, 'look; look at the holy candles!' and then plunged forward at a gallop, waving the torch hither and thither. 'do you hear the hoofs of the messengers?' cried the guide. 'quick, quick! or they will be gone out of your hands!' and he laughed as with delight of the chase. the troopers thought they could hear far off, and as if below them, rattle of hoofs; but now the ground began to slope more and more, and the speed grew more headlong moment by moment. they tried to pull up, but in vain, for the horses seemed to have gone mad. the guide had thrown the reins on to the neck of the old white horse, and was waving his arms and singing a wild gaelic song. suddenly they saw the thin gleam of a river, at an immense distance below, and knew that they were upon the brink of the abyss that is now called lug-na-gael, or in english the stranger's leap. the six horses sprang forward, and five screams went up into the air, a moment later five men and horses fell with a dull crash upon the green slopes at the foot of the rocks. the old men of the twilight. at the place, close to the dead man's point, at the rosses, where the disused pilot-house looks out to sea through two round windows like eyes, a mud cottage stood in the last century. it also was a watchhouse, for a certain old michael bruen, who had been a smuggler in his day, and was still the father and grandfather of smugglers, lived there, and when, after nightfall, a tall schooner crept over the bay from roughley, it was his business to hang a horn lanthorn in the southern window, that the news might travel to dorren's island, and from thence, by another horn lanthorn, to the village of the rosses. but for this glimmering of messages, he had little communion with mankind, for he was very old, and had no thought for anything but for the making of his soul, at the foot of the spanish crucifix of carved oak that hung by his chimney, or bent double over the rosary of stone beads brought to him a cargo of silks and laces out of france. one night he had watched hour after hour, because a gentle and favourable wind was blowing, and _la mere de misericorde_ was much overdue; and he was about to lie down upon his heap of straw, seeing that the dawn was whitening the east, and that the schooner would not dare to round roughley and come to an anchor after daybreak; when he saw a long line of herons flying slowly from dorren's island and towards the pools which lie, half choked with reeds, behind what is called the second rosses. he had never before seen herons flying over the sea, for they are shore-keeping birds, and partly because this had startled him out of his drowsiness, and more because the long delay of the schooner kept his cupboard empty, he took down his rusty shot-gun, of which the barrel was tied on with a piece of string, and followed them towards the pools. when he came close enough to hear the sighing of the rushes in the outermost pool, the morning was grey over the world, so that the tall rushes, the still waters, the vague clouds, the thin mists lying among the sand-heaps, seemed carved out of an enormous pearl. in a little he came upon the herons, of whom there were a great number, standing with lifted legs in the shallow water; and crouching down behind a bank of rushes, looked to the priming of his gun, and bent for a moment over his rosary to murmur: 'patron patrick, let me shoot a heron; made into a pie it will support me for nearly four days, for i no longer eat as in my youth. if you keep me from missing i will say a rosary to you every night until the pie is eaten.' then he lay down, and, resting his gun upon a large stone, turned towards a heron which stood upon a bank of smooth grass over a little stream that flowed into the pool; for he feared to take the rheumatism by wading, as he would have to do if he shot one of those which stood in the water. but when he looked along the barrel the heron was gone, and, to his wonder and terror, a man of infinitely great age and infirmity stood in its place. he lowered the gun, and the heron stood there with bent head and motionless feathers, as though it had slept from the beginning of the world. he raised the gun, and no sooner did he look along the iron than that enemy of all enchantment brought the old man again before him, only to vanish when he lowered the gun for the second time. he laid the gun down, and crossed himself three times, and said a _paternoster_ and an _ave maria_, and muttered half aloud: 'some enemy of god and of my patron is standing upon the smooth place and fishing in the blessed water,' and then aimed very carefully and slowly. he fired, and when the smoke had gone saw an old man, huddled upon the grass and a long line of herons flying with clamour towards the sea. he went round a bend of the pool, and coming to the little stream looked down on a figure wrapped in faded clothes of black and green of an ancient pattern and spotted with blood. he shook his head at the sight of so great a wickedness. suddenly the clothes moved and an arm was stretched upwards towards the rosary which hung about his neck, and long wasted fingers almost touched the cross. he started back, crying: 'wizard, i will let no wicked thing touch my blessed beads'; and the sense of a the old great danger just escaped made him tremble. 'if you listen to me,' replied a voice so faint that it was like a sigh, 'you will know that i am not a wizard, and you will let me kiss the cross before i die.' 'i will listen to you,' he answered, 'but i will not let you touch my blessed beads,' and sitting on the grass a little way from the dying man, he reloaded his gun and laid it across his knees and composed himself to listen. 'i know not how many generations ago we, who are now herons, were the men of learning of the king leaghaire; we neither hunted, nor went to battle, nor listened to the druids preaching, and even love, if it came to us at all, was but a passing fire. the druids and the poets told us, many and many a time, of a new druid patrick; and most among them were fierce against him, while a few thought his doctrine merely the doctrine of the gods set out in new symbols, and were for giving him welcome; but we yawned in the midst of their tale. at last they came crying that he was coming to the king's house, and fell to their dispute, but we would listen to neither party, for we were busy with a dispute about the merits of the great and of the little metre; nor were we disturbed when they passed our door with sticks of enchantment under their arms, travelling towards the forest to contend against his coming, nor when they returned after nightfall with torn robes and despairing cries; for the click of our knives writing our thoughts in ogham filled us with peace and our dispute filled us with joy; nor even when in the morning crowds passed us to hear the strange druid preaching the commandments of his god. the crowds passed, and one, who had laid down his knife to yawn and stretch himself, heard a voice speaking far off, and knew that the druid patrick was preaching within the king's house; but our hearts were deaf, and we carved and disputed and read, and laughed a thin laughter together. in a little we heard many feet coming towards the house, and presently two tall figures stood in the door, the one in white, the other in a crimson robe; like a great lily and a heavy poppy; and we knew the druid patrick and our king leaghaire. we laid down the slender knives and bowed before the king, but when the black and green robes had ceased to rustle, it was not the loud rough voice of king leaghaire that spoke to us, but a strange voice in which there was a rapture as of one speaking from behind a battlement of druid flame: "i preached the commandments of the maker of the world," it said; "within the king's house and from the centre of the earth to the windows of heaven there was a great silence, so that the eagle floated with unmoving wings in the white air, and the fish with unmoving fins in the dim water, while the linnets and the wrens and the sparrows stilled there ever-trembling tongues in the heavy boughs, and the clouds were like white marble, and the rivers became their motionless mirrors, and the shrimps in the far-off sea-pools were still enduring eternity in patience, although it was hard." and as he named these things, it was like a king numbering his people. "but your slender knives went click, click! upon the oaken staves, and, all else being silent, the sound shook the angels with anger. o, little roots, nipped by the winter, who do not awake although the summer pass above you with innumerable feet. o, men who have no part in love, who have no part in song, who have no part in wisdom, but dwell with the shadows of memory where the feet of angels cannot touch you as they pass over your heads, where the hair of demons cannot sweep about you as they pass under your feet, i lay upon you a curse, and change you to an example for ever and ever; you shall become grey herons and stand pondering in grey pools and flit over the world in that hour when it is most full of sighs, having forgotten the flame of the stars and not yet found the flame of the sun; and you shall preach to the other herons until they also are like you, and are an example for ever and ever; and your deaths shall come to you by chance and unforeseen, that no fire of certainty may visit your hearts."' the voice of the old man of learning became still, but the voteen bent over his gun with his eyes upon the ground, trying in vain to understand something of this tale; and he had so bent, it may be for a long time, had not a tug at his rosary made him start out of his dream. the old man of learning had crawled along the grass, and was now trying to draw the cross down low enough for his lips to reach it. 'you must not touch my blessed beads, cried the voteen, and struck the long withered fingers with the barrel of his gun. he need not have trembled, for the old man fell back upon the grass with a sigh and was still. he bent down and began to consider the black and green clothes, for his fear had begun to pass away when he came to understand that he had something the man of learning wanted and pleaded for, and now that the blessed beads were safe, his fear had nearly all gone; and surely, he thought, if that big cloak, and that little tight-fitting cloak under it, were warm and without holes, saint patrick would take the enchantment out of them and leave them fit for human use. but the black and green clothes fell away wherever his fingers touched them, and while this was a new wonder, a slight wind blew over the pool and crumbled the old man of learning and all his ancient gear into a little heap of dust, and then made the little heap less and less until there was nothing but the smooth green grass. where there is nothing, there is god. the little wicker houses at tullagh, where the brothers were accustomed to pray, or bend over many handicrafts, when twilight had driven them from the fields, were empty, for the hardness of the winter had brought the brotherhood together in the little wooden house under the shadow of the wooden chapel; and abbot malathgeneus, brother dove, brother bald fox, brother peter, brother patrick, brother bittern, brother fair-brows, and many too young to have won names in the great battle, sat about the fire with ruddy faces, one mending lines to lay in the river for eels, one fashioning a snare for birds, one mending the broken handle of a spade, one writing in a large book, and one shaping a jewelled box to hold the book; and among the rushes at their feet lay the scholars, who would one day be brothers, and whose school-house it was, and for the succour of whose tender years the great fire was supposed to leap and flicker. one of these, a child of eight or nine years, called olioll, lay upon his back looking up through the hole in the roof, through which the smoke went, and watching the stars appearing and disappearing in the smoke with mild eyes, like the eyes of a beast of the field. he turned presently to the brother who wrote in the big book, and whose duty was to teach the children, and said, 'brother dove, to what are the stars fastened?' the brother, rejoicing to see so much curiosity in the stupidest of his scholars, laid down the pen and said, 'there are nine crystalline spheres, and on the first the moon is fastened, on the second the planet mercury, on the third the planet venus, on the fourth the sun, on the fifth the planet mars, on the sixth the planet jupiter, on the seventh the planet saturn; these are the wandering stars; and on the eighth are fastened the fixed stars; but the ninth sphere is a sphere of the substance on which the breath of god moved in the beginning.' 'what is beyond that?' said the child. 'there is nothing beyond that; there is god.' and then the child's eyes strayed to the jewelled box, where one great ruby was gleaming in the light of the fire, and he said, 'why has brother peter put a great ruby on the side of the box?' 'the ruby is a symbol of the love of god.' 'why is the ruby a symbol of the love of god?' 'because it is red, like fire, and fire burns up everything, and where there is nothing, there is god.' the child sank into silence, but presently sat up and said, 'there is somebody outside.' 'no,' replied the brother. 'it is only the wolves; i have heard them moving about in the snow for some time. they are growing very wild, now that the winter drives them from the mountains. they broke into a fold last night and carried off many sheep, and if we are not careful they will devour everything.' 'no, it is the footstep of a man, for it is heavy; but i can hear the footsteps of the wolves also.' he had no sooner done speaking than somebody rapped three times, but with no great loudness. 'i will go and open, for he must be very cold.' 'do not open, for it may be a man-wolf, and he may devour us all.' but the boy had already drawn back the heavy wooden bolt, and all the faces, most of them a little pale, turned towards the slowly-opening door. 'he has beads and a cross, he cannot be a man-wolf,' said the child, as a man with the snow heavy on his long, ragged beard, and on the matted hair, that fell over his shoulders and nearly to his waist, and dropping from the tattered cloak that but half-covered his withered brown body, came in and looked from face to face with mild, ecstatic eyes. standing some way from the fire, and with eyes that had rested at last upon the abbot malathgeneus, he cried out, 'o blessed abbot, let me come to the fire and warm myself and dry the snow from my beard and my hair and my cloak; that i may not die of the cold of the mountains, and anger the lord with a wilful martyrdom.' 'come to the fire,' said the abbot, 'and warm yourself, and eat the food the boy olioll will bring you. it is sad indeed that any for whom christ has died should be as poor as you.' the man sat over the fire, and olioll took away his now dripping cloak and laid meat and bread and wine before him; but he would eat only of the bread, and he put away the wine, asking for water. when his beard and hair had begun to dry a little and his limbs had ceased to shiver with the cold, he spoke again. 'o blessed abbot, have pity on the poor, have pity on a beggar who has trodden the bare world this many a year, and give me some labour to do, the hardest there is, for i am the poorest of god's poor.' then the brothers discussed together what work they could put him to, and at first to little purpose, for there was no labour that had not found its labourer in that busy community; but at last one remembered that brother bald fox, whose business it was to turn the great quern in the quern-house, for he was too stupid for anything else, was getting old for so heavy a labour; and so the beggar was put to the quern from the morrow. the cold passed away, and the spring grew to summer, and the quern was never idle, nor was it turned with grudging labour, for when any passed the beggar was heard singing as he drove the handle round. the last gloom, too, had passed from that happy community, for olioll, who had always been stupid and unteachable, grew clever, and this was the more miraculous because it had come of a sudden. one day he had been even duller than usual, and was beaten and told to know his lesson better on the morrow or be sent into a lower class among little boys who would make a joke of him. he had gone out in tears, and when he came the next day, although his stupidity, born of a mind that would listen to every wandering sound and brood upon every wandering light, had so long been the byword of the school, he knew his lesson so well that he passed to the head of the class, and from that day was the best of scholars. at first brother dove thought this was an answer to his own prayers to the virgin, and took it for a great proof of the love she bore him; but when many far more fervid prayers had failed to add a single wheatsheaf to the harvest, he began to think that the child was trafficking with bards, or druids, or witches, and resolved to follow and watch. he had told his thought to the abbot, who bid him come to him the moment he hit the truth; and the next day, which was a sunday, he stood in the path when the abbot and the brothers were coming from vespers, with their white habits upon them, and took the abbot by the habit and said, 'the beggar is of the greatest of saints and of the workers of miracle. i followed olioll but now, and by his slow steps and his bent head i saw that the weariness of his stupidity was over him, and when he came to the little wood by the quern-house i knew by the path broken in the under-wood and by the footmarks in the muddy places that he had gone that way many times. i hid behind a bush where the path doubled upon itself at a sloping place, and understood by the tears in his eyes that his stupidity was too old and his wisdom too new to save him from terror of the rod. when he was in the quern-house i went to the window and looked in, and the birds came down and perched upon my head and my shoulders, for they are not timid in that holy place; and a wolf passed by, his right side shaking my habit, his left the leaves of a bush. olioll opened his book and turned to the page i had told him to learn, and began to cry, and the beggar sat beside him and comforted him until he fell asleep. when his sleep was of the deepest the beggar knelt down and prayed aloud, and said, "o thou who dwellest beyond the stars, show forth thy power as at the beginning, and let knowledge sent from thee awaken in his mind, wherein is nothing from the world, that the nine orders of angels may glorify thy name;" and then a light broke out of the air and wrapped aodh, and i smelt the breath of roses. i stirred a little in my wonder, and the beggar turned and saw me, and, bending low, said, "o brother dove, if i have done wrong, forgive me, and i will do penance. it was my pity moved me;" but i was afraid and i ran away, and did not stop running until i came here.' then all the brothers began talking together, one saying it was such and such a saint, and one that it was not he but another; and one that it was none of these, for they were still in their brotherhoods, but that it was such and such a one; and the talk was as near to quarreling as might be in that gentle community, for each would claim so great a saint for his native province. at last the abbot said, 'he is none that you have named, for at easter i had greeting from all, and each was in his brotherhood; but he is aengus the lover of god, and the first of those who have gone to live in the wild places and among the wild beasts. ten years ago he felt the burden of many labours in a brotherhood under the hill of patrick and went into the forest that he might labour only with song to the lord; but the fame of his holiness brought many thousands to his cell, so that a little pride clung to a soul from which all else had been driven. nine years ago he dressed himself in rags, and from that day none has seen him, unless, indeed, it be true that he has been seen living among the wolves on the mountains and eating the grass of the fields. let us go to him and bow down before him; for at last, after long seeking, he has found the nothing that is god; and bid him lead us in the pathway he has trodden.' they passed in their white habits along the beaten path in the wood, the acolytes swinging their censers before them, and the abbot, with his crozier studded with precious stones, in the midst of the incense; and came before the quern-house and knelt down and began to pray, awaiting the moment when the child would wake, and the saint cease from his watch and come to look at the sun going down into the unknown darkness, as his way was. of costello the proud, of oona the daughter of dermott, and of the bitter tongue. costello had come up from the fields and lay upon the ground before the door of his square tower, resting his head upon his hands and looking at the sunset, and considering the chances of the weather. though the customs of elizabeth and james, now going out of fashion in england, had begun to prevail among the gentry, he still wore the great cloak of the native irish; and the sensitive outlines of his face and the greatness of his indolent body had a commingling of pride and strength which belonged to a simpler age. his eyes wandered from the sunset to where the long white road lost itself over the south-western horizon and to a horseman who toiled slowly up the hill. a few more minutes and the horseman was near enough for his little and shapeless body, his long irish cloak, and the dilapidated bagpipes hanging from his shoulders, and the rough-haired garron under him, to be seen distinctly in the grey dusk. so soon as he had come within earshot, he began crying: 'is it sleeping you are, tumaus costello, when better men break their hearts on the great white roads? get up out of that, proud tumaus, for i have news! get up out of that, you great omadhaun! shake yourself out of the earth, you great weed of a man!' costello had risen to his feet, and as the piper came up to him seized him by the neck of his jacket, and lifting him out of his saddle threw him on to the ground. 'let me alone, let me alone,' said the other, but costello still shook him. 'i have news from dermott's daughter, winny,' the great fingers were loosened, and the piper rose gasping. 'why did you not tell me,' said costello, that you came from her? you might have railed your fill.' 'i have come from her, but i will not speak unless i am paid for my shaking.' costello fumbled at the bag in which he carried his money, and it was some time before it would open, for the hand that had overcome many men shook with fear and hope. 'here is all the money in my bag,' he said, dropping a stream of french and spanish money into the hand of the piper, who bit the coins before he would answer. 'that is right, that is a fair price, but i will not speak till i have good protection, for if the dermotts lay their hands upon me in any boreen after sundown, or in cool-a-vin by day, i will be left to rot among the nettles of a ditch, or hung on the great sycamore, where they hung the horse-thieves last beltaine four years.' and while he spoke he tied the reins of his garron to a bar of rusty iron that was mortared into the wall. 'i will make you my piper and my bodyservant,' said costello, 'and no man dare lay hands upon the man, or the goat, or the horse, or the dog that is tumaus costello's.' 'and i will only tell my message,' said the other, flinging the saddle on the ground, 'in the corner of the chimney with a noggin in my hand, and a jug of the brew of the little pot beside me, for though i am ragged and empty, my forbears were well clothed and full until their house was burnt and their cattle harried seven centuries ago by the dillons, whom i shall yet see on the hob of hell, and they screeching'; and while he spoke the little eyes gleamed and the thin hands clenched. costello led him into the great rush-strewn hall, where were none of the comforts which had begun to grow common among the gentry, but a feudal gauntness and bareness, and pointed to the bench in the great chimney; and when he had sat down, filled up a horn noggin and set it on the bench beside him, and set a great black jack of leather beside the noggin, and lit a torch that slanted out from a ring in the wall, his hands trembling the while; and then turned towards him and said: 'will dermott's daughter come to me, duallach, son of daly?' 'dermott's daughter will not come to you, for her father has set women to watch her, but she bid me tell you that this day sennight will be the eve of st. john and the night of her betrothal to namara of the lake, and she would have you there that, when they bid her drink to him she loves best, as the way is, she may drink to you, tumaus costello, and let all know where her heart is, and how little of gladness is in her marriage; and i myself bid you go with good men about you, for i saw the horse-thieves with my own eyes, and they dancing the "blue pigeon" in the air.' and then he held the now empty noggin towards costello, his hand closing round it like the claw of a bird, and cried: 'fill my noggin again, for i would the day had come when all the water in the world is to shrink into a periwinkle-shell, that i might drink nothing but poteen.' finding that costello made no reply, but sat in a dream, he burst out: 'fill my noggin, i tell you, for no costello is so great in the world that he should not wait upon a daly, even though the daly travel the road with his pipes and the costello have a bare hill, an empty house, a horse, a herd of goats, and a handful of cows.' 'praise the dalys if you will,' said costello as he filled the noggin, 'for you have brought me a kind word from my love.' for the next few days duallach went hither and thither trying to raise a bodyguard, and every man he met had some story of costello, how he killed the wrestler when but a boy by so straining at the belt that went about them both that he broke the big wrestler's back; how when somewhat older he dragged fierce horses through a ford in the unchion for a wager; how when he came to manhood he broke the steel horseshoe in mayo; how he drove many men before him through rushy meadow at drum-an-air because of a malevolent song they had about his poverty; and of many another deed of his strength and pride; but he could find none who would trust themselves with any so passionate and poor in a quarrel with careful and wealthy persons like dermott of the sheep and namara of the lake. then costello went out himself, and after listening to many excuses and in many places, brought in a big half-witted fellow, who followed him like a dog, a farm-labourer who worshipped him for his strength, a fat farmer whose forefathers had served his family, and a couple of lads who looked after his goats and cows; and marshalled them before the fire in the empty hall. they had brought with them their stout cudgels, and costello gave them an old pistol apiece, and kept them all night drinking spanish ale and shooting at a white turnip which he pinned against the wall with a skewer. duallach of the pipes sat on the bench in the chimney playing 'the green bunch of rushes', 'the unchion stream,' and 'the princes of breffeny' on his old pipes, and railing now at the appearance of the shooters, now at their clumsy shooting, and now at costello because he had no better servants. the labourer, the half-witted fellow, the farmer and the lads were all well accustomed to duallach's railing, for it was as inseparable from wake or wedding as the squealing of his pipes, but they wondered at the forbearance of costello, who seldom came either to wake or wedding, and if he had would scarce have been patient with a scolding piper. on the next evening they set out for cool-a-vin, costello riding a tolerable horse and carrying a sword, the others upon rough-haired garrons, and with their stout cudgels under their arms. as they rode over the bogs and in the boreens among the hills they could see fire answering fire from hill to hill, from horizon to horizon, and everywhere groups who danced in the red light on the turf, celebrating the bridal of life and fire. when they came to dermott's house they saw before the door an unusually large group of the very poor, dancing about a fire, in the midst of which was a blazing cartwheel, that circular dance which is so ancient that the gods, long dwindled to be but fairies, dance no other in their secret places. from the door and through the long loop-holes on either side came the pale light of candles and the sound of many feet dancing a dance of elizabeth and james. they tied their horses to bushes, for the number so tied already showed that the stables were full, and shoved their way through a crowd of peasants who stood about the door, and went into the great hall where the dance was. the labourer, the half-witted fellow, the farmer and the two lads mixed with a group of servants who were looking on from an alcove, and duallach sat with the pipers on their bench, but costello made his way through the dancers to where dermott of the sheep stood with namara of the lake pouring poteen out of a porcelain jug into horn noggins with silver rims. 'tumaus costello,' said the old man, 'you have done a good deed to forget what has been, and to fling away enmity and come to the betrothal of my daughter to namara of the lake.' 'i come,' answered costello, 'because when in the time of costello de angalo my forbears overcame your forbears and afterwards made peace, a compact was made that a costello might go with his body-servants and his piper to every feast given by a dermott for ever, and a dermott with his body-servants and his piper to every feast given by a costello for ever.' 'if you come with evil thoughts and armed men,' said the son of dermott flushing,' no matter how strong your hands to wrestle and to swing the sword, it shall go badly with you, for some of my wife's clan have come out of mayo, and my three brothers and their servants have come down from the ox mountains'; and while he spoke he kept his hand inside his coat as though upon the handle of a weapon. 'no,' answered costello, 'i but come to dance a farewell dance with your daughter.' dermott drew his hand out of his coat and went over to a tall pale girl who was now standing but a little way off with her mild eyes fixed upon the ground. 'costello has come to dance a farewell dance, for he knows that you will never see one another again.' the girl lifted her eyes and gazed at costello, and in her gaze was that trust of the humble in the proud, the gentle in the violent, which has been the tragedy of woman from the beginning. costello led her among the dancers, and they were soon drawn into the rhythm of the pavane, that stately dance which, with the saraband, the gallead, and the morrice dances, had driven out, among all but the most irish of the gentry, the quicker rhythms of the verse-interwoven, pantomimic dances of earlier days; and while they danced there came over them the unutterable melancholy, the weariness with the world, the poignant and bitter pity for one another, the vague anger against common hopes and fears, which is the exultation of love. and when a dance ended and the pipers laid down their pipes and lifted their horn noggins, they stood a little from the others waiting pensively and silently for the dance to begin again and the fire in their hearts to leap up and to wrap them anew; and so they danced and danced pavane and saraband and gallead and morrice through the night long, and many stood still to watch them, and the peasants came about the door and peered in, as though they understood that they would gather their children's children about them long hence, and tell how they had seen costello dance with dermott's daughter oona, and become by the telling themselves a portion of ancient romance; but through all the dancing and piping namara of the lake went hither and thither talking loudly and making foolish jokes that all might seem well with him, and old dermott of the sheep grew redder and redder, and looked oftener and oftener at the doorway to see if the candles there grew yellow in the dawn. at last he saw that the moment to end had come, and, in a pause after a dance, cried out from where the horn noggins stood that his daughter would now drink the cup of betrothal; then oona came over to where he was, and the guests stood round in a half-circle, costello close to the wall to the right, and the piper, the labourer, the farmer, the half-witted man and the two farm lads close behind him. the old man took out of a niche in the wall the silver cup from which her mother and her mother's mother had drunk the toasts of their betrothals, and poured poteen out of a porcelain jug and handed the cup to his daughter with the customary words, 'drink to him whom you love the best.' she held the cup to her lips for a moment, and then said in a clear soft voice: 'i drink to my true love, tumaus costello.' and then the cup rolled over and over on the ground, ringing like a bell, for the old man had struck her in the face and the cup had fallen, and there was a deep silence. there were many of namara's people among the servants now come out of the alcove, and one of them, a story-teller and poet, a last remnant of the bardic order, who had a chair and a platter in namara's kitchen, drew a french knife out of his girdle and made as though he would strike at costello, but in a moment a blow had hurled him to the ground, his shoulder sending the cup rolling and ringing again. the click of steel had followed quickly, had not there come a muttering and shouting from the peasants about the door and from those crowding up behind them; and all knew that these were no children of queen's irish or friendly namaras and dermotts, but of the wild irish about lough gara and lough cara, who rowed their skin coracles, and had masses of hair over their eyes, and left the right arms of their children unchristened that they might give the stouter blows, and swore only by st. atty and sun and moon, and worshipped beauty and strength more than st. atty or sun and moon. costello's hand had rested upon the handle of his sword and his knuckles had grown white, but now he drew it away, and, followed by those who were with him, strode towards the door, the dancers giving way before him, the most angrily and slowly, and with glances at the muttering and shouting peasants, but some gladly and quickly, because the glory of his fame was over him. he passed through the fierce and friendly peasant faces, and came where his good horse and the rough-haired garrons were tied to bushes; and mounted and bade his ungainly bodyguard mount also and ride into the narrow boreen. when they had gone a little way, duallach, who rode last, turned towards the house where a little group of dermotts and namaras stood next to a more numerous group of countrymen, and cried: 'dermott, you deserve to be as you are this hour, a lantern without a candle, a purse without a penny, a sheep without wool, for your hand was ever niggardly to piper and fiddler and story-teller and to poor travelling people.' he had not done before the three old dermotts from the ox mountains had run towards their horses, and old dermott himself had caught the bridle of a garron of the namaras and was calling to the others to follow him; and many blows and many deaths had been had not the countrymen caught up still glowing sticks from the ashes of the fires and hurled them among the horses with loud cries, making all plunge and rear, and some break from those who held them, the whites of their eyes gleaming in the dawn. for the next few weeks costello had no lack of news of oona, for now a woman selling eggs or fowls, and now a man or a woman on pilgrimage to the well of the rocks, would tell him how his love had fallen ill the day after st. john's eve, and how she was a little better or a little worse, as it might be; and though he looked to his horses and his cows and goats as usual, the common and uncomely, the dust upon the roads, the songs of men returning from fairs and wakes, men playing cards in the corners of fields on sundays and saints' days, the rumours of battles and changes in the great world, the deliberate purposes of those about him, troubled him with an inexplicable trouble; and the country people still remember how when night had fallen he would bid duallach of the pipes tell, to the chirping of the crickets, 'the son of apple,' 'the beauty of the world,' 'the king of ireland's son,' or some other of those traditional tales which were as much a piper's business as 'the green bunch of rushes,' 'the unchion stream,' or 'the chiefs of breffeny'; and while the boundless and phantasmal world of the legends was a-building, would abandon himself to the dreams of his sorrow. duallach would often pause to tell how some clan of the wild irish had descended from an incomparable king of the blue belt, or warrior of the ozier wattle, or to tell with many curses how all the strangers and most of the queen's irish were the seed of the misshapen and horned people from under the sea or of the servile and creeping ferbolg; but costello cared only for the love sorrows, and no matter whither the stories wandered, whether to the isle of the red lough, where the blessed are, or to the malign country of the hag of the east, oona alone endured their shadowy hardships; for it was she and no king's daughter of old who was hidden in the steel tower under the water with the folds of the worm of nine eyes round and about her prison; and it was she who won by seven years of service the right to deliver from hell all she could carry, and carried away multitudes clinging with worn fingers to the hem of her dress; and it was she who endured dumbness for a year because of the little thorn of enchantment the fairies had thrust into her tongue; and it was a lock of her hair, coiled in a little carved box, which gave so great a light that men threshed by it from sundown to sunrise, and awoke so great a wonder that kings spent years in wandering or fell before unknown armies in seeking to discover her hiding-place; for there was no beauty in the world but hers, no tragedy in the world but hers: and when at last the voice of the piper, grown gentle with the wisdom of old romance, was silent, and his rheumatic steps had toiled upstairs and to bed, and costello had dipped his fingers into the little delf font of holy water and begun to pray to mary of the seven sorrows, the blue eyes and star-covered dress of the painting in the chapel faded from his imagination, and the brown eyes and homespun dress of dermott's daughter winny came in their stead; for there was no tenderness in the passion who keep their hearts pure for love or for hatred as other men for god, for mary and for the saints, and who, when the hour of their visitation arrives, come to the divine essence by the bitter tumult, the garden of gethsemane, and the desolate rood ordained for immortal passions in mortal hearts. one day a serving-man rode up to costello, who was helping his two lads to reap a meadow, and gave him a letter, and rode away without a word; and the letter contained these words in english: 'tumaus costello, my daughter is very ill. the wise woman from knock-na-sidhe has seen her, and says she will die unless you come to her. i therefore bid you come to her whose peace you stole by treachery.-dermott, the son of dermott.' costello threw down his scythe, and sent one of the lads for duallach, who had become woven into his mind with oona, and himself saddled his great horse and duallach's garron. when they came to dermott's house it was late afternoon, and lough gara lay down below them, blue, mirror-like, and deserted; and though they had seen, when at a distance, dark figures moving about the door, the house appeared not less deserted than the lough. the door stood half open, and costello knocked upon it again and again, so that a number of lake gulls flew up out of the grass and circled screaming over his head, but there was no answer. 'there is no one here,' said duallach, 'for dermott of the sheep is too proud to welcome costello the proud,' and he threw the door open, and they saw a ragged, dirty, very old woman, who sat upon the floor leaning against the wall. costello knew that it was bridget delaney, a deaf and dumb beggar; and she, when she saw him, stood up and made a sign to him to follow, and led him and his companion up a stair and down a long corridor to a closed door. she pushed the door open and went a little way off and sat down as before; duallach sat upon the ground also, but close to the door, and costello went and gazed upon winny sleeping upon a bed. he sat upon a chair beside her and waited, and a long time passed and still she slept on, and then duallach motioned to him through the door to wake her, but he hushed his very breath, that she might sleep on, for his heart was full of that ungovernable pity which makes the fading heart of the lover a shadow of the divine heart. presently he turned to duallach and said: 'it is not right that i stay here where there are none of her kindred, for the common people are always ready to blame the beautiful.' and then they went down and stood at the door of the house and waited, but the evening wore on and no one came. 'it was a foolish man that called you proud costello,' duallach cried at last; 'had he seen you waiting and waiting where they left none but a beggar to welcome you, it is humble costello he would have called you.' then costello mounted and duallach mounted, but when they had ridden a little way costello tightened the reins and made his horse stand still. many minutes passed, and then duallach cried: 'it is no wonder that you fear to offend dermott of the sheep, for he has many brothers and friends, and though he is old, he is a strong man and ready with his hands, and he is of the queen's irish, and the enemies of the gael are upon his side.' and costello answered flushing and looking towards the house: 'i swear by the mother of god that i will never return there again if they do not send after me before i pass the ford in the brown river,' and he rode on, but so very slowly that the sun went down and the bats began to fly over the bogs. when he came to the river he lingered awhile upon the bank among the flowers of the flag, but presently rode out into the middle and stopped his horse in a foaming shallow. duallach, however, crossed over and waited on a further bank above a deeper place. after a good while duallach cried out again, and this time very bitterly: 'it was a fool who begot you and a fool who bore you, and they are fools of all fools who say you come of an old and noble stock, for you come of whey-faced beggars who travelled from door to door, bowing to gentles and to serving-men. with bent head, costello rode through the river and stood beside him, and would have spoken had not hoofs clattered on the further bank and a horseman splashed towards them. it was a serving-man of dermott's, and he said, speaking breathlessly like one who had ridden hard: 'tumaus costello, i come to bid you again to dermott's house. when you had gone, his daughter winny awoke and called your name, for you had been in her dreams. bridget delaney the dummy saw her lips move and the trouble upon her, and came where we were hiding in the wood above the house and took dermott of the sheep by the coat and brought him to his daughter. he saw the trouble upon her, and bid me ride his own horse to bring you the quicker.' then costello turned towards the piper duallach daly, and taking him about the waist lifted him out of the saddle and hurled him against a grey rock that rose up out of the river, so that he fell lifeless into the deep place, and the waters swept over the tongue which god had made bitter, that there might be a story in men's ears in after time. then plunging his spurs into the horse, he rode away furiously toward the north-west, along the edge of the river, and did not pause until he came to another and smoother ford, and saw the rising moon mirrored in the water. he paused for a moment irresolute, and then rode into the ford and on over the ox mountains, and down towards the sea; his eyes almost continually resting upon the moon which glimmered in the dimness like a great white rose hung on the lattice of some boundless and phantasmal world. but now his horse, long dark with sweat and breathing hard, for he kept spurring it to an extreme speed, fell heavily, hurling him into the grass at the roadside. he tried to make it stand up, and failing in this, went on alone towards the moonlight; and came to the sea and saw a schooner lying there at anchor. now that he could go no further because of the sea, he found that he was very tired and the night very cold, and went into a shebeen close to the shore and threw himself down upon a bench. the room was full of spanish and irish sailors who had just smuggled a cargo of wine and ale, and were waiting a favourable wind to set out again. a spaniard offered him a drink in bad gaelic. he drank it greedily and began talking wildly and rapidly. for some three weeks the wind blew inshore or with too great violence, and the sailors stayed drinking and talking and playing cards, and costello stayed with them, sleeping upon a bench in the shebeen, and drinking and talking and playing more than any. he soon lost what little money he had, and then his horse, which some one had brought from the mountain boreen, to a spaniard, who sold it to a farmer from the mountains, and then his long cloak and his spurs and his boots of soft leather. at last a gentle wind blew towards spain, and the crew rowed out to their schooner, singing gaelic and spanish songs, and lifted the anchor, and in a little while the white sails had dropped under the horizon. then costello turned homeward, his life gaping before him, and walked all day, coming in the early evening to the road that went from near lough gara to the southern edge of lough cay. here he overtook a great crowd of peasants and farmers, who were walking very slowly after two priests and a group of well-dressed persons, certain of whom were carrying a coffin. he stopped an old man and asked whose burying it was and whose people they were, and the old man answered: 'it is the burying of oona, dermott's daughter, and we are the namaras and the dermotts and their following, and you are tumaus costello who murdered her.' costello went on towards the head of the procession, passing men who looked at him with fierce eyes and only vaguely understanding what he had heard, for now that he had lost the understanding that belongs to good health, it seemed impossible that a gentleness and a beauty which had been so long the world's heart could pass away. presently he stopped and asked again whose burying it was, and a man answered: 'we are carrying dermott's daughter winny whom you murdered, to be buried in the island of the holy trinity,' and the man stooped and picked up a stone and cast it at costello, striking him on the cheek and making the blood flow out over his face. costello went on scarcely feeling the blow, and coming to those about the coffin, shouldered his way into the midst of them, and laying his hand upon the coffin, asked in a loud voice: 'who is in this coffin?' the three old dermotts from the ox mountains caught up stones and bid those about them do the same; and he was driven from the road, covered with wounds, and but for the priests would surely have been killed. when the procession had passed on, costello began to follow again, and saw from a distance the coffin laid upon a large boat, and those about it get into other boats, and the boats move slowly over the water to insula trinitatis; and after a time he saw the boats return and their passengers mingle with the crowd upon the bank, and all disperse by many roads and boreens. it seemed to him that winny was somewhere on the island smiling gently as of old, and when all had gone he swam in the way the boats had been rowed and found the new-made grave beside the ruined abbey of the holy trinity, and threw himself upon it, calling to oona to come to him. above him the square ivy leaves trembled, and all about him white moths moved over white flowers, and sweet odours drifted through the dim air. he lay there all that night and through the day after, from time to time calling her to come to him, but when the third night came he had forgotten, worn out with hunger and sorrow, that her body lay in the earth beneath; but only knew she was somewhere near and would not come to him. just before dawn, the hour when the peasants hear his ghostly voice crying out, his pride awoke and he called loudly: 'winny, daughter of dermott of the sheep, if you do not come to me i will go and never return to the island of the holy trinity,' and before his voice had died away a cold and whirling wind had swept over the island and he saw many figures rushing past, women of the sidhe with crowns of silver and dim floating drapery; and then oona, but no longer smiling gently, for she passed him swiftly and angrily, and as she passed struck him upon the face crying: 'then go and never return.' he would have followed, and was calling out her name, when the whole glimmering company rose up into the air, and, rushing together in the shape of a great silvery rose, faded into the ashen dawn. costello got up from the grave, understanding nothing but that he had made his beloved angry and that she wished him to go, and wading out into the lake, began to swim. he swam on and on, but his limbs were too weary to keep him afloat, and her anger was heavy about him, and when he had gone a little way he sank without a struggle, like a man passing into sleep and dreams. the next day a poor fisherman found him among the reeds upon the lake shore, lying upon the white lake sand with his arms flung out as though he lay upon a rood, and carried him to his own house. and the very poor lamented over him and sang the keen, and when the time had come, laid him in the abbey on insula trinitatis with only the ruined altar between him and dermott's daughter, and planted above them two ash-trees that in after days wove their branches together and mingled their trembling leaves. _by the same writer._ the secret rose. the celtic twilight. poems. the wind among the reeds. the shadowy waters. ideas of good and evil. plays for an irish theatre volume i. where there is nothing: being volume one of plays for an irish theatre: by w. b. yeats london: a. h. bullen, 47, great russell street, w.c. 1903 chiswick press: charles whittingham and co. tooks court, chancery lane, london. dedication of volumes one and two of plays for an irish theatre. my dear lady gregory, i dedicate to you two volumes of plays that are in part your own. when i was a boy i used to wander about at rosses point and ballisodare listening to old songs and stories. i wrote down what i heard and made poems out of the stories or put them into the little chapters of the first edition of "the celtic twilight," and that is how i began to write in the irish way. then i went to london to make my living, and though i spent a part of every year in ireland and tried to keep the old life in my memory by reading every country tale i could find in books or old newspapers, i began to forget the true countenance of country life. the old tales were still alive for me indeed, but with a new, strange, half unreal life, as if in a wizard's glass, until at last, when i had finished "the secret rose," and was half-way through "the wind among the reeds," a wise woman in her trance told me that my inspiration was from the moon, and that i should always live close to water, for my work was getting too full of those little jewelled thoughts that come from the sun and have no nation. i had no need to turn to my books of astrology to know that the common people are under the moon, or to porphyry to remember the image-making power of the waters. nor did i doubt the entire truth of what she said to me, for my head was full of fables that i had no longer the knowledge and emotion to write. then you brought me with you to see your friends in the cottages, and to talk to old wise men on slieve echtge, and we gathered together, or you gathered for me, a great number of stories and traditional beliefs. you taught me to understand again, and much more perfectly than before, the true countenance of country life. one night i had a dream almost as distinct as a vision, of a cottage where there was well-being and firelight and talk of a marriage, and into the midst of that cottage there came an old woman in a long cloak. she was ireland herself, that cathleen ni hoolihan for whom so many songs have been sung and about whom so many stories have been told and for whose sake so many have gone to their death. i thought if i could write this out as a little play i could make others see my dream as i had seen it, but i could not get down out of that high window of dramatic verse, and in spite of all you had done for me i had not the country speech. one has to live among the people, like you, of whom an old man said in my hearing, "she has been a serving-maid among us," before one can think the thoughts of the people and speak with their tongue. we turned my dream into the little play, "cathleen ni hoolihan," and when we gave it to the little theatre in dublin and found that the working people liked it, you helped me to put my other dramatic fables into speech. some of these have already been acted, but some may not be acted for a long time, but all seem to me, though they were but a part of a summer's work, to have more of that countenance of country life than anything i have done since i was a boy. w. b. yeats. _feb. 1903._ paul ruttledge, a country gentleman. thomas ruttledge, his brother. mrs. thomas ruttledge. mr. dowler, } mr. algie, } magistrates. colonel lawley, } mr. joyce, } mr. green, a stipendiary magistrate. sabina silver, } molly the scold, } charlie ward, } tinkers. paddy cockfight, } tommy the song, } johneen, etc. } father jerome, } father aloysius, } friars. father colman, } father bartley, } other friars, and a crowd of countrymen. where there is nothing. act i. scene: _a lawn with croquet hoops, garden chairs and tables. door into house at left. gate through hedge at back. the hedge is clipped into shapes of farmyard fowl._ paul ruttledge _is clipping at the hedge in front. a table with toys on it._ _thomas ruttledge._ [_coming out on steps._] paul, are you coming in to lunch? _paul ruttledge._ no; you can entertain these people very well. they are your friends: you understand them. _thomas ruttledge._ you might as well come in. you have been clipping at that old hedge long enough. _paul ruttledge._ you needn't worry about me. i should be bored if i went in, and i don't want to be bored more than is necessary. _thomas ruttledge._ what is that creature you are clipping at now? i can't make it out. _paul ruttledge._ oh, it is a cochin china fowl, an image of some of our neighbours, like the others. _thomas ruttledge._ i don't see any likeness to anyone. _paul ruttledge._ oh, yes there is, if you could see their minds instead of their bodies. that comb now---_mrs. ruttledge._ [_coming out on steps._] thomas, are you coming in? _thomas ruttledge._ yes, i'm coming; but paul won't come. [thomas ruttledge _goes out._ _mrs. ruttledge._ oh! this is nonsense, paul; you must come. all these men will think it so strange if you don't. it is nonsense to think you will be bored. mr. green is talking in the most interesting way. _paul ruttledge._ oh! i know green's conversation very well. _mrs. ruttledge._ and mr. joyce, your old guardian. thomas says he was always so welcome in your father's time, he will think it so queer. _paul ruttledge._ oh! i know all their virtues. there's dowler, who puts away thousands a year in consols, and algie, who tells everybody all about it. have i forgotten anybody? oh, yes! colonel lawley, who used to lift me up by the ears, when i was a child, to see africa. no, georgina, i know all their virtues, but i'm not coming in. _mrs. ruttledge._ i can't imagine why you won't come in and be sociable. _paul ruttledge._ you see i can't. i have something to do here. i have to finish this comb. you see it is a beautiful comb; but the wings are very short. the poor creature can't fly. _mrs. ruttledge._ but can't you finish that after lunch? _paul ruttledge._ no, i have sworn. _mrs. ruttledge._ well, i am sorry. you are always doing uncomfortable things. i must go in to the others. i wish you would have come. [_she goes in._ _jerome._ [_who has come to gate as she disappears._] paul, you there! that is lucky. i was just going to ask for you. _paul ruttledge._ [_flinging clipper away, and jumping up._] oh, father jerome, i am delighted to see you. i haven't seen you for ever so long. come and have a talk; or will you have some lunch? _jerome._ no, thank you; i will stay a minute, but i won't go in. _paul ruttledge._ that is just as well, for you would be bored to death. there has been a meeting of magistrates in the village, and my brother has brought them all in to lunch. _jerome._ i am collecting for the monastery, and my donkey has gone lame; i have had to put it up in the village. i thought you might be able to lend me one to go on with. _paul ruttledge._ of course, i'm delighted to lend you that or anything else. i'll go round to the yard with you and order it. but sit down here first. what have you been doing all this time? _jerome._ oh, we have been very busy. you know we are going to put up new buildings. _paul ruttledge._ [_absent-mindedly._] no, i didn't know that. _jerome._ yes, our school is increasing so much we are getting a grant for technical instruction. some of the fathers are learning handicrafts. father aloysius is going to study industries in france; but we are all busy. we are changing with the times, we are beginning to do useful things. _paul ruttledge._ useful things. i wonder what you have begun to call useful things. do you see those marks over there on the grass? _jerome._ what marks? _paul ruttledge._ those marks over there, those little marks of scratching. _jerome._ [_going over to the place_ paul ruttledge _has pointed out._] i don't see anything. _paul ruttledge._ you are getting blind, jerome. can't you see that the poultry have been scratching there? _jerome._ no, the grass is perfectly smooth. _paul ruttledge._ well, the marks are there, whether you see them or not; for mr. green and mr. dowler and mr. algie and the rest of them run out of their houses when nobody is looking, in their real shapes, shapes like those on my hedge. and then they begin to scratch, they scratch all together, they don't dig but they scratch, and all the time their mouths keep going like that. [_he holds out his hand and opens and shuts his fingers like a bird's bill._ _jerome._ oh, paul, you are making fun of me. _paul ruttledge._ of course i am only talking in parables. i think all the people i meet are like farmyard creatures, they have forgotten their freedom, their human bodies are a disguise, a pretence they keep up to deceive one another. _jerome._ [_sitting down._] what is wrong with you? _paul ruttledge._ oh, nothing of course. you see how happy i am. i have a good house and a good property, and my brother and his charming wife have come to look after me. you see the toys of their children here and everywhere. what should be wrong with me? _jerome._ i know you too well not to see that there is something wrong with you. _paul ruttledge._ there is nothing except that i have been thinking a good deal lately. _jerome._ perhaps your old dreams or visions or whatever they were have come back. they always made you restless. you ought to see more of your neighbours. _paul ruttledge._ there's nothing interesting but human nature, and that's in the single soul, but these neighbours of mine they think in flocks and roosts. _jerome._ you are too hard on them. they are busy men, they hav'n't much time for thought, i daresay. _paul ruttledge._ that's what i complain of. when i hear these people talking i always hear some organized or vested interest chirp or quack, as it does in the newspapers. algie chirps. even you, jerome, though i have not found your armorial beast, are getting a little monastic; when i have found it i will put it among the others. there is a place for it there, but the worst of it is that it will take so long getting nice and green. _jerome._ i don't know what creature you could make for me. _paul ruttledge._ i am not sure yet; i think it might be a pigeon, something cooing and gentle, and always coming home to the dovecot; not to the wild woods but to the dovecot. _jerome._ i wonder what creature you yourself are like. _paul ruttledge._ i daresay i am like some creature or other, for very few of us are altogether men; but if i am, i would like to be one of the wild sort. you are right about my dreams. they have been coming back lately. do you remember those strange ones i had at college? _jerome._ those visions of pulling something down? _paul ruttledge._ yes, they have come back to me lately. sometimes i dream i am pulling down my own house, and sometimes it is the whole world that i am pulling down. [_standing up._] i would like to have great iron claws, and to put them about the pillars, and to pull and pull till everything fell into pieces. _jerome._ i don't see what good that would do you. _paul ruttledge._ oh, yes it would. when everything was pulled down we would have more room to get drunk in, to drink contentedly out of the cup of life, out of the drunken cup of life. _jerome._ that is a terribly wild thought. i hope you don't believe all you say. _paul ruttledge._ perhaps not. i only know that i want to upset everything about me. have you not noticed that it is a complaint many of us have in this country? and whether it comes from love or hate i don't know, they are so mixed together here. _jerome._ i wish you would come and talk to our superior. he has a perfect gift for giving advice. _paul ruttledge._ well, we'll go to the yard now. [_he gets up._ _jerome._ i have often thought you would come to the monastery yourself in the end. you were so much the most pious of us all at school. you would be happy in a monastery. something is always happening there. _paul ruttledge._ [_as they go up the garden._] i daresay, i daresay; but i am not even sure that i am a christian. _jerome._ well, anyway, i wish that you would come and talk to our superior. [_they go out._ * * * * * charlie ward _and_ boy _enter by the path beyond the hedge and stand at gate._ _charlie ward._ no use going up there, johneen, it's too grand a place, it's a dog they might let loose on us. but i'll tell you what, just slip round to the back door and ask do they want any cans mended. _johneen._ let you take the rabbit then we're after taking out of the snare. i can't bring it round with me. _charlie ward._ faith, you can't. they think as bad of us taking a rabbit that was fed and minded by god as if it was of their own rearing; give it here to me. it's hardly it will go in my pocket, it's as big as a hare. it's next my skin i'll have to put it, or it might be noticed on me. [_boy goes out._ [charlie ward _is struggling to put rabbit inside his coat when_ paul ruttledge _comes back._ _paul ruttledge._ is there anything i can do for you? do you want to come in? _charlie ward._ i'm a tinker by trade, your honour. i wonder is there e'er a tin can the maids in the house might want mended or any chairs to be bottomed? _paul ruttledge._ a tinker; where do you live? _charlie ward._ faith, i don't stop long in any place. i go about like the crows; picking up my way of living like themselves. _paul ruttledge._ [_opening gate._] come inside here. [charlie ward _hesitates._] come in, you are welcome. [_puts his hand on his shoulder._ charlie ward _tries to close his shirt over rabbit._ _paul ruttledge._ ah, you have a rabbit there. the keeper told me he had come across some snares in my woods. _charlie ward._ if he did, sir, it was no snare of mine he found. this is a rabbit i bought in the town of garreen early this morning. sixpence i was made give for it, and to mend a tin can along with that. _paul ruttledge._ [_touching rabbit._] it's warm still, however. but the day is hot. never mind; you are quite welcome to it. i daresay you will have a cheery meal of it by the roadside; my dinners are often tiresome enough. i often wish i could change--look here, will you change clothes with me? _charlie ward._ faith, i'd swap soon enough if you weren't humbugging me. it's i that would look well with that suit on me! the peelers would all be touching their caps to me. you'd see them running out for me to sign summonses for them. _paul ruttledge._ but i am not humbugging. i am in earnest. _charlie ward._ in earnest! then when i go back i'll commit paddy cockfight to prison for hitting me yesterday. _paul ruttledge._ you don't believe me, but i will explain. i'm dead sick of this life; i want to get away; i want to escape--as you say, to pick up my living like the crows for a while. _charlie ward._ to make your escape. oh! that's different. [_coming closer._] but what is it you did? you don't look like one that would be in trouble. but sometimes a gentleman gets a bit wild when he has a drop taken. _paul ruttledge._ well, never mind. i will explain better while we are changing. come over here to the potting shed. make haste, those magistrates will be coming out. _charlie ward._ the magistrates! are they after you? hurry on, then! faith, they won't know you with this coat. [_looking at his rags._] it's a pity i didn't put on my old one coming out this morning. [_they go out through the garden._ thomas ruttledge _comes down steps from house with_ colonel lawley _and_ mr. green. _mr. green._ yes, they have made me president of the county horticultural society. my speech was quite a success; it was punctuated with applause. i said i looked upon the appointment not as a tribute to my own merits, but to their public spirit and to the society, which i assured them had come to stay. _colonel lawley._ what has become of paul and father jerome? i thought i heard their voices out here, and now they are conspicuous by their absence. _thomas ruttledge._ he seems to have no friend he cares for but that father jerome. _mr. green._ i wish he would come more into touch with his fellows. _colonel lawley._ what a pity he didn't go into the army. i wish he would join the militia. every man should try to find some useful sphere of employment. _mr. green._ thomas, your brother will never come to see me, though i often ask him. he would find the best people--people worth meeting--at my house. i wonder if he would join the horticultural society? i know i voice the sentiments of all the members in saying this. i spoke to a number of them at the function the other day. _thomas ruttledge._ i wish he would join something. joyce wants him to join the masonic lodge. it is not a right life for him to keep hanging about the place and doing nothing. _mr. green._ he won't even come and sit on the bench. it's not fair to leave so much of the work to me. i ought to get all the support possible from local men. [mrs. ruttledge _comes down steps with_ mr. dowler, mr. algie, _and_ mr. joyce. _she is walking in front._ _mrs. ruttledge._ [_to_ thomas ruttledge.] oh! thomas, isn't it too bad, paul has lent the donkey to that friar. i wanted mr. joyce to see the children in their panniers. do speak to him about it. _thomas ruttledge._ well, the donkey belongs to him, and for the matter of that so does the house and the place. it would be rather hard on him not to be able to use things as he likes. _mr. algie._ what a pleasure it must be to paul to have you and the little ones living here. he certainly owes you a debt of gratitude. man was not born to live alone. _mrs. ruttledge._ well, i think we have done him good. he hasn't done anything for years, except mope about the house and cut the bushes into those absurd shapes, and now we are trying to make him live more like other people. _colonel lawley._ he was always inclined to be a bit of a faddist. _mrs. ruttledge._ [_to_ mr. algie.] do let me give you a lesson in croquet. i have learned all the new rules. [_to_ mr. joyce.] please bring me that basket of balls. [_to colonel lawley._] will you bring me the mallets? yes, i am afraid he is a faddist. we have done our best for him, but he ought to be more with men. _mr. algie._ yes, mr. dowler was just saying he ought to try and be made a director of the new railway. _colonel lawley._ the militia--the militia. _mr. joyce._ it's a great help to a man to belong to a masonic lodge. _mr. green._ the horticultural society is in want of new members. _mrs. ruttledge._ well, i wish he would join something. * * * * * _enter_ paul ruttledge _in tinker's clothes, carrying a rabbit in his hand._ charlie ward _follows in_ paul's _clothes. all stand aghast._ _mr. joyce._ good god! [_drops basket._ colonel lawley, _who has mallets in his hand, at sight of_ paul ruttledge _drops them, and stands still._ _mrs. ruttledge._ paul! are you out of your mind? _thomas ruttledge._ for goodness' sake, paul, don't make such a fool of yourself. _mrs. ruttledge._ what on earth has happened, and who on earth is that man? _paul ruttledge._ [_opens gate for tinker. to_ charlie ward.] wait for me, my friend, down there by the cross-road. [charlie ward _goes out._ _mr. green._ has he stolen your clothes? _paul ruttledge._ oh! it's all right; i have changed clothes with him. i am going to join the tinkers. _all._ to join the tinkers! _paul ruttledge._ life is getting too monotonous; i would give it a little variety. [_to_ mr. green.] as you would say, it has been running in grooves. _mr. joyce._ [_to_ mrs. ruttledge.] this is only his humbugging talk; he never believes what he says. [paul ruttledge _goes towards the steps._ _mrs. ruttledge._ surely you are not going into the house with those clothes? _paul ruttledge._ you are quite right. thomas will go in for me. [_to_ thomas ruttledge.] just go to my study, will you, and bring me my despatch-box; i want something from it before i go. _thomas ruttledge._ where are you going to? i wish you would tell me what you are at. _paul ruttledge._ the despatch-box is on the top of the bureau. [_thomas ruttledge goes out._ _mr. joyce._ what does all this mean? _paul ruttledge._ i will explain. [_sits down on the edge of iron table._] did you never wish to be a witch, and to ride through the air on a white horse? _mr. joyce._ i can't say i ever did. _paul ruttledge._ never? only think of it--to ride in the darkness under the stars, to make one's horse leap from cloud to cloud, to watch the sea glittering under one's feet and the mountain tops going by. _colonel lawley._ but what has this to do with the tinkers? _paul ruttledge._ as i cannot find a broomstick that will turn itself into a white horse, i am going to turn tinker. _mr. dowler._ i suppose you have some picturesque idea about these people, but i assure you, you are quite wrong. they are nothing but poachers. _mr. algie._ they are nothing but thieves. _mr. joyce._ they are the worst class in the country. _paul ruttledge._ oh, i know that; they are quite lawless. that is what attracts me to them. i am going to be irresponsible. _mr. green._ one cannot escape from responsibility by joining a set of vagabonds. _paul ruttledge._ vagabonds--that is it. i want to be a vagabond, a wanderer. as i can't leap from cloud to cloud i want to wander from road to road. that little path there by the clipped edge goes up to the highroad. i want to go up that path and to walk along the highroad, and so on and on and on, and to know all kinds of people. did you ever think that the roads are the only things that are endless; that one can walk on and on and on, and never be stopped by a gate or a wall? they are the serpent of eternity. i wonder they have never been worshipped. what are the stars beside them? they never meet one another. the roads are the only things that are infinite. they are all endless. _mrs. ruttledge._ but they must stop when they come to the sea? _paul ruttledge._ ah! you are always so wise. _mr. joyce._ stop talking nonsense, paul, and throw away those filthy things. _paul ruttledge._ that would be setting cleanliness before godliness. i have begun the regeneration of my soul. _mr. dowler._ i don't see what godliness has got to do with it. _mr. algie._ nor i either. _paul ruttledge._ there was a saint who said, "i must rejoice without ceasing, although the world shudder at my joy." he did not think he could save his soul without it. i agree with him, and as i was discontented here, i thought it time to make a change. like that worthy man, i must be content to shock my friends. _mr. dowler._ but you had everything here you could want. _paul ruttledge._ that's just it. you who are so wealthy, you of all people should understand that i want to get rid of all that responsibility, answering letters and so on. it is not worth the trouble of being rich if one has to answer letters. could you ever understand, georgina, that one gets tired of many charming things? there are family responsibilities [_to_ mr. joyce], but i can see that you, who were my guardian, sympathize with me in that. _mr. joyce._ indeed i do not. _mrs. ruttledge._ i should think you could be cheerful without ceasing to be a gentleman. _paul ruttledge._ you are thinking of my clothes. we must feel at ease with the people we live amongst. i shall feel at ease with the great multitude in these clothes. i am beginning to be a man of the world. i am the beggarman of all the ages--i have a notion homer wrote something about me. _mr. dowler._ he is either making fun of us or talking great rot. i can't listen to any more of this nonsense. i can't see why a man with property can't let well alone. algie are you coming my way? [_they both go into the house, and come out presently with umbrella and coat._ _mr. green._ depend upon it, he's going to write a book. there was a man who made quite a name for himself by sleeping in a casual ward. _paul ruttledge._ oh! no, i'm not going to write about it; if one writes one can do nothing else. i am going to express myself in life. [_to_ thomas ruttledge _who has returned with box._] i hope soon to live by the work of my hands, but every trade has to be learned, and i must take something to start with. [_to_ mrs. ruttledge.] do you think you will have any kettles to mend when i come this way again? [_he has taken box from_ thomas ruttledge _and unlocked it._ _thomas ruttledge._ i can't make head or tail of what you are at. _colonel lawley._ what he is at is fads. _mr. green._ i don't think his motive is far to seek. he has some idea of going back to the dark ages. rousseau had some idea of the same kind, but it didn't work. _paul ruttledge._ yes; i want to go back to the dark ages. _mr. green._ do you want to lose all the world has gained since then? _paul ruttledge._ what has it gained? i am among those who think that sin and death came into the world the day newton eat the apple. [_to_ mrs. ruttledge, _who is going to speak._] i know you are going to tell me he only saw it fall. never mind, it is all the same thing. _mrs. ruttledge._ [_beginning to cry._] oh! he is going mad! _mr. joyce._ i'm afraid he is really leaving us. _paul ruttledge._ [_who has been looking at papers, tearing one or two, etc., takes out a packet of notes, which he puts in his breast._] i daresay this will last me long enough, thomas. i am not robbing you of very much. well, good-bye. [_pats him gently on the shoulder._] i mustn't forget the rabbit, it may be my dinner to-night; i wonder who will skin it. good-bye, colonel, i think i've astonished you to-day. [_slaps his shoulder._] that was too hard, was it? forgive it, you know i'm a common man now. [_lifts his hat and goes out of gate. closes it after him and stands with his hands on it, and speaks with the voice of a common man._] go on, live in your poultry-yard. scratch straw and cluck and cackle at everything that you take for a fox. [_exit._ _mr. joyce._ [_goes to_ mrs. ruttledge, _who has sat down and is wiping her eyes._] i am very sorry for this, for his father's sake, but it may be as well in the end. if it comes to the worst, you and thomas will keep up the family name better than he would have done. _mr. dowler._ he'll find the poor very different from what he thinks when they pick his pocket. _colonel lawley._ to think that a magistrate should have such fads! _mr. green._ i venture to say you will see him here in a very different state of mind in a week. _mr. algie._ [_who has been in a brown study._] he has done for himself in this world and the next. why, he won't be asked to a single shoot if this is heard of. _thomas ruttledge._ [_turning from the gate._] here are the children, georgina. don't say anything before the nurse. _mr. green._ well, i must be off. [_goes in for stick._ _mr. joyce._ just bring me out my coat, green. [_they all prepare to go._ mrs. ruttledge _has gone to open gate and children come in, one in a perambulator. all gather round them admiringly._ _mr. joyce._ have you a kiss for godfather to-day? _mrs. ruttledge._ the poor darlings! i hope they will never know what has happened. _colonel lawley._ thank goodness, they have no nonsense in their heads. we know where we are with them. curtain. act ii. scene: _by the roadside. a wall of unmortared stone in the background. tinkers' encampment. men, women, and children standing round._ paul ruttledge _standing by a fire._ _paul ruttledge._ what do you mean by "tinning" the soldering iron? _charlie ward._ if the face of it is not well tinned it won't lift the solder. show me here. [_takes soldering iron from_ paul ruttledge's _hand._ _paul ruttledge._ [_sitting down and drawing a tin can to him._] now, let me see how you mend this hole. it seems easy. i'm sure i will be able to learn it as well as any of you. [_two tinkers come and stand over him._ _charlie ward._ [_pointing to one of them._] this, sir, is tommy the song. he's the best singer we have, but the divil a much good he is only that. he's a great warrant to snare hares. _tommy the song._ is the gentleman going to join us? _paul ruttledge._ indeed i am, if you'll let me. there's nothing i'd like better. _tommy the song._ but are you going to learn the trade? _paul ruttledge._ yes, if you'll teach me. i'm sure i'll make a good tinker. look at that now, see how i've stopped that hole already. _charlie ward._ [_taking the can from him and looking at it._] if every can had a little hole in the middle like that, i think you _would_ be able to mend them; but there's the straight hole, and the crooked hole, the round hole, the square hole, the angle hole, the bottom hole, the top hole, the side leak, the open leak, the leak-all-round, but i won't frighten you with the names of them all, only this i will say, that, when you've learned to mend all the leakages in a can--and that should take you a year--you're only in the first day of the tinker's week. _tommy the song._ don't believe him. he's only humbugging you. it's not the hardness of the work will daunt you. _paul ruttledge._ thank you. i was not believing him at all. i'm quite sure i'll be able to mend any can at the end of a week, but the bottoming of them will take longer. i can see that's not so easy. when will you start to teach me that, charlie? _charlie ward._ [_as another tinker comes up._] paddy, here's the gentleman i was telling you about. he's going to join us for good and all. [_to_ paul ruttledge.] wait till we have time and some quiet place, and he'll show you as good a cockfight as ever you saw. [_a woman comes up._] this is his wife; molly the scold we call her; faith, she is a better fighter than any cock he ever had in a basket; he'd find it hard to shut the lid on her. _molly the scold._ the gentleman seems foolish. is he all there? _paddy cockfight._ stop your chat, molly, or i'll hit you a welt. _charlie ward._ keep your tongue quiet, molly. if the gentleman has reasons for keeping out of the way it isn't for us to be questioning him. [_to_ paul ruttledge.] don't mind her, she's cross enough, but maybe your own ladies would be cross as well if they saw their young sons dying by the roadside in a little kennel of straw under the ass-cart the way she did; from first to last. _paul ruttledge._ i suppose you have your troubles like others. but you seem cheerful enough. _charlie ward._ it isn't anything to fret about. some of us go soon, and some travel the roads for their lifetime. what does it matter when we are under the nettles if it was with a short rope or a long one we were hanged? _paul ruttledge._ yes, that is the way to take life. what does the length of our rope matter? _charlie ward._ we haven't time to be thinking of troubles like people that would be shut up in a house. we have the wide world before us to make our living out of. the people of the whole world are begrudging us our living, and we make it out of them for all that. when they will spread currant cakes and feather beds before us, it will be time for us to sit down and fret. _tommy the song._ it's likely you'll think the life too hard. would you like to be passing by houses in the night-time, and the fire shining out of them, and you hardly given the loan of a sod to light your pipe, and the rain falling on you? _paul ruttledge._ why are the people so much against you? _tommy the song._ we are not like themselves. it's little we care about them or they about us. if their saint did curse us itself---_charlie ward._ stop. i won't have you talking about that story here. why would they think so much of the curse of one saint, and saints so plenty? _paddy cockfight._ where's the good of a gentleman being here? he'll be breaking down on the road. it's on the ass-cart he'll be wanting to sit. _tommy the song._ indeed, i don't think he'll stand the hardship. _paul ruttledge._ oh, i'll stand it well enough. _tommy the song._ you're not like us that were reared to it. you were not born like us with wandering in the heart. _paul ruttledge._ oh yes, i have wandering in the heart. i got sick of these lighted rooms you were talking of just now. _charlie ward._ that might be so. it's the dark is welcome to a man sometimes. _paul ruttledge._ the dark. yes, i think that is what i want. [_stands up._] the dark, where there is nothing that is anything, and nobody that is anybody; one can be free there, where there is nothing. well, if you let me stay with you, i don't think you will hear any complaints from me. charlie ward, paddy, and the rest of you, i want you to understand that from this out i am one of yourselves. i'll live as you live and do as you do. [johneen _and other children come running in._ _johneen._ i was on the top of the bank and i seen a priest coming down the cross-road with his ass. it's collecting he is. we're going to set ourselves here to beg something from him. _another child._ [_breathlessly._] and he has a whole lot of things on the ass. a whole lot of things up behind him. _another child._ o boys, o boys, we'll have our dealing trick out of them yet. the best way'll be---[_he suddenly catches sight of_ paul ruttledge.] whist, ye divils ye, don't you see the new gentleman? _paul ruttledge._ speak out, boys; don't be afraid of me; i'm one of yourselves now. _child._ oh! but we were going to---but i won't tell you. [_to the other_ children.] come away here, and we'll not tell him what we'll do. _paul ruttledge._ [_to_ charlie ward.] what are they going to do? they're putting their heads together. _charlie ward._ they're going to put a bush across the road, and when the friar gets down to pull it out of the way they'll snap what they can off the ass, and away with them. _paul ruttledge._ and why wouldn't they tell me that? am i not one of yourselves? _charlie ward._ ah! it's likely they'll never trust you. _paul ruttledge._ but they will soon see that i am one of themselves. _charlie ward._ no; but that's the very thing, you're not one of ourselves. you were not born on the road, reared on the road, married on the road like us. _paul ruttledge._ well, it's too late for me to be reared on the road, but i don't see why i shouldn't marry on the road like you. i certainly would do it if it would make me one of you. _charlie ward._ it might make you one of us, there's no doubt about that. it's the only thing that would do it. _paul ruttledge._ well, find a wife for me. _charlie ward._ faith, you haven't far to go to find one. paddy there will give you over his wife quick enough; he won't make a hard bargain over her. _paul ruttledge._ but i am in earnest. i want to cut myself off from my old life. _charlie ward._ oh! i was forgetting that. _sabina silver._ [_to_ molly.] i wonder what was it he did? i wonder had he the misfortune to kill anybody? _charlie ward._ [_calling_ sabina _over._] here's a girl should make a good wife, sabina silver her name is. her father is just dead; he didn't treat her over well. _sabina silver._ [_coming over._] what is it? _charlie ward._ this gentleman wants to speak to you. i think he's looking out for a wife. _sabina silver._ [_hanging her head._] don't be humbugging me. _paul ruttledge._ indeed he's not, sabina. _sabina silver._ you're only joking a poor girl. sure, what would make you think of me at all? _paul ruttledge._ sabina, have you been always on the road with charlie ward and the others? _sabina silver._ i have, indeed. _paul ruttledge._ and you'd make a good tinker's wife? _sabina silver._ you're joking me, but i would be a better wife for a tinker than for anyone else. _paul ruttledge._ sabina, will you marry me? _sabina silver._ oh! but i'd be afraid. _paul ruttledge._ why, sabina? _sabina silver._ i'd be afraid you'd beat me. _charlie ward._ you see her father used to beat her. she's afraid of the look of a man now. _paul ruttledge._ i would not beat you, sabina. how can you have got such an idea? _sabina silver._ will you promise me that you won't beat me? will you swear it to me? _paul ruttledge._ of course i will. _sabina silver._ [_to_ charlie ward.] will you make him swear it? haven't you a little book in your pack? bring it out and make him swear to me on it, and you'll be my witness. _charlie ward._ i think, sibby, you need not be afraid. _sabina silver._ what's your name, gentleman? _paul ruttledge._ my name is paul. do you like it? _sabina silver._ then i won't marry you, mr. paul, till you swear to me upon the book that you will never beat me with any stick that you could call a stick, and that you will never strike a kick on me from behind. _paul ruttledge._ charlie, go and bring out that book to satisfy her. of course i swear that; it is absurd. [charlie ward _brings the book out of his pack._ _paul ruttledge._ i swear, sabina, that i will never strike you with any stick of any kind, and that i will never kick you. there, will that do? [_he takes book and kisses it._ _sabina silver._ i misdoubt you. kiss the book again. [paul ruttledge _kisses it._ _charlie ward._ that's all right. _a child._ [_crying from a distance._] he's coming now, the priest's coming! _paul ruttledge._ then the priest will marry us. that comes in very handy. _charlie ward._ [_scornfully._] a priest marry you, indeed he'll do nothing of the kind. i hate priests and friars. it's unlucky to get talking to them at all. you never know what trouble you're in for. _a child._ [_coming up._] that's true, indeed. the last time i spoke to a priest it's what he leathered me with a stick; may the divil fly away with him. _paul ruttledge._ but somebody must marry us. _charlie ward._ of course. you'll lep over the tinker's budget the usual way. you'll just marry her by lepping over the budget the same as the rest of us marry. _paul ruttledge._ that's all i want to know. please marry me in whatever is your usual way. * * * * * jerome _enters, leading the ass. he carries a pig's cheek, some groceries, a string of onions, etc., on the ass, which still has its nursery trappings. he goes up to_ charlie ward _thinking he is_ paul ruttledge. _jerome._ paul, what are you doing here? _charlie ward._ [_turning._] what do you want? _jerome._ oh! i'm mistaken. i thought---_paul ruttledge._ i am here, father jerome, but you're talking to the wrong man. _jerome._ good god, paul, what has happened? _paul ruttledge._ nothing has happened that need surprise you. don't you remember what we talked of to-day? you told me i was too much by myself. after you went away i thought i would make a change. _jerome._ but a change like this! _paul ruttledge._ why should you find fault with it? i am richer now than i was then. i only lent you that donkey then, now i give him to you. _jerome._ what has brought you among such people as these? _paul ruttledge._ i find them on the whole better company than the people i left a little while ago. let me introduce you to---_jerome._ what can you possibly gain by coming here? are you going to try and teach them? _paul ruttledge._ oh! no, i am going to learn from them. _jerome._ what can you learn from them? _paul ruttledge._ to pick up my living like the crows, and to solder tin cans. just give me that one i mended a while ago. [_holds it out to_ father jerome. _jerome._ that is all nonsense. _paul ruttledge._ i am happy. do not your saints put all opponents to the rout by saying they alone of all mankind are happy? _jerome._ i suppose you will not compare the happiness of these people with the happiness of saints? _paul ruttledge._ there are all sorts of happiness. some find their happiness like thomas ã  kempis, with a little book and a little cell. _paddy cockfight._ i would wonder at anybody that could be happy in a cell. _paul ruttledge._ these men fight in their way as your saints fought, for their hand is against the world. i want the happiness of men who fight, who are hit and hit back, not the fighting of men in red coats, that formal, soon-finished fighting, but the endless battle, the endless battle. tell me, father jerome, did you ever listen in the middle of the night? _jerome._ listen for what? _paul ruttledge._ did you ever, when the monastery was silent, and the dogs had stopped barking, listen till you heard music? _jerome._ what sort of music do you mean? _paul ruttledge._ not the music we hear with these ears [_touching his ears_], but the music of paradise. _jerome._ brother colman once said he heard harps in the night. _paul ruttledge._ harps! it was because he was shut in a cell he heard harps, maybe it sounds like harps in a cell. but the music i have heard sometimes is made of the continual clashing of swords. it comes rejoicing from paradise. _jerome._ these are very wild thoughts. _tommy the song._ i often heard music in the forths. there is many of us hear it when we lie with our heads on the ground at night. _jerome._ that was not the music of paradise. _paul ruttledge._ why should they not hear that music, although it may not set them praying, but dancing. _jerome._ how can you think you will ever find happiness amongst their devils' mirth? _paul ruttledge._ i have taken to the roads because there is a wild beast i would overtake, and these people are good snarers of beasts. they can help me. _charlie ward._ what kind of a wild beast is it you want? _paul ruttledge._ oh! it's a very terrible wild beast, with iron teeth and brazen claws that can root up spires and towers. _charlie ward._ it's best not to try and overtake a beast like that, but to cross running water and leave it after you. _tommy the song._ i heard one coming after me one night; very big and shadowy it was, and i could hear it breathing. but when it came up with me i lifted a hazel rod was in my hand, and it was gone on the moment. _paul ruttledge._ my wild beast is laughter, the mightiest of the enemies of god. i will outrun it and make it friendly. _jerome._ that is your old wild talk. do have some sense and go back to your family. _paul ruttledge._ i am never going back to them. i am going to live among these people. i will marry among them. _jerome._ that is nonsense; you will soon change your mind. _paul ruttledge._ oh! no, i won't; i am taking my vows as you made yours when you entered religion. i have chosen my wife; i am going to marry before evening. _jerome._ thank god, you will have to stop short of that, the church will never marry you. _paul ruttledge._ oh! i am not going to ask the help of the church. but i am to be married by what may be as old a ceremony as yours. what is it i am to do, charlie? _charlie ward._ to lep a budget, sir. _paul ruttledge._ yes, that is it, the budget is there by the wall. _jerome._ i command you, in the name of the holy church and of the teaching you have received from the church, to leave this folly, this degradation, this sin! _paul ruttledge._ you forget, jerome, that i am on the track of the wild beast, and hunters in all ages have been a bad people to preach to. when i have tamed the beast, perhaps i will bring him to your religious house to be baptized. _jerome._ i will not listen to this profanity. [_to_ charlie ward.] it is you who have put this madness on him as you have stolen his clothes! _charlie ward._ stop your chat, ye petticoated preacher. _paul ruttledge._ i think, father jerome, you had better be getting home. this people never gave in to the preaching of s. patrick. _paddy cockfight._ i'll send you riding home with your face to the tail of the ass! _tommy the song._ no, stop till we show you that we can make as good curses as yourself. that you may never be warm in winter or cold in summer time---_charlie ward._ that's the chat! bravo! let him have it. _tinkers._ be off! be off out of this! _molly the scold._ now curse him, tommy. _tommy the song._ a wide hoarseness on you--a high hanging to you on a windy day; that shivering fever may stretch you nine times, and that the curses of the poor may be your best music, and you hiding behind the door. [jerome _goes out._ _molly the scold._ and you hiding behind the door, and squeezed between the hinges and the wall. _other tinkers._ squeezed between the hinges and the wall. [_they follow_ jerome. _paul ruttledge._ [_crying after them._] don't harm that gentleman; he is a friend of mine. [_he goes to the wall, and stands there silently, looking upward._ _sabina silver._ it was grand talk, indeed: i didn't understand a word of it. _paul ruttledge._ the crows are beginning to fly home. there is a flock of them high up under that cloud. i wonder where their nests are. _charlie ward._ a long way off, among those big trees about tillyra castle. _paul ruttledge._ yes, i remember. i have seen them coming home there on a windy evening, tossing and whirling like the sea. they may have seen what i am looking for, they fly so far. a sailor told me once that he saw a crow three hundred miles from land, but maybe he was a liar. _charlie ward._ well, they fly far, anyway. _paul ruttledge._ they tell one another what they have seen, too. that is why they make so much noise. maybe their news goes round the world. [_he comes towards the others._] i think they have seen my wild beast, laughter. they could tell me if he has a face smoky from the eternal fires, and wings of brass and claws of brass--claws of brass. [_holds out his hands and moves them like claws._] sabina, would you like to see a beast with eyes hard and cold and blue, like sapphires? would you, sabina? well, it's time now for the wedding. so what shall we get for the wedding party? what would you like, sabina? _sabina silver._ i don't know. _paul ruttledge._ what do you say, charlie? a wedding cake and champagne. how would you like champagne? [tinkers _begin to return_. _charlie ward._ it might be middling. _paul ruttledge._ what would you say to a--- * * * * * _one of the_ boys _runs in carrying a pig's cheek. the rest of the_ tinkers _return with him_. _boy._ i knew i could do it. i told you i'd have my dealing trick out of the priest. i took a hold of this, and johneen made a snap at the onions. _paul ruttledge._ and he didn't catch you? _boy._ he'd want to be a lot smarter than he is to do that. _paul ruttledge._ you are a smart lad, anyway. what do you say we should have for our wedding party? _boy._ are you rich? _paul ruttledge._ more or less. _boy._ i seen a whole truck full of cakes and bullseyes in the village below. could you buy the whole of them? _charlie ward._ stop talking nonsense. what we want is porter. _paul ruttledge._ all right. how many public-houses are there in the village? _tommy the song._ twenty-four. _paul ruttledge._ is there any place we can have barrels brought to? _charlie ward._ there's a shed near seems to be empty. we might go there. _paul ruttledge._ then go and order as many barrels as we can make use of to be brought there. _paddy cockfight._ we will; and we'll stop till we've drunk them out. _paul ruttledge._ [_taking out money._] i have more money than will pay for that. sabina, we'll treat the whole neighbourhood in honour of our wedding. i'll have all the public-houses thrown open, and free drinks going for a week! _tinkers._ hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! _charlie ward._ three cheers more, boys. _all._ hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! _the boys._ now here's the budget. _paul ruttledge._ [_taking_ sabina silver's _hand_.] now, sabina, one, two, three! curtain. act iii. scene: _a large shed. some sheepskins hanging up. irons and pots for branding sheep, some pitchforks, etc. tinkers playing cards,_ paul ruttledge _sitting on an upturned basket_. _charlie ward._ stop that melodeon, now will ye, and we'll have a taste of the cocks. paul didn't see them yet what they can do. where's tommy? where in the earthly world is tommy the song? _paddy cockfight._ he's over there in the corner. _charlie ward._ what are you doing there, tommy? _tommy the song._ taking a mouthful of prayers, i am. _charlie ward._ praying! did anyone ever hear the like of that? pull him out of the corner. [paddy cockfight _pulls_ tommy the song _out of the corner_. _charlie ward._ what is it you were praying for, i would like to know? _tommy the song._ i was praying that we might all soon die. _paddy cockfight._ die, is it? _charlie ward._ is it die and all that porter about? well! you have done enough praying, go over there and look for the basket. who was it set him praying, i wonder? i am thinking it is the first prayer he ever said in his life. _sabina silver._ it's likely it was paul. he's after talking to him through the length of an hour. _paul ruttledge._ maybe it was. don't mind him. i said just now that when we were all dead and in heaven it would be a sort of drunkenness, a sort of ecstasy. there is a hymn about it, but it is in latin. "et calix meus inebrians quam praeclarus est." how splendid is the cup of my drunkenness! _charlie ward._ well, that is a great sort of a hymn. i never thought there was a hymn like that, i never did. _paddy cockfight._ to think, now, there is a hymn like that. i mustn't let it slip out of my mind. how splendid is the cup of my drunkenness, that's it. _charlie ward._ have you found that old bird of mine? _tommy the song._ [_who has been searching among the baskets._] here he is, in the basket and a lot of things over it. _charlie ward._ get out that new speckled bird of yours, paddy, i've been wanting to see how could he play for a week past. _paul ruttledge._ where do you get the cocks? _paddy cockfight._ it was a man below mullingar owned this one. the day i first seen him i fastened my two eyes on him, he preyed on my mind, and next night, if i didn't go back every foot of nine miles to put him in my bag. _paul ruttledge._ do you pay much for a good fighting cock? _sabina silver._ [_laughs._] do you pay much, paddy? _paul ruttledge._ perhaps you don't pay anything. _sabina silver._ i think paddy gets them cheap. _charlie ward._ he gets them cheaper than another man would, anyhow. _paddy cockfight._ he's the best cock i ever saw before or since. believe me, i made no mistake when i pitched on him. _tommy the song._ i don't care what you think of him. i'll back the red; it's he has the lively eye. _molly the scold._ andy farrell had an old cock, and it bent double like himself, and all the feathers flittered out of it, but i hold you he'd leather both your red and your speckled cock together. i tell ye, boys, that was the cock! [_uproarious shouts and yells heard outside._ _charlie ward._ those free drinks of yours, paul, is playing the devil with them. do you hear them now and every roar out of them? they're putting the cocks astray. [_he takes out a cock._] sure they think it's thunder. _molly the scold._ there's not a man of them outside there now but would be ready to knock down his own brother. _tommy the song._ he wouldn't know him to knock him down. they're all blind. i never saw the like of it. _paul ruttledge._ you in here stood it better than that. _charlie ward._ when those common men drink it's what they fall down. they haven't the heads. they're not like us that have to keep heads and heels on us. _paddy cockfight._ it's well we kept them out of this, or they'd be lying on the floor now, and there'd be no place for my poor bird to show himself off. look at him now! isn't he the beauty! [_takes out the cock._ _charlie ward._ now boys, settle the place, put over those barrels out of that. [_they push barrels into a row at back._] paul, you sit on the bin the way you'll get a good view. [_a loud knock at the door. an authoritative voice outside._ _voice._ open this door. _paddy cockfight._ that's green, the removable; i know his voice well! _charlie ward._ clear away, boys. back with those cocks. there, throw that sack over the baskets. quick, will ye! _colonel lawley._ [_outside._] open this door at once. _mr. green._ [_outside._] i insist on this door being opened. _molly the scold._ what do they want at all? i wish we didn't come into a place with no back door to it. _paul ruttledge._ there's nothing to be afraid of. open the door, charlie. [charlie ward _opens the door_. * * * * * _enter_ mr. green, colonel lawley, mr. dowler, mr. joyce, mr. algie _and_ thomas ruttledge. _paddy cockfight._ all j.p.'s; i have looked at every one of them from the dock! _mr. green._ mr. ruttledge, this is very sad. _mr. joyce._ this is a disgraceful business, paul; the whole countryside is demoralized. there is not a man who has come to sensible years who is not drunk. _mr. dowler._ this is a flagrant violation of all propriety. society is shaken to its roots. my own servants have been led astray by the free drinks that are being given in the village. my butler, who has been with me for seven years, has not been seen for the last two days. _paul ruttledge._ i am sure you will echo mr. dowler, algie. _mr. algie._ indeed i do. i endorse his sentiments completely. there has not been a stroke of work done for the last week. the hay is lying in ridges where it has been cut, there is not a man to be found to water the cattle. it is impossible to get as much as a horse shod in the village. _paul ruttledge._ i think you have something to say, colonel lawley? _colonel lawley._ i have undoubtedly. i want to know when law and order are to be re-established. the police have been quite unable to cope with the disorder. some of them have themselves got drunk. if my advice had been taken the military would have been called in. _mr. green._ the military are not indispensable on occasions like the present. there are plenty of police coming now. we have wired to dublin for them, they will be here by the four o'clock train. _paul ruttledge._ [_gets down from his bin._] but you have not told me what you have come here for? is there anything i can do for you? _thomas ruttledge._ won't you come home, paul? the children have been asking for you, and we don't know what to say. _mr. green._ we have come to request you to go to the public-houses, to stop the free drinks, to send the people back to their work. as for those tinkers, the law will deal with them when the police arrive. _thomas ruttledge._ oh, paul, why have you upset the place like this? _paul ruttledge._ well, i wanted to give a little pleasure to my fellow-creatures. _mr. dowler._ this seems rather a low form of pleasure. _paul ruttledge._ i daresay it seems to you a little violent. but the poor have very few hours in which to enjoy themselves; they must take their pleasure raw; they haven't the time to cook it. _mr. algie._ but drunkenness! _paul ruttledge._ [_putting his hand on the shoulders of two of the magistrates._] have we not tried sobriety? do you like it? i found it very dull? [_a yell from outside._] there is not one of those people outside but thinks that he is a king, that he is riding the wind. there is not one of them that would not hit the world a slap in the face. some poet has written that exuberance is beauty, and that the roadway of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. but i forgot--you do not read the poets. _mr. dowler._ what we want to know is, are you going to send the people back to their work? _paul ruttledge._ oh, work is such a little thing in comparison with experience. think what it is to them to have their imagination like a blazing tar-barrel for a whole week. work could never bring them such blessedness as that. _mr. dowler._ everyone knows there is no more valuable blessing than work. _mr. algie._ idleness is the curse of this country. _paul ruttledge._ i am prejudiced, for i have always been an idler. doubtless, the poor must work. it was, no doubt, of them you were speaking. yet, doesn't the church say, doesn't it describe heaven as a place where saints and angels only sing and hold branches and wander about hand in hand. that must be changed. we must teach the poor to think work a thing fit for heaven, a blessed thing. i'll tell you what we'll do, dowler. will you subscribe, and you, and you, and we'll send lecturers about with magic lanterns showing heaven as it should be, the saints with spades and hammers in their hands and everybody working. the poor might learn to think more of work then. will you join in that scheme, dowler? _mr. dowler._ i think you'd better leave these subjects alone. it is obvious you have cut yourself off from both religion and society. _mr. green._ the world could not go on without work. _paul ruttledge._ the world could not go on without work! the world could not go on without work! i must think about it. [_gets up on bin._] why should the world go on? perhaps the christian teacher came to bring it to an end. let us send messengers everywhere to tell the people to stop working, and then the world may come to an end. he spoke of the world, the flesh, and the devil. perhaps it would be a good thing to end these one by one. _colonel lawley._ come away out of this. he has gone mad. _paul ruttledge._ ah! i thought that would scare them. _mr. joyce._ i wish, paul, you would come back and live like a christian. _paul ruttledge._ like a christian? _mr. joyce._ come away, there's no use stopping here any longer. _paul ruttledge._ [_sternly._] wait, i have something to say to that. [_to_ charlie ward.] do not let anyone leave this place. [tinkers _close together at the door_. _mr. green._ [_to_ tinkers.] this is nonsense. let me through. [tinker _spreads out his arms before him_. _paul ruttledge._ you have come into a different kingdom now; the old kingdom of the people of the roads, the houseless people. we call ourselves tinkers, and you are going to put us on our trial if you can. you call yourselves christians and we will put you on your trial first. i will put the world on its trial, and myself of yesterday. [_to a_ boy.] run out, johneen, keep a watch, and tell us when the train is coming. sabina, that rope; we will set these gentlemen on those barrels. [tinkers _take hold of them_. _colonel lawley._ keep your hands off me, you drunken scoundrel! [_strikes at_ charlie ward, _but_ tinkers _seize his arms behind_. _paul ruttledge._ tie all their hands behind them. _mr. dowler._ we'd better give in, there's no saying how many more of them there are. _mr. algie._ i'll be quiet, the odds are too great against us. _mr. green._ the police will soon be here; we may as well stay quietly. _paddy cockfight._ here, give it to me, i'll put a good twist in it. don't be afraid, sir, it's not about your neck i'm putting it----. there now, sit quiet and easy, and you won't feel it at all. _paul ruttledge._ are all their hands tied? now then, heave them up on to the barrels. [_slight scuffle, during which all are put on the barrels in a semicircle._ _paul ruttledge._ ah! yes, you are on my barrels now; last time i saw you, you were on your own dunghill. let me see, is there anyone here who can write? _charlie ward._ nobody. _paul ruttledge._ never mind, you can keep count on your fingers. the rest must sit down and behave themselves as befits a court. they say they are living like christians. let us see. _thomas ruttledge._ oh, paul, don't make such a fool of yourself. _paul ruttledge._ the point is not wisdom or folly, but the christian life. _mr. dowler._ don't answer him, thomas. let us preserve our dignity. _mr. algie._ yes, let us keep a dignified attitude--we won't answer these ruffians at all. _paul ruttledge._ respect the court! [_turns to colonel lawley._] you have served your queen and country in the field, and now you are a colonel of militia. _colonel lawley._ well, what is there to be ashamed of in that? answer me that, now. _paul ruttledge._ yet there is an old saying about turning the other cheek, an old saying, a saying so impossible that the world has never been able to get it out of its mind. you have helped to enlist men for the army, i think? some of them have fought in the late war, and you have even sent some of your own militia there. _colonel lawley._ if i did i'm proud of it. _paul ruttledge._ did they think it was a just war? _colonel lawley._ that was not their business. they had taken the queen's pay. they would have disgraced themselves if they had not gone. _paul ruttledge._ is it not the doctrine of your christian church, of your catholic church, that he who fights in an unjust war, knowing it to be unjust, loses his own soul? _colonel lawley._ i should like to know what would happen to the country if there weren't soldiers to protect it. _paul ruttledge._ we are not discussing the country, we are discussing the christian life. has this gentleman lived the christian life? _all the tinkers._ he has not! _paddy cockfight._ his sergeant tried to enlist me, giving me a shilling, and i drunk. _tommy the song._ [_singing._] she bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree, but i, being young and foolish, with her would not agree. _charlie ward._ stop your mouth, tommy. this is not your show. [_to_ paul ruttledge.] are you going to put a fine on the colonel? if so i'd like his cloak. _paul ruttledge._ now we'll try mr. dowler, the rich man. [_holds up his fingers in a ring._] mr. dowler, could you go through this? _mr. algie._ don't answer him, dowler; he's going beyond all bounds. _paul ruttledge._ i was a rich man and i could not, and yet i am something smaller than a camel, and this is something larger than a needle's eye. _mr. joyce._ don't answer this profanity. _charlie ward._ but what about the cloak? _paul ruttledge._ oh! go and take it. [charlie ward _goes and takes cloak off the_ colonel. _colonel lawley._ you drunken rascal, i'll see you in the dock for this. _mr. joyce._ you're encouraging robbery now. _paul ruttledge._ remember the commandment, "give to him that asketh thee"; and the hard commandment goes even farther, "him that taketh thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also." [_holding out his rags._] have i not shown you what mr. green would call a shining example. charlie, ask them all for their coats. _charlie ward._ i will, and their boots, too. _all the tinkers._ [_uproariously._] give me your coat; i'll have your boots, etc. _mr. green._ wait till the police come. i'll turn the tables on you; you may all expect hard labour for this. _paul ruttledge._ [_to the_ tinkers.] stand back, the trial is not over. mr. green, these friends of yours have been convicted of breaking the doctrine they boast of. they do not love their enemies; they do not give to every man that asks of them. some of them, mr. dowler, for instance, lay up treasures upon earth; they ask their goods again of those who have taken them away. but you, mr. green, are the worst of all. they break the law of christ for their own pleasure, but you take pay for breaking it. when their goods are taken away you condemn the taker; when they are smitten on one cheek you punish the smiter. you encourage them in their breaking of the law of christ. _tommy the song._ he does, indeed. he gave me two months for snaring rabbits. _paddy cockfight._ he tried to put a fine on me for a cock i had, and he took five shillings off molly for hitting a man. _paul ruttledge._ your evidence is not wanted. his own words are enough. [_stretching out his arms._] have any of these gentlemen been living the christian life? _all._ they have not. _johneen._ [_coming in._] ye'd best clear off now. i see the train coming in to the station. _paddy cockfight._ the police will find plenty to do in the village before they come to us; that's one good job. _paul ruttledge._ one moment. i have done trying the world i have left. you have accused me of upsetting order by my free drinks, and i have showed you that there is a more dreadful fermentation in the sermon on the mount than in my beer-barrels. christ thought it in the irresponsibility of his omnipotence. [_getting from his bin._] charlie, give me that cloak. [_he flings it back._ _charlie ward._ aren't you going to punish them anyway? _paul ruttledge._ no, no, from this out i would punish nobody but myself. [_some of the_ tinkers _have gone out_. _charlie ward._ we'd best be off while we can. come along, paul, sibby's gone. [_as they go out_ tommy the song _is singing_, down by the sally garden my love and i did stand, and on my leaning shoulder she laid her milk-white hand; she bade me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree, but i, being young and foolish, with her would not agree. [_all go out except_ paul ruttledge. _paul ruttledge._ well, good-bye, thomas; i don't suppose i'll see you again. use all i have; spend it on your children; i'll never want it. [_to the others._] will you come and join us? we will find rags for you all. perhaps you will give up that dream that is fading from you, and come among the blind, homeless people; put off the threadbare clothes of the apostles and run naked for awhile. [_is going out._ _thomas ruttledge._ you have nothing against me, have you, paul? _paul ruttledge._ oh, yes, i have; a little that i have said against all these, and a worse thing than all, though it is not in the book. _thomas ruttledge._ what is it? _paul ruttledge._ [_looking back from the threshold._] you have begotten fools. curtain. act iv. scene 1.--_great door in the middle of the stage under a stone cross, with flights of steps leading to door. enter_ charlie ward, paddy cockfight, tommy the song, _and_ sabina silver. _they are supporting_ paul ruttledge, _who is bent and limping._ _charlie ward._ we must leave you here. the monks will take you in. we're very sorry, paul. it's a heartscald to us to leave you and you know that, but what can we do? [_they lead_ paul ruttledge _to steps._ _paul ruttledge._ ah! that was a bad stitch! [_gasps._] take care now; put me down gently. _sabina silver._ oh! can't we keep him with us anyway; he'll find no one to care him as well as myself. _tommy the song._ what way can you care him, sibby? it's no way to have him lying out on the roadside under guano bags, like ourselves, and the rain coming down on him like it did last night. it's in hospital he'll be for the next month. _charlie ward._ we'd never leave you if you could even walk. if we have to give you to the monks itself, we'd keep round the place to encourage you, only for the last business. we'll have to put two counties at least between us and gortmore after what we're after doing. _paul ruttledge._ never mind, boys, they'll never insult a tinker again in gortmore as long as the town's a town. _charlie ward._ dear knows! it breaks my heart to think of the fine times we had of it since you joined us. why the months seemed like days. and all the fine sprees we had together! now you're gone from us we might as well be jailed at once. _paddy cockfight._ and how you took to the cocks! i believe you were a better judge than myself. no one but you would ever have fancied that black-winged cock--and he never met his match. _paul ruttledge._ ah! well, i'm doubled up now like that old cock of andy farrell's. _paddy cockfight._ no, but you were the best warrant to set a snare that ever i came across. _paul ruttledge._ [_sitting down with difficulty on the steps._] yes; it was a grand time we had, and i wouldn't take back a day of it; but it's over now, i've hit my ribs against the earth and they're aching. _sabina silver._ oh! paul, paul, is it to leave you we must? and you never once struck a kick or a blow on me all this time, not even and you in pain with the rheumatism. [_a clock strikes inside._ _charlie ward._ there's the clock striking. the monks will be getting up. we'd best be off after the others. i hear some noise inside; they'd best not catch us here. i'll stop and pull the bell. be off with you, boys! _paul ruttledge._ good-bye, sabina. don't cry! you'll get another husband. _sabina silver._ i'll never lep the budget with another man; i swear it. _paul ruttledge._ good-bye, paddy. good-bye, tommy. my mother earth will have none of me and i will go look for my father that is in heaven. _paddy cockfight._ come along, sibby. [_takes her hand and hurries off._ _charlie ward._ [_rings bell._] are they sure to let you in, paul? have you got your story ready? _paul ruttledge._ no fear, they won't refuse a sick man. no one knows me but father jerome, and he won't tell on me. _charlie ward._ there's a step inside. i'll cut for it. [_he goes out. paul is left sitting on steps._ scene 2.--_the crypt under the monastery church. a small barred window high up in the wall, through which the cold dawn is breaking. altar in a niche at the back of stage; there are seven unlighted candles on the altar. a little hanging lamp near the altar._ paul ruttledge _is lying on the altar steps. friars are dancing slowly before him in the dim light_. father aloysius _is leaning against a pillar_. _some_ friars _come in carrying lanterns_. _first friar._ what are they doing? dancing? _second friar._ i told you they were dancing, and you would not believe me. _first friar._ what on earth are they doing it for? _third friar._ i heard them saying father paul told them to do it if they ever found him in a trance again. he told them it was a kind of prayer and would bring joy down out of heaven, and make it easier for him to preach. _second friar._ how still he is lying; you would nearly think him to be dead. _a friar._ it is just a twelvemonth to-day since he was in a trance like this. _second friar._ that was the time he gave his great preaching. i can't blame those that went with him, for he all but persuaded me. _first friar._ they think he is going to preach again when he awakes, that's why they are dancing. when he wakes one of them will go and call the others. _third friar._ we were all in danger when one so pious was led away. it's five years he has been with us now, and no one ever went so quickly from lay brother to novice, and novice to friar. _first friar._ the way he fasted too! the superior bade me watch him at meal times for fear he should starve himself. _third friar._ he thought a great deal of brother paul then, but he isn't so well pleased with him now. _second friar._ what is father aloysius doing there? standing so quiet and his eyes shut. _third friar._ he is meditating. didn't you hear brother paul gives meditations of his own. _first friar._ colman was telling me about that. he gives them a joyful thought to fix their minds on. they must not let their minds stray to anything else. they must follow that single thought and put everything else behind them. _third friar._ colman fainted the other day when he was at his meditation. he says it is a great labour to follow one thought always. _second friar._ what do they do it for? _first friar._ to escape what they call the wandering of nature. they say it was in the trance brother paul got the knowledge of it. he says that if a man can only keep his mind on the one high thought he gets out of time into eternity, and learns the truth for itself. _third friar._ he calls that getting above law and number, and becoming king and priest in one's own house. _second friar._ a nice state of things it would be if every man was his own priest and his own king. _first friar._ i wonder will he wake soon. i thought i saw him stir just now. father aloysius, will he wake soon? _aloysius._ what did you say? _first friar._ will he wake soon? _aloysius._ yes, yes, he will wake very soon now. _second friar._ what are they going to do now; are they going to dance? _third friar._ he was too patient with him. he would have made short work of any of us if we had gone so far. _first dancer._ nam, et si ambulavero in medio umbrae mortis, non timebo mala, quoniam tu mecum es. _first friar._ they are singing the twenty-second psalm. what madness to sing! _second dancer._ virga tua, et baculus tuus, ipsa me consolata sunt. _first dancer._ parasti in conspectu meo mensam adversus eos qui tribulant me. _second dancer._ impinguasti in oleo caput meum; et calix meus inebrians quam praeclarus est. _second friar._ here is the superior. there'll be bad work now. * * * * * superior _comes in_. _superior._ [_holding up his hand._] silence! [_they stop singing and dancing._ _first dancer._ it's the superior. _superior._ stop this blasphemy! leave the chapel at once! i will deal with you by-and-by. [_dancing_ friars _go out_. _jerome._ [_stooping over_ paul.] he has not wakened from the trance yet. _aloysius._ [_who still remains perfectly motionless._] not yet, but he will soon awake--paul! _superior._ it is hardly worth while being angry with those poor fools whose heads he has turned with his talk. [_stoops and touches his hand._] it is quite rigid. i will wait till he is alive again, there is no use wasting words on a dead body. _jerome._ [_stooping over him._] his eyes are beginning to quiver. let me be the first to speak to him. he may say some wild things when he awakes, not knowing who is before him. _superior._ he must not preach. i must have his submission at once. _jerome._ i will do all i can with him. he is most likely to listen to me. i was once his close friend. _superior._ speak to him if you like, but entire submission is the only thing i will accept. [_to the other_ monks.] come with me, we will leave father jerome here to speak to him. [superior _and_ friars _go to the door_.] such desecration, such blasphemy. remember, father jerome, entire submission, and at once. [superior _and_ friars _go out_. _jerome._ where are the rest of his friends, father aloysius? bartley and colman ought to be with him when he is like this. _aloysius._ they are resting, because, when he has given his message, they may never be able to rest again. _jerome._ [_bending over him._] my poor paul, this will wear him out; see how thin he has grown! _aloysius._ he is hard upon his body. he does not care what happens to his body. _jerome._ he was like this when he was a boy; some wild thought would come on him, and he would not know day from night, he would forget even to eat. it is a great pity he was so hard to himself; it is a pity he had not always someone to look after him. _aloysius._ god is taking care of him; what could men like us do for him? we cannot help him, it is he who helps us. _jerome._ [_going on his knee and taking his hand._] he is awaking. help me to lift him up. [_they lift him into a chair._ _aloysius._ i will go and call the others now. _jerome._ do not let them come for a little time, i must speak to him first. _aloysius._ i cannot keep them away long. one cannot know when the words may be put in his mouth. [aloysius _goes out._ jerome _stands by_ paul ruttledge, _holding his hand_. _paul ruttledge._ [_raising his head._] ah, you are there, jerome. i am glad you are there. i could not get up to drive away the mouse that was eating the wax that dropped from the candles. have you driven it away? _jerome._ it is not evening now. it is almost morning. you were on your knees praying for a great many hours, and then i think you fainted. _paul ruttledge._ i don't think i was praying. i was among people, a great many people, and it was very bright--i will remember presently. _jerome._ do not try to remember. you are tired, you must be weak, you must come and have food and rest. _paul ruttledge._ i do not think i can rest. i think there is something else i have to do, i forget what it is. _jerome._ i am afraid you are thinking of preaching again. you must not preach. the superior says you must not. he is very angry; i have never seen him so angry. he will not allow you to preach again. _paul ruttledge._ did i ever preach? _jerome._ yes. it was in the garden you got the trance last time. we found you like this, and we lifted you to the bench under the yew tree, and then you began to speak. you spoke about getting out of the body while still alive, about getting away from law and number. all the friars came to listen to you. we had never heard such preaching before, but it was very like heresy. _paul ruttledge._ [_getting up._] jerome, jerome, i remember now where i was. i was in a great round place, and a great crowd of things came round me. i couldn't see them very clearly for a time, but some of them struck me with their feet, hard feet like hoofs, and soft cat-like feet; and some pecked me, and some bit me, and some clawed me. there were all sorts of beasts and birds as far as i could see. _jerome._ were they devils, paul, were they the deadly sins? _paul ruttledge._ i don't know, but i thought, and i don't know how the thought came to me, that they were the part of mankind that is not human; the part that builds up the things that keep the soul from god. _jerome._ that was a terrible vision. _paul ruttledge._ i struggled and i struggled with them, and they heaped themselves over me till i was unable to move hand or foot; and that went on for a long, long time. _jerome._ [_crossing himself._] god have mercy on us. _paul ruttledge._ then suddenly there came a bright light, and all in a minute the beasts were gone, and i saw a great many angels riding upon unicorns, white angels on white unicorns. they stood all round me, and they cried out, "brother paul, go and preach; get up and preach, brother paul." and then they laughed aloud, and the unicorns trampled the ground as though the world were already falling in pieces. _jerome._ it was only a dream. come with me. you will forget it when you have had food and rest. _paul ruttledge._ [_looking at his arm._] it was there one of them clawed me; one that looked at me with great heavy eyes. _jerome._ the superior has been here; try and listen to me. he says you must not preach. _paul ruttledge._ great heavy eyes and hard sharp claws. _jerome._ [_putting his hands on his shoulders._] you must awake from this. you must remember where you are. you are under rules. you must not break the rules you are under. the brothers will be coming in to hear you, you must not speak to them. the superior has forbidden it. _paul ruttledge._ [_touching_ jerome's _hand_.] i have always been a great trouble to you. _jerome._ you must go and submit to the superior. go and make your submission now, for my sake. think of what i have done for your sake. remember how i brought you in, and answered for you when you came here. i did not tell about that wild business. i have done penance for that deceit. _paul ruttledge._ yes, you have always been good to me, but do not ask me this. i have had other orders. _jerome._ last time you preached the whole monastery was upset. the friars began to laugh suddenly in the middle of the night. _paul ruttledge._ if i have been given certain truths to tell, i must tell them at once before they slip away from me. _jerome._ i cannot understand your ideas; you tell them impossible things. things that are against the order of nature. _paul ruttledge._ i have learned that one needs a religion so wholly supernatural, that is so opposed to the order of nature that the world can never capture it. [_some_ friars _come in. they carry green branches in their hands_. _paul ruttledge._ they are coming. will you stay and listen? _jerome._ i must not stay. i must not listen. _paul ruttledge._ help me over to the candles. i am weak, my knees are weak. i shall be strong when the words come. i shall be able to teach. [_he lights a taper at the hanging lamp and tries to light the candles with a shaking hand. jerome takes the taper from him and lights the candles._] why are you crying, jerome? _jerome._ because we that were friends are separated now. we shall never be together again. _paul ruttledge._ never again? the love of god is a very terrible thing. _jerome._ i have done with meddling. i must leave you to authority now. i must tell the superior you will not obey. [_he goes out._ _first friar._ father jerome had a very dark look going out. _second friar._ he was shut up with the superior this morning. i wonder what they were talking about. _first friar._ i wonder if the superior will mind our taking the branches. they are only cut on palm sunday other years. what will he tell us, i wonder? it seems as if he was going to tell us how to do some great thing. do you think he will teach us to do cures like the friars used at esker? _second friar._ those were great cures they did there, and they were not strange men, but just the same as ourselves. i heard of a man went to them dying on a cart, and he walked twenty miles home to burren holding the horses head. _first friar._ maybe we'll be able to see visions the same as were seen at knock. it's a great wonder all that was seen and all that was done there. _third friar._ i was there one time, and the whole place was full of crutches that had been thrown away by people that were cured. there was a silver crutch there some rich man from america had sent as an offering after getting his cure. speak to him, brother colman. he seems to be in some sort of a dream. ask if he is going to speak to us now. _colman._ we are all here, brother paul. _paul ruttledge._ have you all been through your meditations? [_they all gather round him._ _bartley._ we have all tried; we have done our best; but it is hard to keep our mind on the one thing for long. _paul ruttledge._ "he ascended into heaven." have you meditated upon that? did you reject all earthly images that came into your mind till the light began to gather? _third friar._ i could not fix my mind well. when i put out one thought others came rushing in. _colman._ when i was meditating, the inside of my head suddenly became all on fire. _aloysius._ while i was meditating i felt a spout of fire going up between my shoulders. _paul ruttledge._ that is the way it begins. you are ready now to hear the truth. now i can give you the message that has come to me. stand here at either side of the altar. brother colman, come beside me here. lay down your palm branches before this altar; you have brought them as a sign that the walls are beginning to be broken up, that we are going back to the joy of the green earth. [_goes up to the candles and speaks._] et calix meus inebrians quam praeclarus est. for a long time after their making men and women wandered here and there, half blind from the drunkenness of eternity; they had not yet forgotten that the green earth was the love of god, and that all life was the will of god, and so they wept and laughed and hated according to the impulse of their hearts. [_he takes up the green boughs and presses them to his breast._] they gathered the green earth to their breasts and their lips, as i gather these boughs to mine, in what they believed would be an eternal kiss. [_he remains a little while silent._ _second friar._ i see a light about his head. _third friar._ i wonder if he has seen god. _paul ruttledge._ it was then that the temptation began. not only the serpent who goes upon his belly, but all the animal spirits that have loved things better than life, came out of their holes and began to whisper. the men and women listened to them, and because when they had lived according to the joyful will of god in mother wit and natural kindness, they sometimes did one another an injury, they thought that it would be better to be safe than to be blessã¨d, they made the laws. the laws were the first sin. they were the first mouthful of the apple, the moment man had made them he began to die; we must put out the laws as i put out this candle. [_he puts out the candle with an extinguisher, still holding the boughs with his left hand. two orthodox friars have come in._ _first orthodox friar._ you had better go for the superior. _second orthodox friar._ i must stop and listen. [_the first orthodox friar listens for a minute or two and then goes out._ _paul ruttledge._ and when they had lived amidst the green earth that is the love of god, they were sometimes wetted by the rain, and sometimes cold and hungry, and sometimes alone from one another; they thought it would be better to be comfortable than to be blessã¨d. they began to build big houses and big towns. they grew wealthy and they sat chattering at their doors; and the embrace that was to have been eternal ended, lips and hands were parted. [_he lets the boughs slip out of his arms._] we must put out the towns as i put out this candle. [_puts out another candle._ _a friar._ yes, yes, we must uproot the towns. _paul ruttledge._ but that is not all, for man created a worse thing, yes, a worse defiance against god. [_the_ friars _groan_.] god put holiness into everything that lives, for everything that desires is full of his will, and everything that is beautiful is full of his love; but man grew timid because it had been hard to find his way amongst so much holiness, and though god had made all time holy, man said that only the day on which god rested from life was holy, and though god had made all places holy, man said, "no place but this place that i put pillars and walls about is holy, this place where i rest from life"; and in this and like ways he built up the church. we must destroy the church, we must put it out as i put out this candle. [_puts out another candle._ _friars._ [_clasping one another's hands._] he is right, he is right. the church must be destroyed. [_the_ superior _comes in_. _first friar._ here is the superior. _a friar._ he has been saying---_superior._ hush! i will hear him to the end. _paul ruttledge._ that is not all. these things may be accomplished and yet nothing be accomplished. the christian's business is not reformation but revelation, and the only labours he can put his hand to can never be accomplished in time. he must so live that all things shall pass away. [_he stands silent for a moment and then cries, lifting his hand above his head._] give me wine out of thy pitchers; oh, god, how splendid is my cup of drunkenness. we must become blind, and deaf, and dizzy. we must get rid of everything that is not measureless eternal life. we must put out hope as i put out this candle. [_puts out a candle._] and memory as i put out this candle. [_as before._] and thought, the waster of life, as i put out this candle. [_as before._] and at last we must put out the light of the sun and of the moon, and all the light of the world and the world itself. [_he now puts out the last candle, the chapel is very dark. the only light is the faint light of morning coming through the window._] we must destroy the world; we must destroy everything that has law and number, for where there is nothing, there is god. [_the_ superior _comes forward. one of_ paul's friars _makes as if to speak to him. the_ superior _strikes at him with the back of his hand_. _superior._ [_to_ paul ruttledge.] get out of this, rebel, blasphemous rebel! _paul ruttledge._ do as you like to me, but you cannot silence my thoughts. i learned them from jesus christ, who made a terrible joy, and sent it to overturn governments, and all settled order. [paul's friars _rush to save him from the_ superior. _paul ruttledge._ there is no need for violence. i am ready to go. _colman._ [_taking his hand._] i will go with you. _aloysius._ i will go with you too. _several other friars._ and i, and i, and i. _superior._ whoever goes with this heretic goes straight into the pit. _bartley._ do not leave us behind you. let us go with you. _colman._ teach us! teach us! we will help you to teach others. _paul ruttledge._ let me go alone, the one more, the one nearer falsehood. _bartley._ we will go with you! we will go with you! we must go where we can hear your voice. _a friar._ [_who stands behind the_ superior.] god is making him speak against himself. _paul ruttledge._ no, the time has not come for you. you would be thinking of your food at midday and listening for the bells at prayer time. you have not yet heard the voices and seen the faces. _superior._ a miracle! god is making the heretic speak against himself. listen to him! _aloysius._ we will not stay behind, we will go with you. _bartley._ we cannot live without hearing you! _paul ruttledge._ i am led by hands that are colder than ice and harder than diamonds. they will lead me where there will be hard thoughts of me in the hearts of all that love me, and there will be a fire in my heart that will make it as bare as the wilderness. _aloysius._ we will go with you. we too will take those hands that are colder than ice and harder than diamonds. _several monks._ we too! we too! _patrick._ bring us to the hands that are colder than ice and harder than diamonds. _other monks._ pull them away! pull them away from him! [_they are about to seize the monks who are with_ paul ruttledge. _superior._ [_going between them._] back! back! i will have no scuffling here. let the devil take his children if he has a mind to. god will call his own. [_the_ monks _fall back_. superior _goes up to altar, takes the cross from it and turns, standing on the steps_. _superior._ father aloysius, come to me here. [aloysius _takes_ paul ruttledge's _hand_.] father bartley, father colman. [_they go nearer to_ paul ruttledge.] father patrick! [_a_ friar _comes towards him_.] kneel down! [father patrick _kneels_.] father clement, father nestor, father james ... leave the heretic--you are on the very edge of the pit. your shoes are growing red hot. _a friar._ i am afraid, i am afraid. [_he kneels._ _superior._ kneel down; return to your god. [_several_ monks _kneel_. _colman._ they have deserted us. _paul ruttledge._ many will forsake the truth before the world is pulled down. [_stretching out his arms over his head._] i pulled down my own house, now i go out to pull down the world. _superior._ strip off those holy habits. _paul ruttledge._ [_taking off his habit._] one by one i am plucking off the rags and tatters of the world. act v. scene: _smooth level grass near the shannon. ecclesiastical ruins, a part of which have been roofed in. rocky plain in the distance, with a river._ father colman _sorting some bundles of osiers_. aloysius _enters with an empty bag_. _colman._ you are the first to come back aloysius. where is brother bartley? _aloysius._ he parted from me at the cross roads and went on to preach at shanaglish. he should soon be back now. _colman._ have you anything in the bag? _aloysius._ nothing. [_throws the bag down._] it doesn't seem as if our luck was growing. we have but food enough to last till to-morrow. we have hardly that. the rats from the river got at the few potatoes i gathered from the farmers at lisheen last week, in the corner where they were. _colman._ this is the first day you got nothing at all. maybe you didn't ask the right way. _aloysius._ i asked for alms for the sake of the love of god. but the first place where i asked it, the man of the house was giving me a handful of meal, and the woman came and called out that we were serving the devil in the name of god, and she drove me from the door. _colman._ it is since the priests preached against us they say that. did you go on to lisheen. they used always to treat us well there. _aloysius._ i did, but i got on no better there. _colman._ that is a wonder, after the woman that had the jaundice being cured with prayers by brother paul. _aloysius._ that's just it. if he did cure her, they say the two best of her husband's bullocks died of the blackwater the next day, and he was no way thankful to us after that. _colman._ did you try the houses along the bog road? _aloysius._ i did, and the children coming back from school called out after me and asked who was it did away with the widow cloran's cow. _colman._ the widow cloran's cow? _aloysius._ that was the cow that died after grazing in the ruins here. _colman._ if it did, it was because of an old boot it picked up and ate, and that never belonged to us. _aloysius._ i wish we had something ourselves to eat. they should be sitting down to their dinner in the monastery now. they will be having a good dinner to-day to carry them over the fast to-morrow. _colman._ i am thinking sometimes, brother paul should give more thought to us than he does. it is all very well for him, he is so taken up with his thoughts and his visions he doesn't know if he is full or fasting. _aloysius._ he has such holy thoughts and visions no one would like to trouble him. he ought not to be in the world at all, or to do the world's work. _colman._ so long as he is in the world, he must give some thought to it. there must be something wrong in the way he is doing things now. i thought he would have had half ireland with him by this time with his great preaching, but someway when he preaches to the people, they don't seem to mind him much. _aloysius._ he is too far above them; they have not education to understand him. _colman._ they understand me well enough when i give my mind to it. but it is harder to preach now than it was in the monastery. we had something to offer then; absolution here, and heaven after. _aloysius._ isn't it enough for them to hear that the kingdom of heaven is within them, and that if they do the right meditations---_colman._ what can poor people that have their own troubles on them get from a few words like that they hear at a cross road or a market, and the wind maybe blowing them away? if we could gather them together now.... look, aloysius, at these sally rods; i have a plan in my mind about them. [_he has stuck some of the rods in the ground, and begins weaving others through them._ _aloysius._ are you going to make baskets like you did in the monastery schools? _colman._ we must make something if we are to live. but it is more than that i was thinking of; we might coax some of the youngsters to come and learn the basket making; it would make them take to us better if we could put them in the way of earning a few pence. _aloysius._ [_taking up some of the osiers and beginning to twist them._] that might be a good way to come at them; they could work through the day, and at evening we could tell them how to repeat the words till the light comes inside their heads. but would paul think well of it? he is more for pulling down than building up. _colman._ when i explain it to him i am sure he will think well of it; he can't go on for ever without anyone to listen to him. _aloysius._ i suppose not, and with no way of living. but i don't know, i'm afraid he won't like it. _colman._ hush! here he is coming. _aloysius._ if one had a plan now for doing some destruction---_colman._ hush! don't you see there is somebody with him. * * * * * paul ruttledge _comes in with_ charlie ward. _paul ruttledge._ this is charlie ward, my old friend. _aloysius._ the charlie ward you lived on the roads with? _paul ruttledge._ yes, when i went looking for the favour of my hard mother, earth, he helped me. he is her good child and she loves him. _colman._ he is welcome. how did he find you out? _paul ruttledge._ i don't know. how did you find me out, charlie? _charlie ward._ oh, i didn't lose sight of you so much as you thought. i had to stop away from gortmore a good while after we left you at the gate, but i sent paddy cockfight one time to get news, and he mended cans for the laundry of the monastery, and they told him you were well again, and a monk as good as the rest. but a while ago i got word there was a monk had gone near to break up the whole monastery with his talk and his piety, and i said to myself, "that's paul!" and then i heard there was a monk had been driven out for not keeping the rules, and i said to myself, "that's paul!" and the other day when what's left of us came to athlone, i heard talk of some disfrocked monks that were upsetting the whole neighbourhood, and i said, "that's paul." to sabina silver i said that. "that merry chap paul," i said. _paul ruttledge._ i'm afraid you have a very bad opinion of me, charlie. well, maybe i earned it. _aloysius._ you cannot know much of him if you have a bad opinion of him. he will be made a saint some day. _charlie ward._ he will, if there's such a thing as a saint of mischief. _paul ruttledge._ a saint of mischief? well, why not that as well as another? he would upset all the beehives, he would throw them into the market-place. sit down now, charlie, and eat a bit with us. _colman._ you are welcome, indeed, to all we can give you, but we have not a bit of food that is worth offering you. aloysius got nothing at all in the villages to-day, brother paul. the people are getting cross. _paul ruttledge._ well, sit down, anyway. the country people liked me well enough once, there was no man they liked so much as myself when i gave them drink for nothing. didn't they, charlie? _charlie ward._ oh, that was a great time. they were lying thick about the roads. i'll be thinking of it to my dying day. _paul ruttledge._ i have given them another kind of drink now. _charlie ward._ what sort of a drink is that? _paul ruttledge._ we have rolled a great barrel out of a cellar that is under the earth. we have rolled it right into the midst of them. [_he moves his hand about as if he were moving a barrel._] it's heavy, and when they have drunk what is in it, i would like to see the man that would be their master. _charlie ward._ that would be a great drink, but i wouldn't be sure that you're in earnest. _paul ruttledge._ colman and aloysius will tell you all about it. it was made in a good still, the barley was grown in a field that's down under the earth. _charlie ward._ that's likely enough. i often heard of places like that. _paul ruttledge._ and when they have drunk from my barrel, they will break open the door, they will put law and number under their two feet; and they will have a hot palm and a cold palm, for they will put down the moon and the sun with their two hands. _charlie ward._ there's no mistake but you're the same paul still; nice and plain and simple, only for your hard talk. and what about the rheumatism? it's hardly you got through that fit you had, and you don't look as if much hardship would agree with you now. _aloysius._ he does not, indeed, and if he doesn't kill himself one way he will another. wait now till i tell you the way he is living. i don't think he tasted bit or sup to-day, and all he had last night was a couple of dry potatoes. _charlie ward._ is that so? [_takes_ paul ruttledge's _arm_.] you haven't much more flesh on you than a crane in moonlight. they don't seem to have much notion of minding you here, you that were reared soft. it would be better for you to come back to us; bad as our lodging is, there'd be a bit in the pot for you and sabina to care you. it's she would give you a good welcome. _colman._ [_starting up._] we can mind him well enough here. i have a plan. we haven't been getting on the way we ought with the people. it's no way to be getting on with people to be asking things of them always, they have no opinion at all of us seeing us the way we are. they have no notion of the respect they should show to brother paul, and the way all the brothers used to be listening to his preaching, and the townspeople as well. and i, myself, the time i preached in dublin---_aloysius._ yes, indeed, paul, think of the great crowds used to come when you preached in the abbey church, and all the money that was gathered that time of the mission. _paul ruttledge._ yes, i used to like once to see all the faces looking up at me. but now all that is gone from me. now i think it is enough to be a witness for the truth, and to think the thoughts i like. god will bring the people to me. he will make of my silence a great wind that will shatter the ships of the world. _colman._ that is all very well, but the people are not coming. _aloysius._ and more than that, they are driving us away from their doors now, paul. _charlie ward._ the way they do to us. but paul was not born on the roads. [_lights his pipe._ _colman._ it's no use stopping waiting for a wind; if we have anything to say that's worth the people listening to, we must bring them to hear it one way or another. now, it is what i was saying to aloysius, we must begin teaching them to make things, they never had the chance of any instruction of the sort here. _paul ruttledge._ to make things? this sort of things? [_takes the half-made basket from_ colman. _colman._ those and other things, we got a good training in the old days. and we'll get a grant from the technical board. the board pays up to four hundred pounds to some of its instructors. _paul ruttledge._ and then? _aloysius._ oh, then we'll sell all the things we make. i'm sure we'll get a market for them. _paul ruttledge._ oh, i understand; you will sell them. and what about the dividing of the money? you will need to make laws about that. _colman._ of course; we will have to make rules, and to pay according to work. _paul ruttledge._ oh, we will grow quite rich in time. what are we to do then? we can't go on living in this ruin? _colman._ of course not. we'll build workshops and houses for those who come to work from a distance, good houses, slated, not thatched. _paul ruttledge._ [_turning to_ aloysius _and_ charlie ward.] yes, you see his plan. to gather the people together, to build houses for them; to make them rich too, and to keep their money safe. and the kingdom of god too? what about that? _colman._ oh, i'm just coming to that. they will think so much more of our teaching when we have got them under our influence by other things. of course we will teach them their meditations, and give them a regular religious life. we must settle out some little place for them to pray in--there's a high gable over there where we could hang a bell---_paul ruttledge._ oh yes, i understand. you would weave them together like this [_weaves the osiers in and out_], you would add one thing to another, laws and money and church and bells, till you had got everything back again that you have escaped from. but it is my business to tear things asunder like this [_tears pieces from the basket_], and this, and this---_aloysius._ i told him you'd never agree to it. he ought to have known that himself. _colman._ we must have something to offer the people. _paul ruttledge._ you say that because you got nothing to-day. aloysius has got nothing in his sack. [_taking sack and turning it upside down._] it is quite empty. every religious teacher before me has offered something to his followers, but i offer them nothing. [_plunging his arm down into the sack._] my sack is quite empty. i will never dip my hand into nature's full sack of illusions; i am tired of that old conjuring bag. [_he walks up and down muttering._ _charlie ward._ [_to_ colman.] you may as well give up trying to settle him down to anything. he was a tinker once, and he'll be a tinker always; he has got the wandering into his blood. will you come back to the roads, paul, to your old friends and to sabina? _paul ruttledge._ [_sitting down beside him._] ah, my old friends, they were very kind to me; but these friends too are very kind to me. _charlie ward._ well, come and see them anyway; they'll be glad to see you, those that are left of us. _paul ruttledge._ those that are left of you? where are the others? _charlie ward._ some are dead, and some are jailed, and some are on the roads here and there. sabina is with us always, and johneen is a great hand with the tools now, but tommy the song---_paul ruttledge._ oh, tommy the song, does he pray still? he was beginning to pray. did he ever get an answer? _charlie ward._ well, i don't know about an answer, but i believe he heard something one night beside an old thorn tree, some sort of a voice it was. _paul ruttledge._ a voice? what did it say to him? did he see anything? we have learned too much, our minds are like troubled water--we get nothing but broken images. he who knew nothing may have seen all. is he praying still? _charlie ward._ if he is, it's in galway gaol he's praying, with or without a thorn tree. _paul ruttledge._ did he tell no one what the voice said to him? _charlie ward._ he did not, unless he might have told johneen or some other one. _paul ruttledge._ i will go with you and see them. [_gets up._ _colman._ [_to_ aloysius, _with whom he has been whispering_.] take care, but if he goes back to his old friends, he'll stop with them and leave us. _aloysius._ [_putting his hand on_ paul ruttledge's _arm_.] don't go, brother paul, till i talk to you awhile. _paul ruttledge._ do you want me? well, charlie, i will stay here, i won't go; but bring all the rest to see me, i want to ask them about that vision. _charlie ward._ i'll bring one of them, anyway. [_exit._ _aloysius._ brother paul, it is what i am thinking; now the tinkers have come back to you, you could begin to gather a sort of an army; you can't fight your battle without an army. they could call to the other tinkers, and the tramps and the beggars, and the sieve-makers and all the wandering people. it would be a great army. _paul ruttledge._ yes, that would be a great army, a great wandering army. _aloysius._ the people would be afraid to refuse us then; we would march on---_paul ruttledge._ yes, we could march on. we could march on the towns, and we could break up all settled order; we could bring back the old joyful, dangerous, individual life. we would have banners, we would each have a banner, banners with angels upon them--we will march upon the world with banners---_colman._ we would not be in want of food then, we could take all we wanted. _aloysius._ we could take all we wanted, we would be too many to put in gaol; all the people would join us in the end; you would be able to persuade them all, brother paul, you would be their leader; we would make great stores of food---_paul ruttledge._ we will have one great banner that will go in front, it will take two men to carry it, and on it we will have laughter, with his iron claws and his wings of brass and his eyes like sapphires---_aloysius._ that will be the banner for the front, we will have different troops, we will have captains to organize them, to give them orders---_paul ruttledge._ [_standing up._] to organize? that is to bring in law and number? organize--organize--that is how all the mischief has been done. i was forgetting, we cannot destroy the world with armies, it is inside our minds that it must be destroyed, it must be consumed in a moment inside our minds. god will accomplish his last judgment, first in one man's mind and then in another. he is always planning last judgments. and yet it takes a long time, and that is why he laments in the wind and in the reeds and in the cries of the curlews. _colman._ i think we had better go down to the river and see are there any eels on the lines we set. we must find something for supper. it is near sunset; see how the crows are flying home. _paul ruttledge._ [_looking up._] the crows are my darlings! i like their harsh merriment better than those sad cries of the wind and the rushes. look at them, they are tossing about like witches, tossing about on the wind, drunk with the wind. _colman._ well, i'll go look at the lines, anyhow. put turf on the fire, aloysius; bartley should soon be home from shanaglish. _aloysius._ i wonder why he isn't home by this. i'm uneasy till i see him, after the way the people treated me to-day. [_shades his eyes to look out._] here he is! he's running! _colman._ [_coming over to him._] he is running hard! he must be in some danger--- * * * * * _enter_ bartley _out of breath_. _bartley._ run, run, come away, there's not a minute to lose. _colman._ what is the matter? what has happened? _bartley._ the people are coming up the road! they attacked me in the market! they followed me, they are on the road. i slipped away across the fields. run, run! _colman._ what is it? what are they going to do to us? _bartley._ you would know that if you saw them! they have stones and sticks. raging they are, and calling for our lives. they say we brought witchcraft and ill-luck on the place! come to the boat, it's in the rushes; they won't see us, we'll get to the island. hurry, hurry! [_he runs out._ _aloysius._ come, brother paul, hurry, hurry! _paul ruttledge._ i am going to stay. _bartley._ they will kill us if we stay! brother colman said they have stones and sticks; i think i hear them! _paul ruttledge._ you are afraid because you have been shut up so long. i am not afraid because i have lived upon the roads, where one is ready for anything that may happen. one has to learn that, like any other thing. i will stay. _aloysius._ he wants the crown! _paul ruttledge._ where is bartley? _colman._ he is gone. come, you must go too, we can't leave you here. you have too much to do to throw your life away, we have all too much to do. _paul ruttledge._ no, no. there is nothing to do; i am going to stay. _aloysius._ i will stay with you. [_takes his hand._ _paul ruttledge._ death is the last adventure, the first perfect joy, for at death the soul comes into possession of itself, and returns to the joy that made it. [_a great shout outside._ _colman._ [_seizing aloysius._] come, come, aloysius! come, paul! we haven't a moment, here they are. [_drags_ aloysius _away_. _paul ruttledge._ good-bye, aloysius, good-bye, colman. keep a pick going at the foundations of the world. [colman _and_ aloysius _run on_. _one of the mob outside._ they are here in the ruins! _another voice._ this way! this way! _paul ruttledge._ i will not go. i have a little reason for staying, but no reason is too little to be the foundation of martyrdom. people have been martyred for all kinds of reasons, and my reason that is not worth a rush will do as well as any other. [_looks round._] ah! they are gone. a little reason, a little reason. i have entered into the second freedom--the irresponsibility of the saints. _sings._ parasti in conspectu meo mensam adversus eos qui tribulant me. impinguasti in oleo caput meum, et calix meus inebrians quam praeclarus est. [people _rush in with sticks uplifted._ _one of the mob._ where are the heretics? _another._ we'll make an end of their witchcraft! _another._ here is the worst of them! _another._ give me back my cattle you put the sickness on! _another._ we'll have no witchcraft here! drive away the unfrocked priest! _another._ make an end of him when we have the chance! _paul ruttledge._ yes, make an end of me. i have tried hard to live a good life; give me a good death now. _one of the crowd._ quick, don't give him time to put the evil eye on us! [_they rush at him. his hands are seen swaying about above the crowd._ _paul ruttledge._ i go to the invisible heart of flame! _one of the crowd._ throw him there now! where are the others? _another._ they must be among the rocks. _another._ they are not; they are gone down the road! _another._ i tell you it's in the rocks they are! it's in the rocks they're hiding! _another._ they are not; they couldn't run in the rocks; they're running down the road. _several voices._ they're on the road; they're on the road. [_they all rush out, leaving_ paul ruttledge _lying on the ground. it grows darker_. fathers colman _and_ aloysius _creep up_. _colman._ paul, paul, come; we have still time to get to the boat. _aloysius._ oh! they have killed him; there is a wound in his neck! oh! he has been the first of us to get the crown! _colman._ there are voices! they must be coming back! come to the boat, maybe we can bury him to-morrow! [_they go out._ paul ruttledge _half rises and sinks back_. * * * * * _enter_ charlie ward _and_ sabina silver. _charlie ward._ they have done for him. i thought they would. _sabina silver._ oh, paul, i never thought to find you like this! he's not dead; he'll come round yet. _charlie ward._ [_opens his shirt and puts in his hand on his heart._] paul! _paul ruttledge._ ah! charlie, give me the soldering iron--no, bring me the lap anvil--i'm as good a tinker as any of you. _charlie ward._ he thinks he's back on the roads with us! he is done for. _sabina silver._ i knew he'd have to come back to me to die after all; it's a lonesome thing to die among strangers. _paul ruttledge._ that is right, that is right, take me up in your brazen claws. but no--no--i will not go out beyond saturn into the dark. take me down--down to that field under the earth, under the roots of the grave. _sabina silver._ i don't know what he is saying. i never could understand his talk. _paul ruttledge._ o plunge me into the wine barrel, into the wine barrel of god. _sabina silver._ won't you speak to me, paul? don't you know me? i am sibby; don't you remember me, sibby, your wife? _charlie ward._ he sees you now; i think he knows you. [paul ruttledge _has raised himself on his elbow and is looking at_ sabina silver. _sabina silver._ he knows me. i was sure he would know me. _paul ruttledge._ colman, colman, remember always where there is nothing there is god. [_he sinks down again._ _one of the crowd._ [_coming back with two or three others._] i knew they must be in the rocks. _charlie ward._ well, he's gone! there'll soon be none of us left at all. and i never knew what it was he did that brought him to us. _sabina silver._ oh, paul, paul! [_begins to keen very low, swaying herself to and fro._ _one of the crowd._ [_to_ charlie ward.] was he a friend of yours? _charlie ward._ he was, indeed. i must do what i can for him now. _one of the crowd._ that's natural, that's natural. it's a pity they did it. they'd best have left him alone. we'd best be going back to the town. [sabina silver _raises the keen louder. the_ strangers _and_ charlie ward _take off their hats._ chiswick press: printed by charles whittingham and co. tooks court, chancery lane, london. transcriber's note: the original text contained a great deal of italic, bold and small-capped formatting. for the purposes of producing this text version, the underscore symbol surrounds italicized text and small-capped text is converted to all-caps. reveries over childhood and youth the macmillan company new york · boston · chicago · dallas atlanta · san francisco macmillan & co., limited london · bombay · calcutta melbourne the macmillan co. of canada, ltd. toronto reveries over childhood and youth by william butler yeats the macmillan company new york mcmxvi copyright, 1916, by the macmillan company. set up and electrotyped. published march, 1916. norwood press j. s. cushing co.--berwick & smith co. norwood, mass., u.s.a. to those few people mainly personal friends who have read all that i have written. w. b. y. preface sometimes when i remember a relative that i have been fond of, or a strange incident of the past, i wander here and there till i have somebody to talk to. presently i notice that my listener is bored; but now that i have written it out, i may even begin to forget it all. in any case, because one can always close a book, my friend need not be bored. i have changed nothing to my knowledge, and yet it must be that i have changed many things without my knowledge, for i am writing after so many years, and have consulted neither friend nor letter nor old newspaper and describe what comes oftenest into my memory. i say this fearing that some surviving friend of my youth may remember something in a different shape and be offended with my book. christmas day, 1914. reveries over childhood and youth my first memories are fragmentary and isolated and contemporaneous, as though one remembered vaguely some early day of the seven days. it seems as if time had not yet been created, for all are connected with emotion and place and without sequence. i remember sitting upon somebody's knee, looking out of a window at a wall covered with cracked and falling plaster, but what wall i do not remember, and being told that some relation once lived there. i am looking out of another window in london. it is at fitzroy road. some boys are playing in the road and among them a boy in uniform, a telegraph boy perhaps. when i ask who the boy is, a servant tells me that he is going to blow the town up, and i go to sleep in terror. after that come memories of sligo, where i live with my grandparents. i am sitting on the ground looking at a mastless toy boat, with the paint rubbed and scratched, and i say to myself in great melancholy, "it is further away than it used to be," and while i am saying it i am looking at a long scratch in the stern, for it is especially the scratch which is further away. then one day at dinner my great-uncle william middleton says, "we should not make light of the troubles of children. they are worse than ours, because we can see the end of our trouble and they can never see any end," and i feel grateful for i know that i am very unhappy and have often said to myself, "when you grow up, never talk as grown-up people do of the happiness of childhood." i may have already had the night of misery when, having prayed for several days that i might die, i had begun to be afraid that i was dying and prayed that i might live. there was no reason for my unhappiness. nobody was unkind, and my grandmother has still after so many years my gratitude and my reverence. the house was so big that there was always a room to hide in, and i had a red pony and a garden where i could wander, and there were two dogs to follow at my heels, one white with some black spots on his head and the other with long black hair all over him. i used to think about god and fancy that i was very wicked, and one day when i threw a stone and hit a duck in the yard by mischance and broke its wing, i was full of wonder when i was told that the duck would be cooked for dinner and that i should not be punished. some of my misery was loneliness and some of it fear of old william pollexfen my grandfather. he was never unkind, and i cannot remember that he ever spoke harshly to me, but it was the custom to fear and admire him. he had won the freedom of some spanish city for saving life, but was so silent that his wife never knew it till he was near eighty, and then from the chance visit of some old sailor. she asked him if it was true and he said it was true, but she knew him too well to question and his old shipmate had left the town. she too had the habit of fear. we knew that he had been in many parts of the world, for there was a great scar on his hand made by a whaling-hook, and in the dining-room was a cabinet with bits of coral in it and a jar of water from the jordan for the baptising of his children and chinese pictures upon rice-paper and an ivory walking-stick from india that came to me after his death. he had great physical strength and had the reputation of never ordering a man to do anything he would not do himself. he owned many sailing ships and once, when a captain just come to anchor at rosses point reported something wrong with the rudder, had sent a messenger to say "send a man down to find out what's wrong." "the crew all refuse" was the answer. "go down yourself" was my grandfather's order, and when that was not obeyed, he dived from the main deck, all the neighbourhood lined along the pebbles of the shore. he came up with his skin torn but well informed about the rudder. he had a violent temper and kept a hatchet at his bedside for burglars and would knock a man down instead of going to law, and i once saw him hunt a group of men with a horsewhip. he had no relation for he was an only child, and being solitary and silent, he had few friends. he corresponded with campbell of islay who had befriended him and his crew after a shipwreck, and captain webb, the first man who had swum the channel and who was drowned swimming the niagara rapids, had been a mate in his employ and became a close friend. that is all the friends i can remember and yet he was so looked up to and admired that when he returned from taking the waters at bath his men would light bonfires along the railway line for miles, while his partner william middleton whose father after the great famine had attended the sick for weeks, and taken cholera from a man he carried in his arms into his own house and died of it, and was himself civil to everybody and a cleverer man than my grandfather, came and went without notice. i think i confused my grandfather with god, for i remember in one of my attacks of melancholy praying that he might punish me for my sins, and i was shocked and astonished when a daring little girl--a cousin i think--having waited under a group of trees in the avenue, where she knew he would pass near four o'clock on the way to his dinner, said to him, "if i were you and you were a little girl, i would give you a doll." yet for all my admiration and alarm, neither i nor anyone else thought it wrong to outwit his violence or his rigour; and his lack of suspicion and a certain helplessness made that easy while it stirred our affection. when i must have been still a very little boy, seven or eight years old perhaps, an uncle called me out of bed one night, to ride the five or six miles to rosses point to borrow a railway-pass from a cousin. my grandfather had one, but thought it dishonest to let another use it, but the cousin was not so particular. i was let out through a gate that opened upon a little lane beside the garden away from ear-shot of the house, and rode delighted through the moonlight, and awoke my cousin in the small hours by tapping on his window with a whip. i was home again by two or three in the morning and found the coachman waiting in the little lane. my grandfather would not have thought such an adventure possible, for every night at eight he believed that the stable-yard was locked, and he knew that he was brought the key. some servant had once got into trouble at night and so he had arranged that they should all be locked in. he never knew, what everybody else in the house knew, that for all the ceremonious bringing of the key the gate was never locked. even to-day when i read "king lear" his image is always before me and i often wonder if the delight in passionate men in my plays and in my poetry is more than his memory. he must have been ignorant, though i could not judge him in my childhood, for he had run away to sea when a boy, "gone to sea through the hawse-hole" as he phrased it, and i can but remember him with two books--his bible and falconer's "shipwreck," a little green-covered book that lay always upon his table; he belonged to some younger branch of an old cornish family. his father had been in the army, had retired to become an owner of sailing ships, and an engraving of some old family place my grandfather thought should have been his hung next a painted coat of arms in the little back parlour. his mother had been a wexford woman, and there was a tradition that his family had been linked with ireland for generations and once had their share in the old spanish trade with galway. he had a good deal of pride and disliked his neighbours, whereas his wife, a middleton, was gentle and patient and did many charities in the little back parlour among frieze coats and shawled heads, and every night when she saw him asleep went the round of the house alone with a candle to make certain there was no burglar in danger of the hatchet. she was a true lover of her garden and before the care of her house had grown upon her, would choose some favourite among her flowers and copy it upon rice-paper. i saw some of her handiwork the other day and i wondered at the delicacy of form and colour and at a handling that may have needed a magnifying glass it was so minute. i can remember no other pictures but the chinese paintings, and some coloured prints of battles in the crimea upon the wall of a passage, and the painting of a ship at the passage end darkened by time. my grown-up uncles and aunts, my grandfather's many sons and daughters, came and went, and almost all they said or did has faded from my memory, except a few harsh words that convince me by a vividness out of proportion to their harshness that all were habitually kind and considerate. the youngest of my uncles was stout and humorous and had a tongue of leather over the keyhole of his door to keep the draught out, and another whose bedroom was at the end of a long stone passage had a model turret ship in a glass case. he was a clever man and had designed the sligo quays, but was now going mad and inventing a vessel of war that could not be sunk, his pamphlet explained, because of a hull of solid wood. only six months ago my sister awoke dreaming that she held a wingless sea-bird in her arms and presently she heard that he had died in his mad-house, for a sea-bird is the omen that announces the death or danger of a pollexfen. an uncle, george pollexfen, afterwards astrologer and mystic, and my dear friend, came but seldom from ballina, once to a race meeting with two postillions dressed in green; and there was that younger uncle who had sent me for the railway-pass. he was my grandmother's favourite, and had, the servants told me, been sent away from school for taking a crowbar to a bully. i can only remember my grandmother punishing me once. i was playing in the kitchen and a servant in horseplay pulled my shirt out of my trousers in front just as my grandmother came in and i, accused of i knew not what childish indecency, was given my dinner in a room by myself. but i was always afraid of my uncles and aunts, and once the uncle who had taken the crowbar to the bully found me eating lunch which my grandmother had given me and reproved me for it and made me ashamed. we breakfasted at nine and dined at four and it was considered self-indulgent to eat anything between meals; and once an aunt told me that i had reined in my pony and struck it at the same moment that i might show it off as i rode through the town, and i, because i had been accused of what i thought a very dark crime, had a night of misery. indeed i remember little of childhood but its pain. i have grown happier with every year of life as though gradually conquering something in myself, for certainly my miseries were not made by others but were a part of my own mind. ii one day someone spoke to me of the voice of the conscience, and as i brooded over the phrase i came to think that my soul, because i did not hear an articulate voice, was lost. i had some wretched days until being alone with one of my aunts i heard a whisper in my ear, "what a tease you are!" at first i thought my aunt must have spoken, but when i found she had not, i concluded it was the voice of my conscience and was happy again. from that day the voice has come to me at moments of crisis, but now it is a voice in my head that is sudden and startling. it does not tell me what to do, but often reproves me. it will say perhaps, "that is unjust" of some thought; and once when i complained that a prayer had not been heard, it said, "you have been helped." i had a little flagstaff in front of the house and a red flag with the union jack in the corner. every night i pulled my flag down and folded it up and laid it on a shelf in my bedroom, and one morning before breakfast i found it, though i knew i had folded it up the night before, knotted round the bottom of the flagstaff so that it was touching the grass. i must have heard the servants talking of the faeries for i concluded at once that a faery had tied those four knots and from that on believed that one had whispered in my ear. i have been told, though i do not remember it myself, that i saw, whether once or many times i do not know, a supernatural bird in the corner of the room. once too i was driving with my grandmother a little after dark close to the channel that runs for some five miles from sligo to the sea, and my grandmother showed me the red light of an outward-bound steamer and told me that my grandfather was on board, and that night in my sleep i screamed out and described the steamer's wreck. the next morning my grandfather arrived on a blind horse found for him by grateful passengers. he had, as i remember the story, been asleep when the captain aroused him to say they were going on the rocks. he said, "have you tried sail on her?" and judging from some answer that the captain was demoralised took over the command and, when the ship could not be saved, got the crew and passengers into the boats. his own boat was upset and he saved himself and some others by swimming; some women had drifted ashore, buoyed up by their crinolines. "i was not so much afraid of the sea as of that terrible man with his oar," was the comment of a schoolmaster who was among the survivors. eight men were, however, drowned and my grandfather suffered from that memory at intervals all his life, and if asked to read family prayers never read anything but the shipwreck of st. paul. i remember the dogs more clearly than anyone except my grandfather and grandmother. the black hairy one had no tail because it had been sliced off, if i was told the truth, by a railway train. i think i followed at their heels more than they did at mine, and that their journeys ended at a rabbit-warren behind the garden; and sometimes they had savage fights, the black hairy dog, being well protected by its hair, suffering least. i can remember one so savage that the white dog would not take his teeth out of the black dog's hair till the coachman hung them over the side of a water-butt, one outside and one in the water. my grandmother once told the coachman to cut the hair like a lion's hair and, after a long consultation with the stable-boy, he cut it all over the head and shoulders and left it on the lower part of the body. the dog disappeared for a few days and i did not doubt that its heart was broken. there was a large garden behind the house full of apple-trees with flower-beds and grass-plots in the centre and two figure-heads of ships, one among the strawberry plants under a wall covered with fruit trees and one among the flowers. the one among the flowers was a white lady in flowing robes, while the other, a stalwart man in uniform, had been taken from a three-masted ship of my grandfather's called "the russia," and there was a belief among the servants that the stalwart man represented the tsar and had been presented by the tsar himself. the avenue, or as they say in england the drive, that went from the hall door through a clump of big trees to an insignificant gate and a road bordered by broken and dirty cottages, was but two or three hundred yards, and i often thought it should have been made to wind more, for i judged people's social importance mainly by the length of their avenues. this idea may have come from the stable-boy, for he was my principal friend. he had a book of orange rhymes, and the days when we read them together in the hay-loft gave me the pleasure of rhyme for the first time. later on i can remember being told, when there was a rumour of a fenian rising, that rifles had been served out to the orangemen and presently, when i had begun to dream of my future life, i thought i would like to die fighting the fenians. i was to build a very fast and beautiful ship and to have under my command a company of young men who were always to be in training like athletes and so become as brave and handsome as the young men in the story-books, and there was to be a big battle on the sea-shore near rosses and i was to be killed. i collected little pieces of wood and piled them up in a corner of the yard, and there was an old rotten log in a distant field i often went to look at because i thought it would go a long way in the making of the ship. all my dreams were of ships; and one day a sea captain who had come to dine with my grandfather put a hand on each side of my head and lifted me up to show me africa, and another day a sea captain pointed to the smoke from the pern mill on the quays rising up beyond the trees of the lawn, as though it came from the mountain, and asked me if ben bulben was a burning mountain. once every few months i used to go to rosses point or ballisodare to see another little boy, who had a piebald pony that had once been in a circus and sometimes forgot where it was and went round and round. he was george middleton, son of my great-uncle william middleton. old middleton had bought land, then believed a safe investment, at ballisodare and at rosses, and spent the winter at ballisodare and the summer at rosses. the middleton and pollexfen flour mills were at ballisodare, and a great salmon weir, rapids and a waterfall, but it was more often at rosses that i saw my cousin. we rowed in the river mouth or were taken sailing in a heavy slow schooner yacht or in a big ship's boat that had been rigged and decked. there were great cellars under the house, for it had been a smuggler's house a hundred years before, and sometimes three loud raps would come upon the drawing room window at sun-down, setting all the dogs barking, some dead smuggler giving his accustomed signal. one night i heard them very distinctly and my cousins often heard them, and later on my sister. a pilot had told me that, after dreaming three times of a treasure buried in my uncle's garden, he had climbed the wall in the middle of the night and begun to dig but grew disheartened "because there was so much earth." i told somebody what he had said and was told that it was well he did not find it for it was guarded by a spirit that looked like a flat iron. at ballisodare there was a cleft among the rocks that i passed with terror because i believed that a murderous monster lived there that made a buzzing sound like a bee. it was through the middletons perhaps that i got my interest in country stories and certainly the first faery stories that i heard were in the cottages about their houses. the middletons took the nearest for friends and were always in and out of the cottages of pilots and of tenants. they were practical, always doing something with their hands, making boats, feeding chickens, and without ambition. one of them had designed a steamer many years before my birth and long after i had grown to manhood one could hear it--it had some sort of obsolete engine--many miles off wheezing in the channel like an asthmatic person. it had been built on the lake and dragged through the town by many horses, stopping before the windows where my mother was learning her lessons, and plunging the whole school into candle-light for five days, and was still patched and repatched mainly because it was believed to be a bringer of good luck. it had been called after the betrothed of its builder "janet," long corrupted into the more familiar "jennet," and the betrothed died in my youth having passed her eightieth year and been her husband's plague because of the violence of her temper. another who was but a year or two older than myself used to shock me by running after hens to know by their feel if they were on the point of dropping an egg. they let their houses decay and the glass fall from the windows of their greenhouses, but one among them at any rate had the second sight. they were liked but had not the pride and reserve, the sense of decorum and order, the instinctive playing before themselves that belongs to those who strike the popular imagination. sometimes my grandmother would bring me to see some old sligo gentlewoman whose garden ran down to the river, ending there in a low wall full of wallflowers, and i would sit up upon my chair, very bored, while my elders ate their seed-cake and drank their sherry. my walks with the servants were more interesting; sometimes we would pass a little fat girl and a servant persuaded me to write her a love-letter, and the next time she passed she put her tongue out. but it was the servant's stories that interested me. at such and such a corner a man had got a shilling from a drill sergeant by standing in a barrel and had then rolled out of it and shown his crippled legs. and in such and such a house an old woman had hid herself under the bed of her guests, an officer and his wife, and on hearing them abuse her, beaten them with a broomstick. all the well-known families had their grotesque or tragic or romantic legends, and i often said to myself how terrible it would be to go away and die where nobody would know my story. years afterwards, when i was ten or twelve years old and in london, i would remember sligo with tears, and when i began to write, it was there i hoped to find my audience. next to merville where i lived, was another tree-surrounded house where i sometimes went to see a little boy who stayed there occasionally with his grandmother, whose name i forget and who seemed to me kind and friendly, though when i went to see her in my thirteenth or fourteenth year i discovered that she only cared for very little boys. when the visitors called i hid in the hay-loft and lay hidden behind the great heap of hay while a servant was calling my name in the yard. i do not know how old i was (for all these events seem at the same distance) when i was made drunk. i had been out yachting with an uncle and my cousins and it had come on very rough. i had lain on deck between the mast and the bowsprit and a wave had burst over me and i had seen green water over my head. i was very proud and very wet. when we got into rosses again, i was dressed up in an older boy's clothes so that the trousers came down below my boots and a pilot gave me a little raw whiskey. i drove home with the uncle on an outside car and was so pleased with the strange state in which i found myself that for all my uncle could do, i cried to every passer-by that i was drunk, and went on crying it through the town and everywhere until i was put to bed by my grandmother and given something to drink that tasted of black currants and so fell asleep. iii some six miles off towards ben bulben and beyond the channel, as we call the tidal river between sligo and the rosses, and on top of a hill there was a little square two-storeyed house covered with creepers and looking out upon a garden where the box borders were larger than any i had ever seen, and where i saw for the first time the crimson streak of the gladiolus and awaited its blossom with excitement. under one gable a dark thicket of small trees made a shut-in mysterious place, where one played and believed that something was going to happen. my great-aunt micky lived there. micky was not her right name for she was mary yeats and her father had been my great-grandfather, john yeats, who had been rector of drumcliffe, a few miles further off, and died in 1847. she was a spare, high-coloured, elderly woman and had the oldest looking cat i had ever seen, for its hair had grown into matted locks of yellowy white. she farmed and had one old man-servant, but could not have farmed at all, had not neighbouring farmers helped to gather in the crops, in return for the loan of her farm implements and "out of respect for the family," for as johnny macgurk, the sligo barber said to me, "the yeats's were always very respectable." she was full of family history; all her dinner knives were pointed like daggers through much cleaning, and there was a little james the first cream-jug with the yeats motto and crest, and on her dining-room mantle-piece a beautiful silver cup that had belonged to my great-great-grandfather, who had married a certain mary butler. it had upon it the butler crest and had been already old at the date 1534, when the initials of some bride and bridegroom were engraved under the lip. all its history for generations was rolled up inside it upon a piece of paper yellow with age, until some caller took the paper to light his pipe. another family of yeats, a widow and her two children on whom i called sometimes with my grandmother, lived near in a long low cottage, and owned a very fierce turkeycock that did battle with their visitors; and some miles away lived the secretary to the grand jury and land agent, my great-uncle mat yeats and his big family of boys and girls; but i think it was only in later years that i came to know them well. i do not think any of these liked the pollexfens, who were well off and seemed to them purse-proud, whereas they themselves had come down in the world. i remember them as very well-bred and very religious in the evangelical way and thinking a good deal of aunt micky's old histories. there had been among our ancestors a kings county soldier, one of marlborough's generals, and when his nephew came to dine he gave him boiled pork, and when the nephew said he disliked boiled pork he had asked him to dine again and promised him something he would like better. however, he gave him boiled pork again and the nephew took the hint in silence. the other day as i was coming home from america, i met one of his descendants whose family has not another discoverable link with ours, and he too knew the boiled pork story and nothing else. we have the general's portrait, and he looks very fine in his armour and his long curly wig, and underneath it, after his name, are many honours that have left no tradition among us. were we country people, we could have summarised his life in a legend. another ancestor or great-uncle had chased the united irishmen for a fortnight, fallen into their hands and been hanged, and the notorious major sirr who betrayed the brothers shears, taking their children upon his knees to question them, if the tale does not lie, had been god-father to several of my great-great-grandfather's children; while to make a balance, my great-grandfather had been robert emmett's friend and been suspected and imprisoned though but for a few hours. a great-uncle had been governor of penang, and led the forlorn hope at the taking of rangoon, and an uncle of a still older generation had fallen at new orleans in 1813, and even in the last generation there had been lives of some power and pleasure. an old man who had entertained many famous people, in his 18th century house, where battlement and tower showed the influence of horace walpole, had but lately, after losing all his money, drowned himself, first taking off his rings and chain and watch as became a collector of many beautiful things; and once to remind us of more passionate life, a gun-boat put into rosses, commanded by the illegitimate son of some great-uncle or other. now that i can look at their miniatures, turning them over to find the name of soldier, or lawyer, or castle official, and wondering if they cared for good books or good music, i am delighted with all that joins my life to those who had power in ireland or with those anywhere that were good servants and poor bargainers, but i cared nothing as a child for micky's tales. i could see my grandfather's ships come up the bay or the river, and his sailors treated me with deference, and a ship's carpenter made and mended my toy boats and i thought that nobody could be so important as my grandfather. perhaps, too, it is only now that i can value those more gentle natures so unlike his passion and violence. an old sligo priest has told me how my great-grandfather john yeats always went into his kitchen rattling the keys, so much did he fear finding some one doing wrong, and how when the agent of the great landowner of his parish brought him from cottage to cottage to bid the women send their children to the protestant school and all had promised till they came to one who cried, "child of mine will never darken your door," he had said "thank you, my woman, you are the first honest woman i have met to-day." my uncle, mat yeats, the land agent, had once waited up every night for a week to catch some boys who stole his apples and when he caught them had given them sixpence and told them not to do it again. perhaps it is only fancy or the softening touch of the miniaturist that makes me discover in their faces some courtesy and much gentleness. two 18th century faces interest me the most, one that of a great-great-grandfather, for both have under their powdered curling wigs a half-feminine charm, and as i look at them i discover a something clumsy and heavy in myself. yet it was a yeats who spoke the only eulogy that turns my head. "we have ideas and no passions, but by marriage with a pollexfen we have given a tongue to the sea cliffs." among the miniatures there is a larger picture, an admirable drawing by i know not what master, that is too harsh and merry for its company. he was a connection and close friend of my great-grandmother corbet, and though we spoke of him as "uncle beattie" in our childhood, no blood relation. my great-grandmother who died at ninety-three had many memories of him. he was the friend of goldsmith & was accustomed to boast, clergyman though he was, that he belonged to a hunt-club of which every member but himself had been hanged or transported for treason, and that it was not possible to ask him a question he could not reply to with a perfectly appropriate blasphemy or indecency. iv because i had found it hard to attend to anything less interesting than my thoughts, i was difficult to teach. several of my uncles and aunts had tried to teach me to read, and because they could not, and because i was much older than children who read easily, had come to think, as i have learnt since, that i had not all my faculties. but for an accident they might have thought it for a long time. my father was staying in the house and never went to church, and that gave me the courage to refuse to set out one sunday morning. i was often devout, my eyes filling with tears at the thought of god and of my own sins, but i hated church. my grandmother tried to teach me to put my toes first to the ground because i suppose i stumped on my heels and that took my pleasure out of the way there. later on when i had learnt to read i took pleasure in the words of the hymn, but never understood why the choir took three times as long as i did in getting to the end; and the part of the service i liked, the sermon and passages of the apocalypse and ecclesiastes, were no compensation for all the repetitions and for the fatigue of so much standing. my father said if i would not go to church he would teach me to read. i think now that he wanted to make me go for my grandmother's sake and could think of no other way. he was an angry and impatient teacher and flung the reading book at my head, and next sunday i decided to go to church. my father had, however, got interested in teaching me, and only shifted the lesson to a week-day till he had conquered my wandering mind. my first clear image of him was fixed on my imagination, i believe, but a few days before the first lesson. he had just arrived from london and was walking up and down the nursery floor. he had a very black beard and hair, and one cheek bulged out with a fig that was there to draw the pain out of a bad tooth. one of the nurses (a nurse had come from london with my brothers and sisters) said to the other that a live frog, she had heard, was best of all. then i was sent to a dame school kept by an old woman who stood us in rows and had a long stick like a billiard cue to get at the back rows. my father was still at sligo when i came back from my first lesson and asked me what i had been taught. i said i had been taught to sing, and he said, "sing then" and i sang "little drops of water, little grains of sand, make the mighty ocean, and the pleasant land" high up in my head. so my father wrote to the old woman that i was never to be taught to sing again, and afterwards other teachers were told the same thing. presently my eldest sister came on a long visit and she and i went to a little two-storeyed house in a poor street where an old gentlewoman taught us spelling and grammar. when we had learned our lesson well, we were allowed to look at a sword presented to her father who had led troops in india or china and to spell out a long complimentary inscription on the silver scabbard. as we walked to her house or home again we held a large umbrella before us, both gripping the handle and guiding ourselves by looking out of a round hole gnawed in the cover by a mouse. when i had got beyond books of one syllable, i began to spend my time in a room called the library, though there were no books in it that i can remember except some old novels i never opened and a many volumed encyclopaedia published towards the end of the 18th century. i read this encyclopaedia a great deal and can remember a long passage considering whether fossil wood despite its appearance might not be only a curiously shaped stone. my father's unbelief had set me thinking about the evidences of religion and i weighed the matter perpetually with great anxiety, for i did not think i could live without religion. all my religious emotions were, i think, connected with clouds and cloudy glimpses of luminous sky, perhaps because of some bible picture of god's speaking to abraham or the like. at least i can remember the sight moving me to tears. one day i got a decisive argument for belief. a cow was about to calve, and i went to the field where the cow was with some farm-hands who carried a lantern, and next day i heard that the cow had calved in the early morning. i asked everybody how calves were born, and because nobody would tell me, made up my mind that nobody knew. they were the gift of god, that much was certain, but it was plain that nobody had ever dared to see them come, and children must come in the same way. i made up my mind that when i was a man i would wait up till calf or child had come. i was certain there would be a cloud and a burst of light and god would bring the calf in the cloud out of the light. that thought made me content until a boy of twelve or thirteen, who had come on a visit for the day, sat beside me in a hay-loft and explained all the mechanism of sex. he had learnt all about it from an elder boy whose pathic he was (to use a term he would not have understood) and his description, given, as i can see now, as if he were telling of any other fact of physical life, made me miserable for weeks. after the first impression wore off, i began to doubt if he had spoken truth, but one day i discovered a passage in the encyclopaedia, though i only partly understood its long words, that confirmed what he had said. i did not know enough to be shocked at his relation to the elder boy, but it was the first breaking of the dream of childhood. my realization of death came when my father and mother and my two brothers and my two sisters were on a visit. i was in the library when i heard feet running past and heard somebody say in the passage that my younger brother, robert, had died. he had been ill for some days. a little later my sister and i sat at the table, very happy, drawing ships with their flags half-mast high. we must have heard or seen that the ships in the harbour had their flags at half-mast. next day at breakfast i heard people telling how my mother and the servant had heard the banshee crying the night before he died. it must have been after this that i told my grandmother i did not want to go with her when she went to see old bed-ridden people because they would soon die. v at length when i was eight or nine an aunt said to me, "you are going to london. here you are somebody. there you will be nobody at all." i knew at the time that her words were a blow at my father, not at me, but it was some years before i knew her reason. she thought so able a man as my father could have found out some way of painting more popular pictures if he had set his mind to it and that it was wrong of him "to spend every evening at his club." she had mistaken, for what she would have considered a place of wantonness, heatherley's art school. my mother and brother and sister were at sligo perhaps when i was sent to england, for my father and i and a group of landscape painters lodged at burnham beeches with an old mr. and mrs. earle. my father was painting the first big pond you come to if you have driven from slough through farnham royal. he began it in spring and painted all through the year, the picture changing with the seasons, and gave it up unfinished when he had painted the snow upon the heath-covered banks. he is never satisfied and can never make himself say that any picture is finished. in the evening he heard me my lessons or read me some novel of fenimore cooper's. i found delightful adventures in the woods--one day a blind worm and an adder fighting in a green hollow, and sometimes mrs. earle would be afraid to tidy the room because i had put a bottle full of newts on the mantle-piece. now and then a boy from a farm on the other side of the road threw a pebble at my window at daybreak, and he and i went fishing in the big second pond. now and then another farmer's boy and i shot sparrows with an old pepper box revolver and the boy would roast them on a string. there was an old horse one of the painters called the scaffolding, and sometimes a son of old earle's drove with me to slough and once to windsor, and at windsor we made our lunch of cold sausages bought from a public house. i did not know what it was to be alone, for i could wander in pleasant alarm through the enclosed parts, then very large, or round some pond imagining ships going in and out among the reeds and thinking of sligo or of strange seafaring adventures in the fine ship i should launch when i grew up. i had always a lesson to learn before night and that was a continual misery, for i could very rarely, with so much to remember, set my thoughts upon it and then only in fear. one day my father told me that a painter had said i was very thick-skinned and did not mind what was said to me, and i could not understand how anybody could be so unjust. it made me wretched to be idle but one could not help it. i was once surprised and shocked. all but my father and myself had been to london, and kennedy and farrar and page, i remember the names vaguely, arrived laughing and talking. one of them had carried off a card of texts from the waiting room of the station and hung it up on the wall. i thought "he has stolen it," but my father and all made it a theme of merry conversation. then i returned to sligo for a few weeks as i was to do once or twice in every year for years, and after that we settled in london. perhaps my mother and the other children had been there all the time, for i remember my father now and again going to london. the first house we lived in was close to burne jones's house at north end, but we moved after a year or two to bedford park. at north end we had a pear tree in the garden and plenty of pears, but the pears used to be full of maggots, and almost opposite lived a school-master called o'neill, and when a little boy told me that the school-master's great-grandfather had been a king i did not doubt it. i was sitting against the hedge and iron railing of some villa-garden there, when i heard one boy say to another it was something wrong with my liver that gave me such a dark complexion and that i could not live more than a year. i said to myself a year is a very long time, one can do such a lot of things in a year, and put it out of my head. when my father gave me a holiday and later when i had a holiday from school i took my schooner boat to the round pond, sailing it very commonly against the two cutter yachts of an old naval officer. he would sometimes look at the ducks and say, "i would like to take that fellow home for my dinner," and he sang me a sailor's song about a coffin ship which left sligo after the great famine, that made me feel very important. the servants at sligo had told me the story. when she was moved from the berth she had lain in, an unknown dead man's body had floated up, a very evil omen; and my grandfather, who was lloyds' agent, had condemned her, but she slipped out in the night. the pond had its own legends; and a boy who had seen a certain model steamer "burned to the water's edge" was greatly valued as a friend. there was a little boy i was kind to because i knew his father had done something disgraceful, though i did not know what. it was years before i discovered that his father was but the maker of certain popular statues, many of which are now in public places. i had heard my father's friends speak of him. sometimes my sister came with me, and we would look into all the sweet shops & toy shops on our way home, especially into one opposite holland house because there was a cutter yacht made of sugar in the window, and we drank at all the fountains. once a stranger spoke to us and bought us sweets and came with us almost to our door. we asked him to come in and told him our father's name. he would not come in, but laughed and said, "oh, that is the painter who scrapes out every day what he painted the day before." a poignant memory came upon me the other day while i was passing the drinking-fountain near holland park, for there i and my sister had spoken together of our longing for sligo and our hatred of london. i know we were both very close to tears and remember with wonder, for i had never known anyone that cared for such momentoes, that i longed for a sod of earth from some field i knew, something of sligo to hold in my hand. it was some old race instinct like that of a savage, for we had been brought up to laugh at all display of emotion. yet it was our mother, who would have thought its display a vulgarity, who kept alive that love. she would spend hours listening to stories or telling stories of the pilots and fishing people of rosses point, or of her own sligo girlhood, and it was always assumed between her and us that sligo was more beautiful than other places. i can see now that she had great depth of feeling, that she was her father's daughter. my memory of what she was like in those days has grown very dim, but i think her sense of personality, her desire of any life of her own, had disappeared in her care for us and in much anxiety about money. i always see her sewing or knitting in spectacles and wearing some plain dress. yet ten years ago when i was in san francisco, an old cripple came to see me who had left sligo before her marriage; he came to tell me, he said, that my mother "had been the most beautiful girl in sligo." [illustration: _mrs. yeats from a drawing by j. b. yeats made in 1867_] the only lessons i had ever learned were those my father taught me, for he terrified me by descriptions of my moral degradation and he humiliated me by my likeness to disagreeable people; but presently i was sent to school at hammersmith. it was a gothic building of yellow brick: a large hall full of desks, some small class-rooms and a separate house for boarders, all built perhaps in 1840 or 1850. i thought it an ancient building and that it had belonged to the founder of the school, lord godolphin, who was romantic to me because there was a novel about him. i never read the novel, but i thought only romantic people were put in books. on one side, there was a piano factory of yellow brick, upon two sides half finished rows of little shops and villas all yellow brick, and on the fourth side, outside the wall of our playing field, a brickfield of cinders and piles of half-burned yellow bricks. all the names and faces of my school-fellows have faded from me except one name without a face and the face and name of one friend, mainly no doubt because it was all so long ago, but partly because i only seem to remember things that have mixed themselves up with scenes that have some quality to bring them again and again before the memory. for some days, as i walked homeward along the hammersmith road, i told myself that whatever i most cared for had been taken away. i had found a small, green-covered book given to my father by a dublin man of science; it gave an account of the strange sea creatures the man of science had discovered among the rocks at howth or dredged out of dublin bay. it had long been my favourite book; and when i read it i believed that i was growing very wise, but now i should have no time for it nor for my own thoughts. every moment would be taken up learning or saying lessons or walking between school and home four times a day, for i came home in the middle of the day for dinner. but presently i forgot my trouble, absorbed in two things i had never known, companionship and enmity. after my first day's lesson, a circle of boys had got around me in a playing field and asked me questions, "who's your father?" "what does he do?" "how much money has he?" presently a boy said something insulting. i had never struck anybody or been struck, and now all in a minute, without any intention upon my side, but as if i had been a doll moved by a string, i was hitting at the boys within reach and being hit. after that i was called names for being irish, and had many fights and never, for years, got the better of any one of them; for i was delicate and had no muscles. sometimes, however, i found means of retaliation, even of aggression. there was a boy with a big stride, much feared by little boys, and finding him alone in the playing field, i went up to him and said, "rise upon sugaun and sink upon gad." "what does that mean?" he said. "rise upon hay-leg and sink upon straw," i answered and told him that in ireland the sergeant tied straw and hay to the ankles of a stupid recruit to show him the difference between his legs. my ears were boxed, and when i complained to my friends, they said i had brought it upon myself; and that i deserved all i got. i probably dared myself to other feats of a like sort, for i did not think english people intelligent or well-behaved unless they were artists. everyone i knew well in sligo despised nationalists and catholics, but all disliked england with a prejudice that had come down perhaps from the days of the irish parliament. i knew stories to the discredit of england, and took them all seriously. my mother had met some english woman who did not like dublin because the legs of the men were too straight, and at sligo, as everybody knew, an englishman had once said to a car-driver, "if you people were not so lazy, you would pull down the mountain and spread it out over the sand and that would give you acres of good fields." at sligo there is a wide river mouth and at ebb tide most of it is dry sand, but all sligo knew that in some way i cannot remember it was the spreading of the tide over the sand that left the narrow channel fit for shipping. at any rate the carman had gone chuckling all over sligo with his tale. people would tell it to prove that englishmen were always grumbling. "they grumble about their dinners and everything--there was an englishman who wanted to pull down knock-na-rea" and so on. my mother had shown them to me kissing at railway stations, and taught me to feel disgust at their lack of reserve, and my father told how my grandfather, william yeats, who had died before i was born, when he came home to his rectory in county down from an english visit, spoke of some man he had met on a coach road who "englishman-like" told him all his affairs. my father explained that an englishman generally believed that his private affairs did him credit, while an irishman, being poor and probably in debt, had no such confidence. i, however, did not believe in this explanation. my sligo nurses, who had in all likelihood the irish catholic political hatred, had never spoken well of any englishman. once when walking in the town of sligo i had turned to look after an english man and woman whose clothes attracted me. the man i remember had gray clothes and knee-breeches and the woman a gray dress, and my nurse had said contemptuously, "towrows." perhaps before my time, there had been some english song with the burden "tow row row," and everybody had told me that english people ate skates and even dog-fish, and i myself had only just arrived in england when i saw an old man put marmalade in his porridge. i was divided from all those boys, not merely by the anecdotes that are everywhere perhaps a chief expression of the distrust of races, but because our mental images were different. i read their boys' books and they excited me, but if i read of some english victory, i did not believe that i read of my own people. they thought of cressy and agincourt and the union jack and were all very patriotic, and i, without those memories of limerick and the yellow ford that would have strengthened an irish catholic, thought of mountain and lake, of my grandfather and of ships. anti-irish feeling was running high, for the land league had been founded and landlords had been shot, and i, who had no politics, was yet full of pride, for it is romantic to live in a dangerous country. i daresay i thought the rough manners of a cheap school, as my grandfather yeats had those of a chance companion, typical of all england. at any rate i had a harassed life & got many a black eye and had many outbursts of grief and rage. once a boy, the son of a great bohemian glass-maker, and who was older than the rest of us, and had been sent out of his country because of a love affair, beat a boy for me because we were "both foreigners." and a boy, who grew to be the school athlete and my chief friend, beat a great many. his are the face and name that i remember--his name was of huguenot origin and his face like his gaunt and lithe body had something of the american indian in colour and lineament. i was very much afraid of the other boys, and that made me doubt myself for the first time. when i had gathered pieces of wood in the corner for my great ship, i was confident that i could keep calm among the storms and die fighting when the great battle came. but now i was ashamed of my lack of courage; for i wanted to be like my grandfather who thought so little of danger that he had jumped overboard in the bay of biscay after an old hat. i was very much afraid of physical pain, and one day when i had made some noise in class, my friend the athlete was accused and i allowed him to get two strokes of the cane before i gave myself up. he had held out his hands without flinching and had not rubbed them on his sides afterwards. i was not caned, but was made to stand up for the rest of the lesson. i suffered very much afterwards when the thought came to me, but he did not reproach me. i had been some years at school before i had my last fight. my friend, the athlete, had given me many months of peace, but at last refused to beat any more and said i must learn to box, and not go near the other boys till i knew how. i went home with him every day and boxed in his room, and the bouts had always the same ending. my excitability gave me an advantage at first and i would drive him across the room, and then he would drive me across and it would end very commonly with my nose bleeding. one day his father, an elderly banker, brought us out into the garden and tried to make us box in a cold-blooded, courteous way, but it was no use. at last he said i might go near the boys again and i was no sooner inside the gate of the playing field than a boy flung a handful of mud and cried out "mad irishman." i hit him several times on the face without being hit, till the boys round said we should make friends. i held out my hand in fear; for i knew if we went on i should be beaten, and he took it sullenly. i had so poor a reputation as a fighter that it was a great disgrace to him, and even the masters made fun of his swollen face; and though some little boys came in a deputation to ask me to lick a boy they named, i had never another fight with a school-fellow. we had a great many fights with the street boys and the boys of a neighbouring charity school. we had always the better because we were not allowed to fling stones, and that compelled us to close or do our best to close. the monitors had been told to report any boy who fought in the street, but they only reported those who flung stones. i always ran at the athlete's heels, but i never hit anyone. my father considered these fights absurd, and even that they were an english absurdity, and so i could not get angry enough to like hitting and being hit; and then too my friend drove the enemy before him. he had no doubts or speculations to lighten his fist upon an enemy, that, being of low behaviour, should be beaten as often as possible, and there were real wrongs to avenge: one of our boys had been killed by the blow of a stone hid in a snowball. sometimes we on our side got into trouble with the parents of boys. there was a quarrel between the athlete and an old german who had a barber's shop we passed every day on our way home, and one day he spat through the window and hit the german on his bald head--the monitors had not forbidden spitting. the german ran after us, but when the athlete squared up he went away. now, though i knew it was not right to spit at people, my admiration for my friend arose to a great height. i spread his fame over the school, and next day there was a fine stir when somebody saw the old german going up the gravel walk to the head-master's room. presently there was such a noise in the passage that even the master had to listen. it was the head-master's red-haired brother turning the old german out and shouting to the man-servant "see that he doesn't steal the top-coats." we heard afterwards that he had asked the names of the two boys who passed his window every day and been told the names of the two head boys who passed also but were notoriously gentlemanly in their manners. yet my friend was timid also and that restored my confidence in myself. he would often ask me to buy the sweets or the ginger-beer because he was afraid sometimes when speaking to a stranger. i had one reputation that i valued. at first when i went to the hammersmith swimming-baths with the other boys, i was afraid to plunge in until i had gone so far down the ladder that the water came up to my thighs; but one day when i was alone i fell from the spring-board which was five or six feet above the water. after that i would dive from a greater height than the others and i practised swimming under water and pretending not to be out of breath when i came up. and then if i ran a race, i took care not to pant or show any sign of strain. and in this i had an advantage even over the athlete; for though he could run faster and was harder to tire than anybody else, he grew very pale and i was often paid compliments. i used to run with my friend when he was training to keep him in company. he would give me a long start and soon overtake me. i followed the career of a certain professional runner for months, buying papers that would tell me if he had won or lost. i had seen him described as "the bright particular star of american athletics," and the wonderful phrase had thrown enchantment over him. had he been called the particular bright star, i should have cared nothing for him. i did not understand the symptom for years after. i was nursing my own dream, my form of the common school-boy dream, though i was no longer gathering the little pieces of broken and rotting wood. often, instead of learning my lesson, i covered the white squares of the chessboard on my little table with pen and ink pictures of myself, doing all kinds of courageous things. one day my father said "there was a man in nelson's ship at the battle of trafalgar, a ship's purser, whose hair turned white; what a sensitive temperament; that man should have achieved something!" i was vexed and bewildered, and am still bewildered and still vexed, finding it a poor and crazy thing that we who have imagined so many noble persons cannot bring our flesh to heel. vi the head-master was a clergyman, a good-humoured, easy-going man, as temperate, one had no doubt, in his religious life as in all else, and if he ever lost sleep on our account, it was from a very proper anxiety as to our gentility. i was in disgrace once because i went to school in some brilliant blue homespun serge my mother had bought in devonshire, and i was told i must never wear it again. he had tried several times, though he must have known it was hopeless, to persuade our parents to put us into eton clothes, and on certain days we were compelled to wear gloves. after my first year, we were forbidden to play marbles because it was a form of gambling and was played by nasty little boys, and a few months later told not to cross our legs in class. it was a school for the sons of professional men who had failed or were at the outset of their career, and the boys held an indignation meeting when they discovered that a new boy was an apothecary's son (i think at first i was his only friend,) and we all pretended that our parents were richer than they were. i told a little boy who had often seen my mother knitting or mending my clothes that she only mended or knitted because she liked it, though i knew it was necessity. it was like, i suppose, most schools of its type, an obscene, bullying place, where a big boy would hit a small boy in the wind to see him double up, and where certain boys, too young for any emotion of sex, would sing the dirty songs of the street, but i daresay it suited me better than a better school. i have heard the head-master say, "how has so-and-so done in his greek?" and the class-master reply, "very badly, but he is doing well in his cricket," and the head-master has gone away saying "oh, leave him alone." i was unfitted for school work, and though i would often work well for weeks together, i had to give the whole evening to one lesson if i was to know it. my thoughts were a great excitement, but when i tried to do anything with them, it was like trying to pack a balloon into a shed in a high wind. i was always near the bottom of my class, and always making excuses that but added to my timidity; but no master was rough with me. i was known to collect moths and butterflies and to get into no worse mischief than hiding now and again an old tailless white rat in my coat-pocket or my desk. there was but one interruption of our quiet habits, the brief engagement of an irish master, a fine greek scholar and vehement teacher, but of fantastic speech. he would open the class by saying, "there he goes, there he goes," or some like words as the head-master passed by at the end of the hall. "of course this school is no good. how could it be with a clergyman for head-master?" and then perhaps his eye would light on me, and he would make me stand up and tell me it was a scandal i was so idle when all the world knew that any irish boy was cleverer than a whole class-room of english boys, a description i had to pay for afterwards. sometimes he would call up a little boy who had a girl's face and kiss him upon both cheeks and talk of taking him to greece in the holidays, and presently we heard he had written to the boy's parents about it, but long before the holidays he was dismissed. vii two pictures come into my memory. i have climbed to the top of a tree by the edge of the playing field, and am looking at my school-fellows and am as proud of myself as a march cock when it crows to its first sunrise. i am saying to myself, "if when i grow up i am as clever among grown-up men as i am among these boys, i shall be a famous man." i remind myself how they think all the same things and cover the school walls at election times with the opinions their fathers find in the newspapers. i remind myself that i am an artist's son and must take some work as the whole end of life and not think as the others do of becoming well off and living pleasantly. the other picture is of a hotel sitting-room in the strand, where a man is hunched up over the fire. he is a cousin who has speculated with another cousin's money and has fled from ireland in danger of arrest. my father has brought us to spend the evening with him, to distract him from the remorse my father knows that he must be suffering. viii for years bedford park was a romantic excitement. at north end my father had announced at breakfast that our glass chandelier was absurd and was to be taken down, and a little later he described the village norman shaw was building. i had thought he said, "there is to be a wall round and no newspapers to be allowed in." and when i had told him how put out i was at finding neither wall nor gate, he explained that he had merely described what ought to be. we were to see de morgan tiles, peacock-blue doors and the pomegranate pattern and the tulip pattern of morris, and to discover that we had always hated doors painted with imitation grain and the roses of mid-victoria, and tiles covered with geometrical patterns that seemed to have been shaken out of a muddy kaleidoscope. we went to live in a house like those we had seen in pictures and even met people dressed like people in the storybooks. the streets were not straight and dull as at north end, but wound about where there was a big tree or for the mere pleasure of winding, and there were wood palings instead of iron railings. the newness of everything, the empty houses where we played at hide-and-seek, and the strangeness of it all, made us feel that we were living among toys. we could imagine people living happy lives as we thought people did long ago when the poor were picturesque and the master of a house would tell of strange adventures over the sea. only the better houses had been built. the commercial builder had not begun to copy and to cheapen, and besides we only knew the most beautiful houses, the houses of artists. my two sisters and my brother and myself had dancing lessons in a low, red-brick and tiled house that drove away dreams, long cherished, of some day living in a house made exactly like a ship's cabin. the dining-room table, where sinbad the sailor might have sat, was painted peacock-blue, and the woodwork was all peacock-blue and upstairs there was a window niche so big and high up, there was a flight of steps to go up and down by and a table in the niche. the two sisters of the master of the house, a well-known pre-raphaelite painter, were our teachers, and they and their old mother were dressed in peacock-blue and in dresses so simply cut that they seemed a part of every story. once when i had been looking with delight at the old woman, my father who had begun to be influenced by french art, muttered, "imagine dressing up your old mother like that." [illustration: _john butler yeats from a watercolour drawing by himself_] my father's friends were painters who had been influenced by the pre-raphaelite movement but had lost their confidence. wilson, page, nettleship, potter are the names i remember, and at north end, i remember them most clearly. i often heard one and another say that rossetti had never mastered his materials, and though nettleship had already turned lion-painter, my father talked constantly of the designs of his youth, especially of "god creating evil," which browning praised in a letter my father had seen "as the most sublime conception in ancient or modern art." in those early days, that he might not be tempted from his work by society, he had made a rent in the tail of his coat; and i have heard my mother tell how she had once sewn it up, but before he came again he had pulled out all the stitches. potter's exquisite "dormouse," now in the tate gallery, hung in our house for years. his dearest friend was a pretty model who was, when my memory begins, working for some position in a board-school. i can remember her sitting at the side of the throne in the north end studio, a book in her hand and my father hearing her say a latin lesson. her face was the typical mild, oval face of the painting of that time, and may indeed have helped in the moulding of an ideal of beauty. i found it the other day drawn in pencil on a blank leaf of a volume of the "earthly paradise." it was at bedford park that i had heard farrar, whom i had first known at burnham beeches, tell of potter's death and burial. potter had been very poor and had died from the effects of semi-starvation. he had lived so long on bread and tea that his stomach withered--i am sure that was the word used, and when his relations found out and gave him good food, it was too late. farrar had been at the funeral and had stood behind some well-to-do people who were close about the grave and saw one point to the model, who had followed the hearse on foot and was now crying at a distance, and say, "that is the woman who had all his money." she had often begged him to allow her to pay his debts, but he would not have it. probably his rich friends blamed his poor friends, and they the rich, and i daresay, nobody had known enough to help him. besides, he had a strange form of dissipation, i had heard someone say; he was devoted to children, and would become interested in some child--his "dormouse" is a portrait of a child--and spend his money on its education. my sister remembers seeing him paint with a dark glove on his right hand, and his saying that he had used so much varnish the reflection of the hand would have teased him but for the glove. "i will soon have to paint my face some dark colour," he added. i have no memory, however, but of noticing that he sat at the easel, whereas my father always stands and walks up and down, and that there was dark blue, a colour that always affects me, in the background of his picture. there is a public gallery of wilson's work in his native aberdeen and my sisters have a number of his landscapes--wood-scenes for the most part--painted with phlegm and melancholy, the romantic movement drawing to its latest phase. ix my father read out to me, for the first time, when i was eight or nine years old. between sligo and rosses point, there is a tongue of land covered with coarse grass that runs out into the sea or the mud according to the state of the tide. it is the place where dead horses are buried. sitting there, my father read me "the lays of ancient rome." it was the first poetry that had moved me after the stable-boy's "orange rhymes." later on he read me "ivanhoe" and "the lay of the last minstrel," and they are still vivid in the memory. i re-read "ivanhoe" the other day, but it has all vanished except gurth, the swineherd, at the outset and friar tuck and his venison pasty, the two scenes that laid hold of me in childhood. "the lay of the last minstrel" gave me a wish to turn magician that competed for years with the dream of being killed upon the sea-shore. when i first went to school, he tried to keep me from reading boys' papers, because a paper, by its very nature, as he explained to me, had to be made for the average boy or man and so could not but thwart one's growth. he took away my paper and i had not courage to say that i was but reading and delighting in a prose re-telling of the iliad. but after a few months, my father said he had been too anxious and became less urgent about my lessons and less violent if i had learnt them badly, and he ceased to notice what i read. from that on i shared the excitement which ran through all my fellows on wednesday afternoons when the boys' papers were published, and i read endless stories i have forgotten as completely as grimm's fairy tales that i read at sligo, and all of hans andersen except the ugly duckling which my mother had read to me and to my sisters. i remember vaguely that i liked hans andersen better than grimm because he was less homely, but even he never gave me the knights and dragons and beautiful ladies that i longed for. i have remembered nothing that i read, but only those things that i heard or saw. when i was ten or twelve my father took me to see irving play hamlet, and did not understand why i preferred irving to ellen terry, who was, i can now see, the idol of himself and his friends. i could not think of her, as i could of irving's hamlet, as but myself, and i was not old enough to care for feminine charm and beauty. for many years hamlet was an image of heroic self-possession for the poses of youth and childhood to copy, a combatant of the battle within myself. my father had read me the story of the little boy murdered by the jews in chaucer and the tale of sir topaz, explaining the hard words, and though both excited me, i had liked sir topaz best and been disappointed that it left off in the middle. as i grew older, he would tell me plots of balzac's novels, using incident or character as an illustration for some profound criticism of life. now that i have read all the comédie humaine, certain pages have an unnatural emphasis, straining and overbalancing the outline, and i remember how in some suburban street, he told me of lucien de rubempré, or of the duel after the betrayal of his master, and how the wounded lucien had muttered "so much the worse" when he heard someone say that he was not dead. i now can but share with a friend my thoughts and my emotions, and there is a continual discovery of difference, but in those days, before i had found myself, we could share adventures. when friends plan and do together, their minds become one mind and the last secret disappears. i was useless at games. i cannot remember that i ever kicked a goal or made a run, but i was a mine of knowledge when i and the athlete and those two notoriously gentlemanly boys--theirs was the name that i remember without a face--set out for richmond park, for coomb wood or twyford abbey to look for butterflies and moths and beetles. sometimes to-day i meet people at lunch or dinner whose address will sound familiar and i remember of a sudden how a game-keeper chased me from the plantation behind their house, and how i have turned over the cow-dung in their paddock in the search for some rare beetle believed to haunt the spot. the athlete was our watchman and our safety. he would suggest, should we meet a carriage on the drive, that we take off our hats and walk on as though about to pay a call. and once when we were sighted by a game-keeper at coomb wood, he persuaded the eldest of the brothers to pretend to be a school-master taking his boys for a walk, and the keeper, instead of swearing and threatening the law, was sad and argumentative. no matter how charming the place, (and there is a little stream in a hollow where wimbledon common flows into coomb wood that is pleasant in the memory,) i knew that those other boys saw something i did not see. i was a stranger there. there was something in their way of saying the names of places that made me feel this. x when i arrived at the clarence basin, liverpool, (the dock clarence mangan had his first name from) on my way to sligo for my holidays i was among sligo people. when i was a little boy, an old woman who had come to liverpool with crates of fowl, made me miserable by throwing her arms around me the moment i had alighted from my cab and telling the sailor who carried my luggage that she had held me in her arms when i was a baby. the sailor may have known me almost as well, for i was often at sligo quay to sail my boat; and i came and went once or twice in every year upon the ss. _sligo_ or the ss. _liverpool_ which belonged to a company that had for directors my grandfather and his partner william middleton. i was always pleased if it was the _liverpool_, for she had been built to run the blockade during the war of north and south. i waited for this voyage always with excitement and boasted to other boys about it, and when i was a little boy had walked with my feet apart as i had seen sailors walk. i used to be sea-sick, but i must have hidden this from the other boys and partly even from myself; for, as i look back, i remember very little about it, while i remember stories i was told by the captain or by his first mate, and the look of the great cliffs of donegal & tory island men coming alongside with lobsters, talking irish and, if it was night, blowing on a burning sod to draw our attention. the captain, an old man with square shoulders and a fringe of grey hair round his face, would tell his first mate, a very admiring man, of fights he had had on shore at liverpool; and perhaps it was of him i was thinking when i was very small and asked my grandmother if god was as strong as sailors. once, at any rate, he had been nearly wrecked; the _liverpool_ had been all but blown upon the mull of galloway with her shaft broken, and the captain had said to his mate, "mind and jump when she strikes, for we don't want to be killed by the falling spars;" and when the mate answered, "my god, i cannot swim," he had said, "who could keep afloat for five minutes in a sea like that?" he would often say his mate was the most timid of men and that "a girl along the quays could laugh him out of anything." my grandfather had more than once given the mate a ship of his own, but he had always thrown up his berth to sail with his old captain where he felt safe. once he had been put in charge of a ship in a dry dock in liverpool, but a boy was drowned in sligo, and before the news could reach him he wired to his wife, "ghost, come at once, or i will throw up berth." he had been wrecked a number of times and maybe that had broken his nerve or maybe he had a sensitiveness that would in another class have given him taste & culture. i once forgot a copy of "count robert of paris" on a deck-seat, and when i found it again, it was all covered with the prints of his dirty thumb. he had once seen the coach-a-baur or death coach. it came along the road, he said, till it was hidden by a cottage and it never came out on the other side of the cottage. once i smelled new-mown hay when we were quite a long way from land, and once when i was watching the sea-parrots (as the sailors call the puffin) i noticed they had different ways of tucking their heads under their wings, or i fancied it and said to the captain "they have different characters." sometimes my father came too, and the sailors when they saw him coming would say "there is john yeats and we shall have a storm," for he was considered unlucky. i no longer cared for little shut-in-places, for a coppice against the stable-yard at merville where my grandfather lived or against the gable at seaview where aunt micky lived, and i began to climb the mountains, sometimes with the stable-boy for companion, and to look up their stories in the county history. i fished for trout with a worm in the mountain streams and went out herring-fishing at night: and because my grandfather had said the english were in the right to eat skates, i carried a large skate all the six miles or so from rosses point, but my grandfather did not eat it. one night just as the equinoctial gales were coming when i was sailing home in the coastguard's boat a boy told me a beetle of solid gold, strayed maybe from poe's "gold bug," had been seen by somebody in scotland and i do not think that either of us doubted his news. indeed, so many stories did i hear from sailors along the wharf, or round the fo'castle fire of the little steamer that ran between sligo and rosses, or from boys out fishing that the world was full of monsters and marvels. the foreign sailors wearing ear-rings did not tell me stories, but like the fishing boys, i gazed at them in wonder and admiration. when i look at my brother's picture, "memory harbour," houses and anchored ship and distant lighthouse all set close together as in some old map, i recognize in the blue-coated man with the mass of white shirt the pilot i went fishing with, and i am full of disquiet and of excitement, and i am melancholy because i have not made more and better verses. i have walked on sinbad's yellow shore and never shall another hit my fancy. i had still my red pony, and once my father came with me riding too, and was very exacting. he was indignant and threatening because he did not think i rode well. "you must do everything well," he said, "that the pollexfens respect, though you must do other things also." he used to say the same about my lessons, and tell me to be good at mathematics. i can see now that he had a sense of inferiority among those energetic, successful people. he himself, some pollexfen told me, though he rode very badly, would go hunting upon anything and take any ditch. his father, the county down rector, though a courtly man and a scholar, had been so dandified a horseman that i had heard of his splitting three riding breeches before he had settled into his saddle for a day's hunting, and of his first rector exclaiming, "i had hoped for a curate but they have sent me a jockey." left to myself, i rode without ambition though getting many falls, and more often to rathbroughan where my great-uncle mat lived, than to any place else. his children and i used to sail our toy-boats in the river before his house, arming them with toy-cannon, touch-paper at all the touch-holes, always hoping but always in vain that they would not twist about in the eddies but fire their cannon at one another. i must have gone to sligo sometimes in the christmas holidays, for i can remember riding my red pony to a hunt. he balked at the first jump, to my relief, and when a crowd of boys began to beat him, i would not allow it. they all jeered at me for being afraid. i found a gap and when i was alone in a field tried another ditch, but the pony would not jump that either; so i tied him to a tree and lay down among the ferns and looked up into the sky. on my way home i met the hunt again and noticed that everybody avoided the dogs, and because i wanted to find out why they did so i rode to where the dogs had gathered in the middle of the lane and stood my pony amongst them, and everybody began to shout at me. sometimes i would ride to castle dargan, where lived a brawling squireen, married to one of my middleton cousins, and once i went thither on a visit with my cousin george middleton. it was, i dare say, the last household where i could have found the reckless ireland of a hundred years ago in final degradation. but i liked the place for the romance of its two ruined castles facing one another across a little lake, castle dargan and castle fury. the squireen lived in a small house whither his family had moved from their castle some time in the 18th century, and two old miss furys, who let lodgings in sligo, were the last remnants of the breed of the other ruin. once in every year he drove to sligo for the two old women, that they might look upon the ancestral stones and remember their gentility, and he would put his wildest horses into the shafts to enjoy their terror. he himself, with a reeling imagination, knew not what he could be at to find a spur for the heavy hours. the first day i came there, he gave my cousin a revolver, (we were upon the high road,) and to show it off, or his own shooting, he shot a passing chicken; and half an hour later, when he had brought us to the lake's edge under his castle, now but the broken corner of a tower with a winding stair, he fired at or over an old countryman who was walking on the far edge of the lake. the next day i heard him settling the matter with the old countryman over a bottle of whiskey, and both were in good humour. once he had asked a timid aunt of mine if she would like to see his last new pet, and thereupon had marched a race-horse in through the hall door and round the dining-room table. and once she came down to a bare table because he had thought it a good joke to open the window and let his harriers eat the breakfast. there was a current story, too, of his shooting, in the pride of his marksmanship, at his own door with a martini-henry rifle till he had shot the knocker off. at last he quarrelled with my great-uncle william middleton, and to avenge himself gathered a rabble of wild country-lads and mounted them and himself upon the most broken-down rascally horses he could lay hands on and marched them through sligo under a land-league banner. after that, having neither friends nor money, he made off to australia or to canada. i fished for pike at castle dargan and shot at birds with a muzzle-loading pistol until somebody shot a rabbit and i heard it squeal. from that on i would kill nothing but the dumb fish. xi we left bedford park for a long thatched house at howth, co. dublin. the land war was now at its height and our kildare land, that had been in the family for many generations, was slipping from us. rents had fallen more and more, we had to sell to pay some charge or mortgage, but my father and his tenants parted without ill-will. during the worst times an old tenant had under his roof my father's shooting-dog and gave it better care than the annual payment earned. he had set apart for its comfort the best place at the fire; and if some man were in the place when the dog walked into the house, the man must needs make room for the dog. and a good while after the sale, i can remember my father being called upon to settle some dispute between this old man and his sons. i was now fifteen; and as he did not want to leave his painting my father told me to go to harcourt street and put myself to school. i found a bleak 18th century house and a small playing-field full of mud and pebbles, fenced by an iron railing from a wide 18th century street, but opposite a long hoarding and a squalid, ornamental railway station. here, as i soon found, nobody gave a thought to decorum. we worked in a din of voices. we began the morning with prayers, but when class began the head-master, if he was in the humour, would laugh at church and clergy. "let them say what they like," he would say, "but the earth does go round the sun." on the other hand there was no bullying and i had not thought it possible that boys could work so hard. cricket and football, the collection of moths and butterflies, though not forbidden, were discouraged. they were for idle boys. i did not know, as i used to, the mass of my school-fellows; for we had little life in common outside the class-rooms. i had begun to think of my school-work as an interruption of my natural history studies, but even had i never opened a book not in the school course, i could not have learned a quarter of my night's work. i had always done euclid easily, making the problems out while the other boys were blundering at the blackboard, and it had often carried me from the bottom to the top of my class; but these boys had the same natural gift and instead of being in the fourth or fifth book were in the modern books at the end of the primer; and in place of a dozen lines of virgil with a dictionary, i was expected to learn with the help of a crib a hundred and fifty lines. the other boys were able to learn the translation off, and to remember what words of latin and english corresponded with one another, but i, who it may be had tried to find out what happened in the parts we had not read, made ridiculous mistakes; and what could i, who never worked when i was not interested, do with a history lesson that was but a column of seventy dates? i was worst of all at literature, for we read shakespeare for his grammar exclusively. one day i had a lucky thought. a great many lessons were run through in the last hour of the day, things we had learnt or should have learnt by heart over night, and after not having known one of them for weeks, i cut off that hour without anybody's leave. i asked the mathematical master to give me a sum to work and nobody said a word. my father often interfered, and always with disaster, to teach me my latin lesson. "but i have also my geography," i would say. "geography," he would reply, "should never be taught. it is not a training for the mind. you will pick up all that you need, in your general reading." and if it was a history lesson, he would say just the same, and "euclid," he would say, "is too easy. it comes naturally to the literary imagination. the old idea, that it is a good training for the mind, was long ago refuted." i would know my latin lesson so that it was a nine days' wonder, and for weeks after would be told it was scandalous to be so clever and so idle. no one knew that i had learnt it in the terror that alone could check my wandering mind. i must have told on him at some time or other for i remember the head-master saying, "i am going to give you an imposition because i cannot get at your father to give him one." sometimes we had essays to write; & though i never got a prize, for the essays were judged by hand-writing and spelling i caused a measure of scandal. i would be called up before some master and asked if i really believed such things, and that would make me angry for i had written what i had believed all my life, what my father had told me, or a memory of the conversation of his friends. there were other beliefs, but they were held by people one did not know, people who were vulgar or stupid. i was asked to write an essay on "men may rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things." my father read the subject to my mother, who had no interest in such matters. "that is the way," he said, "boys are made insincere and false to themselves. ideals make the blood thin, and take the human nature out of people." he walked up and down the room in eloquent indignation, and told me not to write on such a subject at all, but upon shakespeare's lines "to thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day thou canst not then be false to any man." at another time, he would denounce the idea of duty, and "imagine," he would say, "how the right sort of woman would despise a dutiful husband;" and he would tell us how much my mother would scorn such a thing. maybe there were people among whom such ideas were natural, but they were the people with whom one does not dine. all he said was, i now believe right, but he should have taken me away from school. he would have taught me nothing but greek and latin, and i would now be a properly educated man, and would not have to look in useless longing at books that have been, through the poor mechanism of translation, the builders of my soul, nor faced authority with the timidity born of excuse and evasion. evasion and excuse were in the event as wise as the house-building instinct of the beaver. xii my london schoolfellow, the athlete, spent a summer with us, but the friendship of boyhood, founded upon action and adventure, was drawing to an end. he was still my superior in all physical activity and climbed to places among the rocks that even now are uncomfortable memories, but i had begun to criticize him. one morning i proposed a journey to lambay island, and was contemptuous because he said we should miss our mid-day meal. we hoisted a sail on our small boat and ran quickly over the nine miles and saw on the shore a tame sea-gull, while a couple of boys, the sons of a coastguard, ran into the water in their clothes to pull us to land, as we had read of savage people doing. we spent an hour upon the sunny shore and i said, "i would like to live here always, and perhaps some day i will." i was always discovering places where i would like to spend my whole life. we started to row home, and when dinner-time had passed for about an hour, the athlete lay down on the bottom of the boat doubled up with the gripes. i mocked at him and at his fellow-countrymen whose stomachs struck the hour as if they were clocks. our natural history, too, began to pull us apart. i planned some day to write a book about the changes through a twelve-month among the creatures of some hole in the rock, and had some theory of my own, which i cannot remember, as to the colour of sea-anemones: and after much hesitation, trouble and bewilderment, was hot for argument in refutation of adam and noah and the seven days. i had read darwin and wallace, huxley and haeckel, and would spend hours on a holiday plaguing a pious geologist, who, when not at some job in guinness's brewery, came with a hammer to look for fossils in the howth cliffs. "you know," i would say, "that such and such human remains cannot be less, because of the strata they were found in, than fifty thousand years old." "oh!" he would answer, "they are an isolated instance." and once when i pressed hard my case against ussher's chronology, he begged me not to speak of the subject again. "if i believed what you do," he said, "i could not live a moral life." but i could not even argue with the athlete who still collected his butterflies for the adventure's sake, and with no curiosity but for their names. i began to judge his intelligence, and to tell him that his natural history had as little to do with science as his collection of postage stamps. even during my school days in london, influenced perhaps by my father, i had looked down upon the postage stamps. xiii our house for the first year or so was on the top of a cliff, so that in stormy weather the spray would sometimes soak my bed at night, for i had taken the glass out of the window, sash and all. a literary passion for the open air was to last me for a few years. then for another year or two, we had a house overlooking the harbour where the one great sight was the going and coming of the fishing fleet. we had one regular servant, a fisherman's wife, and the occasional help of a big, red-faced girl who ate a whole pot of jam while my mother was at church and accused me of it. some such arrangement lasted until long after the time i write of, and until my father going into the kitchen by chance found a girl, who had been engaged during a passing need, in tears at the thought of leaving our other servant, and promised that they should never be parted. i have no doubt that we lived at the harbour for my mother's sake. she had, when we were children, refused to take us to a seaside place because she heard it possessed a bathing box, but she loved the activities of a fishing village. when i think of her, i almost always see her talking over a cup of tea in the kitchen with our servant, the fisherman's wife, on the only themes outside our house that seemed of interest--the fishing people of howth, or the pilots and fishing people of rosses point. she read no books, but she and the fisherman's wife would tell each other stories that homer might have told, pleased with any moment of sudden intensity and laughing together over any point of satire. there is an essay called "village ghosts" in my "celtic twilight" which is but a record of one such afternoon, and many a fine tale has been lost because it had not occurred to me soon enough to keep notes. my father was always praising her to my sisters and to me, because she pretended to nothing she did not feel. she would write him letters telling of her delight in the tumbling clouds, but she did not care for pictures, and never went to an exhibition even to see a picture of his, nor to his studio to see the day's work, neither now nor when they were first married. i remember all this very clearly and little after until her mind had gone in a stroke of paralysis and she had found, liberated at last from financial worry, perfect happiness feeding the birds at a london window. she had always, my father would say, intensity, and that was his chief word of praise; and once he added to the praise "no spendthrift ever had a poet for a son, though a miser might." xiv the great event of a boy's life is the awakening of sex. he will bathe many times a day, or get up at dawn and having stripped leap to and fro over a stick laid upon two chairs and hardly know, and never admit, that he had begun to take pleasure in his own nakedness, nor will he understand the change until some dream discovers it. he may never understand at all the greater change in his mind. it all came upon me when i was close upon seventeen like the bursting of a shell. somnambulistic country-girls, when it is upon them, throw plates about or pull them with long hairs in simulation of the polter-geist, or become mediums for some genuine spirit-mischief, surrendering to their desire of the marvellous. as i look backward, i seem to discover that my passions, my loves and my despairs, instead of being my enemies, a disturbance and an attack, became so beautiful that i must be constantly alone to give them my whole attention. i notice that, for the first time as i run through my memory, what i saw when alone is more vivid than what i did or saw in company. a herd had shown me a cave some hundred and fifty feet below the cliff path and a couple of hundred above the sea, and told me how an evicted tenant called macrom, dead some fifteen years, had lived there many years, and shown me a rusty nail in the rock which had served perhaps to hold up some wooden protection from wind and weather. here i stored a tin of cocoa and some biscuits, and instead of going to my bed, would slip out on warm nights and sleep in the cave on the excuse of catching moths. one had to pass over a rocky ledge, safe enough for anyone with a fair head, yet seeming, if looked at from above, narrow and sloping; and a remonstrance from a stranger who had seen me climbing along it doubled my delight in the adventure. when however, upon a bank holiday, i found lovers in my cave, i was not content with it again till i heard of alarm among the fishing boats, because the ghost of macrom had been seen a little before the dawn, stooping over his fire in the cave-mouth. i had been trying to cook eggs, as i had read in some book, by burying them in the earth under a fire of sticks. at other times, i would sleep among the rhododendrons and rocks in the wilder part of the grounds of howth castle. after a while my father said i must stay in-doors half the night, meaning that i should get some sleep in my bed; but i, knowing that i would be too sleepy and comfortable to get up again, used to sit over the kitchen fire till half the night was gone. exaggerated accounts spread through the school, and sometimes when i did not know a lesson some master would banter me. my interest in science began to fade away, and presently i said to myself, "it has all been a misunderstanding." i remembered how soon i tired of my specimens, and how little i knew after all my years of collecting, and i came to believe that i had gone through so much labour because of a text, heard for the first time in st. john's church in sligo. i wanted to be certain of my own wisdom by copying solomon, who had knowledge of hyssop and of tree. i still carried my green net but i began to play at being a sage, a magician or a poet. i had many idols, and now as i climbed along the narrow ledge i was manfred on his glacier, and now i thought of prince athanase and his solitary lamp, but i soon chose alastor for my chief of men and longed to share his melancholy, and maybe at last to disappear from everybody's sight as he disappeared drifting in a boat along some slow-moving river between great trees. when i thought of women they were modelled on those in my favourite poets and loved in brief tragedy, or, like the girl in "the revolt of islam," accompanied their lovers through all manner of wild places, lawless women without homes and without children. xv my father's influence upon my thoughts was at its height. we went to dublin by train every morning, breakfasting in his studio. he had taken a large room with a beautiful 18th century mantle-piece in a york street tenement house, and at breakfast he read passages from the poets, and always from the play or poem at its most passionate moment. he never read me a passage because of its speculative interest, and indeed did not care at all for poetry where there was generalisation or abstraction however impassioned. he would read out the first speeches of the prometheus unbound, but never the ecstatic lyricism of that famous fourth act; and another day the scene where coriolanus comes to the house of aufidius and tells the impudent servants that his home is under the canopy. i have seen coriolanus played a number of times since then, and read it more than once, but that scene is more vivid than the rest, and it is my father's voice that i hear and not irving's or benson's. he did not care even for a fine lyric passage unless one felt some actual man behind its elaboration of beauty, and he was always looking for the lineaments of some desirable, familiar life. when the spirits sang their scorn of manfred i was to judge by manfred's answer "o sweet and melancholy voices" that they could not, even in anger, put off their spiritual sweetness. he thought keats a greater poet than shelley, because less abstract, but did not read him, caring little, i think, for any of that most beautiful poetry which has come in modern times from the influence of painting. all must be an idealisation of speech, and at some moment of passionate action or somnambulistic reverie. i remember his saying that all contemplative men were in a conspiracy to overrate their state of life, and that all writers were of them, excepting the great poets. looking backwards, it seems to me that i saw his mind in fragments, which had always hidden connections i only now begin to discover. he disliked the victorian poetry of ideas, and wordsworth but for certain passages or whole poems. he described one morning over his breakfast how in the shape of the head of a wordsworthian scholar, an old and greatly respected clergyman whose portrait he was painting, he had discovered all the animal instincts of a prizefighter. he despised the formal beauty of raphael, that calm which is not an ordered passion but an hypocrisy, and attacked raphael's life for its love of pleasure and its self-indulgence. in literature he was always pre-raphaelite, and carried into literature principles that, while the academy was still unbroken, had made the first attack upon academic form. he no longer read me anything for its story, and all our discussion was of style. xvi i began to make blunders when i paid calls or visits, and a woman i had known and liked as a child told me i had changed for the worse. i had wanted to be wise and eloquent, an essay on the younger ampère had helped me to this ambition, and when i was alone i exaggerated my blunders and was miserable. i had begun to write poetry in imitation of shelley and of edmund spenser, play after play--for my father exalted dramatic poetry above all other kinds--and i invented fantastic and incoherent plots. my lines but seldom scanned, for i could not understand the prosody in the books, although there were many lines that taken by themselves had music. i spoke them slowly as i wrote and only discovered when i read them to somebody else that there was no common music, no prosody. there were, however, moments of observation; for, even when i caught moths no longer, i still noticed all that passed; how the little moths came out at sunset, and how after that there were only a few big moths till dawn brought little moths again; and what birds cried out at night as if in their sleep. xvii at sligo, where i still went for my holidays, i stayed with my uncle, george pollexfen, who had come from ballina to fill the place of my grandfather, who had retired. my grandfather had no longer his big house, his partner william middleton was dead, and there had been legal trouble. he was no longer the rich man he had been, and his sons and daughters were married and scattered. he had a tall, bare house overlooking the harbour, and had nothing to do but work himself into a rage if he saw a mudlighter mismanaged or judged from the smoke of a steamer that she was burning cheap coal, and to superintend the making of his tomb. there was a middleton tomb and a long list of middletons on the wall, and an almost empty place for pollexfen names, but he had said, because there was a middleton there he did not like, "i am not going to lie with those old bones;" and already one saw his name in large gilt letters on the stone fence of the new tomb. he ended his walk at st. john's churchyard almost daily, for he liked everything neat and compendious as upon shipboard, and if he had not looked after the tomb himself the builder might have added some useless ornament. he had, however, all his old skill and nerve. i was going to rosses point on the little trading steamer and saw him take the wheel from the helmsman and steer her through a gap in the channel wall, and across the sand, an unheard-of-course, and at the journey's end bring her alongside her wharf at rosses without the accustomed zigzagging or pulling on a rope but in a single movement. he took snuff when he had a cold, but had never smoked or taken alcohol; and when in his eightieth year his doctor advised a stimulant, he replied, "no, no, i am not going to form a bad habit." my brother had partly taken my place in my grandmother's affections. he had lived permanently in her house for some years now, and went to a sligo school where he was always bottom of his class. my grandmother did not mind that, for she said, "he is too kind-hearted to pass the other boys." he spent his free hours going here and there with crowds of little boys, sons of pilots and sailors, as their well-liked leader, arranging donkey races or driving donkeys tandem, an occupation which requires all one's intellect because of their obstinacy. besides he had begun to amuse everybody with his drawings; and in half the pictures he paints to-day i recognise faces that i have met at rosses or the sligo quays. it is long since he has lived there, but his memory seems as accurate as the sight of the eye. george pollexfen was as patient as his father was impetuous, and did all by habit. a well-to-do, elderly man, he lived with no more comfort than when he had set out as a young man. he had a little house and one old general servant and a man to look after his horse, and every year he gave up some activity and found that there was one more food that disagreed with him. a hypochondriac, he passed from winter to summer through a series of woollens that had always to be weighed; for in april or may or whatever the date was he had to be sure he carried the exact number of ounces he had carried upon that date since boyhood. he lived in despondency, finding in the most cheerful news reasons of discouragement, and sighing every twenty-second of june over the shortening of the days. once in later years, when i met him in dublin sweating in a midsummer noon, i brought him into the hall of the kildare street library, a cool and shady place, without lightening his spirits; for he but said in a melancholy voice, "how very cold this place must be in winter time." sometimes when i had pitted my cheerfulness against his gloom over the breakfast table, maintaining that neither his talent nor his memory nor his health were running to the dregs, he would rout me with the sentence, "how very old i shall be in twenty years." yet this inactive man, in whom the sap of life seemed to be dried away, had a mind full of pictures. nothing had ever happened to him except a love affair, not i think very passionate, that had gone wrong, and a voyage when a young man. my grandfather had sent him in a schooner to a port in spain where the shipping agents were two spaniards called o'neill, descendants of hugh o'neill, earl of tyrone, who had fled from ireland in the reign of james i; and their irish trade was a last remnant of the spanish trade that had once made galway wealthy. for some years he and they had corresponded, for they cherished the memory of their origin. in some connaught burying ground, he had chanced upon the funeral of a child with but one mourner, a distinguished foreign-looking man. it was an austrian count burying the last of an irish family, long nobles of austria, who were always carried to that half-ruined burying ground. my uncle had almost given up hunting and was soon to give it up altogether, and he had once ridden steeple-chases and been, his horse-trainer said, the best rider in connaught. he had certainly great knowledge of horses, for i have been told, several counties away, that at ballina he cured horses by conjuring. he had, however, merely great skill in diagnosis, for the day was still far off when he was to give his nights to astrology and ceremonial magic. his servant, mary battle, who had been with him since he was a young man, had the second sight and that, maybe, inclined him to strange studies. he would tell how more than once when he had brought home a guest without giving her notice he had found the dinner-table set for two, and one morning she was about to bring him a clean shirt, but stopped saying there was blood on the shirt-front and that she must bring him another. on his way to his office he fell, crossing over a little wall, and cut himself and bled on to the linen where she had seen the blood. in the evening, she told how surprised she had been to find when she looked again that the shirt she had thought bloody was quite clean. she could neither read nor write and her mind, which answered his gloom with its merriment, was rammed with every sort of old history and strange belief. much of my "celtic twilight" is but her daily speech. my uncle had the respect of the common people as few sligo men have had it; he would have thought a stronger emotion an intrusion on his privacy. he gave to all men the respect due to their station or their worth with an added measure of ceremony, and kept among his workmen a discipline that had about it something of a regiment or a ship, knowing nothing of any but personal authority. if a carter, let us say, was in fault, he would not dismiss him, but send for him and take his whip away and hang it upon the wall; and having reduced the offender, as it were, to the ranks for certain months, would restore him to his post and his whip. this man of diligence and of method, who had no enterprise but in contemplation, and claimed that his wealth, considerable for ireland, came from a brother's or partner's talent, was the confidant of my boyish freaks and reveries. when i said to him, echoing some book i had read, that one never knew a countryside till one knew it at night, (though nothing would have kept him from his bed a moment beyond the hour) he was pleased; for he loved natural things and had learnt two cries of the lapwing, one that drew them to where he stood and one that made them fly away. and he approved, and arranged my meals conveniently, when i told him i was going to walk round lough gill and sleep in a wood. i did not tell him all my object, for i was nursing a new ambition. my father had read to me some passage out of "walden," and i planned to live some day in a cottage on a little island called innisfree, and innisfree was opposite slish wood where i meant to sleep. i thought that having conquered bodily desire and the inclination of my mind towards women and love, i should live, as thoreau lived, seeking wisdom. there was a story in the county history of a tree that had once grown upon that island guarded by some terrible monster and borne the food of the gods. a young girl pined for the fruit and told her lover to kill the monster and carry the fruit away. he did as he had been told, but tasted the fruit; and when he reached the mainland where she had waited for him, was dying of its powerful virtue. and from sorrow and from remorse she too ate of it and died. i do not remember whether i chose the island because of its beauty or for the story's sake, but i was twenty-two or three before i gave up the dream. i set out from sligo about six in the evening, walking slowly, for it was an evening of great beauty; but though i was well into slish wood by bed-time, i could not sleep, not from the discomfort of the dry rock i had chosen for my bed, but from my fear of the wood-ranger. somebody had told me, though i do not think it could have been true, that he went his round at some unknown hour. i kept going over what i should say if i was found and could not think of anything he would believe. however, i could watch my island in the early dawn and notice the order of the cries of the birds. i came home next day unimaginably tired & sleepy, having walked some thirty miles partly over rough and boggy ground. for months afterwards, if i alluded to my walk, my uncle's general servant (not mary battle, who was slowly recovering from an illness and would not have taken the liberty) would go into fits of laughter. she believed i had spend the night in a different fashion and had invented the excuse to deceive my uncle, and would say to my great embarrassment, for i was as prudish as an old maid, "and you had good right to be fatigued." once when staying with my uncle at rosses point where he went for certain months of the year, i called upon a cousin towards midnight and asked him to get his yacht out, for i wanted to find what sea birds began to stir before dawn. he was indignant and refused; but his elder sister had overheard me and came to the head of the stairs and forbade him to stir, and that so vexed him that he shouted to the kitchen for his sea-boots. he came with me in great gloom for he had people's respect, he declared, and nobody so far had said that he was mad as they said i was, and we got a very sleepy boy out of his bed in the village and set up sail. we put a trawl out, as he thought it would restore his character if he caught some fish, but the wind fell and we were becalmed. i rolled myself in the main-sail and went to sleep for i could sleep anywhere in those days. i was awakened towards dawn to see my cousin and the boy turning out their pockets for money and to rummage in my own pockets. a boat was rowing in from roughley with fish and they wanted to buy some and would pretend they had caught it, but all our pockets were empty. it was for the poem that became fifteen years afterwards "the shadowy waters" that i had wanted the birds' cries, and it had been full of observation had i been able to write it when i first planned it. i had found again the windy light that moved me when a child. i persuaded myself that i had a passion for the dawn, and this passion, though mainly histrionic like a child's play, an ambitious game, had moments of sincerity. years afterwards when i had finished "the wanderings of oisin," dissatisfied with its yellow and its dull green, with all that overcharged colour inherited from the romantic movement, i deliberately reshaped my style, deliberately sought out an impression as of cold light and tumbling clouds. i cast off traditional metaphors and loosened my rhythm, and recognizing that all the criticism of life known to me was alien and english, became as emotional as possible but with an emotion which i described to myself as cold. it is a natural conviction for a painter's son to believe that there may be a landscape symbolical of some spiritual condition that awakens a hunger such as cats feel for valerian. xviii i was writing a long play on a fable suggested by one of my father's early designs. a king's daughter loves a god seen in the luminous sky above her garden in childhood, and to be worthy of him and put away mortality, becomes without pity & commits crimes, and at last, having made her way to the throne by murder, awaits the hour among her courtiers. one by one they become chilly and drop dead, for, unseen by all but her, her god is walking through the hall. at last he is at her throne's foot and she, her mind in the garden once again, dies babbling like a child. xix once when i was sailing with my cousin, the boy who was our crew talked of a music-hall at a neighbouring seaport, and how the girls there gave themselves to men, and his language was as extravagant as though he praised that courtezan after whom they named a city or the queen of sheba herself. another day he wanted my cousin to sail some fifty miles along the coast and put in near some cottages where he had heard there were girls "and we would have a great welcome before us." he pleaded with excitement (i imagine that his eyes shone) but hardly hoped to persuade us, and perhaps but played with fabulous images of life and of sex. a young jockey and horse-trainer, who had trained some horses for my uncle, once talked to me of wicked england while we cooked a turkey for our christmas dinner making it twist about on a string in front of his harness-room fire. he had met two lords in england where he had gone racing, who "always exchanged wives when they went to the continent for a holiday." he himself had once been led into temptation and was going home with a woman, but having touched his scapular by chance, saw in a moment an angel waving white wings in the air. presently i was to meet him no more and my uncle said he had done something disgraceful about a horse. xx i was climbing up a hill at howth when i heard wheels behind me and a pony-carriage drew up beside me. a pretty girl was driving alone and without a hat. she told me her name and said we had friends in common and asked me to ride beside her. after that i saw a great deal of her and was soon in love. i did not tell her i was in love, however, because she was engaged. she had chosen me for her confidant and i learned all about her quarrels with her lover. several times he broke the engagement off, and she would fall ill, and friends would make peace. sometimes she would write to him three times a day, but she could not do without a confidant. she was a wild creature, a fine mimic and given to bursts of religion. i have known her to weep at a sermon, call herself a sinful woman, and mimic it after. i wrote her some bad poems and had more than one sleepless night through anger with her betrothed. xxi at ballisodare an event happened that brought me back to the superstitions of my childhood. i do not know when it was, for the events of this period have as little sequence as those of childhood. i was staying with cousins at avena house, a young man a few years older and a girl of my own age and perhaps her sister who was a good deal older. my girl cousin had often told me of strange sights she had seen at ballisodare or rosses. an old woman three or four feet in height and leaning on a stick had once come to the window and looked in at her, and sometimes she would meet people on the road who would say "how is so-and-so," naming some member of her family, and she would know, though she could not explain how, that they were not people of this world. once she had lost her way in a familiar field, and when she found it again the silver mounting on a walking-stick belonging to her brother which she carried had vanished. an old woman in the village said afterwards "you have good friends amongst them, and the silver was taken instead of you." though it was all years ago, what i am going to tell now must be accurate, for no great while ago she wrote out her unprompted memory of it all and it was the same as mine. she was sitting under an old-fashioned mirror reading and i was reading in another part of the room. suddenly i heard a sound as if somebody was throwing a shower of peas at the mirror. i got her to go into the next room and rap with her knuckles on the other side of the wall to see if the sound could come from there, and while i was alone a great thump came close to my head upon the wainscot and on a different wall of the room. later in the day a servant heard a heavy footstep going through the empty house, and that night, when i and my two cousins went for a walk, she saw the ground under some trees all in a blaze of light. i saw nothing, but presently we crossed the river and went along its edge where, they say, there was a village destroyed, i think in the wars of the 17th century, and near an old grave-yard. suddenly we all saw light moving over the river where there is a great rush of waters. it was like a very brilliant torch. a moment later the girl saw a man coming towards us who disappeared in the water. i kept asking myself if i could be deceived. perhaps after all, though it seemed impossible, somebody was walking in the water with a torch. but we could see a small light low down on knock-na-rea seven miles off, and it began to move upward over the mountain slope. i timed it on my watch and in five minutes it reached the summit, and i, who had often climbed the mountain, knew that no human footstep was so speedy. from that on i wandered about raths and faery hills and questioned old women and old men and, when i was tired out or unhappy, began to long for some such end as true thomas found. i did not believe with my intellect that you could be carried away body and soul, but i believed with my emotions and the belief of the country people made that easy. once when i had crawled into the stone passage in some rath of the third rosses, the pilot who had come with me called down the passage: "are you all right, sir?" and one night as i came near the village of rosses on the road from sligo, a fire blazed up on a green bank at my right side seven or eight feet above me, and another fire suddenly answered from knock-na-rea. i hurried on doubting, and yet hardly doubting in my heart that i saw again the fires that i had seen by the river at ballisodare. i began occasionally telling people that one should believe whatever had been believed in all countries and periods, and only reject any part of it after much evidence, instead of starting all over afresh and only believing what one could prove. but i was always ready to deny or turn into a joke what was for all that my secret fanaticism. when i had read darwin and huxley and believed as they did, i had wanted, because an established authority was upon my side, to argue with everybody. xxii i no longer went to the harcourt street school and we had moved from howth to rathgar. i was at the arts schools in kildare street, but my father, who came to the school now and then, was my teacher. the masters left me alone, for they liked a very smooth surface and a very neat outline, and indeed understood nothing but neatness and smoothness. a drawing of the discobolus, after my father had touched it, making the shoulder stand out with swift and broken lines, had no meaning for them; and for the most part i exaggerated all that my father did. sometimes indeed, out of rivalry to some student near, i too would try to be smooth and neat. one day i helped the student next me, who certainly had no artistic gifts, to make a drawing of some plaster fruit. in his gratitude he told me his history. "i don't care for art," he said. "i am a good billiard player, one of the best in dublin; but my guardian said i must take a profession, so i asked my friends to tell me where i would not have to pass an examination, and here i am." it may be that i myself was there for no better reason. my father had wanted me to go to trinity college and, when i would not, had said, "my father and grandfather and great-grandfather have been there." i did not tell him my reason was that i did not believe my classics or my mathematics good enough for any examination. i had for fellow-student an unhappy "village genius" sent to dublin by some charitable connaught landlord. he painted religious pictures upon sheets nailed to the wall of his bedroom, a "last judgment" among the rest. then there was a wild young man who would come to school of a morning with a daisy-chain hung round his neck; and george russel, "æ," the poet, and mystic. he did not paint the model as we tried to, for some other image rose always before his eyes (a st. john in the desert i remember,) and already he spoke to us of his visions. his conversation, so lucid and vehement to-day, was all but incomprehensible, though now and again some phrase would be understood and repeated. one day he announced that he was leaving the art schools because his will was weak and the arts or any other emotional pursuit could but weaken it further. presently i went to the modelling class to be with certain elder students who had authority among us. among these were john hughes and oliver sheppard, well-known now as irish sculptors. the day i first went into the studio where they worked, i stood still upon the threshold in amazement. a pretty gentle-looking girl was modelling in the middle of the room, and all the men were swearing at her for getting in their light with the most violent and fantastic oaths, and calling her every sort of name, and through it all she worked in undisturbed diligence. presently the man nearest me saw my face and called out, "she is stone deaf, so we always swear at her and call her names when she gets in our light." in reality i soon found that everyone was kind to her, carrying her drawing-boards and the like, and putting her into the tram at the day's end. we had no scholarship, no critical knowledge of the history of painting, and no settled standards. a student would show his fellows some french illustrated paper that we might all admire, now some statue by rodin or dalou and now some declamatory parisian monument, and if i did not happen to have discussed the matter with my father i would admire with no more discrimination than the rest. that pretentious monument to gambetta made a great stir among us. no influence touched us but that of france, where one or two of the older students had been already and all hoped to go. of england i alone knew anything. our ablest student had learnt italian to read dante, but had never heard of tennyson or browning, and it was i who carried into the school some knowledge of english poetry, especially of browning who had begun to move me by his air of wisdom. i do not believe that i worked well, for i wrote a great deal and that tired me, and the work i was set to bored me. when alone and uninfluenced, i longed for pattern, for pre-raphaelitism, for an art allied to poetry, and returned again and again to our national gallery to gaze at turner's golden bough. yet i was too timid, had i known how, to break away from my father's style and the style of those about me. i was always hoping that my father would return to the style of his youth, and make pictures out of certain designs now lost, that one could still find in his portfolios. there was one of an old hunchback in vague medieval dress, going through some underground place where there are beds with people in the beds; a girl half rising from one has seized his hand and is kissing it. i have forgotten its story, but the strange old man and the intensity in the girl's figure are vivid as in my childhood. there is some passage, i believe in the bible, about a man who saved a city and went away and was never heard of again and here he was in another design, an old ragged beggar in the market-place laughing at his own statue. but my father would say: "i must paint what i see in front of me. of course i shall really paint something different because my nature will come in unconsciously." sometimes i would try to argue with him, for i had come to think the philosophy of his fellow-artists and himself a misunderstanding created by victorian science, and science i had grown to hate with a monkish hate; but no good came of it, and in a moment i would unsay what i had said and pretend that i did not really believe it. my father was painting many fine portraits, dublin leaders of the bar, college notabilities, or chance comers whom he would paint for nothing if he liked their heads; but all displeased me. in my heart i thought that only beautiful things should be painted, and that only ancient things and the stuff of dreams were beautiful. and i almost quarrelled with my father when he made a large water-colour, one of his finest pictures and now lost, of a consumptive beggar girl. and a picture at the hibernian academy of cocottes with yellow faces sitting before a café by some follower of manet's made me miserable for days, but i was happy when partly through my father's planning some whistlers were brought over and exhibited, and did not agree when my father said: "imagine making your old mother an arrangement in gray!" i did not care for mere reality and believed that creation should be conscious, and yet i could only imitate my father. i could not compose anything but a portrait and even to-day i constantly see people as a portrait painter, posing them in the mind's eye before such and such a background. meanwhile i was still very much of a child, sometimes drawing with an elaborate frenzy, simulating what i believed of inspiration and sometimes walking with an artificial stride in memory of hamlet and stopping at shop windows to look at my tie gathered into a loose sailor-knot and to regret that it could not be always blown out by the wind like byron's tie in the picture. i had as many ideas as i have now, only i did not know how to choose from among them those that belonged to my life. xxiii we lived in a villa where the red bricks were made pretentious and vulgar with streaks of slate colour, and there seemed to be enemies everywhere. at one side indeed there was a friendly architect, but on the other some stupid stout woman and her family. i had a study with a window opposite some window of hers, & one night when i was writing i heard voices full of derision and saw the stout woman and her family standing in the window. i have a way of acting what i write and speaking it aloud without knowing what i am doing. perhaps i was on my hands and knees, or looking down over the back of a chair talking into what i imagined an abyss. another day a woman asked me to direct her on her way and while i was hesitating, being so suddenly called out of my thought, a woman from some neighbouring house came by. she said i was a poet and my questioner turned away contemptuously. upon the other hand, the policeman and tramway conductor thought my absence of mind sufficiently explained when our servant told them i was a poet. "oh well," said the policeman, who had been asking why i went indifferently through clean and muddy places, "if it is only the poetry that is working in his head!" i imagine i looked gaunt and emaciated, for the little boys at the neighbouring cross-road used to say when i passed by: "oh, here is king death again." one morning when my father was on the way to his studio, he met his landlord who had a big grocer's shop and they had this conversation: "will you tell me, sir, if you think tennyson should have been given that peerage?" "one's only doubt is if he should have accepted it: it was a finer thing to be alfred tennyson." there was a silence, and then: "well, all the people i know think he should not have got it." then, spitefully: "what's the good of poetry?" "oh, it gives our minds a great deal of pleasure." "but wouldn't it have given your mind more pleasure if he had written an improving book?" "oh, in that case i should not have read it." my father returned in the evening delighted with his story, but i could not understand how he could take such opinions lightly and not have seriously argued with the man. none of these people had ever seen any poet but an old white-haired man who had written volumes of easy, too-honied verse, and run through his money and gone clean out of his mind. he was a common figure in the streets and lived in some shabby neighbourhood of tenement houses where there were hens and chickens among the cobble stones. every morning he carried home a loaf and gave half of it to the hens and chickens, the birds, or to some dog or starving cat. he was known to live in one room with a nail in the middle of the ceiling from which innumerable cords were stretched to other nails in the walls. in this way he kept up the illusion that he was living under canvas in some arabian desert. i could not escape like this old man from house and neighbourhood, but hated both, hearing every whisper, noticing every passing glance. when my grandfather came for a few days to see a doctor, i was shocked to see him in our house. my father read out to him in the evening clark russell's "wreck of the grosvenor;" but the doctor forbade it, for my grandfather got up in the middle of the night and acted through the mutiny, as i acted my verse, saying the while, "yes, yes, that is the way it would all happen." xxiv from our first arrival in dublin, my father had brought me from time to time to see edward dowden. he and my father had been college friends and were trying, perhaps, to take up again their old friendship. sometimes we were asked to breakfast, and afterwards my father would tell me to read out one of my poems. dowden was wise in his encouragement, never overpraising and never unsympathetic, and he would sometimes lend me books. the orderly, prosperous house where all was in good taste, where poetry was rightly valued, made dublin tolerable for a while, and for perhaps a couple of years he was an image of romance. my father would not share my enthusiasm and soon, i noticed, grew impatient at these meetings. he would sometimes say that he had wanted dowden when they were young to give himself to creative art, and would talk of what he considered dowden's failure in life. i know now that he was finding in his friend what he himself had been saved from by the conversation of the pre-raphaelites. "he will not trust his nature," he would say, or "he is too much influenced by his inferiors," or he would praise "renunciants," one of dowden's poems, to prove what dowden might have written. i was not influenced for i had imagined a past worthy of that dark, romantic face. i took literally his verses, touched here and there with swinburnian rhetoric, and believed that he had loved, unhappily and illicitly; and when through the practice of my art i discovered that certain images about the love of woman were the properties of a school, i but changed my fancy and thought of him as very wise. i was constantly troubled about philosophic questions. i would say to my fellow students at the art school, "poetry and sculpture exist to keep our passions alive;" and somebody would say, "we would be much better without our passions." or i would have a week's anxiety over the problem: do the arts make us happier, or more sensitive and therefore more unhappy. and i would say to hughes or sheppard, "if i cannot be certain they make us happier i will never write again." if i spoke of these things to dowden he would put the question away with good-humoured irony: he seemed to condescend to everybody and everything and was now my sage. i was about to learn that if a man is to write lyric poetry he must be shaped by nature and art to some one out of half-a-dozen traditional poses, and be lover or saint, sage or sensualist, or mere mocker of all life; and that none but that stroke of luckless luck can open before him the accumulated expression of the world. and this thought before it could be knowledge was an instinct. i was vexed when my father called dowden's irony timidity, but after many years his impression has not changed for he wrote to me but a few months ago, "it was like talking to a priest. one had to be careful not to remind him of his sacrifice." once after breakfast dowden read us some chapters of the unpublished "life of shelley," and i who had made the "prometheus unbound" my sacred book was delighted with all he read. i was chilled, however, when he explained that he had lost his liking for shelley and would not have written it but for an old promise to the shelley family. when it was published, matthew arnold made sport of certain conventionalities and extravagances that were, my father and i had come to see, the violence or clumsiness of a conscientious man hiding from himself a lack of sympathy. he had abandoned too, or was about to abandon, what was to have been his master-work, "the life of goethe," though in his youth a lecture course at alexandra college that spoke too openly of goethe's loves had brought upon him the displeasure of our protestant archbishop of dublin. only wordsworth, he said, kept, more than all, his early love. though my faith was shaken, it was only when he urged me to read george eliot that i became angry and disillusioned & worked myself into a quarrel or half-quarrel. i had read all victor hugo's romances and a couple of balzac's and was in no mind to like her. she seemed to have a distrust or a distaste for all in life that gives one a springing foot. then too she knew so well how to enforce her distaste by the authority of her mid-victorian science or by some habit of mind of its breeding, that i, who had not escaped the fascination of what i loathed, doubted while the book lay open whatsoever my instinct knew of splendour. she disturbed me and alarmed me, but when i spoke of her to my father, he threw her aside with a phrase, "oh, she was an ugly woman who hated handsome men and handsome women;" and he began to praise "wuthering heights." only the other day, when i got dowden's letters, did i discover for how many years the friendship between dowden and my father had been an antagonism. my father had written from fitzroy road in the sixties that the brotherhood, by which he meant the poet edwin ellis, nettleship and himself, "abhorred wordsworth;" and dowden, not remembering that another week would bring a different mood and abhorrence, had written a pained and solemn letter. my father had answered that dowden believed too much in the intellect and that all valuable education was but a stirring up of the emotions and had added that this did not mean excitability. "in the completely emotional man," he wrote, "the least awakening of feeling is a harmony in which every chord of every feeling vibrates. excitement is the feature of an insufficiently emotional nature, the harsh vibrating discourse of but one or two chords." living in a free world accustomed to the gay exaggeration of the talk of equals, of men who talk and write to discover truth and not for popular instruction, he had already, when both men were in their twenties, decided it is plain that dowden was a provincial. xxv it was only when i began to study psychical research and mystical philosophy that i broke away from my father's influence. he had been a follower of john stuart mill and had grown to manhood with the scientific movement. in this he had never been of rossetti's party who said that it mattered to nobody whether the sun went round the earth or the earth round the sun. but through this new research, this reaction from popular science, i had begun to feel that i had allies for my secret thought. once when i was in dowden's drawing-room a servant announced my late head-master. i must have got pale or red, for dowden, with some ironical, friendly remark, brought me into another room and there i stayed until the visitor was gone. a few months later, when i met the head-master again i had more courage. we chanced upon one another in the street and he said, "i want you to use your influence with so-and-so, for he is giving all his time to some sort of mysticism and he will fail in his examination." i was in great alarm, but i managed to say something about the children of this world being wiser than the children of light. he went off with a brusque "good morning." i do not think that even at that age i would have been so grandiloquent but for my alarm. he had, however, aroused all my indignation. my new allies and my old had alike sustained me. "intermediate examinations," which i had always refused, meant money for pupil and for teacher, and that alone. my father had brought me up never when at school to think of the future or of any practical result. i have even known him to say, "when i was young, the definition of a gentleman was a man not wholly occupied in getting on." and yet this master wanted to withdraw my friend from the pursuit of the most important of all the truths. my friend, now in his last year at school, was a show boy, and had beaten all ireland again and again, but now he and i were reading baron reichenbach on odic force and manuals published by the theosophical society. we spent a good deal of time in the kildare street museum passing our hands over the glass cases, feeling or believing we felt the odic force flowing from the big crystals. we also found pins blindfolded and read papers on our discoveries to the hermetic society that met near the roof in york street. i had, when we first made our society, proposed for our consideration that whatever the great poets had affirmed in their finest moments was the nearest we could come to an authoritative religion, and that their mythology, their spirits of water and wind were but literal truth. i had read "prometheus unbound" with this thought in mind and wanted help to carry my study through all literature. i was soon to vex my father by defining truth as "the dramatically appropriate utterance of the highest man." and if i had been asked to define the "highest" man, i would have said perhaps, "we can but find him as homer found odysseus when he was looking for a theme." my friend had written to some missionary society to send him to the south seas, when i offered him renan's "life of christ" and a copy of "esoteric buddhism." he refused both, but a few days later while reading for an examination in kildare street library, he asked in an idle moment for "esoteric buddhism" and came out an esoteric buddhist. he wrote to the missionaries withdrawing his letter and offered himself to the theosophical society as a _chela_. he was vexed now at my lack of zeal, for i had stayed somewhere between the books, held there perhaps by my father's scepticism. i said, and he thought it was a great joke though i was serious, that even if i were certain in my own mind, i did not know "a single person with a talent for conviction." for a time he made me ashamed of my world and its lack of zeal, and i wondered if his world (his father was a notorious orange leader) where everything was a matter of belief was not better than mine. he himself proposed the immediate conversion of the other show boy, a clever little fellow, now a dublin mathematician and still under five feet. i found him a day later in much depression. i said, "did he refuse to listen to you?" "not at all," was the answer, "for i had only been talking for a quarter of an hour when he said he believed." certainly those minds, parched by many examinations, were thirsty. sometimes a professor of oriental languages at trinity college, a persian, came to our society and talked of the magicians of the east. when he was a little boy, he had seen a vision in a pool of ink, a multitude of spirits singing in arabic, "woe unto those that do not believe in us." and we persuaded a brahmin philosopher to come from london and stay for a few days with the only one among us who had rooms of his own. it was my first meeting with a philosophy that confirmed my vague speculations and seemed at once logical and boundless. consciousness, he taught, does not merely spread out its surface but has, in vision and in contemplation, another motion and can change in height and in depth. a handsome young man with the typical face of christ, he chaffed me good-humouredly because he said i came at breakfast and began some question that was interrupted by the first caller, waited in silence till ten or eleven at night when the last caller had gone, and finished my question. xxvi i thought a great deal about the system of education from which i had suffered, and believing that everybody had a philosophical defence for all they did, i desired greatly to meet some school-master that i might question him. for a moment it seemed as if i should have my desire. i had been invited to read out a poem called "the island of statues," an arcadian play in imitation of edmund spenser, to a gathering of critics who were to decide whether it was worthy of publication in the college magazine. the magazine had already published a lyric of mine, the first ever printed, and people began to know my name. we met in the rooms of mr. c. h. oldham, now professor of political economy at our new university; and though professor bury, then a very young man, was to be the deciding voice, mr. oldham had asked quite a large audience. when the reading was over and the poem had been approved i was left alone, why i cannot remember, with a young man who was, i had been told, a school-master. i was silent, gathering my courage, and he also was silent; and presently i said without anything to lead up to it, "i know you will defend the ordinary system of education by saying that it strengthens the will, but i am convinced that it only seems to do so because it weakens the impulses." then i stopped, overtaken by shyness. he made no answer but smiled and looked surprised as though i had said, "you will say they are persian attire; but let them be changed." xxvii i had begun to frequent a club founded by mr. oldham, and not from natural liking, but from a secret ambition. i wished to become self-possessed, to be able to play with hostile minds as hamlet played, to look in the lion's face, as it were, with unquivering eyelash. in ireland harsh argument which had gone out of fashion in england was still the manner of our conversation, and at this club unionist and nationalist could interrupt one another and insult one another without the formal and traditional restraint of public speech. sometimes they would change the subject & discuss socialism, or a philosophical question, merely to discover their old passions under a new shape. i spoke easily and i thought well till some one was rude and then i would become silent or exaggerate my opinion to absurdity, or hesitate and grow confused, or be carried away myself by some party passion. i would spend hours afterwards going over my words and putting the wrong ones right. discovering that i was only self-possessed with people i knew intimately, i would often go to a strange house where i knew i would spend a wretched hour for schooling sake. i did not discover that hamlet had his self-possession from no schooling but from indifference and passion conquering sweetness, and that less heroic minds can but hope it from old age. xxviii i had very little money and one day the toll-taker at the metal bridge over the liffey and a gossip of his laughed when i refused the halfpenny and said "no, i will go round by o'connell bridge." when i called for the first time at a house in leinster road several middle-aged women were playing cards and suggested my taking a hand and gave me a glass of sherry. the sherry went to my head and i was impoverished for days by the loss of sixpence. my hostess was ellen o'leary, who kept house for her brother john o'leary the fenian, the handsomest old man i had ever seen. he had been condemned to twenty years penal servitude but had been set free after five on condition that he did not return to ireland for fifteen years. he had said to the government, "i will not return if germany makes war on you, but i will return if france does." he and his old sister lived exactly opposite the orange leader for whom he had a great respect. his sister stirred my affection at first for no better reason than her likeness of face and figure to the matron of my london school, a friendly person, but when i came to know her i found sister and brother alike were of plutarch's people. she told me of her brother's life, how in his youth as now in his age, he would spend his afternoons searching for rare books among second-hand book-shops, how the fenian organizer james stephens had found him there and asked for his help. "i do not think you have any chance of success," he had said, "but if you never ask me to enroll anybody else i will join, it will be very good for the morals of the country." she told me how it grew to be a formidable movement, and of the arrests that followed (i believe that her own sweetheart had somehow fallen among the wreckage,) of sentences of death pronounced upon false evidence amid a public panic, and told it all without bitterness. no fanaticism could thrive amid such gentleness. she never found it hard to believe that an opponent had as high a motive as her own and needed upon her difficult road no spur of hate. her brother seemed very unlike on a first hearing for he had some violent oaths, "good god in heaven" being one of them; and if he disliked anything one said or did, he spoke all his thought, but in a little one heard his justice match her charity. "never has there been a cause so bad," he would say, "that it has not been defended by good men for good reasons." nor would he overvalue any man because they shared opinions; and when he lent me the poems of davis and the young irelanders, of whom i had known nothing, he did not, although the poems of davis had made him a patriot, claim that they were very good poetry. his room was full of books, always second-hand copies that had often been ugly and badly printed when new and had not grown to my unhistoric mind more pleasing from the dirt of some old dublin book-shop. great numbers were irish, and for the first time i began to read histories and verses that a catholic irishman knows from boyhood. he seemed to consider politics almost wholly as a moral discipline, and seldom said of any proposed course of action that it was practical or otherwise. when he spoke to me of his prison life he spoke of all with seeming freedom, but presently one noticed that he never spoke of hardship and if one asked him why, he would say, "i was in the hands of my enemies, why should i complain?" i have heard since that the governor of his jail found out that he had endured some unnecessary discomfort for months and had asked why he did not speak of it. "i did not come here to complain," was the answer. he had the moral genius that moves all young people and moves them the more if they are repelled by those who have strict opinions and yet have lived commonplace lives. i had begun, as would any other of my training, to say violent and paradoxical things to shock provincial sobriety, and dowden's ironical calm had come to seem but a professional pose. but here was something as spontaneous as the life of an artist. sometimes he would say things that would have sounded well in some heroic elizabethan play. it became my delight to rouse him to these outbursts for i was the poet in the presence of his theme. once when i was defending an irish politician who had made a great outcry because he was treated as a common felon, by showing that he did it for the cause's sake, he said, "there are things that a man must not do even to save a nation." he would speak a sentence like that in ignorance of its passionate value, and would forget it the moment after. i met at his house friends of later life, katharine tynan who still lived upon her father's farm, and dr. hyde, still a college student who took snuff like those mayo county people, whose stories and songs he was writing down. "davitt wants followers by the thousand," o'leary would say, "i only want half-a-dozen." one constant caller looked at me with much hostility, john f. taylor, an obscure great orator. the other day in dublin i overheard a man murmuring to another one of his speeches as i might some elizabethan lyric that is in my very bones. it was delivered at some dublin debate, some college society perhaps. the lord chancellor had spoken with balanced unemotional sentences now self-complacent, now in derision. taylor began hesitating and stopping for words, but after speaking very badly for a little, straightened his figure and spoke as out of a dream: "i am carried to another age, a nobler court, and another lord chancellor is speaking. i am at the court of the first pharaoh." thereupon he put into the mouth of that egyptian all his audience had listened to, but now it was spoken to the children of israel. "if you have any spirituality as you boast, why not use our great empire to spread it through the world, why still cling to that beggarly nationality of yours? what are its history and its works weighed with those of egypt." then his voice changed and sank: "i see a man at the edge of the crowd; he is standing listening there, but he will not obey;" and then with his voice rising to a cry, "had he obeyed he would never have come down the mountain carrying in his arms the tables of the law in the language of the outlaw." he had been in a linen-draper's shop for a while, had educated himself and put himself to college, and was now, as a lawyer, famous for hopeless cases where unsure judgment could not make things worse, and eloquence, power of cross-examination and learning might amend all. conversation with him was always argument, and for an obstinate opponent he had such phrases as, "have you your head in a bag, sir?" and i seemed his particular aversion. as with many of the self-made men of that generation, carlyle was his chief literary enthusiasm, supporting him, as he believed, in his contempt for the complexities and refinements he had not found in his hard life, and i belonged to a generation that had begun to call carlyle rhetorician and demagogue. i had once seen what i had believed to be an enraged bull in a field and had walked up to it as a test of courage to discover, just as panic fell upon me, that it was merely an irritable cow. i braved taylor again and again, but always found him worse than my expectation. i would say, quoting mill, "oratory is heard, poetry is overheard." and he would answer, his voice full of contempt, that there was always an audience; and yet, in his moments of lofty speech, he himself was alone no matter what the crowd. at other times his science or his catholic orthodoxy, i never could discover which, would become enraged with my supernaturalism. i can but once remember escaping him unabashed and unconquered. i said with deliberate exaggeration at some evening party at o'leary's "five out of every six people have seen a ghost;" and taylor fell into my net with "well, i will ask everybody here." i managed that the first answer should come from a man who had heard a voice he believed to be that of his dead brother, and the second from a doctor's wife who had lived in a haunted house and met a man with his throat cut, whose throat as he drifted along the garden-walk "had opened and closed like the mouth of a fish." taylor threw up his head like an angry horse, but asked no further question, and did not return to the subject that evening. if he had gone on he would have heard from everybody some like story though not all at first hand, and miss o'leary would have told him what happened at the death of one of the macmanus brothers, well known in the politics of young ireland. one brother was watching by the bed where the other lay dying and saw a strange hawk-like bird fly through the open window and alight upon the breast of the dying man. he did not dare to drive it away and it remained there, as it seemed, looking into his brother's eyes until death came, and then it flew out of the window. i think, though i am not sure, that she had the story from the watcher himself. it was understood that taylor's temper kept him from public life, though he may have been the greatest orator of his time, partly because no leader would accept him, and still more because, in the words of one of his dublin enemies, "he had never joined any party and as soon as one joined him he seceded." with o'leary he was always, even when they differed, as they often did, gentle and deferential, but once only, and that was years afterwards, did i think that he was about to include me among his friends. we met by chance in a london street and he stopped me with an abrupt movement: "yeats," he said, "i have been thinking. if you and ... (naming another aversion,) were born in a small italian principality in the middle ages, he would have friends at court and you would be in exile with a price on your head." he went off without another word, and the next time we met he was no less offensive than before. he, imprisoned in himself, and not the always unperturbed o'leary, comes before me as the tragic figure of my youth. the same passion for all moral and physical splendour that drew him to o'leary would make him beg leave to wear, for some few days, a friend's ring or pin, and gave him a heart that every pretty woman set on fire. i doubt if he was happy in his loves; for those his powerful intellect had fascinated were, i believe, repelled by his coarse red hair, his gaunt ungainly body, his stiff movements as of a dutch doll, his badly rolled, shabby umbrella. and yet with women, as with o'leary, he was gentle, deferential, almost diffident. a young ireland society met in the lecture hall of a workman's club in york street with o'leary for president, and there four or five university students and myself and occasionally taylor spoke on irish history or literature. when taylor spoke, it was a great event, and his delivery in the course of a speech or lecture of some political verse by thomas davis gave me a conviction of how great might be the effect of verse spoken by a man almost rhythm-drunk at some moment of intensity, the apex of long mounting thought. verses that seemed when one saw them upon the page flat and empty caught from that voice, whose beauty was half in its harsh strangeness, nobility and style. my father had always read verse with an equal intensity and a greater subtlety, but this art was public and his private, and it is taylor's voice that rings in my ears and awakens my longing when i have heard some player speak lines, "so naturally," as a famous player said to me, "that nobody can find out that it is verse at all." i made a good many speeches, more i believe as a training for self-possession than from desire of speech. once our debates roused a passion that came to the newspapers and the streets. there was an excitable man who had fought for the pope against the italian patriots and who always rode a white horse in our nationalist processions. he got on badly with o'leary who had told him that "attempting to oppress others was a poor preparation for liberating your own country." o'leary had written some letter to the press condemning the "irish-american dynamite party" as it was called, and defining the limits of "honourable warfare." at the next meeting, the papal soldier rose in the middle of the discussion on some other matter and moved a vote of censure on o'leary. "i myself" he said "do not approve of bombs, but i do not think that any irishman should be discouraged." o'leary ruled him out of order. he refused to obey and remained standing. those round him began to threaten. he swung the chair he had been sitting on round his head and defied everybody. however he was seized from all sides and thrown out, and a special meeting called to expel him. he wrote letters to the papers and addressed a crowd somewhere. "no young ireland society," he protested, "could expel a man whose grandfather had been hanged in 1798." when the night of the special meeting came his expulsion was moved, but before the vote could be taken an excited man announced that there was a crowd in the street, that the papal soldier was making a speech, that in a moment we should be attacked. three or four of us ran and put our backs to the door while others carried on the debate. it was an inner door with narrow glass windows at each side and through these we could see the street-door and the crowd in the street. presently a man asked us through the crack in the door if we would as a favour "leave the crowd to the workman's club upstairs." in a couple of minutes there was a great noise of sticks and broken glass, and after that our landlord came to find out who was to pay for the hall-lamp. xxix from these debates, from o'leary's conversation, and from the irish books he lent or gave me has come all i have set my hand to since. i had begun to know a great deal about the irish poets who had written in english. i read with excitement books i should find unreadable to-day, and found romance in lives that had neither wit nor adventure. i did not deceive myself, i knew how often they wrote a cold and abstract language, and yet i who had never wanted to see the houses where keats and shelley lived would ask everybody what sort of place inchedony was, because callanan had named after it a bad poem in the manner of "childe harold." walking home from a debate, i remember saying to some college student "ireland cannot put from her the habits learned from her old military civilization and from a church that prays in latin. those popular poets have not touched her heart, her poetry when it comes will be distinguished and lonely." o'leary had once said to me, "neither ireland nor england knows the good from the bad in any art, but ireland unlike england does not hate the good when it is pointed out to her." i began to plot and scheme how one might seal with the right image the soft wax before it began to harden. i had noticed that irish catholics among whom had been born so many political martyrs had not the good taste, the household courtesy and decency of the protestant ireland i had known, and yet protestant ireland had begun to think of nothing but getting on. i thought we might bring the halves together if we had a national literature that made ireland beautiful in the memory, and yet had been freed from provincialism by an exacting criticism, an european pose. it was because of this dream when we returned to london that i made with pastels upon the ceiling of my study a map of sligo decorated like some old map with a ship and an elaborate compass and wrote, a little against the grain, a couple of sligo stories, one a vague echo of "grettir the strong," which my father had read to me in childhood, and finished with better heart my "wanderings of oisin," and began after ridding my style of romantic colour "the countess cathleen." i saw that our people did not read, but that they listened patiently (how many long political speeches have they listened to?) and saw that there must be a theatre, and if i could find the right musicians, words set to music. i foresaw a great deal that we are doing now, though never the appetite of our new middle-class for "realism," nor the greatness of the opposition, nor the slowness of the victory. davis had done so much in the four years of his working life, i had thought all needful pamphleteering and speech-making could be run through at the day's end, not knowing that taste is so much more deeply rooted than opinion that even if one had school and newspaper to help, one could scarcely stir it under two generations. then too, bred up in a studio where all things are discussed and where i had even been told that indiscretion and energy are inseparable, i knew nothing of the conservatism or of the suspicions of piety. i had planned a drama like that of greece, and romances that were, it may be, half hugo and half de la motte fouqué, to bring into the town the memories and visions of the country and to spread everywhere the history and legends of mediaeval ireland and to fill ireland once more with sacred places. i even planned out, and in some detail, (for those mysterious lights and voices were never long forgotten,) another samothrace, a new eleusis. i believed, so great was my faith, or so deceptive the precedent of young ireland, that i should find men of genius everywhere. i had not the conviction, as it may seem, that a people can be compelled to write what one pleases, for that could but end in rhetoric or in some educational movement but believed i had divined the soul of the people and had set my shoes upon a road that would be crowded presently. xxx someone at the young ireland society gave me a newspaper that i might read some article or letter. i began idly reading verses describing the shore of ireland as seen by a returning, dying emigrant. my eyes filled with tears and yet i knew the verses were badly written--vague, abstract words such as one finds in a newspaper. i looked at the end and saw the name of some political exile who had died but a few days after his return to ireland. they had moved me because they contained the actual thoughts of a man at a passionate moment of life, and when i met my father i was full of the discovery. we should write out our own thoughts in as nearly as possible the language we thought them in, as though in a letter to an intimate friend. we should not disguise them in any way; for our lives give them force as the lives of people in plays give force to their words. personal utterance, which had almost ceased in english literature, could be as fine an escape from rhetoric and abstraction as drama itself. my father was indignant, almost violent, and would hear of nothing but drama. "personal utterance was only egotism." i knew it was not, but as yet did not know how to explain the difference. i tried from that on to write out of my emotions exactly as they came to me in life, not changing them to make them more beautiful, and to rid my syntax of all inversions and my vocabulary of literary words, and that made it hard to write at all. it meant rejecting the words or the constructions that had been used over and over because they flow most easily into rhyme and measure. then, too, how hard it was to be sincere, not to make the emotion more beautiful and more violent or the circumstance more romantic. "if i can be sincere and make my language natural, and without becoming discursive, like a novelist, and so indiscreet and prosaic," i said to myself, "i shall, if good luck or bad luck make my life interesting, be a great poet; for it will be no longer a matter of literature at all." yet when i re-read those early poems which gave me so much trouble, i find little but romantic convention, unconscious drama. it is so many years before one can believe enough in what one feels even to know what the feeling is. xxxi perhaps a year before we returned to london, a catholic friend brought me to a spiritualistic seance at the house of a young man who had been lately arrested under a suspicion of fenianism, but had been released for lack of evidence. he and his friends had been sitting weekly about a table in the hope of spiritual manifestation and one had developed mediumship. a drawer full of books had leaped out of the table when no one was touching it, a picture had moved upon the wall. there were some half dozen of us, and our host began by making passes until the medium fell asleep sitting upright in his chair. then the lights were turned out, and we sat waiting in the dim light of a fire. presently my shoulders began to twitch and my hands. i could easily have stopped them, but i had never heard of such a thing and i was curious. after a few minutes the movement became violent and i stopped it. i sat motionless for a while and then my whole body moved like a suddenly unrolled watch-spring, and i was thrown backward on the wall. i again stilled the movement and sat at the table. everybody began to say i was a medium, and that if i would not resist some wonderful thing would happen. i remembered that my father had told me that balzac had once desired to take opium for the experience sake, but would not because he dreaded the surrender of his will. we were now holding each other's hands and presently my right hand banged the knuckles of the woman next to me upon the table. she laughed, and the medium, speaking for the first time, and with difficulty, out of his mesmeric sleep, said, "tell her there is great danger." he stood up and began walking round me, making movements with his hands as though he were pushing something away. i was now struggling vainly with this force which compelled me to movements i had not willed, and my movements had become so violent that the table was broken. i tried to pray, and because i could not remember a prayer, repeated in a loud voice of man's first disobedience and the fruit of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste brought death into the world and all our woe... sing, heavenly muse. my catholic friend had left the table and was saying a pater noster and ave maria in the corner. presently all became still and so dark that i could not see anybody. i described it to somebody next day as like going out of a noisy political meeting on to a quiet country road. i said to myself, "i am now in a trance but i no longer have any desire to resist." but when i turned my eyes to the fireplace i could see a faint gleam of light, so i thought "no, i am not in a trance." then i saw shapes faintly appearing in the darkness & thought, "they are spirits;" but they were only the spiritualists and my friend at her prayers. the medium said in a faint voice, "we are through the bad spirits." i said, "will they ever come again, do you think?" and he said, "no, never again, i think," and in my boyish vanity i thought it was i who had banished them. for years afterwards i would not go to a seance or turn a table and would often ask myself what was that violent impulse that had run through my nerves? was it a part of myself--something always to be a danger perhaps; or had it come from without, as it seemed? xxxii i had published my first book of poems by subscription, o'leary finding many subscribers, and a book of stories, when i heard that my grandmother was dead and went to sligo for the funeral. she had asked to see me but by some mistake i was not sent for. she had heard that i was much about with a beautiful, admired woman and feared that i did not speak of marriage because i was poor, and wanted to say to me "women care nothing about money." my grandfather was dying also and only survived her a few weeks. i went to see him and wondered at his handsome face now sickness had refined it, and noticed that he foretold the changes in the weather by indications of the light and of the temperature that could not have told me anything. as i sat there my old childish fear returned and i was glad to get away. i stayed with my uncle whose house was opposite where my grandfather lived, and walking home with him one day we met the doctor. the doctor said there was no hope and that my grandfather should be told, but my uncle would not allow it. he said "it would make a man mad to know he was dying." in vain the doctor pleaded that he had never known a man not made calmer by the knowledge. i listened sad and angry, but my uncle always took a low view of human nature, his very tolerance which was exceedingly great came from his hoping nothing of anybody. before he had given way my grandfather lifted up his arms and cried out "there she is," and fell backward dead. before he was dead, old servants of that house where there had never been noise or disorder began their small pilferings, and after his death there was a quarrel over the disposition of certain mantle-piece ornaments of no value. xxxiii for some months now i have lived with my own youth and childhood, not always writing indeed but thinking of it almost every day, and i am sorrowful and disturbed. it is not that i have accomplished too few of my plans, for i am not ambitious; but when i think of all the books i have read, and of the wise words i have heard spoken, and of the anxiety i have given to parents and grandparents, and of the hopes that i have had, all life weighed in the scales of my own life seems to me a preparation for something that never happens. printed in the united states of america. for this text and significant contributor to its preparation for pg. the celtic twilight by w. b. yeats time drops in decay like a candle burnt out. and the mountains and woods have their day, have their day; but, kindly old rout of the fire-born moods, you pass not away. the hosting of the sidhe the host is riding from knocknarea, and over the grave of clooth-na-bare; caolte tossing his burning hair, and niamh calling, "away, come away; empty your heart of its mortal dream. the winds awaken, the leaves whirl round, our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound, our breasts are heaving, our eyes are a-gleam, our arms are waving, our lips are apart, and if any gaze on our rushing band, we come between him and the deed of his hand, we come between him and the hope of his heart." the host is rushing 'twixt night and day; and where is there hope or deed as fair? caolte tossing his burning hair, and niamh calling, "away, come away." this book i i have desired, like every artist, to create a little world out of the beautiful, pleasant, and significant things of this marred and clumsy world, and to show in a vision something of the face of ireland to any of my own people who would look where i bid them. i have therefore written down accurately and candidly much that i have heard and seen, and, except by way of commentary, nothing that i have merely imagined. i have, however, been at no pains to separate my own beliefs from those of the peasantry, but have rather let my men and women, dhouls and faeries, go their way unoffended or defended by any argument of mine. the things a man has heard and seen are threads of life, and if he pull them carefully from the confused distaff of memory, any who will can weave them into whatever garments of belief please them best. i too have woven my garment like another, but i shall try to keep warm in it, and shall be well content if it do not unbecome me. hope and memory have one daughter and her name is art, and she has built her dwelling far from the desperate field where men hang out their garments upon forked boughs to be banners of battle. o beloved daughter of hope and memory, be with me for a little. 1893. ii i have added a few more chapters in the manner of the old ones, and would have added others, but one loses, as one grows older, something of the lightness of one's dreams; one begins to take life up in both hands, and to care more for the fruit than the flower, and that is no great loss per haps. in these new chapters, as in the old ones, i have invented nothing but my comments and one or two deceitful sentences that may keep some poor story-teller's commerce with the devil and his angels, or the like, from being known among his neighbours. i shall publish in a little while a big book about the commonwealth of faery, and shall try to make it systematical and learned enough to buy pardon for this handful of dreams. 1902. w. b. yeats. a teller of tales many of the tales in this book were told me by one paddy flynn, a little bright-eyed old man, who lived in a leaky and one-roomed cabin in the village of ballisodare, which is, he was wont to say, "the most gentle"--whereby he meant faery--"place in the whole of county sligo." others hold it, however, but second to drumcliff and drumahair. the first time i saw him he was cooking mushrooms for himself; the next time he was asleep under a hedge, smiling in his sleep. he was indeed always cheerful, though i thought i could see in his eyes (swift as the eyes of a rabbit, when they peered out of their wrinkled holes) a melancholy which was well-nigh a portion of their joy; the visionary melancholy of purely instinctive natures and of all animals. and yet there was much in his life to depress him, for in the triple solitude of age, eccentricity, and deafness, he went about much pestered by children. it was for this very reason perhaps that he ever recommended mirth and hopefulness. he was fond, for instance, of telling how collumcille cheered up his mother. "how are you to-day, mother?" said the saint. "worse," replied the mother. "may you be worse to-morrow," said the saint. the next day collumcille came again, and exactly the same conversation took place, but the third day the mother said, "better, thank god." and the saint replied, "may you be better to-morrow." he was fond too of telling how the judge smiles at the last day alike when he rewards the good and condemns the lost to unceasing flames. he had many strange sights to keep him cheerful or to make him sad. i asked him had he ever seen the faeries, and got the reply, "am i not annoyed with them?" i asked too if he had ever seen the banshee. "i have seen it," he said, "down there by the water, batting the river with its hands." i have copied this account of paddy flynn, with a few verbal alterations, from a note-book which i almost filled with his tales and sayings, shortly after seeing him. i look now at the note-book regretfully, for the blank pages at the end will never be filled up. paddy flynn is dead; a friend of mine gave him a large bottle of whiskey, and though a sober man at most times, the sight of so much liquor filled him with a great enthusiasm, and he lived upon it for some days and then died. his body, worn out with old age and hard times, could not bear the drink as in his young days. he was a great teller of tales, and unlike our common romancers, knew how to empty heaven, hell, and purgatory, faeryland and earth, to people his stories. he did not live in a shrunken world, but knew of no less ample circumstance than did homer himself. perhaps the gaelic people shall by his like bring back again the ancient simplicity and amplitude of imagination. what is literature but the expression of moods by the vehicle of symbol and incident? and are there not moods which need heaven, hell, purgatory, and faeryland for their expression, no less than this dilapidated earth? nay, are there not moods which shall find no expression unless there be men who dare to mix heaven, hell, purgatory, and faeryland together, or even to set the heads of beasts to the bodies of men, or to thrust the souls of men into the heart of rocks? let us go forth, the tellers of tales, and seize whatever prey the heart long for, and have no fear. everything exists, everything is true, and the earth is only a little dust under our feet. belief and unbelief there are some doubters even in the western villages. one woman told me last christmas that she did not believe either in hell or in ghosts. hell she thought was merely an invention got up by the priest to keep people good; and ghosts would not be permitted, she held, to go "trapsin about the earth" at their own free will; "but there are faeries," she added, "and little leprechauns, and water-horses, and fallen angels." i have met also a man with a mohawk indian tattooed upon his arm, who held exactly similar beliefs and unbeliefs. no matter what one doubts one never doubts the faeries, for, as the man with the mohawk indian on his arm said to me, "they stand to reason." even the official mind does not escape this faith. a little girl who was at service in the village of grange, close under the seaward slopes of ben bulben, suddenly disappeared one night about three years ago. there was at once great excitement in the neighbourhood, because it was rumoured that the faeries had taken her. a villager was said to have long struggled to hold her from them, but at last they prevailed, and he found nothing in his hands but a broomstick. the local constable was applied to, and he at once instituted a house-to-house search, and at the same time advised the people to burn all the bucalauns (ragweed) on the field she vanished from, because bucalauns are sacred to the faeries. they spent the whole night burning them, the constable repeating spells the while. in the morning the little girl was found, the story goes, wandering in the field. she said the faeries had taken her away a great distance, riding on a faery horse. at last she saw a big river, and the man who had tried to keep her from being carried off was drifting down it--such are the topsy-turvydoms of faery glamour--in a cockleshell. on the way her companions had mentioned the names of several people who were about to die shortly in the village. perhaps the constable was right. it is better doubtless to believe much unreason and a little truth than to deny for denial's sake truth and unreason alike, for when we do this we have not even a rush candle to guide our steps, not even a poor sowlth to dance before us on the marsh, and must needs fumble our way into the great emptiness where dwell the mis-shapen dhouls. and after all, can we come to so great evil if we keep a little fire on our hearths and in our souls, and welcome with open hand whatever of excellent come to warm itself, whether it be man or phantom, and do not say too fiercely, even to the dhouls themselves, "be ye gone"? when all is said and done, how do we not know but that our own unreason may be better than another's truth? for it has been warmed on our hearths and in our souls, and is ready for the wild bees of truth to hive in it, and make their sweet honey. come into the world again, wild bees, wild bees! mortal help one hears in the old poems of men taken away to help the gods in a battle, and cuchullan won the goddess fand for a while, by helping her married sister and her sister's husband to overthrow another nation of the land of promise. i have been told, too, that the people of faery cannot even play at hurley unless they have on either side some mortal, whose body, or whatever has been put in its place, as the story-teller would say, is asleep at home. without mortal help they are shadowy and cannot even strike the balls. one day i was walking over some marshy land in galway with a friend when we found an old, hard-featured man digging a ditch. my friend had heard that this man had seen a wonderful sight of some kind, and at last we got the story out of him. when he was a boy he was working one day with about thirty men and women and boys. they were beyond tuam and not far from knock-na-gur. presently they saw, all thirty of them, and at a distance of about half-a-mile, some hundred and fifty of the people of faery. there were two of them, he said, in dark clothes like people of our own time, who stood about a hundred yards from one another, but the others wore clothes of all colours, "bracket" or chequered, and some with red waistcoats. he could not see what they were doing, but all might have been playing hurley, for "they looked as if it was that." sometimes they would vanish, and then he would almost swear they came back out of the bodies of the two men in dark clothes. these two men were of the size of living men, but the others were small. he saw them for about half-anhour, and then the old man he and those about him were working for took up a whip and said, "get on, get on, or we will have no work done!" i asked if he saw the faeries too, "oh, yes, but he did not want work he was paying wages for to be neglected." he made every body work so hard that nobody saw what happened to the faeries. 1902. a visionary a young man came to see me at my lodgings the other night, and began to talk of the making of the earth and the heavens and much else. i questioned him about his life and his doings. he had written many poems and painted many mystical designs since we met last, but latterly had neither written nor painted, for his whole heart was set upon making his mind strong, vigorous, and calm, and the emotional life of the artist was bad for him, he feared. he recited his poems readily, however. he had them all in his memory. some indeed had never been written down. they, with their wild music as of winds blowing in the reeds,[fn#1] seemed to me the very inmost voice of celtic sadness, and of celtic longing for infinite things the world has never seen. suddenly it seemed to me that he was peering about him a little eagerly. "do you see anything, x-----?" i said. "a shining, winged woman, covered by her long hair, is standing near the doorway," he answered, or some such words. "is it the influence of some living person who thinks of us, and whose thoughts appear to us in that symbolic form?" i said; for i am well instructed in the ways of the visionaries and in the fashion of their speech. "no," he replied; "for if it were the thoughts of a person who is alive i should feel the living influence in my living body, and my heart would beat and my breath would fail. it is a spirit. it is some one who is dead or who has never lived." [fn#1] i wrote this sentence long ago. this sadness now seems to me a part of all peoples who preserve the moods of the ancient peoples of the world. i am not so pre-occupied with the mystery of race as i used to be, but leave this sentence and other sentences like it unchanged. we once believed them, and have, it may be, not grown wiser. i asked what he was doing, and found he was clerk in a large shop. his pleasure, however, was to wander about upon the hills, talking to halfmad and visionary peasants, or to persuade queer and consciencestricken persons to deliver up the keeping of their troubles into his care. another night, when i was with him in his own lodging, more than one turned up to talk over their beliefs and disbeliefs, and sun them as it were in the subtle light of his mind. sometimes visions come to him as he talks with them, and he is rumoured to have told divers people true matters of their past days and distant friends, and left them hushed with dread of their strange teacher, who seems scarce more than a boy, and is so much more subtle than the oldest among them. the poetry he recited me was full of his nature and his visions. sometimes it told of other lives he believes himself to have lived in other centuries, sometimes of people he had talked to, revealing them to their own minds. i told him i would write an article upon him and it, and was told in turn that i might do so if i did not mention his name, for he wished to be always "unknown, obscure, impersonal." next day a bundle of his poems arrived, and with them a note in these words: "here are copies of verses you said you liked. i do not think i could ever write or paint any more. i prepare myself for a cycle of other activities in some other life. i will make rigid my roots and branches. it is not now my turn to burst into leaves and flowers." the poems were all endeavours to capture some high, impalpable mood in a net of obscure images. there were fine passages in all, but these were often embedded in thoughts which have evidently a special value to his mind, but are to other men the counters of an unknown coinage. to them they seem merely so much brass or copper or tarnished silver at the best. at other times the beauty of the thought was obscured by careless writing as though he had suddenly doubted if writing was not a foolish labour. he had frequently illustrated his verses with drawings, in which an unperfect anatomy did not altogether hide extreme beauty of feeling. the faeries in whom he believes have given him many subjects, notably thomas of ercildoune sitting motionless in the twilight while a young and beautiful creature leans softly out of the shadow and whispers in his ear. he had delighted above all in strong effects of colour: spirits who have upon their heads instead of hair the feathers of peacocks; a phantom reaching from a swirl of flame towards a star; a spirit passing with a globe of iridescent crystal-symbol of the soulhalf shut within his hand. but always under this largess of colour lay some tender homily addressed to man's fragile hopes. this spiritual eagerness draws to him all those who, like himself, seek for illumination or else mourn for a joy that has gone. one of these especially comes to mind. a winter or two ago he spent much of the night walking up and down upon the mountain talking to an old peasant who, dumb to most men, poured out his cares for him. both were unhappy: x----because he had then first decided that art and poetry were not for him, and the old peasant because his life was ebbing out with no achievement remaining and no hope left him. both how celtic! how full of striving after a something never to be completely expressed in word or deed. the peasant was wandering in his mind with prolonged sorrow. once he burst out with "god possesses the heavens--god possesses the heavens--but he covets the world"; and once he lamented that his old neighbours were gone, and that all had forgotten him: they used to draw a chair to the fire for him in every cabin, and now they said, "who is that old fellow there?" "the fret [irish for doom] is over me," he repeated, and then went on to talk once more of god and heaven. more than once also he said, waving his arm towards the mountain, "only myself knows what happened under the thorn-tree forty years ago"; and as he said it the tears upon his face glistened in the moonlight. this old man always rises before me when i think of x-----. both seek --one in wandering sentences, the other in symbolic pictures and subtle allegoric poetry-to express a something that lies beyond the range of expression; and both, if x----will forgive me, have within them the vast and vague extravagance that lies at the bottom of the celtic heart. the peasant visionaries that are, the landlord duelists that were, and the whole hurly-burly of legends--cuchulain fighting the sea for two days until the waves pass over him and he dies, caolte storming the palace of the gods, oisin seeking in vain for three hundred years to appease his insatiable heart with all the pleasures of faeryland, these two mystics walking up and down upon the mountains uttering the central dreams of their souls in no less dream-laden sentences, and this mind that finds them so interesting--all are a portion of that great celtic phantasmagoria whose meaning no man has discovered, nor any angel revealed. village ghosts in the great cities we see so little of the world, we drift into our minority. in the little towns and villages there are no minorities; people are not numerous enough. you must see the world there, perforce. every man is himself a class; every hour carries its new challenge. when you pass the inn at the end of the village you leave your favourite whimsy behind you; for you will meet no one who can share it. we listen to eloquent speaking, read books and write them, settle all the affairs of the universe. the dumb village multitudes pass on unchanging; the feel of the spade in the hand is no different for all our talk: good seasons and bad follow each other as of old. the dumb multitudes are no more concerned with us than is the old horse peering through the rusty gate of the village pound. the ancient map-makers wrote across unexplored regions, "here are lions." across the villages of fishermen and turners of the earth, so different are these from us, we can write but one line that is certain, "here are ghosts." my ghosts inhabit the village of h-----, in leinster. history has in no manner been burdened by this ancient village, with its crooked lanes, its old abbey churchyard full of long grass, its green background of small fir-trees, and its quay, where lie a few tarry fishing-luggers. in the annals of entomology it is well known. for a small bay lies westward a little, where he who watches night after night may see a certain rare moth fluttering along the edge of the tide, just at the end of evening or the beginning of dawn. a hundred years ago it was carried here from italy by smugglers in a cargo of silks and laces. if the moth-hunter would throw down his net, and go hunting for ghost tales or tales of the faeries and such-like children of lillith, he would have need for far less patience. to approach the village at night a timid man requires great strategy. a man was once heard complaining, "by the cross of jesus! how shall i go? if i pass by the hill of dunboy old captain burney may look out on me. if i go round by the water, and up by the steps, there is the headless one and another on the quays, and a new one under the old churchyard wall. if i go right round the other way, mrs. stewart is appearing at hillside gate, and the devil himself is in the hospital lane." i never heard which spirit he braved, but feel sure it was not the one in the hospital lane. in cholera times a shed had been there set up to receive patients. when the need had gone by, it was pulled down, but ever since the ground where it stood has broken out in ghosts and demons and faeries. there is a farmer at h-----, paddy b----by name-a man of great strength, and a teetotaller. his wife and sister-in-law, musing on his great strength, often wonder what he would do if he drank. one night when passing through the hospital lane, he saw what he supposed at first to be a tame rabbit; after a little he found that it was a white cat. when he came near, the creature slowly began to swell larger and larger, and as it grew he felt his own strength ebbing away, as though it were sucked out of him. he turned and ran. by the hospital lane goes the "faeries path." every evening they travel from the hill to the sea, from the sea to the hill. at the sea end of their path stands a cottage. one night mrs. arbunathy, who lived there, left her door open, as she was expecting her son. her husband was asleep by the fire; a tall man came in and sat beside him. after he had been sitting there for a while, the woman said, "in the name of god, who are you?" he got up and went out, saying, "never leave the door open at this hour, or evil may come to you." she woke her husband and told him. "one of the good people has been with us," said he. probably the man braved mrs. stewart at hillside gate. when she lived she was the wife of the protestant clergyman. "her ghost was never known to harm any one," say the village people; "it is only doing a penance upon the earth." not far from hillside gate, where she haunted, appeared for a short time a much more remarkable spirit. its haunt was the bogeen, a green lane leading from the western end of the village. i quote its history at length: a typical village tragedy. in a cottage at the village end of the bogeen lived a house-painter, jim montgomery, and his wife. they had several children. he was a little dandy, and came of a higher class than his neighbours. his wife was a very big woman. her husband, who had been expelled from the village choir for drink, gave her a beating one day. her sister heard of it, and came and took down one of the window shutters--montgomery was neat about everything, and had shutters on the outside of every window--and beat him with it, being big and strong like her sister. he threatened to prosecute her; she answered that she would break every bone in his body if he did. she never spoke to her sister again, because she had allowed herself to be beaten by so small a man. jim montgomery grew worse and worse: his wife soon began to have not enough to eat. she told no one, for she was very proud. often, too, she would have no fire on a cold night. if any neighbours came in she would say she had let the fire out because she was just going to bed. the people about often heard her husband beating her, but she never told any one. she got very thin. at last one saturday there was no food in the house for herself and the children. she could bear it no longer, and went to the priest and asked him for some money. he gave her thirty shillings. her husband met her, and took the money, and beat her. on the following monday she got very w, and sent for a mrs. kelly. mrs. kelly, as soon as she saw her, said, "my woman, you are dying," and sent for the priest and the doctor. she died in an hour. after her death, as montgomery neglected the children, the landlord had them taken to the workhouse. a few nights after they had gone, mrs. kelly was going home through the bogeen when the ghost of mrs. montgomery appeared and followed her. it did not leave her until she reached her own house. she told the priest, father r, a noted antiquarian, and could not get him to believe her. a few nights afterwards mrs. kelly again met the spirit in the same place. she was in too great terror to go the whole way, but stopped at a neighbour's cottage midway, and asked them to let her in. they answered they were going to bed. she cried out, "in the name of god let me in, or i will break open the door." they opened, and so she escaped from the ghost. next day she told the priest again. this time he believed, and said it would follow her until she spoke to it. she met the spirit a third time in the bogeen. she asked what kept it from its rest. the spirit said that its children must be taken from the workhouse, for none of its relations were ever there before, and that three masses were to be said for the repose of its soul. "if my husband does not believe you," she said, "show him that," and touched mrs. kelly's wrist with three fingers. the places where they touched swelled up and blackened. she then vanished. for a time montgomery would not believe that his wife had appeared: "she would not show herself to mrs. kelly," he said--"she with respectable people to appear to." he was convinced by the three marks, and the children were taken from the workhouse. the priest said the masses, and the shade must have been at rest, for it has not since appeared. some time afterwards jim montgomery died in the workhouse, having come to great poverty through drink. i know some who believe they have seen the headless ghost upon the quay, and one who, when he passes the old cemetery wall at night, sees a woman with white borders to her cap[fn#2] creep out and follow him. the apparition only leaves him at his own door. the villagers imagine that she follows him to avenge some wrong. "i will haunt you when i die" is a favourite threat. his wife was once half-scared to death by what she considers a demon in the shape of a dog. [fn#2] i wonder why she had white borders to her cap. the old mayo woman, who has told me so many tales, has told me that her brother-inlaw saw "a woman with white borders to her cap going around the stacks in a field, and soon after he got a hurt, and he died in six months." these are a few of the open-air spirits; the more domestic of their tribe gather within-doors, plentiful as swallows under southern eaves. one night a mrs. nolan was watching by her dying child in fluddy's lane. suddenly there was a sound of knocking heard at the door. she did not open, fearing it was some unhuman thing that knocked. the knocking ceased. after a little the front-door and then the back-door were burst open, and closed again. her husband went to see what was wrong. he found both doors bolted. the child died. the doors were again opened and closed as before. then mrs. nolan remembered that she had forgotten to leave window or door open, as the custom is, for the departure of the soul. these strange openings and closings and knockings were warnings and reminders from the spirits who attend the dying. the house ghost is usually a harmless and well-meaning creature. it is put up with as long as possible. it brings good luck to those who live with it. i remember two children who slept with their mother and sisters and brothers in one small room. in the room was also a ghost. they sold herrings in the dublin streets, and did not mind the ghost much, because they knew they would always sell their fish easily while they slept in the "ha'nted" room. i have some acquaintance among the ghost-seers of western villages. the connaught tales are very different from those of leinster. these h----spirits have a gloomy, matter-of-fact way with them. they come to announce a death, to fulfil some obligation, to revenge a wrong, to pay their bills even--as did a fisherman's daughter the other day--and then hasten to their rest. all things they do decently and in order. it is demons, and not ghosts, that transform themselves into white cats or black dogs. the people who tell the tales are poor, serious-minded fishing people, who find in the doings of the ghosts the fascination of fear. in the western tales is a whimsical grace, a curious extravagance. the people who recount them live in the most wild and beautiful scenery, under a sky ever loaded and fantastic with flying clouds. they are farmers and labourers, who do a little fishing now and then. they do not fear the spirits too much to feel an artistic and humorous pleasure in their doings. the ghosts themselves share in their quaint hilarity. in one western town, on whose deserted wharf the grass grows, these spirits have so much vigour that, when a misbeliever ventured to sleep in a haunted house, i have been told they flung him through the window, and his bed after him. in the surrounding villages the creatures use the most strange disguises. a dead old gentleman robs the cabbages of his own garden in the shape of a large rabbit. a wicked sea-captain stayed for years inside the plaster of a cottage wall, in the shape of a snipe, making the most horrible noises. he was only dislodged when the wall was broken down; then out of the solid plaster the snipe rushed away whistling. "dust hath closed helen's eye" i i have been lately to a little group of houses, not many enough to be called a village, in the barony of kiltartan in county galway, whose name, ballylee, is known through all the west of ireland. there is the old square castle, ballylee, inhabited by a farmer and his wife, and a cottage where their daughter and their son-in-law live, and a little mill with an old miller, and old ash-trees throwing green shadows upon a little river and great stepping-stones. i went there two or three times last year to talk to the miller about biddy early, a wise woman that lived in clare some years ago, and about her saying, "there is a cure for all evil between the two mill-wheels of ballylee," and to find out from him or another whether she meant the moss between the running waters or some other herb. i have been there this summer, and i shall be there again before it is autumn, because mary hynes, a beautiful woman whose name is still a wonder by turf fires, died there sixty years ago; for our feet would linger where beauty has lived its life of sorrow to make us understand that it is not of the world. an old man brought me a little way from the mill and the castle, and down a long, narrow boreen that was nearly lost in brambles and sloe bushes, and he said, "that is the little old foundation of the house, but the most of it is taken for building walls, and the goats have ate those bushes that are growing over it till they've got cranky, and they won't grow any more. they say she was the handsomest girl in ireland, her skin was like dribbled snow"--he meant driven snow, perhaps,--"and she had blushes in her cheeks. she had five handsome brothers, but all are gone now!" i talked to him about a poem in irish, raftery, a famous poet, made about her, and how it said, "there is a strong cellar in ballylee." he said the strong cellar was the great hole where the river sank underground, and he brought me to a deep pool, where an otter hurried away under a grey boulder, and told me that many fish came up out of the dark water at early morning "to taste the fresh water coming down from the hills." i first heard of the poem from an old woman who fives about two miles further up the river, and who remembers raftery and mary hynes. she says, "i never saw anybody so handsome as she was, and i never will till i die," and that he was nearly blind, and had "no way of living but to go round and to mark some house to go to, and then all the neighbours would gather to hear. if you treated him well he'd praise you, but if you did not, he'd fault you in irish. he was the greatest poet in ireland, and he'd make a song about that bush if he chanced to stand under it. there was a bush he stood under from the rain, and he made verses praising it, and then when the water came through he made verses dispraising it." she sang the poem to a friend and to myself in irish, and every word was audible and expressive, as the words in a song were always, as i think, before music grew too proud to be the garment of words, flowing and changing with the flowing and changing of their energies. the poem is not as natural as the best irish poetry of the last century, for the thoughts are arranged in a too obviously traditional form, so the old poor half-blind man who made it has to speak as if he were a rich farmer offering the best of everything to the woman he loves, but it has naive and tender phrases. the friend that was with me has made some of the translation, but some of it has been made by the country people themselves. i think it has more of the simplicity of the irish verses than one finds in most translations. going to mass by the will of god, the day came wet and the wind rose; i met mary hynes at the cross of kiltartan, and i fell in love with her then and there. i spoke to her kind and mannerly, as by report was her own way; and she said, "raftery, my mind is easy, you may come to-day to ballylee." when i heard her offer i did not linger, when her talk went to my heart my heart rose. we had only to go across the three fields, we had daylight with us to ballylee. the table was laid with glasses and a quart measure, she had fair hair, and she sitting beside me; and she said, "drink, raftery, and a hundred welcomes, there is a strong cellar in ballylee." o star of light and o sun in harvest, o amber hair, o my share of the world, will you come with me upon sunday till we agree together before all the people? i would not grudge you a song every sunday evening, punch on the table, or wine if you would drink it, but, o king of glory, dry the roads before me, till i find the way to ballylee. there is sweet air on the side of the hill when you are looking down upon ballylee; when you are walking in the valley picking nuts and blackberries, there is music of the birds in it and music of the sidhe. what is the worth of greatness till you have the light of the flower of the branch that is by your side? there is no god to deny it or to try and hide it, she is the sun in the heavens who wounded my heart. there was no part of ireland i did not travel, from the rivers to the tops of the mountains, to the edge of lough greine whose mouth is hidden, and i saw no beauty but was behind hers. her hair was shining, and her brows were shining too; her face was like herself, her mouth pleasant and sweet. she is the pride, and i give her the branch, she is the shining flower of ballylee. it is mary hynes, this calm and easy woman, has beauty in her mind and in her face. if a hundred clerks were gathered together, they could not write down a half of her ways. an old weaver, whose son is supposed to go away among the sidhe (the faeries) at night, says, "mary hynes was the most beautiful thing ever made. my mother used to tell me about her, for she'd be at every hurling, and wherever she was she was dressed in white. as many as eleven men asked her in marriage in one day, but she wouldn't have any of them. there was a lot of men up beyond kilbecanty one night, sitting together drinking, and talking of her, and one of them got up and set out to go to ballylee and see her; but cloon bog was open then, and when he came to it he fell into the water, and they found him dead there in the morning. she died of the fever that was before the famine." another old man says he was only a child when he saw her, but he remembered that "the strongest man that was among us, one john madden, got his death of the head of her, cold he got crossing rivers in the night-time to get to ballylee." this is perhaps the man the other remembered, for tradition gives the one thing many shapes. there is an old woman who remembers her, at derrybrien among the echtge hills, a vast desolate place, which has changed little since the old poem said, "the stag upon the cold summit of echtge hears the cry of the wolves," but still mindful of many poems and of the dignity of ancient speech. she says, "the sun and the moon never shone on anybody so handsome, and her skin was so white that it looked blue, and she had two little blushes on her cheeks." and an old wrinkled woman who lives close by ballylee, and has told me many tales of the sidhe, says, "i often saw mary hynes, she was handsome indeed. she had two bunches of curls beside her cheeks, and they were the colour of silver. i saw mary molloy that was drowned in the river beyond, and mary guthrie that was in ardrahan, but she took the sway of them both, a very comely creature. i was at her wake too--she had seen too much of the world. she was a kind creature. one day i was coming home through that field beyond, and i was tired, and who should come out but the poisin glegeal (the shining flower), and she gave me a glass of new milk." this old woman meant no more than some beautiful bright colour by the colour of silver, for though i knew an old man--he is dead now--who thought she might know "the cure for all the evils in the world," that the sidhe knew, she has seen too little gold to know its colour. but a man by the shore at kinvara, who is too young to remember mary hynes, says, "everybody says there is no one at all to be seen now so handsome; it is said she had beautiful hair, the colour of gold. she was poor, but her clothes every day were the same as sunday, she had such neatness. and if she went to any kind of a meeting, they would all be killing one another for a sight of her, and there was a great many in love with her, but she died young. it is said that no one that has a song made about them will ever live long." those who are much admired are, it is held, taken by the sidhe, who can use ungoverned feeling for their own ends, so that a father, as an old herb doctor told me once, may give his child into their hands, or a husband his wife. the admired and desired are only safe if one says "god bless them" when one's eyes are upon them. the old woman that sang the song thinks, too, that mary hynes was "taken," as the phrase is, "for they have taken many that are not handsome, and why would they not take her? and people came from all parts to look at her, and maybe there were some that did not say 'god bless her.'" an old man who lives by the sea at duras has as little doubt that she was taken, "for there are some living yet can remember her coming to the pattern[fn#3] there beyond, and she was said to be the handsomest girl in ireland." she died young because the gods loved her, for the sidhe are the gods, and it may be that the old saying, which we forget to understand literally, meant her manner of death in old times. these poor countrymen and countrywomen in their beliefs, and in their emotions, are many years nearer to that old greek world, that set beauty beside the fountain of things, than are our men of learning. she "had seen too much of the world"; but these old men and women, when they tell of her, blame another and not her, and though they can be hard, they grow gentle as the old men of troy grew gentle when helen passed by on the walls. [fn#3] a "pattern," or "patron," is a festival in honour of a saint. the poet who helped her to so much fame has himself a great fame throughout the west of ireland. some think that raftery was half blind, and say, "i saw raftery, a dark man, but he had sight enough to see her," or the like, but some think he was wholly blind, as he may have been at the end of his life. fable makes all things perfect in their kind, and her blind people must never look on the world and the sun. i asked a man i met one day, when i was looking for a pool na mna sidhe where women of faery have been seen, bow raftery could have admired mary hynes so much f he had been altogether blind? he said, "i think raftery was altogether blind, but those that are blind have a way of seeing things, and have the power to know more, and to feel more, and to do more, and to guess more than those that have their sight, and a certain wit and a certain wisdom is given to them." everybody, indeed, will tell you that he was very wise, for was he not only blind but a poet? the weaver whose words about mary hynes i have already given, says, "his poetry was the gift of the almighty, for there are three things that are the gift of the almighty--poetry and dancing and principles. that is why in the old times an ignorant man coming down from the hillside would be better behaved and have better learning than a man with education you'd meet now, for they got it from god"; and a man at coole says, "when he put his finger to one part of his head, everything would come to him as if it was written in a book"; and an old pensioner at kiltartan says, "he was standing under a bush one time, and he talked to it, and it answered him back in irish. some say it was the bush that spoke, but it must have been an enchanted voice in it, and it gave him the knowledge of all the things of the world. the bush withered up afterwards, and it is to be seen on the roadside now between this and rahasine." there is a poem of his about a bush, which i have never seen, and it may have come out of the cauldron of fable in this shape. a friend of mine met a man once who had been with him when he died, but the people say that he died alone, and one maurteen gillane told dr. hyde that all night long a light was seen streaming up to heaven from the roof of the house where he lay, and "that was the angels who were with him"; and all night long there was a great light in the hovel, "and that was the angels who were waking him. they gave that honour to him because he was so good a poet, and sang such religious songs." it may be that in a few years fable, who changes mortalities to immortalities in her cauldron, will have changed mary hynes and raftery to perfect symbols of the sorrow of beauty and of the magnificence and penury of dreams. 1900. ii when i was in a northern town awhile ago, i had a long talk with a man who had lived in a neighbouring country district when he was a boy. he told me that when a very beautiful girl was born in a family that had not been noted for good looks, her beauty was thought to have come from the sidhe, and to bring misfortune with it. he went over the names of several beautiful girls that he had known, and said that beauty had never brought happiness to anybody. it was a thing, he said, to be proud of and afraid of. i wish i had written out his words at the time, for they were more picturesque than my memory of them. 1902. a knight of the sheep away to the north of ben bulben and cope's mountain lives "a strong farmer," a knight of the sheep they would have called him in the gaelic days. proud of his descent from one of the most fighting clans of the middle ages, he is a man of force alike in his words and in his deeds. there is but one man that swears like him, and this man lives far away upon the mountain. "father in heaven, what have i done to deserve this?" he says when he has lost his pipe; and no man but he who lives on the mountain can rival his language on a fair day over a bargain. he is passionate and abrupt in his movements, and when angry tosses his white beard about with his left hand. one day i was dining with him when the servant-maid announced a certain mr. o'donnell. a sudden silence fell upon the old man and upon his two daughters. at last the eldest daughter said somewhat severely to her father, "go and ask him to come in and dine." the old man went out, and then came in looking greatly relieved, and said, "he says he will not dine with us." "go out," said the daughter, "and ask him into the back parlour, and give him some whiskey." her father, who had just finished his dinner, obeyed sullenly, and i heard the door of the back parlour--a little room where the daughters sat and sewed during the evening--shut to behind the men. the daughter then turned to me and said, "mr. o'donnell is the tax-gatherer, and last year he raised our taxes, and my father was very angry, and when he came, brought him into the dairy, and sent the dairy-woman away on a message, and then swore at him a great deal. 'i will teach you, sir,' o'donnell replied, 'that the law can protect its officers'; but my father reminded him that he had no witness. at last my father got tired, and sorry too, and said he would show him a short way home. when they were half-way to the main road they came on a man of my father's who was ploughing, and this somehow brought back remembrance of the wrong. he sent the man away on a message, and began to swear at the tax-gatherer again. when i heard of it i was disgusted that he should have made such a fuss over a miserable creature like o'donnell; and when i heard a few weeks ago that o'donnell's only son had died and left him heart-broken, i resolved to make my father be kind to him next time he came." she then went out to see a neighbour, and i sauntered towards the back parlour. when i came to the door i heard angry voices inside. the two men were evidently getting on to the tax again, for i could hear them bandying figures to and fro. i opened the door; at sight of my face the farmer was reminded of his peaceful intentions, and asked me if i knew where the whiskey was. i had seen him put it into the cupboard, and was able therefore to find it and get it out, looking at the thin, griefstruck face of the tax-gatherer. he was rather older than my friend, and very much more feeble and worn, and of a very different type. he was not like him, a robust, successful man, but rather one of those whose feet find no resting-place upon the earth. i recognized one of the children of reverie, and said, "you are doubtless of the stock of the old o'donnells. i know well the hole in the river where their treasure lies buried under the guard of a serpent with many heads." "yes, sur," he replied, "i am the last of a line of princes." we then fell to talking of many commonplace things, and my friend did not once toss up his beard, but was very friendly. at last the gaunt old tax-gatherer got up to go, and my friend said, "i hope we will have a glass together next year." "no, no," was the answer, "i shall be dead next year." "i too have lost sons," said the other in quite a gentle voice. "but your sons were not like my son." and then the two men parted, with an angry flush and bitter hearts, and had i not cast between them some common words or other, might not have parted, but have fallen rather into an angry discussion of the value of their dead sons. if i had not pity for all the children of reverie i should have let them fight it out, and would now have many a wonderful oath to record. the knight of the sheep would have had the victory, for no soul that wears this garment of blood and clay can surpass him. he was but once beaten; and this is his tale of how it was. he and some farm hands were playing at cards in a small cabin that stood against the end of a big barn. a wicked woman had once lived in this cabin. suddenly one of the players threw down an ace and began to swear without any cause. his swearing was so dreadful that the others stood up, and my friend said, "all is not right here; there is a spirit in him." they ran to the door that led into the barn to get away as quickly as possible. the wooden bolt would not move, so the knight of the sheep took a saw which stood against the wall near at hand, and sawed through the bolt, and at once the door flew open with a bang, as though some one had been holding it, and they fled through. an enduring heart one day a friend of mine was making a sketch of my knight of the sheep. the old man's daughter was sitting by, and, when the conversation drifted to love and lovemaking, she said, "oh, father, tell him about your love affair." the old man took his pipe out of his mouth, and said, "nobody ever marries the woman he loves," and then, with a chuckle, "there were fifteen of them i liked better than the woman i married," and he repeated many women's names. he went on to tell how when he was a lad he had worked for his grandfather, his mother's father, and was called (my friend has forgotten why) by his grandfather's name, which we will say was doran. he had a great friend, whom i shall call john byrne; and one day he and his friend went to queenstown to await an emigrant ship, that was to take john byrne to america. when they were walking along the quay, they saw a girl sitting on a seat, crying miserably, and two men standing up in front of her quarrelling with one another. doran said, "i think i know what is wrong. that man will be her brother, and that man will be her lover, and the brother is sending her to america to get her away from the lover. how she is crying! but i think i could console her myself." presently the lover and brother went away, and doran began to walk up and down before her, saying, "mild weather, miss," or the like. she answered him in a little while, and the three began to talk together. the emigrant ship did not arrive for some days; and the three drove about on outside cars very innocently and happily, seeing everything that was to be seen. when at last the ship came, and doran had to break it to her that he was not going to america, she cried more after him than after the first lover. doran whispered to byrne as he went aboard ship, "now, byrne, i don't grudge her to you, but don't marry young." when the story got to this, the farmer's daughter joined in mockingly with, "i suppose you said that for byrne's good, father." but the old man insisted that he had said it for byrne's good; and went on to tell how, when he got a letter telling of byrne's engagement to the girl, he wrote him the same advice. years passed by, and he heard nothing; and though he was now married, he could not keep from wondering what she was doing. at last he went to america to find out, and though he asked many people for tidings, he could get none. more years went by, and his wife was dead, and he well on in years, and a rich farmer with not a few great matters on his hands. he found an excuse in some vague business to go out to america again, and to begin his search again. one day he fell into talk with an irishman in a railway carriage, and asked him, as his way was, about emigrants from this place and that, and at last, "did you ever hear of the miller's daughter from innis rath?" and he named the woman he was looking for. "oh yes," said the other, "she is married to a friend of mine, john macewing. she lives at such-andsuch a street in chicago." doran went to chicago and knocked at her door. she opened the door herself, and was "not a bit changed." he gave her his real name, which he had taken again after his grandfather's death, and the name of the man he had met in the train. she did not recognize him, but asked him to stay to dinner, saying that her husband would be glad to meet anybody who knew that old friend of his. they talked of many things, but for all their talk, i do not know why, and perhaps he did not know why, he never told her who he was. at dinner he asked her about byrne, and she put her head down on the table and began to cry, and she cried so he was afraid her husband might be angry. he was afraid to ask what had happened to byrne, and left soon after, never to see her again. when the old man had finished the story, he said, "tell that to mr. yeats, he will make a poem about it, perhaps." but the daughter said, "oh no, father. nobody could make a poem about a woman like that." alas! i have never made the poem, perhaps because my own heart, which has loved helen and all the lovely and fickle women of the world, would be too sore. there are things it is well not to ponder over too much, things that bare words are the best suited for. 1902. the sorcerers in ireland we hear but little of the darker powers,[fn#4] and come across any who have seen them even more rarely, for the imagination of the people dwells rather upon the fantastic and capricious, and fantasy and caprice would lose the freedom which is their breath of life, were they to unite them either with evil or with good. and yet the wise are of opinion that wherever man is, the dark powers who would feed his rapacities are there too, no less than the bright beings who store their honey in the cells of his heart, and the twilight beings who flit hither and thither, and that they encompass him with a passionate and melancholy multitude. they hold, too, that he who by long desire or through accident of birth possesses the power of piercing into their hidden abode can see them there, those who were once men or women full of a terrible vehemence, and those who have never lived upon the earth, moving slowly and with a subtler malice. the dark powers cling about us, it is said, day and night, like bats upon an old tree; and that we do not hear more of them is merely because the darker kinds of magic have been but little practised. i have indeed come across very few persons in ireland who try to communicate with evil powers, and the few i have met keep their purpose and practice wholly hidden from those among whom they live. they are mainly small clerks and the like, and meet for the purpose of their art in a room hung with black hangings. they would not admit me into this room, but finding me not altogether ignorant of the arcane science, showed gladly elsewhere what they would do. "come to us," said their leader, a clerk in a large flour-mill, "and we will show you spirits who will talk to you face to face, and in shapes as solid and heavy as our own." [fn#4] i know better now. we have the dark powers much more than i thought, but not as much as the scottish, and yet i think the imagination of the people does dwell chiefly upon the fantastic and capricious. i had been talking of the power of communicating in states of trance with the angelical and faery beings,--the children of the day and of the twilight--and he had been contending that we should only believe in what we can see and feel when in our ordinary everyday state of mind. "yes," i said, "i will come to you," or some such words; "but i will not permit myself to become entranced, and will therefore know whether these shapes you talk of are any the more to be touched and felt by the ordinary senses than are those i talk of." i was not denying the power of other beings to take upon themselves a clothing of mortal substance, but only that simple invocations, such as he spoke of, seemed unlikely to do more than cast the mind into trance, and thereby bring it into the presence of the powers of day, twilight, and darkness. "but," he said, "we have seen them move the furniture hither and thither, and they go at our bidding, and help or harm people who know nothing of them." i am not giving the exact words, but as accurately as i can the substance of our talk. on the night arranged i turned up about eight, and found the leader sitting alone in almost total darkness in a small back room. he was dressed in a black gown, like an inquisitor's dress in an old drawing, that left nothing of him visible: except his eyes, which peered out through two small round holes. upon the table in front of him was a brass dish of burning herbs, a large bowl, a skull covered with painted symbols, two crossed daggers, and certain implements shaped like quern stones, which were used to control the elemental powers in some fashion i did not discover. i also put on a black gown, and remember that it did not fit perfectly, and that it interfered with my movements considerably. the sorcerer then took a black cock out of a basket, and cut its throat with one of the daggers, letting the blood fall into the large bowl. he opened a book and began an invocation, which was certainly not english, and had a deep guttural sound. before he had finished, another of the sorcerers, a man of about twenty-five, came in, and having put on a black gown also, seated himself at my left band. i had the invoker directly in front of me, and soon began to find his eyes, which glittered through the small holes in his hood, affecting me in a curious way. i struggled hard against their influence, and my head began to ache. the invocation continued, and nothing happened for the first few minutes. then the invoker got up and extinguished the light in the hall, so that no glimmer might come through the slit under the door. there was now no light except from the herbs on the brass dish, and no sound except from the deep guttural murmur of the invocation. presently the man at my left swayed himself about, and cried out, "o god! o god!" i asked him what ailed him, but he did not know he had spoken. a moment after he said he could see a great serpent moving about the room, and became considerably excited. i saw nothing with any definite shape, but thought that black clouds were forming about me. i felt i must fall into a trance if i did not struggle against it, and that the influence which was causing this trance was out of harmony with itself, in other words, evil. after a struggle i got rid of the black clouds, and was able to observe with my ordinary senses again. the two sorcerers now began to see black and white columns moving about the room, and finally a man in a monk's habit, and they became greatly puzzled because i did not see these things also, for to them they were as solid as the table before them. the invoker appeared to be gradually increasing in power, and i began to feel as if a tide of darkness was pouring from him and concentrating itself about me; and now too i noticed that the man on my left hand had passed into a death-like trance. with a last great effort i drove off the black clouds; but feeling them to be the only shapes i should see without passing into a trance, and having no great love for them, i asked for lights, and after the needful exorcism returned to the ordinary world. i said to the more powerful of the two sorcerers--"what would happen if one of your spirits had overpowered me?" "you would go out of this room," he answered, "with his character added to your own." i asked about the origin of his sorcery, but got little of importance, except that he had learned it from his father. he would not tell me more, for he had, it appeared, taken a vow of secrecy. for some days i could not get over the feeling of having a number of deformed and grotesque figures lingering about me. the bright powers are always beautiful and desirable, and the dim powers are now beautiful, now quaintly grotesque, but the dark powers express their unbalanced natures in shapes of ugliness and horror. the devil my old mayo woman told me one day that something very bad had come down the road and gone into the house opposite, and though she would not say what it was, i knew quite well. another day she told me of two friends of hers who had been made love to by one whom they believed to be the devil. one of them was standing by the road-side when he came by on horseback, and asked her to mount up behind him, and go riding. when she would not he vanished. the other was out on the road late at night waiting for her young man, when something came flapping and rolling along the road up to her feet. it had the likeness of a newspaper, and presently it flapped up into her face, and she knew by the size of it that it was the irish times. all of a sudden it changed into a young man, who asked her to go walking with him. she would not, and he vanished. i know of an old man too, on the slopes of ben bulben, who found the devil ringing a bell under his bed, and he went off and stole the chapel bell and rang him out. it may be that this, like the others, was not the devil at all, but some poor wood spirit whose cloven feet had got him into trouble. happy and unhappy theologians i a mayo woman once said to me, "i knew a servant girl who hung herself for the love of god. she was lonely for the priest and her society,[fn#5] and hung herself to the banisters with a scarf. she was no sooner dead than she became white as a lily, and if it had been murder or suicide she would have become black as black. they gave her christian burial, and the priest said she was no sooner dead than she was with the lord. so nothing matters that you do for the love of god." i do not wonder at the pleasure she has in telling this story, for she herself loves all holy things with an ardour that brings them quickly to her lips. she told me once that she never hears anything described in a sermon that she does not afterwards see with her eyes. she has described to me the gates of purgatory as they showed themselves to her eyes, but i remember nothing of the description except that she could not see the souls in trouble but only the gates. her mind continually dwells on what is pleasant and beautiful. one day she asked me what month and what flower were the most beautiful. when i answered that i did not know, she said, "the month of may, because of the virgin, and the lily of the valley, because it never sinned, but came pure out of the rocks," and then she asked, "what is the cause of the three cold months of winter?" i did not know even that, and so she said, "the sin of man and the vengeance of god." christ himself was not only blessed, but perfect in all manly proportions in her eyes, so much do beauty and holiness go together in her thoughts. he alone of all men was exactly six feet high, all others are a little more or a little less. [fn#5] the religious society she had belonged to. her thoughts and her sights of the people of faery are pleasant and beautiful too, and i have never heard her call them the fallen angels. they are people like ourselves, only better-looking, and many and many a time she has gone to the window to watch them drive their waggons through the sky, waggon behind waggon in long line, or to the door to hear them singing and dancing in the forth. they sing chiefly, it seems, a song called "the distant waterfall," and though they once knocked her down she never thinks badly of them. she saw them most easily when she was in service in king's county, and one morning a little while ago she said to me, "last night i was waiting up for the master and it was a quarter-past eleven. i heard a bang right down on the table. 'king's county all over,' says i, and i laughed till i was near dead. it was a warning i was staying too long. they wanted the place to themselves." i told her once of somebody who saw a faery and fainted, and she said, "it could not have been a faery, but some bad thing, nobody could faint at a faery. it was a demon. i was not afraid when they near put me, and the bed under me, out through the roof. i wasn't afraid either when you were at some work and i heard a thing coming flop-flop up the stairs like an eel, and squealing. it went to all the doors. it could not get in where i was. i would have sent it through the universe like a flash of fire. there was a man in my place, a tearing fellow, and he put one of them down. he went out to meet it on the road, but he must have been told the words. but the faeries are the best neighbours. if you do good to them they will do good to you, but they don't like you to be on their path." another time she said to me, "they are always good to the poor." ii there is, however, a man in a galway village who can see nothing but wickedness. some think him very holy, and others think him a little crazed, but some of his talk reminds one of those old irish visions of the three worlds, which are supposed to have given dante the plan of the divine comedy. but i could not imagine this man seeing paradise. he is especially angry with the people of faery, and describes the faunlike feet that are so common among them, who are indeed children of pan, to prove them children of satan. he will not grant that "they carry away women, though there are many that say so," but he is certain that they are "as thick as the sands of the sea about us, and they tempt poor mortals." he says, "there is a priest i know of was looking along the ground like as if he was hunting for something, and a voice said to him, 'if you want to see them you'll see enough of them,' and his eyes were opened and he saw the ground thick with them. singing they do be sometimes, and dancing, but all the time they have cloven feet." yet he was so scornful of unchristian things for all their dancing and singing that he thinks that "you have only to bid them begone and they will go. it was one night," he says, "after walking back from kinvara and down by the wood beyond i felt one coming beside me, and i could feel the horse he was riding on and the way he lifted his legs, but they do not make a sound like the hoofs of a horse. so i stopped and turned around and said, very loud, 'be off!' and he went and never troubled me after. and i knew a man who was dying, and one came on his bed, and he cried out to it, 'get out of that, you unnatural animal!' and it left him. fallen angels they are, and after the fall god said, 'let there be hell,' and there it was in a moment." an old woman who was sitting by the fire joined in as he said this with "god save us, it's a pity he said the word, and there might have been no hell the day," but the seer did not notice her words. he went on, "and then he asked the devil what would he take for the souls of all the people. and the devil said nothing would satisfy him but the blood of a virgin's son, so he got that, and then the gates of hell were opened." he understood the story, it seems, as if it were some riddling old folk tale. "i have seen hell myself. i had a sight of it one time in a vision. it had a very high wall around it, all of metal, and an archway, and a straight walk into it, just like what 'ud be leading into a gentleman's orchard, but the edges were not trimmed with box, but with red-hot metal. and inside the wall there were cross-walks, and i'm not sure what there was to the right, but to the left there were five great furnaces, and they full of souls kept there with great chains. so i turned short and went away, and in turning i looked again at the wall, and i could see no end to it. "and another time i saw purgatory. it seemed to be in a level place, and no walls around it, but it all one bright blaze, and the souls standing in it. and they suffer near as much as in hell, only there are no devils with them there, and they have the hope of heaven. "and i heard a call to me from there, 'help me to come out o' this!' and when i looked it was a man i used to know in the army, an irishman, and from this county, and i believe him to be a descendant of king o'connor of athenry. "so i stretched out my hand first, but then i called out, 'i'd be burned in the flames before i could get within three yards of you.' so then he said, 'well, help me with your prayers,' and so i do. "and father connellan says the same thing, to help the dead with your prayers, and he's a very clever man to make a sermon, and has a great deal of cures made with the holy water he brought back from lourdes." 1902. the last gleeman michael moran was born about 1794 off black pitts, in the liberties of dublin, in faddle alley. a fortnight after birth he went stone blind from illness, and became thereby a blessing to his parents, who were soon able to send him to rhyme and beg at street corners and at the bridges over the liffey. they may well have wished that their quiver were full of such as he, for, free from the interruption of sight, his mind became a perfect echoing chamber, where every movement of the day and every change of public passion whispered itself into rhyme or quaint saying. by the time he had grown to manhood he was the admitted rector of all the ballad-mongers of the liberties. madden, the weaver, kearney, the blind fiddler from wicklow, martin from meath, m'bride from heaven knows where, and that m'grane, who in after days, when the true moran was no more, strutted in borrowed plumes, or rather in borrowed rags, and gave out that there had never been any moran but himself, and many another, did homage before him, and held him chief of all their tribe. nor despite his blindness did he find any difficulty in getting a wife, but rather was able to pick and choose, for he was just that mixture of ragamuffin and of genius which is dear to the heart of woman, who, perhaps because she is wholly conventional herself, loves the unexpected, the crooked, the bewildering. nor did he lack, despite his rags, many excellent things, for it is remembered that he ever loved caper sauce, going so far indeed in his honest indignation at its absence upon one occasion as to fling a leg of mutton at his wife. he was not, however, much to look at, with his coarse frieze coat with its cape and scalloped edge, his old corduroy trousers and great brogues, and his stout stick made fast to his wrist by a thong of leather: and he would have been a woeful shock to the gleeman macconglinne, could that friend of kings have beheld him in prophetic vision from the pillar stone at cork. and yet though the short cloak and the leather wallet were no more, he was a true gleeman, being alike poet, jester, and newsman of the people. in the morning when he had finished his breakfast, his wife or some neighbour would read the newspaper to him, and read on and on until he interrupted with, "that'll do--i have me meditations"; and from these meditations would come the day's store of jest and rhyme. he had the whole middle ages under his frieze coat. he had not, however, macconglinne's hatred of the church and clergy, for when the fruit of his meditations did not ripen well, or when the crowd called for something more solid, he would recite or sing a metrical tale or ballad of saint or martyr or of biblical adventure. he would stand at a street comer, and when a crowd had gathered would begin in some such fashion as follows (i copy the record of one who knew him)--"gather round me, boys, gather round me. boys, am i standin' in puddle? am i standin' in wet?" thereon several boys would cry, "ali, no! yez not! yer in a nice dry place. go on with st. mary; go on with moses"--each calling for his favourite tale. then moran, with a suspicious wriggle of his body and a clutch at his rags, would burst out with "all me buzzim friends are turned backbiters"; and after a final "if yez don't drop your coddin' and diversion i'll lave some of yez a case," by way of warning to the boys, begin his recitation, or perhaps still delay, to ask, "is there a crowd round me now? any blackguard heretic around me?" the best-known of his religious tales was st. mary of egypt, a long poem of exceeding solemnity, condensed from the much longer work of a certain bishop coyle. it told how a fast woman of egypt, mary by name, followed pilgrims to jerusalem for no good purpose, and then, turning penitent on finding herself withheld from entering the temple by supernatural interference, fled to the desert and spent the remainder of her life in solitary penance. when at last she was at the point of death, god sent bishop zozimus to hear her confession, give her the last sacrament, and with the help of a lion, whom he sent also, dig her grave. the poem has the intolerable cadence of the eighteenth century, but was so popular and so often called for that moran was soon nicknamed zozimus, and by that name is he remembered. he had also a poem of his own called moses, which went a little nearer poetry without going very near. but he could ill brook solemnity, and before long parodied his own verses in the following ragamuffin fashion: in egypt's land, contagious to the nile, king pharaoh's daughter went to bathe in style. she tuk her dip, then walked unto the land, to dry her royal pelt she ran along the strand. a bulrush tripped her, whereupon she saw a smiling babby in a wad o' straw. she tuk it up, and said with accents mild, "'tare-and-agers, girls, which av yez owns the child?" his humorous rhymes were, however, more often quips and cranks at the expense of his contemporaries. it was his delight, for instance, to remind a certain shoemaker, noted alike for display of wealth and for personal uncleanness, of his inconsiderable origin in a song of which but the first stanza has come down to us: at the dirty end of dirty lane, liv'd a dirty cobbler, dick maclane; his wife was in the old king's reign a stout brave orange-woman. on essex bridge she strained her throat, and six-a-penny was her note. but dickey wore a bran-new coat, he got among the yeomen. he was a bigot, like his clan, and in the streets he wildly sang, o roly, toly, toly raid, with his old jade. he had troubles of divers kinds, and numerous interlopers to face and put down. once an officious peeler arrested him as a vagabond, but was triumphantly routed amid the laughter of the court, when moran reminded his worship of the precedent set by homer, who was also, he declared, a poet, and a blind man, and a beggarman. he had to face a more serious difficulty as his fame grew. various imitators started up upon all sides. a certain actor, for instance, made as many guineas as moran did shillings by mimicking his sayings and his songs and his getup upon the stage. one night this actor was at supper with some friends, when dispute arose as to whether his mimicry was overdone or not. it was agreed to settle it by an appeal to the mob. a forty-shilling supper at a famous coffeehouse was to be the wager. the actor took up his station at essex bridge, a great haunt of moran's, and soon gathered a small crowd. he had scarce got through "in egypt's land, contagious to the nile," when moran himself came up, followed by another crowd. the crowds met in great excitement and laughter. "good christians," cried the pretender, "is it possible that any man would mock the poor dark man like that?" "who's that? it's some imposhterer," replied moran. "begone, you wretch! it's you'ze the imposhterer. don't you fear the light of heaven being struck from your eyes for mocking the poor dark man?" "saints and angels, is there no protection against this? you're a most inhuman-blaguard to try to deprive me of my honest bread this way," replied poor moran. "and you, you wretch, won't let me go on with the beautiful poem. christian people, in your charity won't you beat this man away? he's taking advantage of my darkness." the pretender, seeing that he was having the best of it, thanked the people for their sympathy and protection, and went on with the poem, moran listening for a time in bewildered silence. after a while moran protested again with: "is it possible that none of yez can know me? don't yez see it's myself; and that's some one else?" "before i can proceed any further in this lovely story," interrupted the pretender, "i call on yez to contribute your charitable donations to help me to go on." "have you no sowl to be saved, you mocker of heaven?" cried moran, put completely beside himself by this last injury--"would you rob the poor as well as desave the world? o, was ever such wickedness known?" "i leave it to yourselves, my friends," said the pretender, "to give to the real dark man, that you all know so well, and save me from that schemer," and with that he collected some pennies and half-pence. while he was doing so, moran started his mary of egypt, but the indignant crowd seizing his stick were about to belabour him, when they fell back bewildered anew by his close resemblance to himself. the pretender now called to them to "just give him a grip of that villain, and he'd soon let him know who the imposhterer was!" they led him over to moran, but instead of closing with him he thrust a few shillings into his hand, and turning to the crowd explained to them he was indeed but an actor, and that he had just gained a wager, and so departed amid much enthusiasm, to eat the supper he had won. in april 1846 word was sent to the priest that michael moran was dying. he found him at 15 (now 14 1/2) patrick street, on a straw bed, in a room full of ragged ballad-singers come to cheer his last moments. after his death the ballad-singers, with many fiddles and the like, came again and gave him a fine wake, each adding to the merriment whatever he knew in the way of rann, tale, old saw, or quaint rhyme. he had had his day, had said his prayers and made his confession, and why should they not give him a hearty send-off? the funeral took place the next day. a good party of his admirers and friends got into the hearse with the coffin, for the day was wet and nasty. they had not gone far when one of them burst out with "it's cruel cowld, isn't it?" "garra'," replied another, "we'll all be as stiff as the corpse when we get to the berrin-ground." "bad cess to him," said a third; "i wish he'd held out another month until the weather got dacent." a man called carroll thereupon produced a half-pint of whiskey, and they all drank to the soul of the departed. unhappily, however, the hearse was over-weighted, and they had not reached the cemetery before the spring broke, and the bottle with it. moran must have felt strange and out of place in that other kingdom he was entering, perhaps while his friends were drinking in his honour. let us hope that some kindly middle region was found for him, where he can call dishevelled angels about him with some new and more rhythmical form of his old gather round me, boys, will yez gather round me? and hear what i have to say before ould salley brings me my bread and jug of tay; and fling outrageous quips and cranks at cherubim and seraphim. perhaps he may have found and gathered, ragamuffin though he be, the lily of high truth, the rose of far-sought beauty, for whose lack so many of the writers of ireland, whether famous or forgotten, have been futile as the blown froth upon the shore. regina, regina pigmeorum, veni one night a middle-aged man, who had lived all his life far from the noise of cab-wheels, a young girl, a relation of his, who was reported to be enough of a seer to catch a glimpse of unaccountable lights moving over the fields among the cattle, and myself, were walking along a far western sandy shore. we talked of the forgetful people as the faery people are sometimes called, and came in the midst of our talk to a notable haunt of theirs, a shallow cave amidst black rocks, with its reflection under it in the wet sea sand. i asked the young girl if she could see anything, for i had quite a number of things to ask the forgetful people. she stood still for a few minutes, and i saw that she was passing into a kind of waking trance, in which the cold sea breeze no longer troubled her, nor the dull boom of the sea distracted her attention. i then called aloud the names of the great faeries, and in a moment or two she said that she could hear music far inside the rocks, and then a sound of confused talking, and of people stamping their feet as if to applaud some unseen performer. up to this my other friend had been walking to and fro some yards off, but now he passed close to us, and as he did so said suddenly that we were going to be interrupted, for he heard the laughter of children somewhere beyond the rocks. we were, however, quite alone. the spirits of the place had begun to cast their influence over him also. in a moment he was corroborated by the girl, who said that bursts of laughter had begun to mingle with the music, the confused talking, and the noise of feet. she next saw a bright light streaming out of the cave, which seemed to have grown much deeper, and a quantity of little people,[fn#6] in various coloured dresses, red predominating, dancing to a tune which she did not recognize. [fn#6] the people and faeries in ireland are sometimes as big as we are, sometimes bigger, and sometimes, as i have been told, about three feet high. the old mayo woman i so often quote, thinks that it is something in our eyes that makes them seem big or little. i then bade her call out to the queen of the little people to come and talk with us. there was, however, no answer to her command. i therefore repeated the words aloud myself, and in a moment a very beautiful tall woman came out of the cave. i too had by this time fallen into a kind of trance, in which what we call the unreal had begun to take upon itself a masterful reality, and was able to see the faint gleam of golden ornaments, the shadowy blossom of dim hair. i then bade the girl tell this tall queen to marshal her followers according to their natural divisions, that we might see them. i found as before that i had to repeat the command myself. the creatures then came out of the cave, and drew themselves up, if i remember rightly, in four bands. one of these bands carried quicken boughs in their hands, and another had necklaces made apparently of serpents' scales, but their dress i cannot remember, for i was quite absorbed in that gleaming woman. i asked her to tell the seer whether these caves were the greatest faery haunts in the neighbourhood. her lips moved, but the answer was inaudible. i bade the seer lay her hand upon the breast of the queen, and after that she heard every word quite distinctly. no, this was not the greatest faery haunt, for there was a greater one a little further ahead. i then asked her whether it was true that she and her people carried away mortals, and if so, whether they put another soul in the place of the one they had taken? "we change the bodies," was her answer. "are any of you ever born into mortal life?" "yes." "do i know any who were among your people before birth?" "you do." "who are they?" "it would not be lawful for you to know." i then asked whether she and her people were not "dramatizations of our moods"? "she does not understand," said my friend, "but says that her people are much like human beings, and do most of the things human beings do." i asked her other questions, as to her nature, and her purpose in the universe, but only seemed to puzzle her. at last she appeared to lose patience, for she wrote this message for me upon the sands--the sands of vision, not the grating sands under our feet--"be careful, and do not seek to know too much about us." seeing that i had offended her, i thanked her for what she had shown and told, and let her depart again into her cave. in a little while the young girl awoke out of her trance, and felt again the cold wind of the world, and began to shiver. i tell these things as accurately as i can, and with no theories to blur the history. theories are poor things at the best, and the bulk of mine have perished long ago. i love better than any theory the sound of the gate of ivory, turning upon its hinges, and hold that he alone who has passed the rose-strewn threshold can catch the far glimmer of the gate of horn. it were perhaps well for us all if we would but raise the cry lilly the astrologer raised in windsor forest, "regina, regina pigmeorum, veni," and remember with him, that god visiteth his children in dreams. tall, glimmering queen, come near, and let me see again the shadowy blossom of thy dim hair. "and fair, fierce women" one day a woman that i know came face to face with heroic beauty, that highest beauty which blake says changes least from youth to age, a beauty which has been fading out of the arts, since that decadence we call progress, set voluptuous beauty in its place. she was standing at the window, looking over to knocknarea where queen maive is thought to be buried, when she saw, as she has told me, "the finest woman you ever saw travelling right across from the mountain and straight to her." the woman had a sword by her side and a dagger lifted up in her hand, and was dressed in white, with bare arms and feet. she looked "very strong, but not wicked," that is, not cruel. the old woman had seen the irish giant, and "though he was a fine man," he was nothing to this woman, "for he was round, and could not have stepped out so soldierly"; "she was like mrs.-----" a stately lady of the neighbourhood, "but she had no stomach on her, and was slight and broad in the shoulders, and was handsomer than any one you ever saw; she looked about thirty." the old woman covered her eyes with her hands, and when she uncovered them the apparition had vanished. the neighbours were "wild with her," she told me, because she did not wait to find out if there was a message, for they were sure it was queen maive, who often shows herself to the pilots. i asked the old woman if she had seen others like queen maive, and she said, "some of them have their hair down, but they look quite different, like the sleepy-looking ladies one sees in the papers. those with their hair up are like this one. the others have long white dresses, but those with their hair up have short dresses, so that you can see their legs right up to the calf." after some careful questioning i found that they wore what might very well be a kind of buskin; she went on, "they are fine and dashing looking, like the men one sees riding their horses in twos and threes on the slopes of the mountains with their swords swinging." she repeated over and over, "there is no such race living now, none so finely proportioned," or the like, and then said, "the present queen[fn#7] is a nice, pleasantlooking woman, but she is not like her. what makes me think so little of the ladies is that i see none as they be," meaning as the spirits. "when i think of her and of the ladies now, they are like little children running about without knowing how to put their clothes on right. is it the ladies? why, i would not call them women at all." the other day a friend of mine questioned an old woman in a galway workhouse about queen maive, and was told that "queen maive was handsome, and overcame all her enemies with a bawl stick, for the hazel is blessed, and the best weapon that can be got. you might walk the world with it," but she grew "very disagreeable in the end--oh very disagreeable. best not to be talking about it. best leave it between the book and the hearer." my friend thought the old woman had got some scandal about fergus son of roy and maive in her head. [fn#7] queen victoria. and i myself met once with a young man in the burren hills who remembered an old poet who made his poems in irish and had met when he was young, the young man said, one who called herself maive, and said she was a queen "among them," and asked him if he would have money or pleasure. he said he would have pleasure, and she gave him her love for a time, and then went from him, and ever after he was very mournful. the young man had often heard him sing the poem of lamentation that he made, but could only remember that it was "very mournful," and that he called her "beauty of all beauties." 1902. enchanted woods i last summer, whenever i had finished my day's work, i used to go wandering in certain roomy woods, and there i would often meet an old countryman, and talk to him about his work and about the woods, and once or twice a friend came with me to whom he would open his heart more readily than to me, he had spent all his life lopping away the witch elm and the hazel and the privet and the hornbeam from the paths, and had thought much about the natural and supernatural creatures of the wood. he has heard the hedgehog--"grainne oge," he calls him-"grunting like a christian," and is certain that he steals apples by rolling about under an apple tree until there is an apple sticking to every quill. he is certain too that the cats, of whom there are many in the woods, have a language of their own--some kind of old irish. he says, "cats were serpents, and they were made into cats at the time of some great change in the world. that is why they are hard to kill, and why it is dangerous to meddle with them. if you annoy a cat it might claw or bite you in a way that would put poison in you, and that would be the serpent's tooth." sometimes he thinks they change into wild cats, and then a nail grows on the end of their tails; but these wild cats are not the same as the marten cats, who have been always in the woods. the foxes were once tame, as the cats are now, but they ran away and became wild. he talks of all wild creatures except squirrels--whom he hates--with what seems an affectionate interest, though at times his eyes will twinkle with pleasure as he remembers how he made hedgehogs unroll themselves when he was a boy, by putting a wisp of burning straw under them. i am not certain that he distinguishes between the natural and supernatural very clearly. he told me the other day that foxes and cats like, above all, to be in the "forths" and lisses after nightfall; and he will certainly pass from some story about a fox to a story about a spirit with less change of voice than when he is going to speak about a marten cat--a rare beast now-a-days. many years ago he used to work in the garden, and once they put him to sleep in a garden-house where there was a loft full of apples, and all night he could hear people rattling plates and knives and forks over his head in the loft. once, at any rate, be has seen an unearthly sight in the woods. he says, "one time i was out cutting timber over in inchy, and about eight o'clock one morning when i got there i saw a girl picking nuts, with her hair hanging down over her shoulders, brown hair, and she had a good, clean face, and she was tall and nothing on her head, and her dress no way gaudy but simple, and when she felt me coming she gathered herself up and was gone as if the earth had swallowed her up. and i followed her and looked for her, but i never could see her again from that day to this, never again." he used the word clean as we would use words like fresh or comely. others too have seen spirits in the enchanted woods. a labourer told us of what a friend of his had seen in a part of the woods that is called shanwalla, from some old village that was before the weed. he said, "one evening i parted from lawrence mangan in the yard, and he went away through the path in shanwalla, an' bid me goodnight. and two hours after, there he was back again in the yard, an' bid me light a candle that was in the stable. an' he told me that when he got into shanwalla, a little fellow about as high as his knee, but having a head as big as a man's body, came beside him and led him out of the path an' round about, and at last it brought him to the lime-kiln, and then it vanished and left him." a woman told me of a sight that she and others had seen by a certain deep pool in the river. she said, "i came over the stile from the chapel, and others along with me; and a great blast of wind came and two trees were bent and broken and fell into the river, and the splash of water out of it went up to the skies. and those that were with me saw many figures, but myself i only saw one, sitting there by the bank where the trees fell. dark clothes he had on, and he was headless." a man told me that one day, when he was a boy, he and another boy went to catch a horse in a certain field, full of boulders and bushes of hazel and creeping juniper and rock-roses, that is where the lake side is for a little clear of the woods. he said to the boy that was with him, "i bet a button that if i fling a pebble on to that bush it will stay on it," meaning that the bush was so matted the pebble would not be able to go through it. so he took up "a pebble of cow-dung, and as soon as it hit the bush there came out of it the most beautiful music that ever was heard." they ran away, and when they had gone about two hundred yards they looked back and saw a woman dressed in white, walking round and round the bush. "first it had the form of a woman, and then of a man, and it was going round the bush." ii i often entangle myself in argument more complicated than even those paths of inchy as to what is the true nature of apparitions, but at other times i say as socrates said when they told him a learned opinion about a nymph of the illissus, "the common opinion is enough for me." i believe when i am in the mood that all nature is full of people whom we cannot see, and that some of these are ugly or grotesque, and some wicked or foolish, but very many beautiful beyond any one we have ever seen, and that these are not far away when we are walking in pleasant and quiet places. even when i was a boy i could never walk in a wood without feeling that at any moment i might find before me somebody or something i had long looked for without knowing what i looked for. and now i will at times explore every little nook of some poor coppice with almost anxious footsteps, so deep a hold has this imagination upon me. you too meet with a like imagination, doubtless, somewhere, wherever your ruling stars will have it, saturn driving you to the woods, or the moon, it may be, to the edges of the sea. i will not of a certainty believe that there is nothing in the sunset, where our forefathers imagined the dead following their shepherd the sun, or nothing but some vague presence as little moving as nothing. if beauty is not a gateway out of the net we were taken in at our birth, it will not long be beauty, and we will find it better to sit at home by the fire and fatten a lazy body or to run hither and thither in some foolish sport than to look at the finest show that light and shadow ever made among green leaves. i say to myself, when i am well out of that thicket of argument, that they are surely there, the divine people, for only we who have neither simplicity nor wisdom have denied them, and the simple of all times and the wise men of ancient times have seen them and even spoken to them. they live out their passionate lives not far off, as i think, and we shall be among them when we die if we but keep our natures simple and passionate. may it not even be that death shall unite us to all romance, and that some day we shall fight dragons among blue hills, or come to that whereof all romance is but foreshadowings mingled with the images of man's misdeeds in greater days than these, as the old men thought in the earthly paradise when they were in good spirits. 1902 miraculous creatures there are marten cats and badgers and foxes in the enchanted woods, but there are of a certainty mightier creatures, and the lake hides what neither net nor fine can take. these creatures are of the race of the white stag that flits in and out of the tales of arthur, and of the evil pig that slew diarmuid where ben bulben mixes with the sea wind. they are the wizard creatures of hope and fear, they are of them that fly and of them that follow among the thickets that are about the gates of death. a man i know remembers that his father was one night in the wood of inchy, "where the lads of gort used to be stealing rods. he was sitting by the wall, and the dog beside him, and he heard something come running from owbawn weir, and he could see nothing, but the sound of its feet on the ground was like the sound of the feet of a deer. and when it passed him, the dog got between him and the wall and scratched at it there as if it was afraid, but still he could see nothing but only hear the sound of hoofs. so when it was passed he turned and came away home. another time," the man says, "my father told me he was in a boat out on the lake with two or three men from gort, and one of them had an eel-spear, and he thrust it into the water, and it hit something, and the man fainted and they had to carry him out of the boat to land, and when he came to himself he said that what he struck was like a calf, but whatever it was, it was not fish!" a friend of mine is convinced that these terrible creatures, so common in lakes, were set there in old times by subtle enchanters to watch over the gates of wisdom. he thinks that if we sent our spirits down into the water we would make them of one substance with strange moods of ecstasy and power, and go out it may be to the conquest of the world. we would, however, he believes, have first to outface and perhaps overthrow strange images full of a more powerful life than if they were really alive. it may be that we shall look at them without fear when we have endured the last adventure, that is death. 1902. aristotle of the books the friend who can get the wood-cutter to talk more readily than he will to anybody else went lately to see his old wife. she lives in a cottage not far from the edge of the woods, and is as full of old talk as her husband. this time she began to talk of goban, the legendary mason, and his wisdom, but said presently, "aristotle of the books, too, was very wise, and he had a great deal of experience, but did not the bees get the better of him in the end? he wanted to know how they packed the comb, and he wasted the better part of a fortnight watching them, and he could not see them doing it. then he made a hive with a glass cover on it and put it over them, and he thought to see. but when he went and put his eyes to the glass, they had it all covered with wax so that it was as black as the pot; and he was as blind as before. he said he was never rightly kilt till then. they had him that time surely!" 1902. the swine of the gods a few years ago a friend of mine told me of something that happened to him when he was a. young man and out drilling with some connaught fenians. they were but a car-full, and drove along a hillside until they came to a quiet place. they left the car and went further up the hill with their rifles, and drilled for a while. as they were coming down again they saw a very thin, long-legged pig of the old irish sort, and the pig began to follow them. one of them cried out as a joke that it was a fairy pig, and they all began to run to keep up the joke. the pig ran too, and presently, how nobody knew, this mock terror became real terror, and they ran as for their lives. when they got to the car they made the horse gallop as fast as possible, but the pig still followed. then one of them put up his rifle to fire, but when he looked along the barrel he could see nothing. presently they turned a corner and came to a village. they told the people of the village what had happened, and the people of the village took pitchforks and spades and the like, and went along the road with them to drive the pig away. when they turned the comer they could not find anything. 1902. a voice one day i was walking over a bit of marshy ground close to inchy wood when i felt, all of a sudden, and only for a second, an emotion which i said to myself was the root of christian mysticism. there had swept over me a sense of weakness, of dependence on a great personal being somewhere far off yet near at hand. no thought of mine had prepared me for this emotion, for i had been pre-occupied with aengus and edain, and with mannanan, son of the sea. that night i awoke lying upon my back and hearing a voice speaking above me and saying, "no human soul is like any other human soul, and therefore the love of god for any human soul is infinite, for no other soul can satisfy the same need in god." a few nights after this i awoke to see the loveliest people i have ever seen. a young man and a young girl dressed in olive-green raiment, cut like old greek raiment, were standing at my bedside. i looked at the girl and noticed that her dress was gathered about her neck into a kind of chain, or perhaps into some kind of stiff embroidery which represented ivy-leaves. but what filled me with wonder was the miraculous mildness of her face. there are no such faces now. it was beautiful, as few faces are beautiful, but it had neither, one would think, the light that is in desire or in hope or in fear or in speculation. it was peaceful like the faces of animals, or like mountain pools at evening, so peaceful that it was a little sad. i thought for a moment that she might be the beloved of aengus, but how could that hunted, alluring, happy, immortal wretch have a face like this? doubtless she was from among the children of the moon, but who among them i shall never know. 1902. kidnappers a little north of the town of sligo, on the southern side of ben bulben, some hundreds of feet above the plain, is a small white square in the limestone. no mortal has ever touched it with his hand; no sheep or goat has ever browsed grass beside it. there is no more inaccessible place upon the earth, and few more encircled by awe to the deep considering. it is the door of faery-land. in the middle of night it swings open, and the unearthly troop rushes out. all night the gay rabble sweep to and fro across the land, invisible to all, unless perhaps where, in some more than commonly "gentle" place--drumcliff or drum-a-hair--the nightcapped heads of faery-doctors may be thrust from their doors to see what mischief the "gentry" are doing. to their trained eyes and ears the fields are covered by red-hatted riders, and the air is full of shrill voices--a sound like whistling, as an ancient scottish seer has recorded, and wholly different from the talk of the angels, who "speak much in the throat, like the irish," as lilly, the astrologer, has wisely said. if there be a new-born baby or new-wed bride in the neighbourhood, the nightcapped "doctors" will peer with more than common care, for the unearthly troop do not always return empty-handed. sometimes a new-wed bride or a new-born baby goes with them into their mountains; the door swings to behind, and the new-born or the new-wed moves henceforth in the bloodless land of faery; happy enough, but doomed to melt out at the last judgment like bright vapour, for the soul cannot live without sorrow. through this door of white stone, and the other doors of that land where geabheadh tu an sonas aer pighin ("you can buy joy for a penny"), have gone kings, queens, and princes, but so greatly has the power of faery dwindled, that there are none but peasants in these sad chronicles of mine. somewhere about the beginning of last century appeared at the western corner of market street, sligo, where the butcher's shop now is, not a palace, as in keats's lamia, but an apothecary's shop, ruled over by a certain unaccountable dr. opendon. where he came from, none ever knew. there also was in sligo, in those days, a woman, ormsby by name, whose husband had fallen mysteriously sick. the doctors could make nothing of him. nothing seemed wrong with him, yet weaker and weaker he grew. away went the wife to dr. opendon. she was shown into the shop parlour. a black cat was sitting straight up before the fire. she had just time to see that the side-board was covered with fruit, and to say to herself, "fruit must be wholesome when the doctor has so much," before dr. opendon came in. he was dressed all in black, the same as the cat, and his wife walked behind him dressed in black likewise. she gave him a guinea, and got a little bottle in return. her husband recovered that time. meanwhile the black doctor cured many people; but one day a rich patient died, and cat, wife, and doctor all vanished the night after. in a year the man ormsby fell sick once more. now he was a goodlooking man, and his wife felt sure the "gentry" were coveting him. she went and called on the "faery-doctor" at cairnsfoot. as soon as he had heard her tale, he went behind the back door and began muttering, muttering, muttering-making spells. her husband got well this time also. but after a while he sickened again, the fatal third time, and away went she once more to cairnsfoot, and out went the faery-doctor behind his back door and began muttering, but soon he came in and told her it was no use-her husband would die; and sure enough the man died, and ever after when she spoke of him mrs. ormsby shook her head saying she knew well where he was, and it wasn't in heaven or hell or purgatory either. she probably believed that a log of wood was left behind in his place, but so bewitched that it seemed the dead body of her husband. she is dead now herself, but many still living remember her. she was, i believe, for a time a servant or else a kind of pensioner of some relations of my own. sometimes those who are carried off are allowed after many years-seven usually--a final glimpse of their friends. many years ago a woman vanished suddenly from a sligo garden where she was walking with her husband. when her son, who was then a baby, had grown up he received word in some way, not handed down, that his mother was glamoured by faeries, and imprisoned for the time in a house in glasgow and longing to see him. glasgow in those days of sailing-ships seemed to the peasant mind almost over the edge of the known world, yet he, being a dutiful son, started away. for a long time he walked the streets of glasgow; at last down in a cellar he saw his mother working. she was happy, she said, and had the best of good eating, and would he not eat? and therewith laid all kinds of food on the table; but he, knowing well that she was trying to cast on him the glamour by giving him faery food, that she might keep him with her, refused and came home to his people in sligo. some five miles southward of sligo is a gloomy and tree-bordered pond, a great gathering-place of water-fowl, called, because of its form, the heart lake. it is haunted by stranger things than heron, snipe, or wild duck. out of this lake, as from the white square stone in ben bulben, issues an unearthly troop. once men began to drain it; suddenly one of them raised a cry that he saw his house in flames. they turned round, and every man there saw his own cottage burning. they hurried home to find it was but faery glamour. to this hour on the border of the lake is shown a half-dug trench--the signet of their impiety. a little way from this lake i heard a beautiful and mournful history of faery kidnapping. i heard it from a little old woman in a white cap, who sings to herself in gaelic, and moves from one foot to the other as though she remembered the dancing of her youth. a young man going at nightfall to the house of his just married bride, met in the way a jolly company, and with them his bride. they were faeries, and had stolen her as a wife for the chief of their band. to him they seemed only a company of merry mortals. his bride, when she saw her old love, bade him welcome, but was most fearful lest be should eat the faery food, and so be glamoured out of the earth into that bloodless dim nation, wherefore she set him down to play cards with three of the cavalcade; and he played on, realizing nothing until he saw the chief of the band carrying his bride away in his arms. immediately he started up, and knew that they were faeries; for slowly all that jolly company melted into shadow and night. he hurried to the house of his beloved. as he drew near came to him the cry of the keeners. she had died some time before he came. some noteless gaelic poet had made this into a forgotten ballad, some odd verses of which my white-capped friend remembered and sang for me. sometimes one hears of stolen people acting as good genii to the living, as in this tale, heard also close by the haunted pond, of john kirwan of castle hacket. the kirwans[fn#8] are a family much rumoured of in peasant stories, and believed to be the descendants of a man and a spirit. they have ever been famous for beauty, and i have read that the mother of the present lord cloncurry was of their tribe. [fn#8] i have since heard that it was not the kirwans, but their predecessors at castle hacket, the hackets themselves, i think, who were descended from a man and a spirit, and were notable for beauty. i imagine that the mother of lord cloncurry was descended from the hackets. it may well be that all through these stories the name of kirwan has taken the place of the older name. legend mixes everything together in her cauldron. john kirwan was a great horse-racing man, and once landed in liverpool with a fine horse, going racing somewhere in middle england. that evening, as he walked by the docks, a slip of a boy came up and asked where he was stabling his horse. in such and such a place, he answered. "don't put him there," said the slip of a boy; "that stable will be burnt to-night." he took his horse elsewhere, and sure enough the stable was burnt down. next day the boy came and asked as reward to ride as his jockey in the coming race, and then was gone. the race-time came round. at the last moment the boy ran forward and mounted, saying, "if i strike him with the whip in my left hand i will lose, but if in my right hand bet all you are worth." for, said paddy flynn, who told me the tale, "the left arm is good for nothing. i might go on making the sign of the cross with it, and all that, come christmas, and a banshee, or such like, would no more mind than if it was that broom." well, the slip of a boy struck the horse with his right hand, and john kirwan cleared the field out. when the race was over, "what can i do for you now?" said he. "nothing but this," said the boy: "my mother has a cottage on your land-they stole me from the cradle. be good to her, john kirwan, and wherever your horses go i will watch that no ill follows them; but you will never see me more." with that he made himself air, and vanished. sometimes animals are carried off--apparently drowned animals more than others. in claremorris, galway, paddy flynn told me, lived a poor widow with one cow and its calf. the cow fell into the river, and was washed away. there was a man thereabouts who went to a red-haired woman --for such are supposed to be wise in these things--and she told him to take the calf down to the edge of the river, and hide himself and watch. he did as she had told him, and as evening came on the calf began to low, and after a while the cow came along the edge of the river and commenced suckling it. then, as he had been told, he caught the cow's tail. away they went at a great pace across hedges and ditches, till they came to a royalty (a name for the little circular ditches, commonly called raths or forts, that ireland is covered with since pagan times). therein he saw walking or sitting all the people who had died out of his village in his time. a woman was sitting on the edge with a child on her knees, and she called out to him to mind what the red-haired woman had told him, and he remembered she had said, bleed the cow. so he stuck his knife into the cow and drew blood. that broke the spell, and he was able to turn her homeward. "do not forget the spancel," said the woman with the child on her knees; "take the inside one." there were three spancels on a bush; he took one, and the cow was driven safely home to the widow. there is hardly a valley or mountainside where folk cannot tell you of some one pillaged from amongst them. two or three miles from the heart lake lives an old woman who was stolen away in her youth. after seven years she was brought home again for some reason or other, but she had no toes left. she had danced them off. many near the white stone door in ben bulben have been stolen away. it is far easier to be sensible in cities than in many country places i could tell you of. when one walks on those grey roads at evening by the scented elder-bushes of the white cottages, watching the faint mountains gathering the clouds upon their heads, one all too readily discovers, beyond the thin cobweb veil of the senses, those creatures, the goblins, hurrying from the white square stone door to the north, or from the heart lake in the south. the untiring ones it is one of the great troubles of life that we cannot have any unmixed emotions. there is always something in our enemy that we like, and something in our sweetheart that we dislike. it is this entanglement of moods which makes us old, and puckers our brows and deepens the furrows about our eyes. if we could love and hate with as good heart as the faeries do, we might grow to be long-lived like them. but until that day their untiring joys and sorrows must ever be onehalf of their fascination. love with them never grows weary, nor can the circles of the stars tire out their dancing feet. the donegal peasants remember this when they bend over the spade, or sit full of the heaviness of the fields beside the griddle at nightfall, and they tell stories about it that it may not be forgotten. a short while ago, they say, two faeries, little creatures, one like a young man, one like a young woman, came to a farmer's house, and spent the night sweeping the hearth and setting all tidy. the next night they came again, and while the farmer was away, brought all the furniture up-stairs into one room, and having arranged it round the walls, for the greater grandeur it seems, they began to dance. they danced on and on, and days and days went by, and all the country-side came to look at them, but still their feet never tired. the farmer did not dare to live at home the while; and after three months he made up his mind to stand it no more, and went and told them that the priest was coming. the little creatures when they heard this went back to their own country, and there their joy shall last as long as the points of the rushes are brown, the people say, and that is until god shall burn up the world with a kiss. but it is not merely faeries who know untiring days, for there have been men and women who, falling under their enchantment, have attained, perhaps by the right of their god-given spirits, an even more than faery abundance of life and feeling. it seems that when mortals have gone amid those poor happy leaves of the imperishable rose of beauty, blown hither and thither by the winds that awakened the stars, the dim kingdom has acknowledged their birthright, perhaps a little sadly, and given them of its best. such a mortal was born long ago at a village in the south of ireland. she lay asleep in a cradle, and her mother sat by rocking her, when a woman of the sidhe (the faeries) came in, and said that the child was chosen to be the bride of the prince of the dim kingdom, but that as it would never do for his wife to grow old and die while he was still in the first ardour of his love, she would be gifted with a faery life. the mother was to take the glowing log out of the fire and bury it in the garden, and her child would live as long as it remained unconsumed. the mother buried the log, and the child grew up, became a beauty, and married the prince of the faeries, who came to her at nightfall. after seven hundred years the prince died, and another prince ruled in his stead and married the beautiful peasant girl in his turn; and after another seven hundred years he died also, and another prince and another husband came in his stead, and so on until she had had seven husbands. at last one day the priest of the parish called upon her, and told her that she was a scandal to the whole neighbourhood with her seven husbands and her long life. she was very sorry, she said, but she was not to blame, and then she told him about the log, and he went straight out and dug until he found it, and then they burned it, and she died, and was buried like a christian, and everybody was pleased. such a mortal too was clooth-na-bare,[fn#9] who went all over the world seeking a lake deep enough to drown her faery life, of which she had grown weary, leaping from hill to lake and lake to hill, and setting up a cairn of stones wherever her feet lighted, until at last she found the deepest water in the world in little lough ia, on the top of the birds' mountain at sligo. [fn#9] doubtless clooth-na-bare should be cailleac bare, which would mean the old woman bare. bare or bere or verah or dera or dhera was a very famous person, perhaps the mother of the gods herself. a friend of mine found her, as he thinks frequenting lough leath, or the grey lake on a mountain of the fews. perhaps lough ia is my mishearing, or the storyteller's mispronunciation of lough leath, for there are many lough leaths. the two little creatures may well dance on, and the woman of the log and clooth-na-bare sleep in peace, for they have known untrammelled hate and unmixed love, and have never wearied themselves with "yes" and "no," or entangled their feet with the sorry net of "maybe" and "perhaps." the great winds came and took them up into themselves. earth, fire and water some french writer that i read when i was a boy, said that the desert went into the heart of the jews in their wanderings and made them what they are. i cannot remember by what argument he proved them to be even yet the indestructible children of earth, but it may well be that the elements have their children. if we knew the fire worshippers better we might find that their centuries of pious observance have been rewarded, and that the fire has given them a little of its nature; and i am certain that the water, the water of the seas and of lakes and of mist and rain, has all but made the irish after its image. images form themselves in our minds perpetually as if they were reflected in some pool. we gave ourselves up in old times to mythology, and saw the gods everywhere. we talked to them face to face, and the stories of that communion are so many that i think they outnumber all the like stories of all the rest of europe. even to-day our country people speak with the dead and with some who perhaps have never died as we understand death; and even our educated people pass without great difficulty into the condition of quiet that is the condition of vision. we can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet. did not the wise porphyry think that all souls come to be born because of water, and that "even the generation of images in the mind is from water"? 1902. the old town i fell, one night some fifteen years ago, into what seemed the power of faery. i had gone with a young man and his sister--friends and relations of my own--to pick stories out of an old countryman; and we were coming home talking over what he had told us. it was dark, and our imaginations were excited by his stories of apparitions, and this may have brought us, unknown to us, to the threshold, between sleeping and waking, where sphinxes and chimaeras sit open-eyed and where there are always murmurings and whisperings. i cannot think that what we saw was an imagination of the waking mind. we had come under some trees that made the road very dark, when the girl saw a bright light moving slowly across the road. her brother and myself saw nothing, and did not see anything until we had walked for about half-an-hour along the edge of the river and down a narrow lane to some fields where there was a ruined church covered with ivy, and the foundations of what was called "the old town," which had been burned down, it was said, in cromwell's day. we had stood for some few minutes, so far as i can recollect, looking over the fields full of stones and brambles and elder-bushes, when i saw a small bright light on the horizon, as it seemed, mounting up slowly towards the sky; then we saw other faint lights for a minute or two, and at last a bright flame like the flame of a torch moving rapidly over the river. we saw it all in such a dream, and it seems all so unreal, that i have never written of it until now, and hardly ever spoken of it, and even when thinking, because of some unreasoning impulse, i have avoided giving it weight in the argument. perhaps i have felt that my recollections of things seen when the sense of reality was weakened must be untrustworthy. a few months ago, however, i talked it over with my two friends, and compared their somewhat meagre recollections with my own. that sense of unreality was all the more wonderful because the next day i heard sounds as unaccountable as were those lights, and without any emotion of unreality, and i remember them with perfect distinctness and confidence. the girl was sitting reading under a large old-fashioned mirror, and i was reading and writing a couple of yards away, when i heard a sound as if a shower of peas had been thrown against the mirror, and while i was looking at it i heard the sound again, and presently, while i was alone in the room, i heard a sound as if something much bigger than a pea had struck the wainscoting beside my head. and after that for some days came other sights and sounds, not to me but to the girl, her brother, and the servants. now it was a bright light, now it was letters of fire that vanished before they could be read, now it was a heavy foot moving about in the seemingly empty house. one wonders whether creatures who live, the country people believe, wherever men and women have lived in earlier times, followed us from the ruins of the old town? or did they come from the banks of the river by the trees where the first light had shone for a moment? 1902. the man and his boots there was a doubter in donegal, and he would not hear of ghosts or sheogues, and there was a house in donegal that had been haunted as long as man could remember, and this is the story of how the house got the better of the man. the man came into the house and lighted a fire in the room under the haunted one, and took off his boots and set them on the hearth, and stretched out his feet and warmed him self. for a time he prospered in his unbelief; but a little while after the night had fallen, and everything had got very dark, one of his boots began to move. it got up off the floor and gave a kind of slow jump towards the door, and then the other boot did the same, and after that the first boot jumped again. and thereupon it struck the man that an invisible being had got into his boots, and was now going away in them. when the boots reached the door they went up-stairs slowly, and then the man heard them go tramp, tramp round the haunted room over his head. a few minutes passed, and he could hear them again upon the stairs, and after that in the passage outside, and then one of them came in at the door, and the other gave a jump past it and came in too. they jumped along towards him, and then one got up and hit him, and afterwards the other hit him, and then again the first hit him, and so on, until they drove him out of the room, and finally out of the house. in this way he was kicked out by his own boots, and donegal was avenged upon its doubter. it is not recorded whether the invisible being was a ghost or one of the sidhe, but the fantastic nature of the vengeance is like the work of the sidhe who live in the heart of fantasy. a coward one day i was at the house of my friend the strong farmer, who lives beyond ben bulben and cope's mountain, and met there a young lad who seemed to be disliked by the two daughters. i asked why they disliked him, and was; told he was a coward. this interested me, for some whom robust children of nature take to be cowards are but men and women with a nervous system too finely made for their life and work. i looked at the lad; but no, that pink-and-white face and strong body had nothing of undue sensibility. after a little he told me his story. he had lived a wild and reckless life, until one day, two years before, he was coming home late at night, and suddenly fell himself sinking in, as it were, upon the ghostly world. for a moment he saw the face of a dead brother rise up before him, and then he turned and ran. he did not stop till he came to a cottage nearly a mile down the road. he flung himself against the door with so much of violence that he broke the thick wooden bolt and fell upon the floor. from that day he gave up his wild life, but was a hopeless coward. nothing could ever bring him to look, either by day or night, upon the spot where he had seen the face, and he often went two miles round to avoid it; nor could, he said, "the prettiest girl in the country" persuade him to see her home after a party if he were alone. he feared everything, for he had looked at the face no man can see unchanged-the imponderable face of a spirit. the three o'byrnes and the evil faeries in the dim kingdom there is a great abundance of all excellent things. there is more love there than upon the earth; there is more dancing there than upon the earth; and there is more treasure there than upon the earth. in the beginning the earth was perhaps made to fulfil the desire of man, but now it has got old and fallen into decay. what wonder if we try and pilfer the treasures of that other kingdom! a friend was once at a village near sleive league. one day he was straying about a rath called "cashel nore." a man with a haggard face and unkempt hair, and clothes falling in pieces, came into the rath and began digging. my friend turned to a peasant who was working near and asked who the man was. "that is the third o'byrne," was the answer. a few days after he learned this story: a great quantity of treasure had been buried in the rath in pagan times, and a number of evil faeries set to guard it; but some day it was to be found and belong to the family of the o'byrnes. before that day three o'byrnes must find it and die. two had already done so. the first had dug and dug until at last he had got a glimpse of the stone coffin that contained it, but immediately a thing like a huge hairy dog came down the mountain and tore him to pieces. the next morning the treasure had again vanished deep into the earth. the second o'byrne came and dug and dug until he found the coffer, and lifted the lid and saw the gold shining within. he saw some horrible sight the next moment, and went raving mad and soon died. the treasure again sank out of sight. the third o'byrne is now digging. he believes that he will die in some terrible way the moment he finds the treasure, but that the spell will be broken, and the o'byrne family made rich for ever, as they were of old. a peasant of the neighbourhood once saw the treasure. he found the shin-bone of a hare lying on the grass. he took it up; there was a hole in it; he looked through the hole, and saw the gold heaped up under the ground. he hurried home to bring a spade, but when he got to the rath again he could not find the spot where he had seen it. drumcliff and rosses drumcliff and rosses were, are, and ever shall be, please heaven! places of unearthly resort. i have lived near by them and in them, time after time, and have gathered thus many a crumb of faery lore. drumcliff is a wide green valley, lying at the foot of ben bulben, the mountain in whose side the square white door swings open at nightfall to loose the faery riders on the world. the great st. columba himself, the builder of many of the old ruins in the valley, climbed the mountains on one notable day to get near heaven with his prayers. rosses is a little sea-dividing, sandy plain, covered with short grass, like a green tablecloth, and lying in the foam midway between the round cairn-headed knocknarea and "ben bulben, famous for hawks": but for benbulben and knocknarea many a poor sailor'd be cast away, as the rhyme goes. at the northern corner of rosses is a little promontory of sand and rocks and grass: a mournful, haunted place. no wise peasant would fall asleep under its low cliff, for he who sleeps here may wake "silly," the "good people" having carried off his soul. there is no more ready shortcut to the dim kingdom than this plovery headland, for, covered and smothered now from sight by mounds of sand, a long cave goes thither "full of gold and silver, and the most beautiful parlours and drawing-rooms." once, before the sand covered it, a dog strayed in, and was heard yelping helplessly deep underground in a fort far inland. these forts or raths, made before modern history had begun, cover all rosses and all columkille. the one where the dog yelped has, like most others, an underground beehive chamber in the midst. once when i was poking about there, an unusually intelligent and "reading" peasant who had come with me, and waited outside, knelt down by the opening, and whispered in a timid voice, "are you all right, sir?" i had been some little while underground, and he feared i had been carried off like the dog. no wonder he was afraid, for the fort has long been circled by illboding rumours. it is on the ridge of a small hill, on whose northern slope lie a few stray cottages. one night a farmer's young son came from one of them and saw the fort all flaming, and ran towards it, but the "glamour" fell on him, and he sprang on to a fence, cross-legged, and commenced beating it with a stick, for he imagined the fence was a horse, and that all night long he went on the most wonderful ride through the country. in the morning he was still beating his fence, and they carried him home, where he remained a simpleton for three years before he came to himself again. a little later a farmer tried to level the fort. his cows and horses died, and an manner of trouble overtook him, and finally he himself was led home, and left useless with "his head on his knees by the fire to the day of his death." a few hundred yards southwards of the northern angle of rosses is another angle having also its cave, though this one is not covered with sand. about twenty years ago a brig was wrecked near by, and three or four fishermen were put to watch the deserted hulk through the darkness. at midnight they saw sitting on a stone at the cave's mouth two red-capped fiddlers fiddling with all their might. the men fled. a great crowd of villagers rushed down to the cave to see the fiddlers, but the creatures had gone. to the wise peasant the green hills and woods round him are full of never-fading mystery. when the aged countrywoman stands at her door in the evening, and, in her own words, "looks at the mountains and thinks of the goodness of god," god is all the nearer, because the pagan powers are not far: because northward in ben bulben, famous for hawks, the white square door swings open at sundown, and those wild unchristian riders rush forth upon the fields, while southward the white lady, who is doubtless maive herself, wanders under the broad cloud nightcap of knocknarea. how may she doubt these things, even though the priest shakes his head at her? did not a herd-boy, no long while since, see the white lady? she passed so close that the skirt of her dress touched him. "he fell down, and was dead three days." but this is merely the small gossip of faerydom--the little stitches that join this world and the other. one night as i sat eating mrs. h-----'s soda-bread, her husband told me a longish story, much the best of all i heard in rosses. many a poor man from fin m'cool to our own days has had some such adventure to tell of, for those creatures, the "good people," love to repeat themselves. at any rate the story-tellers do. "in the times when we used to travel by the canal," he said, "i was coming down from dublin. when we came to mullingar the canal ended, and i began to walk, and stiff and fatigued i was after the slowness. i had some friends with me, and now and then we walked, now and then we rode in a cart. so on till we saw some girls milking cows, and stopped to joke with them. after a while we asked them for a drink of milk. 'we have nothing to put it in here,' they said, 'but come to the house with us.' we went home with them, and sat round the fire talking. after a while the others went, and left me, loath to stir from the good fire. i asked the girls for something to eat. there was a pot on the fire, and they took the meat out and put it on a plate, and told me to eat only the meat that came off the head. when i had eaten, the girls went out, and i did not see them again. it grew darker and darker, and there i still sat, loath as ever to leave the good fire, and after a while two men came in, carrying between them a corpse. when i saw them, coming i hid behind the door. says one to the other, putting the corpse on the spit, 'who'll turn the spit? says the other, 'michael h-----, come out of that and turn the meat.' i came out all of a tremble, and began turning the spit. 'michael h------,' says the one who spoke first, 'if you let it burn we'll have to put you on the spit instead'; and on that they went out. i sat there trembling and turning the corpse till towards midnight. the men came again, and the one said it was burnt, and the other said it was done right. but having fallen out over it, they both said they would do me no harm that time; and, sitting by the fire, one of them cried out: 'michael h-----, can you tell me a story?' 'divil a one,' said i. on which he caught me by the shoulder, and put me out like a shot. it was a wild blowing night. never in all my born days did i see such a night-the darkest night that ever came out of the heavens. i did not know where i was for the life of me. so when one of the men came after me and touched me on the shoulder, with a 'michael h----, can you tell a story now?' 'i can,' says i. in he brought me; and putting me by the fire, says: 'begin.' 'i have no story but the one,' says i, 'that i was sitting here, and you two men brought in a corpse and put it on the spit, and set me turning it.' 'that will do,' says he; 'ye may go in there and lie down on the bed.' and i went, nothing loath; and in the morning where was i but in the middle of a green field!" "drumcliff" is a great place for omens. before a prosperous fishing season a herring-barrel appears in the midst of a storm-cloud; and at a place called columkille's strand, a place of marsh and mire, an ancient boat, with st. columba himself, comes floating in from sea on a moonlight night: a portent of a brave harvesting. they have their dread portents too. some few seasons ago a fisherman saw, far on the horizon, renowned hy brazel, where he who touches shall find no more labour or care, nor cynic laughter, but shall go walking about under shadiest boscage, and enjoy the conversation of cuchullin and his heroes. a vision of hy brazel forebodes national troubles. drumcliff and rosses are chokeful of ghosts. by bog, road, rath, hillside, sea-border they gather in all shapes: headless women, men in armour, shadow hares, fire-tongued hounds, whistling seals, and so on. a whistling seal sank a ship the other day. at drumcliff there is a very ancient graveyard. the annals of the four masters have this verse about a soldier named denadhach, who died in 871: "a pious soldier of the race of con lies under hazel crosses at drumcliff." not very long ago an old woman, turning to go into the churchyard at night to pray, saw standing before her a man in armour, who asked her where she was going. it was the "pious soldier of the race of con," says local wisdom, still keeping watch, with his ancient piety, over the graveyard. again, the custom is still common hereabouts of sprinkling the doorstep with the blood of a chicken on the death of a very young child, thus (as belief is) drawing into the blood the evil spirits from the too weak soul. blood is a great gatherer of evil spirits. to cut your hand on a stone on going into a fort is said to be very dangerous. there is no more curious ghost in drumcliff or rosses than the snipeghost. there is a bush behind a house in a village that i know well: for excellent reasons i do not say whether in drumcliff or rosses or on the slope of ben bulben, or even on the plain round knocknarea. there is a history concerning the house and the bush. a man once lived there who found on the quay of sligo a package containing three hundred pounds in notes. it was dropped by a foreign sea captain. this my man knew, but said nothing. it was money for freight, and the sea captain, not daring to face his owners, committed suicide in mid-ocean. shortly afterwards my man died. his soul could not rest. at any rate, strange sounds were heard round his house, though that had grown and prospered since the freight money. the wife was often seen by those still alive out in the garden praying at the bush i have spoken of, for the shade of the dead man appeared there at times. the bush remains to this day: once portion of a hedge, it now stands by itself, for no one dare put spade or pruning-knife about it. as to the strange sounds and voices, they did not cease till a few years ago, when, during some repairs, a snipe flew out of the solid plaster and away; the troubled ghost, say the neighbours, of the note-finder was at last dislodged. my forebears and relations have lived near rosses and drumcliff these many years. a few miles northward i am wholly a stranger, and can find nothing. when i ask for stories of the faeries, my answer is some such as was given me by a woman who lives near a white stone fort--one of the few stone ones in ireland--under the seaward angle of ben bulben: "they always mind their own affairs and i always mind mine": for it is dangerous to talk of the creatures. only friendship for yourself or knowledge of your forebears will loosen these cautious tongues. my friend, "the sweet harp-string" (i give no more than his irish name for fear of gaugers), has the science of unpacking the stubbornest heart, but then he supplies the potheen-makers with grain from his own fields. besides, he is descended from a noted gaelic magician who raised the "dhoul" in great eliza's century, and he has a kind of prescriptive right to hear tell of all kind of other-world creatures. they are almost relations of his, if all people say concerning the parentage of magicians be true. the thick skull of the fortunate i once a number of icelandic peasantry found a very thick skull in the cemetery where the poet egil was buried. its great thickness made them feel certain it was the skull of a great man, doubtless of egil himself. to be doubly sure they put it on a wall and hit it hard blows with a hammer. it got white where the blows fell but did not break, and they were convinced that it was in truth the skull of the poet, and worthy of every honour. in ireland we have much kinship with the icelanders, or "danes" as we call them and all other dwellers in the scandinavian countries. in some of our mountainous and barren places, and in our seaboard villages, we still test each other in much the same way the icelanders tested the head of egil. we may have acquired the custom from those ancient danish pirates, whose descendants the people of rosses tell me still remember every field and hillock in ireland which once belonged to their forebears, and are able to describe rosses itself as well as any native. there is one seaboard district known as roughley, where the men are never known to shave or trim their wild red beards, and where there is a fight ever on foot. i have seen them at a boat-race fall foul of each other, and after much loud gaelic, strike each other with oars. the first boat had gone aground, and by dint of hitting out with the long oars kept the second boat from passing, only to give the victory to the third. one day the sligo people say a man from roughley was tried in sligo for breaking a skull in a row, and made the defence not unknown in ireland, that some heads are so thin you cannot be responsible for them. having turned with a look of passionate contempt towards the solicitor who was prosecuting, and cried, "that little fellow's skull if ye were to hit it would go like an egg-shell," he beamed upon the judge, and said in a wheedling voice, "but a man might wallop away at your lordship's for a fortnight." ii i wrote all this years ago, out of what were even then old memories. i was in roughley the other day, and found it much like other desolate places. i may have been thinking of moughorow, a much wilder place, for the memories of one's childhood are brittle things to lean upon. 1902. the religion of a sailor a sea captain when he stands upon the bridge, or looks out from his deck-house, thinks much about god and about the world. away in the valley yonder among the corn and the poppies men may well forget all things except the warmth of the sun upon the face, and the kind shadow under the hedge; but he who journeys through storm and darkness must needs think and think. one july a couple of years ago i took my supper with a captain moran on board the s.s. margaret, that had put into a western river from i know not where. i found him a man of many notions all flavoured with his personality, as is the way with sailors. he talked in his queer sea manner of god and the world, and up through all his words broke the hard energy of his calling. "sur," said he, "did you ever hear tell of the sea captain's prayer?" "no," said i; "what is it?" "it is," he replied, "'o lord, give me a stiff upper lip.'" "and what does that mean?" "it means," he said, "that when they come to me some night and wake me up, and say, 'captain, we're going down,' that i won't make a fool o' meself. why, sur, we war in mid atlantic, and i standin' on the bridge, when the third mate comes up to me looking mortial bad. says he, 'captain, all's up with us.' says i, 'didn't you know when you joined that a certain percentage go down every year?' 'yes, sur,' says he; and says i, 'arn't you paid to go down?' 'yes, sur,' says he; and says i, 'then go down like a man, and be damned to you!"' concerning the nearness together of heaven, earth, and purgatory in ireland this world and the world we go to after death are not far apart. i have heard of a ghost that was many years in a tree and many years in the archway of a bridge, and my old mayo woman says, "there is a bush up at my own place, and the people do be saying that there are two souls doing their penance under it. when the wind blows one way the one has shelter, and when it blows from the north the other has the shelter. it is twisted over with the way they be rooting under it for shelter. i don't believe it, but there is many a one would not pass by it at night." indeed there are times when the worlds are so near together that it seems as if our earthly chattels were no more than the shadows of things beyond. a lady i knew once saw a village child running about with a long trailing petticoat upon her, and asked the creature why she did not have it cut short. "it was my grandmother's," said the child; "would you have her going about yonder with her petticoat up to her knees, and she dead but four days?" i have read a story of a woman whose ghost haunted her people because they had made her grave-clothes so short that the fires of purgatory burned her knees. the peasantry expect to have beyond the grave houses much like their earthly homes, only there the thatch will never grow leaky, nor the white walls lose their lustre, nor shall the dairy be at any time empty of good milk and butter. but now and then a landlord or an agent or a gauger will go by begging his bread, to show how god divides the righteous from the unrighteous. 1892 and 1902. the eaters of precious stones sometimes when i have been shut off from common interests, and have for a little forgotten to be restless, i get waking dreams, now faint and shadow-like, now vivid and solid-looking, like the material world under my feet. whether they be faint or vivid, they are ever beyond the power of my will to alter in any way. they have their own will, and sweep hither and thither, and change according to its commands. one day i saw faintly an immense pit of blackness, round which went a circular parapet, and on this parapet sat innumerable apes eating precious stones out of the palms of their hands. the stones glittered green and crimson, and the apes devoured them with an insatiable hunger. i knew that i saw the celtic hell, and my own hell, the hell of the artist, and that all who sought after beautiful and wonderful things with too avid a thirst, lost peace and form and became shapeless and common. i have seen into other people's hells also, and saw in one an infernal peter, who had a black face and white lips, and who weighed on a curious double scales not only the evil deeds committed, but the good deeds left undone, of certain invisible shades. i could see the scales go up and down, but i could not see the shades who were, i knew, crowding about him. i saw on another occasion a quantity of demons of all kinds of shapes--fish-like, serpent-like, ape-like, and dog-like --sitting about a black pit such as that in my own hell, and looking at a moon--like reflection of the heavens which shone up from the depths of the pit. our lady of the hills when we were children we did not say at such a distance from the postoffice, or so far from the butcher's or the grocer's, but measured things by the covered well in the wood, or by the burrow of the fox in the hill. we belonged then to god and to his works, and to things come down from the ancient days. we would not have been greatly surprised had we met the shining feet of an angel among the white mushrooms upon the mountains, for we knew in those days immense despair, unfathomed love--every eternal mood,--but now the draw-net is about our feet. a few miles eastward of lough gill, a young protestant girl, who was both pretty herself and prettily dressed in blue and white, wandered up among those mountain mushrooms, and i have a letter of hers telling how she met a troop of children, and became a portion of their dream. when they first saw her they threw themselves face down in a bed of rushes, as if in a great fear; but after a little other children came about them, and they got up and followed her almost bravely. she noticed their fear, and presently stood still and held out her arms. a little girl threw herself into them with the cry, "ah, you are the virgin out o' the picture!" "no," said another, coming near also, "she is a sky faery, for she has the colour of the sky." "no," said a third, "she is the faery out of the foxglove grown big." the other children, however, would have it that she was indeed the virgin, for she wore the virgin's colours. her good protestant heart was greatly troubled, and she got the children to sit down about her, and tried to explain who she was, but they would have none of her explanation. finding explanation of no avail, she asked had they ever heard of christ? "yes," said one; "but we do not like him, for he would kill us if it were not for the virgin." "tell him to be good to me," whispered another into her ear. "we would not let me near him, for dad says i am a divil," burst out a third. she talked to them a long time about christ and the apostles, but was finally interrupted by an elderly woman with a stick, who, taking her to be some adventurous hunter for converts, drove the children away, despite their explanation that here was the great queen of heaven come to walk upon the mountain and be kind to them. when the children had gone she went on her way, and had walked about half-a-mile, when the child who was called "a divil" jumped down from the high ditch by the lane, and said she would believe her "an ordinary lady" if she had "two skirts," for "ladies always had two skirts." the "two skirts" were shown, and the child went away crestfallen, but a few minutes later jumped down again from the ditch, and cried angrily, "dad's a divil, mum's a divil, and i'm a divil, and you are only an ordinary lady," and having flung a handful of mud and pebbles ran away sobbing. when my pretty protestant had come to her own home she found that she had dropped the tassels of her parasol. a year later she was by chance upon the mountain, but wearing now a plain black dress, and met the child who had first called her the virgin out o' the picture, and saw the tassels hanging about the child's neck, and said, "i am the lady you met last year, who told you about christ." "no, you are not! no, you are not! no, you are not!" was the passionate reply. and after all, it was not my pretty protestant, but mary, star of the sea, still walking in sadness and in beauty upon many a mountain and by many a shore, who cast those tassels at the feet of the child. it is indeed fitting that man pray to her who is the mother of peace, the mother of dreams, and the mother of purity, to leave them yet a little hour to do good and evil in, and to watch old time telling the rosary of the stars. the golden age a while ago i was in the train, and getting near sligo. the last time i had been there something was troubling me, and i had longed for a message from those beings or bodiless moods, or whatever they be, who inhabit the world of spirits. the message came, for one night i saw with blinding distinctness a black animal, half weasel, half dog, moving along the top of a stone wall, and presently the black animal vanished, and from the other side came a white weasel-like dog, his pink flesh shining through his white hair and all in a blaze of light; and i remembered a pleasant belief about two faery dogs who go about representing day and night, good and evil, and was comforted by the excellent omen. but now i longed for a message of another kind, and chance, if chance there is, brought it, for a man got into the carriage and began to play on a fiddle made apparently of an old blacking-box, and though i am quite unmusical the sounds filled me with the strangest emotions. i seemed to hear a voice of lamentation out of the golden age. it told me that we are imperfect, incomplete, and no more like a beautiful woven web, but like a bundle of cords knotted together and flung into a comer. it said that the world was once all perfect and kindly, and that still the kindly and perfect world existed, but buried like a mass of roses under many spadefuls of earth. the faeries and the more innocent of the spirits dwelt within it, and lamented over our fallen world in the lamentation of the wind-tossed reeds, in the song of the birds, in the moan of the waves, and in the sweet cry of the fiddle. it said that with us the beautiful are not clever and the clever are not beautiful, and that the best of our moments are marred by a little vulgarity, or by a pin-prick out of sad recollection, and that the fiddle must ever lament about it all. it said that if only they who live in the golden age could die we might be happy, for the sad voices would be still; but alas! alas! they must sing and we must weep until the eternal gates swing open. we were now getting into the big glass-roofed terminus, and the fiddler put away his old blacking-box and held out his hat for a copper, and then opened the door and was gone. a remonstrance with scotsmen for having soured the disposition of their ghosts and faeries not only in ireland is faery belief still extant. it was only the other day i heard of a scottish farmer who believed that the lake in front of his house was haunted by a water-horse. he was afraid of it, and dragged the lake with nets, and then tried to pump it empty. it would have been a bad thing for the water-horse had he found him. an irish peasant would have long since come to terms with the creature. for in ireland there is something of timid affection between men and spirits. they only ill-treat each other in reason. each admits the other side to have feelings. there are points beyond which neither will go. no irish peasant would treat a captured faery as did the man campbell tells of. he caught a kelpie, and tied her behind him on his horse. she was fierce, but he kept her quiet by driving an awl and a needle into her. they came to a river, and she grew very restless, fearing to cross the water. again he drove the awl and needle into her. she cried out, "pierce me with the awl, but keep that slender, hairlike slave (the needle) out of me." they came to an inn. he turned the light of a lantern on her; immediately she dropped down like a falling star, and changed into a lump of jelly. she was dead. nor would they treat the faeries as one is treated in an old highland poem. a faery loved a little child who used to cut turf at the side of a faery hill. every day the faery put out his hand from the hill with an enchanted knife. the child used to cut the turf with the knife. it did not take long, the knife being charmed. her brothers wondered why she was done so quickly. at last they resolved to watch, and find out who helped her. they saw the small hand come out of the earth, and the little child take from it the knife. when the turf was all cut, they saw her make three taps on the ground with the handle. the small hand came out of the hill. snatching the knife from the child, they cut the hand off with a blow. the faery was never again seen. he drew his bleeding arm into the earth, thinking, as it is recorded, he had lost his hand through the treachery of the child. in scotland you are too theological, too gloomy. you have made even the devil religious. "where do you live, good-wyf, and how is the minister?" he said to the witch when he met her on the high-road, as it came out in the trial. you have burnt all the witches. in ireland we have left them alone. to be sure, the "loyal minority" knocked out the eye of one with a cabbage-stump on the 31st of march, 1711, in the town of carrickfergus. but then the "loyal minority" is half scottish. you have discovered the faeries to be pagan and wicked. you would like to have them all up before the magistrate. in ireland warlike mortals have gone amongst them, and helped them in their battles, and they in turn have taught men great skill with herbs, and permitted some few to hear their tunes. carolan slept upon a faery rath. ever after their tunes ran in his head, and made him the great musician he was. in scotland you have denounced them from the pulpit. in ireland they have been permitted by the priests to consult them on the state of their souls. unhappily the priests have decided that they have no souls, that they will dry up like so much bright vapour at the last day; but more in sadness than in anger they have said it. the catholic religion likes to keep on good terms with its neighbours. these two different ways of looking at things have influenced in each country the whole world of sprites and goblins. for their gay and graceful doings you must go to ireland; for their deeds of terror to scotland. our irish faery terrors have about them something of makebelieve. when a peasant strays into an enchanted hovel, and is made to turn a corpse all night on a spit before the fire, we do not feel anxious; we know he will wake in the midst of a green field, the dew on his old coat. in scotland it is altogether different. you have soured the naturally excellent disposition of ghosts and goblins. the piper m'crimmon, of the hebrides, shouldered his pipes, and marched into a sea cavern, playing loudly, and followed by his dog. for a long time the people could hear the pipes. he must have gone nearly a mile, when they heard the sound of a struggle. then the piping ceased suddenly. some time went by, and then his dog came out of the cavern completely flayed, too weak even to howl. nothing else ever came out of the cavern. then there is the tale of the man who dived into a lake where treasure was thought to be. he saw a great coffer of iron. close to the coffer lay a monster, who warned him to return whence he came. he rose to the surface; but the bystanders, when they heard he had seen the treasure, persuaded him to dive again. he dived. in a little while his heart and liver floated up, reddening the water. no man ever saw the rest of his body. these water-goblins and water-monsters are common in scottish folklore. we have them too, but take them much less dreadfully. our tales turn all their doings to favour and to prettiness, or hopelessly humorize the creatures. a hole in the sligo river is haunted by one of these monsters. he is ardently believed in by many, but that does not prevent the peasantry playing with the subject, and surrounding it with conscious fantasies. when i was a small boy i fished one day for congers in the monster hole. returning home, a great eel on my shoulder, his head flapping down in front, his tail sweeping the ground behind, i met a fisherman of my acquaintance. i began a tale of an immense conger, three times larger than the one i carried, that had broken my line and escaped. "that was him," said the fisherman. "did you ever hear how he made my brother emigrate? my brother was a diver, you know, and grubbed stones for the harbour board. one day the beast comes up to him, and says, 'what are you after?' 'stones, sur,' says he. 'don't you think you had better be going?' 'yes, sur,' says he. and that's why my brother emigrated. the people said it was because he got poor, but that's not true." you--you will make no terms with the spirits of fire and earth and air and water. you have made the darkness your enemy. we--we exchange civilities with the world beyond. war when there was a rumour of war with france a while ago, i met a poor sligo woman, a soldier's widow, that i know, and i read her a sentence out of a letter i had just had from london: "the people here are mad for war, but france seems inclined to take things peacefully," or some like sentence. her mind ran a good deal on war, which she imagined partly from what she had heard from soldiers, and partly from tradition of the rebellion of '98, but the word london doubled her interest, for she knew there were a great many people in london, and she herself had once lived in "a congested district." "there are too many over one another in london. they are getting tired of the world. it is killed they want to be. it will be no matter; but sure the french want nothing but peace and quietness. the people here don't mind the war coming. they could not be worse than they are. they may as well die soldierly before god. sure they will get quarters in heaven." then she began to say that it would be a hard thing to see children tossed about on bayonets, and i knew her mind was running on traditions of the great rebellion. she said presently, "i never knew a man that was in a battle that liked to speak of it after. they'd sooner be throwing hay down from a hayrick." she told me how she and her neighbours used to be sitting over the fire when she was a girl, talking of the war that was coming, and now she was afraid it was coming again, for she had dreamed that all the bay was "stranded and covered with seaweed." i asked her if it was in the fenian times that she had been so much afraid of war coming. but she cried out, "never had i such fun and pleasure as in the fenian times. i was in a house where some of the officers used to be staying, and in the daytime i would be walking after the soldiers' band, and at night i'd be going down to the end of the garden watching a soldier, with his red coat on him, drilling the fenians in the field behind the house. one night the boys tied the liver of an old horse, that had been dead three weeks, to the knocker, and i found it when i opened the door in the morning." and presently our talk of war shifted, as it had a way of doing, to the battle of the black pig, which seems to her a battle between ireland and england, but to me an armageddon which shall quench all things in the ancestral darkness again, and from this to sayings about war and vengeance. "do you know," she said, "what the curse of the four fathers is? they put the man-child on the spear, and somebody said to them, 'you will be cursed in the fourth generation after you,' and that is why disease or anything always comes in the fourth generation." 1902. the queen and the fool i have heard one hearne, a witch-doctor, who is on the border of clare and galway, say that in "every household" of faery "there is a queen and a fool," and that if you are "touched" by either you never recover, though you may from the touch of any other in faery. he said of the fool that he was "maybe the wisest of all," and spoke of him as dressed like one of the "mummers that used to be going about the country." since then a friend has gathered me some few stories of him, and i have heard that he is known, too, in the highlands. i remember seeing a long, lank, ragged man sitting by the hearth in the cottage of an old miller not far from where i am now writing, and being told that he was a fool; and i find from the stories that my friend has gathered that he is believed to go to faery in his sleep; but whether he becomes an amadan-na-breena, a fool of the forth, and is attached to a household there, i cannot tell. it was an old woman that i know well, and who has been in faery herself, that spoke of him. she said, "there are fools amongst them, and the fools we see, like that amadan of ballylee, go away with them at night, and so do the woman fools that we call oinseachs (apes)." a woman who is related to the witch-doctor on the border of clare, and who can cure people and cattle by spells, said, "there are some cures i can't do. i can't help any one that has got a stroke from the queen or the fool of the forth. i knew of a woman that saw the queen one time, and she looked like any christian. i never heard of any that saw the fool but one woman that was walking near gort, and she called out, 'there's the fool of the forth coming after me.' so her friends that were with her called out, though they could see nothing, and i suppose he went away at that, for she got no harm. he was like a big strong man, she said, and half naked, and that is all she said about him. i have never seen any myself, but i am a cousin of hearne, and my uncle was away twenty-one years." the wife of the old miller said, "it is said they are mostly good neighbours, but the stroke of the fool is what there is no cure for; any one that gets that is gone. the amadan-na-breena we call him!" and an old woman who lives in the bog of kiltartan, and is very poor, said, "it is true enough, there is no cure for the stroke of the amadan-na-breena. there was an old man i knew long ago, he had a tape, and he could tell what diseases you had with measuring you; and he knew many things. and he said to me one time, 'what month of the year is the worst?' and i said, 'the month of may, of course.' 'it is not,' he said; 'but the month of june, for that's the month that the amadan gives his stroke!' they say he looks like any other man, but he's leathan (wide), and not smart. i knew a boy one time got a great fright, for a lamb looked over the wall at him with a beard on it, and he knew it was the amadan, for it was the month of june. and they brought him to that man i was telling about, that had the tape, and when he saw him he said, 'send for the priest, and get a mass said over him.' and so they did, and what would you say but he's living yet and has a family! a certain regan said, 'they, the other sort of people, might be passing you close here and they might touch you. but any that gets the touch of the amadan-na-breena is done for.' it's true enough that it's in the month of june he's most likely to give the touch. i knew one that got it, and he told me about it himself. he was a boy i knew well, and he told me that one night a gentleman came to him, that had been his land-lord, and that was dead. and he told him to come along with him, for he wanted him to fight another man. and when he went he found two great troops of them, and the other troop had a living man with them too, and he was put to fight him. and they had a great fight, and he got the better of the other man, and then the troop on his side gave a great shout, and he was left home again. but about three years after that he was cutting bushes in a wood and he saw the amadan coming at him. he had a big vessel in his arms, and it was shining, so that the boy could see nothing else; but he put it behind his back then and came running, and the boy said he looked wild and wide, like the side of the hill. and the boy ran, and he threw the vessel after him, and it broke with a great noise, and whatever came out of it, his head was gone there and then. he lived for a while after, and used to tell us many things, but his wits were gone. he thought they mightn't have liked him to beat the other man, and he used to be afraid something would come on him." and an old woman in a galway workhouse, who had some little knowledge of queen maive, said the other day, "the amadan-na-breena changes his shape every two days. sometimes he comes like a youngster, and then he'll come like the worst of beasts, trying to give the touch he used to be. i heard it said of late he was shot, but i think myself it would be hard to shoot him." i knew a man who was trying to bring before his mind's eye an image of aengus, the old irish god of love and poetry and ecstasy, who changed four of his kisses into birds, and suddenly the image of a man with a cap and bells rushed before his mind's eye, and grew vivid and spoke and called itself "aengus' messenger." and i knew another man, a truly great seer, who saw a white fool in a visionary garden, where there was a tree with peacocks' feathers instead of leaves, and flowers that opened to show little human faces when the white fool had touched them with his coxcomb, and he saw at another time a white fool sitting by a pool and smiling and watching the images of many fair women floating up from the pool. what else can death be but the beginning of wisdom and power and beauty? and foolishness may be a kind of death. i cannot think it wonderful that many should see a fool with a shining vessel of some enchantment or wisdom or dream too powerful for mortal brains in "every household of them." it is natural, too, that there should be a queen to every household of them, and that one should hear little of their kings, for women come more easily than men to that wisdom which ancient peoples, and all wild peoples even now, think the only wisdom. the self, which is the foundation of our knowledge, is broken in pieces by foolishness, and is forgotten in the sudden emotions of women, and therefore fools may get, and women do get of a certainty, glimpses of much that sanctity finds at the end of its painful journey. the man who saw the white fool said of a certain woman, not a peasant woman, "if i had her power of vision i would know all the wisdom of the gods, and her visions do not interest her." and i know of another woman, also not a peasant woman, who would pass in sleep into countries of an unearthly beauty, and who never cared for anything but to be busy about her house and her children; and presently an herb doctor cured her, as he called it. wisdom and beauty and power may sometimes, as i think, come to those who die every day they live, though their dying may not be like the dying shakespeare spoke of. there is a war between the living and the dead, and the irish stories keep harping upon it. they will have it that when the potatoes or the wheat or any other of the fruits of the earth decay, they ripen in faery, and that our dreams lose their wisdom when the sap rises in the trees, and that our dreams can make the trees wither, and that one hears the bleating of the lambs of faery in november, and that blind eyes can see more than other eyes. because the soul always believes in these, or in like things, the cell and the wilderness shall never be long empty, or lovers come into the world who will not understand the verse- heardst thou not sweet words among that heaven-resounding minstrelsy? heardst thou not that those who die awake in a world of ecstasy? how love, when limbs are interwoven, and sleep, when the night of life is cloven, and thought to the world's dim boundaries clinging, and music when one's beloved is singing, is death? 1901. the friends of the people of faery those that see the people of faery most often, and so have the most of their wisdom, are often very poor, but often, too, they are thought to have a strength beyond that of man, as though one came, when one has passed the threshold of trance, to those sweet waters where maeldun saw the dishevelled eagles bathe and become young again. there was an old martin roland, who lived near a bog a little out of gort, who saw them often from his young days, and always towards the end of his life, though i would hardly call him their friend. he told me a few months before his death that "they" would not let him sleep at night with crying things at him in irish, and with playing their pipes. he had asked a friend of his what he should do, and the friend had told him to buy a flute, and play on it when they began to shout or to play on their pipes, and maybe they would give up annoying him; and he did, and they always went out into the field when he began to play. he showed me the pipe, and blew through it, and made a noise, but he did not know how to play; and then he showed me where he had pulled his chimney down, because one of them used to sit up on it and play on the pipes. a friend of his and mine went to see him a little time ago, for she heard that "three of them" had told him he was to die. he said they had gone away after warning him, and that the children (children they had "taken," i suppose) who used to come with them, and play about the house with them, had "gone to some other place," because "they found the house too cold for them, maybe"; and he died a week after he had said these things. his neighbours were not certain that he really saw anything in his old age, but they were all certain that he saw things when he was a young man. his brother said, "old he is, and it's all in his brain the things he sees. if he was a young man we might believe in him." but he was improvident, and never got on with his brothers. a neighbour said, "the poor man, they say they are mostly in his head now, but sure he was a fine fresh man twenty years ago the night he saw them linked in two lots, like young slips of girls walking together. it was the night they took away fallon's little girl." and she told how fallon's little girl had met a woman "with red hair that was as bright as silver," who took her away. another neighbour, who was herself "clouted over the ear" by one of them for going into a fort where they were, said, "i believe it's mostly in his head they are; and when he stood in the door last night i said, 'the wind does be always in my ears, and the sound of it never stops,' to make him think it was the same with him; but he says, 'i hear them singing and making music all the time, and one of them is after bringing out a little flute, and it's on it he's playing to them.' and this i know, that when he pulled down the chimney where he said the piper used to be sitting and playing, he lifted up stones, and he an old man, that i could not have lifted when i was young and strong." a friend has sent me from ulster an account of one who was on terms of true friendship with the people of faery. it has been taken down accurately, for my friend, who had heard the old woman's story some time before i heard of it, got her to tell it over again, and wrote it out at once. she began by telling the old woman that she did not like being in the house alone because of the ghosts and fairies; and the old woman said, "there's nothing to be frightened about in faeries, miss. many's the time i talked to a woman myself that was a faery, or something of the sort, and no less and more than mortal anyhow. she used to come about your grandfather's house--your mother's grandfather, that is--in my young days. but you'll have heard all about her." my friend said that she had heard about her, but a long time before, and she wanted to hear about her again; and the old woman went on, "well dear, the very first time ever i heard word of her coming about was when your uncle--that is, your mother's uncle--joseph married, and building a house for his wife, for he brought her first to his father's, up at the house by the lough. my father and us were living nigh hand to where the new house was to be built, to overlook the men at their work. my father was a weaver, and brought his looms and all there into a cottage that was close by. the foundations were marked out, and the building stones lying about, but the masons had not come yet; and one day i was standing with my mother foment the house, when we sees a smart wee woman coming up the field over the burn to us. i was a bit of a girl at the time, playing about and sporting myself, but i mind her as well as if i saw her there now!" my friend asked how the woman was dressed, and the old woman said, "it was a gray cloak she had on, with a green cashmere skirt and a black silk handkercher tied round her head, like the country women did use to wear in them times." my friend asked, "how wee was she?" and the old woman said, "well now, she wasn't wee at all when i think of it, for all we called her the wee woman. she was bigger than many a one, and yet not tall as you would say. she was like a woman about thirty, brown-haired and round in the face. she was like miss betty, your grandmother's sister, and betty was like none of the rest, not like your grandmother, nor any of them. she was round and fresh in the face, and she never was married, and she never would take any man; and we used to say that the wee woman--her being like betty--was, maybe, one of their own people that had been took off before she grew to her full height, and for that she was always following us and warning and foretelling. this time she walks straight over to where my mother was standing. 'go over to the lough this minute!'--ordering her like that--'go over to the lough, and tell joseph that he must change the foundation of this house to where i'll show you fornent the thornbush. that is where it is to be built, if he is to have luck and prosperity, so do what i'm telling ye this minute.' the house was being built on 'the path' i suppose--the path used by the people of faery in their journeys, and my mother brings joseph down and shows him, and he changes the foundations, the way he was bid, but didn't bring it exactly to where was pointed, and the end of that was, when he come to the house, his own wife lost her life with an accident that come to a horse that hadn't room to turn right with a harrow between the bush and the wall. the wee woman was queer and angry when next she come, and says to us, 'he didn't do as i bid him, but he'll see what he'll see."' my friend asked where the woman came from this time, and if she was dressed as before, and the woman said, "always the same way, up the field beyant the burn. it was a thin sort of shawl she had about her in summer, and a cloak about her in winter; and many and many a time she came, and always it was good advice she was giving to my mother, and warning her what not to do if she would have good luck. there was none of the other children of us ever seen her unless me; but i used to be glad when i seen her coming up the bum, and would run out and catch her by the hand and the cloak, and call to my mother, 'here's the wee woman!' no man body ever seen her. my father used to be wanting to, and was angry with my mother and me, thinking we were telling lies and talking foolish like. and so one day when she had come, and was sitting by the fireside talking to my mother, i slips out to the field where he was digging. 'come up,' says i, 'if ye want to see her. she's sitting at the fireside now, talking to mother.' so in he comes with me and looks round angry like and sees nothing, and he up with a broom that was near hand and hits me a crig with it. 'take that now!' says he, 'for making a fool of me!' and away with him as fast as he could, and queer and angry with me. the wee woman says to me then, 'ye got that now for bringing people to see me. no man body ever seen me, and none ever will.' "there was one day, though, she gave him a queer fright anyway, whether he had seen her or not. he was in among the cattle when it happened, and he comes up to the house all trembling like. 'don't let me hear you say another word of your wee woman. i have got enough of her this time.' another time, all the same, he was up gortin to sell horses, and before he went off, in steps the wee woman and says she to my mother, holding out a sort of a weed, 'your man is gone up by gortin, and there's a bad fright waiting him coming home, but take this and sew it in his coat, and he'll get no harm by it.' my mother takes the herb, but thinks to herself, 'sure there's nothing in it,' and throws it on the floor, and lo and behold, and sure enough! coming home from gortin, my father got as bad a fright as ever he got in his life. what it was i don't right mind, but anyway he was badly damaged by it. my mother was in a queer way, frightened of the wee woman, after what she done, and sure enough the next time she was angry. 'ye didn't believe me,' she said, 'and ye threw the herb i gave ye in the fire, and i went far enough for it.' there was another time she came and told how william hearne was dead in america. 'go over,' she says, 'to the lough, and say that william is dead, and he died happy, and this was the last bible chapter ever he read,' and with that she gave the verse and chapter. 'go,' she says, 'and tell them to read them at the next class meeting, and that i held his head while he died.' and sure enough word came after that how william had died on the day she named. and, doing as she did about the chapter and hymn, they never had such a prayer-meeting as that. one day she and me and my mother was standing talking, and she was warning her about something, when she says of a sudden, 'here comes miss letty in all her finery, and it's time for me to be off.' and with that she gave a swirl round on her feet, and raises up in the air, and round and round she goes, and up and up, as if it was a winding stairs she went up, only far swifter. she went up and up, till she was no bigger than a bird up against the clouds, singing and singing the whole time the loveliest music i ever heard in my life from that day to this. it wasn't a hymn she was singing, but poetry, lovely poetry, and me and my mother stands gaping up, and all of a tremble. 'what is she at all, mother?' says i. 'is it an angel she is, or a faery woman, or what?' with that up come miss letty, that was your grandmother, dear, but miss letty she was then, and no word of her being anything else, and she wondered to see us gaping up that way, till me and my mother told her of it. she went on gay-dressed then, and was lovely looking. she was up the lane where none of us could see her coming forward when the wee woman rose up in that queer way, saying, 'here comes miss letty in all her finery.' who knows to what far country she went, or to see whom dying? "it was never after dark she came, but daylight always, as far as i mind, but wanst, and that was on a hallow eve night. my mother was by the fire, making ready the supper; she had a duck down and some apples. in slips the wee woman, 'i'm come to pass my hallow eve with you,' says she. 'that's right,' says my mother, and thinks to herself, 'i can give her her supper nicely.' down she sits by the fire a while. 'now i'll tell you where you'll bring my supper,' says she. 'in the room beyond there beside the loom--set a chair in and a plate.' 'when ye're spending the night, mayn't ye as well sit by the table and eat with the rest of us?' 'do what you're bid, and set whatever you give me in the room beyant. i'll eat there and nowhere else.' so my mother sets her a plate of duck and some apples, whatever was going, in where she bid, and we got to our supper and she to hers; and when we rose i went in, and there, lo and behold ye, was her supper-plate a bit ate of each portion, and she clean gone!" 1897. dreams that have no moral the friend who heard about maive and the hazel-stick went to the workhouse another day. she found the old people cold and wretched, "like flies in winter," she said; but they forgot the cold when they began to talk. a man had just left them who had played cards in a rath with the people of faery, who had played "very fair"; and one old man had seen an enchanted black pig one night, and there were two old people my friend had heard quarrelling as to whether raftery or callanan was the better poet. one had said of raftery, "he was a big man, and his songs have gone through the whole world. i remember him well. he had a voice like the wind"; but the other was certain "that you would stand in the snow to listen to callanan." presently an old man began to tell my friend a story, and all listened delightedly, bursting into laughter now and then. the story, which i am going to tell just as it was told, was one of those old rambling moralless tales, which are the delight of the poor and the hard driven, wherever life is left in its natural simplicity. they tell of a time when nothing had consequences, when even if you were killed, if only you had a good heart, somebody would bring you to life again with a touch of a rod, and when if you were a prince and happened to look exactly like your brother, you might go to bed with his queen, and have only a little quarrel afterwards. we too, if we were so weak and poor that everything threatened us with misfortune, would remember, if foolish people left us alone, every old dream that has been strong enough to fling the weight of the world from its shoulders. there was a king one time who was very much put out because he had no son, and he went at last to consult his chief adviser. and the chief adviser said, "it's easy enough managed if you do as i tell you. let you send some one," says he, "to such a place to catch a fish. and when the fish is brought in, give it to the queen, your wife, to eat." so the king sent as he was told, and the fish was caught and brought in, and he gave it to the cook, and bade her put it before the fire, but to be careful with it, and not to let any blob or blister rise on it. but it is impossible to cook a fish before the fire without the skin of it rising in some place or other, and so there came a blob on the skin, and the cook put her finger on it to smooth it down, and then she put her finger into her mouth to cool it, and so she got a taste of the fish. and then it was sent up to the queen, and she ate it, and what was left of it was thrown out into the yard, and there was a mare in the yard and a greyhound, and they ate the bits that were thrown out. and before a year was out, the queen had a young son, and the cook had a young son, and the mare had two foals, and the greyhound had two pups. and the two young sons were sent out for a while to some place to be cared, and when they came back they adviser and said, "tell me some way that i can know were so much like one another no person could know which was the queen's son and which was the cook's. and the queen was vexed at that, and she went to the chief which is my own son, for i don't like to be giving the same eating and drinking to the cook's son as to my own." "it is easy to know that," said the chief adviser, "if you will do as i tell you. go you outside, and stand at the door they will be coming in by, and when they see you, your own son will bow his head, but the cook's son will only laugh." so she did that, and when her own son bowed his head, her servants put a mark on him that she would know him again. and when they were all sitting at their dinner after that, she said to jack, that was the cook's son, "it is time for you to go away out of this, for you are not my son." and her own son, that we will call bill, said, "do not send him away, are we not brothers?" but jack said, "i would have been long ago out of this house if i knew it was not my own father and mother owned it." and for all bill could say to him, he would not stop. but before he went, they were by the well that was in the garden, and he said to bill, "if harm ever happens to me, that water on the top of the well will be blood, and the water below will be honey." then he took one of the pups, and one of the two horses, that was foaled after the mare eating the fish, and the wind that was after him could not catch him, and he caught the wind that was before him. and he went on till he came to a weaver's house, and he asked him for a lodging, and he gave it to him. and then he went on till he came to a king's house, and he sent in at the door to ask, "did he want a servant?" "all i want," said the king, "is a boy that will drive out the cows to the field every morning, and bring them in at night to be milked." "i will do that for you," said jack; so the king engaged him. in the morning jack was sent out with the four-and-twenty cows, and the place he was told to drive them to had not a blade of grass in it for them, but was full of stones. so jack looked about for some place where there would be better grass, and after a while he saw a field with good green grass in it, and it belonging to a giant. so he knocked down a bit of the wall and drove them in, and he went up himself into an apple-tree and began to eat the apples. then the giant came into the field. "fee-faw-fum," says he, "i smell the blood of an irishman. i see you where you are, up in the tree," he said; "you are too big for one mouthful, and too small for two mouthfuls, and i don't know what i'll do with you if i don't grind you up and make snuff for my nose." "as you are strong, be merciful," says jack up in the tree. "come down out of that, you little dwarf," said the giant, "or i'll tear you and the tree asunder." so jack came down. "would you sooner be driving red-hot knives into one another's hearts," said the giant, "or would you sooner be fighting one another on red-hot flags?" "fighting on red-hot flags is what i'm used to at home," said jack, "and your dirty feet will be sinking in them and my feet will be rising." so then they began the fight. the ground that was hard they made soft, and the ground that was soft they made hard, and they made spring wells come up through the green flags. they were like that all through the day, no one getting the upper hand of the other, and at last a little bird came and sat on the bush and said to jack, "if you don't make an end of him by sunset, he'll make an end of you." then jack put out his strength, and he brought the giant down on his knees. "give me my life," says the giant, "and i'll give you the three best gifts." "what are those?" said jack. "a sword that nothing can stand against, and a suit that when you put it on, you will see everybody, and nobody will see you, and a pair of shoes that will make you ran faster than the wind blows." "where are they to be found?" said jack. "in that red door you see there in the hill." so jack went and got them out. "where will i try the sword?" says he. "try it on that ugly black stump of a tree," says the giant. "i see nothing blacker or uglier than your own head," says jack. and with that he made one stroke, and cut off the giant's head that it went into the air, and he caught it on the sword as it was coming down, and made two halves of it. "it is well for you i did not join the body again," said the head, "or you would have never been able to strike it off again." "i did not give you the chance of that," said jack. and he brought away the great suit with him. so he brought the cows home at evening, and every one wondered at all the milk they gave that night. and when the king was sitting at dinner with the princess, his daughter, and the rest, he said, "i think i only hear two roars from beyond to-night in place of three." the next morning jack went out again with the cows, and he saw another field full of grass, and he knocked down the wall and let the cows in. all happened the same as the day before, but the giant that came this time had two heads, and they fought together, and the little bird came and spoke to jack as before. and when jack had brought the giant down, he said, "give me my life, and i'll give you the best thing i have." "what is that?" says jack. "it's a suit that you can put on, and you will see every one but no one can see you." "where is it?" said jack. "it's inside that little red door at the side of the hill." so jack went and brought out the suit. and then he cut off the giant's two heads, and caught them coming down and made four halves of them. and they said it was well for him he had not given them time to join the body. that night when the cows came home they gave so much milk that all the vessels that could be found were filled up. the next morning jack went out again, and all happened as before, and the giant this time had four heads, and jack made eight halves of them. and the giant had told him to go to a little blue door in the side of the hill, and there he got a pair of shoes that when you put them on would go faster than the wind. that night the cows gave so much milk that there were not vessels enough to hold it, and it was given to tenants and to poor people passing the road, and the rest was thrown out at the windows. i was passing that way myself, and i got a drink of it. that night the king said to jack, "why is it the cows are giving so much milk these days? are you bringing them to any other grass?" "i am not," said jack, "but i have a good stick, and whenever they would stop still or lie down, i give them blows of it, that they jump and leap over walls and stones and ditches; that's the way to make cows give plenty of milk." and that night at the dinner, the king said, "i hear no roars at all." the next morning, the king and the princess were watching at the window to see what would jack do when he got to the field. and jack knew they were there, and he got a stick, and began to batter the cows, that they went leaping and jumping over stones, and walls, and ditches. "there is no lie in what jack said," said the king then. now there was a great serpent at that time used to come every seven years, and he had to get a kines daughter to eat, unless she would have some good man to fight for her. and it was the princess at the place jack was had to be given to it that time, and the king had been feeding a bully underground for seven years, and you may believe he got the best of everything, to be ready to fight it. and when the time came, the princess went out, and the bully with her down to the shore, and when they got there what did he do, but to tie the princess to a tree, the way the serpent would be able to swallow her easy with no delay, and he himself went and hid up in an ivy-tree. and jack knew what was going on, for the princess had told him about it, and had asked would he help her, but he said he would not. but he came out now, and he put on the suit he had taken from the first giant, and he came by the place the princess was, but she didn't know him. "is that right for a princess to be tied to a tree?" said jack. "it is not, indeed," said she, and she told him what had happened, and how the serpent was coming to take her. "if you will let me sleep for awhile with my head in your lap," said jack, "you could wake me when it is coming." so he did that, and she awakened him when she saw the serpent coming, and jack got up and fought with it, and drove it back into the sea. and then he cut the rope that fastened her, and he went away. the bully came down then out of the tree, and he brought the princess to where the king was, and he said, "i got a friend of mine to come and fight the serpent to-day, where i was a little timorous after being so long shut up underground, but i'll do the fighting myself to-morrow." the next day they went out again, and the same thing happened, the bully tied up the princess where the serpent could come at her fair and easy, and went up himself to hide in the ivy-tree. then jack put on the suit he had taken from the second giant, and he walked out, and the princess did not know him, but she told him all that had happened yesterday, and how some young gentleman she did not know had come and saved her. so jack asked might he lie down and take a sleep with his head in her lap, the way she could awake him. and an happened the same way as the day before. and the bully gave her up to the king, and said he had brought another of his friends to fight for her that day. the next day she was brought down to the shore as before, and a great many people gathered to see the serpent that was coming to bring the king's daughter away. and jack brought out the suit of clothes he had brought away from the third giant, and she did not know him, and they talked as before. but when he was asleep this time, she thought she would make sure of being able to find him again, and she took out her scissors and cut off a piece of his hair, and made a little packet of it and put it away. and she did another thing, she took off one of the shoes that was on his feet. and when she saw the serpent coming she woke him, and he said, "this time i will put the serpent in a way that he will eat no more king's daughters." so he took out the sword he had got from the giant, and he put it in at the back of the serpent's neck, the way blood and water came spouting out that went for fifty miles inland, and made an end of him. and then he made off, and no one saw what way he went, and the bully brought the princess to the king, and claimed to have saved her, and it is he who was made much of, and was the right-hand man after that. but when the feast was made ready for the wedding, the princess took out the bit of hair she had, and she said she would marry no one but the man whose hair would match that, and she showed the shoe and said that she would marry no one whose foot would not fit that shoe as well. and the bully tried to put on the shoe, but so much as his toe would not go into it, and as to his hair, it didn't match at all to the bit of hair she had cut from the man that saved her. so then the king gave a great ball, to bring all the chief men of the country together to try would the shoe fit any of them. and they were all going to carpenters and joiners getting bits of their feet cut off to try could they wear the shoe, but it was no use, not one of them could get it on. then the king went to his chief adviser and asked what could he do. and the chief adviser bade him to give another ball, and this time he said, "give it to poor as well as rich." so the ball was given, and many came flocking to it, but the shoe would not fit any one of them. and the chief adviser said, "is every one here that belongs to the house?" "they are all here," said the king, "except the boy that minds the cows, and i would not like him to be coming up here." jack was below in the yard at the time, and he heard what the king said, and he was very angry, and he went and got his sword and came running up the stairs to strike off the king's head, but the man that kept the gate met him on the stairs before he could get to the king, and quieted him down, and when he got to the top of the stairs and the princess saw him, she gave a cry and ran into his arms. and they tried the shoe and it fitted him, and his hair matched to the piece that had been cut off. so then they were married, and a great feast was given for three days and three nights. and at the end of that time, one morning there came a deer outside the window, with bells on it, and they ringing. and it called out, "here is the hunt, where is the huntsman and the hound?" so when jack heard that he got up and took his horse and his hound and went hunting the deer. when it was in the hollow he was on the hill, and when it was on the hill he was in the hollow, and that went on all through the day, and when night fell it went into a wood. and jack went into the wood after it, and all he could see was a mud-wall cabin, and he went in, and there he saw an old woman, about two hundred years old, and she sitting over the fire. "did you see a deer pass this way?" says jack. "i did not," says she, "but it's too late now for you to be following a deer, let you stop the night here." "what will i do with my horse and my hound?" said jack. "here are two ribs of hair," says she, "and let you tie them up with them." so jack went out and tied up the horse and the hound, and when he came in again the old woman said, "you killed my three sons, and i'm going to kill you now," and she put on a pair of boxing-gloves, each one of them nine stone weight, and the nails in them fifteen inches long. then they began to fight, and jack was getting the worst of it. "help, hound!" he cried out, then "squeeze hair," cried out the old woman, and the rib of hair that was about the hound's neck squeezed him to death. "help, horse!" jack called out, then, "squeeze hair," called out the old woman, and the rib of hair that was about the horse's neck began to tighten and squeeze him to death. then the old woman made an end of jack and threw him outside the door. to go back now to bill. he was out in the garden one day, and he took a look at the well, and what did he see but the water at the top was blood, and what was underneath was honey. so he went into the house again, and he said to his mother, "i will never eat a second meal at the same table, or sleep a second night in the same bed, till i know what is happening to jack." so he took the other horse and hound then, and set off, over the hills where cock never crows and horn never sounds, and the devil never blows his bugle. and at last he came to the weaver's house, and when he went in, the weaver says, "you are welcome, and i can give you better treatment than i did the last time you came in to me," for she thought it was jack who was there, they were so much like one another. "that is good," said bill to himself, "my brother has been here." and he gave the weaver the full of a basin of gold in the morning before he left. then he went on till he came to the king's house, and when he was at the door the princess came running down the stairs, and said, "welcome to you back again." and all the people said, "it is a wonder you have gone hunting three days after your marriage, and to stop so long away." so he stopped that night with the princess, and she thought it was her own husband all the time. and in the morning the deer came, and bells ringing on her, under the windows, and called out, "the hunt is here, where are the huntsmen and the hounds?" then bill got up and got his horse and his hound, and followed her over hills and hollows till they came to the wood, and there he saw nothing but the mud-wall cabin and the old woman sitting by the fire, and she bade him stop the night there, and gave him two ribs of hair to tie his horse and his hound with. but bill was wittier than jack was, and before he went out, he threw the ribs of hair into the fire secretly. when he came in the old woman said, "your brother killed my three sons, and i killed him, and i'll kill you along with him." and she put her gloves on, and they began the fight, and then bill called out, "help, horse." "squeeze hair," called the old woman; "i can't squeeze, i'm in the fire," said the hair. and the horse came in and gave her a blow of his hoof. "help, hound," said bill then. "squeeze, hair," said the old woman; "i can't, i'm in the fire," said the second hair. then the bound put his teeth in her, and bill brought her down, and she cried for mercy. "give me my life," she said, "and i'll tell you where you'll get your brother again, and his hound and horse." "where's that?" said bill. "do you see that rod over the fire?" said she; "take it down and go outside the door where you'll see three green stones, and strike them with the rod, for they are your brother, and his horse and hound, and they'll come to life again." "i will, but i'll make a green stone of you first," said bill, and he cut off her head with his sword. then he went out and struck the stones, and sure enough there were jack, and his horse and hound, alive and well. and they began striking other stones around, and men came from them, that had been turned to stones, hundreds and thousands of them. then they set out for home, but on the way they had some dispute or some argument together, for jack was not well pleased to hear he had spent the night with his wife, and bill got angry, and he struck jack with the rod, and turned him to a green stone. and he went home, but the princess saw he had something on his mind, and he said then, "i have killed my brother." and he went back then and brought him to life, and they lived happy ever after, and they had children by the basketful, and threw them out by the shovelful. i was passing one time myself, and they called me in and gave me a cup of tea. 1902. by the roadside last night i went to a wide place on the kiltartan road to listen to some irish songs. while i waited for the singers an old man sang about that country beauty who died so many years ago, and spoke of a singer he had known who sang so beautifully that no horse would pass him, but must turn its head and cock its ears to listen. presently a score of men and boys and girls, with shawls over their beads, gathered under the trees to listen. somebody sang sa muirnin diles, and then somebody else jimmy mo milestor, mournful songs of separation, of death, and of exile. then some of the men stood up and began to dance, while another lilted the measure they danced to, and then somebody sang eiblin a ruin, that glad song of meeting which has always moved me more than other songs, because the lover who made it sang it to his sweetheart under the shadow of a mountain i looked at every day through my childhood. the voices melted into the twilight and were mixed into the trees, and when i thought of the words they too melted away, and were mixed with the generations of men. now it was a phrase, now it was an attitude of mind, an emotional form, that had carried my memory to older verses, or even to forgotten mythologies. i was carried so far that it was as though i came to one of the four rivers, and followed it under the wall of paradise to the roots of the trees of knowledge and of life. there is no song or story handed down among the cottages that has not words and thoughts to carry one as far, for though one can know but a little of their ascent, one knows that they ascend like medieval genealogies through unbroken dignities to the beginning of the world. folk art is, indeed, the oldest of the aristocracies of thought, and because it refuses what is passing and trivial, the merely clever and pretty, as certainly as the vulgar and insincere, and because it has gathered into itself the simplest and most unforgetable thoughts of the generations, it is the soil where all great art is rooted. wherever it is spoken by the fireside, or sung by the roadside, or carved upon the lintel, appreciation of the arts that a single mind gives unity and design to, spreads quickly when its hour is come. in a society that has cast out imaginative tradition, only a few people--three or four thousand out of millions--favoured by their own characters and by happy circumstance, and only then after much labour, have understanding of imaginative things, and yet "the imagination is the man himself." the churches in the middle age won all the arts into their service because men understood that when imagination is impoverished, a principal voice--some would say the only voice--for the awakening of wise hope and durable faith, and understanding charity, can speak but in broken words, if it does not fall silent. and so it has always seemed to me that we, who would re-awaken imaginative tradition by making old songs live again, or by gathering old stories into books, take part in the quarrel of galilee. those who are irish and would spread foreign ways, which, for all but a few, are ways of spiritual poverty, take part also. their part is with those who were of jewry, and yet cried out, "if thou let this man go thou art not caesar's friend." 1901. into the twilight out-worn heart, in a time out-worn, come clear of the nets of wrong and right; laugh, heart, again in the gray twilight; sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn. thy mother eire is always young, dew ever shining and twilight gray, though hope fall from thee or love decay burning in fires of a slanderous tongue. come, heart, where hill is heaped upon hill, for there the mystical brotherhood of hollow wood and the hilly wood and the changing moon work out their will. and god stands winding his lonely horn; and time and world are ever in flight, and love is less kind than the gray twilight, and hope is less dear than the dew of the morn. poems every irishman's library _cr. 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d. net each. with frontispieces._ list of volumes 1. thomas davis. selections from his prose and poetry. edited by t.w. rolleston, m.a. (dublin). 2. wild sports of the west. by w.h. maxwell. edited by the earl of dunraven. 3. legends of saints and sinners from the irish. edited by douglas hyde, ll.d. (dublin). 4. the book of irish humour. edited by charles l. graves, m.a. (oxon.). 5. irish orators and oratory. with an introduction by professor t.m. kettle, m.p. 6. the book of irish poetry. edited by alfred perceval graves, m.a. (dublin). 7. standish o'grady. selected essays and passages. edited by ernest a. boyd. 8. recollections of jonah barrington. edited by george a. birmingham. 9. poems of sir samuel ferguson. edited by alfred perceval graves, m.a. 10. carleton's stories of irish life. with an introduction by darrell figgis. 11. the collegians. by gerald griffin. with introduction by padraic colum. 12. maria edgeworth: selections from her works. with an introduction by malcolm cotter seton, m.a. t. fisher unwin ltd., london [illustration: signature: wb yeats] poems by w.b. yeats london t. fisher unwin ltd. adelphi terrace "the wanderings of oisin" was published with the lyrics now collected under the title "crossways" in 1888, "the countess cathleen" with the lyrics now collected under the title "the rose" in 1892, and "the land of heart's desire" by itself in 1894. they were revised and reprinted in one volume in 1895, again revised and reprinted in 1899, and again reprinted in 1901, 1904, 1908, 1912, 1913, 1919, and 1920. (_all rights reserved_) preface during the last year i have spent much time altering "the countess cathleen" and "the land of heart's desire" that they might be a part of the repertory of the abbey theatre. i had written them before i had any practical experience, and i knew from the performance of the one in dublin in 1899 and of the other in london in 1894 that they were full of defects. but in their new shape--and each play has been twice played during the winter--they have given me some pleasure, and are, i think, easier to play effectively than my later plays, depending less upon the players and more upon the producer, both having been imagined more for variety of stage-picture than variety of mood in the player. it was, indeed, the first performance of "the countess cathleen," when our stage-pictures were made out of poor conventional scenery and hired costumes, that set me writing plays where all would depend upon the player. the first two scenes are wholly new, and though i have left the old end in the body of this book i have given in the notes an end less difficult to producer and audience, and there are slight alterations elsewhere in the poem. "the land of heart's desire," besides some mending in the details, has been thrown back in time because the metrical speech would have sounded unreal if spoken in a country cottage now that we have so many dialect comedies. the shades of mrs. fallan and mrs. dillane and of dan bourke and the tramp would have seemed too boisterous or too vivid for shades made cold and distant with the artifice of verse. i have not again retouched the lyric poems of my youth, fearing some stupidity in my middle years, but have changed two or three pages that i always knew to be wrong in "the wanderings of usheen." w.b. yeats. _june, 1912._ preface to the third edition i have added some passages to "the land of heart's desire," and a new scene of some little length, besides passages here and there, to "the countess cathleen." the goddess has never come to me with her hands so full that i have not found many waste places after i had planted all that she had brought me. the present version of "the countess cathleen" is not quite the version adopted by the irish literary theatre a couple of years ago, for our stage and scenery were capable of little; and it may differ more from any stage version i make in future, for it seems that my people of the waters and my unhappy dead, in the third act, cannot keep their supernatural essence, but must put on too much of our mortality, in any ordinary theatre. i am told that i must abandon a meaning or two and make my merchants carry away the treasure themselves. the act was written long ago, when i had seen so few plays that i took pleasure in stage effects. indeed, i am not yet certain that a wealthy theatre could not shape it to an impressive pageantry, or that a theatre without any wealth could not lift it out of pageantry into the mind, with a dim curtain, and some dimly lighted players, and the beautiful voices that should be as important in poetical as in musical drama. the elizabethan stage was so little imprisoned in material circumstance that the elizabethan imagination was not strained by god or spirit, nor even by echo herself--no, not even when she answered, as in "the duchess of malfi," in clear, loud words which were not the words that had been spoken to her. we have made a prison-house of paint and canvas, where we have as little freedom as under our own roofs, for there is no freedom in a house that has been made with hands. all art moves in the cave of the chimæra, or in the garden of the hesperides, or in the more silent house of the gods, and neither cave, nor garden, nor house can show itself clearly but to the mind's eye. besides rewriting a lyric or two, i have much enlarged the note on "the countess cathleen," as there has been some discussion in ireland about the origin of the story, but the other notes are as they have always been. they are short enough, but i do not think that anybody who knows modern poetry will find obscurities in this book. in any case, i must leave my myths and symbols to explain themselves as the years go by and one poems lights up another, and the stories that friends, and one friend in particular, have gathered for me, or that i have gathered myself in many cottages, find their way into the light. i would, if i could, add to that majestic heraldry of the poets, that great and complicated inheritance of images which written literature has substituted for the greater and more complex inheritance of spoken tradition, some new heraldic images, gathered from the lips of the common people. christianity and the old nature faith have lain down side by side in the cottages, and i would proclaim that peace as loudly as i can among the kingdoms of poetry, where there is no peace that is not joyous, no battle that does not give life instead of death; i may even try to persuade others, in more sober prose, that there can be no language more worthy of poetry and of the meditation of the soul than that which has been made, or can be made, out of a subtlety of desire, an emotion of sacrifice, a delight in order, that are perhaps christian, and myths and images that mirror the energies of woods and streams, and of their wild creatures. has any part of that majestic heraldry of the poets had a very different fountain? is it not the ritual of the marriage of heaven and earth? these details may seem to many unnecessary; but after all one writes poetry for a few careful readers and for a few friends, who will not consider such details unnecessary. when cimabue had the cry it was, it seems, worth thinking of those that run; but to-day, when they can write as well as read, one can sit with one's companions under the hedgerow contentedly. if one writes well and has the patience, somebody will come from among the runners and read what one has written quickly, and go away quickly, and write out as much as he can remember in the language of the highway. w.b. yeats. _january, 1901._ contents page the countess cathleen 1 the rose- to the rose upon the rood of time 109 fergus and the druid 111 the death of cuchulain 114 the rose of the world 119 the rose of peace 120 the rose of battle 121 a faery song 123 the lake isle of innisfree 124 a cradle song 125 the pity of love 126 the sorrow of love 127 when you are old 128 the white birds 129 a dream of death 131 a dream of a blessed spirit 132 who goes with fergus 133 the man who dreamed of faeryland 134 the dedication to a book of stories selected from the irish novelists 137 the lamentation of the old pensioner 139 the ballad of father gilligan 140 the two trees 143 to ireland in the coming times 145 the land of heart's desire 149 crossways- the song of the happy shepherd 197 the sad shepherd 200 the cloak, the boat, and the shoes 202 anashuya and vijaya 203 the indian upon god 209 the indian to his love 211 the falling of the leaves 213 ephemera 214 the madness of king goll 216 the stolen child 220 to an isle in the water 223 down by the salley gardens 224 the meditation of the old fisherman 225 the ballad of father o'hart 226 the ballad of moll magee 229 the ballad of the foxhunter 232 the wanderings of usheen 235 glossary and notes 299 _to some i have talked with by the fire_ _while i wrought out these fitful danaan rhymes, my heart would brim with dreams about the times when we bent down above the fading coals; and talked of the dark folk, who live in souls of passionate men, like bats in the dead trees; and of the wayward twilight companies, who sigh with mingled sorrow and content, because their blossoming dreams have never bent under the fruit of evil and of good: and of the embattled flaming multitude who rise, wing above wing, flame above flame, and, like a storm, cry the ineffable name, and with the clashing of their sword blades make a rapturous music, till the morning break, and the white hush end all, but the loud beat of their long wings, the flash of their white feet._ the countess cathleen "the sorrowful are dumb for thee" _lament of morion shehone for miss mary bourke_ to maud gonne shemus rua a peasant mary his wife teig his son aleel a poet the countess cathleen oona her foster mother two demons disguised as merchants peasants, servants, angelical beings _the scene is laid in ireland and in old times_ scene i scene.--_a room with lighted fire, and a door into the open air, through which one sees, perhaps, the trees of a wood, and these trees should be painted in flat colour upon a gold or diapered sky. the walls are of one colour. the scent should have the effect of missal painting._ mary, a_ woman of forty years or so, is grinding a quern_. mary what can have made the grey hen flutter so? (teig, _a boy of fourteen, is coming in with turf, which he lays beside the hearth_.) teig they say that now the land is famine struck the graves are walking. mary there is something that the hen hears. teig and that is not the worst; at tubber-vanach a woman met a man with ears spread out, and they moved up and down like a bat's wing. mary what can have kept your father all this while? teig two nights ago, at carrick-orus churchyard, a herdsman met a man who had no mouth, nor eyes, nor ears; his face a wall of flesh; he saw him plainly by the light of the moon. mary look out, and tell me if your father's coming. (teig _goes to door_.) teig mother! mary what is it? teig in the bush beyond, there are two birds--if you can call them birds- i could not see them rightly for the leaves. but they've the shape and colour of horned owls and i'm half certain they've a human face. mary mother of god, defend us! teig they're looking at me. what is the good of praying? father says. god and the mother of god have dropped asleep. what do they care, he says, though the whole land squeal like a rabbit under a weasel's tooth? mary you'll bring misfortune with your blasphemies upon your father, or yourself, or me. i would to god he were home--ah, there he is. (shemus _comes in_.) what was it kept you in the wood? you know i cannot get all sorts of accidents out of my mind till you are home again. shemus i'm in no mood to listen to your clatter. although i tramped the woods for half a day, i've taken nothing, for the very rats, badgers, and hedgehogs seem to have died of drought, and there was scarce a wind in the parched leaves. teig then you have brought no dinner. shemus after that i sat among the beggars at the cross-roads, and held a hollow hand among the others. mary what, did you beg? shemus i had no chance to beg, for when the beggars saw me they cried out they would not have another share their alms, and hunted me away with sticks and stones. teig you said that you would bring us food or money. shemus what's in the house? teig a bit of mouldy bread. mary there's flour enough to make another loaf. teig and when that's gone? mary there is the hen in the coop. shemus my curse upon the beggars, my curse upon them! teig and the last penny gone. shemus when the hen's gone, what can we do but live on sorrel and dock, and dandelion, till our mouths are green? mary god, that to this hour's found bit and sup, will cater for us still. shemus his kitchen's bare. there were five doors that i looked through this day and saw the dead and not a soul to wake them. mary maybe he'd have us die because he knows, when the ear is stopped and when the eye is stopped, that every wicked sight is hid from the eye, and all fool talk from the ear. shemus who's passing there? and mocking us with music? (_a stringed instrument without._) teig a young man plays it, there's an old woman and a lady with him. shemus what is the trouble of the poor to her? nothing at all or a harsh radishy sauce for the day's meat. mary god's pity on the rich. had we been through as many doors, and seen the dishes standing on the polished wood in the wax candle light, we'd be as hard, and there's the needle's eye at the end of all. shemus my curse upon the rich. teig they're coming here. shemus then down upon that stool, down quick, i say, and call up a whey face and a whining voice, and let your head be bowed upon your knees. mary had i but time to put the place to rights. (cathleen, oona, _and_ aleel _enter_.) cathleen god save all here. there is a certain house, an old grey castle with a kitchen garden, a cider orchard and a plot for flowers, somewhere among these woods. mary we know it, lady. a place that's set among impassable walls as though world's trouble could not find it out. cathleen it may be that we are that trouble, for we- although we've wandered in the wood this hour- have lost it too, yet i should know my way, for i lived all my childhood in that house. mary then you are countess cathleen? cathleen and this woman, oona, my nurse, should have remembered it, for we were happy for a long time there. oona the paths are overgrown with thickets now, or else some change has come upon my sight. cathleen and this young man, that should have known the woods- because we met him on their border but now, wandering and singing like a wave of the sea- is so wrapped up in dreams of terrors to come that he can give no help. mary you have still some way, but i can put you on the trodden path your servants take when they are marketing. but first sit down and rest yourself awhile, for my old fathers served your fathers, lady, longer than books can tell--and it were strange if you and yours should not be welcome here. cathleen and it were stranger still were i ungrateful for such kind welcome--but i must be gone, for the night's gathering in. shemus it is a long while since i've set eyes on bread or on what buys it. cathleen so you are starving even in this wood, where i had thought i would find nothing changed. but that's a dream, for the old worm o' the world can eat its way into what place it pleases. (_she gives money._) teig beautiful lady, give me something too; i fell but now, being weak with hunger and thirst and lay upon the threshold like a log. cathleen i gave for all and that was all i had. look, my purse is empty. i have passed by starving men and women all this day, and they have had the rest; but take the purse, the silver clasps on't may be worth a trifle. but if you'll come to-morrow to my house you shall have twice the sum. (aleel _begins to play_.) shemus (_muttering_) what, music, music! cathleen ah, do not blame the finger on the string; the doctors bid me fly the unlucky times and find distraction for my thoughts, or else pine to my grave. shemus i have said nothing, lady. why should the like of us complain? oona have done. sorrows that she's but read of in a book weigh on her mind as if they had been her own. (oona, mary, and cathleen _go out_. aleel _looks defiantly at_ shemus.) aleel (_singing_) were i but crazy for love's sake i know who'd measure out his length, i know the heads that i should break, for crazy men have double strength. there! all's out now to leave or take, and who mocks music mocks at love; and when i'm crazy for love's sake i'll not go far to choose. (_snapping his fingers in_ shemus' _face_.) enough! i know the heads that i shall break. (_he takes a step towards the door and then turns again._) shut to the door before the night has fallen, for who can say what walks, or in what shape some devilish creature flies in the air, but now two grey-horned owls hooted above our heads. (_he goes out, his singing dies away._ mary _comes in_. shemus _has been counting the money._) shemus so that fool's gone. teig he's seen the horned owls too. there's no good luck in owls, but it may be that the ill luck's to fall upon his head. mary you never thanked her ladyship. shemus thank her, for seven halfpence and a silver bit? teig but for this empty purse? shemus what's that for thanks, or what's the double of it that she promised? with bread and flesh and every sort of food up to a price no man has heard the like of and rising every day. mary we have all she had; she emptied out the purse before our eyes. shemus (_to_ mary, _who has gone to close the door_) leave that door open. mary when those that have read books, and seen the seven wonders of the world, fear what's above or what's below the ground, it's time that poverty should bolt the door. shemus i'll have no bolts, for there is not a thing that walks above the ground or under it i had not rather welcome to this house than any more of mankind, rich or poor. teig so that they brought us money. shemus i heard say there's something that appears like a white bird, a pigeon or a seagull or the like, but if you hit it with a stone or a stick it clangs as though it had been made of brass, and that if you dig down where it was scratching you'll find a crock of gold. teig but dream of gold for three nights running, and there's always gold. shemus you might be starved before you've dug it out. teig but maybe if you called, something would come, they have been seen of late. mary is it call devils? call devils from the wood, call them in here? shemus so you'd stand up against me, and you'd say who or what i am to welcome here. (_he hits her._) that is to show who's master. teig call them in. mary god help us all! shemus pray, if you have a mind to. it's little that the sleepy ears above care for your words; but i'll call what i please. teig there is many a one, they say, had money from them. shemus (_at door_) whatever you are that walk the woods at night, so be it that you have not shouldered up out of a grave--for i'll have nothing human- and have free hands, a friendly trick of speech, i welcome you. come, sit beside the fire. what matter if your head's below your arms or you've a horse's tail to whip your flank, feathers instead of hair, that's but a straw, come, share what bread and meat is in the house, and stretch your heels and warm them in the ashes. and after that, let's share and share alike and curse all men and women. come in, come in. what, is there no one there? (_turning from door_) and yet they say they are as common as the grass, and ride even upon the book in the priest's hand. (teig _lifts one arm slowly and points toward the door and begins moving backwards_. shemus _turns, he also sees something and begins moving backward_. mary _does the same. a man dressed as an eastern merchant comes in carrying a small carpet. he unrolls it and sits cross-legged at one end of it. another man dressed in the same way follows, and sits at the other end. this is done slowly and deliberately. when they are seated they take money out of embroidered purses at their girdles and begin arranging it on the carpet_.) teig you speak to them. shemus no, you. teig 'twas you that called them. shemus (_coming nearer_) i'd make so bold, if you would pardon it, to ask if there's a thing you'd have of us. although we are but poor people, if there is, why, if there is--- first merchant we've travelled a long road, for we are merchants that must tramp the world, and now we look for supper and a fire and a safe corner to count money in. shemus i thought you were ... but that's no matter now- there had been words between my wife and me because i said i would be master here, and ask in what i pleased or who i pleased and so.... but that is nothing to the point, because it's certain that you are but merchants. first merchant we travel for the master of all merchants. shemus yet if you were that i had thought but now i'd welcome you no less. be what you please and you'll have supper at the market rate, that means that what was sold for but a penny is now worth fifty. (merchants _begin putting money on carpet_.) first merchant our master bids us pay so good a price, that all who deal with us shall eat, drink, and be merry. shemus (_to_ mary) bestir yourself, go kill and draw the fowl, while teig and i lay out the plates and make a better fire. mary i will not cook for you. shemus not cook! not cook! do not be angry. she wants to pay me back because i struck her in that argument. but she'll get sense again. since the dearth came we rattle one on another as though we were knives thrown into a basket to be cleaned. mary i will not cook for you, because i know in what unlucky shape you sat but now outside this door. teig it's this, your honours: because of some wild words my father said she thinks you are not of those who cast a shadow. shemus i said i'd make the devils of the wood welcome, if they'd a mind to eat and drink; but it is certain that you are men like us. first merchant it's strange that she should think we cast no shadow, for there is nothing on the ridge of the world that's more substantial than the merchants are that buy and sell you. mary if you are not demons, and seeing what great wealth is spread out there, give food or money to the starving poor. first merchant if we knew how to find deserving poor we'd do our share. mary but seek them patiently. first merchant we know the evils of mere charity. mary those scruples may befit a common time. i had thought there was a pushing to and fro, at times like this, that overset the scale and trampled measure down. first merchant but if already we'd thought of a more prudent way than that? second merchant if each one brings a bit of merchandise, we'll give him such a price he never dreamt of. mary where shall the starving come at merchandise? first merchant we will ask nothing but what all men have. mary their swine and cattle, fields and implements are sold and gone. first merchant they have not sold all yet. for there's a vaporous thing--that may be nothing, but that's the buyer's risk--a second self, they call immortal for a story's sake. shemus they come to buy our souls? teig i'll barter mine. why should we starve for what may be but nothing? mary teig and shemus--- shemus what can it be but nothing? what has god poured out of his bag but famine? satan gives money. teig yet no thunder stirs. first merchant there is a heap for each. (shemus _goes to take money_.) but no, not yet, for there's a work i have to set you to. shemus so then you're as deceitful as the rest, and all that talk of buying what's but a vapour is fancy bread. i might have known as much, because that's how the trick-o'-the-loop man talks. first merchant that's for the work, each has its separate price; but neither price is paid till the work's done. teig the same for me. mary oh, god, why are you still? first merchant you've but to cry aloud at every cross-road, at every house door, that we buy men's souls. and give so good a price that all may live in mirth and comfort till the famine's done, because we are christian men. shemus come, let's away. teig i shall keep running till i've earned the price. second merchant (_who has risen and gone towards fire_) stop; you must have proof behind the words. so here's your entertainment on the road. (_he throws a bag of money on the ground._) live as you please; our master's generous. (teig and shemus _have stopped_. teig _takes the money. they go out._) mary destroyers of souls, god will destroy you quickly. you shall at last dry like dry leaves and hang nailed like dead vermin to the doors of god. second merchant curse to your fill, for saints will have their dreams. first merchant though we're but vermin that our master sent to overrun the world, he at the end shall pull apart the pale ribs of the moon and quench the stars in the ancestral night. mary god is all powerful. second merchant pray, you shall need him. you shall eat dock and grass, and dandelion, till that low threshold there becomes a wall, and when your hands can scarcely drag your body we shall be near you. (mary _faints_.) (_the_ first merchant _takes up the carpet, spreads it before the fire and stands in front of it warming his hands_.) first merchant our faces go unscratched, wring the neck o' that fowl, scatter the flour and look if there is bread upon the shelves. we'll turn the fowl upon the spit and roast it, and eat the supper we were bidden to, now that the house is quiet, praise our master, and stretch and warm our heels among the ashes. end of scene i. scene ii front scene.--_a wood with perhaps distant view of turreted house at one side, but all in flat colour, without light and shade and against a diapered or gold background._ countess cathleen _comes in leaning upon_ aleel's _arm_. oona _follows them_. cathleen (_stopping_) surely this leafy corner, where one smells the wild bee's honey, has a story too? oona there is the house at last. aleel a man, they say, loved maeve the queen of all the invisible host, and died of his love nine centuries ago. and now, when the moon's riding at the full, she leaves her dancers lonely and lies there upon that level place, and for three days stretches and sighs and wets her long pale cheeks. cathleen so she loves truly. aleel no, but wets her cheeks, lady, because she has forgot his name. cathleen she'd sleep that trouble away--though it must be a heavy trouble to forget his name- if she had better sense. oona your own house, lady. aleel she sleeps high up on wintry knock-na-rea in an old cairn of stones; while her poor women must lie and jog in the wave if they would sleep- being water born--yet if she cry their names they run up on the land and dance in the moon till they are giddy and would love as men do, and be as patient and as pitiful. but there is nothing that will stop in their heads they've such poor memories, though they weep for it. oh, yes, they weep; that's when the moon is full. cathleen is it because they have short memories they live so long? aleel what's memory but the ash that chokes our fires that have begun to sink? and they've a dizzy, everlasting fire. oona there is your own house, lady. cathleen why, that's true, and we'd have passed it without noticing. aleel a curse upon it for a meddlesome house! had it but stayed away i would have known what queen maeve thinks on when the moon is pinched; and whether now--as in the old days--the dancers set their brief love on men. oona rest on my arm. these are no thoughts for any christian ear. aleel i am younger, she would be too heavy for you. (_he begins taking his lute out of the bag_, cathleen, _who has turned towards_ oona, _turns back to him_.) this hollow box remembers every foot that danced upon the level grass of the world, and will tell secrets if i whisper to it. (_sings._) lift up the white knee; hear what they sing, those young dancers that in a ring raved but now of the hearts that brake long, long ago for their sake. oona new friends are sweet. aleel "but the dance changes. lift up the gown, all that sorrow is trodden down." oona the empty rattle-pate! lean on this arm, that i can tell you is a christened arm, and not like some, if we are to judge by speech. but as you please. it is time i was forgot. maybe it is not on this arm you slumbered when you were as helpless as a worm. aleel stay with me till we come to your own house. cathleen (_sitting down_) when i am rested i will need no help. aleel i thought to have kept her from remembering the evil of the times for full ten minutes; but now when seven are out you come between. oona talk on; what does it matter what you say, for you have not been christened? aleel old woman, old woman, you robbed her of three minutes peace of mind, and though you live unto a hundred years, and wash the feet of beggars and give alms, and climb croaghpatrick, you shall not be pardoned. oona how does a man who never was baptized know what heaven pardons? aleel you are a sinful woman. oona i care no more than if a pig had grunted. (_enter_ cathleen's _steward_.) steward i am not to blame, for i had locked the gate, the forester's to blame. the men climbed in at the east corner where the elm-tree is. cathleen i do not understand you, who has climbed? steward then god be thanked, i am the first to tell you. i was afraid some other of the servants- though i've been on the watch--had been the first, and mixed up truth and lies, your ladyship. cathleen (_rising_) has some misfortune happened? steward yes, indeed. the forester that let the branches lie against the wall's to blame for everything, for that is how the rogues got into the garden. cathleen i thought to have escaped misfortune here. has any one been killed? steward oh, no, not killed. they have stolen half a cart-load of green cabbage. cathleen but maybe they were starving. steward that is certain. to rob or starve, that was the choice they had. cathleen a learned theologian has laid down that starving men may take what's necessary, and yet be sinless. oona sinless and a thief! there should be broken bottles on the wall. cathleen and if it be a sin, while faith's unbroken god cannot help but pardon. there is no soul but it's unlike all others in the world, nor one but lifts a strangeness to god's love till that's grown infinite, and therefore none whose loss were less than irremediable although it were the wickedest in the world. (_enter_ teig _and_ shemus.) steward what are you running for? pull off your cap, do you not see who's there? shemus i cannot wait. i am running to the world with the best news that has been brought it for a thousand years. steward then get your breath and speak. shemus if you'd my news you'd run as fast and be as out of breath. teig such news, we shall be carried on men's shoulders. shemus there's something every man has carried with him and thought no more about than if it were a mouthful of the wind; and now it's grown a marketable thing! teig and yet it seemed as useless as the paring of one's nails. shemus what sets me laughing when i think of it, is that a rogue who's lain in lousy straw, if he but sell it, may set up his coach. teig (_laughing_) there are two gentlemen who buy men's souls. cathleen o god! teig and maybe there's no soul at all. steward they're drunk or mad. teig look at the price they give. (_showing money._) shemus (_tossing up money_) "go cry it all about the world," they said. "money for souls, good money for a soul." cathleen give twice and thrice and twenty times their money, and get your souls again. i will pay all. shemus not we! not we! for souls--if there are souls- but keep the flesh out of its merriment. i shall be drunk and merry. teig come, let's away. (_he goes._) cathleen but there's a world to come. shemus and if there is, i'd rather trust myself into the hands that can pay money down than to the hands that have but shaken famine from the bag. (_he goes out_ r.) (_lilting_) "there's money for a soul, sweet yellow money. there's money for men's souls, good money, money." cathleen (_to_ aleel) go call them here again, bring them by force, beseech them, bribe, do anything you like; (aleel _goes_.) and you too follow, add your prayers to his. (oona, _who has been praying, goes out_.) steward, you know the secrets of my house. how much have i? steward a hundred kegs of gold. cathleen how much have i in castles? steward as much more. cathleen how much have i in pasture? steward as much more. cathleen how much have i in forests? steward as much more. cathleen keeping this house alone, sell all i have, go barter where you please, but come again with herds of cattle and with ships of meal. steward god's blessing light upon your ladyship. you will have saved the land. cathleen make no delay. (_he goes_ l.) (aleel _and_ oona _return_) cathleen they have not come; speak quickly. aleel one drew his knife and said that he would kill the man or woman that stopped his way; and when i would have stopped him he made this stroke at me; but it is nothing. cathleen you shall be tended. from this day for ever i'll have no joy or sorrow of my own. oona their eyes shone like the eyes of birds of prey. cathleen come, follow me, for the earth burns my feet till i have changed my house to such a refuge that the old and ailing, and all weak of heart, may escape from beak and claw; all, all, shall come till the walls burst and the roof fall on us. from this day out i have nothing of my own. (_she goes._) oona (_taking_ aleel _by the arm and as she speaks bandaging his wound_) she has found something now to put her hand to, and you and i are of no more account than flies upon a window-pane in the winter. (_they go out._) end of scene ii. scene iii scene.--_hall in the house of_ countess cathleen. _at the left an oratory with steps leading up to it. at the right a tapestried wall, more or less repeating the form of the oratory, and a great chair with its back against the wall. in the centre are two or more arches through which one can see dimly the trees of the garden._ cathleen _is kneeling in front of the altar in the oratory; there is a hanging lighted lamp over the altar_. aleel _enters_. aleel i have come to bid you leave this castle and fly out of these woods. cathleen what evil is there here that is not everywhere from this to the sea? aleel they who have sent me walk invisible. cathleen so it is true what i have heard men say, that you have seen and heard what others cannot. aleel i was asleep in my bed, and while i slept my dream became a fire; and in the fire one walked and he had birds about his head. cathleen i have heard that one of the old gods walked so. aleel it may be that he is angelical; and, lady, he bids me call you from these woods. and you must bring but your old foster-mother, and some few serving men, and live in the hills, among the sounds of music and the light of waters, till the evil days are done. for here some terrible death is waiting you, some unimagined evil, some great darkness that fable has not dreamt of, nor sun nor moon scattered. cathleen no, not angelical. aleel this house you are to leave with some old trusty man, and bid him shelter all that starve or wander while there is food and house room. cathleen he bids me go where none of mortal creatures but the swan dabbles, and there you would pluck the harp, when the trees had made a heavy shadow about our door, and talk among the rustling of the reeds, when night hunted the foolish sun away with stillness and pale tapers. no--no--no! i cannot. although i weep, i do not weep because that life would be most happy, and here i find no way, no end. nor do i weep because i had longed to look upon your face, but that a night of prayer has made me weary. aleel (_prostrating himself before her_) let him that made mankind, the angels and devils and dearth and plenty, mend what he has made, for when we labour in vain and eye still sees heart breaks in vain. cathleen how would that quiet end? aleel how but in healing? cathleen you have seen my tears and i can see your hand shake on the floor. aleel (_faltering_) i thought but of healing. he was angelical. cathleen (_turning away from him_) no, not angelical, but of the old gods, who wander about the world to waken the heart- the passionate, proud heart--that all the angels, leaving nine heavens empty, would rock to sleep. (_she goes to chapel door;_ aleel _holds his clasped hands towards her for a moment hesitatingly, and then lets them fall beside him_.) cathleen do not hold out to me beseeching hands. this heart shall never waken on earth. i have sworn, by her whose heart the seven sorrows have pierced, to pray before this altar until my heart has grown to heaven like a tree, and there rustled its leaves, till heaven has saved my people. aleel (_who has risen_) when one so great has spoken of love to one so little as i, though to deny him love, what can he but hold out beseeching hands, then let them fall beside him, knowing how greatly they have overdared? (_he goes towards the door of the hall._ _the_ countess cathleen _takes a few steps towards him_.) cathleen if the old tales are true, queens have wed shepherds and kings beggar-maids; god's procreant waters flowing about your mind have made you more than kings or queens; and not you but i am the empty pitcher. aleel being silent, i have said all, yet let me stay beside you. cathleen no, no, not while my heart is shaken. no, but you shall hear wind cry and water cry, and curlew cry, and have the peace i longed for. aleel give me your hand to kiss. cathleen i kiss your forehead. and yet i send you from me. do not speak; there have been women that bid men to rob crowns from the country-under-wave or apples upon a dragon-guarded hill, and all that they might sift men's hearts and wills, and trembled as they bid it, as i tremble that lay a hard task on you, that you go, and silently, and do not turn your head; goodbye; but do not turn your head and look; above all else, i would not have you look. (aleel _goes_.) i never spoke to him of his wounded hand, and now he is gone. (_she looks out._) i cannot see him, for all is dark outside. would my imagination and my heart were as little shaken as this holy flame! (_she goes slowly into the chapel. the distant sound of an alarm bell._ _the two_ merchants _enter hurriedly_.) second merchant they are ringing the alarm, and in a moment they'll be upon us. first merchant (_going to a door at the side_) here is the treasury, you'd my commands to put them all to sleep. second merchant some angel or else her prayers protected them. (_goes into the treasury and returns with bags of treasure._ first merchant _has been listening at the oratory door_.) first merchant she has fallen asleep. (second merchant _goes out through one of the arches at the back and stands listening. the bags are at his feet._) second merchant we've all the treasure now, so let's away before they've tracked us out. first merchant i have a plan to win her. second merchant you have time enough if you would kill her and bear off her soul before they are upon us with their prayers; they search the western tower. first merchant that may not be. we cannot face the heavenly host in arms. her soul must come to us of its own will, but being of the ninth and mightiest hell where all are kings, i have a plan to win it. lady, we've news that's crying out for speech. (cathleen _wakes and comes to door of chapel_.) cathleen who calls? first merchant we have brought news. cathleen what are you? first merchant we are merchants, and we know the book of the world because we have walked upon its leaves; and there have read of late matters that much concern you; and noticing the castle door stand open, came in to find an ear. cathleen the door stands open, that no one who is famished or afraid, despair of help or of a welcome with it. but you have news, you say. first merchant we saw a man, heavy with sickness in the bog of allen, whom you had bid buy cattle. near fair head we saw your grain ships lying all becalmed in the dark night; and not less still than they, burned all their mirrored lanthorns in the sea. cathleen my thanks to god, to mary and the angels, that i have money in my treasury, and can buy grain from those who have stored it up to prosper on the hunger of the poor. but you've been far and know the signs of things, when will this famine end? first merchant day copies day, and there's no sign of change, nor can it change, with the wheat withered and the cattle dead. cathleen and heard you of the demons who buy souls? first merchant there are some men who hold they have wolves' heads, and say their limbs--dried by the infinite flame- have all the speed of storms; others, again, say they are gross and little; while a few will have it they seem much as mortals are, but tall and brown and travelled--like us, lady- yet all agree a power is in their looks that makes men bow, and flings a casting-net about their souls, and that all men would go and barter those poor vapours, were it not you bribe them with the safety of your gold. cathleen praise be to god, to mary, and the angels that i am wealthy! wherefore do they sell? first merchant as we came in at the great door we saw your porter sleeping in his niche--a soul too little to be worth a hundred pence, and yet they buy it for a hundred crowns. but for a soul like yours, i heard them say, they would give five hundred thousand crowns and more. cathleen how can a heap of crowns pay for a soul? is the green grave so terrible a thing? first merchant some sell because the money gleams, and some because they are in terror of the grave, and some because their neighbours sold before, and some because there is a kind of joy in casting hope away, in losing joy, in ceasing all resistance, in at last opening one's arms to the eternal flames, in casting all sails out upon the wind; to this--full of the gaiety of the lost- would all folk hurry if your gold were gone. cathleen there is a something, merchant, in your voice that makes me fear. when you were telling how a man may lose his soul and lose his god your eyes were lighted up, and when you told how my poor money serves the people, both- merchants forgive me--seemed to smile. first merchant i laugh to think that all these people should be swung as on a lady's shoe-string,--under them the glowing leagues of never-ending flame. cathleen there is a something in you that i fear; a something not of us; were you not born in some most distant corner of the world? (_the_ second merchant, _who has been listening at the door, comes forward, and as he comes a sound of voices and feet is heard_.) second merchant away now--they are in the passage--hurry, for they will know us, and freeze up our hearts with ave marys, and burn all our skin with holy water. first merchant farewell; for we must ride many a mile before the morning come; our horses beat the ground impatiently. (_they go out._ _a number of_ peasants _enter by other door_.) first peasant forgive us, lady, but we heard a noise. second peasant we sat by the fireside telling vanities. first peasant we heard a noise, but though we have searched the house we have found nobody. cathleen you are too timid, for now you are safe from all the evil times, there is no evil that can find you here. oona (_entering hurriedly_) ochone! ochone! the treasure room is broken in. the door stands open, and the gold is gone. (peasants _raise a lamentable cry_.) cathleen be silent. (_the cry ceases._) have you seen nobody? oona ochone! that my good mistress should lose all this money. cathleen let those among you--not too old to ride- get horses and search all the country round, i'll give a farm to him who finds the thieves. (_a man with keys at his girdle has come in while she speaks. there is a general murmur of "the porter! the porter!"_) porter demons were here. i sat beside the door in my stone niche, and two owls passed me by, whispering with human voices. old peasant god forsakes us. cathleen old man, old man, he never closed a door unless one opened. i am desolate, because of a strange thought that's in my heart; but i have still my faith; therefore be silent; for surely he does not forsake the world, but stands before it modelling in the clay and moulding there his image. age by age the clay wars with his fingers and pleads hard for its old, heavy, dull and shapeless ease; but sometimes--though his hand is on it still- it moves awry and demon hordes are born. (peasants _cross themselves_.) yet leave me now, for i am desolate, i hear a whisper from beyond the thunder. (_she comes from the oratory door._) yet stay an instant. when we meet again i may have grown forgetful. oona, take these two--the larder and the dairy keys. (_to the_ porter.) but take you this. it opens the small room of herbs for medicine, of hellebore, of vervain, monkshood, plantain, and self-heal. the book of cures is on the upper shelf. porter why do you do this, lady; did you see your coffin in a dream? cathleen ah, no, not that. but i have come to a strange thought. i have heard a sound of wailing in unnumbered hovels, and i must go down, down--i know not where- pray for all men and women mad from famine; pray, you good neighbours. (_the_ peasants _all kneel_. countess cathleen _ascends the steps to the door of the oratory, and turning round stands there motionless for a little, and then cries in a loud voice_:) mary, queen of angels, and all you clouds on clouds of saints, farewell! end of scene iii. scene iv scene.--_a wood near the castle, as in scene ii. a group of_ peasants _pass_. first peasant i have seen silver and copper, but not gold. second peasant it's yellow and it shines. first peasant it's beautiful. the most beautiful thing under the sun, that's what i've heard. third peasant i have seen gold enough. fourth peasant i would not say that it's so beautiful. first peasant but doesn't a gold piece glitter like the sun? that's what my father, who'd seen better days, told me when i was but a little boy- so high--so high, it's shining like the sun, round and shining, that is what he said. second peasant there's nothing in the world it cannot buy. first peasant they've bags and bags of it. (_they go out._ _the two_ merchants _follow silently_. _then_ aleel _passes over the stage singing_.) aleel impetuous heart be still, be still, your sorrowful love can never be told, cover it up with a lonely tune. he who could bend all things to his will has covered the door of the infinite fold with the pale stars and the wandering moon. end of scene iv. scene v scene.--_the house of_ shemus rua. _there is an alcove at the back with curtains; in it a bed, and on the bed is the body of_ mary _with candles round it_. _the two_ merchants _while they speak put a large book upon a table, arrange money, and so on_. first merchant thanks to that lie i told about her ships and that about the herdsman lying sick, we shall be too much thronged with souls to-morrow. second merchant what has she in her coffers now but mice? first merchant when the night fell and i had shaped myself into the image of the man-headed owl, i hurried to the cliffs of donegal, and saw with all their canvas full of wind and rushing through the parti-coloured sea those ships that bring the woman grain and meal. they're but three days from us. second merchant when the dew rose i hurried in like feathers to the east, and saw nine hundred oxen driven through meath with goads of iron. they're but three days from us. first merchant three days for traffic. (peasants _crowd in with_ teig _and_ shemus.) shemus come in, come in, you are welcome. that is my wife. she mocked at my great masters, and would not deal with them. now there she is; she does not even know she was a fool, so great a fool she was. teig she would not eat one crumb of bread bought with our master's money, but lived on nettles, dock, and dandelion. shemus there's nobody could put into her head that death is the worst thing can happen us. though that sounds simple, for her tongue grew rank with all the lies that she had heard in chapel. draw to the curtain. (teig _draws it_.) you'll not play the fool while these good gentlemen are there to save you. second merchant since the drought came they drift about in a throng, like autumn leaves blown by the dreary winds. come, deal--come, deal. first merchant who will come deal with us? shemus they are out of spirit, sir, with lack of food, save four or five. here, sir, is one of these; the others will gain courage in good time. middle-aged-man i come to deal--if you give honest price. first merchant (_reading in a book_) "john maher, a man of substance, with dull mind, and quiet senses and unventurous heart. the angels think him safe." two hundred crowns, all for a soul, a little breath of wind. the man i ask three hundred crowns. you have read there that no mere lapse of days can make me yours. first merchant there is something more writ here--"often at night he is wakeful from a dread of growing poor, and thereon wonders if there's any man that he could rob in safety." a peasant who'd have thought it? and i was once alone with him at midnight. another peasant i will not trust my mother after this. first merchant there is this crack in you--two hundred crowns. a peasant that's plenty for a rogue. another peasant i'd give him nothing. shemus you'll get no more--so take what's offered you. (_a general murmur, during which the_ middle-aged man _takes money, and slips into background, where he sinks on to a seat_.) first merchant has no one got a better soul than that? if only for the credit of your parishes, traffic with us. a woman what will you give for mine? first merchant (_reading in book_) "soft, handsome, and still young"--not much, i think. "it's certain that the man she's married to knows nothing of what's hidden in the jar between the hour-glass and the pepper-pot." the woman the scandalous book. first merchant "nor how when he's away at the horse fair the hand that wrote what's hid will tap three times upon the window-pane." the woman and if there is a letter, that is no reason why i should have less money than the others. first merchant you're almost safe, i give you fifty crowns. (_she turns to go._) a hundred, then. shemus woman, have sense--come, come. is this a time to haggle at the price? there, take it up. there, there. that's right. (_she takes them and goes into the crowd._) first merchant come, deal, deal, deal. it is but for charity we buy such souls at all; a thousand sins made them our master's long before we came. (aleel _enters_.) aleel here, take my soul, for i am tired of it. i do not ask a price. shemus not ask a price? how can you sell your soul without a price? i would not listen to his broken wits; his love for countess cathleen has so crazed him he hardly understands what he is saying. aleel the trouble that has come on countess cathleen, the sorrow that is in her wasted face, the burden in her eyes, have broke my wits, and yet i know i'd have you take my soul. first merchant we cannot take your soul, for it is hers. aleel no, but you must. seeing it cannot help her i have grown tired of it. first merchant begone from me, i may not touch it. aleel is your power so small? and must i bear it with me all my days? may you be scorned and mocked! first merchant drag him away. he troubles me. (teig _and_ shemus _lead_ aleel _into the crowd_.) second merchant his gaze has filled me, brother, with shaking and a dreadful fear. first merchant lean forward and kiss the circlet where my master's lips were pressed upon it when he sent us hither; you shall have peace once more. (second merchant _kisses the gold circlet that is about the head of the_ first merchant.) i, too, grow weary, but there is something moving in my heart whereby i know that what we seek the most is drawing near--our labour will soon end. come, deal, deal, deal, deal, deal; are you all dumb? what, will you keep me from our ancient home, and from the eternal revelry? second merchant deal, deal. shemus they say you beat the woman down too low. first merchant i offer this great price: a thousand crowns for an old woman who was always ugly. (_an old_ peasant woman _comes forward, and he takes up a book and reads_:) there is but little set down here against her. "she has stolen eggs and fowl when times were bad, but when the times grew better has confessed it; she never missed her chapel of a sunday and when she could, paid dues." take up your money. old woman god bless you, sir. (_she screams._) oh, sir, a pain went through me! first merchant that name is like a fire to all damned souls. (_murmur among the_ peasants, _who shrink back from her as she goes out_.) a peasant how she screamed out! second peasant and maybe we shall scream so. third peasant i tell you there is no such place as hell. first merchant can such a trifle turn you from your profit? come, deal; come, deal. middle-aged man master, i am afraid. first merchant i bought your soul, and there's no sense in fear now the soul's gone. middle-aged man give me my soul again. woman (_going on her knees and clinging to_ merchant) and take this money too, and give me mine. second merchant bear bastards, drink or follow some wild fancy; for sighs and cries are the soul's work, and you have none. (_throws the woman off._) peasant come, let's away. another peasant yes, yes. another peasant come quickly; if that woman had not screamed i would have lost my soul. another peasant come, come away. (_they turn to door, but are stopped by shouts of "countess cathleen! countess cathleen!"_) cathleen (_entering_) and so you trade once more? first merchant in spite of you. what brings you here, saint with the sapphire eyes? cathleen i come to barter a soul for a great price. second merchant what matter, if the soul be worth the price? cathleen the people starve, therefore the people go thronging to you. i hear a cry come from them and it is in my ears by night and day, and i would have five hundred thousand crowns that i may feed them till the dearth go by. first merchant it may be the soul's worth it. cathleen there is more: the souls that you have bought must be set free. first merchant we know of but one soul that's worth the price. cathleen being my own it seems a priceless thing. second merchant you offer us--- cathleen i offer my own soul. a peasant do not, do not, for souls the like of ours are not precious to god as your soul is. o! what would heaven do without you, lady? another peasant look how their claws clutch in their leathern gloves. first merchant five hundred thousand crowns; we give the price. the gold is here; the souls even while you speak have slipped out of our bond, because your face has shed a light on them and filled their hearts. but you must sign, for we omit no form in buying a soul like yours. second merchant sign with this quill it was a feather growing on the cock that crowed when peter dared deny his master, and all who use it have great honour in hell. (cathleen _leans forward to sign_.) aleel (_rushing forward and snatching the pen from her_) leave all things to the builder of the heavens. cathleen i have no thoughts; i hear a cry--a cry. aleel (_casting the pen on the ground_) i have seen a vision under a green hedge, a hedge of hips and haws--men yet shall hear the archangels rolling satan's empty skull over the mountain-tops. first merchant take him away. (teig _and_ shemus _drag him roughly away so that he falls upon the floor among the_ peasants. cathleen _picks up parchment and signs, then turns towards the_ peasants.) cathleen take up the money, and now come with me; when we are far from this polluted place i will give everybody money enough. (_she goes out, the_ peasants _crowding round her and kissing her dress_. aleel _and the two_ merchants _are left alone_.) second merchant we must away and wait until she dies, sitting above her tower as two grey owls, waiting as many years as may be, guarding our precious jewel; waiting to seize her soul. first merchant we need but hover over her head in the air, for she has only minutes. when she signed her heart began to break. hush, hush, i hear the brazen door of hell move on its hinges, and the eternal revelry float hither to hearten us. second merchant leap feathered on the air and meet them with her soul caught in your claws. (_they rush out._ aleel _crawls into the middle of the room_. _the twilight has fallen and gradually darkens as the scene goes on. there is a distant muttering of thunder and a sound of rising storm._) aleel the brazen door stands wide, and balor comes borne in his heavy car, and demons have lifted the age-weary eyelids from the eyes that of old turned gods to stone; barach, the traitor, comes and the lascivious race, cailitin, that cast a druid weakness and decay over sualtem's and old dectera's child; and that great king hell first took hold upon when he killed naisi and broke deirdre's heart and all their heads are twisted to one side, for when they lived they warred on beauty and peace with obstinate, crafty, sidelong bitterness. (_he moves about as though the air above him was full of spirits_. oona _enters_.) crouch down, old heron, out of the blind storm. oona where is the countess cathleen? all this day her eyes were full of tears, and when for a moment her hand was laid upon my hand it trembled, and now i do not know where she is gone. aleel cathleen has chosen other friends than us, and they are rising through the hollow world. demons are out, old heron. oona god guard her soul. aleel she's bartered it away this very hour, as though we two were never in the world. (_he points downward._) first, orchill, her pale, beautiful head her body shadowy as vapour drifting under the dawn, for she who awoke desire has but a heart of blood when others die; about her is a vapoury multitude of women alluring devils with soft laughter; behind her a host heat of the blood made sin, but all the little pink-white nails have grown to be great talons. (_he seizes_ oona _and drags her into the middle of the room and points downward with vehement gestures_. _the wind roars._) they begin a song and there is still some music on their tongues. oona (_casting herself face downwards on the floor_) o, maker of all, protect her from the demons, and if a soul must need be lost, take mine. (aleel _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._) oona o, that so many pitchers of rough clay should prosper and the porcelain break in two! (_she kisses the hands of_ cathleen.) a peasant we were under the tree where the path turns, when she grew pale as death and fainted away. and while we bore her hither cloudy gusts blackened the world and shook us on our feet; draw the great bolt, for no man has beheld so black, bitter, blinding, and sudden a storm. (_one who is near the door draws the bolt._) cathleen o, hold me, and hold me tightly, for the storm is dragging me away. (oona _takes her in her arms_. a woman _begins to wail_.) peasant hush! peasants hush! peasant women hush! other peasant women hush! cathleen (_half rising_) lay all the bags of money in a heap, and when i am gone, old oona, share them out to every man and woman: judge, and give according to their needs. a peasant woman and will she give enough to keep my children through the dearth? another peasant woman o, queen of heaven, and all you blessed saints, let us and ours be lost so she be shriven. cathleen bend down your faces, oona and aleel; i gaze upon them as the swallow gazes upon the nest under the eave, before she wander the loud waters. do not weep too great a while, for there is many a candle on 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 me, and bore me in your arms about the house when 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._) oona bring me the looking-glass. (a woman _brings it to her out of the inner room_. oona _holds it over the lips of_ cathleen. _all is silent for a moment. and then she speaks in a half scream_:) o, she is dead! a peasant she was the great white lily of the world. a peasant she was more beautiful than the pale stars. an old peasant woman the little plant i love is broken in two. (aleel _takes looking-glass from_ oona _and flings it upon the floor so that it is broken in many pieces_.) aleel i shatter you in fragments, for the face that brimmed you up with beauty is no more: and die, dull heart, for she whose mournful words made you a living spirit has passed away and left you but a ball of passionate dust. and you, proud earth and plumy sea, fade out! for you may hear no more her faltering feet, but are left lonely amid the clamorous war of angels upon devils. (_he stands up; almost every one is kneeling, but it has grown so dark that only confused forms can be seen._) and i who weep call curses on you, time and fate and change, and have no excellent hope but the great hour when you shall plunge headlong through bottomless space. (_a flash of lightning followed immediately by thunder._) a peasant woman pull him upon his knees before his curses have plucked thunder and lightning on our heads. aleel angels and devils clash in the middle air, and brazen swords clang upon brazen helms. (_a flash of lightning followed immediately by thunder._) yonder a bright spear, cast out of a sling, has torn through balor's eye, and the dark clans fly screaming as they fled moytura of old. (_everything is lost in darkness._) an old man the almighty wrath at our great weakness and sin has blotted out the world and we must die. (_the darkness is broken by a visionary light. the_ peasants _seem to be kneeling upon the_ _rocky slope of a mountain, and vapour full of storm and ever-changing light is sweeping above them and behind them. half in the light, half in the shadow, stand armed angels. their armour is old and worn, and their drawn swords dim and dinted. they stand as if upon the air in formation of battle and look downward with stern faces. the_ peasants _cast themselves on the ground_.) aleel 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. (_he seizes one of the angels._) till you speak you shall not drift into eternity. the angel the 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 heart has kissed her lips, and the long blessed hair has fallen on her face; the light of lights looks always on the motive, not the deed, the shadow of shadows on the deed alone. (aleel _releases the_ angel _and kneels_.) oona tell them who 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. (_a sound of far-off horns seems to come from the heart of the light. the vision melts away, and the forms of the kneeling_ peasants _appear faintly in the darkness_.) the rose "_sero te amavi, pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova! sero te amavi._" s. augustine. to lionel johnson to the rose upon the rood of time _red rose, proud rose, sad rose of all my days! come near me, while i sing the ancient ways: cuchulain battling with the bitter tide; the druid, gray, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed, who cast round fergus dreams, and ruin untold; and thine own sadness, whereof stars, grown old in dancing silver sandalled on the sea, sing in their high and lonely melody. come near, that no more blinded by man's fate, i find under the boughs of love and hate, in all poor foolish things that live a day, eternal beauty wandering on her way._ _come near, come near, come near--ah, leave me still a little space for the rose-breath to fill! lest i no more hear common things that crave; the weak worm hiding down in its small cave,_ _the field mouse running by me in the grass, and heavy mortal hopes that toil and pass; but seek alone to hear the strange things said by god to the bright hearts of those long dead, and learn to chaunt a tongue men do not know. come near; i would, before my time to go, sing of old eire and the ancient ways: red rose, proud rose, sad rose of all my days._ fergus and the druid fergus the whole day have i followed in the rocks, and you have changed and flowed from shape to shape. first as a raven on whose ancient wings scarcely a feather lingered, then you seemed a weasel moving on from stone to stone, and now at last you wear a human shape, a thin gray man half lost in gathering night. druid what would you, king of the proud red branch kings? fergus this would i say, most wise of living souls: young subtle concobar sat close by me when i gave judgment, and his words were wise, and what to me was burden without end, to him seemed easy, so i laid the crown upon his head to cast away my care. druid what would you, king of the proud red branch kings? fergus i feast amid my people on the hill, and pace the woods, and drive my chariot wheels in the white border of the murmuring sea; and still i feel the crown upon my head. druid what would you? fergus i would be no more a king but learn the dreaming wisdom that is yours. druid look on my thin gray hair and hollow cheeks and on these hands that may not lift the sword this body trembling like a wind-blown reed. no woman loves me, no man seeks my help, because i be not of the things i dream. fergus a wild and foolish labourer is a king, to do and do and do, and never dream. druid take, if you must, this little bag of dreams; unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round. fergus i see my life go dripping like a stream from change to change; i have been many things, a green drop in the surge, a gleam of light upon a sword, a fir-tree on a hill, an old slave grinding at a heavy quern, a king sitting upon a chair of gold, and all these things were wonderful and great; but now i have grown nothing, being all, and the whole world weighs down upon my heart: ah! druid, druid, how great webs of sorrow lay hidden in the small slate-coloured bag! the death of cuchulain a man came slowly from the setting sun, to forgail's daughter, emer, in her dun, and found her dyeing cloth with subtle care, and said, casting aside his draggled hair: "i am aleel, the swineherd, whom you bid "go dwell upon the sea cliffs, vapour hid; "but now my years of watching are no more." then emer cast the web upon the floor, and stretching out her arms, red with the dye, parted her lips with a loud sudden cry. looking on her, aleel, the swineherd, said: "not any god alive, nor mortal dead, "has slain so mighty armies, so great kings, "nor won the gold that now cuchulain brings." "why do you tremble thus from feet to crown?" aleel, the swineherd, wept and cast him down upon the web-heaped floor, and thus his word: "with him is one sweet-throated like a bird." "who bade you tell these things?" and then she cried to those about, "beat him with thongs of hide "and drive him from the door." and thus it was: and where her son, finmole, on the smooth grass was driving cattle, came she with swift feet, and called out to him, "son, it is not meet "that you stay idling here with flocks and herds." "i have long waited, mother, for those words: "but wherefore now?" "there is a man to die; "you have the heaviest arm under the sky." "my father dwells among the sea-worn bands, "and breaks the ridge of battle with his hands." "nay, you are taller than cuchulain, son." "he is the mightiest man in ship or dun." "nay, he is old and sad with many wars, "and weary of the crash of battle cars." "i only ask what way my journey lies, "for god, who made you bitter, made you wise." "the red branch kings a tireless banquet keep, "where the sun falls into the western deep. "go there, and dwell on the green forest rim; "but tell alone your name and house to him "whose blade compels, and bid them send you one "who has a like vow from their triple dun." between the lavish shelter of a wood and the gray tide, the red branch multitude feasted, and with them old cuchulain dwelt, and his young dear one close beside him knelt, and gazed upon the wisdom of his eyes, more mournful than the depth of starry skies, and pondered on the wonder of his days; and all around the harp-string told his praise, and concobar, the red branch king of kings, with his own fingers touched the brazen strings. at last cuchulain spake, "a young man strays "driving the deer along the woody ways. "i often hear him singing to and fro, "i often hear the sweet sound of his bow, "seek out what man he is." one went and came. "he bade me let all know he gives his name "at the sword point, and bade me bring him one "who had a like vow from our triple dun." "i only of the red branch hosted now," cuchulain cried, "have made and keep that vow." after short fighting in the leafy shade, he spake to the young man, "is there no maid "who loves you, no white arms to wrap you round, "or do you long for the dim sleepy ground, "that you come here to meet this ancient sword?" "the dooms of men are in god's hidden hoard." "your head a while seemed like a woman's head "that i loved once." again the fighting sped, but now the war rage in cuchulain woke, and through the other's shield his long blade broke, and pierced him. "speak before your breath is done." "i am finmole, mighty cuchulain's son." "i put you from your pain. i can no more." while day its burden on to evening bore, with head bowed on his knees cuchulain stayed; then concobar sent that sweet-throated maid, and she, to win him, his gray hair caressed; in vain her arms, in vain her soft white breast. then concobar, the subtlest of all men, ranking his druids round him ten by ten, spake thus, "cuchulain will dwell there and brood, "for three days more in dreadful quietude, "and then arise, and raving slay us all. "go, cast on him delusions magical, "that he might fight the waves of the loud sea." and ten by ten under a quicken tree, the druids chaunted, swaying in their hands tall wands of alder, and white quicken wands. in three days' time, cuchulain with a moan stood up, and came to the long sands alone: for four days warred he with the bitter tide; and the waves flowed above him, and he died. the rose of the world who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream? for these red lips, with all their mournful pride, mournful that no new wonder may betide, troy passed away in one high funeral gleam, and usna's children died. we and the labouring world are passing by: amid men's souls, that waver and give place, like the pale waters in their wintry race, under the passing stars, foam of the sky, lives on this lonely face. bow down, archangels, in your dim abode: before you were, or any hearts to beat, weary and kind one lingered by his seat; he made the world to be a grassy road before her wandering feet. the rose of peace if michael, leader of god's host when heaven and hell are met, looked down on you from heaven's door-post he would his deeds forget. brooding no more upon god's wars in his divine homestead, he would go weave out of the stars a chaplet for your head. and all folk seeing him bow down, and white stars tell your praise, would come at last to god's great town, led on by gentle ways; and god would bid his warfare cease. saying all things were well; and softly make a rosy peace, a peace of heaven with hell. the rose of battle rose of all roses, rose of all the world! the tall thought-woven sails, that flap unfurled above the tide of hours, trouble the air, and god's bell buoyed to be the water's care; while hushed from fear, or loud with hope, a band with blown, spray-dabbled hair gather at hand. _turn if you may from battles never done_, i call, as they go by me one by one, _danger no refuge holds; and war no peace, for him who hears love sing and never cease, beside her clean-swept hearth, her quiet shade: but gather all for whom no love hath made a woven silence, or but came to cast a song into the air, and singing past to smile on the pale dawn; and gather you who have sought more than is in rain or dew or in the sun and moon, or on the earth,_ _or sighs amid the wandering, starry mirth, or comes in laughter from the sea's sad lips and wage god's battles in the long gray ships. the sad, the lonely, the insatiable, to these old night shall all her mystery tell; god's bell has claimed them by the little cry of their sad hearts, that may not live nor die._ rose of all roses, rose of all the world! you, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring the bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing. beauty grown sad with its eternity made you of us, and of the dim gray sea. our long ships loose thought-woven sails and wait, for god has bid them share an equal fate; and when at last defeated in his wars, they have gone down under the same white stars, we shall no longer hear the little cry of our sad hearts, that may not live nor die. a faery song _sung by the people of faery over diarmuid and grania, who lay in their bridal sleep under a cromlech._ we who are old, old and gay, o so old! thousands of years, thousands of years, if all were told: give to these children, new from the world, silence and love; and the long dew-dropping hours of the night, and the stars above: give to these children, new from the world, rest far from men. is anything better, anything better? tell us it then: us who are old, old and gay, o so old! thousands of years, thousands of years, if all were told. the lake isle of innisfree i will arise and go now, and go to innisfree, and a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: nine bean rows will i have there, a hive for the honey bee, and live alone in the bee-loud glade. and i shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; there midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, and evening full of the linnet's wings. i will arise and go now, for always night and day i hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; while i stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, i hear it in the deep heart's core. a cradle song "_coth yani me von gilli beg, 'n heur ve thu more a creena_." the angels are stooping above your bed; they weary of trooping with the whimpering dead. god's laughing in heaven to see you so good; the shining seven are gay with his mood. i kiss you and kiss you, my pigeon, my own; ah, how i shall miss you when you have grown. the pity of love a pity beyond all telling is hid in the heart of love: the folk who are buying and selling the clouds on their journey above the cold wet winds ever blowing and the shadowy hazel grove where mouse-gray waters are flowing threaten the head that i love. the sorrow of love the quarrel of the sparrows in the eaves, the full round moon and the star-laden sky, and the loud song of the ever-singing leaves, had hid away earth's old and weary cry. and then you came with those red mournful lips, and with you came the whole of the world's tears and all the trouble of her labouring ships, and all the trouble of her myriad years. and now the sparrows warring in the eaves, the curd-pale moon, the white stars in the sky, and the loud chaunting of the unquiet leaves, are shaken with earth's old and weary cry. when you are old when you are old and gray and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire, take down this book, and slowly read, and dream of the soft look your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; how many loved your moments of glad grace, and loved your beauty will love false or true; but one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, and loved the sorrows of your changing face. and bending down beside the glowing bars murmur, a little sadly, how love fled and paced upon the mountains overhead and hid his face amid a crowd of stars. the white birds i would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea! we tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee; and the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky, has awaked in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die. a weariness comes from those dreamers, dew dabbled, the lily and rose; ah, dream not of them, my beloved, the flame of the meteor that goes, or the flame of the blue star that lingers hung low in the fall of the dew: for i would we were changed to white birds on the wandering foam: i and you! i am haunted by numberless islands, and many a danaan shore, where time would surely forget us, and sorrow come near us no more; soon far from the rose and the lily, and fret of the flames would we be, were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea! a dream of death i dreamed that one had died in a strange place near no accustomed hand; and they had nailed the boards above her face the peasants of that land, wondering to lay her in that solitude, and raised above her mound a cross they had made out of two bits of wood, and planted cypress round; and left her to the indifferent stars above until i carved these words: _she was more beautiful than thy first love, but now lies under boards_. a dream of a blessed spirit all the heavy days are over; leave the body's coloured pride underneath the grass and clover, with the feet laid side by side. one with her are mirth and duty, bear the gold embroidered dress, for she needs not her sad beauty, to the scented oaken press. hers the kiss of mother mary, the long hair is on her face; still she goes with footsteps wary, full of earth's old timid grace. with white feet of angels seven her white feet go glimmering and above the deep of heaven, flame on flame and wing on wing. who goes with fergus? who will go drive with fergus now, and pierce the deep wood's woven shade, and dance upon the level shore? young man, lift up your russet brow, and lift your tender eyelids, maid, and brood on hopes and fears no more. and no more turn aside and brood upon love's bitter mystery; for fergus rules the brazen cars, and rules the shadows of the wood, and the white breast of the dim sea and all dishevelled wandering stars. the man who dreamed of faeryland he stood among a crowd at drumahair; his heart hung all upon a silken dress, and he had known at last some tenderness, before earth made of him her sleepy care; but when a man poured fish into a pile, it seemed they raised their little silver heads, and sang how day a druid twilight sheds upon a dim, green, well-beloved isle, where people love beside star-laden seas; how time may never mar their faery vows under the woven roofs of quicken boughs: the singing shook him out of his new ease. he wandered by the sands of lisadill; his mind ran all on money cares and fears, and he had known at last some prudent years before they heaped his grave under the hill; but while he passed before a plashy place, a lug-worm with its gray and muddy mouth sang how somewhere to north or west or south there dwelt a gay, exulting, gentle race; and how beneath those three times blessed skies a danaan fruitage makes a shower of moons, and as it falls awakens leafy tunes: and at that singing he was no more wise. he mused beside the well of scanavin, he mused upon his mockers: without fail his sudden vengeance were a country tale, now that deep earth has drunk his body in; but one small knot-grass growing by the pool told where, ah, little, all-unneeded voice! old silence bids a lonely folk rejoice, and chaplet their calm brows with leafage cool, and how, when fades the sea-strewn rose of day, a gentle feeling wraps them like a fleece, and all their trouble dies into its peace: the tale drove his fine angry mood away. he slept under the hill of lugnagall; and might have known at last unhaunted sleep under that cold and vapour-turbaned steep, now that old earth had taken man and all: were not the worms that spired about his bones a-telling with their low and reedy cry, of how god leans his hands out of the sky, to bless that isle with honey in his tones; that none may feel the power of squall and wave and no one any leaf-crowned dancer miss until he burn up nature with a kiss: the man has found no comfort in the grave. the dedication to a book of stories selected from the irish novelists there was a green branch hung with many a bell when her own people ruled in wave-worn eire; and from its murmuring greenness, calm of faery, a druid kindness, on all hearers fell. it charmed away the merchant from his guile, and turned the farmer's memory from his cattle, and hushed in sleep the roaring ranks of battle, for all who heard it dreamed a little while. ah, exiles wandering over many seas, spinning at all times eire's good to-morrow! ah, worldwide nation, always growing sorrow! i also bear a bell branch full of ease. i tore it from green boughs winds tossed and hurled, green boughs of tossing always, weary, weary! i tore it from the green boughs of old eire, the willow of the many-sorrowed world. ah, exiles, wandering over many lands! my bell branch murmurs: the gay bells bring laughter, leaping to shake a cobweb from the rafter; the sad bells bow the forehead on the hands. a honeyed ringing: under the new skies they bring you memories of old village faces, cabins gone now, old well-sides, old dear places; and men who loved the cause that never dies. the lamentation of the old pensioner i had a chair at every hearth, when no one turned to see, with "look at that old fellow there, "and who may he be?" and therefore do i wander now, and the fret lies on me. the road-side trees keep murmuring ah, wherefore murmur ye, as in the old days long gone by, green oak and poplar tree? the well-known faces are all gone and the fret lies on me. the ballad of father gilligan the old priest peter gilligan was weary night and day; for half his flock were in their beds, or under green sods lay. once, while he nodded on a chair, at the moth-hour of eve, another poor man sent for him, and he began to grieve. "i have no rest, nor joy, nor peace, "for people die and die"; and after cried he, "god forgive! "my body spake, not i!" he knelt, and leaning on the chair he prayed and fell asleep; and the moth-hour went from the fields, and stars began to peep. they slowly into millions grew, and leaves shook in the wind; and god covered the world with shade, and whispered to mankind. upon the time of sparrow chirp when the moths came once more, the old priest peter gilligan stood upright on the floor. "mavrone, mavrone! the man has died, "while i slept on the chair"; he roused his horse out of its sleep, and rode with little care. he rode now as he never rode, by rocky lane and fen; the sick man's wife opened the door: "father! you come again!" "and is the poor man dead?" he cried, "he died an hour ago," the old priest peter gilligan in grief swayed to and fro. "when you were gone, he turned and died "as merry as a bird." the old priest peter gilligan he knelt him at that word. "he who hath made the night of stars "for souls, who tire and bleed, "sent one of his great angels down "to help me in my need. "he who is wrapped in purple robes, "with planets in his care, "had pity on the least of things "asleep upon a chair." the two trees beloved, gaze in thine own heart, the holy tree is growing there; from joy the holy branches start, and all the trembling flowers they bear. the changing colours of its fruit have dowered the stars with merry light; the surety of its hidden root has planted quiet in the night; the shaking of its leafy head has given the waves their melody, and made my lips and music wed, murmuring a wizard song for thee. there, through bewildered branches, go winged loves borne on in gentle strife, tossing and tossing to and fro the flaming circle of our life. when looking on their shaken hair, and dreaming how they dance and dart, thine eyes grow full of tender care: beloved, gaze in thine own heart. gaze no more in the bitter glass the demons, with their subtle guile, lift up before us when they pass, or only gaze a little while; for there a fatal image grows, with broken boughs, and blackened leaves, and roots half hidden under snows driven by a storm that ever grieves. for all things turn to barrenness in the dim glass the demons hold, the glass of outer weariness, made when god slept in times of old. there, through the broken branches, go the ravens of unresting thought; peering and flying to and fro to see men's souls bartered and bought. when they are heard upon the wind, and when they shake their wings; alas! thy tender eyes grow all unkind: gaze no more in the bitter glass. to ireland in the coming times _know, that i would accounted be true brother of that company, who sang to sweeten ireland's wrong, ballad and story, rann and song; nor be i any less of them, because the red-rose-bordered hem of her, whose history began before god made the angelic clan, trails all about the written page; for in the world's first blossoming age the light fall of her flying feet made ireland's heart begin to beat; and still the starry candles flare to help her light foot here and there; and still the thoughts of ireland brood upon her holy quietude._ _nor may i less be counted one with davis, mangan, ferguson, because to him, who ponders well, my rhymes more than their rhyming tell of the dim wisdoms old and deep, that god gives unto man in sleep. for the elemental beings go about my table to and fro. in flood and fire and clay and wind, they huddle from man's pondering mind; yet he who treads in austere ways may surely meet their ancient gaze. man ever journeys on with them after the red-rose-bordered hem. ah, faeries, dancing under the moon, a druid land, a druid tune!_ _while still i may, i write for you the love i lived, the dream i knew. from our birthday, until we die, is but the winking of an eye; and we, our singing and our love, the mariners of night above, and all the wizard things that go about my table to and fro. are passing on to where may be, in truth's consuming ecstasy no place for love and dream at all; for god goes by with white foot-fall. i cast my heart into my rhymes, that you, in the dim coming times, may know how my heart went with them after the red-rose-bordered hem._ the land of heart's desire _o rose, thou art sick._ william blake. to florence farr maurteen bruin bridget bruin shawn bruin mary bruin father hart a faery child _the scene is laid in the barony of kilmacowen, in the county of sligo, and at a remote time._ scene.--_a room with a hearth on the floor in the middle of a deep alcove to the right. there are benches in the alcove and a table; and a crucifix on the wall. the alcove is full of a glow of light from the fire. there is an open door facing the audience to the left, and to the left of this a bench. through the door one can see the forest. it is night, but the moon or a late sunset glimmers through the trees and carries the eye far off into a vague, mysterious world._ maurteen bruin, shawn bruin, _and_ bridget bruin _sit in the alcove at the table or about the fire. they are dressed in the costume of some remote time, and near them sits an old priest_, father hart. _he may be dressed as a friar. there is food and drink upon the table_. mary bruin _stands by the door reading a book. if she looks up she can see through the door into the wood._ bridget because i bid her clean the pots for supper she took that old book down out of the thatch; she has been doubled over it ever since. we should be deafened by her groans and moans had she to work as some do, father hart; get up at dawn like me and mend and scour or ride abroad in the boisterous night like you, the pyx and blessed bread under your arm. shawn mother, you are too cross. bridget you've married her, and fear to vex her and so take her part. maurteen (_to_ father hart) it is but right that youth should side with youth; she quarrels with my wife a bit at times, and is too deep just now in the old book! but do not blame her greatly; she will grow as quiet as a puff-ball in a tree when but the moons of marriage dawn and die for half a score of times. father hart their hearts are wild, as be the hearts of birds, till children come. bridget she would not mind the kettle, milk the cow, or even lay the knives and spread the cloth. shawn mother, if only--- maurteen shawn, this is half empty; go, bring up the best bottle that we have. father hart i never saw her read a book before, what can it be? maurteen (_to_ shawn) what are you waiting for? you must not shake it when you draw the cork; it's precious wine, so take your time about it. (_to priest._) (shawn _goes_.) there was a spaniard wrecked at ocris head, when i was young, and i have still some bottles. he cannot bear to hear her blamed; the book has lain up in the thatch these fifty years; my father told me my grandfather wrote it, and killed a heifer for the binding of it- but supper's spread, and we can talk and eat it was little good he got out of the book, because it filled his house with rambling fiddlers, and rambling ballad-makers and the like. the griddle-bread is there in front of you. colleen, what is the wonder in that book, that you must leave the bread to cool? had i or had my father read or written books there were no stocking stuffed with yellow guineas to come when i am dead to shawn and you. father hart you should not fill your head with foolish dreams. what are you reading? mary how a princess edane, a daughter of a king of ireland, heard a voice singing on a may eve like this, and followed half awake and half asleep, until she came into the land of faery, where nobody gets old and godly and grave, where nobody gets old and crafty and wise, where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue. and she is still there, busied with a dance deep in the dewy shadow of a wood, or where stars walk upon a mountain-top. maurteen persuade the colleen to put down the book; my grandfather would mutter just such things, and he was no judge of a dog or a horse, and any idle boy could blarney him; just speak your mind. father hart put it away, my colleen; god spreads the heavens above us like great wings and gives a little round of deeds and days, and then come the wrecked angels and set snares, and bait them with light hopes and heavy dreams, until the heart is puffed with pride and goes half shuddering and half joyous from god's peace; and it was some wrecked angel, blind with tears, who flattered edane's heart with merry words. my colleen, i have seen some other girls restless and ill at ease, but years went by and they grew like their neighbours and were glad in minding children, working at the churn, and gossiping of weddings and of wakes; for life moves out of a red flare of dreams into a common light of common hours, until old age bring the red flare again. maurteen that's true--but she's too young to know it's true. bridget she's old enough to know that it is wrong to mope and idle. maurteen i've little blame for her; she's dull when my big son is in the fields, and that and maybe this good woman's tongue have driven her to hide among her dreams like children from the dark under the bed-clothes. bridget she'd never do a turn if i were silent. maurteen and maybe it is natural upon may eve to dream of the good people. but tell me, girl, if you've the branch of blessed quicken wood that women hang upon the post of the door that they may send good luck into the house? remember they may steal new-married brides after the fall of twilight on may eve, or what old women mutter at the fire is but a pack of lies. father hart it may be truth. we do not know the limit of those powers god has permitted to the evil spirits for some mysterious end. you have done right (_to_ mary); it's well to keep old innocent customs up. (mary bruin _has taken a bough of quicken wood from a seat and hung it on a nail in the door-post. a girl child strangely dressed, perhaps in faery green, comes out of the wood and takes it away_.) mary i had no sooner hung it on the nail before a child ran up out of the wind; she has caught it in her hand and fondled it; her face is pale as water before dawn. father hart whose child can this be? maurteen no one's child at all. she often dreams that some one has gone by, when there was nothing but a puff of wind. mary they have taken away the blessed quicken wood, they will not bring good luck into the house; yet i am glad that i was courteous to them, for are not they, likewise, children of god? father hart colleen, they are the children of the fiend, and they have power until the end of time, when god shall fight with them a great pitched battle and hack them into pieces. mary he will smile, father, perhaps, and open his great door. father hart did but the lawless angels see that door they would fall, slain by everlasting peace; and when such angels knock upon our doors, who goes with them must drive through the same storm. (_a thin old arm comes round the door-post and knocks and beckons. it is clearly seen in the silvery light._ mary bruin _goes to door and stands in it for a moment_. maurteen bruin _is busy filling_ father hart's _plate_. bridget bruin _stirs the fire_.) mary (_coming to table_) there's somebody out there that beckoned me and raised her hand as though it held a cup, and she was drinking from it, so it may be that she is thirsty. (_she takes milk from the table and carries it to the door._) father hart that will be the child that you would have it was no child at all. bridget and maybe, father, what he said was true; for there is not another night in the year so wicked as to-night. maurteen nothing can harm us while the good father's underneath our roof. mary a little queer old woman dressed in green. bridget the good people beg for milk and fire upon may eve--woe to the house that gives, for they have power upon it for a year. maurteen hush, woman, hush! bridget she's given milk away. i knew she would bring evil on the house. maurteen who was it? mary both the tongue and face were strange. maurteen some strangers came last week to clover hill; she must be one of them. bridget i am afraid. father hart the cross will keep all evil from the house while it hangs there. maurteen come, sit beside me, colleen, and put away your dreams of discontent, for i would have you light up my last days, like the good glow of the turf; and when i die you'll be the wealthiest hereabout, for, colleen, i have a stocking full of yellow guineas hidden away where nobody can find it. bridget you are the fool of every pretty face, and i must spare and pinch that my son's wife may have all kinds of ribbons for her head. maurteen do not be cross; she is a right good girl! the butter is by your elbow, father hart. my colleen, have not fate and time and change done well for me and for old bridget there? we have a hundred acres of good land, and sit beside each other at the fire. i have this reverend father for my friend, i look upon your face and my son's face- we've put his plate by yours--and here he comes, and brings with him the only thing we have lacked, abundance of good wine. (shawn _comes in_.) stir up the fire, and put new turf upon it till it blaze; to watch the turf-smoke coiling from the fire, and feel content and wisdom in your heart, this is the best of life; when we are young we long to tread a way none trod before, but find the excellent old way through love, and through the care of children, to the hour for bidding fate and time and change goodbye. (mary _takes a sod of turf from the fire and goes out through the door_. shawn _follows her and meets her coming in_.) shawn what is it draws you to the chill o' the wood? there is a light among the stems of the trees that makes one shiver. mary a little queer old man made me a sign to show he wanted fire to light his pipe. bridget you've given milk and fire upon the unluckiest night of the year and brought, for all you know, evil upon the house. before you married you were idle and fine and went about with ribbons on your head; and now--no, father, i will speak my mind- she is not a fitting wife for any man--- shawn be quiet, mother! maurteen you are much too cross. mary what do i care if i have given this house, where i must hear all day a bitter tongue, into the power of faeries! bridget you know well how calling the good people by that name, or talking of them over much at all, may bring all kinds of evil on the house. mary come, faeries, take me out of this dull house! let me have all the freedom i have lost; work when i will and idle when i will! faeries, come take me out of this dull world, for i would ride with you upon the wind. run on the top of the dishevelled tide, and dance upon the mountains like a flame. father hart you cannot know the meaning of your words. mary father, i am right weary of four tongues: a tongue that is too crafty and too wise, a tongue that is too godly and too grave, a tongue that is more bitter than the tide, and a kind tongue too full of drowsy love, of drowsy love and my captivity. (shawn bruin _leads her to a seat at the left of the door_.) shawn do not blame me; i often lie awake thinking that all things trouble your bright head. how beautiful it is--your broad pale forehead under a cloudy blossoming of hair! sit down beside me here--these are too old, and have forgotten they were ever young. mary o, you are the great door-post of this house, and i the branch of blessed quicken wood, and if i could i'd hang upon the post, till i had brought good luck into the house. (_she would put her arms about him, but looks shyly at the priest and lets her arms fall._) father hart my daughter, take his hand--by love alone god binds us to himself and to the hearth, that shuts us from the waste beyond his peace, from maddening freedom and bewildering light. shawn would that the world were mine to give it you, and not its quiet hearths alone, but even all that bewilderment of light and freedom, if you would have it. mary i would take the world and break it into pieces in my hands to see you smile watching it crumble away. shawn then i would mould a world of fire and dew, with no one bitter, grave or over wise, and nothing marred or old to do you wrong, and crowd the enraptured quiet of the sky with candles burning to your lonely face. mary your looks are all the candles that i need. shawn once a fly dancing in a beam of the sun, or the light wind blowing out of the dawn, could fill your heart with dreams none other knew, but now the indissoluble sacrament has mixed your heart that was most proud and cold with my warm heart for ever; the sun and moon must fade and heaven be rolled up like a scroll; but your white spirit still walk by my spirit. (_a voice singing in the wood._) maurteen there's some one singing. why, it's but a child. it sang, "the lonely of heart is withered away." a strange song for a child, but she sings sweetly. listen, listen! (_goes to door._) mary o, cling close to me, because i have said wicked things to-night. the voice the wind blows out of the gates of the day, the wind blows over the lonely of heart, and the lonely of heart is withered away. while the faeries dance in a place apart, shaking their milk-white feet in a ring, tossing their milk-white arms in the air; for they hear the wind laugh and murmur and sing of a land where even the old are fair, and even the wise are merry of tongue; but i heard a reed of coolaney say, "when the wind has laughed and murmured and sung the lonely of heart is withered away!" maurteen being happy, i would have all others happy, so i will bring her in out of the cold. (_he brings in the faery child._) the child i tire of winds and waters and pale lights. maurteen and that's no wonder, for when night has fallen the wood's a cold and a bewildering place, but you are welcome here. the child i am welcome here. for when i tire of this warm little house there is one here that must away, away. maurteen o, listen to her dreamy and strange talk. are you not cold? the child i will crouch down beside you, for i have run a long, long way this night. bridget you have a comely shape. maurteen your hair is wet. bridget i'll warm your chilly feet. maurteen you have come indeed a long, long way--for i have never seen your pretty face--and must be tired and hungry, here is some bread and wine. the child the wine is bitter. old mother, have you no sweet food for me? bridget i have some honey. (_she goes into the next room._) maurteen you have coaxing ways, the mother was quite cross before you came. (bridget _returns with the honey and fills a porringer with milk_.) bridget she is the child of gentle people; look at her white hands and at her pretty dress. i've brought you some new milk, but wait a while and i will put it to the fire to warm, for things well fitted for poor folk like us would never please a high-born child like you. the child from dawn, when you must blow the fire ablaze, you work your fingers to the bone, old mother. the young may lie in bed and dream and hope, but you must work your fingers to the bone because your heart is old. bridget the young are idle. the child your memories have made you wise, old father; the young must sigh through many a dream and hope, but you are wise because your heart is old. (bridget _gives her more bread and honey_.) maurteen o, who would think to find so young a girl loving old age and wisdom? the child no more, mother. maurteen what a small bite! the milk is ready now. (_hands it to her._) what a small sip! the child put on my shoes, old mother. now i would like to dance now i have eaten, the reeds are dancing by coolaney lake, and i would like to dance until the reeds and the white waves have danced themselves asleep. (bridget _puts on the shoes, and the_ child _is about to dance, but suddenly sees the crucifix and shrieks and covers her eyes_.) what is that ugly thing on the black cross? father hart you cannot know how naughty your words are! that is our blessed lord. the child hide it away! bridget i have begun to be afraid again. the child hide it away! maurteen that would be wickedness! bridget that would be sacrilege! the child the tortured thing! hide it away! maurteen her parents are to blame. father hart that is the image of the son of god. the child (_caressing him_) hide it away, hide it away! maurteen no, no. father hart because you are so young and like a bird, that must take fright at every stir of the leaves, i will go take it down. the child hide it away! and cover it out of sight and out of mind! (father hart _takes crucifix from wall and carries it towards inner room_.) father hart since you have come into this barony, i will instruct you in our blessed faith; and being so keen witted you'll soon learn. (_to the others._) we must be tender to all budding things, our maker let no thought of calvary trouble the morning stars in their first song. (_puts crucifix in inner room._) the child here is level ground for dancing; i will dance. (_sings._) "the wind blows out of the gates of the day, the wind blows over the lonely of heart, and the lonely of heart is withered away." (_she dances._) mary (_to_ shawn) just now when she came near i thought i heard other small steps beating upon the floor, and a faint music blowing in the wind, invisible pipes giving her feet the tune. shawn i heard no steps but hers. mary i hear them now, the unholy powers are dancing in the house. maurteen come over here, and if you promise me not to talk wickedly of holy things i will give you something. the child bring it me, old father. maurteen here are some ribbons that i bought in the town for my son's wife--but she will let me give them to tie up that wild hair the winds have tumbled. the child come, tell me, do you love me? maurteen yes, i love you. the child ah, but you love this fireside. do you love me? father hart when the almighty puts so great a share of his own ageless youth into a creature, to look is but to love. the child but you love him? bridget she is blaspheming. the child and do you love me too? mary i do not know. the child you love that young man there, yet i could make you ride upon the winds, run on the top of the dishevelled tide, and dance upon the mountains like a flame. mary queen of angels and kind saints defend us! some dreadful thing will happen. a while ago she took away the blessed quicken wood. father hart you fear because of her unmeasured prattle; she knows no better. child, how old are you? the child when winter sleep is abroad my hair grows thin, my feet unsteady. when the leaves awaken my mother carries me in her golden arms; i'll soon put on my womanhood and marry the spirits of wood and water, but who can tell when i was born for the first time? i think i am much older than the eagle cock that blinks and blinks on ballygawley hill, and he is the oldest thing under the moon. father hart o she is of the faery people. the child one called, i sent my messengers for milk and fire, she called again and after that i came. (_all except_ shawn _and_ mary bruin _gather behind the priest for protection_.) shawn (_rising_) though you have made all these obedient, you have not charmed my sight and won from me a wish or gift to make you powerful; i'll turn you from the house. father hart no, i will face her. the child because you took away the crucifix i am so mighty that there's none can pass, unless i will it, where my feet have danced or where i've whirled my finger-tops. (shawn _tries to approach her and cannot_.) maurteen look, look! there something stops him--look how he moves his hands as though he rubbed them on a wall of glass! father hart i will confront this mighty spirit alone; be not afraid, the father is with us, the holy martyrs and the innocents, the adoring magi in their coats of mail, and he who died and rose on the third day, and all the nine angelic hierarchies. (_the_ child _kneels upon the settle beside_ mary _and puts her arms about her_.) cry, daughter, to the angels and the saints. the child you shall go with me, newly-married bride, and gaze upon a merrier multitude. white-armed nuala, aengus of the birds, feacra of the hurtling foam, and him who is the ruler of the western host, finvarra, and their land of heart's desire, where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood, but joy is wisdom, time an endless song. i kiss you and the world begins to fade. shawn awake out of that trance--and cover up your eyes and ears. father hart she must both look and listen, for only the soul's choice can save her now. come over to me, daughter; stand beside me; think of this house and of your duties in it. the child stay and come with me, newly-married bride, for if you hear him you grow like the rest; bear children, cook, and bend above the churn, and wrangle over butter, fowl, and eggs, until at last, grown old and bitter of tongue, you're crouching there and shivering at the grave. father hart daughter, i point you out the way to heaven. the child but i can lead you, newly-married bride, where nobody gets old and crafty and wise, where nobody gets old and godly and grave, where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue, and where kind tongues bring no captivity; for we are but obedient to the thoughts that drift into the mind at a wink of the eye. father hart by the dear name of the one crucified, i bid you, mary bruin, come to me. the child i keep you in the name of your own heart. father hart it is because i put away the crucifix that i am nothing, and my power is nothing. i'll bring it here again. maurteen (_clinging to him_) no. bridget do not leave us. father hart o, let me go before it is too late; it is my sin alone that brought it all. (_singing outside._) the child i hear them sing, "come, newly-married bride, come, to the woods and waters and pale lights." mary i will go with you. father hart she is lost, alas! the child (_standing by the door_) but clinging mortal hope must fall from you, for we who ride the winds, run on the waves, and dance upon the mountains are more light than dewdrops on the banner of the dawn. mary o, take me with you. shawn beloved, i will keep you. i've more than words, i have these arms to hold you, nor all the faery host, do what they please, shall ever make me loosen you from these arms. mary dear face! dear voice! the child come, newly-married bride. mary i always loved her world--and yet--and yet--- the child white bird, white bird, come with me, little bird. mary she calls me! the child come with me, little bird. (_distant dancing figures appear in the wood._) mary i can hear songs and dancing. shawn stay with me. mary i think that i would stay--and yet--and yet--- the child come, little bird, with crest of gold. mary (_very softly_) and yet--- the child come, little bird with silver feet! (mary bruin _dies, and the_ child _goes_.) shawn she is dead! bridget come from that image; body and soul are gone. you have thrown your arms about a drift of leaves, or bole of an ash-tree changed into her image. father hart thus do the spirits of evil snatch their prey, almost out of the very hand of god; and day by day their power is more and more, and men and women leave old paths, for pride comes knocking with thin knuckles on the heart. (_outside there are dancing figures, and it may be a white bird, and many voices singing_:) "the wind blows out of the gates of the day, the wind blows over the lonely of heart, and the lonely of heart is withered away; while the faeries dance in a place apart, shaking their milk-white feet in a ring, tossing their milk-white arms in the air; for they hear the wind laugh and murmur and sing of a land where even the old are fair, and even the wise are merry of tongue; but i heard a reed of coolaney say- 'when the wind has laughed and murmured and sung, the lonely of heart is withered away.'" crossways _"the stars are threshed, and the souls are threshed from their husks."_ william blake. to a.e. the song of the happy shepherd the woods of arcady are dead, and over is their antique joy; of old the world on dreaming fed; gray truth is now her painted toy; yet still she turns her restless head: but o, sick children of the world, of all the many changing things in dreary dancing past us whirled, to the cracked tune that chronos sings, words alone are certain good. where are now the warring kings, word be-mockers?--by the rood where are now the warring kings? an idle word is now their glory, by the stammering schoolboy said, reading some entangled story: the kings of the old time are fled the wandering earth herself may be only a sudden flaming word, in clanging space a moment heard, troubling the endless reverie. then nowise worship dusty deeds, nor seek; for this is also sooth; to hunger fiercely after truth, lest all thy toiling only breeds new dreams, new dreams; there is no truth saving in thine own heart. seek, then, no learning from the starry men, who follow with the optic glass the whirling ways of stars that pass- seek, then, for this is also sooth, no word of theirs--the cold star-bane has cloven and rent their hearts in twain, and dead is all their human truth. go gather by the humming-sea some twisted, echo-harbouring shell, and to its lips thy story tell, and they thy comforters will be, rewarding in melodious guile, thy fretful words a little while, till they shall singing fade in ruth, and die a pearly brotherhood; for words alone are certain good: sing, then, for this is also sooth. i must be gone: there is a grave where daffodil and lily wave, and i would please the hapless faun, buried under the sleepy ground, with mirthful songs before the dawn. his shouting days with mirth were crowned; and still i dream he treads the lawn, walking ghostly in the dew, pierced by my glad singing through, my songs of old earth's dreamy youth: but ah! she dreams not now; dream thou! for fair are poppies on the brow: dream, dream, for this is also sooth. the sad shepherd there was a man whom sorrow named his friend, and he, of his high comrade sorrow dreaming, went walking with slow steps along the gleaming and humming sands, where windy surges wend: and he called loudly to the stars to bend from their pale thrones and comfort him, but they among themselves laugh on and sing alway: and then the man whom sorrow named his friend cried out, _dim sea, hear my most piteous story!_ the sea swept on and cried her old cry still, rolling along in dreams from hill to hill; he fled the persecution of her glory and, in a far-off, gentle valley stopping, cried all his story to the dewdrops glistening, but naught they heard, for they are always listening, the dewdrops, for the sound of their own dropping. and then the man whom sorrow named his friend, sought once again the shore, and found a shell, and thought, _i will my heavy story tell till my own words, re-echoing, shall send their sadness through a hollow, pearly heart; and my own tale again for me shall sing, and my own whispering words be comforting, and lo! my ancient burden may depart_. then he sang softly nigh the pearly rim; but the sad dweller by the sea-ways lone changed all he sang to inarticulate moan among her wildering whirls, forgetting him. the cloak, the boat, and the shoes "what do you make so fair and bright?" "i make the cloak of sorrow: "o, lovely to see in all men's sight "shall be the cloak of sorrow, "in all men's sight." "what do you build with sails for flight?" "i build a boat for sorrow, "o, swift on the seas all day and night "saileth the rover sorrow, "all day and night." "what do you weave with wool so white? "i weave the shoes of sorrow, "soundless shall be the footfall light "in all men's ears of sorrow, "sudden and light." anashuya and vijaya _a little indian temple in the golden age. around it a garden; around that the forest._ anashuya, _the young priestess, kneeling within the temple_. anashuya send peace on all the lands and flickering corn.- o, may tranquillity walk by his elbow when wandering in the forest, if he love no other.--hear, and may the indolent flocks be plentiful.--and if he love another, may panthers end him.--hear, and load our king with wisdom hour by hour.--may we two stand, when we are dead, beyond the setting suns, a little from the other shades apart, with mingling hair, and play upon one lute. vijaya [_entering and throwing a lily at her_] hail! hail, my anashuya. anashuya no: be still. i, priestess of this temple, offer up prayers for the land. vijaya i will wait here, amrita. anashuya by mighty brahma's ever rustling robe, who is amrita? sorrow of all sorrows! another fills your mind. vijaya my mother's name. anashuya [_sings, coming out of the temple_] _a sad, sad thought went by me slowly: sigh, o you little stars! o, sigh and shake your blue apparel! the sad, sad thought has gone from me now wholly: sing, o you little stars! o, sing and raise your rapturous carol to mighty brahma, he who made you many as the sands, and laid you on the gates of evening with his quiet hands._ [_sits down on the steps of the temple._] vijaya, i have brought my evening rice; the sun has laid his chin on the gray wood, weary, with all his poppies gathered round him. vijaya the hour when kama, full of sleepy laughter, rises, and showers abroad his fragrant arrows, piercing the twilight with their murmuring barbs. anashuya see how the sacred old flamingoes come, painting with shadow all the marble steps: aged and wise, they seek their wonted perches within the temple, devious walking, made to wander by their melancholy minds. yon tall one eyes my supper; swiftly chase him far, far away. i named him after you. he is a famous fisher; hour by hour he ruffles with his bill the minnowed streams. ah! there he snaps my rice. i told you so. now cuff him off. he's off! a kiss for you, because you saved my rice. have you no thanks? vijaya [_sings_] _sing you of her, o first few stars, whom brahma, touching with his finger, praises, for you hold_ _the van of wandering quiet; ere you be too calm and old, sing, turning in your cars, sing, till you raise your hands and sigh, and from your car heads peer, with all your whirling hair, and drop many an azure tear._ anashuya what know the pilots of the stars of tears? vijaya their faces are all worn, and in their eyes flashes the fire of sadness, for they see the icicles that famish all the north, where men lie frozen in the glimmering snow; and in the flaming forests cower the lion and lioness, with all their whimpering cubs; and, ever pacing on the verge of things, the phantom, beauty, in a mist of tears; while we alone have round us woven woods, and feel the softness of each other's hand, amrita, while--- anashuya [_going away from him_] ah me, you love another, [_bursting into tears._] and may some dreadful ill befall her quick! vijaya i loved another; now i love no other. among the mouldering of ancient woods you live, and on the village border she, with her old father the blind wood-cutter; i saw her standing in her door but now. anashuya vijaya, swear to love her never more, vijaya ay, ay. anashuya swear by the parents of the gods, dread oath, who dwell on sacred himalay, on the far golden peak; enormous shapes, who still were old when the great sea was young on their vast faces mystery and dreams; their hair along the mountains rolled and filled from year to year by the unnumbered nests of aweless birds, and round their stirless feet the joyous flocks of deer and antelope, who never hear the unforgiving hound. swear! vijaya by the parents of the gods, i swear. anashuya [_sings_] _i have forgiven, o new star! maybe you have not heard of us, you have come forth so newly, you hunter of the fields afar! ah, you will know my loved one by his hunter's arrows truly, shoot on him shafts of quietness, that he may ever keep an inner laughter, and may kiss his hands to me in sleep._ farewell, vijaya. nay, no word, no word; i, priestess of this temple, offer up prayers for the land. [vijaya _goes_.] o brahma, guard in sleep the merry lambs and the complacent kine, the flies below the leaves, and the young mice in the tree roots, and all the sacred flocks of red flamingo; and my love, vijaya; and may no restless fay with fidget finger trouble his sleeping: give him dreams of me. the indian upon god i passed along the water's edge below the humid trees, my spirit rocked in evening light, the rushes round my knees, my spirit rocked in sleep and sighs; and saw the moorfowl pace all dripping on a grassy slope, and saw them cease to chase each other round in circles, and heard the eldest speak: _who holds the world between his bill and made us strong or weak is an undying moorfowl, and he lives beyond the sky. the rains are from his dripping wing, the moonbeams from his eye._ i passed a little further on and heard a lotus talk: _who made the world and ruleth it, he hangeth on a stalk,_ _for i am in his image made, and all this tinkling tide is but a sliding drop of rain between his petals wide._ a little way within the gloom a roebuck raised his eyes brimful of starlight, and he said: _the stamper of the skies, he is a gentle roebuck; for how else, i pray, could he conceive a thing so sad and soft, a gentle thing like me?_ i passed a little further on and heard a peacock say: _who made the grass and made the worms and made my feathers gay, he is a monstrous peacock, and he waveth all the night his languid tail above us, lit with myriad spots of light._ the indian to his love the island dreams under the dawn and great boughs drop tranquillity; the peahens dance on a smooth lawn, a parrot sways upon a tree, raging at his own image in the enamelled sea. here we will moor our lonely ship and wander ever with woven hands, murmuring softly lip to lip, along the grass, along the sands, murmuring how far away are the unquiet lands: how we alone of mortals are hid under quiet bows apart, while our love grows an indian star, a meteor of the burning heart, one with the tide that gleams, the wings that gleam and dart, the heavy boughs, the burnished dove that moans and sighs a hundred days: how when we die our shades will rove, when eve has hushed the feathered ways, with vapoury footsole among the water's drowsy blaze. the falling of the leaves autumn is over the long leaves that love us, and over the mice in the barley sheaves; yellow the leaves of the rowan above us, and yellow the wet wild-strawberry leaves. the hour of the waning of love has beset us, and weary and worn are our sad souls now; let us part, ere the season of passion forget us, with a kiss and a tear on thy drooping brow. ephemera "your eyes that once were never weary of mine "are bowed in sorrow under pendulous lids, "because our love is waning." and then she: "although our love is waning, let us stand "by the lone border of the lake once more, "together in that hour of gentleness "when the poor tired child, passion, falls asleep: "how far away the stars seem, and how far "is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!" pensive they paced along the faded leaves, while slowly he whose hand held hers replied: "passion has often worn our wandering hearts." the woods were round them, and the yellow leaves fell like faint meteors in the gloom, and once a rabbit old and lame limped down the path; autumn was over him: and now they stood on the lone border of the lake once more: turning, he saw that she had thrust dead leaves gathered in silence, dewy as her eyes, in bosom and hair. "ah, do not mourn," he said, "that we are tired, for other loves await us; "hate on and love through unrepining hours. "before us lies eternity; our souls "are love, and a continual farewell." the madness of king goll i sat on cushioned otter skin: my word was law from ith to emen, and shook at invar amargin the hearts of the world-troubling seamen. and drove tumult and war away from girl and boy and man and beast; the fields grew fatter day by day, the wild fowl of the air increased; and every ancient ollave said, while he bent down his fading head, "he drives away the northern cold." _they will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old._ i sat and mused and drank sweet wine; a herdsman came from inland valleys, crying, the pirates drove his swine to fill their dark-beaked hollow galleys. i called my battle-breaking men, and my loud brazen battle-cars from rolling vale and rivery glen, and under the blinking of the stars fell on the pirates by the deep, and hurled them in the gulph of sleep: these hands won many a torque of gold. _they will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old._ but slowly, as i shouting slew and trampled in the bubbling mire, in my most secret spirit grew a whirling and a wandering fire: i stood: keen stars above me shone, around me shone keen eyes of men: i laughed aloud and hurried on by rocky shore and rushy fen; i laughed because birds fluttered by, and starlight gleamed, and clouds flew high, and rushes waved and waters rolled. _they will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old._ and now i wander in the woods when summer gluts the golden bees, or in autumnal solitudes arise the leopard-coloured trees; or when along the wintry strands the cormorants shiver on their rocks; i wander on, and wave my hands, and sing, and shake my heavy locks. the gray wolf knows me; by one ear i lead along the woodland deer; the hares run by me growing bold. _they will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old._ i came upon a little town, that slumbered in the harvest moon, and passed a-tiptoe up and down, murmuring, to a fitful tune, how i have followed, night and day, a tramping of tremendous feet, and saw where this old tympan lay, deserted on a doorway seat, and bore it to the woods with me; of some unhuman misery our married voiced wildly trolled. _they will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old._ i sang how, when day's toil is done, orchil shakes out her long dark hair that hides away the dying sun and sheds faint odours through the air: when my hand passed from wire to wire it quenched, with sound like falling dew, the whirling and the wandering fire; but lift a mournful ulalu, for the kind wires are torn and still, and i must wander wood and hill through summer's heat and winter's cold. _they will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old._ the stolen child where dips the rocky highland of sleuth wood in the lake, there lies a leafy island where flapping herons wake the drowsy water rats; there we've hid our faery vats, full of berries, and of reddest stolen cherries. _come away, o human child! to the waters and the wild with a faery, hand in hand, for the world's more full of weeping than you can understand._ where the wave of moonlight glosses the dim gray sands with light, far off by furthest rosses we foot it all the night, weaving olden dances, mingling hands and mingling glances till the moon has taken flight; to and fro we leap and chase the frothy bubbles, while the world is full of troubles and is anxious in its sleep. _come away, o human child! to the waters and the wild with a faery, hand in hand, for the world's more full of weeping than you can understand._ where the wandering water gushes from the hills above glen-car, in pools among the rushes that scarce could bathe a star, we seek for slumbering trout and whispering in their ears give them unquiet dreams; leaning softly out from ferns that drop their tears over the young streams, _come away, o human child! to the waters and the wild with a faery, hand in hand, for the world's more full of weeping than you can understand._ away with us he's going, the solemn-eyed: he'll hear no more the lowing of the calves on the warm hillside or the kettle on the hob sing peace into his breast, or see the brown mice bob round and round the oatmeal-chest. _for he comes, the human child, to the waters and the wild with a faery, hand in hand, from a world more full of weeping than he can understand._ to an isle in the water shy one, shy one, shy one of my heart, she moves in the firelight pensively apart. she carries in the dishes, and lays them in a row. to an isle in the water with her would i go. she carries in the candles, and lights the curtained room, shy in the doorway and shy in the gloom; and shy as a rabbit, helpful and shy. to an isle in the water with her would i fly. down by the salley gardens down by the salley gardens my love and i did meet; she passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet. she bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree; but i, being young and foolish, with her would not agree. in a field by the river my love and i did stand, and on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand. she bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs; but i was young and foolish, and now am full of tears. the meditation of the old fisherman you waves, though you dance by my feet like children at play, though you glow and you glance, though you purr and you dart; in the junes that were warmer than these are, the waves were more gay, _when i was a boy with never a crack in my heart_. the herring are not in the tides as they were of old; my sorrow! for many a creak gave the creel in the cart that carried the take to sligo town to be sold, _when i was a boy with never a crack in my heart_. and ah, you proud maiden, you are not so fair when his oar is heard on the water, as they were, the proud and apart, who paced in the eve by the nets on the pebbly shore, _when i was a boy with never a crack in my heart_. the ballad of father o'hart good father john o'hart in penal days rode out to a shoneen who had free lands and his own snipe and trout. in trust took he john's lands; sleiveens were all his race; and he gave them as dowers to his daughters, and they married beyond their place. but father john went up, and father john went down; and he wore small holes in his shoes, and he wore large holes in his gown. all loved him, only the shoneen, whom the devils have by the hair, from the wives, and the cats, and the children, to the birds in the white of the air. the birds, for he opened their cages as he went up and down; and he said with a smile, "have peace now"; and he went his way with a frown. but if when any one died came keeners hoarser than rooks, he bade them give over their keening; for he was a man of books. and these were the works of john, when weeping score by score, people came into coloony; for he'd died at ninety-four. there was no human keening; the birds from knocknarea and the world round knocknashee came keening in that day. the young birds and old birds came flying, heavy and sad; keening in from tiraragh, keening from ballinafad; keening from inishmurray, nor stayed for bite or sup; this way were all reproved who dig old customs up. the ballad of moll magee come round me, little childer; there, don't fling stones at me because i mutter as i go; but pity moll magee. my man was a poor fisher with shore lines in the say; my work was saltin' herrings the whole of the long day. and sometimes from the saltin' shed, i scarce could drag my feet under the blessed moonlight, along the pebbly street. i'd always been but weakly, and my baby was just born; a neighbour minded her by day i minded her till morn. i lay upon my baby; ye little childer dear, i looked on my cold baby when the morn grew frosty and clear. a weary woman sleeps so hard! my man grew red and pale, and gave me money, and bade me go to my own place, kinsale. he drove me out and shut the door, and gave his curse to me; i went away in silence, no neighbour could i see. the windows and the doors were shut, one star shone faint and green the little straws were turnin' round across the bare boreen. i went away in silence: beyond old martin's byre i saw a kindly neighbour blowin' her mornin' fire. she drew from me my story- my money's all used up, and still, with pityin', scornin' eye, she gives me bite and sup. she says my man will surely come, and fetch me home agin; but always, as i'm movin' round, without doors or within, pilin' the wood or pilin' the turf, or goin' to the well, i'm thinkin' of my baby and keenin' to mysel'. and sometimes i am sure she knows when, openin' wide his door, god lights the stars, his candles, and looks upon the poor. so now, ye little childer, ye won't fling stones at me; but gather with your shinin' looks and pity moll magee. the ballad of the foxhunter "now lay me in a cushioned chair "and carry me, you four, "with cushions here and cushions there, "to see the world once more. "and some one from the stables bring "my dermot dear and brown, "and lead him gently in a ring, "and gently up and down. "now leave the chair upon the grass: "bring hound and huntsman here, "and i on this strange road will pass, "filled full of ancient cheer." his eyelids droop, his head falls low, his old eyes cloud with dreams; the sun upon all things that grow pours round in sleepy streams. brown dermot treads upon the lawn, and to the armchair goes, and now the old man's dreams are gone, he smooths the long brown nose. and now moves many a pleasant tongue upon his wasted hands, for leading aged hounds and young the huntsman near him stands. "my huntsman, rody, blow the horn, "and make the hills reply." the huntsman loosens on the morn a gay and wandering cry. a fire is in the old man's eyes, his fingers move and sway, and when the wandering music dies they hear him feebly say, "my huntsman, rody, blow the horn, "and make the hills reply." "i cannot blow upon my horn, "i can but weep and sigh." the servants round his cushioned place are with new sorrow wrung; and hounds are gazing on his face, both aged hounds and young. one blind hound only lies apart on the sun-smitten grass; he holds deep commune with his heart: the moments pass and pass; the blind hound with a mournful din lifts slow his wintry head; the servants bear the body in; the hounds wail for the dead. the wanderings of usheen "_give me the world if thou wilt, but grant me an asylum for my affections._" tulka. to edwin j. ellis book i s. patric you who are bent, and bald, and blind, with a heavy heart and a wandering mind, have known three centuries, poets sing, of dalliance with a demon thing. usheen sad to remember, sick with years, the swift innumerable spears, the horsemen with their floating hair, and bowls of barley, honey, and wine, and feet of maidens dancing in tune, and the white body that lay by mine; but the tale, though words be lighter than air, must live to be old like the wandering moon. caolte, and conan, and finn were there, when we followed a deer with our baying hounds, with bran, sgeolan, and lomair, and passing the firbolgs' burial mounds, came to the cairn-heaped grassy hill where passionate maive is stony still; and found on the dove-gray edge of the sea a pearl-pale, high-born lady, who rode on a horse with bridle of findrinny; and like a sunset were her lips, a stormy sunset on doomed ships; a citron colour gloomed in her hair, but down to her feet white vesture flowed, and with the glimmering crimson glowed of many a figured embroidery; and it was bound with a pearl-pale shell that wavered like the summer streams, as her soft bosom rose and fell. s. patric you are still wrecked among heathen dreams. usheen "why do you wind no horn?" she said. "and every hero droop his head? "the hornless deer is not more sad "that many a peaceful moment had, "more sleek than any granary mouse, "in his own leafy forest house "among the waving fields of fern: "the hunting of heroes should be glad." "o pleasant woman," answered finn, "we think on oscar's pencilled urn, "and on the heroes lying slain, on gavra's raven-covered plain; "but where are your noble kith and kin, "and from what country do you ride?" "my father and my mother are "aengus and adene, my own name "niam, and my country far "beyond the tumbling of this tide." "what dream came with you that you came "through bitter tide on foam wet feet? "did your companion wander away "from where the birds of aengus wing?" she said, with laughter tender and sweet: "i have not yet, war-weary king, "been spoken of with any one; "yet now i choose, for these four feet "ran through the foam and ran to this "that i might have your son to kiss." "were there no better than my son "that you through all that foam should run?" "i loved no man, though kings besought "love, till the danaan poets brought "rhyme, that rhymed to usheen's name, "and now i am dizzy with the thought "of all that wisdom and the fame "of battles broken by his hands, "of stories builded by his words "that are like coloured asian birds "at evening in their rainless lands." o patric, by your brazen bell, there was no limb of mine but fell into a desperate gulph of love! "you only will i wed," i cried, "and i will make a thousand songs, "and set your name all names above. "and captives bound with leathern thongs "shall kneel and praise you, one by one, "at evening in my western dun." "o usheen, mount by me and ride "to shores by the wash of the tremulous tide, "where men have heaped no burial mounds, "and the days pass by like a wayward tune, "where broken faith has never been known, "and the blushes of first love never have flown; "and there i will give you a hundred hounds; "no mightier creatures bay at the moon; "and a hundred robes of murmuring silk, "and a hundred calves and a hundred sheep "whose long wool whiter than sea froth flows, "and a hundred spears and a hundred bows, "and oil and wine and honey and milk, "and always never-anxious sleep; "while a hundred youths, mighty of limb, "but knowing nor tumult nor hate nor strife, "and a hundred maidens, merry as birds, "who when they dance to a fitful measure "have a speed like the speed of the salmon herds, "shall follow your horn and obey your whim, "and you shall know the danaan leisure: "and niam be with you for a wife." then she sighed gently, "it grows late, "music and love and sleep await, "where i would be when the white moon climbs "the red sun falls, and the world grows dim." and then i mounted and she bound me with her triumphing arms around me, and whispering to herself enwound me; but when the horse had felt my weight, he shook himself and neighed three times: caolte, conan, and finn came near, and wept, and raised their lamenting hands, and bid me stay, with many a tear; but we rode out from the human lands. in what far kingdom do you go, ah, fenians, with the shield and bow? or are you phantoms white as snow, whose lips had life's most prosperous glow? o you, with whom in sloping valleys, or down the dewy forest alleys, i chased at morn the flying deer, with whom i hurled the hurrying spear, and heard the foemen's bucklers rattle, and broke the heaving ranks of battle! and bran, sgeolan, and lomair, where are you with your long rough hair? you go not where the red deer feeds, nor tear the foemen from their steeds. s. patric boast not, nor mourn with drooping head companions long accurst and dead, and hounds for centuries dust and air. usheen we galloped over the glossy sea: i know not if days passed or hours, and niam sang continually danaan songs, and their dewy showers of pensive laughter, unhuman sound, lulled weariness, and softly round my human sorrow her white arms wound. we galloped; now a hornless deer passed by us, chased by a phantom hound all pearly white, save one red ear; and now a maiden rode like the wind with an apple of gold in her tossing hand; and a beautiful young man followed behind with quenchless gaze and fluttering hair. "were these two born in the danaan land, "or have they breathed the mortal air?" "vex them no longer," niam said, and sighing bowed her gentle head, and sighing laid the pearly tip of one long finger on my lip. but now the moon like a white rose shone in the pale west, and the sun's rim sank, and clouds arrayed their rank on rank about his fading crimson ball: the floor of emen's hosting hall was not more level than the sea, as full of loving phantasy, and with low murmurs we rode on, where many a trumpet-twisted shell that in immortal silence sleeps dreaming of her own melting hues, her golds, her ambers, and her blues, pierced with soft light the shallowing deeps. but now a wandering land breeze came and a far sound of feathery quires; it seemed to blow from the dying flame, they seemed to sing in the smouldering fires. the horse towards the music raced, neighing along the lifeless waste; like sooty fingers, many a tree rose ever out of the warm sea; and they were trembling ceaselessly, as though they all were beating time, upon the centre of the sun, to that low laughing woodland rhyme. and, now our wandering hours were done, we cantered to the shore, and knew the reason of the trembling trees: round every branch the song-birds flew, or clung thereon like swarming bees; while round the shore a million stood like drops of frozen rainbow light, and pondered in a soft vain mood upon their shadows in the tide, and told the purple deeps their pride, and murmured snatches of delight; and on the shores were many boats with bending sterns and bending bows. and carven figures on their prows of bitterns, and fish-eating stoats, and swans with their exultant throats: and where the wood and waters meet we tied the horse in a leafy clump, and niam blew three merry notes out of a little silver trump; and then an answering whispering flew over the bare and woody land, a whisper of impetuous feet, and ever nearer, nearer grew; and from the woods rushed out a band of men and maidens, hand in hand, and singing, singing altogether; their brows were white as fragrant milk, their cloaks made out of yellow silk, and trimmed with many a crimson feather: and when they saw the cloak i wore was dim with mire of a mortal shore, they fingered it and gazed on me and laughed like murmurs of the sea; but niam with a swift distress bid them away and hold their peace; and when they heard her voice they ran and knelt them, every maid and man and kissed, as they would never cease, her pearl-pale hand and the hem of her dress. she bade them bring us to the hall where aengus dreams, from sun to sun, a druid dream of the end of days when the stars are to wane and the world be done. they led us by long and shadowy ways where drops of dew in myriads fall, and tangled creepers every hour blossom in some new crimson flower, and once a sudden laughter sprang from all their lips, and once they sang together, while the dark woods rang, and made in all their distant parts, with boom of bees in honey marts, a rumour of delighted hearts. and once a maiden by my side gave me a harp, and bid me sing, and touch the laughing silver string; but when i sang of human joy a sorrow wrapped each merry face, and, patric! by your beard, they wept, until one came, a tearful boy; "a sadder creature never stept "than this strange human bard," he cried; and caught the silver harp away, and, weeping over the white strings, hurled it down in a leaf-hid, hollow place that kept dim waters from the sky; and each one said, with a long, long sigh, "o saddest harp in all the world, "sleep there till the moon and the stars die!" and now still sad we came to where a beautiful young man dreamed within a house of wattles, clay, and skin; one hand upheld his beardless chin, and one a sceptre flashing out wild flames of red and gold and blue, like to a merry wandering rout of dancers leaping in the air; and men and maidens knelt them there and showed their eyes with teardrops dim, and with low murmurs prayed to him, and kissed the sceptre with red lips, and touched it with their finger-tips. he held that flashing sceptre up. "joy drowns the twilight in the dew, "and fills with stars night's purple cup, "and wakes the sluggard seeds of corn, "and stirs the young kid's budding horn. "and makes the infant ferns unwrap, "and for the peewit paints his cap, "and rolls along the unwieldy sun, "and makes the little planets run: "and if joy were not on the earth, "there were an end of change and birth, "and earth and heaven and hell would die, "and in some gloomy barrow lie "folded like a frozen fly; "then mock at death and time with glances "and wavering arms and wandering dances. "men's hearts of old were drops of flame "that from the saffron morning came, "or drops of silver joy that fell "out of the moon's pale twisted shell; "but now hearts cry that hearts are slaves, "and toss and turn in narrow caves; "but here there is nor law nor rule, "nor have hands held a weary tool; "and here there is nor change nor death, "but only kind and merry breath, "for joy is god and god is joy." with one long glance on maid and boy and the pale blossom of the moon, he fell into a druid swoon. and in a wild and sudden dance we mocked at time and fate and chance and swept out of the wattled hall and came to where the dewdrops fall among the foamdrops of the sea, and there we hushed the revelry; and, gathering on our brows a frown, bent all our swaying bodies down, and to the waves that glimmer by that sloping green de danaan sod sang "god is joy and joy is god. "and things that have grown sad are wicked, "and things that fear the dawn of the morrow "or the gray wandering osprey sorrow." we danced to where in the winding thicket the damask roses, bloom on bloom, like crimson meteors hang in the gloom, and bending over them softly said, bending over them in the dance, with a swift and friendly glance from dewy eyes: "upon the dead "fall the leaves of other roses, "on the dead dim earth encloses: "but never, never on our graves, "heaped beside the glimmering waves, "shall fall the leaves of damask roses. "for neither death nor change comes near us, "and all listless hours fear us, "and we fear no dawning morrow, "nor the gray wandering osprey sorrow." the dance wound through the windless woods; the ever-summered solitudes; until the tossing arms grew still upon the woody central hill; and, gathered in a panting band, we flung on high each waving hand, and sang unto the starry broods: in our raised eyes there flashed a glow of milky brightness to and fro as thus our song arose: "you stars, "across your wandering ruby cars "shake the loose reins: you slaves of god "he rules you with an iron rod, "he holds you with an iron bond, "each one woven to the other, "each one woven to his brother "like bubbles in a frozen pond; "but we in a lonely land abide "unchainable as the dim tide, "with hearts that know nor law nor rule, "and hands that hold no wearisome tool "folded in love that fears no morrow, "nor the gray wandering osprey sorrow." o patric! for a hundred years i chased upon that woody shore the deer, the badger, and the boar. o patric! for a hundred years at evening on the glimmering sands, beside the piled-up hunting spears, these now outworn and withered hands wrestled among the island bands. o patric! for a hundred years we went a-fishing in long boats with bending sterns and bending bows, and carven figures on their prows of bitterns and fish-eating stoats. o patric! for a hundred years the gentle niam was my wife; but now two things devour my life; the things that most of all i hate; fasting and prayers. s. patric tell on. usheen yes, yes, for these were ancient usheen's fate loosed long ago from heaven's gate, for his last days to lie in wait. when one day by the tide i stood, i found in that forgetfulness of dreamy foam a staff of wood from some dead warrior's broken lance: i turned it in my hands; the stains of war were on it, and i wept, remembering how the fenians stept along the blood-bedabbled plains, equal to good or grievous chance: thereon young niam softly came and caught my hands, but spake no word save only many times my name, in murmurs, like a frighted bird. we passed by woods, and lawns of clover, and found the horse and bridled him, for we knew well the old was over. i heard one say "his eyes grow dim "with all the ancient sorrow of men"; and wrapped in dreams rode out again with hoofs of the pale findrinny over the glimmering purple sea: under the golden evening light. the immortals moved among the fountains by rivers and the woods' old night; some danced like shadows on the mountains, some wandered ever hand in hand, or sat in dreams on the pale strand; each forehead like an obscure star bent down above each hooked knee: and sang, and with a dreamy gaze watched where the sun in a saffron blaze was slumbering half in the sea ways; and, as they sang, the painted birds kept time with their bright wings and feet; like drops of honey came their words, but fainter than a young lamb's bleat. "an old man stirs the fire to a blaze, "in the house of a child, of a friend, of a brother "he has over-lingered his welcome; the days, "grown desolate, whisper and sigh to each other; "he hears the storm in the chimney above, "and bends to the fire and shakes with the cold, "while his heart still dreams of battle and love, "and the cry of the hounds on the hills of old. "but we are apart in the grassy places, "where care cannot trouble the least of our days, "or the softness of youth be gone from our faces, "or love's first tenderness die in our gaze. "the hare grows old as she plays in the sun "and gazes around her with eyes of brightness; "before the swift things that she dreamed of were done "she limps along in an aged whiteness; "a storm of birds in the asian trees "like tulips in the air a-winging, "and the gentle waves of the summer seas, "that raise their heads and wander singing. "must murmur at last 'unjust, unjust'; "and 'my speed is a weariness,' falters the mouse "and the kingfisher turns to a ball of dust, "and the roof falls in of his tunnelled house. "but the love-dew dims our eyes till the day "when god shall come from the sea with a sigh "and bid the stars drop down from the sky, "and the moon like a pale rose wither away." book ii now, man of croziers, shadows called our names and then away, away, like whirling flames; and now fled by, mist-covered, without sound, the youth and lady and the deer and hound; "gaze no more on the phantoms," niam said, and kissed my eyes, and, swaying her bright head and her bright body, sang of faery and man before god was or my old line began; wars shadowy, vast, exultant; faeries of old who wedded men with rings of druid gold; and how those lovers never turn their eyes upon the life that fades and flickers and dies, but love and kiss on dim shores far away rolled round with music of the sighing spray: but sang no more, as when, like a brown bee that has drunk full, she crossed the misty sea with me in her white arms a hundred years before this day; for now the fall of tears troubled her song. i do not know if days or hours passed by, yet hold the morning rays shone many times among the glimmering flowers woven into her hair, before dark towers rose in the darkness, and the white surf gleamed about them; and the horse of faery screamed and shivered, knowing the isle of many fears, nor ceased until white niam stroked his ears and named him by sweet names. a foaming tide whitened afar with surge, fan-formed and wide, burst from a great door marred by many a blow from mace and sword and pole-axe, long ago when gods and giants warred. we rode between the seaweed-covered pillars, and the green and surging phosphorus alone gave light on our dark pathway, till a countless flight of moonlit steps glimmered; and left and right dark statues glimmered over the pale tide upon dark thrones. between the lids of one the imaged meteors had flashed and run and had disported in the stilly jet, and the fixed stars had dawned and shone and set, since god made time and death and sleep: the other stretched his long arm to where, a misty smother, the stream churned, churned, and churned--his lips apart, as though he told his never slumbering heart of every foamdrop on its misty way: tying the horse to his vast foot that lay half in the unvesselled sea, we climbed the stairs and climbed so long, i thought the last steps were hung from the morning star; when these mild words fanned the delighted air like wings of birds: "my brothers spring out of their beds at morn, "a-murmur like young partridge: with loud horn "they chase the noontide deer; "and when the dew-drowned stars hang in the air "look to long fishing-lines, or point and pare "an ash-wood hunting spear. "o sigh, o fluttering sigh, be kind to me; "flutter along the froth lips of the sea, "and shores, the froth lips wet: "and stay a little while, and bid them weep: "ah, touch their blue-veined eyelids if they sleep, "and shake their coverlet. "when you have told how i weep endlessly, "flutter along the froth lips of the sea "and home to me again, "and in the shadow of my hair lie hid, "and tell me how you came to one unbid, "the saddest of all men." a maiden with soft eyes like funeral tapers, and face that seemed wrought out of moonlit vapours, and a sad mouth, that fear made tremulous as any ruddy moth, looked down on us; and she with a wave-rusted chain was tied to two old eagles, full of ancient pride, that with dim eyeballs stood on either side. few feathers were on their dishevelled wings, for their dim minds were with the ancient things. "i bring deliverance," pearl-pale niam said. "neither the living, nor the unlabouring dead, "nor the high gods who never lived, may fight "my enemy and hope; demons for fright "jabber and scream about him in the night; "for he is strong and crafty as the seas "that sprang under the seven hazel trees, "and i must needs endure and hate and weep, "until the gods and demons drop asleep, "hearing aed touch the mournful strings of gold." "is he so dreadful?" "be not over bold, "but flee while you may flee from him." then i: "this demon shall be pierced and drop and die, "and his loose bulk be thrown in the loud tide." "flee from him," pearl-pale niam weeping cried, "for all men flee the demons"; but moved not my angry, king remembering soul one jot; there was no mightier soul of heber's line; now it is old and mouse-like: for a sign i burst the chain: still earless, nerveless, blind, wrapped in the things of the unhuman mind, in some dim memory or ancient mood still earless, nerveless, blind, the eagles stood. and then we climbed the stair to a high door; a hundred horsemen on the basalt floor beneath had paced content: we held our way and stood within: clothed in a misty ray i saw a foam-white seagull drift and float under the roof, and with a straining throat shouted, and hailed him: he hung there a star, for no man's cry shall ever mount so far; not even your god could have thrown down that hall; stabling his unloosed lightnings in their stall, he had sat down and sighed with cumbered heart, as though his hour were come. we sought the part that was most distant from the door; green slime made the way slippery, and time on time showed prints of sea-born scales, while down through it the captive's journeys to and fro were writ like a small river, and, where feet touched, came a momentary gleam of phosphorus flame. under the deepest shadows of the hall that maiden found a ring hung on the wall, and in the ring a torch, and with its flare making a world about her in the air, passed under a dim doorway, out of sight and came again, holding a second light burning between her fingers, and in mine laid it and sighed: i held a sword whose shine no centuries could dim: and a word ran thereon in ogham letters, "mananan"; that sea god's name, who in a deep content sprang dripping, and, with captive demons sent out of the seven-fold seas, built the dark hall rooted in foam and clouds, and cried to all the mightier masters of a mightier race; and at his cry there came no milk-pale face under a crown of thorns and dark with blood, but only exultant faces. niam stood with bowed head, trembling when the white blade shone, but she whose hours of tenderness were gone had neither hope nor fear. i bade them hide under the shadows till the tumults died of the loud crashing and earth shaking fight, lest they should look upon some dreadful sight; and thrust the torch between the slimy flags. a dome made out of endless carven jags, where shadowy face flowed into shadowy face, looked down on me; and in the self-same place i waited hour by hour, and the high dome, windowless, pillarless, multitudinous home of faces, waited; and the leisured gaze was loaded with the memory of days buried and mighty. when through the great door the dawn came in, and glimmered on the floor with a pale light, i journeyed round the hall and found a door deep sunken in the wall, the least of doors; beyond on a dim plain a little runnel made a bubbling strain, and on the runnel's stony and bare edge a husky demon dry as a withered sedge swayed, crooning to himself an unknown tongue: in a sad revelry he sang and swung bacchant and mournful, passing to and fro his hand along the runnel's side, as though the flowers still grew there: far on the sea's waste shaking and waving, vapour vapour chased, while high frail cloudlets, fed with a green light, like drifts of leaves, immovable and bright, hung in the passionate dawn. he slowly turned: a demon's leisure: eyes, first white, now burned like wings of kingfishers; and he arose barking. we trampled up and down with blows of sword and brazen battle-axe, while day gave to high noon and noon to night gave way; and when at withering of the sun he knew the druid sword of mananan, he grew to many shapes; i lunged at the smooth throat of a great eel; it changed, and i but smote a fir-tree roaring in its leafless top; i held a dripping corpse, with livid chop and sunken shape, against my face and breast, when i tore down the tree; but when the west surged up in plumy fire, i lunged and drave through heart and spine, and cast him in the wave, lest niam shudder. full of hope and dread those two came carrying wine and meat and bread, and healed my wounds with unguents out of flowers that feed white moths by some de danaan shrine; then in that hall, lit by the dim sea shine, we lay on skins of otters, and drank wine, brewed by the sea-gods, from huge cups that lay upon the lips of sea-gods in their day; and then on heaped-up skins of otters slept. but when the sun once more in saffron stept, rolling his flagrant wheel out of the deep, we sang the loves and angers without sleep, and all the exultant labours of the strong: but now the lying clerics murder song with barren words and flatteries of the weak. in what land do the powerless turn the beak of ravening sorrow, or the hand of wrath? for all your croziers, they have left the path and wander in the storms and clinging snows, hopeless for ever: ancient usheen knows, for he is weak and poor and blind, and lies on the anvil of the world. s. patric be still: the skies are choked with thunder, lightning, and fierce wind, for god has heard, and speaks his angry mind; go cast your body on the stones and pray, for he has wrought midnight and dawn and day. usheen saint, do you weep? i hear amid the thunder the fenian horses; armour torn asunder; laughter and cries; the armies clash and shock; all is done now; i see the ravens flock; ah, cease, you mournful, laughing fenian horn! we feasted for three days. on the fourth morn i found, dropping sea foam on the wide stair, and hung with slime, and whispering in his hair, that demon dull and unsubduable; and once more to a day-long battle fell, and at the sundown threw him in the surge, to lie until the fourth morn saw emerge his new healed shape: and for a hundred years so warred, so feasted, with nor dreams nor fears, nor languor nor fatigue: and endless feast, an endless war. the hundred years had ceased; i stood upon the stair: the surges bore a beech bough to me, and my heart grew sore, remembering how i had stood by white-haired finn under a beech at emen and heard the thin outcry of bats. and then young niam came holding that horse, and sadly called my name; i mounted, and we passed over the lone and drifting grayness, while this monotone, surly and distant, mixed inseparably into the clangour of the wind and sea. "i hear my soul drop down into decay, "and mananan's dark tower, stone by stone, "gather sea slime and fall the seaward way, "and the moon goad the waters night and day, "that all be overthrown. "but till the moon has taken all, i wage "war on the mightiest men under the skies, "and they have fallen or fled, age after age: "light is man's love, and lighter is man's rage; "his purpose drifts and dies." and then lost niam murmured, "love, we go "to the island of forgetfulness, for lo! "the islands of dancing and of victories "are empty of all power." "and which of these "is the island of content?" "none know," she said; and on my bosom laid her weeping head. book iii fled foam underneath us, and around us, a wandering and milky smoke, high as the saddle girth, covering away from our glances the tide; and those that fled, and that followed, from the foam-pale distance broke; the immortal desire of immortals we saw in their faces, and sighed. i mused on the chase with the fenians, and bran, sgeolan, lomair, and never a song sang niam, and over my finger-tips came now the sliding of tears and sweeping of mist-cold hair, and now the warmth of sighs, and after the quiver of lips. were we days long or hours long in riding, when rolled in a grisly peace, an isle lay level before us, with dripping hazel and oak? and we stood on a sea's edge we saw not; for whiter than new-washed fleece fled foam underneath us, and round us, a wandering and milky smoke. and we rode on the plains of the sea's edge; the sea's edge barren and gray, gray sand on the green of the grasses and over the dripping trees, dripping and doubling landward, as though they would hasten away like an army of old men longing for rest from the moan of the seas. but the trees grew taller and closer, immense in their wrinkling bark; dropping; a murmurous dropping; old silence and that one sound; for no live creatures lived there, no weasels moved in the dark: long sighs arose in our spirits, beneath us bubbled the ground. and the ears of the horse went sinking away in the hollow night, for, as drift from a sailor slow drowning the gleams of the world and the sun, ceased on our hands and our faces, on hazel and oak leaf, the light, and the stars were blotted above us, and the whole of the world was one. till the horse gave a whinny; for, cumbrous with stems of the hazel and oak, a valley flowed down from his hoofs, and there in the long grass lay, under the starlight and shadow, a monstrous slumbering folk, their naked and gleaming bodies poured out and heaped in the way. and by them were arrow and war-axe, arrow and shield and blade; and dew-blanched horns, in whose hollow a child of three years old could sleep on a couch of rushes, and all inwrought and inlaid, and more comely than man can make them with bronze and silver and gold. and each of the huge white creatures was huger than fourscore men; the tops of their ears were feathered, their hands were the claws of birds, and, shaking the plumes of the grasses and the leaves of the mural glen, the breathing came from those bodies, long-warless, grown whiter than curds. the wood was so spacious above them, that he who had stars for his flocks could fondle the leaves with his fingers, nor go from his dew-cumbered skies; so long were they sleeping, the owls had builded their nests in their locks, filling the fibrous dimness with long generations of eyes. and over the limbs and the valley the slow owls wandered and came, now in a place of star-fire, and now in a shadow place wide; and the chief of the huge white creatures, his knees in the soft star-flame, lay loose in a place of shadow: we drew the reins by his side. golden the nails of his bird-claws, flung loosely along the dim ground; in one was a branch soft-shining, with bells more many than sighs, in midst of an old man's bosom; owls ruffling and pacing around, sidled their bodies against him, filling the shade with their eyes. and my gaze was thronged with the sleepers; no, not since the world began, in realms where the handsome were many, nor in glamours by demons flung, have faces alive with such beauty been known to the salt eye of man, yet weary with passions that faded when the seven-fold seas were young. and i gazed on the bell-branch, sleep's forebear, far sung by the sennachies. i saw how those slumberers, grown weary, there camping in grasses deep, of wars with the wide world and pacing the shores of the wandering seas, laid hands on the bell-branch and swayed it, and fed of unhuman sleep. snatching the horn of niam, i blew a lingering note; came sound from those monstrous sleepers, a sound like the stirring of flies. he, shaking the fold of his lips, and heaving the pillar of his throat, watched me with mournful wonder out of the wells of his eyes. i cried, "come out of the shadow, king of the nails of gold! "and tell of your goodly household and the goodly works of your hands, "that we may muse in the starlight and talk of the battles of old; "your questioner, usheen, is worthy, he comes from the fenian lands." half open his eyes were, and held me, dull with the smoke of their dreams; his lips moved slowly in answer, no answer out of them came; then he swayed in his fingers the bell-branch, slow dropping a sound in faint streams softer than snow-flakes in april and piercing the marrow like flame. wrapt in the wave of that music, with weariness more than of earth, the moil of my centuries filled me; and gone like a sea-covered stone were the memories of the whole of my sorrow and the memories of the whole of my mirth, and a softness came from the starlight and filled me full to the bone. in the roots of the grasses, the sorrels, i laid my body as low; and the pearl-pale niam lay by me, her brow on the midst of my breast; and the horse was gone in the distance, and years after years 'gan flow; square leaves of the ivy moved over us, binding us down to our rest. and, man of the many white croziers, a century there i forgot; how the fetlocks drip blood in the battle, when the fallen on fallen lie rolled; how the falconer follows the falcon in the weeds of the heron's plot, and the names of the demons whose hammers made armour for conhor of old. and, man of the many white croziers, a century there i forgot; that the spear-shaft is made out of ashwood, the shield out of ozier and hide; how the hammers spring on the anvil, on the spearhead's burning spot; how the slow, blue-eyed oxen of finn low sadly at evening tide. but in dreams, mild man of the croziers, driving the dust with their throngs, moved round me, of seamen or landsmen, all who are winter tales; came by me the kings of the red branch, with roaring of laughter and songs, or moved as they moved once, love-making or piercing the tempest with sails. came blanid, mac nessa, tall fergus who feastward of old time slunk, cook barach, the traitor; and warward, the spittle on his beard never dry, dark balor, as old as a forest, car borne, his mighty head sunk helpless, men lifting the lids of his weary and death-making eye. and by me, in soft red raiment, the fenians moved in loud streams, and grania, walking and smiling, sewed with her needle of bone, so lived i and lived not, so wrought i and wrought not, with creatures of dreams, in a long iron sleep, as a fish in the water goes dumb as a stone. at times our slumber was lightened. when the sun was on silver or gold; when brushed with the wings of the owls, in the dimness they love going by; when a glow-worm was green on a grass leaf, lured from his lair in the mould; half wakening, we lifted our eyelids, and gazed on the grass with a sigh. so watched i when, man of the croziers, at the heel of a century fell, weak, in the midst of the meadow, from his miles in the midst of the air, a starling like them that forgathered 'neath a moon waking white as a shell. when the fenians made foray at morning with bran, sgeolan, lomair. i awoke: the strange horse without summons out of the distance ran, thrusting his nose to my shoulder; he knew in his bosom deep that once more moved in my bosom the ancient sadness of man, and that i would leave the immortals, their dimness, their dews dropping sleep. o, had you seen beautiful niam grow white as the waters are white, lord of the croziers, you even had lifted your hands and wept: but, the bird in my fingers, i mounted, remembering alone that delight of twilight and slumber were gone, and that hoofs impatiently stept. i cried, "o niam! o white one! if only a twelve-houred day, "i must gaze on the beard of finn, and move where the old men and young "in the fenians' dwellings of wattle lean on the chessboards and play, "ah, sweet to me now were even bald conan's slanderous tongue! "like me were some galley forsaken far off in meridian isle. "remembering its long-oared companions, sails turning to thread-bare rags; "no more to crawl on the seas with long oars mile after mile, "but to be amid shooting of flies and flowering of rushes and flags." their motionless eyeballs of spirits grown mild with mysterious thought watched her those seamless faces from the valley's glimmering girth; as she murmured, "o wandering usheen, the strength of the bell-branch is naught, "for there moves alive in your fingers the fluttering sadness of earth. "then go through the lands in the saddle and see what the mortals do, "and softly come to your niam over the tops of the tide; "but weep for your niam, o usheen, weep; for if only your shoe "brush lightly as haymouse earth's pebbles, you will come no more to my side. "o flaming lion of the world, o when will you turn to your rest?" "i saw from a distant saddle; from the earth she made her moan; "i would die like a small withered leaf in the autumn, for breast unto breast "we shall mingle no more, nor our gazes empty their sweetness lone. "in the isles of the farthest seas where only the spirits come. "were the winds less soft than the breath of a pigeon who sleeps on her nest, "nor lost in the star-fires and odours the sound of the sea's vague drum? "o flaming lion of the world, o when will you turn to your rest?" the wailing grew distant; i rode by the woods of the wrinkling bark, where ever is murmurous dropping, old silence and that one sound; for no live creatures live there, no weasels move in the dark; in a reverie forgetful of all things, over the bubbling ground. and i rode by the plains of the sea's edge, where all is barren and gray, gray sands on the green of the grasses and over the dripping trees, dripping and doubling landward, as though they would hasten away, like an army of old men lounging for rest from the moan of the seas. and the winds made the sands on the sea's edge turning and turning go, as my mind made the names of the fenians. far from the hazel and oak, i rode away on the surges, where, high as the saddle bow, fled foam underneath me, and round me, a wandering and milky smoke. long fled the foam-flakes around me, the winds fled out of the vast, snatching the bird in secret; nor knew i, embosomed apart, when they froze the cloth on my body like armour riveted fast, for remembrance, lifting her leanness, keened in the gates of my heart. till fattening the winds of the morning, an odour of new-mown hay came, and my forehead fell low, and my tears like berries fell down; later a sound came, half lost in the sound of a shore far away, from the great grass-barnacle calling, and later the shore-weeds brown. if i were as i once was, the strong hoofs crushing the sand and the shells, coming out of the sea as the dawn comes, a chaunt of love on my lips, not coughing, my head on my knees, and praying, and wroth with the bells, i would leave no saint's head on his body from rachlin to bera of ships. making way from the kindling surges, i rode on a bridle-path much wondering to see upon all hands, of wattles and woodwork made, your bell-mounted churches, and guardless the sacred cairn and the rath, and a small and a feeble populace stooping with mattock and spade. or weeding or ploughing with faces a-shining with much-toil wet; while in this place and that place, with bodies unglorious, their chieftains stood, awaiting in patience the straw-death, croziered one, caught in your net: went the laughter of scorn from my mouth like the roaring of wind in a wood. and because i went by them so huge and so speedy with eyes so bright, came after the hard gaze of youth, or an old man lifted his head: and i rode and i rode, and i cried out, "the fenians hunt wolves in the night, so sleep thee by daytime." a voice cried, "the fenians a long time are dead." a whitebeard stood hushed on the pathway, the flesh of his face as dried grass, and in folds round his eyes and his mouth, he sad as a child without milk; and the dreams of the islands were gone, and i knew how men sorrow and pass, and their hound, and their horse, and their love, and their eyes that glimmer like silk. and wrapping my face in my hair, i murmured, "in old age they ceased"; and my tears were larger than berries, and i murmured, "where white clouds lie spread "on crevroe or broad knockfefin, with many of old they feast "on the floors of the gods." he cried, "no, the gods a long time are dead." and lonely and longing for niam, i shivered and turned me about, the heart in me longing to leap like a grasshopper into her heart; i turned and rode to the westward, and followed the sea's old shout till i saw where maive lies sleeping till starlight and midnight part. and there at the foot of the mountain, two carried a sack full of sand, they bore it with staggering and sweating, but fell with their burden at length: leaning down from the gem-studded saddle, i flung it five yards with my hand, with a sob for men waxing so weakly, a sob for the fenian's old strength. the rest you have heard of, o croziered one; how, when divided the girth, i fell on the path, and the horse went away like a summer fly; and my years three hundred fell on me, and i rose, and walked on the earth, a creeping old man, full of sleep, with the spittle on his beard never dry. how the men of the sand-sack showed me a church with its belfry in air; sorry place, where for swing of the war-axe in my dim eyes the crozier gleams; what place have caolte and conan, and bran, sgeolan, lomair? speak, you too are old with your memories, an old man surrounded with dreams. s. patric where the flesh of the footsole clingeth on the burning stones is their place; where the demons whip them with wires on the burning stones of wide hell, watching the blessed ones move far off, and the smile on god's face, between them a gateway of brass, and the howl of the angels who fell. usheen put the staff in my hands; for i go to the fenians, o cleric, to chaunt the war-songs that roused them of old; they will rise, making clouds with their breath innumerable, singing, exultant; the clay underneath them shall pant, and demons be broken in pieces, and trampled beneath them in death. and demons afraid in their darkness; deep horror of eyes and of wings, afraid their ears on the earth laid, shall listen and rise up and weep; hearing the shaking of shields and the quiver of stretched bowstrings, hearing hell loud with a murmur, as shouting and mocking we sweep. we will tear out the flaming stones, and batter the gateway of brass and enter, and none sayeth "no" when there enters the strongly armed guest; make clean as a broom cleans, and march on as oxen move over young grass; then feast, making converse of wars, and of old wounds, and turn to our rest. s. patric on the flaming stones, without refuge, the limbs of the fenians are tost; none war on the masters of hell, who could break up the world in their rage; but kneel and wear out the flags and pray for your soul that is lost through the demon love of its youth and its godless and passionate age. usheen ah, me! to be shaken with coughing and broken with old age and pain, without laughter, a show unto children, alone with remembrance and fear; all emptied of purple hours as a beggar's cloak in the rain, as a hay-cock out on the flood, or a wolf sucked under a weir. it were sad to gaze on the blessed and no man i loved of old there; i throw down the chain of small stones! when life in my body has ceased, i will go to caolte, and conan, and bran, sgeolan, lomair, and dwell in the house of the fenians, be they in flames or at feast. glossary and notes _the pronunciation of the irish words._--when i wrote the greater number of these poems i had hardly considered the question seriously. i copied at times somebody's perhaps fanciful phonetic spelling, and at times the ancient spelling as i found it in some literal translation, pronouncing the words always as they were spelt. i do not suppose i would have defended this system at any time, but i do not yet know what system to adopt. the modern pronunciation, which is usually followed by those who spell the words phonetically, is certainly unlike the pronunciation of the time when classical irish literature was written, and, so far as i know, no irish scholar who writes in english or french has made that minute examination of the way the names come into the rhythms and measures of the old poems which can alone discover the old pronunciation. a french celtic scholar gave me the pronunciation of a few names, and told me that mr. whitley stokes had written something about the subject in german, but i am ignorant of german. if i ever learn the old pronunciation, i will revise all these poems, but at present i can only affirm that i have not treated my irish names as badly as the mediæval writers of the stories of king arthur treated their welsh names. _mythological gods and heroes._--i refer the reader for such names as balor and finn and usheen to lady gregory's "cuchulain of muirthemne" and to her "gods and fighting men." _the ballad of father gilligan._--a tradition among the people of castleisland, kerry. _the ballad of father o'hart._--this ballad is founded on the story of a certain father o'hart, priest of coloony, sligo, in the last century, as told by the present priest of coloony in his _history of ballisodare and kilvarnet_. the robbery of the lands of father o'hart was a kind of robbery which occurred but rarely during the penal laws. catholics, forbidden to own landed property, evaded the law by giving a protestant nominal possession of their estates. there are instances on record in which poor men were nominal owners of immense estates. _the ballad of the foxhunter._--founded on an incident, probably itself a tipperary tradition, in kickham's _knockagow_. _bell-branch._--a legendary branch whose shaking casts all men into a sleep. _the countess cathleen._--i found the story of the countess cathleen in what professed to be a collection of irish folk-lore in an irish newspaper some years ago. i wrote to the compiler, asking about its source, but got no answer, but have since heard that it was translated from _les matinées de timothè trimm_ a good many years ago, and has been drifting about the irish press ever since. léo lespès gives it as an irish story, and though the editor of _folklore_ has kindly advertised for information, the only christian variant i know of is a donegal tale, given by mr. larminie in his _west irish folk tales and romances_, of a woman who goes to hell for ten years to save her husband, and stays there another ten, having been granted permission to carry away as many souls as could cling to her skirt. léo lespès may have added a few details, but i have no doubt of the essential antiquity of what seems to me the most impressive form of one of the supreme parables of the world. the parable came to the greeks in the sacrifice of alcestis, but her sacrifice was less overwhelming, less apparently irremediable. léo lespès tells the story as follows:- ce que je vais vous dire est un récit du carême irlandais. le boiteux, l'aveugle, le paralytique des rues de dublin ou de limerick, vous le diraient mieux que moi, cher lecteur, si vous alliez le leur demander, un sixpense d'argent à la main.--il n'est pas une jeune fille catholique à laquelle on ne l'ait appris pendant les jours de préparation à la communion sainte, pas un berger des bords de la blackwater qui ne le puisse redire à la veillée. il y a bien longtemps qu'il apparut tout-à-coup dans la vielle irlande deux marchands inconnus dont personne n'avait ouï parler, et qui parlaient néanmoins avec la plus grande perfection la langue du pays. leurs cheveux étaient noirs et ferrés avec de l'or et leurs robes d'une grande magnificence. tous deux semblaient avoir le même âge; ils paraissaient être des hommes de cinquante ans, car leur barbe grisonnait un peu. or, à cette époque, comme aujourd'hui, l'irlande était pauvre, car le soleil avait été rare, et des récoltes presque nulles. les indigents ne savaient à quel sainte se vouer, et la misère devenait de plus en plus terrible. dans l'hôtellerie où descendirent les marchands fastueux on chercha à pénétrer leurs desseins: mais ce fut en vain, ils demeurèrent silencieux et discrets. et pendant qu'ils demeurèrent dans l'hôtellerie, ils ne cessèrent de compter et de recompter des sacs de pièces d'or, dont la vive clarté s'apercevait à travers les vitres du logis. gentlemen, leur dit l'hôtesse un jour, d'où vient que vous êtes si opulents, et que, venus pour secourir la misère publique, vous ne fassiez pas de bonnes oeuvres? --belle hôtesse, répondit l'un d'eux, nous n'avons pas voulu aller au-devant d'infortunes honorables, dans la crainte d'être trompés par des misères fictives: que la douleur frappe à la porte, nous ouvrirons. le lendemain, quand on sut qu'il existait deux opulents étrangers prêts à prodiguer l'or, la foule assiégea leur logis; mais les figures des gens qui en sortaient étaient bien diverses. les uns avaient la fierté dans le regard, les autres portaient la honte au front. les deux trafiquants achetaient des âmes pour le démon. l'âme d'un vieillard valait vingt pièces d'or, pas un penny de plus; car satan avait eu le temps d'y former hypothèque. l'âme d'une épose en valait cinquante quand elle était jolie, ou cent quand elle était laide. l'âme d'une jeune fille se payait des prix fous: les fleurs les plus belles et les plus pures sont les plus chères. pendant ce temps, il existait dans la ville un ange de beauté, la comtesse ketty o'connor. elle était l'idole du peuple, et la providence des indigents. dès qu'elle eut appris que des mécréants profitaient de la misère publique pour dérober des coeurs à dieu, elle fit appeler son majordome. --master patrick, lui dit elle, combien ai-je de pièces d'or dans mon coffre? --cent mille. --combien de bijoux? --peur autant d'argent. --combien de châteux, de bois et de terres? --pour le double de ces sommes. --eh bien! patrick, vendez tout ce qui n'est pas or et apportez-m'en le montant. je ne veux garder à moi que ce castel et le champ qui l'entoure. deux jours après, les ordres de la pieuse ketty étaient exécutés et le trésor était distribué aux pauvres au fur et à mesure de leurs besoins. ceci ne faisait pas le compte, dit la tradition, des commis-voyageurs du malin esprit, qui ne trouvaient plus d'âmes à acheter. aidés par un valet infâme, ils pénétrèrent dans la retraite de la noble dame et lui dérobèrent le reste de son trésor ... en vain lutta-t-elle de toutes ses forces pour sauver le contenu de son coffre, les larrons diaboliques furent les plus forts. si ketty avait eu les moyens de faire un signe de croix, ajoute la légende irlandaise, elle les eût mis en fuite, mais ses mains étaient captives--le larcin fut effectué. alors les pauvres sollicitèrent en vain près de ketty dépouillée, elle ne pouvait plus secourir leur misère;--elle les abandonnait à la tentation. pourtant il n'y avait plus que huit jours à passer pour que les grains et lea fourrages arrivassent en abondance des pays d'orient. mais, huit jours, c'était un siècle: huit jours nécessitaient une somme immense pour subvenir aux exigences de la disette, et les pauvres allaient ou expirer dans les angousses de la faim, ou, reniant les saintes maximes de l'evangile, vendre à vil prix leur âme, le plus beau présent de la munificence du seigneur tout-puissant. et ketty n'avait plus une obole, car elle avait abandonné son châteux aux malheureux. elle passa douze heures dans les larmes et le deuil, arrachant ses cheveux couleur de soleil et meurtrissant son sein couleur du lis: puis elle se leva résolue, animée par un vif sentiment de désespoir. elle se rendit chez les marchands d'âmes. --que voulez-vous? dirent ils. --vous achetez des âmes? --oui, un peu malgré vous, n'est ce pas, sainte aux yeux de saphir? --aujourd'hui je viens vous proposer un marché, reprit elle. --lequel? --j'ai une âme a vendre; mais elle est chère. --qu'importe si elle est précieuse? l'âme, comme le diamant, s'apprécie à sa blancheur. --c'est la mienne, dit ketty. les deux envoyés de satan tressaillirent. leurs griffes s'allongèrent sous leurs gants de cuir; leurs yeux gris étincelèrent--l'âme, pure, immaculée, virginale de ketty!... c'était une acquisition inappréciable. --gentille dame, combien voulez-vous? --cent cinquante mille écus d'or. --c'est fait, dirent les marchands: et ils tendirent à ketty un parchemin cacheté de noir, qu'elle signa en frissonnant. la somme lui fut comptée. des qu'elle fut rentrée, elle dit au majordome: --tenez, distribuez ceci. avec la somme que je vous donne les pauvres attendront la huitaine nécessaire et pas une de leurs âmes ne sera livrée au démon. 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 aime ketty donna son esprit, sa croyance même: satan paya cette âme au dévoûment sublime, en écus d'or, disons pour racheter son crime, _confiteor_. mais l'ange qui se fit coupable par charité au séjour d'amour ineffable est remonté. satan vaincu n'eut pas de prise sur ce coeur 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_.) aleel they'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. oona where is the countess cathleen? all this day her eyes were full of tears, and when for a moment her hand was laid upon my hand, it trembled. and now i do not know where she is gone. aleel cathleen has chosen other friends than us, and they are rising through the hollow world. demons are out, old heron. oona god guard her soul. aleel she'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._) oona o, that so many pitchers of rough clay should prosper and the porcelain break in two! (_she kisses the hands of_ cathleen.) a peasant we were under the tree where the path turns when she grew pale as death and fainted away. cathleen o, hold me, and hold me tightly, for the storm is dragging me away. (oona _takes her in her arms_. a woman _begins to wail_.) peasants hush! peasants hush! peasant women hush! other peasant women hush! cathleen (_half rising_) lay all the bags of money in a heap, and when i am gone, old oona, share them out to every man and woman: judge, and give according to their needs. a peasant woman and will she give enough to keep my children through the dearth? another peasant woman o, queen of heaven, and all you blessed saints, let us and ours be lost, so she be shriven. cathleen bend down your faces, oona and aleel; i gaze upon them as the swallow gazes upon the nest under the eave, before she wander the loud waters. do not weep too great a while, for there is many a candle on 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 me and bore me in your arms about the house when 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._) oona bring 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 peasant she was the great white lily of the world. a peasant she was more beautiful than the pale stars. an old peasant woman the 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_.) aleel i shatter you in fragments, for the face that brimmed you up with beauty is no more; and die, dull heart, for you that were a mirror are but a ball of passionate dust again! and level earth and plumy sea, rise up! and haughty sky, fall down! a peasant woman pull him upon his knees, his curses will pluck lightning on our heads. aleel angels 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 speak you shall not drift into eternity. the angel the 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 heart has kissed her lips, and the long blessed hair has fallen on her face; the light of lights looks always on the motive, not the deed, the shadow of shadows on the deed alone. (aleel _releases the_ angel _and kneels_.) oona tell 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. _printed in great britain by_ unwin brothers, limited woking and london transcriber's notes: page 16: 'thictkes' changed to 'thickets' page 172: 'he brings in' could be 'she brings in' page 263: 'before this duy' changed to 'before this day' page 290: 'far from the hazel and oak.' changed to 'far from the hazel and oak,' page 295: 'move far off' could be 'move far oft' the cutting of an agate the macmillan company new york · boston · chicago dallas · san francisco macmillan & co., limited london · bombay · calcutta melbourne the macmillan co. of canada, ltd. toronto the cutting of an agate by william butler yeats author of "ideas of good and evil," etc. new york the macmillan company 1912 _all rights reserved_ copyright, 1912, by the macmillan company. set up and electrotyped. published november, 1912. preface when i wrote the essay on edmund spenser the company of irish players who have now their stage at the abbey theatre in dublin had been founded, but gave as yet few performances in a twelvemonth. i could let my thought stray where it would, and even give a couple of summers to _the faerie queene_; while for some ten years now i have written little verse and no prose that did not arise out of some need of those players or some thought suggested by their work, or was written in the defence of some friend whose life has been a part of the movement of events which is creating a new ireland unintelligible to an old ireland that watches with anger or indifference. the detailed defence of plays and players, published originally in _samhain_, the occasional periodical of the theatre, and now making some three hundred pages of mr. bullen's collected edition of my writings, is not here, but for the most part an exposition of principles, whether suggested by my own work or by the death of friend or fellow-worker, that, intended for no great public, has been printed and published from a hand press which my sisters manage at dundrum with the help of the village girls. i have been busy with a single art, that of the theatre, of a small, unpopular theatre; and this art may well seem to practical men, busy with some programme of industrial or political regeneration, of no more account than the shaping of an agate; and yet in the shaping of an agate, whether in the cutting or the making of the design, one discovers, if one have a speculative mind, thoughts that seem important and principles that may be applied to life itself, and certainly if one does not believe so, one is but a poor cutter of so hard a stone. w. b. yeats. august, 1912. contents page thoughts on lady gregory's translations i. cuchulain and his cycle 1 ii. fion and his cycle 12 preface to the first edition of the well of the saints 36 discoveries prophet, priest and king 49 personality and the intellectual essences 56 the musician and the orator 61 a guitar player 63 the looking-glass 65 the tree of life 67 the praise of old wives' tales 71 the play of modern manners 73 has the drama of contemporary life a root of its own? 76 why the blind man in ancient times was made a poet 79 concerning saints and artists 85 the subject matter of drama 89 the two kinds of asceticism 94 in the serpent's mouth 97 the black and the white arrows 99 his mistress's eyebrows 100 the tresses of the hair 103 a tower on the apennines 104 the thinking of the body 106 religious belief necessary to religious art 109 the holy places 113 poetry and tradition 116 preface to the first edition of john m. synge's poems and translations 139 j. m. synge and the ireland of his time 146 the tragic theatre 196 john shawe-taylor 208 edmund spenser 213 the cutting of an agate the cutting of an agate thoughts on lady gregory's translations i cuchulain and his cycle the church when it was most powerful taught learned and unlearned to climb, as it were, to the great moral realities through hierarchies of cherubim and seraphim, through clouds of saints and angels who had all their precise duties and privileges. the story-tellers of ireland, perhaps of every primitive country, imagined as fine a fellowship, only it was to the æsthetic realities they would have had us climb. they created for learned and unlearned alike, a communion of heroes, a cloud of stalwart witnesses; but because they were as much excited as a monk over his prayers, they did not think sufficiently about the shape of the poem and the story. we have to get a little weary or a little distrustful of our subject, perhaps, before we can lie awake thinking how to make the most of it. they were more anxious to describe energetic characters, and to invent beautiful stories, than to express themselves with perfect dramatic logic or in perfectly-ordered words. they shared their characters and their stories, their very images, with one another, and handed them down from generation to generation; for nobody, even when he had added some new trait, or some new incident, thought of claiming for himself what so obviously lived its own merry or mournful life. the maker of images or worker in mosaic who first put christ upon a cross would have as soon claimed as his own a thought which was perhaps put into his mind by christ himself. the irish poets had also, it may be, what seemed a supernatural sanction, for a chief poet had to understand not only innumerable kinds of poetry, but how to keep himself for nine days in a trance. surely they believed or half believed in the historical reality of even their wildest imaginations. and so soon as christianity made their hearers desire a chronology that would run side by side with that of the bible, they delighted in arranging their kings and queens, the shadows of forgotten mythologies, in long lines that ascended to adam and his garden. those who listened to them must have felt as if the living were like rabbits digging their burrows under walls that had been built by gods and giants, or like swallows building their nests in the stone mouths of immense images, carved by nobody knows who. it is no wonder that one sometimes hears about men who saw in a vision ivy-leaves that were greater than shields, and blackbirds whose thighs were like the thighs of oxen. the fruit of all those stories, unless indeed the finest activities of the mind are but a pastime, is the quick intelligence, the abundant imagination, the courtly manners of the irish country-people. william morris came to dublin when i was a boy, and i had some talk with him about these old stories. he had intended to lecture upon them, but 'the ladies and gentlemen'--he put a communistic fervour of hatred into the phrase--knew nothing about them. he spoke of the irish account of the battle of clontarf and of the norse account, and said, that one saw the norse and irish tempers in the two accounts. the norseman was interested in the way things are done, but the irishman turned aside, evidently well pleased to be out of so dull a business, to describe beautiful supernatural events. he was thinking, i suppose, of the young man who came from aoibhill of the grey rock, giving up immortal love and youth, that he might fight and die by murrough's side. he said that the norseman had the dramatic temper, and the irishman had the lyrical. i think i should have said with professor ker, epical and romantic rather than dramatic and lyrical, but his words, which have so great an authority, mark the distinction very well, and not only between irish and norse, but between irish and other un-celtic literatures. the irish story-teller could not interest himself with an unbroken interest in the way men like himself burned a house, or won wives no more wonderful than themselves. his mind constantly escaped out of daily circumstance, as a bough that has been held down by a weak hand suddenly straightens itself out. his imagination was always running to tir-nan-og, to the land of promise, which is as near to the country-people of to-day as it was to cuchulain and his companions. his belief in its nearness, cherished in its turn the lyrical temper, which is always athirst for an emotion, a beauty which cannot be found in its perfection upon earth, or only for a moment. his imagination, which had not been able to believe in cuchulain's greatness, until it had brought the great queen, the red-eyebrowed goddess, to woo him upon the battlefield, could not be satisfied with a friendship less romantic and lyrical than that of cuchulain and ferdiad, who kissed one another after the day's fighting, or with a love less romantic and lyrical than that of baile and aillinn, who died at the report of one another's deaths, and married in tir-nan-og. his art, too, is often at its greatest when it is most extravagant, for he only feels himself among solid things, among things with fixed laws and satisfying purposes, when he has reshaped the world according to his heart's desire. he understands as well as blake that the ruins of time build mansions in eternity, and he never allows anything, that we can see and handle, to remain long unchanged. the characters must remain the same, but the strength of fergus may change so greatly, that he, who a moment before was merely a strong man among many, becomes the master of three blows that would destroy an army, did they not cut off the heads of three little hills instead, and his sword, which a fool had been able to steal out of its sheath, has of a sudden the likeness of a rainbow. a wandering lyric moon must knead and kindle perpetually that moving world of cloaks made out of the fleeces of mananan; of armed men who change themselves into sea-birds; of goddesses who become crows; of trees that bear fruit and flower at the same time. the great emotions of love, terror and friendship must alone remain untroubled by the moon in that world which is still the world of the irish country-people, who do not open their eyes very wide at the most miraculous change, at the most sudden enchantment. its events, and things, and people are wild, and are like unbroken horses, that are so much more beautiful than horses that have learned to run between shafts. one thinks of actual life, when one reads those norse stories, which had shadows of their decadence, so necessary were the proportions of actual life to their efforts, when a dying man remembered his heroism enough to look down at his wound and say, 'those broad spears are coming into fashion'; but the irish stories make us understand why some greek writer called myths the activities of the dæmons. the great virtues, the great joys, the great privations, come in the myths, and, as it were, take mankind between their naked arms, and without putting off their divinity. poets have chosen their themes more often from stories that are all, or half, mythological, than from history or stories that give one the sensation of history, understanding, as i think, that the imagination which remembers the proportions of life is but a long wooing, and that it has to forget them before it becomes the torch and the marriage-bed. one finds, as one expects, in the work of men who were not troubled about any probabilities or necessities but those of emotion itself, an immense variety of incident and character and of ways of expressing emotion. cuchulain fights man after man during the quest of the brown bull, and not one of those fights is like another, and not one is lacking in emotion or strangeness; and when one thinks imagination can do no more, the story of the two bulls, emblematic of all contests, suddenly lifts romance into prophecy. the characters too have a distinctness we do not find among the people of the _mabinogion_, perhaps not even among the people of the _morte d'arthur_. we know we shall be long forgetting cuchulain, whose life is vehement and full of pleasure, as though he always remembered that it was to be soon over; or the dreamy fergus who betrays the sons of usnach for a feast, without ceasing to be noble; or conal who is fierce and friendly and trustworthy, but has not the sap of divinity that makes cuchulain mysterious to men, and beloved of women. women indeed, with their lamentations for lovers and husbands and sons, and for fallen rooftrees and lost wealth, give the stories their most beautiful sentences; and, after cuchulain, one thinks most of certain great queens--of angry, amorous mæve, with her long, pale face; of findabair, her daughter, who dies of shame and of pity; of deirdre, who might be some mild modern housewife but for her prophetic wisdom. if one does not set deirdre's lamentations among the greatest lyric poems of the world, i think one may be certain that the wine-press of the poets has been trodden for one in vain; and yet i think it may be proud emer, cuchulain's fitting wife, who will linger longest in the memory. what a pure flame burns in her always, whether she is the newly-married wife fighting for precedence, fierce as some beautiful bird, or the confident housewife, who would awaken her husband from his magic sleep with mocking words; or the great queen who would get him out of the tightening net of his doom, by sending him into the valley of the deaf, with niamh, his mistress, because he will be more obedient to her; or the woman whom sorrow has set with helen and iseult and brunnhilda, and deirdre, to share their immortality in the rosary of the poets. "and oh! my love!" she said, "we were often in one another's company, and it was happy for us; for if the world had been searched from the rising of the sun to sunset, the like would never have been found in one place, of the black sainglain and the grey of macha, and laeg the chariot-driver, and myself and cuchulain." 'and after that emer bade conal to make a wide, very deep grave for cuchulain; and she laid herself down beside her gentle comrade, and she put her mouth to his mouth, and she said: "love of my life, my friend, my sweetheart, my one choice of the men of the earth, many is the woman, wed or unwed, envied me until to-day; and now i will not stay living after you."' to us irish, these personages should be very moving, very important, for they lived in the places where we ride and go marketing, and sometimes they have met one another on the hills that cast their shadows upon our doors at evening. if we will but tell these stories to our children the land will begin again to be a holy land, as it was before men gave their hearts to greece and rome and judea. when i was a child i had only to climb the hill behind the house to see long, blue, ragged hills flowing along the southern horizon. what beauty was lost to me, what depth of emotion is still perhaps lacking in me, because nobody told me, not even the merchant captains who knew everything, that cruachan of the enchantments lay behind those long, blue, ragged hills! ii fion and his cycle a few months ago i was on the bare hill of allen, 'wide almhuin of leinster,' where finn and the fianna are said to have had their house, although there are no earthen mounds there like those that mark the sites of old houses on so many hills. a hot sun beat down upon flowering gorse and flowerless heather; and on every side except the east, where there were green trees and distant hills, one saw a level horizon and brown boglands with a few green places and here and there the glitter of water. one could imagine that had it been twilight and not early afternoon, and had there been vapours drifting and frothing where there were now but shadows of clouds, it would have set stirring in one, as few places even in ireland can, a thought that is peculiar to celtic romance, as i think, a thought of a mystery coming not as with gothic nations out of the pressure of darkness, but out of great spaces and windy light. the hill of teamhair, or tara, as it is now called, with its green mounds and its partly-wooded sides, and its more gradual slope set among fat grazing lands, with great trees in the hedgerows, had brought before one imaginations, not of heroes who were in their youth for hundreds of years, or of women who came to them in the likeness of hunted fawns, but of kings that lived brief and politic lives, and of the five white roads that carried their armies to the lesser kingdoms of ireland, or brought to the great fair that had given teamhair its sovereignty all that sought justice or pleasure or had goods to barter. it is certain that we must not confuse these kings, as did the medieval chroniclers, with those half-divine kings of almhuin. the chroniclers, perhaps because they loved tradition too well to cast out utterly much that they dreaded as christians, and perhaps because popular imagination had begun the mixture, have mixed one with another ingeniously, making finn the head of a kind of militia under cormac macart, who is supposed to have reigned at teamhair in the second century, and making grania, who travels to enchanted houses under the cloak of ængus, god of love, and keeps her troubling beauty longer than did helen hers, cormac's daughter, and giving the stories of the fianna, although the impossible has thrust its proud finger into them all, a curious air of precise history. it is only when we separate the stories from that medieval pedantry, that we recognise one of the oldest worlds that man has imagined, an older world certainly than we find in the stories of cuchulain, who lived, according to the chroniclers, about the time of the birth of christ. they are far better known, and we may be certain of the antiquity of incidents that are known in one form or another to every gaelic-speaking countryman in ireland or in the highlands of scotland. sometimes a labourer digging near to a cromlech, or bed of diarmuid and grania as it is called, will tell you a tradition that seems older and more barbaric than any description of their adventures or of themselves in written text or in story that has taken form in the mouths of professed story-tellers. finn and the fianna found welcome among the court poets later than did cuchulain; and one finds memories of danish invasions and standing armies mixed with the imaginations of hunters and solitary fighters among great woods. we never hear of cuchulain delighting in the hunt or in woodland things; and one imagines that the story-teller would have thought it unworthy in so great a man, who lived a well-ordered, elaborate life, and could delight in his chariot and his chariot-driver and his barley-fed horses. if he is in the woods before dawn we are not told that he cannot know the leaves of the hazel from the leaves of the oak; and when emer laments him no wild creature comes into her thoughts but the cuckoo that cries over cultivated fields. his story must have come out of a time when the wild wood was giving way to pasture and tillage, and men had no longer a reason to consider every cry of the birds or change of the night. finn, who was always in the woods, whose battles were but hours amid years of hunting, delighted in the 'cackling of ducks from the lake of the three narrows; the scolding talk of the blackbird of doire an cairn; the bellowing of the ox from the valley of the berries; the whistle of the eagle from the valley of victories or from the rough branches of the ridge of the stream; the grouse of the heather of cruachan; the call of the otter of druim re coir.' when sorrow comes upon the queens of the stories, they have sympathy for the wild birds and beasts that are like themselves: 'credhe wife of cael came with the others and went looking through the bodies for her comely comrade, and crying as she went. and as she was searching she saw a crane of the meadows and her two nestlings, and the cunning beast the fox watching the nestlings; and when the crane covered one of the birds to save it, he would make a rush at the other bird, the way she had to stretch herself out over the birds; and she would sooner have got her own death by the fox than the nestlings to be killed by him. and credhe was looking at that, and she said: "it is no wonder i to have such love for my comely sweetheart, and the bird in that distress about her nestlings."' one often hears of a horse that shivers with terror, or of a dog that howls at something a man's eyes cannot see, and men who live primitive lives where instinct does the work of reason are fully conscious of many things that we cannot perceive at all. as life becomes more orderly, more deliberate, the supernatural world sinks farther away. although the gods come to cuchulain, and although he is the son of one of the greatest of them, their country and his are far apart, and they come to him as god to mortal; but finn is their equal. he is continually in their houses; he meets with bodb dearg, and ængus, and mananan, now as friend with friend, now as with an enemy he overcomes in battle; and when he has need of their help his messenger can say: 'there is not a king's son or a prince, or a leader of the fianna of ireland, without having a wife or a mother or a foster-mother or a sweetheart of the tuatha de danaan.' when the fianna are broken up at last, after hundreds of years of hunting, it is doubtful that he dies at all, and certain that he comes again in some other shape, and oisin, his son, is made king over a divine country. the birds and beasts that cross his path in the woods have been fighting-men or great enchanters or fair women, and in a moment can take some beautiful or terrible shape. we think of him and of his people as great-bodied men with large movements, that seem, as it were, flowing out of some deep below the shallow stream of personal impulse, men that have broad brows and quiet eyes full of confidence in a good luck that proves every day afresh that they are a portion of the strength of things. they are hardly so much individual men as portions of universal nature, like the clouds that shape themselves and reshape themselves momentarily, or like a bird between two boughs, or like the gods that have given the apples and the nuts; and yet this but brings them the nearer to us, for we can remake them in our image when we will, and the woods are the more beautiful for the thought. do we not always fancy hunters to be something like this, and is not that why we think them poetical when we meet them of a sudden, as in these lines in _pauline_? 'an old hunter talking with gods; or a high-crested chief sailing with troops of friends to tenedos.' one must not expect in these stories the epic lineaments, the many incidents woven into one great event of, let us say, the story of the war for the brown bull of cuailgne, or that of the last gathering at muirthemne. even _diarmuid and grania_, which is a long story, has nothing of the clear outlines of _deirdre_, and is indeed but a succession of detached episodes. the men who imagined the fianna had the imagination of children, and as soon as they had invented one wonder, heaped another on top of it. children--or, at any rate, it is so i remember my own childhood--do not understand large design, and they delight in little shut-in places where they can play at houses more than in great expanses where a country-side takes, as it were, the impression of a thought. the wild creatures and the green things are more to them than to us, for they creep towards our light by little holes and crevices. when they imagine a country for themselves it is always a country where you can wander without aim, and where you can never know from one place what another will be like, or know from the one day's adventure what may meet you with to-morrow's sun. children play at being great and wonderful people, at the ambitions they will put away for one reason or another before they grow into ordinary men and women. mankind as a whole had a like dream once; everybody and nobody built up the dream bit by bit, and the ancient story-tellers are there to make us remember what mankind would have been like, had not fear and the failing will and the laws of nature tripped up its heels. the fianna and their like are themselves so full of power, and they are set in a world so fluctuating and dreamlike, that nothing can hold them from being all that the heart desires. i have read in a fabulous book that adam had but to imagine a bird and it was born into life, and that he created all things out of himself by nothing more important than an unflagging fancy; and heroes who can make a ship out of a shaving have but little less of the divine prerogatives. they have no speculative thoughts to wander through eternity and waste heroic blood; but how could that be otherwise? for it is at all times the proud angels who sit thinking upon the hill-side and not the people of eden. one morning we meet them hunting a stag that is 'as joyful as the leaves of a tree in summertime'; and whatever they do, whether they listen to the harp or follow an enchanter over-sea, they do for the sake of joy, their joy in one another, or their joy in pride and movement; and even their battles are fought more because of their delight in a good fighter than because of any gain that is in victory. they live always as if they were playing a game; and so far as they have any deliberate purpose at all, it is that they may become great gentlemen and be worthy of the songs of the poets. it has been said, and i think the japanese were the first to say it, that the four essential virtues are to be generous among the weak, and truthful among one's friends, and brave among one's enemies, and courteous at all times; and if we understand by courtesy not merely the gentleness the story-tellers have celebrated, but a delight in courtly things, in beautiful clothing and in beautiful verse, one understands that it was no formal succession of trials that bound the fianna to one another. only the table round, that is indeed, as it seems, a rivulet from the same well-head, is bound in a like fellowship, and there the four heroic virtues are troubled by the abstract virtues of the cloister. every now and then some noble knight builds a cell upon the hill-side, or leaves kind women and joyful knights to seek the vision of the grail in lonely adventures. but when oisin or some kingly forerunner--bran, son of febal, or the like--rides or sails in an enchanted ship to some divine country, he but looks for a more delighted companionship, or to be in love with faces that will never fade. no thought of any life greater than that of love, and the companionship of those that have drawn their swords upon the darkness of the world, ever troubles their delight in one another as it troubles iseult amid her love, or arthur amid his battles. it is an ailment of our speculation that thought, when it is not the planning of something, or the doing of something, or some memory of a plain circumstance, separates us from one another because it makes us always more unlike, and because no thought passes through another's ear unchanged. companionship can only be perfect when it is founded on things, for things are always the same under the hand, and at last one comes to hear with envy the voices of boys lighting a lantern to ensnare moths, or of the maids chattering in the kitchen about the fox that carried off a turkey before breakfast. lady gregory's book of tales is full of fellowship untroubled like theirs, and made noble by a courtesy that has gone perhaps out of the world. i do not know in literature better friends and lovers. when one of the fianna finds osgar dying the proud death of a young man, and asks is it well with him, he is answered, 'i am as you would have me be.' the very heroism of the fianna is indeed but their pride and joy in one another, their good fellowship. goll, old and savage, and letting himself die of hunger in a cave because he is angry and sorry, can speak lovely words to the wife whose help he refuses. 'it is best as it is,' he said, 'and i never took the advice of a woman east or west, and i never will take it. and oh, sweet-voiced queen,' he said, 'what ails you to be fretting after me? and remember now your silver and your gold, and your silks ... and do not be crying tears after me, queen with the white hands,' he said, 'but remember your constant lover aodh, son of the best woman of the world, that came from spain asking for you, and that i fought on corcar-an-dearg; and go to him now,' he said, 'for it is bad when a woman is without a good man.' they have no asceticism, but they are more visionary than any ascetic, and their invisible life is but the life about them made more perfect and more lasting, and the invisible people are their own images in the water. their gods may have been much besides this, for we know them from fragments of mythology picked out with trouble from a fantastic history running backward to adam and eve, and many things that may have seemed wicked to the monks who imagined that history, may have been altered or left out; but this they must have been essentially, for the old stories are confirmed by apparitions among the country-people to-day. the men of dea fought against the mis-shapen fomor, as finn fights against the cat-heads and the dog-heads; and when they are overcome at last by men, they make themselves houses in the hearts of hills that are like the houses of men. when they call men to their houses and to their country under-wave they promise them all that they have upon earth, only in greater abundance. the god midhir sings to queen etain in one of the most beautiful of the stories: 'the young never grow old; the fields and the flowers are as pleasant to be looking at as the blackbird's eggs; warm streams of mead and wine flow through that country; there is no care or no sorrow on any person; we see others, but we ourselves are not seen.' these gods are indeed more wise and beautiful than men; but men, when they are great men, are stronger than they are, for men are, as it were, the foaming tide-line of their sea. one remembers the druid who answered, when someone asked him who made the world, 'the druids made it.' all was indeed but one life flowing everywhere, and taking one quality here, another there. it sometimes seems as if there is a kind of day and night of religion, and that a period when the influences are those that shape the world is followed by a period when the greater power is in influences that would lure the soul out of the world, out of the body. when oisin is speaking with st. patrick of the friends and the life he has outlived, he can but cry out constantly against a religion that has no meaning for him. he laments, and the country-people have remembered his words for centuries: 'i will cry my fill, but not for god, but because finn and the fianna are not living.' old writers had an admirable symbolism that attributed certain energies to the influence of the sun, and certain others to the lunar influence. to lunar influence belong all thoughts and emotions that were created by the community, by the common people, by nobody knows who, and to the sun all that came from the high disciplined or individual kingly mind. i myself imagine a marriage of the sun and moon in the arts i take most pleasure in; and now bride and bridegroom but exchange, as it were, full cups of gold and silver, and now they are one in a mystical embrace. from the moon come the folk-songs imagined by reapers and spinners out of the common impulse of their labour, and made not by putting words together, but by mixing verses and phrases, and the folk-tales made by the capricious mixing of incidents known to everybody in new ways, as one deals out cards, never getting the same hand twice over. when one hears some fine story, one never knows whether it has not been hazard that put the last touch of adventure. such poetry, as it seems to me, desires an infinity of wonder or emotion, for where there is no individual mind there is no measurer-out, no marker-in of limits. the poor fisher has no possession of the world and no responsibility for it; and if he dreams of a love-gift better than the brown shawl that seems too common for poetry, why should he not dream of a glove made from the skin of a bird, or shoes made from the skin of a herring, or a coat made from the glittering garment of the salmon? was it not æschylus who said he but served up fragments from the banquet of homer?--but homer himself found the great banquet of an earthen floor and under a broken roof. we do not know who at the foundation of the world made the banquet for the first time, or who put the pack of cards into rough hands; but we do know that, unless those that have made many inventions are about to change the nature of poetry, we may have to go where homer went if we are to sing a new song. is it because all that is under the moon thirsts to escape out of bounds, to lose itself in some unbounded tidal stream, that the songs of the folk are mournful, and that the story of the fianna, whenever the queens lament for their lovers, reminds us of songs that are still sung in country-places? their grief, even when it is to be brief like grania's, goes up into the waste places of the sky. but in supreme art, or in supreme life there is the influence of the sun too, and the sun brings with it, as old writers tell us, not merely discipline but joy; for its discipline is not of the kind the multitudes impose upon us by their weight and pressure, but the expression of the individual soul, turning itself into a pure fire and imposing its own pattern, its own music, upon the heaviness and the dumbness that is in others and in itself. when we have drunk the cold cup of the moon's intoxication, we thirst for something beyond ourselves, and the mind flows outward to a natural immensity; but if we have drunk from the hot cup of the sun, our own fulness awakens, we desire little, for wherever one goes one's heart goes too; and if any ask what music is the sweetest, we can but answer, as finn answered, 'what happens.' and yet the songs and stories that have come from either influence are a part, neither less than the other, of the pleasure that is the bride-bed of poetry. gaelic-speaking ireland, because its art has been made, not by the artist choosing his material from wherever he has a mind to, but by adding a little to something which it has taken generations to invent, has always had a popular literature. we cannot say how much that literature has done for the vigour of the race, for who can count the hands its praise of kings and high-hearted queens made hot upon the sword-hilt, or the amorous eyes it made lustful for strength and beauty? we remember indeed that when the farming people and the labourers of the towns made their last attempt to cast out england by force of arms they named themselves after the companions of finn. even when gaelic has gone and the poetry with it, something of the habit of mind remains in ways of speech and thought and 'come-all-ye's' and poetical sayings; nor is it only among the poor that the old thought has been for strength or weakness. surely these old stories, whether of finn or cuchulain, helped to sing the old irish and the old norman-irish aristocracy to their end. they heard their hereditary poets and story-tellers, and they took to horse and died fighting against elizabeth or against cromwell; and when an english-speaking aristocracy had their place, it listened to no poetry indeed, but it felt about it in the popular mind an exacting and ancient tribunal, and began a play that had for spectators men and women that loved the high wasteful virtues. i do not think that their own mixed blood or the habit of their time need take all, or nearly all, credit or discredit for the impulse that made those gentlemen of the eighteenth century fight duels over pocket-handkerchiefs, and set out to play ball against the gates of jerusalem for a wager, and scatter money before the public eye; and at last, after an epoch of such eloquence the world has hardly seen its like, lose their public spirit and their high heart, and grow querulous and selfish, as men do who have played life out not heartily but with noise and tumult. had they known the people and the game a little better, they might have created an aristocracy in an age that has lost the understanding of the word. when one reads of the fianna, or of cuchulain, or of any of their like, one remembers that the fine life is always a part played finely before fine spectators. there also one notices the hot cup and the cold cup of intoxication; and when the fine spectators have ended, surely the fine players grow weary, and aristocratic life is ended. when o'connell covered with a dark glove the hand that had killed a man in the duelling-field, he played his part; and when alexander stayed his army marching to the conquest of the world that he might contemplate the beauty of a plane-tree, he played his part. when osgar complained as he lay dying of the keening of the women and the old fighting-men, he too played his part; 'no man ever knew any heart in me,' he said, 'but a heart of twisted horn, and it covered with iron; but the howling of the dogs beside me,' he said, 'and the keening of the old fighting-men and the crying of the women one after another, those are the things that are vexing me.' if we would create a great community--and what other game is so worth the labour?--we must re-create the old foundations of life, not as they existed in that splendid misunderstanding of the eighteenth century, but as they must always exist when the finest minds and ned the beggar and seaghan the fool think about the same thing, although they may not think the same thought about it. when i asked the little boy who had shown me the pathway up the hill of allen if he knew stories of finn and oisin, he said he did not, but that he had often heard his grandfather telling them to his mother in irish. he did not know irish, but he was learning it at school, and all the little boys he knew were learning it. in a little while he will know enough stories of finn and oisin to tell them to his children some day. it is the owners of the land whose children might never have known what would give them so much happiness. but now they can read lady gregory's book to their children, and it will make slieve-na-man, allen, and benbulben, the great mountain that showed itself before me every day through all my childhood and was yet unpeopled, and half the country-sides of south and west, as populous with memories as her cuchulain of muirthemne will have made dundealgan and emain macha and muirthemne; and after a while somebody may even take them to some famous place and say, 'this land where your fathers lived proudly and finely should be dear and dear and again dear;' and perhaps when many names have grown musical to their ears, a more imaginative love will have taught them a better service. iii i praise but in brief words the noble writing of these books, for words that praise a book, wherein something is done supremely well, remain, to sound in the ears of a later generation, like the foolish sound of church bells from the tower of a church when every pew is full. 1903. preface to the first edition of the well of the saints six years ago i was staying in a students' hotel in the latin quarter, and somebody, whose name i cannot recollect, introduced me to an irishman, who, even poorer than myself, had taken a room at the top of the house. it was j. m. synge, and i, who thought i knew the name of every irishman who was working at literature, had never heard of him. he was a graduate of trinity college, dublin, too, and trinity college does not, as a rule, produce artistic minds. he told me that he had been living in france and germany, reading french and german literature, and that he wished to become a writer. he had, however, nothing to show but one or two poems and impressionistic essays, full of that kind of morbidity that has its root in too much brooding over methods of expression, and ways of looking upon life, which come, not out of life, but out of literature, images reflected from mirror to mirror. he had wandered among people whose life is as picturesque as the middle ages, playing his fiddle to italian sailors, and listening to stories in bavarian woods, but life had cast no light into his writings. he had learned irish years ago, but had begun to forget it, for the only language that interested him was that conventional language of modern poetry which has begun to make us all weary. i was very weary of it, for i had finished _the secret rose_, and felt how it had separated my imagination from life, sending my red hanrahan, who should have trodden the same roads with myself, into some undiscoverable country. i said, 'give up paris, you will never create anything by reading racine, and arthur symons will always be a better critic of french literature. go to the arran islands. live there as if you were one of the people themselves; express a life that has never found expression.' i had just come from arran, and my imagination was full of those grey islands where men must reap with knives because of the stones. he went to arran and became a part of its life, living upon salt fish and eggs, talking irish for the most part, but listening also to the beautiful english which has grown up in irish-speaking districts, and takes its vocabulary from the time of malory and of the translators of the bible, but its idiom and its vivid metaphor from irish. when mr. synge began to write in this language, lady gregory had already used it finely in her translations of dr. hyde's lyrics and plays, or of old irish literature, but she had listened with different ears. he made his own selection of word and phrase, choosing what would express his own personality. above all, he made word and phrase dance to a very strange rhythm, which will always, till his plays have created their own tradition, be difficult to actors who have not learned it from his lips. it is essential, for it perfectly fits the drifting emotion, the dreaminess, the vague yet measureless desire, for which he would create a dramatic form. it blurs definition, clear edges, everything that comes from the will, it turns imagination from all that is of the present, like a gold background in a religious picture, and it strengthens in every emotion whatever comes to it from far off, from brooding memory and dangerous hope. when he brought _the shadow of the glen_, his first play, to the irish national theatre society, the players were puzzled by the rhythm, but gradually they became certain that his woman of the glens, as melancholy as a curlew, driven to distraction by her own sensitiveness, her own fineness, could not speak with any other tongue, that all his people would change their life if the rhythm changed. perhaps no irish countryman had ever that exact rhythm in his voice, but certainly if mr. synge had been born a countryman, he would have spoken like that. it makes the people of his imagination a little disembodied; it gives them a kind of innocence even in their anger and their cursing. it is part of its maker's attitude towards the world, for while it makes the clash of wills among his persons indirect and dreamy, it helps him to see the subject-matter of his art with wise, clear-seeing, unreflecting eyes; to preserve the innocence of good art in an age of reasons and purposes. whether he write of old beggars by the roadside, lamenting over the misery and ugliness of life, or of an old arran woman mourning her drowned sons, or of a young wife married to an old husband, he has no wish to change anything, to reform anything; all these people pass by as before an open window, murmuring strange, exciting words. if one has not fine construction, one has not drama, but if one has not beautiful or powerful and individual speech, one has not literature, or, at any rate, one has not great literature. rabelais, villon, shakespeare, william blake, would have known one another by their speech. some of them knew how to construct a story, but all of them had abundant, resonant, beautiful, laughing, living speech. it is only the writers of our modern dramatic movement, our scientific dramatists, our naturalists of the stage, who have thought it possible to be like the greatest, and yet to cast aside even the poor persiflage of the comedians, and to write in the impersonal language that has come, not out of individual life, nor out of life at all, but out of necessities of commerce, of parliament, of board schools, of hurried journeys by rail. if there are such things as decaying art and decaying institutions, their decay must begin when the element they receive into their care from the life of every man in the world, begins to rot. literature decays when it no longer makes more beautiful, or more vivid, the language which unites it to all life, and when one finds the criticism of the student, and the purpose of the reformer, and the logic of the man of science, where there should have been the reveries of the common heart, ennobled into some raving lear or unabashed don quixote. one must not forget that the death of language, the substitution of phrases as nearly impersonal as algebra for words and rhythms varying from man to man, is but a part of the tyranny of impersonal things. i have been reading through a bundle of german plays, and have found everywhere a desire not to express hopes and alarms common to every man that ever came into the world, but politics or social passion, a veiled or open propaganda. now it is duelling that has need of reproof; now it is the ideas of an actress, returning from the free life of the stage, that must be contrasted with the prejudice of an old-fashioned town; now it is the hostility of christianity and paganism in our own day that is to find an obscure symbol in a bell thrown from its tower by spirits of the wood. i compare the work of these dramatists with the greater plays of their scandinavian master, and remember that even he, who has made so many clear-drawn characters, has made us no abundant character, no man of genius in whom we could believe, and that in him also, even when it is emperor and galilean that are face to face, even the most momentous figures are subordinate to some tendency, to some movement, to some inanimate energy, or to some process of thought whose very logic has changed it into mechanism--always to something other than human life. we must not measure a young talent, whether we praise or blame, with that of men who are among the greatest of our time, but we may say of any talent, following out a definition, that it takes up the tradition of great drama as it came from the hands of the masters who are acknowledged by all time, and turns away from a dramatic movement, which, though it has been served by fine talent, has been imposed upon us by science, by artificial life, by a passing order. when the individual life no longer delights in its own energy, when the body is not made strong and beautiful by the activities of daily life, when men have no delight in decorating the body, one may be certain that one lives in a passing order, amid the inventions of a fading vitality. if homer were alive to-day, he would only resist, after a deliberate struggle, the temptation to find his subject not in helen's beauty, that every man has desired, nor in the wisdom and endurance of odysseus that has been the desire of every woman that has come into the world, but in what somebody would describe, perhaps, as 'the inevitable contest,' arising out of economic causes, between the country-places and small towns on the one hand, and, upon the other, the great city of troy, representing one knows not what 'tendency to centralisation.' mr. synge has in common with the great theatre of the world, with that of greece and that of india, with the creator of falstaff, with racine, a delight in language, a preoccupation with individual life. he resembles them also by a preoccupation with what is lasting and noble, that came to him, not as i think from books, but while he listened to old stories in the cottages, and contrasted what they remembered with reality. the only literature of the irish country-people is their songs, full often of extravagant love, and their stories of kings and of kings' children. 'i will cry my fill, but not for god, but because finn and the fianna are not living,' says oisin in the story. every writer, even every small writer, who has belonged to the great tradition, has had his dream of an impossibly noble life, and the greater he is, the more does it seem to plunge him into some beautiful or bitter reverie. some, and of these are all the earliest poets of the world, gave it direct expression; others mingle it so subtly with reality, that it is a day's work to disentangle it; others bring it near by showing one whatever is most its contrary. mr. synge, indeed, sets before us ugly, deformed or sinful people, but his people, moved by no practical ambition, are driven by a dream of that impossible life. that we may feel how intensely his woman of the glen dreams of days that shall be entirely alive, she that is 'a hard woman to please' must spend her days between a sour-faced old husband, a man who goes mad upon the hills, a craven lad and a drunken tramp; and those two blind people of _the well of the saints_ are so transformed by the dream, that they choose blindness rather than reality. he tells us of realities, but he knows that art has never taken more than its symbols from anything that the eye can see or the hand measure. it is the preoccupation of his characters with their dream that gives his plays their drifting movement, their emotional subtlety. in most of the dramatic writing of our time, and this is one of the reasons why our dramatists do not find the need for a better speech, one finds a simple motive lifted, as it were, into the full light of the stage. the ordinary student of drama will not find anywhere in _the well of the saints_ that excitement of the will in the presence of attainable advantages, which he is accustomed to think the natural stuff of drama, and if he see it played he will wonder why act is knitted to act so loosely, why it is all, as it were, flat, why there is so much leisure in the dialogue, even in the midst of passion. if he see the _shadow of the glen_, he will ask, why does this woman go out of her house? is it because she cannot help herself, or is she content to go? why is it not all made clearer? and yet, like everybody when caught up into great events, she does many things without being quite certain why she does them. she hardly understands at moments why her action has a certain form, more clearly than why her body is tall or short, fair or brown. she feels an emotion that she does not understand. she is driven by desires that need for their expression, not 'i admire this man,' or 'i must go, whether i will or no,' but words full of suggestion, rhythms of voice, movements that escape analysis. in addition to all this, she has something that she shares with none but the children of one man's imagination. she is intoxicated by a dream which is hardly understood by herself, but possesses her like something half remembered on a sudden wakening. while i write, we are rehearsing _the well of the saints_, and are painting for it decorative scenery, mountains in one or two flat colours and without detail, ash trees and red salleys with something of recurring pattern in their woven boughs. for though the people of the play use no phrase they could not use in daily life, we know that we are seeking to express what no eye has ever seen. abbey theatre, january 27, 1905. discoveries prophet, priest and king the little theatrical company i write my plays for had come to a west of ireland town, and was to give a performance in an old ball-room, for there was no other room big enough. i went there from a neighbouring country-house, and, arriving a little before the players, tried to open a window. my hands were black with dirt in a moment, and presently a pane of glass and a part of the window-frame came out in my hands. everything in this room was half in ruins, the rotten boards cracked under my feet, and our new proscenium and the new boards of the platform looked out of place, and yet the room was not really old, in spite of the musicians' gallery over the stage. it had been built by some romantic or philanthropic landlord some three or four generations ago, and was a memory of we knew not what unfinished scheme. from there i went to look for the players, and called for information on a young priest, who had invited them and taken upon himself the finding of an audience. he lived in a high house with other priests, and as i went in i noticed with a whimsical pleasure a broken pane of glass in the fanlight over the door, for he had once told me the story of an old woman who a good many years ago quarrelled with the bishop, got drunk and hurled a stone through the painted glass. he was a clever man who read meredith and ibsen, but some of his books had been packed in the fire-grate by his housekeeper, instead of the customary view of an italian lake or the coloured tissue-paper. the players, who had been giving a performance in a neighbouring town, had not yet come, or were unpacking their costumes and properties at the hotel he had recommended them. we should have time, he said, to go through the half-ruined town and to visit the convent schools and the cathedral, where, owing to his influence, two of our young irish sculptors had been set to carve an altar and the heads of pillars. i had only heard of this work, and i found its strangeness and simplicity--one of them had been rodin's pupil--could not make me forget the meretriciousness of the architecture and the commercial commonplace of the inlaid pavement. the new movement had seized on the cathedral midway in its growth, and the worst of the old and the best of the new were side by side without any sign of transition. the convent school was, as other like places have been to me,--a long room in a workhouse hospital at portumna, in particular,--a delight to the imagination and the eyes. a new floor had been put into some ecclesiastical building and the light from a great mullioned window, cut off at the middle, fell aslant upon rows of clean and seemingly happy children. the nuns, who show in their own convents, where they can put what they like, a love of what is mean and pretty, make beautiful rooms where the regulations compel them to do all with a few colours and a few flowers. i think it was that day, but am not sure, that i had lunch at a convent and told fairy stories to a couple of nuns, and i hope it was not mere politeness that made them seem to have a child's interest in such things. a good many of our audience, when the curtain went up in the old ball-room, were drunk, but all were attentive, for they had a great deal of respect for my friend, and there were other priests there. presently the man at the door opposite to the stage strayed off somewhere and i took his place, and when boys came up offering two or three pence and asking to be let into the sixpenny seats, i let them join the melancholy crowd. the play professed to tell of the heroic life of ancient ireland, but was really full of sedentary refinement and the spirituality of cities. every emotion was made as dainty-footed and dainty-fingered as might be, and a love and pathos where passion had faded into sentiment, emotions of pensive and harmless people, drove shadowy young men through the shadows of death and battle. i watched it with growing rage. it was not my own work, but i have sometimes watched my own work with a rage made all the more salt in the mouth from being half despair. why should we make so much noise about ourselves and yet have nothing to say that was not better said in that workhouse dormitory, where a few flowers and a few coloured counterpanes and the coloured walls had made a severe and gracious beauty? presently the play was changed and our comedian began to act a little farce, and when i saw him struggle to wake into laughter an audience out of whom the life had run as if it were water, i rejoiced, as i had over that broken window-pane. here was something secular, abounding, even a little vulgar, for he was gagging horribly, condescending to his audience, though not without contempt. we had supper in the priest's house, and a government official who had come down from dublin, partly out of interest in this attempt 'to educate the people,' and partly because it was his holiday and it was necessary to go somewhere, entertained us with little jokes. somebody, not, i think, a priest, talked of the spiritual destiny of our race and praised the night's work, for the play was refined and the people really very attentive, and he could not understand my discontent; but presently he was silenced by the patter of jokes. i had my breakfast by myself the next morning, for the players had got up in the middle of the night and driven some ten miles to catch an early train to dublin, and were already on their way to their shops and offices. i had brought the visitors' book of the hotel, to turn over its pages while waiting for my bacon and eggs, and found several pages full of obscenities, scrawled there some two or three weeks before, by dublin visitors, it seemed, for a notorious dublin street was mentioned. nobody had thought it worth his while to tear out the page or blacken out the lines, and as i put the book away impressions that had been drifting through my mind for months rushed up into a single thought. 'if we poets are to move the people, we must reintegrate the human spirit in our imagination. the english have driven away the kings, and turned the prophets into demagogues, and you cannot have health among a people if you have not prophet, priest and king.' personality and the intellectual essences my work in ireland has continually set this thought before me: 'how can i make my work mean something to vigorous and simple men whose attention is not given to art but to a shop, or teaching in a national school, or dispensing medicine?' i had not wanted to 'elevate them' or 'educate them,' as these words are understood, but to make them understand my vision, and i had not wanted a large audience, certainly not what is called a national audience, but enough people for what is accidental and temporary to lose itself in the lump. in england, where there have been so many changing activities and so much systematic education, one only escapes from crudities and temporary interests among students, but here there is the right audience, could one but get its ears. i have always come to this certainty: what moves natural men in the arts is what moves them in life, and that is, intensity of personal life, intonations that show them in a book or a play, the strength, the essential moment of a man who would be exciting in the market or at the dispensary door. they must go out of the theatre with the strength they live by strengthened with looking upon some passion that could, whatever its chosen way of life, strike down an enemy, fill a long stocking with money or move a girl's heart. they have not much to do with the speculations of science, though they have a little, or with the speculations of metaphysics, though they have a little. their legs will tire on the road if there is nothing in their hearts but vague sentiment, and though it is charming to have an affectionate feeling about flowers, that will not pull the cart out of the ditch. an exciting person, whether the hero of a play or the maker of poems, will display the greatest volume of personal energy, and this energy must seem to come out of the body as out of the mind. we must say to ourselves continually when we imagine a character: 'have i given him the roots, as it were, of all faculties necessary for life?' and only when one is certain of that may one give him the one faculty that fills the imagination with joy. i even doubt if any play had ever a great popularity that did not use, or seem to use, the bodily energies of its principal actor to the full. villon the robber could have delighted these irishmen with plays and songs, if he and they had been born to the same traditions of word and symbol, but shelley could not; and as men came to live in towns and to read printed books and to have many specialised activities, it has become more possible to produce shelleys and less and less possible to produce villons. the last villon dwindled into robert burns because the highest faculties had faded, taking the sense of beauty with them, into some sort of vague heaven and left the lower to lumber where they best could. in literature, partly from the lack of that spoken word which knits us to normal man, we have lost in personality, in our delight in the whole man--blood, imagination, intellect, running together--but have found a new delight, in essences, in states of mind, in pure imagination, in all that comes to us most easily in elaborate music. there are two ways before literature--upward into ever-growing subtlety, with verhaeren, with mallarmé, with maeterlinck, until at last, it may be, a new agreement among refined and studious men gives birth to a new passion, and what seems literature becomes religion; or downward, taking the soul with us until all is simplified and solidified again. that is the choice of choices--the way of the bird until common eyes have lost us, or to the market carts; but we must see to it that the soul goes with us, for the bird's song is beautiful, and the traditions of modern imagination, growing always more musical, more lyrical, more melancholy, casting up now a shelley, now a swinburne, now a wagner, are, it may be, the frenzy of those that are about to see what the magic hymn printed by the abbé de villars has called the crown of living and melodious diamonds. if the carts have hit our fancy we must have the soul tight within our bodies, for it has grown so fond of a beauty accumulated by subtle generations that it will for a long time be impatient with our thirst for mere force, mere personality, for the tumult of the blood. if it begin to slip away we must go after it, for shelley's chapel of the morning star is better than burns's beer-house--surely it was beer, not barleycorn--except at the day's weary end; and it is always better than that uncomfortable place where there is no beer, the machine shop of the realists. the musician and the orator walter pater says music is the type of all the arts, but somebody else, i forget now who, that oratory is their type. you will side with the one or the other according to the nature of your energy, and i in my present mood am all for the man who, with an average audience before him, uses all means of persuasion--stories, laughter, tears, and but so much music as he can discover on the wings of words. i would even avoid the conversation of the lovers of music, who would draw us into the impersonal land of sound and colour, and i would have no one write with a sonata in his memory. we may even speak a little evil of musicians, having admitted that they will see before we do that melodious crown. we may remind them that the housemaid does not respect the piano-tuner as she does the plumber, and of the enmity that they have aroused among all poets. music is the most impersonal of things, and words the most personal, and that is why musicians do not like words. they masticate them for a long time, being afraid they would not be able to digest them, and when the words are so broken and softened and mixed with spittle that they are not words any longer, they swallow them. a guitar player a girl has been playing on the guitar. she is pretty, and if i didn't listen to her i could have watched her, and if i didn't watch her i could have listened. her voice, the movements of her body, the expression of her face, all said the same thing. a player of a different temper and body would have made all different, and might have been delightful in some other way. a movement not of music only but of life came to its perfection. i was delighted and i did not know why until i thought, 'that is the way my people, the people i see in the mind's eye, play music, and i like it because it is all personal, as personal as villon's poetry.' the little instrument is quite light, and the player can move freely and express a joy that is not of the fingers and the mind only but of the whole being; and all the while her movements call up into the mind, so erect and natural she is, whatever is most beautiful in her daily life. nearly all the old instruments were like that, even the organ was once a little instrument, and when it grew big our wise forefathers gave it to god in the cathedrals, where it befits him to be everything. but if you sit at the piano, it is the piano, the mechanism, that is the important thing, and nothing of you means anything but your fingers and your intellect. the looking-glass i have just been talking to a girl with a shrill monotonous voice and an abrupt way of moving. she is fresh from school, where they have taught her history and geography 'whereby a soul can be discerned,' but what is the value of an education, or even in the long run of a science, that does not begin with the personality, the habitual self, and illustrate all by that? somebody should have taught her to speak for the most part on whatever note of her voice is most musical, and soften those harsh notes by speaking, not singing, to some stringed instrument, taking note after note and, as it were, caressing her words a little as if she loved the sound of them, and have taught her after this some beautiful pantomimic dance, till it had grown a habit to live for eye and ear. a wise theatre might make a training in strong and beautiful life the fashion, teaching before all else the heroic discipline of the looking-glass, for is not beauty, even as lasting love, one of the most difficult of the arts? the tree of life we artists have taken over-much to heart that old commandment about seeking after the kingdom of heaven. verlaine told me that he had tried to translate '_in memoriam_,' but could not because tennyson was 'too noble, too anglais, and, when he should have been broken-hearted, had many reminiscences.' about that time i found in some english review an essay of his on shakespeare. 'i had once a fine shakespeare,' he wrote, or some such words, 'but i have it no longer. i write from memory.' one wondered in what vicissitude he had sold it, and for what money; and an image of the man rose in the imagination. to be his ordinary self as much as possible, not a scholar or even a reader, that was certainly his pose; and in the lecture he gave at oxford he insisted 'that the poet should hide nothing of himself,' though he must speak it all with 'a care of that dignity which should manifest itself, if not in the perfection of form, at all events with an invisible, insensible, but effectual endeavour after this lofty and severe quality, i was about to say this virtue.' it was this feeling for his own personality, his delight in singing his own life, even more than that life itself, which made the generation i belong to compare him to villon. it was not till after his death that i understood the meaning his words should have had for me, for while he lived i was interested in nothing but states of mind, lyrical moments, intellectual essences. i would not then have been as delighted as i am now by that guitar player, or as shocked as i am now by that girl whose movements have grown abrupt, and whose voice has grown harsh by the neglect of all but external activities. i had not learned what sweetness, what rhythmic movement, there is in those who have become the joy that is themselves. without knowing it, i had come to care for nothing but impersonal beauty. i had set out on life with the thought of putting my very self into poetry, and had understood this as a representation of my own visions and an attempt to cut away the non-essential, but as i imagined the visions outside myself my imagination became full of decorative landscape and of still life. i thought of myself as something unmoving and silent living in the middle of my own mind and body, a grain of sand in bloomsbury or in connacht that satan's watch fiends cannot find. then one day i understood quite suddenly, as the way is, that i was seeking something unchanging and unmixed and always outside myself, a stone or an elixir that was always out of reach, and that i myself was the fleeting thing that held out its hand. the more i tried to make my art deliberately beautiful, the more did i follow the opposite of myself, for deliberate beauty is like a woman always desiring man's desire. presently i found that i entered into myself and pictured myself and not some essence when i was not seeking beauty at all, but merely to lighten the mind of some burden of love or bitterness thrown upon it by the events of life. we are only permitted to desire life, and all the rest should be our complaints or our praise of that exacting mistress who can awake our lips into song with her kisses. but we must not give her all, we must deceive her a little at times, for, as le sage says in _diable boiteux_ the false lovers who do not become melancholy or jealous with honest passion have the happiest mistresses and are rewarded the soonest and by the most beautiful. our deceit will give us style, mastery, that dignity, that lofty and severe quality verlaine spoke of. to put it otherwise, we should ascend out of common interests, the thoughts of the newspapers, of the marketplace, of men of science, but only so far as we can carry the normal, passionate, reasoning self, the personality as a whole. we must find some place upon the tree of life for the phoenix nest, for the passion that is exaltation and the negation of the will, for the wings that are always upon fire, set high that the forked branches may keep it safe, yet low enough to be out of the little wind-tossed boughs, the quivering of the twigs. the praise of old wives' tales an art may become impersonal because it has too much circumstance or too little, because the world is too little or too much with it, because it is too near the ground or too far up among the branches. i met an old man out fishing a year ago, who said to me, 'don quixote and odysseus are always near to me'; that is true for me also, for even hamlet and lear and oedipus are more cloudy.[1] no playwright ever has made or ever will make a character that will follow us out of the theatre as don quixote follows us out of the book, for no playwright can be wholly episodical, and when one constructs, bringing one's characters into complicated relations with one another, something impersonal comes into the story. society, fate, 'tendency,' something not quite human, begins to arrange the characters and to excite into action only so much of their humanity as they find it necessary to show to one another. the common heart will always love better the tales that have something of an old wives' tale and that look upon their hero from every side as if he alone were wonderful, as a child does with a new penny. in plays of a comedy too extravagant to photograph life, or written in verse, the construction is of a necessity woven out of naked motives and passions, but when an atmosphere of modern reality has to be built up as well, and the tendency, or fate, or society has to be shown as it is about ourselves, the characters grow fainter, and we have to read the book many times or see the play many times before we can remember them. even then they are only possible in a certain drawing-room and among such and such people, and we must carry all that lumber in our heads. i thought tolstoi's 'war and peace' the greatest story i had ever read, and yet it has gone from me; even lancelot, ever a shadow, is more visible in my memory than all its substance. the play of modern manners of all artistic forms that have had a large share of the world's attention, the worst is the play about modern educated people. except where it is superficial or deliberately argumentative it fills one's soul with a sense of commonness as with dust. it has one mortal ailment. it cannot become impassioned, that is to say, vital, without making somebody gushing and sentimental. educated and well-bred people do not wear their hearts upon their sleeves, and they have no artistic and charming language except light persiflage and no powerful language at all, and when they are deeply moved they look silently into the fireplace. again and again i have watched some play of this sort with growing curiosity through the opening scene. the minor people argue, chaff one another, hint sometimes at some deeper stream of life just as we do in our houses, and i am content. but all the time i have been wondering why the chief character, the man who is to bear the burden of fate, is gushing, sentimental and quite without ideas. then the great scene comes and i understand that he cannot be well-bred or self-possessed or intellectual, for if he were he would draw a chair to the fire and there would be no duologue at the end of the third act. ibsen understood the difficulty and made all his characters a little provincial that they might not put each other out of countenance, and made a leading article sort of poetry, phrases about vine leaves and harps in the air it was possible to believe them using in their moments of excitement, and if the play needed more than that, they could always do something stupid. they could go out and hoist a flag as they do at the end of _little eyolf_. one only understands that this manner, deliberately adopted one doubts not, had gone into his soul and filled it with dust, when one has noticed that he could no longer create a man of genius. the happiest writers are those that, knowing this form of play to be slight and passing, keep to the surface, never showing anything but the arguments and the persiflage of daily observation, or now and then, instead of the expression of passion, a stage picture, a man holding a woman's hand or sitting with his head in his hands in dim light by the red glow of a fire. it was certainly an understanding of the slightness of the form, of its incapacity for the expression of the deeper sorts of passion, that made the french invent the play with a thesis, for where there is a thesis people can grow hot in argument, almost the only kind of passion that displays itself in our daily life. the novel of contemporary educated life is upon the other hand a permanent form because having the power of psychological description it can follow the thought of a man who is looking into the grate. has the drama of contemporary life a root of its own? in watching a play about modern educated people, with its meagre language and its action crushed into the narrow limits of possibility, i have found myself constantly saying: 'maybe it has its power to move, slight as that is, from being able to suggest fundamental contrasts and passions which romantic and poetical literature have shown to be beautiful.' a man facing his enemies alone in a quarrel over the purity of the water in a norwegian spa and using no language but that of the newspapers can call up into our minds, let us say, the passion of coriolanus. the lovers and fighters of old imaginative literature are more vivid experiences in the soul than anything but one's own ruling passion that is itself riddled by their thought as by lightning, and even two dumb figures on the roads can call up all that glory. put the man who has no knowledge of literature before a play of this kind and he will say, as he has said in some form or other in every age at the first shock of naturalism, 'what has brought me out to hear nothing but the words we use at home when we are talking of the rates?' and he will prefer to it any play where there is visible beauty or mirth, where life is exciting, at high tide as it were. it is not his fault that he will prefer in all likelihood a worse play although its kind may be greater, for we have been following the lure of science for generations and forgotten him and his. i come always back to this thought. there is something of an old wives' tale in fine literature. the makers of it are like an old peasant telling stories of the great famine or the hangings of '98 or his own memories. he has felt something in the depth of his mind and he wants to make it as visible and powerful to our senses as possible. he will use the most extravagant words or illustrations if they suit his purpose. or he will invent a wild parable, and the more his mind is on fire or the more creative it is, the less will he look at the outer world or value it for its own sake. it gives him metaphors and examples, and that is all. he is even a little scornful of it, for it seems to him while the fit is on that the fire has gone out of it and left it but white ashes. i cannot explain it, but i am certain that every high thing was invented in this way, between sleeping and waking, as it were, and that peering and peeping persons are but hawkers of stolen goods. how else could their noses have grown so ravenous or their eyes so sharp? why the blind man in ancient times was made a poet a description in the iliad or the odyssey, unlike one in the æneid or in most modern writers, is the swift and natural observation of a man as he is shaped by life. it is a refinement of the primary hungers and has the least possible of what is merely scholarly or exceptional. it is, above all, never too observant, too professional, and when the book is closed we have had our energies enriched, for we have been in the mid-current. we have never seen anything odysseus could not have seen while his thought was of the cyclops, or achilles when briseis moved him to desire. in the art of the greatest periods there is something careless and sudden in all habitual moods though not in their expression, because these moods are a conflagration of all the energies of active life. in primitive times the blind man became a poet as he became a fiddler in our villages, because he had to be driven out of activities all his nature cried for before he could be contented with the praise of life. and often it is villon or verlaine with impediments plain to all, who sings of life with the ancient simplicity. poets of coming days, when once more it will be possible to write as in the great epochs, will recognise that their sacrifice shall be to refuse what blindness and evil name, or imprisonment at the outsetting, denied to men who missed thereby the sting of a deliberate refusal. the poets of the ages of silver need no refusal of life, the dome of many-coloured glass is already shattered while they live. they look at life deliberately and as if from beyond life, and the greatest of them need suffer nothing but the sadness that the saints have known. this is their aim, and their temptation is not a passionate activity, but the approval of their fellows, which comes to them in full abundance only when they delight in the general thoughts that hold together a cultivated middle-class, where irresponsibilities of position and poverty are lacking; the things that are more excellent among educated men who have political preoccupations, augustus cæsar's affability, all that impersonal fecundity which muddies the intellectual passions. ben jonson says in the 'poetaster,' that even the best of men without promethean fire is but a hollow statue, and a studious man will commonly forget after some forty winters that of a certainty promethean fire will burn somebody's fingers. it may happen that poets will be made more often by their sins than by their virtues, for general praise is unlucky, as the villages know, and not merely as i imagine--for i am superstitious about these things--because the praise of all but an equal enslaves and adds a pound to the ball at the ankle with every compliment. all energy that comes from the whole man is as irregular as the lightning, for the communicable and forecastable and discoverable is a part only, a hungry chicken under the breast of the pelican, and the test of poetry is not in reason but in a delight not different from the delight that comes to a man at the first coming of love into the heart. i knew an old man who had spent his whole life cutting hazel and privet from the paths, and in some seventy years he had observed little but had many imaginations. he had never seen like a naturalist, never seen things as they are, for his habitual mood had been that of a man stirred in his affairs; and shakespeare, tintoretto, though the times were running out when tintoretto painted, nearly all the great men of the renaissance, looked at the world with eyes like his. their minds were never quiescent, never as it were in a mood for scientific observations, always an exaltation, never--to use known words--founded upon an elimination of the personal factor; and their attention and the attention of those they worked for dwelt constantly with what is present to the mind in exaltation. i am too modern fully to enjoy tintoretto's 'creation of the milky way,' i cannot fix my thoughts upon that glowing and palpitating flesh intently enough to forget, as i can the make-believe of a fairy tale, that heavy drapery hanging from a cloud, though i find my pleasure in _king lear_ heightened by the make-believe that comes upon it all when the fool says: 'this prophecy merlin shall make, for i live before his time';--and i always find it quite natural, so little does logic in the mere circumstance matter in the finest art, that richard's and richmond's tents should be side by side. i saw with delight _the knight of the burning pestle_ when mr. carr revived it, and found it none the worse because the apprentice acted a whole play upon the spur of the moment and without committing a line to heart. when ben jonson's _epicoene_ rammed a century of laughter into the two hours' traffic, i found with amazement that almost every journalist had put logic on the seat, where our lady imagination should pronounce that unjust and favouring sentence her woman's heart is ever plotting, and had felt bound to cherish none but reasonable sympathies and to resent the baiting of that grotesque old man. i have been looking over a book of engravings made in the eighteenth century from those wall-pictures of herculaneum and pompeii that were, it seems, the work of journeymen copying from finer paintings, for the composition is always too good for the execution. i find in great numbers an indifference to obvious logic, to all that the eye sees at common moments. perseus shows andromeda the death she lived by in a pool, and though the lovers are carefully drawn the reflection is upside down that we may see it the better. there is hardly an old master who has not made known to us in some like way how little he cares for what every fool can see and every knave can praise. the men who imagined the arts were not less superstitious in religion, understanding the spiritual relations, but not the mechanical, and finding nothing that need strain the throat in those gnats the floods of noah and deucalion, and in joshua's moon at ascalon. concerning saints and artists i took the indian hemp with certain followers of st. martin on the ground floor of a house in the latin quarter. i had never taken it before, and was instructed by a boisterous young poet, whose english was no better than my french. he gave me a little pellet, if i am not forgetting, an hour before dinner, and another after we had dined together at some restaurant. as we were going through the streets to the meeting-place of the martinists, i felt suddenly that a cloud i was looking at floated in an immense space, and for an instant my being rushed out, as it seemed, into that space with ecstasy. i was myself again immediately, but the poet was wholly above himself, and presently he pointed to one of the street lamps now brightening in the fading twilight, and cried at the top of his voice, 'why do you look at me with your great eye?' there were perhaps a dozen people already much excited when we arrived; and after i had drunk some cups of coffee and eaten a pellet or two more, i grew very anxious to dance, but did not, as i could not remember any steps. i sat down and closed my eyes; but no, i had no visions, nothing but a sensation of some dark shadow which seemed to be telling me that some day i would go into a trance and so out of my body for a while, but not yet. i opened my eyes and looked at some red ornament on the mantelpiece, and at once the room was full of harmonies of red, but when a blue china figure caught my eye the harmonies became blue upon the instant. i was puzzled, for the reds were all there, nothing had changed, but they were no longer important or harmonious; and why had the blues so unimportant but a moment ago become exciting and delightful? thereupon it struck me that i was seeing like a painter, and that in the course of the evening everyone there would change through every kind of artistic perception. after a while a martinist ran towards me with a piece of paper on which he had drawn a circle with a dot in it, and pointing at it with his finger he cried out, 'god, god!' some immeasurable mystery had been revealed, and his eyes shone; and at some time or other a lean and shabby man, with rather a distinguished face, showed me his horoscope and pointed with an ecstasy of melancholy at its evil aspects. the boisterous poet, who was an old eater of the indian hemp, had told me that it took one three months growing used to it, three months more enjoying it, and three months being cured of it. these men were in their second period; but i never forgot myself, never really rose above myself for more than a moment, and was even able to feel the absurdity of that gaiety, an herr nordau among the men of genius, but one that was abashed at his own sobriety. the sky outside was beginning to grey when there came a knocking at the window shutters. somebody opened the window, and a woman in evening dress, who was not a little bewildered to find so many people, was helped down into the room. she had been at a students' ball unknown to her husband, who was asleep overhead, and had thought to have crept home unobserved, but for a confederate at the window. all those talking or dancing men laughed in a dreamy way; and she, understanding that there was no judgment in the laughter of men that had no thought but of the spectacle of the world, blushed, laughed and darted through the room and so upstairs. alas that the hangman's rope should be own brother to that indian happiness that keeps alone, were it not for some stray cactus, mother of as many dreams, immemorial impartiality. the subject matter of drama i read this sentence a few days ago, or one like it, in an obituary of ibsen: 'let nobody again go back to the old ballad material of shakespeare, to murders, and ghosts, for what interests us on the stage is modern experience and the discussion of our interests;' and in another part of the article ibsen was blamed because he had written of suicides and in other ways made use of 'the morbid terror of death.' dramatic literature has for a long time been left to the criticism of journalists, and all these, the old stupid ones and the new clever ones, have tried to impress upon it their absorption in the life of the moment, their delight in obvious originality and in obvious logic, their shrinking from the ancient and insoluble. the writer i have quoted is much more than a journalist, but he has lived their hurried life, and instinctively turns to them for judgment. he is not thinking of the great poets and painters, of the cloud of witnesses, who are there that we may become, through our understanding of their minds, spectators of the ages, but of this age. drama is a means of expression, not a special subject matter, and the dramatist is as free to choose where he has a mind to, as the poet of 'endymion,' or as the painter of mary magdalene at the door of simon the pharisee. so far from the discussion of our interests and the immediate circumstance of our life being the most moving to the imagination, it is what is old and far off that stirs us the most deeply. there is a sentence in _the marriage of heaven and hell_ that is meaningless until we understand blake's system of correspondences. 'the best wine is the oldest, the best water the newest.' water is experience, immediate sensation, and wine is emotion, and it is with the intellect, as distinguished from imagination, that we enlarge the bounds of experience and separate it from all but itself, from illusion, from memory, and create among other things science and good journalism. emotion, on the other hand, grows intoxicating and delightful after it has been enriched with the memory of old emotions, with all the uncounted flavours of old experience; and it is necessarily some antiquity of thought, emotions that have been deepened by the experiences of many men of genius, that distinguishes the cultivated man. the subject matter of his meditation and invention is old, and he will disdain a too conscious originality in the arts as in those matters of daily life where, is it not balzac who says, 'we are all conservatives'? he is above all things well-bred, and whether he write or paint will not desire a technique that denies or obtrudes his long and noble descent. corneille and racine did not deny their masters, and when dante spoke of his master virgil there was no crowing of the cock. in their day imitation was conscious or all but conscious, and while originality was but so much the more a part of the man himself, so much the deeper because unconscious, no quick analysis could find out their miracle, that needed, it may be, generations to reveal; but it is our imitation that is unconscious and that waits the certainties of time. the more religious the subject matter of an art, the more will it be as it were stationary, and the more ancient will be the emotion that it arouses and the circumstances that it calls up before our eyes. when in the middle ages the pilgrim to st. patrick's purgatory found himself on the lake side, he found a boat made out of a hollow tree to ferry him to the cave of vision. in religious painting and poetry, crowns and swords of an ancient pattern take upon themselves new meanings, and it is impossible to separate our idea of what is noble from a mystic stair, where not men and women, but robes, jewels, incidents, ancient utilities float upward slowly over the all but sleeping mind, putting on emotional and spiritual life as they ascend until they are swallowed up by some far glory that they even were too modern and momentary to endure. all art is dream, and what the day is done with is dreaming ripe, and what art has moulded religion accepts, and in the end all is in the wine cup, all is in the drunken phantasy, and the grapes begin to stammer. the two kinds of asceticism it is not possible to separate an emotion or a spiritual state from the image that calls it up and gives it expression. michael angelo's moses, velasquez' philip the second, the colour purple, a crucifix, call into life an emotion or state that vanishes with them because they are its only possible expression, and that is why no mind is more valuable than the images it contains. the imaginative writer differs from the saint in that he identifies himself--to the neglect of his own soul, alas!--with the soul of the world, and frees himself from all that is impermanent in that soul, an ascetic not of women and wine, but of the newspapers. that which is permanent in the soul of the world upon the other hand, the great passions that trouble all and have but a brief recurring life of flower and seed in any man, is the renunciation of the saint who seeks not an eternal art, but his own eternity. the artist stands between the saint and the world of impermanent things, and just in so far as his mind dwells on what is impermanent in his sense, on all that 'modern experience and the discussion of our interests,' that is to say, on what never recurs, as desire and hope, terror and weariness, spring and autumn, recur in varying rhythms, will his mind become critical, as distinguished from creative, and his emotions wither. he will think less of what he sees and more of his own attitude towards it, and will express this attitude by an essentially critical selection and emphasis. i am not quite sure of my memory, but i think that mr. ricketts has said in his book on the prado that he feels the critic in velasquez for the first time in painting, and we all feel the critic in whistler and degas, in browning, even in mr. swinburne, in the finest art of all ages but the greatest. the end for art is the ecstasy awakened by the presence before an ever-changing mind of what is permanent in the world, or by the arousing of that mind itself into the very delicate and fastidious mood habitual with it when it is seeking those permanent and recurring things. there is a little of both ecstasies at all times, but at this time we have a small measure of the creative impulse itself, of the divine vision, a great one of 'the lost traveller's dream under the hill,' perhaps because all the old simple things have been painted or written, and they will only have meaning for us again when a new race or a new civilisation has made us look upon all with new eyesight. in the serpent's mouth there is an old saying that god is a circle whose centre is everywhere. if that is true, the saint goes to the centre, the poet and artist to the ring where everything comes round again. the poet must not seek for what is still and fixed, for that has no life for him; and if he did, his style would become cold and monotonous, and his sense of beauty faint and sickly, as are both style and beauty to my imagination in the prose and poetry of newman, but be content to find his pleasure in all that is for ever passing away that it may come again, in the beauty of woman, in the fragile flowers of spring, in momentary heroic passion, in whatever is most fleeting, most impassioned, as it were, for its own perfection, most eager to return in its glory. yet perhaps he must endure the impermanent a little, for these things return, but not wholly, for no two faces are alike, and, it may be, had we more learned eyes, no two flowers. is it that all things are made by the struggle of the individual and the world, of the unchanging and the returning, and that the saint and the poet are over all, and that the poet has made his home in the serpent's mouth? the black and the white arrows instinct creates the recurring and the beautiful, all the winding of the serpent; but reason, the most ugly man, as blake called it, is a drawer of the straight line, the maker of the arbitrary and the impermanent, for no recurring spring will ever bring again yesterday's clock. sanctity has its straight line also, darting from the centre, and with these arrows the many-coloured serpent, theme of all our poetry, is maimed and hunted. he that finds the white arrow shall have wisdom older than the serpent, but what of the black arrow? how much knowledge, how heavy a quiver of the crow-feathered ebony rods can the soul endure? his mistress's eyebrows the preoccupation of our art and literature with knowledge, with the surface of life, with the arbitrary, with mechanism, has arisen out of the root. a careful but not necessarily very subtle man could foretell the history of any religion if he knew its first principle, and that it would live long enough to fulfil itself. the mind can never do the same thing twice over, and having exhausted simple beauty and meaning, it passes to the strange and hidden, and at last must find its delight, having outrun its harmonies in the emphatic and discordant. when i was a boy at the art school i watched an older student late returned from paris, with a wonder that had no understanding in it. he was very amorous, and every new love was the occasion of a new picture, and every new picture was uglier than its forerunner. he was excited about his mistress's eyebrows, as was fitting, but the interest of beauty had been exhausted by the logical energies of art, which destroys where it has rummaged, and can but discover, whether it will or no. we cannot discover our subject matter by deliberate intellect, for when a subject matter ceases to move us we must go elsewhere, and when it moves us, even though it be 'that old ballad material of shakespeare' or even 'the morbid terror of death,' we can laugh at reason. we must not ask is the world interested in this or that, for nothing is in question but our own interest, and we can understand no other. our place in the hierarchy is settled for us by our choice of a subject matter, and all good criticism is hieratic, delighting in setting things above one another, epic and drama above lyric and so on, and not merely side by side. but it is our instinct and not our intellect that chooses. we can deliberately refashion our characters, but not our painting or our poetry. if our characters also were not unconsciously refashioned so completely by the unfolding of the logical energies of art, that even simple things have in the end a new aspect in our eyes, the arts would not be among those things that return for ever. the ballads that bishop percy gathered returned in the _ancient mariner_ and the delight in the world of old greek sculptors sprang into a more delicate loveliness in that archaistic head of the young athlete down the long corridor to your left hand as you go into the british museum. civilisation too, will not that also destroy where it has loved, until it shall bring the simple and natural things again and a new argo with all the gilding on her bows sail out to find another fleece? the tresses of the hair hafiz cried to his beloved, 'i made a bargain with that brown hair before the beginning of time, and it shall not be broken through unending time,' and it may be that mistress nature knows that we have lived many times, and that whatsoever changes and winds into itself belongs to us. she covers her eyes away from us, but she lets us play with the tresses of her hair. a tower on the apennines the other day i was walking towards urbino, where i was to spend the night, having crossed the apennines from san sepolcro, and had come to a level place on the mountain-top near the journey's end. my friends were in a carriage somewhere behind, on a road which was still ascending in great loops, and i was alone amid a visionary, fantastic, impossible scenery. it was sunset and the stormy clouds hung upon mountain after mountain, and far off on one great summit a cloud darker than the rest glimmered with lightning. away south upon another mountain a mediæval tower, with no building near nor any sign of life, rose into the clouds. i saw suddenly in the mind's eye an old man, erect and a little gaunt, standing in the door of the tower, while about him broke a windy light. he was the poet who had at last, because he had done so much for the word's sake, come to share in the dignity of the saint. he had hidden nothing of himself, but he had taken care of 'that dignity ... the perfection of form ... this lofty and severe quality ... this virtue.' and though he had but sought it for the word's sake, or for a woman's praise, it had come at last into his body and his mind. certainly as he stood there he knew how from behind that laborious mood, that pose, that genius, no flower of himself but all himself, looked out as from behind a mask that other who alone of all men, the country-people say, is not a hair's breadth more nor less than six feet high. he has in his ears well-instructed voices and seeming solid sights are before his eyes, and not as we say of many a one, speaking in metaphor, but as this were delphi or eleusis, and the substance and the voice come to him among his memories which are of women's faces; for was it columbanus or another that wrote 'there is one among the birds that is perfect, and one perfect among the fish'? the thinking of the body those learned men who are a terror to children and an ignominious sight in lovers' eyes, all those butts of a traditional humour where there is something of the wisdom of peasants, are mathematicians, theologians, lawyers, men of science of various kinds. they have followed some abstract reverie, which stirs the brain only and needs that only, and have therefore stood before the looking-glass without pleasure and never known those thoughts that shape the lines of the body for beauty or animation, and wake a desire for praise or for display. there are two pictures of venice side by side in the house where i am writing this, a canaletto that has little but careful drawing, and a not very emotional pleasure in clean bright air, and a franz francken, where the blue water, that in the other stirs one so little, can make one long to plunge into the green depth where a cloud shadow falls. neither painting could move us at all, if our thought did not rush out to the edges of our flesh, and it is so with all good art, whether the victory of samothrace which reminds the soles of our feet of swiftness, or the odyssey that would send us out under the salt wind, or the young horsemen on the parthenon, that seem happier than our boyhood ever was, and in our boyhood's way. art bids us touch and taste and hear and see the world, and shrinks from what blake calls mathematic form, from every abstract thing, from all that is of the brain only, from all that is not a fountain jetting from the entire hopes, memories, and sensations of the body. its morality is personal, knows little of any general law, has no blame for little musgrave, no care for lord barnard's house, seems lighter than a breath and yet is hard and heavy, for if a man is not ready to face toil and risk, and in all gaiety of heart, his body will grow unshapely and his heart lack the wild will that stirs desire. it approved before all men those that talked or wrestled or tilted under the walls of urbino, or sat in the wide window-seats discussing all things, with love ever in their thought, when the wise duchess ordered all, and the lady emilia gave the theme. religious belief necessary to religious art all art is sensuous, but when a man puts only his contemplative nature and his more vague desires into his art, the sensuous images through which it speaks become broken, fleeting, uncertain, or are chosen for their distance from general experience, and all grows unsubstantial and fantastic. when imagination moves in a dim world like the country of sleep in _love's nocturne_ and 'siren there winds her dizzy hair and sings,' we go to it for delight indeed but in our weariness. if we are to sojourn there that world must grow consistent with itself, emotion must be related to emotion by a system of ordered images, as in the _divine comedy_. it must grow to be symbolic, that is, for the soul can only achieve a distinct separated life where many related objects at once distinguish and arouse its energies in their fulness. all visionaries have entered into such a world in trances, and all ideal art has trance for warranty. shelley seemed to matthew arnold to beat his ineffectual wings in the void, and i only made my pleasure in him contented pleasure by massing in my imagination his recurring images of towers and rivers, and caves with fountains in them, and that one star of his, till his world had grown solid underfoot and consistent enough for the soul's habitation. but even then i lacked something to compensate my imagination for geographical and historical reality, for the testimony of our ordinary senses, and found myself wishing for and trying to imagine, as i had also when reading keats' _endymion_, a crowd of believers who could put into all those strange sights the strength of their belief and the rare testimony of their visions. a little crowd had been sufficient, and i would have had shelley a sectary that his revelation might have found the only sufficient evidence of religion, miracle. all symbolic art should arise out of a real belief, and that it cannot do so in this age proves that this age is a road and not a resting-place for the imaginative arts. i can only understand others by myself, and i am certain that there are many who are not moved as they desire to be by that solitary light burning in the tower of prince athanais, because it has not entered into men's prayers nor lighted any through the sacred dark of religious contemplation. lyrical poems, when they but speak of emotions common to all, require not indeed a religious belief like the spiritual arts, but a life that has leisure for itself, and a society that is quickly stirred that our emotion may be strengthened by the emotion of others. all circumstance that makes emotion at once dignified and visible, increases the poet's power, and i think that is why i have always longed for some stringed instrument, and a listening audience, not drawn out of the hurried streets, but from a life where it would be natural to murmur over again the singer's thought. when i heard yvette guilbert the other day, who has the lyre or as good, i was not content, for she sang among people whose life had nothing it could share with an exquisite art, that should rise out of life as the blade out of the spearshaft, a song out of the mood, the fountain from its pool, all art out of the body, laughter from a happy company. i longed to make all things over again, that she might sing in some great hall, where there was no one that did not love life and speak of it continually. the holy places when all art was struck out of personality, whether as in our daily business or in the adventure of religion, there was little separation between holy and common things, and just as the arts themselves passed quickly from passion to divine contemplation, from the conversation of peasants to that of princes, the one song remembering the drunken miller and but half forgetting cambuscan bold; so did a man feel himself near sacred presences when he turned his plough from the slope of cruachmaa or of olympus. the occupations and the places known to homer or to hesiod, those pure first artists, might, as it were, if but the fashioners' hands had loosened, have changed before the poem's end to symbols and vanished, winged and unweary, into the unchanging worlds where religion alone can discover life as well as peace. a man of that unbroken day could have all the subtlety of shelley, and yet use no image unknown among the common people, and speak no thought that was not a deduction from the common thought. unless the discovery of legendary knowledge and the returning belief in miracle, or what we must needs call so, can bring once more a new belief in the sanctity of common ploughland, and new wonders that reward no difficult ecclesiastical routine but the common, wayward, spirited man, we may never see again a shelley and a dickens in the one body, but be broken to the end. we have grown jealous of the body, and we dress it in dull unshapely clothes, that we may cherish aspiration alone. molière being but the master of common sense lived ever in the common daylight, but shakespeare could not, and shakespeare seems to bring us to the very marketplace, when we remember shelley's dizzy and landor's calm disdain of usual daily things. and at last we have villiers de l'isle-adam crying in the ecstasy of a supreme culture, of a supreme refusal, 'as for living, our servants will do that for us.' one of the means of loftiness, of marmorean stillness has been the choice of strange and far-away places, for the scenery of art, but this choice has grown bitter to me, and there are moments when i cannot believe in the reality of imaginations that are not inset with the minute life of long familiar things and symbols and places. i have come to think of even shakespeare's journeys to rome or to verona as the outflowing of an unrest, a dissatisfaction with natural interests, an unstable equilibrium of the whole european mind that would not have come had john palæologus cherished, despite that high and heady look, copied by burne jones for his cophetua, a hearty disposition to fight the turk. i am orthodox and pray for a resurrection of the body, and am certain that a man should find his holy land where he first crept upon the floor, and that familiar woods and rivers should fade into symbol with so gradual a change that he never discover, no, not even in ecstasy itself, that he is beyond space, and that time alone keeps him from primum mobile, the supernal eden, and the white rose over all. 1906. poetry and tradition i when mr. o'leary died i could not bring myself to go to his funeral, though i had been once his close fellow-worker, for i shrank from seeing about his grave so many whose nationalism was different from anything he had taught or that i could share. he belonged, as did his friend john f. taylor, to the romantic conception of irish nationality on which lionel johnson and myself founded, so far as it was founded on anything but literature, our art and our irish criticism. perhaps his spirit, if it can care for or can see old friends now, will accept this apology for an absence that has troubled me. i learned much from him and much from taylor, who will always seem to me the greatest orator i have heard; and that ideal ireland, perhaps from this out an imaginary ireland, in whose service i labour, will always be in many essentials their ireland. they were the last to speak an understanding of life and nationality, built up by the generation of grattan, which read homer and virgil, and by the generation of davis, which had been pierced through by the idealism of mazzini,[2] and of the european revolutionists of the mid-century. o'leary had joined the fenian movement with no hope of success as we know, but because he believed such a movement good for the moral character of the people; and had taken his long imprisonment without complaining. even to the very end, while often speaking of his prison life, he would have thought it took from his roman courage to describe its hardship. the worth of a man's acts in the moral memory, a continual height of mind in the doing of them, seemed more to him than their immediate result, if, indeed, the sight of many failures had not taken away the thought of success. a man was not to lie, or even to give up his dignity, on any patriotic plea, and i have heard him say, 'i have but one religion, the old persian: to bend the bow and tell the truth,' and again, 'there are things a man must not do to save a nation,' and again, 'a man must not cry in public to save a nation,' and that we might not forget justice in the passion of controversy, 'there was never cause so bad that it has not been defended by good men for what seemed to them good reasons.' his friend had a burning and brooding imagination that divided men not according to their achievement but by their degrees of sincerity, and by their mastery over a straight and, to my thought, too obvious logic that seemed to him essential to sincerity. neither man had an understanding of style or of literature in the right sense of the word, though both were great readers, but because their imagination could come to rest no place short of greatness, they hoped, john o'leary especially, for an irish literature of the greatest kind. when lionel johnson and katharine tynan (as she was then), and i, myself, began to reform irish poetry, we thought to keep unbroken the thread running up to grattan which john o'leary had put into our hands, though it might be our business to explore new paths of the labyrinth. we sought to make a more subtle rhythm, a more organic form, than that of the older irish poets who wrote in english, but always to remember certain ardent ideas and high attitudes of mind which were the nation itself, to our belief, so far as a nation can be summarised in the intellect. if you had asked an ancient spartan what made sparta sparta, he would have answered, the laws of lycurgus, and many englishmen look back to bunyan and to milton as we did to grattan and to mitchell. lionel johnson was able to take up into his art one portion of this tradition that i could not, for he had a gift of speaking political thought in fine verse that i have always lacked. i, on the other hand, was more preoccupied with ireland (for he had other interests), and took from allingham and walsh their passion for country spiritism, and from ferguson his pleasure in heroic legend, and while seeing all in the light of european literature found my symbols of expression in ireland. one thought often possessed me very strongly. new from the influence, mainly the personal influence, of william morris, i dreamed of enlarging irish hate, till we had come to hate with a passion of patriotism what morris and ruskin hated. mitchell had already all but poured some of that hate drawn from carlyle, who had it of an earlier and, as i think, cruder sort, into the blood of ireland, and were we not a poor nation with ancient courage, unblackened fields and a barbarous gift of self-sacrifice? ruskin and morris had spent themselves in vain because they had found no passion to harness to their thought, but here was unwasted passion and precedents in the popular memory for every needed thought and action. perhaps, too, it would be possible to find in that new philosophy of spiritism coming to a seeming climax in the work of fredrick myers, and in the investigations of uncounted obscure persons, what could change the country spiritism into a reasoned belief that would put its might into all the rest. a new belief seemed coming that could be so simple and demonstrable and above all so mixed into the common scenery of the world, that it would set the whole man on fire and liberate him from a thousand obediences and complexities. we were to forge in ireland a new sword on our old traditional anvil for that great battle that must in the end re-establish the old, confident, joyous world. all the while i worked with this idea, founding societies that became quickly or slowly everything i despised. one part of me looked on, mischievous and mocking, and the other part spoke words which were more and more unreal, as the attitude of mind became more and more strained and difficult. madame maud gonne could still draw great crowds out of the slums by her beauty and sincerity, and speak to them of 'mother ireland with the crown of stars about her head.' but gradually the political movement she was associated with, finding it hard to build up any fine lasting thing, became content to attack little persons and little things. all movements are held together more by what they hate than by what they love, for love separates and individualises and quiets, but the nobler movements, the only movements on which literature can found itself, hate great and lasting things. all who have any old traditions have something of aristocracy, but we had opposing us from the first, though not strongly from the first, a type of mind which had been without influence in the generation of grattan, and almost without it in that of davis, and which has made a new nation out of ireland, that was once old and full of memories. i remember, when i was twenty years old, arguing, on my way home from a young ireland society, that ireland, with its hieratic church, its readiness to accept leadership in intellectual things,--and john o'leary spoke much of this readiness,[3]--its latin hatred of middle paths and uncompleted arguments, could never create a democratic poet of the type of burns, although it had tried to do so more than once, but that its genius would in the long run be aristocratic and lonely. whenever i had known some old countryman, i had heard stories and sayings that arose out of an imagination that would have understood homer better than _the cotter's saturday night_ or _highland mary_, because it was an ancient imagination, where the sediment had found the time to settle, and i believe that the makers of deliberate literature could still take passion and theme, though but little thought, from such as he. on some such old and broken stem, i thought, have all the most beautiful roses been grafted. ii him who trembles before the flame and the flood, and the winds that blow through the starry ways; let the starry winds and the flame and the flood cover over and hide, for he has no part with the proud, majestical multitude. three types of men have made all beautiful things. aristocracies have made beautiful manners, because their place in the world puts them above the fear of life, and the countrymen have made beautiful stories and beliefs, because they have nothing to lose and so do not fear, and the artists have made all the rest, because providence has filled them with recklessness. all these look backward to a long tradition, for, being without fear, they have held to whatever pleased them. the others being always anxious have come to possess little that is good in itself, and are always changing from thing to thing, for whatever they do or have must be a means to something else, and they have so little belief that anything can be an end in itself, that they cannot understand you if you say, 'all the most valuable things are useless.' they prefer the stalk to the flower, and believe that painting and poetry exist that there may be instruction, and love that there may be children, and theatres that busy men may rest, and holidays that busy men may go on being busy. at all times they fear and even hate the things that have worth in themselves, for that worth may suddenly, as it were a fire, consume their book of life, where the world is represented by cyphers and symbols; and before all else, they fear irreverent joy and unserviceable sorrow. it seems to them, that those who have been freed by position, by poverty, or by the traditions of art, have something terrible about them, a light that is unendurable to eyesight. they complain much of that commandment that we can do almost what we will, if we do it gaily, and think that freedom is but a trifling with the world. if we would find a company of our own way of thinking, we must go backward to turreted walls, to courts, to high rocky places, to little walled towns, to jesters like that jester of charles the fifth who made mirth out of his own death; to the duke guidobaldo in his sickness, or duke frederick in his strength, to all those who understood that life is not lived, if not lived for contemplation or excitement. certainly we could not delight in that so courtly thing, the poetry of light love, if it were sad; for only when we are gay over a thing, and can play with it, do we show ourselves its master, and have minds clear enough for strength. the raging fire and the destructive sword are portions of eternity, too great for the eye of man, wrote blake, and it is only before such things, before a love like that of tristan and iseult, before noble or ennobled death, that the free mind permits itself aught but brief sorrow. that we may be free from all the rest, sullen anger, solemn virtue, calculating anxiety, gloomy suspicion, prevaricating hope, we should be reborn in gaiety. because there is submission in a pure sorrow, we should sorrow alone over what is greater than ourselves, nor too soon admit that greatness, but all that is less than we are should stir us to some joy, for pure joy masters and impregnates; and so to world end, strength shall laugh and wisdom mourn. iii in life courtesy and self-possession, and in the arts style, are the sensible impressions of the free mind, for both arise out of a deliberate shaping of all things, and from never being swept away, whatever the emotion, into confusion or dulness. the japanese have numbered with heroic things courtesy at all times whatsoever, and though a writer, who has to withdraw so much of his thought out of his life that he may learn his craft, may find many his betters in daily courtesy, he should never be without style, which is but high breeding in words and in argument. he is indeed the creator of the standards of manners in their subtlety, for he alone can know the ancient records and be like some mystic courtier who has stolen the keys from the girdle of time, and can wander where it please him amid the splendours of ancient courts. sometimes, it may be, he is permitted the license of cap and bell, or even the madman's bunch of straws, but he never forgets or leaves at home the seal and the signature. he has at all times the freedom of the well-bred, and being bred to the tact of words can take what theme he pleases, unlike the linen drapers, who are rightly compelled to be very strict in their conversation. who should be free if he were not? for none other has a continual deliberate self-delighting happiness--style, 'the only thing that is immortal in literature,' as sainte-beuve has said, a still unexpended energy, after all that the argument or the story need, a still unbroken pleasure after the immediate end has been accomplished--and builds this up into a most personal and wilful fire, transfiguring words and sounds and events. it is the playing of strength when the day's work is done, a secret between a craftsman and his craft, and is so inseparate in his nature, that he has it most of all amid overwhelming emotion, and in the face of death. shakespeare's persons, when the last darkness has gathered about them, speak out of an ecstasy that is one half the self-surrender of sorrow, and one half the last playing and mockery of the victorious sword, before the defeated world. it is in the arrangement of events as in the words, and in that touch of extravagance, of irony, of surprise, which is set there after the desire of logic has been satisfied and all that is merely necessary established, and that leaves one, not in the circling necessity, but caught up into the freedom of self-delight: it is, as it were, the foam upon the cup, the long pheasant's feather on the horse's head, the spread peacock over the pasty. if it be very conscious, very deliberate, as it may be in comedy, for comedy is more personal than tragedy, we call it phantasy, perhaps even mischievous phantasy, recognising how disturbing it is to all that drag a ball at the ankle. this joy, because it must be always making and mastering, remains in the hands and in the tongue of the artist, but with his eyes he enters upon a submissive, sorrowful contemplation of the great irremediable things, and he is known from other men by making all he handles like himself, and yet by the unlikeness to himself of all that comes before him in a pure contemplation. it may have been his enemy or his love or his cause that set him dreaming, and certainly the phoenix can but open her young wings in a flaming nest; but all hate and hope vanishes in the dream, and if his mistress brag of the song or his enemy fear it, it is not that either has its praise or blame, but that the twigs of the holy nest are not easily set afire. the verses may make his mistress famous as helen or give a victory to his cause, not because he has been either's servant, but because men delight to honour and to remember all that have served contemplation. it had been easier to fight, to die even, for charles's house with marvel's poem in the memory, but there is no zeal of service that had not been an impurity in the pure soil where the marvel grew. timon of athens contemplates his own end, and orders his tomb by the beachy margent of the flood, and cleopatra sets the asp to her bosom, and their words move us because their sorrow is not their own at tomb or asp, but for all men's fate. that shaping joy has kept the sorrow pure, as it had kept it were the emotion love or hate, for the nobleness of the arts is in the mingling of contraries, the extremity of sorrow, the extremity of joy, perfection of personality, the perfection of its surrender, overflowing turbulent energy, and marmorean stillness; and its red rose opens at the meeting of the two beams of the cross, and at the trysting-place of mortal and immortal, time and eternity. no new man has ever plucked that rose, or found that trysting-place, for he could but come to the understanding of himself, to the mastery of unlocking words after long frequenting of the great masters, hardly without ancestral memory of the like. even knowledge is not enough, for the 'recklessness' castiglione thought necessary in good manners is necessary in this likewise, and if a man has it not he will be gloomy, and had better to his marketing again. iv when i saw john o'leary first, every young catholic man who had intellectual ambition fed his imagination with the poetry of young ireland; and the verses of even the least known of its poets were expounded with a devout ardour at young ireland societies and the like, and their birthdays celebrated. the school of writers i belonged to tried to found itself on much of the subject-matter of this poetry, and, what was almost more in our thoughts, to begin a more imaginative tradition in irish literature, by a criticism at once remorseless and enthusiastic. it was our criticism, i think, that set clarence mangan at the head of the young ireland poets in the place of davis, and put sir samuel ferguson, who had died with but little fame as a poet, next in the succession. our attacks, mine especially, on verse which owed its position to its moral or political worth, roused a resentment which even i find it hard to imagine to-day, and our verse was attacked in return, and not for anything peculiar to ourselves, but for all that it had in common with the accepted poetry of the world, and most of all for its lack of rhetoric, its refusal to preach a doctrine or to consider the seeming necessities of a cause. now, after so many years, i can see how natural, how poetical, even, an opposition was, that shows what large numbers could not call up certain high feelings without accustomed verses, or believe we had not wronged the feeling when we did but attack the verses. i have just read in a newspaper that sir charles gavan duffy recited upon his death bed his favourite poem, one of the worst of the patriotic poems of young ireland, and it has brought all this to mind, for the opposition to our school claimed him as its leader. when i was at siena, i noticed that the byzantine style persisted in faces of madonnas for several generations after it had given way to a more natural style, in the less loved faces of saints and martyrs. passion had grown accustomed to those sloping and narrow eyes, which are almost japanese, and to those gaunt cheeks, and would have thought it sacrilege to change. we would not, it is likely, have found listeners if john o'leary, the irreproachable patriot, had not supported us. it was as clear to him that a writer must not write badly, or ignore the examples of the great masters in the fancied or real service of a cause, as it was that he must not lie for it or grow hysterical. i believed in those days that a new intellectual life would begin, like that of young ireland, but more profound and personal, and that could we but get a few plain principles accepted, new poets and writers of prose would make an immortal music. i think i was more blind than johnson, though i judge this from his poems rather than anything i remember of his talk, for he never talked ideas, but, as was common with his generation in oxford, facts and immediate impressions from life. with others this renunciation was but a pose, a superficial reaction from the disordered abundance of the middle century, but with him it was the radical life. he was in all a traditionalist, gathering out of the past phrases, moods, attitudes, and disliking ideas less for their uncertainty than because they made the mind itself changing and restless. he measured the irish tradition by another greater than itself, and was quick to feel any falling asunder of the two, yet at many moments they seemed but one in his imagination. ireland, all through his poem of that name, speaks to him with the voice of the great poets, and in _ireland dead_ she is still mother of perfect heroism, but there doubt comes too. can it be they do repent that they went, thy chivalry, those sad ways magnificent? and in _ways of war_, dedicated to john o'leary, he dismissed the belief in an heroic ireland as but a dream. a dream! a dream! an ancient dream! yet ere peace come to innisfail, some weapons on some field must gleam, some burning glory fire the gael. that field may lie beneath the sun, fair for the treading of an host: that field in realms of thought be won, and armed hands do their uttermost: some way, to faithful innisfail, shall come the majesty and awe of martial truth, that must prevail to lay on all the eternal law. i do not think either of us saw that, as belief in the possibility of armed insurrection withered, the old romantic nationalism would wither too, and that the young would become less ready to find pleasure in whatever they believed to be literature. poetical tragedy, and indeed all the more intense forms of literature, had lost their hold on the general mass of men in other countries as life grew safe, and the sense of comedy which is the social bond in times of peace as tragic feeling is in times of war, had become the inspiration of popular art. i always knew this, but i believed that the memory of danger, and the reality of it seemed near enough sometimes, would last long enough to give ireland her imaginative opportunity. i could not foresee that a new class, which had begun to rise into power under the shadow of parnell, would change the nature of the irish movement, which, needing no longer great sacrifices, nor bringing any great risk to individuals, could do without exceptional men, and those activities of the mind that are founded on the exceptional moment.[4] john o'leary had spent much of his thought in an unavailing war with the agrarian party, believing it the root of change, but the fox that crept into the badger's hole did not come from there. power passed to small shop-keepers, to clerks, to that very class who had seemed to john o'leary so ready to bend to the power of others, to men who had risen above the traditions of the countryman, without learning those of cultivated life or even educating themselves, and who because of their poverty, their ignorance, their superstitious piety, are much subject to all kinds of fear. immediate victory, immediate utility, became everything, and the conviction, which is in all who have run great risks for a cause's sake, in the o'learys and mazzinis as in all rich natures, that life is greater than the cause, withered, and we artists, who are the servants not of any cause but of mere naked life, and above all of that life in its nobler forms, where joy and sorrow are one, artificers of the great moment, became as elsewhere in europe protesting individual voices. ireland's great moment had passed, and she had filled no roomy vessels with strong sweet wine, where we have filled our porcelain jars against the coming winter. august, 1907. preface to the first edition of john m. synge's poems and translations 'the lonely returns to the lonely, the divine to the divinity.' --_proclus_ i while this work was passing through the press mr. j. m. synge died. upon the morning of his death one friend of his and mine, though away in the country, felt the burden of some heavy event, without understanding where or for whom it was to happen; but upon the same morning one of my sisters said, 'i think mr. synge will recover, for last night i dreamed of an ancient galley labouring in a storm and he was in the galley, and suddenly i saw it run into bright sunlight and smooth sea, and i heard the keel grate upon the sand.' the misfortune was for the living certainly, that must work on, perhaps in vain, to magnify the minds and hearts of our young men, and not for the dead that, having cast off the ailing body, is now, as i believe, all passionate and fiery, an heroical thing. our daimon is as dumb as was that of socrates, when they brought in the hemlock; and if we speak among ourselves, it is of the thoughts that have no savour because we cannot hear his laughter, of the work more difficult because of the strength he has taken with him, of the astringent joy and hardness that was in all he did, and of his fame in the world. ii in his preface he speaks of these poems as having been written during the last sixteen or seventeen years, though the greater number were written very recently, and many during his last illness. _an epitaph_ and _on an anniversary_ show how early the expectation of death came to him, for they were made long ago. but the book as a whole is a farewell, written when life began to slip from him. he was a reserved man, and wished no doubt by a vague date to hide when still living what he felt and thought, from those about him. i asked one of the nurses in the hospital where he died if he knew he was dying, and she said, 'he may have known it for months, but he would not have spoken of it to anyone.' even the translations of poems that he has made his own by putting them into that melancholy dialect of his, seem to express his emotion at the memory of poverty and the approach of death. the whole book is of a kind almost unknown in a time when lyricism has become abstract and impersonal. iii now and then in history some man will speak a few simple sentences which never die, because his life gives them energy and meaning. they affect us as do the last words of shakespeare's people that gather up into themselves the energy of elaborate events, and they in their turn put strange meaning into half-forgotten things and accidents, like cries that reveal the combatants in some dim battle. often a score of words will be enough, as when we repeat to ourselves, 'i am a servant of the lord god of war and i understand the lovely art of the muses,' all that remains of a once famous greek poet and sea rover. and is not that epitaph swift made in latin for his own tomb more immortal than his pamphlets, perhaps than his great allegory? 'he has gone where fierce indignation will lacerate his heart no more.' i think this book too has certain sentences, fierce or beautiful or melancholy that will be remembered in our history, having behind their passion his quarrel with ignorance, and those passionate events, his books. but for the violent nature that strikes brief fire in _a question_, hidden though it was under much courtesy and silence, his genius had never borne those lion cubs of his. he could not have loved had he not hated, nor honoured had he not scorned; though his hatred and his scorn moved him but seldom, as i think, for his whole nature was lifted up into a vision of the world, where hatred played with the grotesque and love became an ecstatic contemplation of noble life. he once said to me, 'we must unite asceticism, stoicism, ecstasy; two of these have often come together, but not all three:' and the strength that made him delight in setting the hard virtues by the soft, the bitter by the sweet, salt by mercury, the stone by the elixir, gave him a hunger for harsh facts, for ugly surprising things, for all that defies our hope. in _the passing of the shee_ he is repelled by the contemplation of a beauty too far from life to appease his mood; and in his own work, benign images ever present to his soul must have beside them malignant reality, and the greater the brightness, the greater must the darkness be. though like 'usheen after the fenians' he remembers his master and his friends, he cannot put from his mind coughing and old age and the sound of the bells. the old woman in _the riders to the sea_, in mourning for her six fine sons, mourns for the passing of all beauty and strength, while the drunken woman of _the tinker's wedding_ is but the more drunken and the more thieving because she can remember great queens. and what is it but desire of ardent life, like that of usheen for his 'golden salmon of the sea, cleen hawk of the air,' that makes the young girls of _the playboy of the western world_ prefer to any peaceful man their eyes have looked upon, a seeming murderer? person after person in these laughing, sorrowful, heroic plays is, 'the like of the little children do be listening to the stories of an old woman, and do be dreaming after in the dark night it's in grand houses of gold they are, with speckled horses to ride, and do be waking again in a short while and they destroyed with the cold, and the thatch dripping, maybe, and the starved ass braying in the yard.' iv it was only at the last in his unfinished _deirdre of the sorrows_ that his mood changed. he knew some twelve months ago that he was dying, though he told no one about it but his betrothed, and he gave all his thought to this play, that he might finish it. sometimes he would despond and say that he could not; and then his betrothed would act it for him in his sick room, and give him heart to write again. and now by a strange chance, for he began the play before the last failing of his health, his persons awake to no disillusionment but to death only, and as if his soul already thirsted for the fiery fountains there is nothing grotesque, but beauty only. v he was a solitary, undemonstrative man, never asking pity, nor complaining, nor seeking sympathy but in this book's momentary cries: all folded up in brooding intellect, knowing nothing of new books and newspapers, reading the great masters alone; and he was but the more hated because he gave his country what it needed, an unmoved mind where there is a perpetual last day, a trumpeting, and coming up to judgment. april 4, 1909. j. m. synge and the ireland of his time i on saturday, january 26th, 1907, i was lecturing in aberdeen, and when my lecture was over i was given a telegram which said, 'play great success.' it had been sent from dublin after the second act of _the playboy of the western world_, then being performed for the first time. after one in the morning, my host brought to my bedroom this second telegram, 'audience broke up in disorder at the word shift.' i knew no more until i got the dublin papers on my way from belfast to dublin on tuesday morning. on the monday night no word of the play had been heard. about forty young men had sat on the front seats of the pit, and stamped and shouted and blown trumpets from the rise to the fall of the curtain. on the tuesday night also the forty young men were there. they wished to silence what they considered a slander upon ireland's womanhood. irish women would never sleep under the same roof with a young man without a chaperon, nor admire a murderer, nor use a word like 'shift'; nor could anyone recognise the countrymen and women of davis and kickham in these poetical, violent, grotesque persons, who used the name of god so freely, and spoke of all things that hit their fancy. a patriotic journalism which had seen in synge's capricious imagination the enemy of all it would have young men believe, had for years prepared for this hour, by that which is at once the greatest and most ignoble power of journalism, the art of repeating a name again and again with some ridiculous or evil association. the preparation had begun after the first performance of _the shadow of the glen_, synge's first play, with an assertion made in ignorance but repeated in dishonesty, that he had taken his fable and his characters, not from his own mind nor that profound knowledge of cot and curragh he was admitted to possess, but 'from a writer of the roman decadence.' some spontaneous dislike had been but natural, for genius like his can but slowly, amid what it has of harsh and strange, set forth the nobility of its beauty, and the depth of its compassion; but the frenzy that would have silenced his master-work was, like most violent things artificial, the defence of virtue by those that have but little, which is the pomp and gallantry of journalism and its right to govern the world. as i stood there watching, knowing well that i saw the dissolution of a school of patriotism that held sway over my youth, synge came and stood beside me, and said, 'a young doctor has just told me that he can hardly keep himself from jumping on to a seat, and pointing out in that howling mob those whom he is treating for venereal disease.' ii thomas davis, whose life had the moral simplicity which can give to actions the lasting influence that style alone can give to words, had understood that a country which has no national institutions must show its young men images for the affections, although they be but diagrams of what it should be or may be. he and his school imagined the soldier, the orator, the patriot, the poet, the chieftain, and above all the peasant; and these, as celebrated in essay and songs and stories, possessed so many virtues that no matter how england, who, as mitchell said, 'had the ear of the world,' might slander us, ireland, even though she could not come at the world's other ear, might go her way unabashed. but ideas and images which have to be understood and loved by large numbers of people, must appeal to no rich personal experience, no patience of study, no delicacy of sense; and if at rare moments some _memory of the dead_ can take its strength from one; at all other moments manner and matter will be rhetorical, conventional, sentimental; and language, because it is carried beyond life perpetually, will be as wasted as the thought, with unmeaning pedantries and silences, and a dread of all that has salt and savour. after a while, in a land that has given itself to agitation over-much, abstract thoughts are raised up between men's minds and nature, who never does the same thing twice, or makes one man like another, till minds, whose patriotism is perhaps great enough to carry them to the scaffold, cry down natural impulse with the morbid persistence of minds unsettled by some fixed idea. they are preoccupied with the nation's future, with heroes, poets, soldiers, painters, armies, fleets, but only as these things are understood by a child in a national school, while a secret feeling that what is so unreal needs continual defence makes them bitter and restless. they are like some state which has only paper money, and seeks by punishments to make it buy whatever gold can buy. they no longer love, for only life is loved, and at last, a generation is like an hysterical woman who will make unmeasured accusations and believe impossible things, because of some logical deduction from a solitary thought which has turned a portion of her mind to stone. iii even if what one defends be true, an attitude of defence, a continual apology, whatever the cause, makes the mind barren because it kills intellectual innocence; that delight in what is unforeseen, and in the mere spectacle of the world, the mere drifting hither and thither that must come before all true thought and emotion. a zealous irishman, especially if he lives much out of ireland, spends his time in a never-ending argument about oliver cromwell, the danes, the penal laws, the rebellion of 1798, the famine, the irish peasant, and ends by substituting a traditional casuistry for a country; and if he be a catholic, yet another casuistry that has professors, schoolmasters, letter-writing priests and the authors of manuals to make the meshes fine, comes between him and english literature, substituting arguments and hesitations for the excitement at the first reading of the great poets which should be a sort of violent imaginative puberty. his hesitations and arguments may have been right, the catholic philosophy may be more profound than milton's morality, or shelley's vehement vision; but none the less do we lose life by losing that recklessness castiglione thought necessary even in good manners, and offend our lady truth, who would never, had she desired an anxious courtship, have digged a well to be her parlour. i admired, though we were always quarrelling, j. f. taylor, the orator, who died just before the first controversy over these plays. it often seemed to me that when he spoke ireland herself had spoken, one got that sense of surprise that comes when a man has said what is unforeseen because it is far from the common thought, and yet obvious because when it has been spoken, the gate of the mind seems suddenly to roll back and reveal forgotten sights and let loose lost passions. i have never heard him speak except in some irish literary or political society, but there at any rate, as in conversation, i found a man whose life was a ceaseless reverie over the religious and political history of ireland. he saw himself pleading for his country before an invisible jury, perhaps of the great dead, against traitors at home and enemies abroad, and a sort of frenzy in his voice and the moral elevation of his thoughts gave him for the moment style and music. one asked oneself again and again, 'why is not this man an artist, a man of genius, a creator of some kind?' the other day under the influence of memory, i read through his one book, a life of owen roe o'neill, and found there no sentence detachable from its context because of wisdom or beauty. everything was argued from a premise; and wisdom and style, whether in life or letters, come from the presence of what is self-evident, from that which requires but statement, from what blake called 'naked beauty displayed.' the sense of what was unforeseen and obvious, the rolling backward of the gates, had gone with the living voice, with the nobility of will that made one understand what he saw and felt in what was now but argument and logic. i found myself in the presence of a mind like some noisy and powerful machine, of thought that was no part of wisdom but the apologetic of a moment, a woven thing, no intricacy of leaf and twig, of words with no more of salt and of savour than those of a jesuit professor of literature, or of any other who does not know that there is no lasting writing which does not define the quality, or carry the substance of some pleasure. how can one, if one's mind be full of abstractions and images created not for their own sake but for the sake of party, even if there were still the need, make pictures for the mind's eye and sounds that delight the ear, or discover thoughts that tighten the muscles, or quiver and tingle in the flesh, and so stand like st. michael with the trumpet that calls the body to resurrection? iv young ireland had taught a study of our history with the glory of ireland for event, and this for lack, when less than taylor studied, of comparison with that of other countries wrecked the historical instinct. an old man with an academic appointment, who was a leader in the attack upon synge sees in the eleventh century romance of deirdre a retelling of the first five-act tragedy outside the classic languages, and this tragedy from his description of it was certainly written on the elizabethan model; while an allusion to a copper boat, a marvel of magic like cinderella's slipper, persuades him that the ancient irish had forestalled the modern dockyards in the making of metal ships. the man who doubted, let us say, our fabulous ancient kings running up to adam, or found but mythology in some old tale, was as hated as if he had doubted the authority of scripture. above all no man was so ignorant, that he had not by rote familiar arguments and statistics to drive away amid familiar applause all those had they but found strange truth in the world or in their mind, whose knowledge has passed out of memory and become an instinct of hand or eye. there was no literature, for literature is a child of experience always, of knowledge never; and the nation itself, instead of being a dumb struggling thought seeking a mouth to utter it or hand to show it, a teeming delight that would re-create the world, had become, at best, a subject of knowledge. v taylor always spoke with confidence, though he was no determined man, being easily flattered or jostled from his way; and this, putting as it were his fiery heart into his mouth, made him formidable. and i have noticed that all those who speak the thoughts of many, speak confidently, while those who speak their own thoughts are hesitating and timid, as though they spoke out of a mind and body grown sensitive to the edge of bewilderment among many impressions. they speak to us that we may give them certainty, by seeing what they have seen; and so it is, that enlargement of experience does not come from those oratorical thinkers, or from those decisive rhythms that move large numbers of men, but from writers that seem by contrast as feminine as the soul when it explores in blake's picture the recesses of the grave, carrying its faint lamp trembling and astonished; or as the muses who are never pictured as one-breasted amazons, but as women needing protection. indeed, all art which appeals to individual man and awaits the confirmation of his senses and his reveries, seems when arrayed against the moral zeal, the confident logic, the ordered proof of journalism, a trifling, impertinent, vexatious thing, a tumbler who has unrolled his carpet in the way of a marching army. vi i attack things that are as dear to many as some holy image carried hither and thither by some broken clan, and can but say that i have felt in my body the affections i disturb, and believed that if i could raise them into contemplation i would make possible a literature, that, finding its subject-matter all ready in men's minds, would be, not as ours is, an interest for scholars, but the possession of a people. i have founded societies with this aim, and was indeed founding one in paris when i first met with j. m. synge, and i have known what it is to be changed by that i would have changed, till i became argumentative and unmannerly, hating men even in daily life for their opinions. and though i was never convinced that the anatomies of last year's leaves are a living forest, nor thought a continual apologetic could do other than make the soul a vapour and the body a stone; nor believed that literature can be made by anything but by what is still blind and dumb within ourselves, i have had to learn how hard in one who lives where forms of expression and habits of thought have been born, not for the pleasure of begetting but for the public good, is that purification from insincerity, vanity, malignity, arrogance, which is the discovery of style. but it became possible to live when i had learnt all i had not learnt in shaping words, in defending synge against his enemies, and knew that rich energies, fine, turbulent or gracious thoughts, whether in life or letters, are but love-children. synge seemed by nature unfitted to think a political thought, and with the exception of one sentence, spoken when i first met him in paris, that implied some sort of nationalist conviction, i cannot remember that he spoke of politics or showed any interest in men in the mass, or in any subject that is studied through abstractions and statistics. often for months together he and i and lady gregory would see no one outside the abbey theatre, and that life, lived as it were in a ship at sea, suited him, for unlike those whose habit of mind fits them to judge of men in the mass, he was wise in judging individual men, and as wise in dealing with them as the faint energies of ill-health would permit; but of their political thoughts he long understood nothing. one night when we were still producing plays in a little hall, certain members of the company told him that a play on the rebellion of '98 would be a great success. after a fortnight he brought them a scenario which read like a chapter out of rabelais. two women, a protestant and a catholic, take refuge in a cave, and there quarrel about religion, abusing the pope or queen elizabeth and henry viii, but in low voices, for the one fears to be ravished by the soldiers, the other by the rebels. at last one woman goes out because she would sooner any fate than such wicked company. yet, i doubt if he would have written at all if he did not write of ireland, and for it, and i know that he thought creative art could only come from such preoccupation. once, when in later years, anxious about the educational effect of our movement, i proposed adding to the abbey company a second company to play international drama, synge, who had not hitherto opposed me, thought the matter so important that he did so in a formal letter. i had spoken of a german municipal theatre as my model, and he said that the municipal theatres all over europe gave fine performances of old classics, but did not create (he disliked modern drama for its sterility of speech, and perhaps ignored it), and that we would create nothing if we did not give all our thoughts to ireland. yet in ireland he loved only what was wild in its people, and in 'the grey and wintry sides of many glens.' all the rest, all that one reasoned over, fought for, read of in leading articles, all that came from education, all that came down from young ireland--though for this he had not lacked a little sympathy--first wakened in him perhaps that irony which runs through all he wrote, but once awakened, he made it turn its face upon the whole of life. the women quarrelling in the cave would not have amused him, if something in his nature had not looked out on most disputes, even those wherein he himself took sides, with a mischievous wisdom. he told me once that when he lived in some peasant's house, he tried to make those about him forget that he was there, and it is certain that he was silent in any crowded room. it is possible that low vitality helped him to be observant and contemplative, and made him dislike, even in solitude, those thoughts which unite us to others, much as we all dislike, when fatigue or illness has sharpened the nerves, hoardings covered with advertisements, the fronts of big theatres, big london hotels, and all architecture which has been made to impress the crowd. what blindness did for homer, lameness for hephæstus, asceticism for any saint you will, bad health did for him by making him ask no more of life than that it should keep him living, and above all perhaps by concentrating his imagination upon one thought, health itself. i think that all noble things are the result of warfare; great nations and classes, of warfare in the visible world, great poetry and philosophy, of invisible warfare, the division of a mind within itself, a victory, the sacrifice of a man to himself. i am certain that my friend's noble art, so full of passion and heroic beauty, is the victory of a man who in poverty and sickness created from the delight of expression, and in the contemplation that is born of the minute and delicate arrangement of images, happiness, and health of mind. some early poems have a morbid melancholy, and he himself spoke of early work he had destroyed as morbid, for as yet the craftsmanship was not fine enough to bring the artist's joy which is of one substance with that of sanctity. in one poem he waits at some street corner for a friend, a woman perhaps, and while he waits and gradually understands that nobody is coming, sees two funerals and shivers at the future; and in another written on his twenty-fifth birthday, he wonders if the twenty-five years to come shall be as evil as those gone by. later on, he can see himself as but a part of the spectacle of the world and mix into all he sees that flavour of extravagance, or of humour, or of philosophy, that makes one understand that he contemplates even his own death as if it were another's and finds in his own destiny but as it were a projection through a burning glass of that general to men. there is in the creative joy an acceptance of what life brings, because we have understood the beauty of what it brings, or a hatred of death for what it takes away, which arouses within us, through some sympathy perhaps with all other men, an energy so noble, so powerful, that we laugh aloud and mock, in the terror or the sweetness of our exaltation, at death and oblivion. in no modern writer that has written of irish life before him, except it may be miss edgeworth in _castle rackrent_, was there anything to change a man's thought about the world or stir his moral nature, for they but play with pictures, persons and events, that whether well or ill observed are but an amusement for the mind where it escapes from meditation, a child's show that makes the fables of his art as significant by contrast as some procession painted on an egyptian wall; for in these fables, an intelligence, on which the tragedy of the world had been thrust in so few years, that life had no time to brew her sleepy drug, has spoken of the moods that are the expression of its wisdom. all minds that have a wisdom come of tragic reality seem morbid to those that are accustomed to writers who have not faced reality at all; just as the saints, with that obscure night of the soul, which fell so certainly that they numbered it among spiritual states, one among other ascending steps, seem morbid to the rationalist and the old-fashioned protestant controversialist. the thought of journalists, like that of the irish novelists, is neither healthy nor unhealthy, for it has not risen to that state where either is possible, nor should we call it happy; for who would have sought happiness, if happiness were not the supreme attainment of man, in heroic toils, in the cell of the ascetic, or imagined it above the cheerful newspapers, above the clouds? vii not that synge brought out of the struggle with himself any definite philosophy, for philosophy in the common meaning of the word is created out of an anxiety for sympathy or obedience, and he was that rare, that distinguished, that most noble thing, which of all things still of the world is nearest to being sufficient to itself, the pure artist. sir philip sidney complains of those who could hear 'sweet tunes' (by which he understands could look upon his lady) and not be stirred to 'ravishing delight.' 'or if they do delight therein, yet are so closed with wit, as with sententious lips to set a title vain on it; oh let them hear these sacred tunes, and learn in wonder's schools to be, in things past bonds of wit, fools if they be not fools!' ireland for three generations has been like those churlish logicians. everything is argued over, everything has to take its trial before the dull sense and the hasty judgment, and the character of the nation has so changed that it hardly keeps but among country people, or where some family tradition is still stubborn, those lineaments that made borrow cry out as he came from among the irish monks, his friends and entertainers for all his spanish bible scattering, 'oh, ireland, mother of the bravest soldiers and of the most beautiful women!' it was, as i believe, to seek that old ireland which took its mould from the duellists and scholars of the eighteenth century and from generations older still, that synge returned again and again to aran, to kerry, and to the wild blaskets. viii 'when i got up this morning,' he writes, after he had been a long time in innismaan, 'i found that the people had gone to mass and latched the kitchen door from the outside, so that i could not open it to give myself light. 'i sat for nearly an hour beside the fire with a curious feeling that i should be quite alone in this little cottage. i am so used to sitting here with the people that i have never felt the room before as a place where any man might live and work by himself. after a while as i waited, with just light enough from the chimney to let me see the rafters and the greyness of the walls, i became indescribably mournful, for i felt that this little corner on the face of the world, and the people who live in it, have a peace and dignity from which we are shut for ever.' this life, which he describes elsewhere as the most primitive left in europe, satisfied some necessity of his nature. before i met him in paris he had wandered over much of europe, listening to stories in the black forest, making friends with servants and with poor people, and this from an æsthetic interest, for he had gathered no statistics, had no money to give, and cared nothing for the wrongs of the poor, being content to pay for the pleasure of eye and ear with a tune upon the fiddle. he did not love them the better because they were poor and miserable, and it was only when he found innismaan and the blaskets, where there is neither riches nor poverty, neither what he calls 'the nullity of the rich' nor 'the squalor of the poor' that his writing lost its old morbid brooding, that he found his genius and his peace. here were men and women who under the weight of their necessity lived, as the artist lives, in the presence of death and childhood, and the great affections and the orgiastic moment when life outleaps its limits, and who, as it is always with those who have refused or escaped the trivial and the temporary, had dignity and good manners where manners mattered. here above all was silence from all our great orator took delight in, from formidable men, from moral indignation, from the 'sciolist' who 'is never sad,' from all in modern life that would destroy the arts; and here, to take a thought from another playwright of our school, he could love time as only women and great artists do and need never sell it. ix as i read _the aran islands_ right through for the first time since he showed it me in manuscript, i come to understand how much knowledge of the real life of ireland went to the creation of a world which is yet as fantastic as the spain of cervantes. here is the story of _the playboy_, of _the shadow of the glen_; here is the ghost on horseback and the finding of the young man's body of _riders to the sea_, numberless ways of speech and vehement pictures that had seemed to owe nothing to observation, and all to some overflowing of himself, or to some mere necessity of dramatic construction. i had thought the violent quarrels of _the well of the saints_ came from his love of bitter condiments, but here is a couple that quarrel all day long amid neighbours who gather as for a play. i had defended the burning of christy mahon's leg on the ground that an artist need but make his characters self-consistent, and yet, that too was observation, for 'although these people are kindly towards each other and their children, they have no sympathy for the suffering of animals, and little sympathy for pain when the person who feels it is not in danger.' i had thought it was in the wantonness of fancy martin dhoul accused the smith of plucking his living ducks, but a few lines farther on, in this book where moral indignation is unknown, i read, 'sometimes when i go into a cottage, i find all the women of the place down on their knees plucking the feathers from live ducks and geese.' he loves all that has edge, all that is salt in the mouth, all that is rough to the hand, all that heightens the emotions by contest, all that stings into life the sense of tragedy; and in this book, unlike the plays where nearness to his audience moves him to mischief, he shows it without thought of other taste than his. it is so constant, it is all set out so simply, so naturally, that it suggests a correspondence between a lasting mood of the soul and this life that shares the harshness of rocks and wind. the food of the spiritual-minded is sweet, an indian scripture says, but passionate minds love bitter food. yet he is no indifferent observer, but is certainly kind and sympathetic to all about him. when an old and ailing man, dreading the coming winter, cries at his leaving, not thinking to see him again; and he notices that the old man's mitten has a hole in it where the palm is accustomed to the stick, one knows that it is with eyes full of interested affection as befits a simple man and not in the curiosity of study. when he had left the blaskets for the last time, he travelled with a lame pensioner who had drifted there, why heaven knows, and one morning having missed him from the inn where they were staying, he believed he had gone back to the island, and searched everywhere and questioned everybody, till he understood of a sudden that he was jealous as though the island were a woman. the book seems dull if you read much at a time, as the later kerry essays do not, but nothing that he has written recalls so completely to my senses the man as he was in daily life; and as i read, there are moments when every line of his face, every inflection of his voice, grows so clear in memory that i cannot realise that he is dead. he was no nearer when we walked and talked than now while i read these unarranged, unspeculating pages, wherein the only life he loved with his whole heart reflects itself as in the still water of a pool. thought comes to him slowly, and only after long seemingly unmeditative watching, and when it comes (and he had the same character in matters of business), it is spoken without hesitation and never changed. his conversation was not an experimental thing, an instrument of research, and this made him silent; while his essays recall events, on which one feels that he pronounces no judgment even in the depth of his own mind, because the labour of life itself had not yet brought the philosophic generalisation, which was almost as much his object as the emotional generalisation of beauty. a mind that generalises rapidly, continually prevents the experience that would have made it feel and see deeply, just as a man whose character is too complete in youth seldom grows into any energy of moral beauty. synge had indeed no obvious ideals, as these are understood by young men, and even as i think disliked them, for he once complained to me that our modern poetry was but the poetry 'of the lyrical boy,' and this lack makes his art have a strange wildness and coldness, as of a man born in some far-off spacious land and time. x there are artists like byron, like goethe, like shelley, who have impressive personalities, active wills and all their faculties at the service of the will; but he belonged to those who like wordsworth, like coleridge, like goldsmith, like keats, have little personality, so far as the casual eye can see, little personal will, but fiery and brooding imagination. i cannot imagine him anxious to impress, or convince in any company, or saying more than was sufficient to keep the talk circling. such men have the advantage that all they write is a part of knowledge, but they are powerless before events and have often but one visible strength, the strength to reject from life and thought all that would mar their work, or deafen them in the doing of it; and only this so long as it is a passive act. if synge had married young or taken some profession, i doubt if he would have written books or been greatly interested in a movement like ours; but he refused various opportunities of making money in what must have been an almost unconscious preparation. he had no life outside his imagination, little interest in anything that was not its chosen subject. he hardly seemed aware of the existence of other writers. i never knew if he cared for work of mine, and do not remember that i had from him even a conventional compliment, and yet he had the most perfect modesty and simplicity in daily intercourse, self-assertion was impossible to him. on the other hand, he was useless amidst sudden events. he was much shaken by the _playboy_ riot; on the first night confused and excited, knowing not what to do, and ill before many days, but it made no difference in his work. he neither exaggerated out of defiance nor softened out of timidity. he wrote on as if nothing had happened, altering _the tinker's wedding_ to a more unpopular form, but writing a beautiful serene _deirdre_, with, for the first time since his _riders to the sea_, no touch of sarcasm or defiance. misfortune shook his physical nature while it left his intellect and his moral nature untroubled. the external self, the mask, the persona, was a shadow, character was all. xi he was a drifting silent man full of hidden passion, and loved wild islands, because there, set out in the light of day, he saw what lay hidden in himself. there is passage after passage in which he dwells upon some moment of excitement. he describes the shipping of pigs at kilronan on the north island for the english market: 'when the steamer was getting near, the whole drove was moved down upon the slip and the curraghs were carried out close to the sea. then each beast was caught in its turn and thrown on its side, while its legs were hitched together in a single knot, with a tag of rope remaining, by which it could be carried. 'probably the pain inflicted was not great, yet the animals shut their eyes and shrieked with almost human intonations, till the suggestion of the noise became so intense that the men and women who were merely looking on grew wild with excitement, and the pigs waiting their turn foamed at the mouth and tore each other with their teeth. 'after a while there was a pause. the whole slip was covered with a mass of sobbing animals, with here and there a terrified woman crouching among the bodies and patting some special favourite, to keep it quiet while the curraghs were being launched. then the screaming began again while the pigs were carried out and laid in their places, with a waistcoat tied round their feet to keep them from damaging the canvas. they seemed to know where they were going, and looked up at me over the gunnel with an ignoble desperation that made me shudder to think that i had eaten this whimpering flesh. when the last curragh went out, i was left on the slip with a band of women and children, and one old boar who sat looking out over the sea. 'the women were over-excited, and when i tried to talk to them they crowded round me and began jeering and shrieking at me because i am not married. a dozen screamed at a time, and so rapidly that i could not understand all they were saying, yet i was able to make out that they were taking advantage of the absence of their husbands to give me the full volume of their contempt. some little boys who were listening threw themselves down, writhing with laughter among the seaweed, and the young girls grew red and embarrassed and stared down in the surf.' the book is full of such scenes. now it is a crowd going by train to the parnell celebration, now it is a woman cursing her son who made himself a spy for the police, now it is an old woman keening at a funeral. kindred to his delight in the harsh grey stones, in the hardship of the life there, in the wind and in the mist, there is always delight in every moment of excitement, whether it is but the hysterical excitement of the women over the pigs, or some primary passion. once indeed, the hidden passion instead of finding expression by its choice among the passions of others shows itself in the most direct way of all, that of dream. 'last night,' he writes, at innismaan, 'after walking in a dream among buildings with strangely intense light on them, i heard a faint rhythm of music beginning far away on some stringed instrument. 'it came closer to me, gradually increasing in quickness and volume with an irresistibly definite progression. when it was quite near the sound began to move in my nerves and blood, to urge me to dance with them. 'i knew that if i yielded i would be carried away into some moment of terrible agony, so i struggled to remain quiet, holding my knees together with my hands. 'the music increased continually, sounding like the strings of harps tuned to a forgotten scale, and having a resonance as searching as the strings of the 'cello. 'then the luring excitement became more powerful than my will, and my limbs moved in spite of me. 'in a moment i swept away in a whirlwind of notes. my breath and my thoughts and every impulse of my body became a form of the dance, till i could not distinguish between the instrument or the rhythm and my own person or consciousness. 'for a while it seemed an excitement that was filled with joy; then it grew into an ecstasy where all existence was lost in the vortex of movement. i could not think that there had been a life beyond the whirling of the dance. 'then with a shock, the ecstasy turned to agony and rage. i struggled to free myself but seemed only to increase the passion of the steps i moved to. when i shrieked i could only echo the notes of the rhythm. 'at last, with a movement of uncontrollable frenzy i broke back to consciousness and awoke. 'i dragged myself trembling to the window of the cottage and looked out. the moon was glittering across the bay and there was no sound anywhere on the island.' xii in all drama which would give direct expression to reverie, to the speech of the soul with itself, there is some device that checks the rapidity of dialogue. when oedipus speaks out of the most vehement passions, he is conscious of the presence of the chorus, men before whom he must keep up appearances, 'children latest born of cadmus' line' who do not share his passion. nobody is hurried or breathless. we listen to reports and discuss them, taking part as it were in a council of state. nothing happens before our eyes. the dignity of greek drama, and in a lesser degree of that of corneille and racine, depends, as contrasted with the troubled life of shakespearean drama, on an almost even speed of dialogue, and on a so continuous exclusion of the animation of common life, that thought remains lofty and language rich. shakespeare, upon whose stage everything may happen, even the blinding of gloster, and who has no formal check except what is implied in the slow, elaborate structure of blank verse, obtains time for reverie by an often encumbering euphuism, and by such a loosening of his plot as will give his characters the leisure to look at life from without. maeterlinck--to name the first modern of the old way who comes to mind--reaches the same end, by choosing instead of human beings persons who are as faint as a breath upon a looking-glass, symbols who can speak a language slow and heavy with dreams because their own life is but a dream. modern drama, on the other hand, which accepts the tightness of the classic plot, while expressing life directly, has been driven to make indirect its expression of the mind, which it leaves to be inferred from some common-place sentence or gesture as we infer it in ordinary life; and this is, i believe, the cause of the perpetual disappointment of the hope imagined this hundred years that france or spain or germany or scandinavia will at last produce the master we await. the divisions in the arts are almost all in the first instance technical, and the great schools of drama have been divided from one another by the form or the metal of their mirror, by the check chosen for the rapidity of dialogue. synge found the check that suited his temperament in an elaboration of the dialects of kerry and aran. the cadence is long and meditative, as befits the thought of men who are much alone, and who when they meet in one another's houses--as their way is at the day's end--listen patiently, each man speaking in turn and for some little time, and taking pleasure in the vaguer meaning of the words and in their sound. their thought, when not merely practical, is as full of traditional wisdom and extravagant pictures as that of some æschylean chorus, and no matter what the topic is, it is as though the present were held at arm's length. it is the reverse of rhetoric, for the speaker serves his own delight, though doubtless he would tell you that like raftery's whiskey-drinking it was but for the company's sake. a medicinal manner of speech too, for it could not even express, so little abstract it is and so rammed with life, those worn generalisations of national propaganda. 'i'll be telling you the finest story you'd hear any place from dundalk to ballinacree with great queens in it, making themselves matches from the start to the end, and they with shiny silks on them.... i've a grand story of the great queens of ireland, with white necks on them the like of sarah casey, and fine arms would hit you a slap.... what good am i this night, god help me? what good are the grand stories i have when it's few would listen to an old woman, few but a girl maybe would be in great fear the time her hour was come, or little child wouldn't be sleeping with the hunger on a cold night.' that has the flavour of homer, of the bible, of villon, while cervantes would have thought it sweet in the mouth though not his food. this use of irish dialect for noble purpose by synge, and by lady gregory, who had it already in her _cuchulain of muirthemne_, and by dr. hyde in those first translations he has not equalled since, has done much for national dignity. when i was a boy i was often troubled and sorrowful because scottish dialect was capable of noble use, but the irish of obvious roystering humour only; and this error fixed on my imagination by so many novelists and rhymers made me listen badly. synge wrote down words and phrases wherever he went, and with that knowledge of irish which made all our country idioms easy to his hand, found it so rich a thing, that he had begun translating into it fragments of the great literatures of the world, and had planned a complete version of _the imitation of christ_. it gave him imaginative richness and yet left to him the sting and tang of reality. how vivid in his translation from villon are those 'eyes with a big gay look out of them would bring folly from a great scholar.' more vivid surely than anything in swinburne's version, and how noble those words which are yet simple country speech, in which his petrarch mourns that death came upon laura just as time was making chastity easy, and the day come when 'lovers may sit together and say out all things are in their hearts,' and 'my sweet enemy was making a start, little by little, to give over her great wariness, the way she was wringing a sweet thing out of my sharp sorrow.' xiii once when i had been saying that though it seemed to me that a conventional descriptive passage encumbered the action at the moment of crisis, i liked _the shadow of the glen_ better than _riders to the sea_, that is, for all the nobility of its end, its mood of greek tragedy, too passive in suffering, and had quoted from matthew arnold's introduction to _empedocles on etna_, synge answered, 'it is a curious thing that _the riders to the sea_ succeeds with an english but not with an irish audience, and _the shadow of the glen_, which is not liked by an english audience, is always liked in ireland, though it is disliked there in theory.' since then _the riders to the sea_ has grown into great popularity in dublin, partly because with the tactical instinct of an irish mob, the demonstrators against _the playboy_ both in the press and in the theatre, where it began the evening, selected it for applause. it is now what shelley's _cloud_ was for many years a comfort to those who do not like to deny altogether the genius they cannot understand. yet i am certain that, in the long run, his grotesque plays with their lyric beauty, their violent laughter, _the playboy of the western world_ most of all, will be loved for holding so much of the mind of ireland. synge has written of _the playboy_, 'anyone who has lived in real intimacy with the irish peasantry will know that the wildest sayings in this play are tame indeed compared with the fancies one may hear at any little hillside cottage of geesala, or carraroe, or dingle bay.' it is the strangest, the most beautiful expression in drama of that irish fantasy, which overflowing through all irish literature that has come out of ireland itself (compare the fantastic irish account of the battle of clontarf with the sober norse account) is the unbroken character of irish genius. in modern days this genius has delighted in mischievous extravagance, like that of the gaelic poet's curse upon his children, 'there are three things that i hate, the devil that is waiting for my soul, the worms that are waiting for my body, my children, who are waiting for my wealth and care neither for my body nor my soul: oh, christ hang all in the same noose!' i think those words were spoken with a delight in their vehemence that took out of anger half the bitterness with all the gloom. an old man on the aran islands told me the very tale on which _the playboy_ is founded, beginning with the words, 'if any gentleman has done a crime we'll hide him. there was a gentleman that killed his father, and i had him in my own house six months till he got away to america.' despite the solemnity of his slow speech his eyes shone as the eyes must have shone in that trinity college branch of the gaelic league which began every meeting with prayers for the death of an old fellow of college who disliked their movement, or as they certainly do when patriots are telling how short a time the prayers took to the killing of him. i have seen a crowd, when certain dublin papers had wrought themselves into an imaginary loyalty, so possessed by what seemed the very genius of satiric fantasy, that one all but looked to find some feathered heel among the cobble stones. part of the delight of crowd or individual is always that somebody will be angry, somebody take the sport for gloomy earnest. we are mocking at his solemnity, let us therefore so hide our malice that he may be more solemn still, and the laugh run higher yet. why should we speak his language and so wake him from a dream of all those emotions which men feel because they should, and not because they must? our minds, being sufficient to themselves, do not wish for victory but are content to elaborate our extravagance, if fortune aid, into wit or lyric beauty, and as for the rest 'there are nights when a king like conchobar would spit upon his arm-ring and queens will stick out their tongues at the rising moon.' this habit of the mind has made oscar wilde and mr. bernard shaw the most celebrated makers of comedy to our time, and if it has sounded plainer still in the conversation of the one, and in some few speeches of the other, that is but because they have not been able to turn out of their plays an alien trick of zeal picked up in struggling youth. yet, in synge's plays also, fantasy gives the form and not the thought, for the core is always as in all great art, an over-powering vision of certain virtues, and our capacity for sharing in that vision is the measure of our delight. great art chills us at first by its coldness or its strangeness, by what seems capricious, and yet it is from these qualities it has authority, as though it had fed on locust and wild honey. the imaginative writer shows us the world as a painter does his picture, reversed in a looking-glass that we may see it, not as it seems to eyes habit has made dull, but as we were adam and this the first morning; and when the new image becomes as little strange as the old we shall stay with him, because he has, besides, the strangeness, not strange to him, that made us share his vision, sincerity that makes us share his feeling. to speak of one's emotions without fear or moral ambition, to come out from under the shadow of other men's minds, to forget their needs, to be utterly oneself, that is all the muses care for. villon, pander, thief and man-slayer, is as immortal in their eyes, and illustrates in the cry of his ruin as great a truth as dante in abstract ecstasy, and touches our compassion more. all art is the disengaging of a soul from place and history, its suspension in a beautiful or terrible light, to await the judgment, and yet, because all its days were a last day, judged already. it may show the crimes of italy as dante did, or greek mythology like keats, or kerry and galway villages, and so vividly that ever after i shall look at all with like eyes, and yet i know that cino da pistoia thought dante unjust, that keats knew no greek, that those country men and women are neither so lovable nor so lawless as 'mine author sung it me'; that i have added to my being, not my knowledge. xiv i wrote the most of these thoughts in my diary on the coast of normandy, and as i finished came upon mont saint michel, and thereupon doubted for a day the foundation of my school. here i saw the places of assembly, those cloisters on the rock's summit, the church, the great halls where monks, or knights, or men at arms sat at meals, beautiful from ornament or proportion. i remembered ordinances of the popes forbidding drinking-cups with stems of gold to these monks who had but a bare dormitory to sleep in. even when imagining, the individual had taken more from his fellows and his fathers than he gave; one man finishing what another had begun; and all that majestic fantasy, seeming more of egypt than of christendom, spoke nothing to the solitary soul, but seemed to announce whether past or yet to come an heroic temper of social men, a bondage of adventure and of wisdom. then i thought more patiently and i saw that what had made these but as one and given them for a thousand years the miracles of their shrine and temporal rule by land and sea, was not a condescension to knave or dolt, an impoverishment of the common thought to make it serviceable and easy, but a dead language and a communion in whatever, even to the greatest saint, is of incredible difficulty. only by the substantiation of the soul i thought, whether in literature or in sanctity, can we come upon those agreements, those separations from all else that fasten men together lastingly; for while a popular and picturesque burns and scott can but create a province, and our irish cries and grammars serve some passing need, homer, shakespeare, dante, goethe and all who travel in their road with however poor a stride define races and create everlasting loyalties. synge, like all of the great kin, sought for the race, not through the eyes or in history, or even in the future, but where those monks found god, in the depths of the mind, and in all art like his, although it does not command--indeed because it does not--may lie the roots of far-branching events. only that which does not teach, which does not cry out, which does not persuade, which does not condescend, which does not explain, is irresistible. it is made by men who expressed themselves to the full, and it works through the best minds; whereas the external and picturesque and declamatory writers, that they may create kilts and bagpipes and newspapers and guidebooks, leave the best minds empty, and in ireland and scotland, england runs into the hole. it has no array of arguments and maxims, because the great and the simple (and the muses have never known which of the two most pleases them) need their deliberate thought for the day's work, and yet will do it worse if they have not grown into or found about them, most perhaps in the minds of women, the nobleness of emotion associated with the scenery and events of their country by those great poets who have dreamed it in solitude, and who to this day in europe are creating indestructible spiritual races, like those religion has created in the east. september 14th, 1910. the tragic theatre i did not find a word in the printed criticism of synge's _deirdre of the sorrows_ about the qualities that made certain moments seem to me the noblest tragedy, and the play was judged by what seemed to me but wheels and pulleys necessary to the effect, but in themselves nothing. upon the other hand, those who spoke to me of the play never spoke of these wheels and pulleys, but if they cared at all for the play, cared for the things i cared for. one's own world of painters, of poets, of good talkers, of ladies who delight in ricard's portraits or debussey's music, all those whose senses feel instantly every change in our mother the moon, saw the stage in one way; and those others who look at plays every night, who tell the general playgoer whether this play or that play is to his taste, saw it in a way so different that there is certainly some body of dogma--whether in the instincts or in the memory, pushing the ways apart. a printed criticism, for instance, found but one dramatic moment, that when deirdre in the second act overhears her lover say that he may grow weary of her; and not one--if i remember rightly--chose for praise or explanation the third act which alone had satisfied the author, or contained in any abundance those sentences that were quoted at the fall of the curtain and for days after. deirdre and her lover, as synge tells the tale, returned to ireland, though it was nearly certain they would die there, because death was better than broken love, and at the side of the open grave that had been dug for one and would serve for both, quarrelled, losing all they had given their life to keep. 'is it not a hard thing that we should miss the safety of the grave and we trampling its edge?' that is deirdre's cry at the outset of a reverie of passion that mounts and mounts till grief itself has carried her beyond grief into pure contemplation. up to this the play has been a master's unfinished work, monotonous and melancholy, ill-arranged, little more than a sketch of what it would have grown to, but now i listened breathless to sentences that may never pass away, and as they filled or dwindled in their civility of sorrow, the player, whose art had seemed clumsy and incomplete, like the writing itself, ascended into that tragic ecstasy which is the best that art--perhaps that life--can give. and at last when deirdre, in the paroxysm before she took her life, touched with compassionate fingers him that had killed her lover, we knew that the player had become, if but for a moment, the creature of that noble mind which had gathered its art in waste islands, and we too were carried beyond time and persons to where passion, living through its thousand purgatorial years, as in the wink of an eye, becomes wisdom; and it was as though we too had touched and felt and seen a disembodied thing. one dogma of the printed criticism is that if a play does not contain definite character, its constitution is not strong enough for the stage, and that the dramatic moment is always the contest of character with character. in poetical drama there is, it is held, an antithesis between character and lyric poetry, for lyric poetry--however much it move you when read out of a book--can, as these critics think, but encumber the action. yet when we go back a few centuries and enter the great periods of drama, character grows less and sometimes disappears, and there is much lyric feeling, and at times a lyric measure will be wrought into the dialogue, a flowing measure that had well-befitted music, or that more lumbering one of the sonnet. suddenly it strikes us that character is continuously present in comedy alone, and that there is much tragedy, that of corneille, that of racine, that of greece and rome, where its place is taken by passions and motives, one person being jealous, another full of love or remorse or pride or anger. in writers of tragi-comedy (and shakespeare is always a writer of tragi-comedy) there is indeed character, but we notice that it is in the moments of comedy that character is defined, in hamlet's gaiety let us say; while amid the great moments, when timon orders his tomb, when hamlet cries to horatio 'absent thee from felicity awhile,' when anthony names 'of many thousand kisses the poor last,' all is lyricism, unmixed passion, 'the integrity of fire.' nor does character ever attain to complete definition in these lamps ready for the taper, no matter how circumstantial and gradual the opening of events, as it does in falstaff who has no passionate purpose to fulfill, or as it does in henry the fifth whose poetry, never touched by lyric heat, is oratorical; nor when the tragic reverie is at its height do we say, 'how well that man is realised, i should know him were i to meet him in the street,' for it is always ourselves that we see upon the stage, and should it be a tragedy of love we renew, it may be, some loyalty of our youth, and go from the theatre with our eyes dim for an old love's sake. i think it was while rehearsing a translation of _les fourberies de scapin_ in dublin, and noticing how passionless it all was, that i saw what should have been plain from the first line i had written, that tragedy must always be a drowning and breaking of the dykes that separate man from man, and that it is upon these dykes comedy keeps house. but i was not certain of the site (one always doubts when one knows no testimony but one's own); till somebody told me of a certain letter of congreve's. he describes the external and superficial expressions of 'humour' on which farce is founded and then defines 'humour' itself, the foundation of comedy as a 'singular and unavoidable way of doing anything peculiar to one man only, by which his speech and actions are distinguished from all other men,' and adds to it that 'passions are too powerful in the sex to let humour have its course,' or as i would rather put it, that you can find but little of what we call character in unspoiled youth, whatever be the sex, for as he indeed shows in another sentence, it grows with time like the ash of a burning stick, and strengthens towards middle life till there is little else at seventy years. since then i have discovered an antagonism between all the old art and our new art of comedy and understand why i hated at nineteen years thackeray's novels and the new french painting. a big picture of cocottes sitting at little tables outside a café, by some follower of manet's, was exhibited at the royal hibernian academy while i was a student at a life class there, and i was miserable for days. i found no desirable place, no man i could have wished to be, no woman i could have loved, no golden age, no lure for secret hope, no adventure with myself for theme out of that endless tale i told myself all day long. years after i saw the _olympia_ of manet at the luxembourg and watched it without hostility indeed, but as i might some incomparable talker whose precision of gesture gave me pleasure, though i did not understand his language. i returned to it again and again at intervals of years, saying to myself, 'some day i will understand'; and yet, it was not until sir hugh lane brought the _eva gonzales_ to dublin, and i had said to myself, 'how perfectly that woman is realised as distinct from all other women that have lived or shall live' that i understood i was carrying on in my own mind that quarrel between a tragedian and a comedian which the devil on two sticks in le sage showed to the young man who had climbed through the window. there is an art of the flood, the art of titian when his ariosto, and his bacchus and ariadne, give new images to the dreams of youth, and of shakespeare when he shows us hamlet broken away from life by the passionate hesitations of his reverie. and we call this art poetical, because we must bring more to it than our daily mood if we would take our pleasure; and because it delights in picturing the moment of exaltation, of excitement, of dreaming (or in the capacity for it, as in that still face of ariosto's that is like some vessel soon to be full of wine). and there is an art that we call real, because character can only express itself perfectly in a real world, being that world's creature, and because we understand it best through a delicate discrimination of the senses which is but entire wakefulness, the daily mood grown cold and crystalline. we may not find either mood in its purity, but in mainly tragic art one distinguishes devices to exclude or lessen character, to diminish the power of that daily mood, to cheat or blind its too clear perception. if the real world is not altogether rejected, it is but touched here and there, and into the places we have left empty we summon rhythm, balance, pattern, images that remind us of vast passions, the vagueness of past times, all the chimeras that haunt the edge of trance; and if we are painters, we shall express personal emotion through ideal form, a symbolism handled by the generations, a mask from whose eyes the disembodied looks, a style that remembers many masters, that it may escape contemporary suggestion; or we shall leave out some element of reality as in byzantine painting, where there is no mass, nothing in relief, and so it is that in the supreme moment of tragic art there comes upon one that strange sensation as though the hair of one's head stood up. and when we love, if it be in the excitement of youth, do we not also, that the flood may find no stone to convulse, no wall to narrow it, exclude character or the signs of it by choosing that beauty which seems unearthly because the individual woman is lost amid the labyrinth of its lines as though life were trembling into stillness and silence, or at last folding itself away? some little irrelevance of line, some promise of character to come, may indeed put us at our ease, 'give more interest' as the humour of the old man with the basket does to cleopatra's dying; but should it come as we had dreamed in love's frenzy to our dying for that woman's sake, we would find that the discord had its value from the tune. nor have we chosen illusion in choosing the outward sign of that moral genius that lives among the subtlety of the passions, and can for her moment make her of the one mind with great artists and poets. in the studio we may indeed say to one another 'character is the only beauty,' but when we choose a wife, as when we go to the gymnasium to be shaped for woman's eyes, we remember academic form, even though we enlarge a little the point of interest and choose "a painter's beauty," finding it the more easy to believe in the fire because it has made ashes. when we look at the faces of the old tragic paintings, whether it is in titian or in some painter of medieval china, we find there sadness and gravity, a certain emptiness even, as of a mind that waited the supreme crisis (and indeed it seems at times as if the graphic art, unlike poetry which sings the crisis itself, were the celebration of waiting). whereas in modern art, whether in japan or europe, 'vitality' (is not that the great word of the studios?), the energy, that is to say, which is under the command of our common moments, sings, laughs, chatters or looks its busy thoughts. certainly we have here the tree of life and that of the knowledge of good and evil which is rooted in our interests, and if we have forgotten their differing virtues it is surely because we have taken delight in a confusion of crossing branches. tragic art, passionate art, the drowner of dykes, the confounder of understanding, moves us by setting us to reverie, by alluring us almost to the intensity of trance. the persons upon the stage, let us say, greaten till they are humanity itself. we feel our minds expand convulsively or spread out slowly like some moon-brightened image-crowded sea. that which is before our eyes perpetually vanishes and returns again in the midst of the excitement it creates, and the more enthralling it is, the more do we forget it. august, 1910. john shawe-taylor there is a portrait of john shawe-taylor by a celebrated painter in the dublin municipal gallery, but painted in the midst of a movement of the arts that exalts characteristics above the more typical qualities, it does not show us that beautiful and gracious nature. there is an exaggeration of the hollows of the cheeks and of the form of the bones which empties the face of the balance and delicacy of its lines. he was a very handsome man, as women who have imagination and tradition understand those words, and had he not been so, mind and character had been different. there are certain men, certain famous commanders of antiquity, for instance, of whose good looks the historian always speaks, and whose good looks are the image of their faculty; and these men copying hawk or leopard have an energy of swift decision, a power of sudden action, as if their whole body were their brain. a few years ago he was returning from america, and the liner reached queenstown in a storm so great that the tender that came out to it for passengers returned with only one man. it was john shawe-taylor, who had leaped as it was swept away from the ship. the achievement that has made his name historic and changed the history of ireland came from the same faculty of calculation and daring, from that instant decision of the hawk, between the movement of whose wings and the perception of whose eye no time passes capable of division. a proposal for a land conference had been made, and cleverer men than he were but talking the life out of it. every argument for and against had been debated over and over, and it was plain that nothing but argument would come of it. one day we found a letter in the daily papers, signed with his name, saying that a conference would be held on a certain date, and that certain leaders of the landlords and of the tenants were invited. he had made his swift calculation, probably he could not have told the reason for it, a decision had arisen out of his instinct. he was then almost an unknown man. had the letter failed, he would have seemed a crack-brained fool to his life's end; but the calculation of his genius was justified. he had, as men of his type have often, given an expression to the hidden popular desires; and the expression of the hidden is the daring of the mind. when he had spoken, so many others spoke that the thing was taken out of the mouths of the leaders, it was as though some power deeper than our daily thought had spoken, and men recognised that common instinct, that common sense which is genius. men like him live near this power because of something simple and impersonal within them which is, as i believe, imaged in the fire of their minds, as in the shape of their bodies and their faces. i do not think i have known another man whose motives were so entirely pure, so entirely unmixed with any personal calculation, whether of ambition, of prudence or of vanity. he caught up into his imagination the public gain as other men their private gain. for much of his life he had seemed, though a good soldier and a good shot, and a good rider to hounds, to care deeply for nothing but religion, and this religion, so curiously lacking in denominational limits, concerned itself alone with the communion of the soul with god. such men, before some great decision, will sometimes give to the analysis of their own motive the energy that other men give to the examination of the circumstances wherein they act, and it is often those who attain in this way to purity of motive who act most wisely at moments of great crisis. it is as though they sank a well through the soil where our habits have been built, and where our hopes take root and are again uprooted, to the lasting rock and to the living stream. they are those for whom tennyson claimed the strength of ten, and the common and clever wonder at their simplicity and at a triumph that has always an air of miracle about it. some two years ago ireland lost a great æsthetic genius, and it may be it should mourn, as it must mourn john synge always, that which is gone from it in this man's moral genius. and yet it may be that, though he died in early manhood, his work was finished, that the sudden flash of his mind was of those things that come but seldom in a lifetime, and that his name is as much a part of history as though he had lived through many laborious years. july 1, 1911. edmund spenser i we know little of spenser's childhood and nothing of his parents, except that his father was probably an edmund spenser of north-east lancashire, a man of good blood and 'belonging to a house of ancient fame.' he was born in london in 1552, nineteen years after the death of ariosto, and when tasso was about eight years old. full of the spirit of the renaissance, at once passionate and artificial, looking out upon the world now as craftsman, now as connoisseur, he was to found his art upon theirs rather than upon the more humane, the more noble, the less intellectual art of malory and the minstrels. deafened and blinded by their influence, as so many of us were in boyhood by that art of hugo, that made the old simple writers seem but as brown bread and water, he was always to love the journey more than its end, the landscape more than the man, and reason more than life, and the tale less than its telling. he entered pembroke college, cambridge, in 1569, and translated allegorical poems out of petrarch and du bellay. to-day a young man translates out of verlaine and verhaeren; but at that day ronsard and du bellay were the living poets, who promised revolutionary and unheard-of things to a poetry moving towards elaboration and intellect, as ours--the serpent's tooth in his own tail again--moves towards simplicity and instinct. at cambridge he met with hobbinol of _the shepheards calender_, a certain gabriel harvey, son of a rope-maker at saffron walden, but now a fellow of pembroke college, a notable man, some five or six years his elder. it is usual to think ill of harvey because of his dislike of rhyme and his advocacy of classical metres, and because he complained that spenser preferred his _faerie queene_ to the _nine muses_, and encouraged hobgoblin 'to run off with the garland of apollo.' but at that crossroad, where so many crowds mingled talking of so many lands, no one could foretell in what bed he would sleep after nightfall. milton was in the end to dislike rhyme as much, and it is certain that rhyme is one of the secondary causes of that disintegration of the personal instincts which has given to modern poetry its deep colour for colour's sake, its overflowing pattern, its background of decorative landscape, and its insubordination of detail. at the opening of a movement we are busy with first principles, and can find out everything but the road we are to go, everything but the weight and measure of the impulse, that has come to us out of life itself, for that is always in defiance of reason, always without a justification but by faith and works. harvey set spenser to the making of verses in classical metre, and certain lines have come down to us written in what spenser called 'iambicum trimetrum.' his biographers agree that they are very bad, but, though i cannot scan them, i find in them the charm of what seems a sincere personal emotion. the man himself, liberated from the minute felicities of phrase and sound, that are the temptation and the delight of rhyme, speaks of his mistress some thought that came to him not for the sake of poetry, but for love's sake, and the emotion instead of dissolving into detached colours, into 'the spangly gloom' that keats saw 'froth and boil' when he put his eyes into 'the pillowy cleft,' speaks to her in poignant words as if out of a tear-stained love-letter: 'unhappie verse, the witnesse of my unhappie state, make thy selfe fluttring winge for thy fast flying thought, and fly forth to my love wheresoever she be. whether lying restlesse in heavy bedde, or else sitting so cheerlesse at the cheerful boorde, or else playing alone carelesse on her heavenlie virginals. if in bed, tell hir that my eyes can take no rest; if at boorde tell her that my mouth can eat no meate if at her virginals, tell her that i can heare no mirth.' ii he left college in his twenty-fourth year, and stayed for a while in lancashire, where he had relations, and there fell in love with one he has written of in _the shepheards calender_ as 'rosalind, the widdowes daughter of the glenn,' though she was, for all her shepherding, as one learns from a college friend, 'a gentlewoman of no mean house.' she married menalchus of the _calender_ and spenser lamented her for years, in verses so full of disguise that one cannot say if his lamentations come out of a broken heart or are but a useful movement in the elaborate ritual of his poetry, a well-ordered incident in the mythology of his imagination. to no english poet, perhaps to no european poet before his day, had the natural expression of personal feeling been so impossible, the clear vision of the lineaments of human character so difficult; no other's head and eyes had sunk so far into the pillowy cleft. after a year of this life he went to london, and by harvey's advice and introduction entered the service of the earl of leicester, staying for a while in his house on the banks of the thames; and it was there in all likelihood that he met with the earl's nephew, sir philip sidney, still little more than a boy, but with his head full of affairs of state. one can imagine that it was the great earl or sir philip sidney that gave his imagination its moral and practical turn, and one imagines him seeking from philosophical men, who distrust instinct because it disturbs contemplation, and from practical men who distrust everything they cannot use in the routine of immediate events, that impulse and method of creation that can only be learned with surety from the technical criticism of poets, and from the excitement of some movement in the artistic life. marlowe and shakespeare were still at school, and ben jonson was but five years old. sidney was doubtless the greatest personal influence that came into spenser's life, and it was one that exalted moral zeal above every other faculty. the great earl impressed his imagination very deeply also, for the lamentation over the earl of leicester's death is more than a conventional ode to a dead patron. spenser's verses about men, nearly always indeed, seem to express more of personal joy and sorrow than those about women, perhaps because he was less deliberately a poet when he spoke of men. at the end of a long beautiful passage he laments that unworthy men should be in the dead earl's place, and compares them to the fox--an unclean feeder--hiding in the lair 'the badger swept.' the imaginer of the festivals of kenilworth was indeed the fit patron for him, and alike, because of the strength and weakness of spenser's art, one regrets that he could not have lived always in that elaborate life, a master of ceremony to the world, instead of being plunged into a life that but stirred him to bitterness, as the way is with theoretical minds in the tumults of events they cannot understand. in the winter of 1579-80 he published _the shepheards calender_, a book of twelve eclogues, one for every month of the year, and dedicated it to sir philip sidney. it was full of pastoral beauty and allegorical images of current events, revealing too that conflict between the æsthetic and moral interests that was to run through well-nigh all his works, and it became immediately famous. he was rewarded with a place as private secretary to the lord lieutenant, lord grey de wilton, and sent to ireland, where he spent nearly all the rest of his life. after a few years there he bought kilcolman castle, which had belonged to the rebel earl of desmond, and the rivers and hills about this castle came much into his poetry. our irish aubeg is 'mulla mine, whose waves i taught to weep,' and the ballyvaughan hills, it has its rise among 'old father mole.' he never pictured the true countenance of irish scenery, for his mind turned constantly to the courts of elizabeth and to the umbrageous level lands, where his own race was already seeding like a great poppy: 'both heaven and heavenly graces do much more (quoth he), abound in that same land then this: for there all happie peace and plenteous store conspire in one to make contented blisse. no wayling there nor wretchednesse is heard, no bloodie issues nor no leprosies, no griesly famine, nor no raging sweard, no nightly bordrags, nor no hue and cries; the shepheards there abroad may safely lie on hills and downes, withouten dread or daunger, no ravenous wolves the good mans hope destroy, nor outlawes fell affray the forest raunger, the learned arts do florish in great honor, and poets wits are had in peerlesse price.' nor did he ever understand the people he lived among or the historical events that were changing all things about him. lord grey de wilton had been recalled almost immediately, but it was his policy, brought over ready-made in his ship, that spenser advocated throughout all his life, equally in his long prose book _the state of ireland_ as in the _faerie queene_, where lord grey was artigall and the iron man the soldiers and executioners by whose hands he worked. like an hysterical patient he drew a complicated web of inhuman logic out of the bowels of an insufficient premise--there was no right, no law, but that of elizabeth, and all that opposed her opposed themselves to god, to civilisation, and to all inherited wisdom and courtesy, and should be put to death. he made two visits to england, celebrating one of them in _colin clouts come home againe_, to publish the first three books and the second three books of the _faerie queene_ respectively, and to try for some english office or pension. by the help of raleigh, now his neighbour at kilcolman, he had been promised a pension, but was kept out of it by lord burleigh, who said, 'all that for a song!' from that day lord burleigh became that 'rugged forehead' of the poems, whose censure of this or that is complained of. during the last three or four years of his life in ireland he married a fair woman of his neighbourhood, and about her wrote many intolerable artificial sonnets and that most beautiful passage in the sixth book of the _faerie queene_, which tells of colin clout piping to the graces and to her; and he celebrated his marriage in the most beautiful of all his poems, the _epithalamium_. his genius was pictorial, and these pictures of happiness were more natural to it than any personal pride, or joy, or sorrow. his new happiness was very brief, and just as he was rising to something of milton's grandeur in the fragment that has been called _mutabilitie_, 'the wandering companies that keep the woods,' as he called the irish armies, drove him to his death. ireland, where he saw nothing but work for the iron man, was in the midst of the last struggle of the old celtic order with england, itself about to turn bottom upward, of the passion of the middle ages with the craft of the renaissance. seven years after spenser's arrival in ireland a large merchant ship had carried off from loch swilly, by a very crafty device common in those days, certain persons of importance. red hugh, a boy of fifteen, and the coming head of tirconnell, and various heads of clans had been enticed on board the merchant ship to drink of a fine vintage, and there made prisoners. all but red hugh were released, on finding substitutes among the boys of their kindred, and the captives were hurried to dublin and imprisoned in the birmingham tower. after four years of captivity and one attempt that failed, red hugh and certain of his companions escaped into the dublin mountains, one dying there of cold and privation, and from that to their own country-side. red hugh allied himself to hugh o'neil, the most powerful of the irish leaders--'oh, deep, dissembling heart, born to great weal or woe of thy country!' an english historian had cried to him--an oxford man too, a man of the renaissance, and for a few years defeated english armies and shook the power of england. the irish, stirred by these events, and with it maybe some rumours of _the state of ireland_ sticking in their stomachs, drove spenser out of doors and burnt his house, one of his children, as tradition has it, dying in the fire. he fled to england, and died some three months later in january, 1599, as ben jonson says, 'of lack of bread.' during the last four or five years of his life he had seen, without knowing that he saw it, the beginning of the great elizabethan poetical movement. in 1598 he had pictured the nine muses lamenting each one over the evil state in england, of the things that she had in charge, but, like william blake's more beautiful _whether on ida's shady brow_, their lamentations should have been a cradle-song. when he died _romeo and juliet_, _richard iii._, and _richard ii._, and the plays of marlowe had all been acted, and in stately houses were sung madrigals and love songs whose like has not been in the world since. italian influence had strengthened the old french joy that had never died out among the upper classes, and an art was being created for the last time in england which had half its beauty from continually suggesting a life hardly less beautiful than itself. iii when spenser was buried at westminster abbey many poets read verses in his praise, and then threw their verses and the pens that had written them into his tomb. like him they belonged, for all the moral zeal that was gathering like a london fog, to that indolent, demonstrative merry england that was about to pass away. men still wept when they were moved, still dressed themselves in joyous colours, and spoke with many gestures. thoughts and qualities sometimes come to their perfect expression when they are about to pass away, and merry england was dying in plays, and in poems, and in strange adventurous men. if one of those poets who threw his copy of verses into the earth that was about to close over his master were to come alive again, he would find some shadow of the life he knew, though not the art he knew, among young men in paris, and would think that his true country. if he came to england he would find nothing there but the triumph of the puritan and the merchant--those enemies he had feared and hated--and he would weep perhaps, in that womanish way of his, to think that so much greatness had been, not as he had hoped, the dawn, but the sunset of a people. he had lived in the last days of what we may call the anglo-french nation, the old feudal nation that had been established when the norman and the angevin made french the language of court and market. in the time of chaucer english poets still wrote much in french, and even english labourers lilted french songs over their work; and i cannot read any elizabethan poem or romance without feeling the pressure of habits of emotion, and of an order of life which were conscious, for all their latin gaiety, of a quarrel to the death with that new anglo-saxon nation that was arising amid puritan sermons and mar-prelate pamphlets. this nation had driven out the language of its conquerors, and now it was to overthrow their beautiful haughty imagination and their manners, full of abandon and wilfulness, and to set in their stead earnestness and logic and the timidity and reserve of a counting-house. it had been coming for a long while, for it had made the lollards; and when anglo-french chaucer was at westminster its poet, langland, sang the office at st. paul's. shakespeare, with his delight in great persons, with his indifference to the state, with his scorn of the crowd, with his feudal passion, was of the old nation, and spenser, though a joyless earnestness had cast shadows upon him, and darkened his intellect wholly at times, was of the old nation too. his _faerie queene_ was written in merry england, but when bunyan wrote in prison the other great english allegory, modern england had been born. bunyan's men would do right that they might come some day to the delectable mountain, and not at all that they might live happily in a world whose beauty was but an entanglement about their feet. religion had denied the sacredness of an earth that commerce was about to corrupt and ravish, but when spenser lived the earth had still its sheltering sacredness. his religion, where the paganism that is natural to proud and happy people had been strengthened by the platonism of the renaissance, cherished the beauty of the soul and the beauty of the body with, as it seemed, an equal affection. he would have had men live well, not merely that they might win eternal happiness but that they might live splendidly among men and be celebrated in many songs. how could one live well if one had not the joy of the creator and of the giver of gifts? he says in his _hymn to beauty_ that a beautiful soul, unless for some stubbornness in the ground, makes for itself a beautiful body, and he even denies that beautiful persons ever lived who had not souls as beautiful. they may have been tempted until they seemed evil, but that was the fault of others. and in his _hymn to heavenly beauty_ he sets a woman little known to theology, one that he names wisdom or beauty, above seraphim and cherubim and in the very bosom of god, and in the _faerie queene_ it is pagan venus and her lover adonis who create the forms of all living things and send them out into the world, calling them back again to the gardens of adonis at their lives' end to rest there, as it seems, two thousand years between life and life. he began in english poetry, despite a temperament that delighted in sensuous beauty alone with perfect delight, that worship of intellectual beauty which shelley carried to a greater subtlety and applied to the whole of life. the qualities, to each of whom he had planned to give a knight, he had borrowed from aristotle and partly christianised, but not to the forgetting of their heathen birth. the chief of the knights, who would have combined in himself the qualities of all the others, had spenser lived to finish the _faerie queene_, was king arthur, the representative of an ancient quality, magnificence. born at the moment of change, spenser had indeed many puritan thoughts. it has been recorded that he cut his hair short and half regretted his hymns to love and beauty. but he has himself told us that the many-headed beast overthrown and bound by calidor, knight of courtesy, was puritanism itself. puritanism, its zeal and its narrowness, and the angry suspicion that it had in common with all movements of the ill-educated, seemed no other to him than a slanderer of all fine things. one doubts, indeed, if he could have persuaded himself that there could be any virtue at all without courtesy, perhaps without something of pageant and eloquence. he was, i think, by nature altogether a man of that old catholic feudal nation, but, like sidney, he wanted to justify himself to his new masters. he wrote of knights and ladies, wild creatures imagined by the aristocratic poets of the twelfth century, and perhaps chiefly by english poets who had still the french tongue; but he fastened them with allegorical nails to a big barn door of common sense, of merely practical virtue. allegory itself had risen into general importance with the rise of the merchant class in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; and it was natural when that class was about for the first time to shape an age in its image, that the last epic poet of the old order should mix its art with his own long-descended, irresponsible, happy art. iv allegory and, to a much greater degree, symbolism are a natural language by which the soul when entranced, or even in ordinary sleep, communes with god and with angels. they can speak of things which cannot be spoken of in any other language, but one will always, i think, feel some sense of unreality when they are used to describe things which can be described as well in ordinary words. dante used allegory to describe visionary things, and the first maker of _the romance of the rose_, for all his lighter spirits, pretends that his adventures came to him in a vision one may morning; while bunyan, by his preoccupation with heaven and the soul, gives his simple story a visionary strangeness and intensity: he believes so little in the world, that he takes us away from all ordinary standards of probability and makes us believe even in allegory for a while. spenser, on the other hand, to whom allegory was not, as i think, natural at all, makes us feel again and again that it disappoints and interrupts our preoccupation with the beautiful and sensuous life he has called up before our eyes. it interrupts us most when he copies langland, and writes in what he believes to be a mood of edification, and the least when he is not quite serious, when he sets before us some procession like a court pageant made to celebrate a wedding or a crowning. one cannot think that he should have occupied himself with moral and religious questions at all. he should have been content to be, as emerson thought shakespeare was, a master of the revels to mankind. i am certain that he never gets that visionary air which can alone make allegory real, except when he writes out of a feeling for glory and passion. he had no deep moral or religious life. he has never a line like dante's 'thy will is our peace,' or like thomas à kempis's 'the holy spirit has liberated me from a multitude of opinions,' or even like hamlet's objection to the bare bodkin. he had been made a poet by what he had almost learnt to call his sins. if he had not felt it necessary to justify his art to some serious friend, or perhaps even to 'that rugged forehead,' he would have written all his life long, one thinks, of the loves of shepherdesses and shepherds, among whom there would have been perhaps the morals of the dovecot. one is persuaded that his morality is official and impersonal--a system of life which it was his duty to support--and it is perhaps a half understanding of this that has made so many generations believe that he was the first poet laureate, the first salaried moralist among the poets. his processions of deadly sins, and his houses, where the very cornices are arbitrary images of virtue, are an unconscious hypocrisy, an undelighted obedience to the 'rugged forehead,' for all the while he is thinking of nothing but lovers whose bodies are quivering with the memory or the hope of long embraces. when they are not together, he will indeed embroider emblems and images much as those great ladies of the courts of love embroidered them in their castles; and when these are imagined out of a thirst for magnificence and not thought out in a mood of edification, they are beautiful enough; but they are always tapestries for corridors that lead to lovers' meetings or for the walls of marriage chambers. he was not passionate, for the passionate feed their flame in wanderings and absences, when the whole being of the beloved, every little charm of body and of soul, is always present to the mind, filling it with heroical subtleties of desire. he is a poet of the delighted senses, and his song becomes most beautiful when he writes of those islands of phædria and acrasia, which angered 'that rugged forehead,' as it seems, but gave to keats his _belle dame sans merci_ and his 'perilous seas in faery lands forlorn,' and to william morris his 'waters of the wondrous isle.' v the dramatists lived in a disorderly world, reproached by many, persecuted even, but following their imagination wherever it led them. their imagination, driven hither and thither by beauty and sympathy, put on something of the nature of eternity. their subject was always the soul, the whimsical, self-awakening, self-exciting, self-appeasing soul. they celebrated its heroical, passionate will going by its own path to immortal and invisible things. spenser, on the other hand, except among those smooth pastoral scenes and lovely effeminate islands that have made him a great poet, tried to be of his time, or rather of the time that was all but at hand. like sidney, whose charm it may be led many into slavery, he persuaded himself that we enjoy virgil because of the virtues of æneas, and so planned out his immense poem that it would set before the imagination of citizens, in whom there would soon be no great energy, innumerable blameless æneases. he had learned to put the state, which desires all the abundance for itself, in the place of the church, and he found it possible to be moved by expedient emotions, merely because they were expedient, and to think serviceable thoughts with no self-contempt. he loved his queen a little because she was the protectress of poets and an image of that old anglo-french nation that lay a-dying, but a great deal because she was the image of the state which had taken possession of his conscience. she was over sixty years old, and ugly and, it is thought, selfish, but in his poetry she is 'fair cynthia,' 'a crown of lilies,' 'the image of the heavens,' 'without mortal blemish,' and has 'an angelic face,' where 'the red rose' has 'meddled with the white'; 'phoebus thrusts out his golden head' but to look upon her, and blushes to find himself outshone. she is 'a fourth grace,' 'a queen of love,' 'a sacred saint,' and 'above all her sex that ever yet has been.' in the midst of his praise of his own sweetheart he stops to remember that elizabeth is more beautiful, and an old man in _daphnaida_, although he has been brought to death's door by the death of a beautiful daughter, remembers that though his daughter 'seemed of angelic race,' she was yet but the primrose to the rose beside elizabeth. spenser had learned to look to the state not only as the rewarder of virtue but as the maker of right and wrong, and had begun to love and hate as it bid him. the thoughts that we find for ourselves are timid and a little secret, but those modern thoughts that we share with large numbers are confident and very insolent. we have little else to-day, and when we read our newspaper and take up its cry, above all its cry of hatred, we will not think very carefully, for we hear the marching feet. when spenser wrote of ireland he wrote as an official, and out of thoughts and emotions that had been organised by the state. he was the first of many englishmen to see nothing but what he was desired to see. could he have gone there as a poet merely, he might have found among its poets more wonderful imaginations than even those islands of phædria and acrasia. he would have found among wandering story-tellers, not indeed his own power of rich, sustained description, for that belongs to lettered ease, but certainly all the kingdom of faerie, still unfaded, of which his own poetry was often but a troubled image. he would have found men doing by swift strokes of the imagination much that he was doing with painful intellect, with that imaginative reason that soon was to drive out imagination altogether and for a long time. he would have met with, at his own door, story-tellers among whom the perfection of greek art was indeed as unknown as his own power of detailed description, but who, none the less, imagined or remembered beautiful incidents and strange, pathetic outcrying that made them of homer's lineage. flaubert says somewhere, 'there are things in hugo, as in rabelais, that i could have mended, things badly built, but then what thrusts of power beyond the reach of conscious art!' is not all history but the coming of that conscious art which first makes articulate and then destroys the old wild energy? spenser, the first poet struck with remorse, the first poet who gave his heart to the state, saw nothing but disorder, where the mouths that have spoken all the fables of the poets had not yet become silent. all about him were shepherds and shepherdesses still living the life that made theocritus and virgil think of shepherd and poet as the one thing; but though he dreamed of virgil's shepherds he wrote a book to advise, among many like things, the harrying of all that followed flocks upon the hills, and of all 'the wandering companies that keep the woods.' his _view of the state of ireland_ commends indeed the beauty of the hills and woods where they did their shepherding, in that powerful and subtle language of his which i sometimes think more full of youthful energy than even the language of the great playwrights. he is 'sure it is yet a most beautiful and sweet country as any under heaven,' and that all would prosper but for those agitators, 'those wandering companies that keep the woods,' and he would rid it of them by a certain expeditious way. there should be four great garrisons. 'and those fowre garrisons issuing foorthe, at such convenient times as they shall have intelligence or espiall upon the enemye, will so drive him from one side to another and tennis him amongst them, that he shall finde nowhere safe to keepe his creete, or hide himselfe, but flying from the fire shall fall into the water, and out of one daunger into another, that in short space his creete, which is his moste sustenence, shall be wasted in preying, or killed in driving, or starved for wante of pasture in the woodes, and he himselfe brought soe lowe, that he shall have no harte nor abilitye to indure his wretchednesse, the which will surely come to passe in very short space; for one winters well following of him will so plucke him on his knees that he will never be able to stand up agayne.' he could commend this expeditious way from personal knowledge, and could assure the queen that the people of the country would soon 'consume themselves and devoure one another. the proofs whereof i saw sufficiently ensampled in these late warres of mounster; for notwithstanding that the same was a most rich and plentifull countrey, full of corne and cattell, that you would have thought they would have bene able to stand long, yet ere one yeare and a halfe they were brought to such wretchednesse, as that any stonye heart would have rued the same. out of every corner of the woodes and glynnes they came creeping forth upon theyr hands, for theyr legges could not beare them; they looked like anatomyes of death, they spake like ghosts crying out of their graves; they did eate of the dead carrions, happy were they if they could finde them, yea, and one another soone after, insomuch as the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out of theyr graves; and if they found a plot of watercresses or shamrokes, there they flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able long to continue therewithall; that in short space there were none allmost left, and a most populous and plentifull countrey suddaynely left voyde of man or beast; yet sure in all that warre, there perished not many by the sword, but all by the extremitye of famine.' vi in a few years the four masters were to write the history of that time, and they were to record the goodness or the badness of irishman and englishman with entire impartiality. they had seen friends and relatives persecuted, but they would write of that man's poisoning and this man's charities and of the fall of great houses, and hardly with any other emotion than a thought of the pitiableness of all life. friend and enemy would be for them a part of the spectacle of the world. they remembered indeed those anglo-french invaders who conquered for the sake of their own strong hand, and when they had conquered became a part of the life about them, singing its songs, when they grew weary of their own iseult and guinevere. the four masters had not come to understand, as i think, despite famines and exterminations, that new invaders were among them, who fought for an alien state, for an alien religion. such ideas were difficult to them, for they belonged to the old individual, poetical life, and spoke a language even, in which it was all but impossible to think an abstract thought. they understood spain, doubtless, which persecuted in the interests of religion, but i doubt if anybody in ireland could have understood as yet that the anglo-saxon nation was beginning to persecute in the service of ideas it believed to be the foundation of the state. i doubt if anybody in ireland saw that with certainty, till the great demagogue had come and turned the old house of the noble into 'the house of the poor, the lonely house, the accursed house of cromwell.' he came, another cairbry cat head, with that great rabble, who had overthrown the pageantry of church and court, but who turned towards him faces full of the sadness and docility of their long servitude, and the old individual, poetical life went down, as it seems, for ever. he had studied spenser's book and approved of it, as we know, finding, doubtless, his own head there, for spenser, a king of the old race, carried a mirror which showed kings yet to come though but kings of the mob. those bohemian poets of the theatres were wiser, for the states that touched them nearly were the states where helen and dido had sorrowed, and so their mirrors showed none but beautiful heroical heads. they wandered in the places that pale passion loves, and were happy, as one thinks, and troubled little about those marching and hoarse-throated thoughts that the state has in its pay. they knew that those marchers, with the dust of so many roads upon them, are very robust and have great and well-paid generals to write expedient despatches in sound prose; and they could hear mother earth singing among her cornfields: 'weep not, my wanton! smile upon my knee; when thou art old there's grief enough for thee.' vii there are moments when one can read neither milton nor spenser, moments when one recollects nothing but that their flesh had partly been changed to stone, but there are other moments when one recollects nothing but those habits of emotion that made the lesser poet especially a man of an older, more imaginative time. one remembers that he delighted in smooth pastoral places, because men could be busy there or gather together there, after their work, that he could love handiwork and the hum of voices. one remembers that he could still rejoice in the trees, not because they were images of loneliness and meditation, but because of their serviceableness. he could praise 'the builder oake,' 'the aspine, good for staves,' 'the cypresse funerall,' 'the eugh, obedient to the bender's will,' 'the birch for shaftes,' 'the sallow for the mill,' 'the mirrhe sweete-bleeding in the bitter wound,' 'the fruitful olive,' and 'the carver holme.' he was of a time before undelighted labour had made the business of men a desecration. he carries one's memory back to virgil's and chaucer's praise of trees, and to the sweet-sounding song made by the old irish poet in their praise. i got up from reading the _faerie queene_ the other day and wandered into another room. it was in a friend's house, and i came of a sudden to the ancient poetry and to our poetry side by side--an engraving of claude's 'mill' hung under an engraving of turner's 'temple of jupiter.' those dancing country-people, those cow-herds, resting after the day's work, and that quiet mill-race made one think of merry england with its glad latin heart, of a time when men in every land found poetry and imagination in one another's company and in the day's labour. those stately goddesses, moving in slow procession towards that marble architrave among mysterious trees, belong to shelley's thought, and to the religion of the wilderness--the only religion possible to poetry to-day. certainly colin clout, the companionable shepherd, and calidor, the courtly man-at-arms, are gone, and alastor is wandering from lonely river to river finding happiness in nothing but in that star where spenser too had imagined the fountain of perfect things. this new beauty, in losing so much, has indeed found a new loftiness, a something of religious exaltation that the old had not. it may be that those goddesses, moving with a majesty like a procession of the stars, mean something to the soul of man that those kindly women of the old poets did not mean, for all the fulness of their breasts and the joyous gravity of their eyes. has not the wilderness been at all times a place of prophecy? viii our poetry, though it has been a deliberate bringing back of the latin joy and the latin love of beauty, has had to put off the old marching rhythms, that once delighted more than expedient hearts, in separating itself from a life where servile hands have become powerful. it has ceased to have any burden for marching shoulders, since it learned ecstasy from smart in his mad cell, and from blake, who made joyous little songs out of almost unintelligible visions, and from keats, who sang of a beauty so wholly preoccupied with itself that its contemplation is a kind of lingering trance. the poet, if he would not carry burdens that are not his and obey the orders of servile lips, must sit apart in contemplative indolence playing with fragile things. if one chooses at hazard a spenserian stanza out of shelley and compares it with any stanza by spenser, one sees the change, though it would be still more clear if one had chosen a lyrical passage. i will take a stanza out of _laon and cythna_, for that is story-telling and runs nearer to spenser than the meditative _adonais_: 'the meteor to its far morass returned: the beating of our veins one interval made still; and then i felt the blood that burned within her frame, mingle with mine, and fall around my heart like fire; and over all a mist was spread, the sickness of a deep and speechless swoon of joy, as might befall two disunited spirits when they leap in union from this earth's obscure and fading sleep. the rhythm is varied and troubled, and the lines, which are in spenser like bars of gold thrown ringing one upon another, are broken capriciously. nor is the meaning the less an inspiration of indolent muses, for it wanders hither and thither at the beckoning of fancy. it is now busy with a meteor and now with throbbing blood that is fire, and with a mist that is a swoon and a sleep that is life. it is bound together by the vaguest suggestion, while spenser's verse is always rushing on to some preordained thought. 'a popular poet' can still indeed write poetry of the will, just as factory girls wear the fashion of hat or dress the moneyed classes wore a year ago, but 'popular poetry' does not belong to the living imagination of the world. old writers gave men four temperaments, and they gave the sanguineous temperament to men of active life, and it is precisely the sanguineous temperament that is fading out of poetry and most obviously out of what is most subtle and living in poetry--its pulse and breath, its rhythm. because poetry belongs to that element in every race which is most strong, and therefore most individual, the poet is not stirred to imaginative activity by a life which is surrendering its freedom to ever new elaboration, organisation, mechanism. he has no longer a poetical will, and must be content to write out of those parts of himself which are too delicate and fiery for any deadening exercise. every generation has more and more loosened the rhythm, more and more broken up and disorganised, for the sake of subtlety of detail, those great rhythms which move, as it were, in masses of sound. poetry has become more spiritual, for the soul is of all things the most delicately organised, but it has lost in weight and measure and in its power of telling long stories and of dealing with great and complicated events. _laon and cythna_, though i think it rises sometimes into loftier air than the _faerie queene_; and _endymion_, though its shepherds and wandering divinities have a stranger and more intense beauty than spenser's, have need of too watchful and minute attention for such lengthy poems. in william morris, indeed, one finds a music smooth and unexacting like that of the old story-tellers, but not their energetic pleasure, their rhythmical wills. one too often misses in his _earthly paradise_ the minute ecstasy of modern song without finding that old happy-go-lucky tune that had kept the story marching. spenser's contemporaries, writing lyrics or plays full of lyrical moments, write a verse more delicately organised than his and crowd more meaning into a phrase than he, but they could not have kept one's attention through so long a poem. a friend who has a fine ear told me the other day that she had read all spenser with delight and yet could remember only four lines. when she repeated them they were from the poem by matthew roydon, which is bound up with spenser because it is a commendation of sir philip sidney: 'a sweet, attractive kind of grace, a full assurance given by looks, continual comfort in a face, the lineaments of gospel books.' yet if one were to put even these lines beside a fine modern song one would notice that they had a stronger and rougher energy, a featherweight more, if eye and ear were fine enough to notice it, of the active will, of the happiness that comes out of life itself. ix i have put into this book[5] only those passages from spenser that i want to remember and carry about with me. i have not tried to select what people call characteristic passages, for that is, i think, the way to make a dull book. one never really knows anybody's taste but one's own, and if one likes anything sincerely one may be certain that there are other people made out of the same earth to like it too. i have taken out of _the shepheards calender_ only those parts which are about love or about old age, and i have taken out of the _faerie queene_ passages about shepherds and lovers, and fauns and satyrs, and a few allegorical processions. i find that though i love symbolism, which is often the only fitting speech for some mystery of disembodied life, i am for the most part bored by allegory, which is made, as blake says, 'by the daughters of memory,' and coldly, with no wizard frenzy. the processions i have chosen are either those, like the house of mammon, that have enough ancient mythology, always an implicit symbolism, or, like the cave of despair, enough sheer passion to make one forget or forgive their allegory, or else they are, like that vision of scudamour, so visionary, so full of a sort of ghostly midnight animation, that one is persuaded that they had some strange purpose and did truly appear in just that way to some mind worn out with war and trouble. the vision of scudamour is, i sometimes think, the finest invention in spenser. until quite lately i knew nothing of spenser but the parts i had read as a boy. i did not know that i had read so far as that vision, but year after year this thought would rise up before me coming from i knew not where. i would be alone perhaps in some old building, and i would think suddenly 'out of that door might come a procession of strange people doing mysterious things with tumult. they would walk over the stone floor, then suddenly vanish, and everything would become silent again.' once i saw what is called, i think, a board school continuation class play _hamlet_. there was no stage, but they walked in procession into the midst of a large room full of visitors and of their friends. while they were walking in, that thought came to me again from i knew not where. i was alone in a great church watching ghostly kings and queens setting out upon their unearthly business. it was only last summer, when i read the fourth book of the _faerie queene_, that i found i had been imagining over and over the enchanted persecution of amoret. i give too, in a section which i call 'gardens of delight,' the good gardens of adonis and the bad gardens of phædria and acrasia, which are mythological and symbolical, but not allegorical, and show, more particularly those bad islands, his power of describing bodily happiness and bodily beauty at its greatest. he seemed always to feel through the eyes, imagining everything in pictures. marlowe's _hero and leander_ is more energetic in its sensuality, more complicated in its intellectual energy than this languid story, which pictures always a happiness that would perish if the desire to which it offers so many roses lost its indolence and its softness. there is no passion in the pleasure he has set amid perilous seas, for he would have us understand that there alone could the war-worn and the sea-worn man find dateless leisure and unrepining peace. october, 1902. footnotes: [1] i had forgotten falstaff, who is an episode in a chronicle play. [2] rose kavanagh, the poet, wrote to her religious adviser from, i think, leitrim, where she lived, and asked him to get her the works of mazzini. he replied, 'you must mean manzone.' [3] i have heard him say more than once, 'i will not say our people know good from bad, but i will say that they don't hate the good when it is pointed out to them, as a great many people do in england.' [4] a small political organiser told me once that he and a certain friend got together somewhere in tipperary a great meeting of farmers for o'leary on his coming out of prison, and o'leary had said at it: 'the landlords gave us some few leaders, and i like them for that, and the artisans have given us great numbers of good patriots, and so i like them best: but you i do not like at all, for you have never given us anyone.' i have known but one that had his moral courage, and that was a woman with beauty to give her courage and self-possession. [5] _poems of spenser: selected and with an introduction by w. b. yeats._ (t. c. and e. c. jack, edinburgh, n.d.) the following pages contain advertisements of macmillan books by the same author, and other poetic works. new poems and essays by william butler yeats "mr. yeats is probably the most important as well as the most widely known of the men concerned directly in the so-called celtic renaissance. more than this, he stands among the few men to be reckoned with in modern poetry."--_new york herald._ the green helmet and other poems _decorated cloth, 12mo, $1.25_ the initial piece in this volume is a deliciously conceived heroic farce, quaint in humor and sprightly in action. it tells of the difficulty in which two simple irish folk find themselves when they enter into an agreement with an apparition of the sea, who demands that they knock off his head and who maintains that after they have done that he will knock off theirs. there is a real meaning in the play which it will not take the thoughtful reader long to discover. besides this there are a number of shorter poems, notably one in which mr. yeats answers his critics of "the playboy of the western world." plays _new edition. cloth. 12mo. $2.00 net_ this edition of mr. yeats's plays has been thoroughly revised and contains considerable new matter in the way of appendices. "the countess cathleen" and "the land of heart's desire" are presented in new form, the versions being those which the irish players use. other works by william butler yeats lyrical and dramatic poems in two volumes vol. i. lyrical _$1.75 net_ vol. ii. plays (revised) _$2.00 net_ the two-volume edition of the irish poet's works includes everything he has done in verse up to the present time. the first volume contains his lyrics; the second includes all of his five dramas in verse: "the countess cathleen," "the land of heart's desire," "the king's threshold," "on baile's strand," and "the shadowy waters." william butler yeats stands among the few men to be reckoned with in modern poetry, especially of a dramatic character. _the new york sun_, for example, refers to him as "an important factor in english literature," and continues:-"'cathleen ni hoolihan' is a perfect piece of artistic work, poetic and wonderfully dramatic to read, and, we should imagine, far more dramatic in the acting. maeterlinck has never done anything so true or effective as this short prose drama of mr. yeats's. there is not a superfluous word in the play and no word that does not tell. it must be dangerous to represent it in ireland, for it is an irish marseillaise.... in 'the hour glass' a noble and poetic idea is carried out effectively, while 'a pot of broth' is merely a dramatized humorous anecdote. but 'cathleen ni hoolihan' stirs the blood, and in itself establishes mr. yeats's reputation for good." other works the celtic twilight _12mo, $1.50 net_ the hour glass and other plays _12mo, $1.25 net_ ideas of good and evil _12mo, $1.50 net_ in the seven woods _12mo, $1.00 net_ w. b. yeats and lady gregory unicorn from the stars and other plays _12mo, $1.50 net_ fires by w. w. gibson author of "daily bread," "womenkind," etc. _cloth, 12mo, $1.25 net_ in this striking book of verse mr. gibson writes of simple, homely folk with touching sympathy. the author's previous book, "daily bread," was heralded far and wide as the book of the year in the field of poetry; in "fires" are contained many of the same characteristics which distinguished it. the story of a girl whose lover is struck dead by a flying bit of stone; of a wife who has unusual patience with her husband's shortcomings; of a flute player; of a shop and a shopkeeper; of a machine and those who feed it--these are the subjects of a number of the separate pieces. _by the same author_ daily bread in three books _12mo, $1.25 net_ womenkind _12mo, $1.25 net_ "there is a man in england who with sufficient plainness and sufficient profoundness is addressing himself to life, and daring to chant his own times and social circumstances, who ought to become known to america. he is bringing a message which might well rouse his day and generation to an understanding of and a sympathy with life's disinherited--the overworked masses." "a millet in word-painting, who writes with a terrible simplicity, is wilfrid wilson gibson, born in hexham, england, in 1878, of whom canon cheyne wrote: 'a new poet of the people has risen up among us--the story of a soul is written as plainly in "daily bread" as in "the divine comedy" and in "paradise lost."'" "mr. gibson is a genuine singer of his own day, and turns into appealing harmony the world's harshly jarring notes of poverty and pain." _--abridged from an article in "the outlook."_ a book that has been waited for _the modern reader's chaucer_ the complete poetical works of geoffrey chaucer now first put into modern english by john s. p. tatlock author of "the development and chronology of chaucer's works," and percy mackaye author of "the canterbury pilgrims," etc. _with 32 full-page illustrations in color by warwick goble_ _decorated cloth, 4to, $5.00 net_ any one unversed in old english is familiar with the difficulty of reading chaucer in the original--to many it is not only a difficulty, but an impossibility. the vast literary wealth of chaucer's writings has been therefore up to this time beyond the grasp of the general reader--for there has been no complete rendering in modern english. it is to do away with this condition that "the modern reader's chaucer" has been prepared. adhering closely to the original, the editors have rendered in modern english all the wonderful tales of this early poet. a particular feature of the volume is the illustrations, of which there are thirty-two in colors from paintings by warwick goble, the celebrated english artist. from the standpoint of artistic book making it is to be doubted if a handsomer book will be published for some time to come or even one which will stand comparison with this. the macmillan company publishers 64-66 fifth avenue new york ideas of good and evil _by the same writer--_ the secret rose the celtic twilight poems the wind among the reeds the shadowy waters plays for an irish theatre vol. i. where there is nothing vol. ii. shorter plays ideas of good and evil second edition ideas of good and evil. by w. b. yeats a. h. bullen, 47 great russell street, london, w.c. mcmiii contents. what is 'popular poetry'? 1 speaking to the psaltery 16 magic 29 the happiest of the poets 70 the philosophy of shelley's poetry 90 at stratford-on-avon 142 william blake and the imagination 168 william blake and his illustrations to _the divine comedy_ 176 symbolism in painting 226 the symbolism of poetry 237 the theatre 257 the celtic element in literature 270 the autumn of the body 296 the moods 306 the body of the father christian rosencrux 308 _the return of ulysses_ 312 ireland and the arts 320 the galway plains 333 emotion of multitude 339 _note._--the essay on _symbolism in painting_ originally formed part of an introduction to _a book of images drawn by w. t. horton_ (unicorn press), 1898. what is 'popular poetry'? i think it was a young ireland society that set my mind running on 'popular poetry.' we used to discuss everything that was known to us about ireland, and especially irish literature and irish history. we had no gaelic, but paid great honour to the irish poets who wrote in english, and quoted them in our speeches. i could have told you at that time the dates of the birth and death, and quoted the chief poems, of men whose names you have not heard, and perhaps of some whose names i have forgotten. i knew in my heart that the most of them wrote badly, and yet such romance clung about them, such a desire for irish poetry was in all our minds, that i kept on saying, not only to others but to myself, that most of them wrote well, or all but well. i had read shelley and spenser and had tried to mix their styles together in a pastoral play which i have not come to dislike much, and yet i do not think shelley or spenser ever moved me as did these poets. i thought one day--i can remember the very day when i thought it--'if somebody could make a style which would not be an english style and yet would be musical and full of colour, many others would catch fire from him, and we would have a really great school of ballad poetry in ireland. if these poets, who have never ceased to fill the newspapers and the ballad-books with their verses, had a good tradition they would write beautifully and move everybody as they move me.' then a little later on i thought, 'if they had something else to write about besides political opinions, if more of them would write about the beliefs of the people like allingham, or about old legends like ferguson, they would find it easier to get a style.' then, with a deliberateness that still surprises me, for in my heart of hearts i have never been quite certain that one should be more than an artist, that even patriotism is more than an impure desire in an artist, i set to work to find a style and things to write about that the ballad writers might be the better. they are no better, i think, and my desire to make them so was, it may be, one of the illusions nature holds before one, because she knows that the gifts she has to give are not worth troubling about. it is for her sake that we must stir ourselves, but we would not trouble to get out of bed in the morning, or to leave our chairs once we are in them, if she had not her conjuring bag. she wanted a few verses from me, and because it would not have seemed worth while taking so much trouble to see my books lie on a few drawing-room tables, she filled my head with thoughts of making a whole literature, and plucked me out of the dublin art schools where i should have stayed drawing from the round, and sent me into a library to read bad translations from the irish, and at last down into connaught to sit by turf fires. i wanted to write 'popular poetry' like those irish poets, for i believed that all good literatures were popular, and even cherished the fancy that the adelphi melodrama, which i had never seen, might be good literature, and i hated what i called the coteries. i thought that one must write without care, for that was of the coteries, but with a gusty energy that would put all straight if it came out of the right heart. i had a conviction, which indeed i have still, that one's verses should hold, as in a mirror, the colours of one's own climate and scenery in their right proportion; and, when i found my verses too full of the reds and yellows shelley gathered in italy, i thought for two days of setting things right, not as i should now by making my rhythms faint and nervous and filling my images with a certain coldness, a certain wintry wildness, but by eating little and sleeping upon a board. i felt indignant with matthew arnold because he complained that somebody, who had translated homer into a ballad measure, had tried to write epic to the tune of yankee doodle. it seemed to me that it did not matter what tune one wrote to, so long as that gusty energy came often enough and strongly enough. and i delighted in victor hugo's book upon shakespeare, because he abused critics and coteries and thought that shakespeare wrote without care or premeditation and to please everybody. i would indeed have had every illusion had i believed in that straightforward logic, as of newspaper articles, which so tickles the ears of the shopkeepers; but i always knew that the line of nature is crooked, that, though we dig the canal beds as straight as we can, the rivers run hither and thither in their wildness. from that day to this i have been busy among the verses and stories that the people make for themselves, but i had been busy a very little while before i knew that what we call popular poetry never came from the people at all. longfellow, and campbell, and mrs. hemans, and macaulay in his _lays_, and scott in his longer poems are the poets of the middle class, of people who have unlearned the unwritten tradition which binds the unlettered, so long as they are masters of themselves, to the beginning of time and to the foundation of the world, and who have not learned the written tradition which has been established upon the unwritten. i became certain that burns, whose greatness has been used to justify the littleness of others, was in part a poet of the middle class, because though the farmers he sprang from and lived among had been able to create a little tradition of their own, less a tradition of ideas than of speech, they had been divided by religious and political changes from the images and emotions which had once carried their memories backward thousands of years. despite his expressive speech which sets him above all other popular poets, he has the triviality of emotion, the poverty of ideas, the imperfect sense of beauty of a poetry whose most typical expression is in longfellow. longfellow has his popularity, in the main, because he tells his story or his idea so that one needs nothing but his verses to understand it. no words of his borrow their beauty from those that used them before, and one can get all that there is in story and idea without seeing them, as if moving before a half-faded curtain embroidered with kings and queens, their loves and battles and their days out hunting, or else with holy letters and images of so great antiquity that nobody can tell the god or goddess they would commend to an unfading memory. poetry that is not popular poetry presupposes, indeed, more than it says, though we, who cannot know what it is to be disinherited, only understand how much more, when we read it in its most typical expressions, in the _epipsychidion_ of shelley, or in spenser's description of the gardens of adonis, or when we meet the misunderstandings of others. go down into the street and read to your baker or your candlestick-maker any poem which is not popular poetry. i have heard a baker, who was clever enough with his oven, deny that tennyson could have known what he was writing when he wrote 'warming his five wits, the white owl in the belfry sits,' and once when i read out omar khayyam to one of the best of candlestick-makers, he said, 'what is the meaning of "we come like water and like wind we go"?' or go down into the street with some thought whose bare meaning must be plain to everybody; take with you ben jonson's 'beauty like sorrow dwelleth everywhere,' and find out how utterly its enchantment depends on an association of beauty with sorrow which written tradition has from the unwritten, which had it in its turn from ancient religion; or take with you these lines in whose bare meaning also there is nothing to stumble over, and find out what men lose who are not in love with helen. 'brightness falls from the air, queens have died young and fair, dust hath closed helen's eye.' i pick my examples at random, for i am writing where i have no books to turn the pages of, but one need not go east of the sun or west of the moon in so simple a matter. on the other hand, when walt whitman writes in seeming defiance of tradition, he needs tradition for his protection, for the butcher and the baker and the candlestick-maker grow merry over him when they meet his work by chance. nature, which cannot endure emptiness, has made them gather conventions which cannot disguise their low birth though they copy, as from far off, the dress and manners of the well-bred and the well-born. the gatherers mock all expression that is wholly unlike their own, just as little boys in the street mock at strangely-dressed people and at old men who talk to themselves. there is only one kind of good poetry, for the poetry of the coteries, which presupposes the written tradition, does not differ in kind from the true poetry of the people, which presupposes the unwritten tradition. both are alike strange and obscure, and unreal to all who have not understanding, and both, instead of that manifest logic, that clear rhetoric of the 'popular poetry,' glimmer with thoughts and images whose 'ancestors were stout and wise,' 'anigh to paradise' 'ere yet men knew the gift of corn.' it may be that we know as little of their descent as men knew of 'the man born to be a king' when they found him in that cradle marked with the red lion crest, and yet we know somewhere in the heart that they have been sung in temples, in ladies' chambers, and our nerves quiver with a recognition they were shaped to by a thousand emotions. if men did not remember or half remember impossible things, and, it may be, if the worship of sun and moon had not left a faint reverence behind it, what aran fisher-girl would sing-'it is late last night the dog was speaking of you; the snipe was speaking of you in her deep marsh. it is you are the lonely bird throughout the woods; and that you may be without a mate until you find me. 'you promised me and you said a lie to me, that you would be before me where the sheep are flocked. i gave a whistle and three hundred cries to you; and i found nothing there but a bleating lamb. 'you promised me a thing that was hard for you, a ship of gold under a silver mast; twelve towns and a market in all of them, and a fine white court by the side of the sea. 'you promised me a thing that is not possible; that you would give me gloves of the skin of a fish; that you would give me shoes of the skin of a bird, and a suit of the dearest silk in ireland. 'my mother said to me not to be talking with you, to-day or to-morrow or on sunday. it was a bad time she took for telling me that, it was shutting the door after the house was robbed.... 'you have taken the east from me, you have taken the west from me, you have taken what is before me and what is behind me; you have taken the moon, you have taken the sun from me, and my fear is great you have taken god from me.' the gael of the scottish islands could not sing his beautiful song over a bride, had he not a memory of the belief that christ was the only man who measured six feet and not a little more or less, and was perfectly shaped in all other ways, and if he did not remember old symbolical observances- i bathe thy palms in showers of wine, in the cleansing fire, in the juice of raspberries, in the milk of honey. * * * * * thou art the joy of all joyous things, thou art the light of the beam of the sun, thou art the door of the chief of hospitality, thou art the surpassing pilot star, thou art the step of the deer of the hill, thou art the step of the horse of the plain, thou art the grace of the sun rising, thou art the loveliness of all lovely desires. the lovely likeness of the lord is in thy pure face, the loveliest likeness that was upon earth. i soon learned to cast away one other illusion of 'popular poetry.' i learned from the people themselves, before i learned it from any book, that they cannot separate the idea of an art or a craft from the idea of a cult with ancient technicalities and mysteries. they can hardly separate mere learning from witchcraft, and are fond of words and verses that keep half their secret to themselves. indeed, it is certain that before the counting-house had created a new class and a new art without breeding and without ancestry, and set this art and this class between the hut and the castle, and between the hut and the cloister, the art of the people was as closely mingled with the art of the coteries as was the speech of the people that delighted in rhythmical animation, in idiom, in images, in words full of far-off suggestion, with the unchanging speech of the poets. now i see a new generation in ireland which discusses irish literature and history in young ireland societies, and societies with newer names, and there are far more than when i was a boy who would make verses for the people. they have the help, too, of a vigorous journalism, and this journalism sometimes urges them to desire the direct logic, the clear rhetoric, of 'popular poetry.' it sees that ireland has no cultivated minority, and it does not see, though it would cast out all english things, that its literary ideal belongs more to england than to other countries. i have hope that the new writers will not fall into its illusion, for they write in irish, and for a people the counting-house has not made forgetful. among the seven or eight hundred thousand who have had irish from the cradle, there is, perhaps, nobody who has not enough of the unwritten tradition to know good verses from bad ones, if he have enough mother-wit. among all that speak english in australia, in america, in great britain, are there many more than the ten thousand the prophet saw, who have enough of the written tradition education has set in room of the unwritten to know good verses from bad ones, even though their mother-wit has made them ministers of the crown or what you will? nor can things be better till that ten thousand have gone hither and thither to preach their faith that 'the imagination is the man himself,' and that the world as imagination sees it is the durable world, and have won men as did the disciples of him who- his seventy disciples sent against religion and government. 1901. speaking to the psaltery i i have always known that there was something i disliked about singing, and i naturally dislike print and paper, but now at last i understand why, for i have found something better. i have just heard a poem spoken with so delicate a sense of its rhythm, with so perfect a respect for its meaning, that if i were a wise man and could persuade a few people to learn the art i would never open a book of verses again. a friend, who was here a few minutes ago, has sat with a beautiful stringed instrument upon her knee, her fingers passing over the strings, and has spoken to me some verses from shelley's _skylark_ and sir ector's lamentation over the dead launcelot out of the _morte d'arthur_ and some of my own poems. wherever the rhythm was most delicate, wherever the emotion was most ecstatic, her art was the most beautiful, and yet, although she sometimes spoke to a little tune, it was never singing, as we sing to-day, never anything but speech. a singing note, a word chanted as they chant in churches, would have spoiled everything; nor was it reciting, for she spoke to a notation as definite as that of song, using the instrument, which murmured sweetly and faintly, under the spoken sounds, to give her the changing notes. another speaker could have repeated all her effects, except those which came from her own beautiful voice that would have given her fame if the only art that gives the speaking voice its perfect opportunity were as well known among us as it was known in the ancient world. ii since i was a boy i have always longed to hear poems spoken to a harp, as i imagined homer to have spoken his, for it is not natural to enjoy an art only when one is by oneself. whenever one finds a fine verse one wants to read it to somebody, and it would be much less trouble and much pleasanter if we could all listen, friend by friend, lover by beloved. images used to rise up before me, as i am sure they have arisen before nearly everybody else who cares for poetry, of wild-eyed men speaking harmoniously to murmuring wires while audiences in many-coloured robes listened, hushed and excited. whenever i spoke of my desire to anybody they said i should write for music, but when i heard anything sung i did not hear the words, or if i did their natural pronunciation was altered and their natural music was altered, or it was drowned in another music which i did not understand. what was the good of writing a love-song if the singer pronounced love, 'lo-o-o-o-o-ve,' or even if he said 'love,' but did not give it its exact place and weight in the rhythm? like every other poet, i spoke verses in a kind of chant when i was making them, and sometimes, when i was alone on a country road, i would speak them in a loud chanting voice, and feel that if i dared i would speak them in that way to other people. one day i was walking through a dublin street with the visionary i have written about in _the celtic twilight_, and he began speaking his verses out aloud with the confidence of those who have the inner light. he did not mind that people stopped and looked after him even on the far side of the road, but went on through poem after poem. like myself, he knew nothing of music, but was certain that he had written them to a manner of music, and he had once asked somebody who played on a wind instrument of some kind, and then a violinist, to write out the music and play it. the violinist had played it, or something like it, but had not written it down; but the man with the wind instrument said it could not be played because it contained quarter-tones and would be out of tune. we were not at all convinced by this, and one day, when we were staying with a galway friend who is a learned musician, i asked him to listen to our verses, and to the way we spoke them. the visionary found to his surprise that he did not make every poem to a different tune, and to the surprise of the musician that he did make them all to two quite definite tunes, which are, it seems, like very simple arabic music. it was, perhaps, to some such music, i thought, that blake sang his _songs of innocence_ in mrs. williams' drawing-room, and perhaps he, too, spoke rather than sang. i, on the other hand, did not often compose to a tune, though i sometimes did, yet always to notes that could be written down and played on my friend's organ, or turned into something like a gregorian hymn if one sang them in the ordinary way. i varied more than the visionary, who never forgot his two tunes, one for long and one for short lines, and could not always speak a poem in the same way, but always felt that certain ways were right, and that i would know one of them if i remembered the way i first spoke the poem. when i got to london i gave the notation, as it had been played on the organ, to the friend who has just gone out, and she spoke it to me, giving my words a new quality by the beauty of her voice. iii then we began to wander through the wood of error; we tried speaking through music in the ordinary way under i know not whose evil influence, until we got to hate the two competing tunes and rhythms that were so often at discord with one another, the tune and rhythm of the verse and the tune and rhythm of the music. then we tried, persuaded by somebody who thought quarter-tones and less intervals the especial mark of speech as distinct from singing, to write out what we did in wavy lines. on finding something like these lines in tibetan music, we became so confident that we covered a large piece of pasteboard, which now blows up my fire in the morning, with a notation in wavy lines as a demonstration for a lecture; but at last mr. dolmetsch put us back to our first thought. he made us a beautiful instrument half psaltery half lyre which contains, i understand, all the chromatic intervals within the range of the speaking voice; and he taught us to regulate our speech by the ordinary musical notes. some of the notations he taught us--those in which there is no lilt, no recurring pattern of sounds--are like this notation for a song out of the first act of _the countess cathleen_. it is written in the old c clef, which is, i am told, the most reasonable way to write it, for it would be below the stave on the treble clef or above it on the bass clef. the central line of the stave corresponds to the middle c of the piano; the first note of the poem is therefore d. the marks of long and short over the syllables are not marks of scansion, but show the syllables one makes the voice hurry or linger over. [illustration: song and music.] one needs, of course, a far less complicated notation than a singer, and one is even permitted slight modifications of the fixed note when dramatic expression demands it and the instrument is not sounding. the notation which regulates the general form of the sound leaves it free to add a complexity of dramatic expression from its own incommunicable genius which compensates the lover of speech for the lack of complex musical expression. ordinary speech is formless, and its variety is like the variety which separates bad prose from the regulated speech of milton, or anything that is formless and void from anything that has form and beauty. the orator, the speaker who has some little of the great tradition of his craft, differs from the debater very largely because he understands how to assume that subtle monotony of voice which runs through the nerves like fire. even when one is speaking to a single note sounded faintly on the psaltery, if one is sufficiently practised to speak on it without thinking about it one can get an endless variety of expression. all art is, indeed, a monotony in external things for the sake of an interior variety, a sacrifice of gross effects to subtle effects, an asceticism of the imagination. but this new art, new in modern life i mean, will have to train its hearers as well as its speakers, for it takes time to surrender gladly the gross efforts one is accustomed to, and one may well find mere monotony at first where one soon learns to find a variety as incalculable as in the outline of faces or in the expression of eyes. modern acting and recitation have taught us to fix our attention on the gross effects till we have come to think gesture and the intonation that copies the accidental surface of life more important than the rhythm; and yet we understand theoretically that it is precisely this rhythm that separates good writing from bad, that is the glimmer, the fragrance, the spirit of all intense literature. i do not say that we should speak our plays to musical notes, for dramatic verse will need its own method, and i have hitherto experimented with short lyric poems alone; but i am certain that, if people would listen for a while to lyrical verse spoken to notes, they would soon find it impossible to listen without indignation to verse as it is spoken in our leading theatres. they would get a subtlety of hearing that would demand new effects from actors and even from public speakers, and they might, it may be, begin even to notice one another's voices till poetry and rhythm had come nearer to common life. i cannot tell what changes this new art is to go through, or to what greatness or littleness of fortune; but i can imagine little stories in prose with their dialogues in metre going pleasantly to the strings. i am not certain that i shall not see some order naming itself from the golden violet of the troubadours or the like, and having among its members none but well-taught and well-mannered speakers who will keep the new art from disrepute. they will know how to keep from singing notes and from prosaic lifeless intonations, and they will always understand, however far they push their experiments, that poetry and not music is their object; and they will have by heart, like the irish _file_, so many poems and notations that they will never have to bend their heads over the book to the ruin of dramatic expression and of that wild air the bard had always about him in my boyish imagination. they will go here and there speaking their verses and their little stories wherever they can find a score or two of poetical-minded people in a big room, or a couple of poetical-minded friends sitting by the hearth, and poets will write them poems and little stories to the confounding of print and paper. i, at any rate, from this out mean to write all my longer poems for the stage, and all my shorter ones for the psaltery, if only some strong angel keep me to my good resolutions. 1902. magic i i believe in the practice and philosophy of what we have agreed to call magic, in what i must call the evocation of spirits, though i do not know what they are, in the power of creating magical illusions, in the visions of truth in the depths of the mind when the eyes are closed; and i believe in three doctrines, which have, as i think, been handed down from early times, and been the foundations of nearly all magical practices. these doctrines are-(1) that the borders of our minds are ever shifting, and that many minds can flow into one another, as it were, and create or reveal a single mind, a single energy. (2) that the borders of our memories are as shifting, and that our memories are a part of one great memory, the memory of nature herself. (3) that this great mind and great memory can be evoked by symbols. i often think i would put this belief in magic from me if i could, for i have come to see or to imagine, in men and women, in houses, in handicrafts, in nearly all sights and sounds, a certain evil, a certain ugliness, that comes from the slow perishing through the centuries of a quality of mind that made this belief and its evidences common over the world. ii some ten or twelve years ago, a man with whom i have since quarrelled for sound reasons, a very singular man who had given his life to studies other men despised, asked me and an acquaintance, who is now dead, to witness a magical work. he lived a little way from london, and on the way my acquaintance told me that he did not believe in magic, but that a novel of bulwer lytton's had taken such a hold upon his imagination that he was going to give much of his time and all his thought to magic. he longed to believe in it, and had studied, though not learnedly, geomancy, astrology, chiromancy, and much cabalistic symbolism, and yet doubted if the soul outlived the body. he awaited the magical work full of scepticism. he expected nothing more than an air of romance, an illusion as of the stage, that might capture the consenting imagination for an hour. the evoker of spirits and his beautiful wife received us in a little house, on the edge of some kind of garden or park belonging to an eccentric rich man, whose curiosities he arranged and dusted, and he made his evocation in a long room that had a raised place on the floor at one end, a kind of dais, but was furnished meagrely and cheaply. i sat with my acquaintance in the middle of the room, and the evoker of spirits on the dais, and his wife between us and him. he held a wooden mace in his hand, and turning to a tablet of many-coloured squares, with a number on each of the squares, that stood near him on a chair, he repeated a form of words. almost at once my imagination began to move of itself and to bring before me vivid images that, though never too vivid to be imagination, as i had always understood it, had yet a motion of their own, a life i could not change or shape. i remember seeing a number of white figures, and wondering whether their mitred heads had been suggested by the mitred head of the mace, and then, of a sudden, the image of my acquaintance in the midst of them. i told what i had seen, and the evoker of spirits cried in a deep voice, 'let him be blotted out,' and as he said it the image of my acquaintance vanished, and the evoker of spirits or his wife saw a man dressed in black with a curious square cap standing among the white figures. it was my acquaintance, the seeress said, as he had been in a past life, the life that had moulded his present, and that life would now unfold before us. i too seemed to see the man with a strange vividness. the story unfolded itself chiefly before the mind's eye of the seeress, but sometimes i saw what she described before i heard her description. she thought the man in black was perhaps a fleming of the sixteenth century, and i could see him pass along narrow streets till he came to a narrow door with some rusty ironwork above it. he went in, and wishing to find out how far we had one vision among us, i kept silent when i saw a dead body lying upon the table within the door. the seeress described him going down a long hall and up into what she called a pulpit, and beginning to speak. she said, 'he is a clergyman, i can hear his words. they sound like low dutch.' then after a little silence, 'no, i am wrong. i can see the listeners; he is a doctor lecturing among his pupils.' i said, 'do you see anything near the door?' and she said, 'yes, i see a subject for dissection.' then we saw him go out again into the narrow streets, i following the story of the seeress, sometimes merely following her words, but sometimes seeing for myself. my acquaintance saw nothing; i think he was forbidden to see, it being his own life, and i think could not in any case. his imagination had no will of its own. presently the man in black went into a house with two gables facing the road, and up some stairs into a room where a hump-backed woman gave him a key; and then along a corridor, and down some stairs into a large cellar full of retorts and strange vessels of all kinds. here he seemed to stay a long while, and one saw him eating bread that he took down from a shelf. the evoker of spirits and the seeress began to speculate about the man's character and habits, and decided, from a visionary impression, that his mind was absorbed in naturalism, but that his imagination had been excited by stories of the marvels wrought by magic in past times, and that he was trying to copy them by naturalistic means. presently one of them saw him go to a vessel that stood over a slow fire, and take out of the vessel a thing wrapped up in numberless cloths, which he partly unwrapped, showing at length what looked like the image of a man made by somebody who could not model. the evoker of spirits said that the man in black was trying to make flesh by chemical means, and though he had not succeeded, his brooding had drawn so many evil spirits about him, that the image was partly alive. he could see it moving a little where it lay upon a table. at that moment i heard something like little squeals, but kept silent, as when i saw the dead body. in a moment more the seeress said, 'i hear little squeals.' then the evoker of spirits heard them, but said, 'they are not squeals; he is pouring a red liquid out of a retort through a slit in the cloth; the slit is over the mouth of the image and the liquid is gurgling in rather a curious way.' weeks seemed to pass by hurriedly, and somebody saw the man still busy in his cellar. then more weeks seemed to pass, and now we saw him lying sick in a room up-stairs, and a man in a conical cap standing beside him. we could see the image too. it was in the cellar, but now it could move feebly about the floor. i saw fainter images of the image passing continually from where it crawled to the man in his bed, and i asked the evoker of spirits what they were. he said, 'they are the images of his terror.' presently the man in the conical cap began to speak, but who heard him i cannot remember. he made the sick man get out of bed and walk, leaning upon him, and in much terror till they came to the cellar. there the man in the conical cap made some symbol over the image, which fell back as if asleep, and putting a knife into the other's hand he said, 'i have taken from it the magical life, but you must take from it the life you gave.' somebody saw the sick man stoop and sever the head of the image from its body, and then fall as if he had given himself a mortal wound, for he had filled it with his own life. and then the vision changed and fluttered, and he was lying sick again in the room up-stairs. he seemed to lie there a long time with the man in the conical cap watching beside him, and then, i cannot remember how, the evoker of spirits discovered that though he would in part recover, he would never be well, and that the story had got abroad in the town and shattered his good name. his pupils had left him and men avoided him. he was accursed. he was a magician. the story was finished, and i looked at my acquaintance. he was white and awestruck. he said, as nearly as i can remember, 'all my life i have seen myself in dreams making a man by some means like that. when i was a child i was always thinking out contrivances for galvanizing a corpse into life.' presently he said, 'perhaps my bad health in this life comes from that experiment.' i asked if he had read _frankenstein_, and he answered that he had. he was the only one of us who had, and he had taken no part in the vision. iii then i asked to have some past life of mine revealed, and a new evocation was made before the tablet full of little squares. i cannot remember so well who saw this or that detail, for now i was interested in little but the vision itself. i had come to a conclusion about the method. i knew that the vision may be in part common to several people. a man in chain armour passed through a castle door, and the seeress noticed with surprise the bareness and rudeness of castle rooms. there was nothing of the magnificence or the pageantry she had expected. the man came to a large hall and to a little chapel opening out of it, where a ceremony was taking place. there were six girls dressed in white, who took from the altar some yellow object--i thought it was gold, for though, like my acquaintance, i was told not to see, i could not help seeing. somebody else thought that it was yellow flowers, and i think the girls, though i cannot remember clearly, laid it between the man's hands. he went out after a time, and as he passed through the great hall one of us, i forget whom, noticed that he passed over two gravestones. then the vision became broken, but presently he stood in a monk's habit among men-at-arms in the middle of a village reading from a parchment. he was calling villagers about him, and presently he and they and the men-at-arms took ship for some long voyage. the vision became broken again, and when we could see clearly they had come to what seemed the holy land. they had begun some kind of sacred labour among palm-trees. the common men among them stood idle, but the gentlemen carried large stones, bringing them from certain directions, from the cardinal points i think, with a ceremonious formality. the evoker of spirits said they must be making some kind of masonic house. his mind, like the minds of so many students of these hidden things, was always running on masonry and discovering it in strange places. we broke the vision that we might have supper, breaking it with some form of words which i forget. when supper had ended the seeress cried out that while we had been eating they had been building, and they had built not a masonic house but a great stone cross. and now they had all gone away but the man who had been in chain armour and two monks we had not noticed before. he was standing against the cross, his feet upon two stone rests a little above the ground, and his arms spread out. he seemed to stand there all day, but when night came he went to a little cell, that was beside two other cells. i think they were like the cells i have seen in the aran islands, but i cannot be certain. many days seemed to pass, and all day every day he stood upon the cross, and we never saw anybody there but him and the two monks. many years seemed to pass, making the vision flutter like a drift of leaves before our eyes, and he grew old and white-haired, and we saw the two monks, old and white-haired, holding him upon the cross. i asked the evoker of spirits why the man stood there, and before he had time to answer i saw two people, a man and a woman, rising like a dream within a dream, before the eyes of the man upon the cross. the evoker of spirits saw them too, and said that one of them held up his arms and they were without hands. i thought of the two gravestones the man in chain mail had passed over in the great hall when he came out of the chapel, and asked the evoker of spirits if the knight was undergoing a penance for violence, and while i was asking him, and he was saying that it might be so but he did not know, the vision, having completed its circle, vanished. it had not, so far as i could see, the personal significance of the other vision, but it was certainly strange and beautiful, though i alone seemed to see its beauty. who was it that made the story, if it were but a story? i did not, and the seeress did not, and the evoker of spirits did not and could not. it arose in three minds, for i cannot remember my acquaintance taking any part, and it rose without confusion, and without labour, except the labour of keeping the mind's eye awake, and more swiftly than any pen could have written it out. it may be, as blake said of one of his poems, that the author was in eternity. in coming years i was to see and hear of many such visions, and though i was not to be convinced, though half convinced once or twice, that they were old lives, in an ordinary sense of the word life, i was to learn that they have almost always some quite definite relation to dominant moods and moulding events in this life. they are, perhaps, in most cases, though the vision i have but just described was not, it seems, among the cases, symbolical histories of these moods and events, or rather symbolical shadows of the impulses that have made them, messages as it were out of the ancestral being of the questioner. at the time these two visions meant little more to me, if i can remember my feeling at the time, than a proof of the supremacy of imagination, of the power of many minds to become one, overpowering one another by spoken words and by unspoken thought till they have become a single intense, unhesitating energy. one mind was doubtless the master, i thought, but all the minds gave a little, creating or revealing for a moment what i must call a supernatural artist. iv some years afterwards i was staying with some friends in paris. i had got up before breakfast and gone out to buy a newspaper. i had noticed the servant, a girl who had come from the country some years before, laying the table for breakfast. as i had passed her i had been telling myself one of those long foolish tales which one tells only to oneself. if something had happened that had not happened, i would have hurt my arm, i thought. i saw myself with my arm in a sling in the middle of some childish adventures. i returned with the newspaper and met my host and hostess in the door. the moment they saw me they cried out, 'why, the _bonne_ has just told us you had your arm in a sling. we thought something must have happened to you last night, that you had been run over maybe'--or some such words. i had been dining out at the other end of paris, and had come in after everybody had gone to bed. i had cast my imagination so strongly upon the servant that she had seen it, and with what had appeared to be more than the mind's eye. one afternoon, about the same time, i was thinking very intently of a certain fellow-student for whom i had a message, which i hesitated about writing. in a couple of days i got a letter from a place some hundreds of miles away where that student was. on the afternoon when i had been thinking so intently i had suddenly appeared there amid a crowd of people in a hotel and as seeming solid as if in the flesh. my fellow-student had seen me, but no one else, and had asked me to come again when the people had gone. i had vanished, but had come again in the middle of the night and given the message. i myself had no knowledge of casting an imagination upon one so far away. i could tell of stranger images, of stranger enchantments, of stranger imaginations, cast consciously or unconsciously over as great distances by friends or by myself, were it not that the greater energies of the mind seldom break forth but when the deeps are loosened. they break forth amid events too private or too sacred for public speech, or seem themselves, i know not why, to belong to hidden things. i have written of these breakings forth, these loosenings of the deep, with some care and some detail, but i shall keep my record shut. after all, one can but bear witness less to convince him who won't believe than to protect him who does, as blake puts it, enduring unbelief and misbelief and ridicule as best one may. i shall be content to show that past times have believed as i do, by quoting joseph glanvil's description of the scholar gipsy. joseph glanvil is dead, and will not mind unbelief and misbelief and ridicule. the scholar gipsy, too, is dead, unless indeed perfectly wise magicians can live till it please them to die, and he is wandering somewhere, even if one cannot see him, as arnold imagined, 'at some lone ale-house in the berkshire moors, on the warm ingle-bench,' or 'crossing the stripling thames at bablock hithe,' 'trailing his fingers in the cool stream,' or 'giving store of flowers--the frail-leaf'd white anemone, dark hare-bells drenched with dew of summer eves,' to the girls 'who from the distant hamlets come to dance around the fyfield elm in may,' or 'sitting upon the river bank o'ergrown,' living on through time 'with a free onward impulse.' this is joseph glanvil's story- there was very lately a lad in the university of oxford who, being of very pregnant and ready parts and yet wanting the encouragement of preferment, was by his poverty forced to leave his studies there, and to cast himself upon the wide world for a livelihood. now his necessities growing daily on him, and wanting the help of friends to relieve him, he was at last forced to join himself to a company of vagabond gipsies, whom occasionally he met with, and to follow their trade for a maintenance.... after he had been a pretty while well exercised in the trade, there chanced to ride by a couple of scholars, who had formerly been of his acquaintance. the scholar had quickly spied out these old friends among the gipsies, and their amazement to see him among such society had well-nigh discovered him; but by a sign he prevented them owning him before that crew, and taking one of them aside privately, desired him with his friend to go to an inn, not far distant, promising there to come to them. they accordingly went thither and he follows: after their first salutation his friends inquire how he came to lead so odd a life as that was, and so joined himself into such a beggarly company. the scholar gipsy having given them an account of the necessity which drove him to that kind of life, told them that the people he went with were not such impostors as they were taken for, but that they had a traditional kind of learning among them and could do wonders by the power of imagination, and that himself had learned much of their art and improved it further than themselves could. and to evince the truth of what he told them, he said he'd remove into another room, leaving them to discourse together; and upon his return tell them the sense of what they had talked of; which accordingly he performed, giving them a full account of what had passed between them in his absence. the scholars being amazed at so unexpected a discovery, earnestly desired him to unriddle the mystery. in which he gave them satisfaction, by telling them that what he did was by the power of imagination, his phantasy leading theirs; and that himself had dictated to them the discourse they had held together while he was from them; that there were warrantable ways of heightening the imagination to that pitch as to bend another's, and that when he had compassed the whole secret, some parts of which he was yet ignorant of, he intended to leave their company and give the world an account of what he had learned. if all who have described events like this have not dreamed, we should rewrite our histories, for all men, certainly all imaginative men, must be for ever casting forth enchantments, glamours, illusions; and all men, especially tranquil men who have no powerful egotistic life, must be continually passing under their power. our most elaborate thoughts, elaborate purposes, precise emotions, are often, as i think, not really ours, but have on a sudden come up, as it were, out of hell or down out of heaven. the historian should remember, should he not? angels and devils not less than kings and soldiers, and plotters and thinkers. what matter if the angel or devil, as indeed certain old writers believed, first wrapped itself with an organized shape in some man's imagination? what matter 'if god himself only acts or is in existing beings or men,' as blake believed? we must none the less admit that invisible beings, far wandering influences, shapes that may have floated from a hermit of the wilderness, brood over council-chambers and studies and battle-fields. we should never be certain that it was not some woman treading in the wine-press who began that subtle change in men's minds, that powerful movement of thought and imagination about which so many germans have written; or that the passion, because of which so many countries were given to the sword, did not begin in the mind of some shepherd boy, lighting up his eyes for a moment before it ran upon its way. v we cannot doubt that barbaric people receive such influences more visibly and obviously, and in all likelihood more easily and fully than we do, for our life in cities, which deafens or kills the passive meditative life, and our education that enlarges the separated, self-moving mind, have made our souls less sensitive. our souls that were once naked to the winds of heaven are now thickly clad, and have learned to build a house and light a fire upon its hearth, and shut to the doors and windows. the winds can, indeed, make us draw near to the fire, or can even lift the carpet and whistle under the door, but they could do worse out on the plains long ago. a certain learned man, quoted by mr. lang in his _making of religion_, contends that the memories of primitive man and his thoughts of distant places must have had the intensity of hallucination, because there was nothing in his mind to draw his attention away from them--an explanation that does not seem to me complete--and mr. lang goes on to quote certain travellers to prove that savages live always on the edges of vision. one laplander who wished to become a christian, and thought visions but heathenish, confessed to a traveller, to whom he had given a minute account of many distant events, read doubtless in that traveller's mind, 'that he knew not how to make use of his eyes, since things altogether distant were present to them.' i myself could find in one district in galway but one man who had not seen what i can but call spirits, and he was in his dotage. 'there is no man mowing a meadow but sees them at one time or another,' said a man in a different district. if i can unintentionally cast a glamour, an enchantment, over persons of our own time who have lived for years in great cities, there is no reason to doubt that men could cast intentionally a far stronger enchantment, a far stronger glamour, over the more sensitive people of ancient times, or that men can still do so where the old order of life remains unbroken. why should not the scholar gipsy cast his spell over his friends? why should not st. patrick, or he of whom the story was first told, pass his enemies, he and all his clerics, as a herd of deer? why should not enchanters like him in the _morte d'arthur_ make troops of horse seem but grey stones? why should not the roman soldiers, though they came of a civilization which was ceasing to be sensitive to these things, have trembled for a moment before the enchantments of the druids of mona? why should not the jesuit father, or the count saint germain, or whoever the tale was first told of, have really seemed to leave the city in a coach and four by all the twelve gates at once? why should not moses and the enchanters of pharaoh have made their staffs as the medicine men of many primitive peoples make their pieces of old rope seem like devouring serpents? why should not that mediã¦val enchanter have made summer and all its blossoms seem to break forth in middle winter? may we not learn some day to rewrite our histories, when they touch upon these things too? men who are imaginative writers to-day may well have preferred to influence the imagination of others more directly in past times. instead of learning their craft with paper and a pen they may have sat for hours imagining themselves to be stocks and stones and beasts of the wood, till the images were so vivid that the passers-by became but a part of the imagination of the dreamer, and wept or laughed or ran away as he would have them. have not poetry and music arisen, as it seems, out of the sounds the enchanters made to help their imagination to enchant, to charm, to bind with a spell themselves and the passers-by? these very words, a chief part of all praises of music or poetry, still cry to us their origin. and just as the musician or the poet enchants and charms and binds with a spell his own mind when he would enchant the mind of others, so did the enchanter create or reveal for himself as well as for others the supernatural artist or genius, the seeming transitory mind made out of many minds, whose work i saw, or thought i saw, in that suburban house. he kept the doors too, as it seems, of those less transitory minds, the genius of the family, the genius of the tribe, or it may be, when he was mighty-souled enough, the genius of the world. our history speaks of opinions and discoveries, but in ancient times when, as i think, men had their eyes ever upon those doors, history spoke of commandments and revelations. they looked as carefully and as patiently towards sinai and its thunders as we look towards parliaments and laboratories. we are always praising men in whom the individual life has come to perfection, but they were always praising the one mind, their foundation of all perfection. vi i once saw a young irish woman, fresh from a convent school, cast into a profound trance, though not by a method known to any hypnotist. in her waking state she thought the apple of eve was the kind of apple you can buy at the greengrocer's, but in her trance she saw the tree of life with ever-sighing souls moving in its branches instead of sap, and among its leaves all the fowl of the air, and on its highest bough one white fowl bearing a crown. when i went home i took from the shelf a translation of _the book of concealed mystery_, an old jewish book, and cutting the pages came upon this passage, which i cannot think i had ever read: 'the tree, ... is the tree of the knowledge of good and of evil ... in its branches the birds lodge and build their nests, the souls and the angels have their place.' i once saw a young church of ireland man, a bank clerk in the west of ireland, thrown in a like trance. i have no doubt that he, too, was quite certain that the apple of eve was a greengrocer's apple, and yet he saw the tree and heard the souls sighing through its branches, and saw apples with human faces, and laying his ear to an apple heard a sound as of fighting hosts within. presently he strayed from the tree and came to the edge of eden, and there he found himself not by the wilderness he had learned of at the sunday-school, but upon the summit of a great mountain, of a mountain 'two miles high.' the whole summit, in contradiction to all that would have seemed probable to his waking mind, was a great walled garden. some years afterwards i found a mediã¦val diagram, which pictured eden as a walled garden upon a high mountain. where did these intricate symbols come from? neither i nor the one or two people present or the seers had ever seen, i am convinced, the description in _the book of concealed mystery_, or the mediã¦val diagram. remember that the images appeared in a moment perfect in all their complexity. if one can imagine that the seers or that i myself or another had indeed read of these images and forgotten it, that the supernatural artist's knowledge of what was in our buried memories accounted for these visions, there are numberless other visions to account for. one cannot go on believing in improbable knowledge for ever. for instance, i find in my diary that on december 27, 1897, a seer, to whom i had given a certain old irish symbol, saw brigit, the goddess, holding out 'a glittering and wriggling serpent,' and yet i feel certain that neither i nor he knew anything of her association with the serpent until _carmina gadelica_ was published a few months ago. and an old irish woman who can neither read nor write has described to me a woman dressed like dian, with helmet, and short skirt and sandals, and what seemed to be buskins. why, too, among all the countless stories of visions that i have gathered in ireland, or that a friend has gathered for me, are there none that mix the dress of different periods? the seers when they are but speaking from tradition will mix everything together, and speak of finn mac cool going to the assizes at cork. almost every one who has ever busied himself with such matters has come, in trance or dream, upon some new and strange symbol or event, which he has afterwards found in some work he had never read or heard of. examples like this are as yet too little classified, too little analyzed, to convince the stranger, but some of them are proof enough for those they have happened to, proof that there is a memory of nature that reveals events and symbols of distant centuries. mystics of many countries and many centuries have spoken of this memory; and the honest men and charlatans, who keep the magical traditions which will some day be studied as a part of folk-lore, base most that is of importance in their claims upon this memory. i have read of it in 'paracelsus' and in some indian book that describes the people of past days as still living within it, 'thinking the thought and doing the deed.' and i have found it in the prophetic books of william blake, who calls its images 'the bright sculptures of los's halls'; and says that all events, 'all love stories,' renew themselves from those images. it is perhaps well that so few believe in it, for if many did many would go out of parliaments and universities and libraries and run into the wilderness to so waste the body, and to so hush the unquiet mind that, still living, they might pass the doors the dead pass daily; for who among the wise would trouble himself with making laws or in writing history or in weighing the earth if the things of eternity seemed ready to hand? vii i find in my diary of magical events for 1899 that i awoke at 3 a.m. out of a nightmare, and imagined one symbol to prevent its recurrence, and imagined another, a simple geometrical form, which calls up dreams of luxuriant vegetable life, that i might have pleasant dreams. i imagined it faintly, being very sleepy, and went to sleep. i had confused dreams which seemed to have no relation with the symbol. i awoke about eight, having for the time forgotten both nightmare and symbol. presently i dozed off again and began half to dream and half to see, as one does between sleep and waking, enormous flowers and grapes. i awoke and recognized that what i had dreamed or seen was the kind of thing appropriate to the symbol before i remembered having used it. i find another record, though made some time after the event, of having imagined over the head of a person, who was a little of a seer, a combined symbol of elemental air and elemental water. this person, who did not know what symbol i was using, saw a pigeon flying with a lobster in his bill. i find that on december 13, 1898, i used a certain star-shaped symbol with a seeress, getting her to look at it intently before she began seeing. she saw a rough stone house, and in the middle of the house the skull of a horse. i find that i had used the same symbol a few days before with a seer, and that he had seen a rough stone house, and in the middle of the house something under a cloth marked with the hammer of thor. he had lifted the cloth and discovered a skeleton of gold with teeth of diamonds, and eyes of some unknown dim precious stones. i had made a note to this last vision, pointing out that we had been using a solar symbol a little earlier. solar symbols often call up visions of gold and precious stones. i do not give these examples to prove my arguments, but to illustrate them. i know that my examples will awaken in all who have not met the like, or who are not on other grounds inclined towards my arguments, a most natural incredulity. it was long before i myself would admit an inherent power in symbols, for it long seemed to me that one could account for everything by the power of one imagination over another, telepathy as it is called with that separation of knowledge and life, of word and emotion, which is the sterility of scientific speech. the symbol seemed powerful, i thought, merely because we thought it powerful, and we would do just as well without it. in those days i used symbols made with some ingenuity instead of merely imagining them. i used to give them to the person i was experimenting with, and tell him to hold them to his forehead without looking at them; and sometimes i made a mistake. i learned from these mistakes that if i did not myself imagine the symbol, in which case he would have a mixed vision, it was the symbol i gave by mistake that produced the vision. then i met with a seer who could say to me, 'i have a vision of a square pond, but i can see your thought, and you expect me to see an oblong pond,' or, 'the symbol you are imagining has made me see a woman holding a crystal, but it was a moonlight sea i should have seen.' i discovered that the symbol hardly ever failed to call up its typical scene, its typical event, its typical person, but that i could practically never call up, no matter how vividly i imagined it, the particular scene, the particular event, the particular person i had in my own mind, and that when i could, the two visions rose side by side. i cannot now think symbols less than the greatest of all powers whether they are used consciously by the masters of magic, or half unconsciously by their successors, the poet, the musician and the artist. at first i tried to distinguish between symbols and symbols, between what i called inherent symbols and arbitrary symbols, but the distinction has come to mean little or nothing. whether their power has arisen out of themselves, or whether it has an arbitrary origin, matters little, for they act, as i believe, because the great memory associates them with certain events and moods and persons. whatever the passions of man have gathered about, becomes a symbol in the great memory, and in the hands of him who has the secret, it is a worker of wonders, a caller-up of angels or of devils. the symbols are of all kinds, for everything in heaven or earth has its association, momentous or trivial, in the great memory, and one never knows what forgotten events may have plunged it, like the toadstool and the ragweed, into the great passions. knowledgeable men and women in ireland sometimes distinguish between the simples that work cures by some medical property in the herb, and those that do their work by magic. such magical simples as the husk of the flax, water out of the fork of an elm-tree, do their work, as i think, by awaking in the depths of the mind where it mingles with the great mind, and is enlarged by the great memory, some curative energy, some hypnotic command. they are not what we call faith cures, for they have been much used and successfully, the traditions of all lands affirm, over children and over animals, and to me they seem the only medicine that could have been committed safely to ancient hands. to pluck the wrong leaf would have been to go uncured, but, if one had eaten it, one might have been poisoned. viii i have now described that belief in magic which has set me all but unwilling among those lean and fierce minds who are at war with their time, who cannot accept the days as they pass, simply and gladly; and i look at what i have written with some alarm, for i have told more of the ancient secret than many among my fellow-students think it right to tell. i have come to believe so many strange things because of experience, that i see little reason to doubt the truth of many things that are beyond my experience; and it may be that there are beings who watch over that ancient secret, as all tradition affirms, and resent, and perhaps avenge, too fluent speech. they say in the aran islands that if you speak overmuch of the things of faery your tongue becomes like a stone, and it seems to me, though doubtless naturalistic reason would call it auto-suggestion or the like, that i have often felt my tongue become just so heavy and clumsy. more than once, too, as i wrote this very essay i have become uneasy, and have torn up some paragraph, not for any literary reason, but because some incident or some symbol that would perhaps have meant nothing to the reader, seemed, i know not why, to belong to hidden things. yet i must write or be of no account to any cause, good or evil; i must commit what merchandise of wisdom i have to this ship of written speech, and after all, i have many a time watched it put out to sea with not less alarm when all the speech was rhyme. we who write, we who bear witness, must often hear our hearts cry out against us, complaining because of their hidden things, and i know not but he who speaks of wisdom may not sometimes in the change that is coming upon the world, have to fear the anger of the people of faery, whose country is the heart of the world--'the land of the living heart.' who can keep always to the little pathway between speech and silence, where one meets none but discreet revelations? and surely, at whatever risk, we must cry out that imagination is always seeking to remake the world according to the impulses and the patterns in that great mind, and that great memory? can there be anything so important as to cry out that what we call romance, poetry, intellectual beauty, is the only signal that the supreme enchanter, or some one in his councils, is speaking of what has been, and shall be again, in the consummation of time? 1901. the happiest of the poets i rossetti in one of his letters numbers his favourite colours in the order of his favour, and throughout his work one feels that he loved form and colour for themselves and apart from what they represent. one feels sometimes that he desired a world of essences, of unmixed powers, of impossible purities. it is as though the last judgment had already begun in his mind and that the essences and powers, which the divine hand had mixed into one another to make the loam of life, fell asunder at his touch. if he painted a flame or a blue distance, he painted as though he had seen the flame out of whose heart all flames had been taken, or the blue of the abyss that was before all life; and if he painted a woman's face he painted it in some moment of intensity when the ecstasy of the lover and of the saint are alike, and desire becomes wisdom without ceasing to be desire. he listens to the cry of the flesh till it becomes proud and passes beyond the world where some immense desire that the intellect cannot understand mixes with the desire of a body's warmth and softness. his genius like shelley's can hardly stir but to the rejection of nature, whose delight is profusion, but never intensity, and like shelley's it follows the star of the magi, the morning and evening star, the mother of impossible hope, although it follows through deep woods, where the star glimmers among dew-drenched boughs and not through 'a wind-swept valley of the apennine.' men like him cannot be happy as we understand happiness, for to be happy one must delight like nature in mere profusion, in mere abundance, in making and doing things, and if one sets an image of the perfect before one it must be the image that draws her perpetually, the image of a perfect fulness of natural life, of an earthly paradise. one's emotion must never break the bonds of life, one's hands must never labour to loosen the silver cord, one's ears must never strain to catch the sound of michael's trumpet. that is to say, one must not be among those that would have prayed in old times in some chapel of the star, but among those who would have prayed under the shadow of the green tree, and on the wet stones of the well, among the worshippers of natural abundance. ii i do not think it was accident, so subtle are the threads that lead the soul, that made william morris, who seems to me the one perfectly happy and fortunate poet of modern times, celebrate the green tree and the goddess habundia, and wells and enchanted waters in so many books. in _the well at the world's end_ green trees and enchanted waters are shown to us, as they were understood by old writers, who thought that the generation of all things was through water; for when the water that gives a long and a fortunate life and that can be found by none but such a one as all women love is found at last, the dry tree, the image of the ruined land, becomes green. to him indeed as to older writers well and tree are all but images of the one thing, of an 'energy' that is not the less 'eternal delight' because it is half of the body. he never wrote, and could not have written, of a man or woman who was not of the kin of well or tree. long before he had named either he had made his 'wanderers' follow a dream indeed, but a dream of natural happiness, and all the people of all his poems and stories from the confused beginning of his art in _the hollow land_ to its end in _the sundering flood_, are full of the heavy sweetness of this dream. he wrote indeed of nothing but of the quest of the grail, but it was the heathen grail that gave every man his chosen food, and not the grail of malory or wagner; and he came at last to praise, as other men have praised the martyrs of religion or of passion, men with lucky eyes and men whom all women love. we know so little of man and of the world that we cannot be certain that the same invisible hands, that gave him an imagination preoccupied with good fortune, gave him also health and wealth, and the power to create beautiful things without labour, that he might honour the green tree. it pleases me to imagine the copper mine which brought, as mr. mackail has told, so much unforeseen wealth and in so astonishing a way, as no less miraculous than the three arrows in _the sundering flood_. no mighty poet in his misery dead could have delighted enough to make us delight in men 'who knew no vain desire of foolish fame,' but who thought the dance upon 'the stubble field' and 'the battle with the earth' better than 'the bitter war' 'where right and wrong are mixed together.' 'oh the trees, the trees!' he wrote in one of his early letters, and it was his work to make us, who had been taught to sympathize with the unhappy till we had grown morbid, to sympathize with men and women who turned everything into happiness because they had in them something of the abundance of the beechen boughs or of the bursting wheat-ear. he alone, i think, has told the story of alcestis with perfect sympathy for admetus, with so perfect a sympathy that he cannot persuade himself that one so happy died at all; and he, unlike all other poets, has delighted to tell us that the men after his own heart, the men of his _news from nowhere_, sorrowed but a little while over unhappy love. he cannot even think of nobility and happiness apart, for all his people are like his men of burg dale who lived 'in much plenty and ease of life, though not delicately or desiring things out of measure. they wrought with their hands and wearied themselves; and they rested from their toil and feasted and were merry; to-morrow was not a burden to them, nor yesterday a thing which they would fain forget; life shamed them not nor did death make them afraid. as for the dale wherein they dwelt, it was indeed most fair and lovely and they deemed it the blessing of the earth, and they trod the flowery grass beside its rippled stream amidst the green tree-boughs proudly and joyfully with goodly bodies and merry hearts.' iii i think of his men as with broad brows and golden beards and mild eyes and tranquil speech, and of his good women as like 'the bride' in whose face rossetti saw and painted for once the abundance of earth and not the half-hidden light of his star. they are not in love with love for its own sake, with a love that is apart from the world or at enmity with it, as swinburne imagines mary stuart and as all men have imagined helen. they do not seek in love that ecstasy, which shelley's nightingale called death, that extremity of life in which life seems to pass away like the phoenix in flame of its own lighting, but rather a gentle self-surrender that would lose more than half its sweetness if it lost the savour of coming days. they are good house-wives; they sit often at the embroidery frame, and they have wisdom in flocks and herds and they are before all fruitful mothers. it seems at times as if their love was less a passion for one man out of the world than submission to the hazard of destiny, and the hope of motherhood and the innocent desire of the body. they accept changes and chances of life as gladly as they accept spring and summer and autumn and winter, and because they have sat under the shadow of the green tree and drunk the waters of abundance out of their hollow hands, the barren blossoms do not seem to them the most beautiful. when habundia takes the shape of birdalone she comes first as a young naked girl standing among great trees, and then as an old carline, birdalone in stately old age. and when she praises birdalone's naked body, and speaks of the desire it shall awaken, praise and desire are innocent because they would not break the links that chain the days to one another. the desire seems not other than the desire of the bird for its mate in the heart of the wood, and we listen to that joyous praise as though a bird watching its plumage in still water had begun to sing in its joy, or as if we heard hawk praising hawk in the middle air, and because it is the praise of one made for all noble life and not for pleasure only, it seems, though it is the praise of the body, that it is the noblest praise. birdalone has never seen her image but in 'a broad latten-dish,' so the wood woman must tell her of her body and praise it. 'thus it is with thee; thou standest before me a tall and slim maiden, somewhat thin as befitteth thy seventeen summers; where thy flesh is bare of wont, as thy throat and thine arms and thy legs from the middle down, it is tanned a beauteous colour, but otherwhere it is even as fair a white, wholesome and clean as if the golden sunlight which fulfilleth the promise of the earth were playing therein.... delicate and clean-made is the little trench that goeth from thy mouth to thy lips, and sweet it is, and there is more might in it than in sweet words spoken. thy lips they are of the finest fashion, yet rather thin than full; and some would not have it so; but i would, whereas i see therein a sign of thy valiancy and friendliness. surely he who did thy carven chin had a mind to a master work and did no less. great was the deftness of thine imaginer, and he would have all folk who see thee wonder at thy deep thinking and thy carefulness and thy kindness. ah, maiden! is it so that thy thoughts are ever deep and solemn? yet at least i know it of thee that they be hale and true and sweet. 'my friend, when thou hast a mirror, some of all this shalt thou see, but not all; and when thou hast a lover some deal wilt thou hear, but not all. but now thy she-friend may tell it thee all, if she have eyes to see it, as have i; whereas no man could say so much of thee before the mere love should overtake him, and turn his speech into the folly of love and the madness of desire.' all his good women, whether it is danaã« in her tower, or that woman in _the wood beyond the world_ who can make the withered flowers in her girdle grow young again by the touch of her hand, are of the kin of the wood woman. all his bad women too and his half-bad women are of her kin. the evils their enchantments make are a disordered abundance like that of weedy places and they are cruel as wild creatures are cruel and they have unbridled desires. one finds these evils in their typical shape in that isle of the wondrous isles, where the wicked witch has her pleasure-house and her prison, and in that 'isle of the old and the young,' where until her enchantment is broken second childhood watches over children who never grow old and who seem to the bystander who knows their story 'like images' or like 'the rabbits on the grass.' it is as though nature spoke through him at all times in the mood that is upon her when she is opening the apple-blossom or reddening the apple or thickening the shadow of the boughs, and that the men and women of his verse and of his stories are all the ministers of her mood. iv when i was a child i often heard my elders talking of an old turreted house where an old great-uncle of mine lived, and of its gardens and its long pond where there was an island with tame eagles; and one day somebody read me some verses and said they made him think of that old house where he had been very happy. the verses ran in my head for years and became to me the best description of happiness in the world, and i am not certain that i know a better even now. they were those first dozen verses of _golden wings_ that begin- 'midways of a walled garden in the happy poplar land did an ancient castle stand, with an old knight for a warden. many scarlet bricks there were in its walls, and old grey stone; over which red apples shone at the right time of the year. on the bricks the green moss grew, yellow lichen on the stone, over which red apples shone; little war that castle knew.' when william morris describes a house of any kind, and makes his description poetical, it is always, i think, some house that he would have liked to have lived in, and i remember him saying about the time when he was writing of that great house of the wolfings, 'i decorate modern houses for people, but the house that would please me would be some great room where one talked to one's friends in one corner and eat in another and slept in another and worked in another.' indeed all he writes seems to me like the make-believe of a child who is remaking the world, not always in the same way, but always after its own heart; and so unlike all other modern writers he makes his poetry out of unending pictures of a happiness that is often what a child might imagine, and always a happiness that sets mind and body at ease. now it is a picture of some great room full of merriment, now of the wine-press, now of the golden threshing-floor, now of an old mill among apple-trees, now of cool water after the heat of the sun, now of some well-sheltered, well-tilled place among woods or mountains, where men and women live happily, knowing of nothing that is too far off or too great for the affections. he has but one story to tell us, how some man or woman lost and found again the happiness that is always half of the body; and even when they are wandering from it, leaves must fall over them, and flowers make fragrances about them, and warm winds fan them, and birds sing to them, for being of habundia's kin they must not forget the shadow of her green tree even for a moment, and the waters of her well must be always wet upon their sandals. his poetry often wearies us as the unbroken green of july wearies us, for there is something in us, some bitterness because of the fall it may be, that takes a little from the sweetness of eve's apple after the first mouthful; but he who did all things gladly and easily, who never knew the curse of labour, found it always as sweet as it was in eve's mouth. all kinds of associations have gathered about the pleasant things of the world and half taken the pleasure out of them for the greater number of men, but he saw them as when they came from the divine hand. i often see him in my mind as i saw him once at hammersmith holding up a glass of claret towards the light and saying, 'why do people say it is prosaic to get inspiration out of wine? is it not the sunlight and the sap in the leaves? are not grapes made by the sunlight and the sap?' v in one of his little socialist pamphlets he tells how he sat under an elm-tree and watched the starlings and thought of an old horse and an old labourer that had passed him by, and of the men and women he had seen in towns; and he wondered how all these had come to be as they were. he saw that the starlings were beautiful and merry and that men and the old horse they had subdued to their service were ugly and miserable, and yet the starlings, he thought, were of one kind whether there or in the south of england, and the ugly men and women were of one kind with those whose nobility and beauty had moved the ancient sculptors and poets to imagine the gods and the heroes after the images of men. then he began, he tells us, to meditate how this great difference might be ended and a new life, which would permit men to have beauty in common among them as the starlings have, be built on the wrecks of the old life. in other words, his mind was illuminated from within and lifted into prophecy in the full right sense of the word, and he saw the natural things he was alone gifted to see in their perfect form; and having that faith which is alone worth having, for it includes all others, a sure knowledge established in the constitution of his mind that perfect things are final things, he announced that all he had seen would come to pass. i do not think he troubled to understand books of economics, and mr. mackail says, i think, that they vexed him and wearied him. he found it enough to hold up, as it were, life as it is to-day beside his visions, and to show how faded its colours were and how sapless it was. and if we had not enough artistic feeling, enough feeling for the perfect that is, to admit the authority of the vision; or enough faith to understand that all that is imperfect passes away, he would not, as i think, have argued with us in a serious spirit. though i think that he never used the kinds of words i use in writing of him, though i think he would even have disliked a word like faith with its theological associations, i am certain that he understood thoroughly, as all artists understand a little, that the important things, the things we must believe in or perish, are beyond argument. we can no more reason about them than can the pigeon, come but lately from the egg, about the hawk whose shadow makes it cower among the grass. his vision is true because it is poetical, because we are a little happier when we are looking at it; and he knew as shelley knew by an act of faith that the economists should take their measurements not from life as it is, but from the vision of men like him, from the vision of the world made perfect that is buried under all minds. the early christians were of the kin of the wilderness and of the dry tree, and they saw an unearthly paradise, but he was of the kin of the well and of the green tree and he saw an earthly paradise. he obeyed his vision when he tried to make first his own house, for he was in this matter also like a child playing with the world, and then houses of other people, places where one could live happily; and he obeyed it when he wrote essays about the nature of happy work, and when he spoke at street corners about the coming changes. he knew clearly what he was doing towards the end, for he lived at a time when poets and artists have begun again to carry the burdens that priests and theologians took from them angrily some few hundred years ago. his art was not more essentially religious than rossetti's art, but it was different, for rossetti, drunken with natural beauty, saw the supernatural beauty, the impossible beauty, in his frenzy, while he being less intense and more tranquil would show us a beauty that would wither if it did not set us at peace with natural things, and if we did not believe that it existed always a little, and would some day exist in its fulness. he may not have been, indeed he was not, among the very greatest of the poets, but he was among the greatest of those who prepare the last reconciliation when the cross shall blossom with roses. 1902. the philosophy of shelley's poetry i. his ruling ideas when i was a boy in dublin i was one of a group who rented a room in a mean street to discuss philosophy. my fellow-students got more and more interested in certain modern schools of mystical belief, and i never found anybody to share my one unshakable belief. i thought that whatever of philosophy has been made poetry is alone permanent, and that one should begin to arrange it in some regular order, rejecting nothing as the make-believe of the poets. i thought, so far as i can recollect my thoughts after so many years, that if a powerful and benevolent spirit has shaped the destiny of this world, we can better discover that destiny from the words that have gathered up the heart's desire of the world, than from historical records, or from speculation, wherein the heart withers. since then i have observed dreams and visions very carefully, and am now certain that the imagination has some way of lighting on the truth that the reason has not, and that its commandments, delivered when the body is still and the reason silent, are the most binding we can ever know. i have re-read _prometheus unbound_, which i had hoped my fellow-students would have studied as a sacred book, and it seems to me to have an even more certain place than i had thought, among the sacred books of the world. i remember going to a learned scholar to ask about its deep meanings, which i felt more than understood, and his telling me that it was godwin's _political justice_ put into rhyme, and that shelley was a crude revolutionist, and believed that the overturning of kings and priests would regenerate mankind. i quoted the lines which tell how the halcyons ceased to prey on fish, and how poisonous leaves became good for food, to show that he foresaw more than any political regeneration, but was too timid to push the argument. i still believe that one cannot help believing him, as this scholar i know believes him, a vague thinker, who mixed occasional great poetry with a phantastic rhetoric, unless one compares such passages, and above all such passages as describe the liberty he praised, till one has discovered the system of belief that lay behind them. it should seem natural to find his thought full of subtlety, for mrs. shelley has told how he hesitated whether he should be a metaphysician or a poet, and has spoken of his 'huntings after the obscure' with regret, and said of that _prometheus unbound_, which so many for three generations have thought _political justice_ put into rhyme, 'it requires a mind as subtle and penetrating as his own to understand the mystic meanings scattered throughout the poem. they elude the ordinary reader by their abstraction and delicacy of distinction, but they are far from vague. it was his design to write prose metaphysical essays on the nature of man, which would have served to explain much of what is obscure in his poetry; a few scattered fragments of observation and remarks alone remain. he considered these philosophical views of mind and nature to be instinct with the intensest spirit of poetry.' from these scattered fragments and observations, and from many passages read in their light, one soon comes to understand that his liberty was so much more than the liberty of _political justice_ that it was one with intellectual beauty, and that the regeneration he foresaw was so much more than the regeneration many political dreamers have foreseen, that it could not come in its perfection till the hours bore 'time to his grave in eternity.' in _a defence of poetry_, the profoundest essay on the foundation of poetry in english, he shows that the poet and the lawgiver hold their station by the right of the same faculty, the one uttering in words and the other in the forms of society, his vision of the divine order, the intellectual beauty. 'poets, according to the circumstances of the age and nation in which they appeared, were called in the earliest epoch of the world legislators or prophets, and a poet essentially comprises and unites both these characters. for he not only beholds intensely the present as it is, and discovers those laws according to which present things are to be ordained, but he beholds the future in the present, and his thoughts are the germs of the flowers and the fruit of latest time.' 'language, colour, form, and religious and civil habits of action, are all the instruments and materials of poetry.' poetry is 'the creation of actions according to the unchangeable process of human nature as existing in the mind of the creator, which is itself the image of all other minds.' 'poets have been challenged to resign the civic crown to reasoners and merchants.... it is admitted that the exercise of the imagination is the most delightful, but it is alleged that that of reason is the more useful.... whilst the mechanist abridges and the political economist combines labour, let them be sure that their speculations, for want of correspondence with those first principles which belong to the imagination, do not tend, as they have in modern england, to exasperate at once the extremes of luxury and want.... the rich have become richer, the poor have become poorer,... such are the effects which must ever flow from an unmitigated exercise of the calculating faculty.' the speaker of these things might almost be blake, who held that the reason not only created ugliness, but all other evils. the books of all wisdom are hidden in the cave of the witch of atlas, who is one of his personifications of beauty, and when she moves over the enchanted river that is an image of all life, the priests cast aside their deceits, and the king crowns an ape to mock his own sovereignty, and the soldiers gather about the anvils to beat their swords to ploughshares, and lovers cast away their timidity, and friends are united; while the power, which in _laon and cythna_, awakens the mind of the reformer to contend, and itself contends, against the tyrannies of the world, is first seen, as the star of love or beauty. and at the end of _the ode to naples_, he cries out to 'the spirit of beauty' to overturn the tyrannies of the world, or to fill them with its 'harmonizing ardours.' he calls the spirit of beauty liberty, because despotism, and perhaps, as 'the man of virtuous soul commands not nor obeys,' all authority, pluck virtue from her path towards beauty, and because it leads us by that love whose service is perfect freedom. it leads all things by love, for he cries again and again that love is the perception of beauty in thought and things, and it orders all things by love, for it is love that impels the soul to its expressions in thought and in action, by making us 'seek to awaken in all things that are, a community with what we experience within ourselves.' 'we are born into the world, and there is something within us which, from the instant that we live, more and more thirsts after its likeness.' we have 'a soul within our soul that describes a circle around its proper paradise which pain and sorrow and evil dare not overleap,' and we labour to see this soul in many mirrors, that we may possess it the more abundantly. he would hardly seek the progress of the world by any less gentle labour, and would hardly have us resist evil itself. he bids the reformers in _the philosophical review of reform_ receive 'the onset of the cavalry,' if it be sent to disperse their meetings, 'with folded arms,' and 'not because active resistance is not justifiable, but because temperance and courage would produce greater advantages than the most decisive victory;' and he gives them like advice in _the masque of anarchy_, for liberty, the poem cries, 'is love,' and can make the rich man kiss its feet, and, like those who followed christ, give away his goods and follow it throughout the world. he does not believe that the reformation of society can bring this beauty, this divine order, among men without the regeneration of the hearts of men. even in _queen mab_, which was written before he had found his deepest thought, or rather perhaps before he had found words to utter it, for i do not think men change much in their deepest thought, he is less anxious to change men's beliefs, as i think, than to cry out against that serpent more subtle than any beast of the field, 'the cause and the effect of tyranny.' he affirms again and again that the virtuous, those who have 'pure desire and universal love,' are happy in the midst of tyranny, and he foresees a day when 'the spirit of nature,' the spirit of beauty of his later poems, who has her 'throne of power unappealable in every human heart,' shall have made men so virtuous that 'kingly glare will lose its power to dazzle and silently pass by,' and as it seems even commerce, 'the venal interchange of all that human art or nature yields, which wealth should purchase not,' come as silently to an end. he was always, indeed in chief, a witness for that 'power unappealable.' maddalo, in _julian and maddalo_, says that the soul is powerless, and can only, like a 'dreary bell hung in a heaven-illumined tower, toll our thoughts and our desires to meet round the rent heart and pray'; but julian, who is shelley himself, replies, as the makers of all religions have replied- 'where is the beauty, love and truth we seek but in our minds? and if we were not weak, should we be less in deed than in desire?' while _mont blanc_ is an intricate analogy to affirm that the soul has its sources in 'the secret strength of things,' 'which governs thought and to the infinite heavens is a law.' he even thought that men might be immortal were they sinless, and his cythna bids the sailors be without remorse, for all that live are stained as they are. it is thus, she says, that time marks men and their thoughts for the tomb. and the 'red comet,' the image of evil in _laon and cythna_, when it began its war with the star of beauty, brought not only 'fear, hatred, fraud, and tyranny,' but 'death, decay, earthquake, and blight and madness pale.' when the red comet is conquered, when jupiter is overthrown by demogorgon, when the prophecy of queen mab is fulfilled, visible nature will put on perfection again. he declares, in one of the notes to _queen mab_, that 'there is no great extravagance in presuming ... that there should be a perfect identity between the moral and physical improvement of the human species,' and thinks it 'certain that wisdom is not compatible with disease, and that, in the present state of the climates of the earth, health in the true and comprehensive sense of the word is out of the reach of civilized man.' in _prometheus unbound_ he sees, as in the ecstasy of a saint, the ships moving among the seas of the world without fear of danger 'by the light of wave-reflected flowers, and floating odours, and music soft,' and poison dying out of the green things, and cruelty out of all living things, and even the toads and efts becoming beautiful, and at last time being borne 'to his tomb in eternity.' this beauty, this divine order, whereof all things shall become a part in a kind of resurrection of the body, is already visible to the dead and to souls in ecstasy, for ecstasy is a kind of death. the dying lionel hears the song of the nightingale, and cries- 'heardst thou not sweet words among that heaven-resounding minstrelsy? heardst thou not that those who die awake in a world of ecstasy? how love, when limbs are interwoven, and sleep, when the night of life is cloven, and thought to the world's dim boundaries clinging, and music when one beloved is singing, is death? let us drain right joyously the cup which the sweet bird fills for me.' and in the most famous passage in all his poetry he sings of death as of a mistress. 'life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, stains the white radiance of eternity.' 'die, if thou wouldst be with that which thou wouldst seek;' and he sees his own soon-coming death in a rapture of prophecy, for 'the fire for which all thirst' beams upon him, 'consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.' when he is dead he will still influence the living, for though adonais has fled 'to the burning fountains whence he came,' and 'is a portion of the eternal which must glow through time and change unquenchably the same,' and has 'awaked from the dream of life,' he has not gone from 'the young dawn,' or the 'caverns in the forests,' or 'the faint flowers and the fountains.' he has been 'made one with nature,' and his voice is 'heard in all her music,' and his presence is felt wherever 'that power may move which has withdrawn his being to its own,' and he bears 'his part' when it is compelling mortal things to their appointed forms, and he overshadows men's minds at their supreme moments, for 'when lofty thought lifts a young heart above its mortal lair, and love and life contend in it for what shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there, and move like winds of light on dark and stormy air.' 'of his speculations as to what will befall this inestimable spirit when we appear to die,' mrs. shelley has written, 'a mystic ideality tinged these speculations in shelley's mind; certain stanzas in the poem of _the sensitive plant_ express, in some degree, the almost inexpressible idea, not that we die into another state, when this state is no longer, from some reason, unapparent as well as apparent, accordant with our being--but that those who rise above the ordinary nature of man, fade from before our imperfect organs; they remain in their "love, beauty, and delight," in a world congenial to them, and we, clogged by "error, ignorance, and strife," see them not till we are fitted by purification and improvement to their higher state.' not merely happy souls, but all beautiful places and movements and gestures and events, when we think they have ceased to be, have become portions of the eternal. 'in this life of error, ignorance, and strife, where nothing is, but all things seem, and we the shadows of the dream, it is a modest creed, and yet pleasant, if one considers it, to own that death itself must be, like all the rest, a mockery. this garden sweet, that lady fair, and all sweet shapes and odours there, in truth have never passed away; 'tis we, 'tis ours are changed, not they. for love and beauty and delight there is no death, nor change; their might exceeds our organs, which endure no light, being themselves obscure.' he seems in his speculations to have lit on that memory of nature the visionaries claim for the foundation of their knowledge; but i do not know whether he thought, as they do, that all things good and evil remain for ever, 'thinking the thought and doing the deed,' though not, it may be, self-conscious; or only thought that 'love and beauty and delight' remain for ever. the passage where queen mab awakes 'all knowledge of the past,' and the good and evil 'events of old and wondrous times,' was no more doubtless than a part of the machinery of the poem, but all the machineries of poetry are parts of the convictions of antiquity, and readily become again convictions in minds that dwell upon them in a spirit of intense idealism. intellectual beauty has not only the happy dead to do her will, but ministering spirits who correspond to the devas of the east, and the elemental spirits of mediã¦val europe, and the sidhe of ancient ireland, and whose too constant presence, and perhaps shelley's ignorance of their more traditional forms, give some of his poetry an air of rootless phantasy. they change continually in his poetry, as they do in the visions of the mystics everywhere and of the common people in ireland, and the forms of these changes display, in an especial sense, the glowing forms of his mind when freed from all impulse not out of itself or out of supersensual power. these are 'gleams of a remoter world which visit us in sleep,' spiritual essences whose shadows are the delights of all the senses, sounds 'folded in cells of crystal silence,' 'visions swift and sweet and quaint,' which lie waiting their moment 'each in his thin sheath like a chrysalis,' 'odours' among 'ever-blooming eden trees', 'liquors' that can give 'happy sleep,' or can make tears 'all wonder and delight'; 'the golden genii who spoke to the poets of greece in dreams'; 'the phantoms' which become the forms of the arts when 'the mind, arising bright from the embrace of beauty,' 'casts on them the gathered rays which are reality'; the 'guardians' who move in 'the atmosphere of human thought' as 'the birds within the wind, or the fish within the wave,' or man's thought itself through all things; and who join the throng of the happy hours when time is passing away- 'as the flying fish leap from the indian deep, and mix with the seabirds half asleep.' it is these powers which lead asia and panthea, as they would lead all the affections of humanity, by words written upon leaves, by faint songs, by eddies of echoes that draw 'all spirits on that secret way,' by the 'dying odours' of flowers and by 'the sunlight of the sphered dew,' beyond the gates of birth and death to awake demogorgon, eternity, that 'the painted veil' 'called life' may be 'torn aside.' there are also ministers of ugliness and all evil, like those that came to prometheus- 'as from the rose which the pale priestess kneels to gather for her festal crown of flowers, the aã«rial crimson falls, flushing her cheek, so from our victim's destined agony the shade which is our form invests us round; else we are shapeless as our mother night.' or like those whose shapes the poet sees in _the triumph of life_, coming from the procession that follows the car of life, as 'hope' changes to 'desire,' shadows 'numerous as the dead leaves blown in autumn evening from a poplar tree'; and resembling those they come from, until, if i understand an obscure phrase aright, they are 'wrapt' round 'all the busy phantoms that live there as the sun shapes the clouds.' some to sit 'chattering like apes,' and some like 'old anatomies' 'hatching their bare broods under the shade of dã¦mons' wings,' laughing 'to reassume the delegated powers' they had given to the tyrants of the earth, and some 'like small gnats and flies' to throng 'about the brow of lawyers, statesmen, priest and theorist,' and some 'like discoloured shapes of snow' to fall 'on fairest bosoms and the sunniest hair,' to be 'melted by the youthful glow which they extinguish,' and many to 'fling shadows of shadows yet unlike themselves,' shadows that are shaped into new forms by that 'creative ray' in which all move like motes. these ministers of beauty and ugliness were certainly more than metaphors or picturesque phrases to one who believed the 'thoughts which are called real or external objects' differed but in regularity of recurrence from 'hallucinations, dreams, and the ideas of madness,' and lessened this difference by telling how he had dreamed 'three several times, between intervals of two or more years, the same precise dream,' and who had seen images with the mind's eye that left his nerves shaken for days together. shadows that were as when there 'hovers a flock of vampire bats before the glare of the tropic sun, bringing, ere evening, strange night upon some indian vale,' could not but have had more than a metaphorical and picturesque being to one who had spoken in terror with an image of himself, and who had fainted at the apparition of a woman with eyes in her breasts, and who had tried to burn down a wood, if we can trust mrs. williams' account, because he believed a devil, who had first tried to kill him, had sought refuge there. it seems to me, indeed, that shelley had reawakened in himself the age of faith, though there were times when he would doubt, as even the saints have doubted, and that he was a revolutionist, because he had heard the commandment, 'if ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.' i have re-read his _prometheus unbound_ for the first time for many years, in the woods of drim-da-rod, among the echte hills, and sometimes i have looked towards slieve-nan-orr, where the country people say the last battle of the world shall be fought till the third day, when a priest shall lift a chalice, and the thousand years of peace begin. and i think this mysterious song utters a faith as simple and as ancient as the faith of those country people, in a form suited to a new age, that will understand, with blake, that the holy spirit is 'an intellectual fountain,' and that the kinds and degrees of beauty are the images of its authority. ii. his ruling symbols at a comparatively early time shelley made his imprisoned cythna become wise in all human wisdom through the contemplation of her own mind, and write out this wisdom upon the sand in 'signs' that were 'clear elemental shapes whose smallest change' made 'a subtler language within language' and were 'the key of truths, which once were dimly taught in old crotona.' his early romances and much throughout his poetry show how strong a fascination the traditions of magic and of the magical philosophy had cast over his mind, and one can hardly suppose that he had not brooded over their doctrine of symbols or signatures, though i do not find anything to show that he gave it any deep study. one finds in his poetry, besides innumerable images that have not the definiteness of symbols, many images that are certainly symbols, and as the years went by he began to use these with a more and more deliberately symbolic purpose. i imagine that, when he wrote his earlier poems, he allowed the subconscious life to lay its hands so firmly upon the rudder of his imagination, that he was little conscious of the abstract meaning of the images that rose in what seemed the idleness of his mind. any one who has any experience of any mystical state of the soul knows how there float up in the mind profound symbols,[1] whose meaning, if indeed they do not delude one into the dream that they are meaningless, one does not perhaps understand for years. nor i think has any one, who has known that experience with any constancy, failed to find some day in some old book or on some old monument, a strange or intricate image, that had floated up before him, and grow perhaps dizzy with the sudden conviction that our little memories are but a part of some great memory that renews the world and men's thoughts age after age, and that our thoughts are not, as we suppose, the deep but a little foam upon the deep. shelley understood this, as is proved by what he says of the eternity of beautiful things and of the influence of the dead, but whether he understood that the great memory is also a dwelling-house of symbols, of images that are living souls, i cannot tell. he had certainly experience of all but the most profound of the mystical states, of that union with created things which assuredly must precede the soul's union with the uncreated spirit. he says in his fragment of an essay upon life, mistaking a unique experience for the common experience of all: 'let us recollect our sensations as children ... we less habitually distinguished all that we saw and felt from ourselves. they seemed as it were to constitute one mass. there are some persons who in this respect are always children. those who are subject to the state called reverie, feel as if their nature were resolved into the surrounding universe, or as if the surrounding universe were resolved into their being,' and he must have expected to receive thoughts and images from beyond his own mind, just in so far as that mind transcended its preoccupation with particular time and place, for he believed inspiration a kind of death; and he could hardly have helped perceiving that an image that has transcended particular time and place becomes a symbol, passes beyond death, as it were, and becomes a living soul. when shelley went to the continent with godwin's daughter in 1812 they sailed down certain great rivers in an open boat, and when he summed up in his preface to _laon and cythna_ the things that helped to make him a poet, he spoke of these voyages: 'i have sailed down mighty rivers and seen the sun rise and set and the stars come forth whilst i sailed night and day down a rapid stream among mountains.' he may have seen some cave that was the bed of a rivulet by some river side, or have followed some mountain stream to its source in a cave, for from his return to england rivers and streams and wells, flowing through caves or rising in them, came into every poem of his that was of any length, and always with the precision of symbols. alastor passed in his boat along a river in a cave; and when for the last time he felt the presence of the spirit he loved and followed, it was when he watched his image in a silent well; and when he died it was where a river fell into 'an abysmal chasm'; and the witch of atlas in her gladness, as he in his sadness, passed in her boat along a river in a cave, and it was where it bubbled out of a cave that she was born; and when rousseau, the typical poet of _the triumph of life_, awoke to the vision that was life, it was where a rivulet bubbled out of a cave; and the poet of _epipsychidion_ met the evil beauty 'by a well under blue nightshade bowers'; and cythna bore her child imprisoned in a great cave beside 'a fountain round and vast and in which the wave imprisoned leaped and boiled perpetually'; and her lover laon was brought to his prison in a high column through a cave where there was 'a putrid pool,' and when he went to see the conquered city he dismounted beside a polluted fountain in the market-place, foreshadowing thereby that spirit who at the end of _prometheus unbound_ gazes at a regenerated city from 'within a fountain in the public square'; and when laon and cythna are dead they awake beside a fountain and drift into paradise along a river; and at the end of things prometheus and asia are to live amid a happy world in a cave where a fountain 'leaps with an awakening sound'; and it was by a fountain, the meeting-place of certain unhappy lovers, that rosalind and helen told their unhappiness to one another; and it was under a willow by a fountain that the enchantress and her lover began their unhappy love; while his lesser poems and his prose fragments use caves and rivers and wells and fountains continually as metaphors. it may be that his subconscious life seized upon some passing scene, and moulded it into an ancient symbol without help from anything but that great memory; but so good a platonist as shelley could hardly have thought of any cave as a symbol, without thinking of plato's cave that was the world; and so good a scholar may well have had porphyry on 'the cave of the nymphs' in his mind. when i compare porphyry's description of the cave where the phã¦acian boat left odysseus, with shelley's description of the cave of the witch of atlas, to name but one of many, i find it hard to think otherwise. i quote taylor's translation, only putting mr. lang's prose for taylor's bad verse. 'what does homer obscurely signify by the cave in ithaca which he describes in the following verses? "now at the harbour's head is a long-leaved olive tree, and hard by is a pleasant cave and shadowy, sacred to the nymphs, that are called naiads. and therein are mixing bowls and jars of stone, and there moreover do bees hive. and there are great looms of stone, whereon the nymphs weave raiment of purple stain, a marvel to behold; and there are waters welling ever more. two gates there are to the cave, the one set towards the north wind, whereby men may go down, but the portals toward the south pertain rather to the gods, whereby men may not enter: it is the way of the immortals."' he goes on to argue that the cave was a temple before homer wrote, and that 'the ancients did not establish temples without fabulous symbols,' and then begins to interpret homer's description in all its detail. the ancients, he says, 'consecrated a cave to the world' and held 'the flowing waters' and the 'obscurity of the cavern' 'apt symbols of what the world contains,' and he calls to witness zoroaster's cave with fountains; and often caves are, he says, symbols of 'all invisible power; because as caves are obscure and dark, so the essence of all these powers is occult,' and quotes a lost hymn to apollo to prove that nymphs living in caves fed men 'from intellectual fountains'; and he contends that fountains and rivers symbolize generation, and that the word nymph 'is commonly applied to all souls descending into generation,' and that the two gates of homer's cave are the gate of generation and the gate of ascent through death to the gods, the gate of cold and moisture, and the gate of heat and fire. cold, he says, causes life in the world, and heat causes life among the gods, and the constellation of the cup is set in the heavens near the sign cancer, because it is there that the souls descending from the milky way receive their draught of the intoxicating cold drink of generation. 'the mixing bowls and jars of stone' are consecrated to the naiads, and are also, as it seems, symbolical of bacchus, and are of stone because of the rocky beds of the rivers. and 'the looms of stone' are the symbols of the 'souls that descend into generation.' 'for the formation of the flesh is on or about the bones, which in the bodies of animals resemble stones,' and also because 'the body is a garment' not only about the soul, but about all essences that become visible, for 'the heavens are called by the ancients a veil, in consequence of being as it were the vestments of the celestial gods.' the bees hive in the mixing bowls and jars of stone, for so porphyry understands the passage, because honey was the symbol adopted by the ancients for 'pleasure arising from generation.' the ancients, he says, called souls not only naiads but bees, 'as the efficient cause of sweetness'; but not all souls 'proceeding into generation' are called bees, 'but those who will live in it justly and who after having performed such things as are acceptable to the gods will again return (to their kindred stars). for this insect loves to return to the place from whence it came and is eminently just and sober.' i find all these details in the cave of the witch of atlas, the most elaborately described of shelley's caves, except the two gates, and these have a far-off echo in her summer journeys on her cavern river and in her winter sleep in 'an inextinguishable well of crimson fire.' we have for the mixing bowls, and jars of stone full of honey, those delights of the senses, 'sounds of air' 'folded in cells of crystal silences,' 'liquors clear and sweet' 'in crystal vials,' and for the bees, visions 'each in his thin sheath like a chrysalis,' and for 'the looms of stone' and 'raiment of purple stain' the witch's spinning and embroidering; and the witch herself is a naiad, and was born from one of the atlantides, who lay in 'a chamber of grey rock' until she was changed by the sun's embrace into a cloud. when one turns to shelley for an explanation of the cave and fountain one finds how close his thought was to porphyry's. he looked upon thought as a condition of life in generation and believed that the reality beyond was something other than thought. he wrote in his fragment 'on life,' 'that the basis of all things cannot be, as the popular philosophy alleges, mind, is sufficiently evident. mind, as far as we have any experience of its properties, and beyond that experience how vain is argument, cannot create, it can only perceive;' and in another passage he defines mind as existence. water is his great symbol of existence, and he continually meditates over its mysterious source. in his prose he tells how 'thought can with difficulty visit the intricate and winding chambers which it inhabits. it is like a river, whose rapid and perpetual stream flows outward.... the caverns of the mind are obscure and shadowy; or pervaded with a lustre, beautiful and bright indeed, but shining not beyond their portals.' when the witch has passed in her boat from the caverned river, that is doubtless her own destiny, she passes along the nile 'by moeris and the mareotid lakes,' and sees all human life shadowed upon its waters in shadows that 'never are erased but tremble ever'; and in many a dark and subterranean street under the nile--new caverns--and along the bank of the nile; and as she bends over the unhappy, she compares unhappiness to 'the strife that stirs the liquid surface of man's life'; and because she can see the reality of things she is described as journeying 'in the calm depths' of 'the wide lake' we journey over unpiloted. alastor calls the river that he follows an image of his mind, and thinks that it will be as hard to say where his thought will be when he is dead as where its waters will be in ocean or cloud in a little while. in _mont blanc_, a poem so overladen with descriptions in parentheses that one loses sight of its logic, shelley compares the flowing through our mind of 'the universe of things,' which are, he has explained elsewhere, but thoughts, to the flowing of the arne through the ravine, and compares the unknown sources of our thoughts in some 'remoter world' whose 'gleams' 'visit the soul in sleep,' to arne's sources among the glaciers on the mountain heights. cythna in the passage where she speaks of making signs 'a subtle language within language' on the sand by the 'fountain' of sea water in the cave where she is imprisoned, speaks of the 'cave' of her mind which gave its secrets to her, and of 'one mind the type of all' which is a 'moveless wave' reflecting 'all moveless things that are'; and then passing more completely under the power of the symbol, she speaks of growing wise through contemplation of the images that rise out of the fountain at the call of her will. again and again one finds some passing allusion to the cave of man's mind, or to the caves of his youth, or to the cave of mysteries we enter at death, for to shelley as to porphyry it is more than an image of life in the world. it may mean any enclosed life, as when it is the dwelling-place of asia and prometheus, or when it is 'the still cave of poetry,' and it may have all meanings at once, or it may have as little meaning as some ancient religious symbol enwoven from the habit of centuries with the patterns of a carpet or a tapestry. as shelley sailed along those great rivers and saw or imagined the cave that associated itself with rivers in his mind, he saw half-ruined towers upon the hilltops, and once at any rate a tower is used to symbolize a meaning that is the contrary to the meaning symbolized by caves. cythna's lover is brought through the cave where there is a polluted fountain to a high tower, for being man's far-seeing mind, when the world has cast him out he must to the 'towers of thought's crowned powers'; nor is it possible for shelley to have forgotten this first imprisonment when he made men imprison lionel in a tower for a like offence; and because i know how hard it is to forget a symbolical meaning, once one has found it, i believe shelley had more than a romantic scene in his mind when he made prince athanase follow his mysterious studies in a lighted tower above the sea, and when he made the old hermit watch over laon in his sickness in a half-ruined tower, wherein the sea, here doubtless as to cythna, 'the one mind,' threw 'spangled sands' and 'rarest sea shells.' the tower, important in maeterlinck, as in shelley, is, like the sea, and rivers, and caves with fountains, a very ancient symbol, and would perhaps, as years went by, have grown more important in his poetry. the contrast between it and the cave in _laon and cythna_ suggests a contrast between the mind looking outward upon men and things and the mind looking inward upon itself, which may or may not have been in shelley's mind, but certainly helps, with one knows not how many other dim meanings, to give the poem mystery and shadow. it is only by ancient symbols, by symbols that have numberless meanings beside the one or two the writer lays an emphasis upon, or the half-score he knows of, that any highly subjective art can escape from the barrenness and shallowness of a too conscious arrangement, into the abundance and depth of nature. the poet of essences and pure ideas must seek in the half-lights that glimmer from symbol to symbol as if to the ends of the earth, all that the epic and dramatic poet finds of mystery and shadow in the accidental circumstance of life. the most important, the most precise of all shelley's symbols, the one he uses with the fullest knowledge of its meaning, is the morning and evening star. it rises and sets for ever over the towers and rivers, and is the throne of his genius. personified as a woman it leads rousseau, the typical poet of _the triumph of life_, under the power of the destroying hunger of life, under the power of the sun that we shall find presently as a symbol of life, and it is the morning star that wars against the principle of evil in _laon and cythna_, at first as a star with a red comet, here a symbol of all evil as it is of disorder in _epipsychidion_, and then as a serpent with an eagle--symbols in blake too and in the alchemists; and it is the morning star that appears as a winged youth to a woman, who typifies humanity amid its sorrows, in the first canto of _laon and cythna_; and it is evoked by the wailing women of _hellas_, who call it 'lamp of the free' and 'beacon of love' and would go where it hides flying from the deepening night among those 'kingless continents sinless as eden,' and 'mountains and islands' 'prankt on the sapphire sea' that are but the opposing hemispheres to the senses but, as i think, the ideal world, the world of the dead, to the imagination; and in the _ode to liberty_, liberty is bid lead wisdom out of the inmost cave of man's mind as the morning star leads the sun out of the waves. we know too that had _prince athanase_ been finished it would have described the finding of pandemus, the stars' lower genius, and the growing weary of her, and the coming to its true genius urania at the coming of death, as the day finds the star at evening. there is hardly indeed a poem of any length in which one does not find it as a symbol of love, or liberty, or wisdom, or beauty, or of some other expression of that intellectual beauty, which was to shelley's mind the central power of the world; and to its faint and fleeting light he offers up all desires, that are as 'the desire of the moth for the star, the desire for something afar from the sphere of our sorrow.' when its genius comes to rousseau, shedding dew with one hand, and treading out the stars with her feet, for she is also the genius of the dawn, she brings him a cup full of oblivion and love. he drinks and his mind becomes like sand 'on desert labrador' marked by the feet of deer and a wolf. and then the new vision, life, the cold light of day moves before him, and the first vision becomes an invisible presence. the same image was in his mind too when he wrote 'hesperus flies from awakening night and pants in its beauty with speed and light, fast fleeting, soft and bright.' though i do not think that shelley needed to go to porphyry's account of the cold intoxicating cup, given to the souls in the constellation of the cup near the constellation cancer, for so obvious a symbol as the cup, or that he could not have found the wolf and the deer and the continual flight of his star in his own mind, his poetry becomes the richer, the more emotional, and loses something of its appearance of idle phantasy when i remember that these are ancient symbols, and still come to visionaries in their dreams. because the wolf is but a more violent symbol of longing and desire than the hound, his wolf and deer remind me of the hound and deer that usheen saw in the gaelic poem chasing one another on the water before he saw the young man following the woman with the golden apple; and of a galway tale that tells how niam, whose name means brightness or beauty, came to usheen as a deer; and of a vision that a friend of mine saw when gazing at a dark-blue curtain. i was with a number of hermetists, and one of them said to another, 'do you see something in the curtain?' the other gazed at the curtain for a while and saw presently a man led through a wood by a black hound, and then the hound lay dead at a place the seer knew was called, without knowing why, 'the meeting of the suns,' and the man followed a red hound, and then the red hound was pierced by a spear. a white fawn watched the man out of the wood, but he did not look at it, for a white hound came and he followed it trembling, but the seer knew that he would follow the fawn at last, and that it would lead him among the gods. the most learned of the hermetists said, 'i cannot tell the meaning of the hounds or where the meeting of the suns is, but i think the fawn is the morning and evening star.' i have little doubt that when the man saw the white fawn he was coming out of the darkness and passion of the world into some day of partial regeneration, and that it was the morning star and would be the evening star at its second coming. i have little doubt that it was but the story of prince athanase and what may have been the story of rousseau in _the triumph of life_, thrown outward once again from that great memory, which is still the mother of the muses, though men no longer believe in it. it may have been this memory, or it may have been some impulse of his nature too subtle for his mind to follow, that made keats, with his love of embodied things, of precision of form and colouring, of emotions made sleepy by the flesh, see intellectual beauty in the moon; and blake, who lived in that energy he called eternal delight, see it in the sun, where his personification of poetic genius labours at a furnace. i think there was certainly some reason why these men took so deep a pleasure in lights, that shelley thought of with weariness and trouble. the moon is the most changeable of symbols, and not merely because it is the symbol of change. as mistress of the waters she governs the life of instinct and the generation of things, for as porphyry says, even 'the apparition of images' in the 'imagination' is through 'an excess of moisture'; and, as a cold and changeable fire set in the bare heavens, she governs alike chastity and the joyless idle drifting hither and thither of generated things. she may give god a body and have gabriel to bear her messages, or she may come to men in their happy moments as she came to endymion, or she may deny life and shoot her arrows; but because she only becomes beautiful in giving herself, and is no flying ideal, she is not loved by the children of desire. shelley could not help but see her with unfriendly eyes. he is believed to have described mary shelley at a time when she had come to seem cold in his eyes, in that passage of _epipsychidion_ which tells how a woman like the moon led him to her cave and made 'frost' creep over the sea of his mind, and so bewitched life and death with 'her silver voice' that they ran from him crying, 'away, he is not of our crew.' when he describes the moon as part of some beautiful scene he can call her beautiful, but when he personifies, when his words come under the influence of that great memory or of some mysterious tide in the depth of our being, he grows unfriendly or not truly friendly or at the most pitiful. the moon's lips 'are pale and waning,' it is 'the cold moon,' or 'the frozen and inconstant moon,' or it is 'forgotten' and 'waning,' or it 'wanders' and is 'weary,' or it is 'pale and grey,' or it is 'pale for weariness,' and 'wandering companionless' and 'ever changing,' and finding 'no object worth' its 'constancy,' or it is like a 'dying lady' who 'totters' 'out of her chamber led by the insane and feeble wanderings of her fading brain,' and even when it is no more than a star, it casts an evil influence that makes the lips of lovers 'lurid' or pale. it only becomes a thing of delight when time is being borne to his tomb in eternity, for then the spirit of the earth, man's procreant mind, fills it with his own joyousness. he describes the spirit of the earth and of the moon, moving above the rivulet of their lives in a passage which reads like a half-understood vision. man has become 'one harmonious soul of many a soul' and 'all things flow to all' and 'familiar acts are beautiful through love,' and an 'animation of delight' at this change flows from spirit to spirit till the snow 'is loosened from the moon's lifeless mountains.' some old magical writer, i forget who, says if you wish to be melancholy hold in your left hand an image of the moon made out of silver, and if you wish to be happy hold in your right hand an image of the sun made out of gold. the sun is the symbol of sensitive life, and of belief and joy and pride and energy, of indeed the whole life of the will, and of that beauty which neither lures from far off, nor becomes beautiful in giving itself, but makes all glad because it is beauty. taylor quotes proclus as calling it 'the demiurgos of everything sensible.' it was therefore natural that blake, who was always praising energy, and all exalted overflowing of oneself, and who thought art an impassioned labour to keep men from doubt and despondency, and woman's love an evil, when it would trammel the man's will, should see the poetic genius not in a woman star but in the sun, and should rejoice throughout his poetry in 'the sun in his strength.' shelley, however, except when he uses it to describe the peculiar beauty of emilia viviani, who was 'like an incarnation of the sun when light is changed to love,' saw it with less friendly eyes. he seems to have seen it with perfect happiness only when veiled in mist, or glimmering upon water, or when faint enough to do no more than veil the brightness of his own star; and in _the triumph of life_, the one poem in which it is part of the avowed symbolism, its power is the being and the source of all tyrannies. when the woman personifying the morning star has faded from before his eyes, rousseau sees a 'new vision' in 'a cold bright car' with a rainbow hovering over her, and as she comes the shadow passes from 'leaf and stone,' and the souls she has enslaved seem in 'that light like atomies to dance within a sunbeam,' or they dance among the flowers that grow up newly 'in the grassy verdure of the desert,' unmindful of the misery that is to come upon them. 'these are the great, the unforgotten,' all who have worn 'mitres and helms and crowns or wreaths of light,' and yet have not known themselves. even 'great plato' is there because he knew joy and sorrow, because life that could not subdue him by gold or pain, by 'age or sloth or slavery,' subdued him by love. all who have ever lived are there except christ and socrates and 'the sacred few' who put away all life could give, being doubtless followers throughout their lives of the forms borne by the flying ideal, or who, 'as soon as they had touched the world with living flame, flew back like eagles to their native noon.' in ancient times, it seems to me that blake, who for all his protest was glad to be alive, and ever spoke of his gladness, would have worshipped in some chapel of the sun, and that keats, who accepted life gladly though 'with a delicious diligent indolence,' would have worshipped in some chapel of the moon, but that shelley, who hated life because he sought 'more in life than any understood,' would have wandered, lost in a ceaseless reverie, in some chapel of the star of infinite desire. i think too that as he knelt before an altar, where a thin flame burnt in a lamp made of green agate, a single vision would have come to him again and again, a vision of a boat drifting down a broad river between high hills where there were caves and towers, and following the light of one star; and that voices would have told him how there is for every man some one scene, some one adventure, some one picture that is the image of his secret life, for wisdom first speaks in images, and that this one image, if he would but brood over it his life long, would lead his soul, disentangled from unmeaning circumstance and the ebb and flow of the world, into that far household, where the undying gods await all whose souls have become simple as flame, whose bodies have become quiet as an agate lamp. but he was born in a day when the old wisdom had vanished and was content merely to write verses, and often with little thought of more than verses. 1900. at stratford-on-avon i i have been hearing shakespeare, as the traveller in _news from nowhere_ might have heard him, had he not been hurried back into our noisy time. one passes through quiet streets, where gabled and red-tiled houses remember the middle age, to a theatre that has been made not to make money, but for the pleasure of making it, like the market houses that set the traveller chuckling; nor does one find it among hurrying cabs and ringing pavements, but in a green garden by a river side. inside i have to be content for a while with a chair, for i am unexpected, and there is not an empty seat but this; and yet there is no one who has come merely because one must go somewhere after dinner. all day, too, one does not hear or see an incongruous or noisy thing, but spends the hours reading the plays, and the wise and foolish things men have said of them, in the library of the theatre, with its oak-panelled walls and leaded windows of tinted glass; or one rows by reedy banks and by old farmhouses, and by old churches among great trees. it is certainly one's fault if one opens a newspaper, for mr. benson gives one a new play every night, and one need talk of nothing but the play in the inn-parlour, under the oak beams blackened by time and showing the mark of the adze that shaped them. i have seen this week _king john_, _richard ii._, the second part of _henry iv._, _henry v._, the second part of _henry vi._, and _richard iii._ played in their right order, with all the links that bind play to play unbroken; and partly because of a spirit in the place, and partly because of the way play supports play, the theatre has moved me as it has never done before. that strange procession of kings and queens, of warring nobles, of insurgent crowds, of courtiers, and of people of the gutter has been to me almost too visible, too audible, too full of an unearthly energy. i have felt as i have sometimes felt on grey days on the galway shore, when a faint mist has hung over the grey sea and the grey stones, as if the world might suddenly vanish and leave nothing behind, not even a little dust under one's feet. the people my mind's eye has seen have too much of the extravagance of dreams, like all the inventions of art before our crowded life had brought moderation and compromise, to seem more than a dream, and yet all else has grown dim before them. in london the first man one meets puts any high dream out of one's head, for he will talk to one of something at once vapid and exciting, some one of those many subjects of thought that build up our social unity. but here he gives back one's dream like a mirror. if we do not talk of the plays, we talk of the theatre, and how more people may be got to come, and our isolation from common things makes the future become grandiose and important. one man tells how the theatre and the library were at their foundation but part of a scheme the future is to fulfil. to them will be added a school where speech, and gesture, and fencing, and all else that an actor needs will be taught, and the council, which will have enlarged its festivals to some six weeks, will engage all the chief players of shakespeare, and perhaps of other great dramatists in this and other countries. these chief players will need to bring but few of their supporters, for the school will be able to fill all the lesser parts with players who are slowly recovering the lost tradition of musical speech. another man is certain that the festival, even without the school, which would require a new endowment, will grow in importance year by year, and that it may become with favouring chance the supreme dramatic event of the world; and when i suggest that it may help to break the evil prestige of london he becomes enthusiastic. surely a bitter hatred of london is becoming a mark of those that love the arts, and all that have this hatred should help anything that looks like a beginning of a centre of art elsewhere. the easiness of travel, which is always growing, began by emptying the country, but it may end by filling it; for adventures like this of stratford-on-avon show that people are ready to journey from all parts of england and scotland and ireland, and even from america, to live with their favourite art as shut away from the world as though they were 'in retreat,' as catholics say. nobody but an impressionist painter, who hides it in light and mist, even pretends to love a street for its own sake; and could we meet our friends and hear music and poetry in the country, none of us that are not captive would ever leave the thrushes. in london, we hear something that we like some twice or thrice in a winter, and among people who are thinking the while of a music-hall singer or of a member of parliament, but there we would hear it and see it among people who liked it well enough to have travelled some few hours to find it; and because those who care for the arts have few near friendships among those that do not, we would hear and see it among near friends. we would escape, too, from those artificial tastes and interests we cultivate, that we may have something to talk about among people we meet for a few minutes and not again, and the arts would grow serious as the ten commandments. ii i do not think there is anything i disliked in stratford, beside certain new houses, but the shape of the theatre; and as a larger theatre must be built sooner or later, that would be no great matter if one could put a wiser shape into somebody's head. i cannot think there is any excuse for a half-round theatre, where land is not expensive, or no very great audience to be seated within earshot of the stage; or that it was adopted for a better reason than because it has come down to us, though from a time when the art of the stage was a different art. the elizabethan theatre was a half-round, because the players were content to speak their lines on a platform, as if they were speakers at a public meeting, and we go on building in the same shape, although our art of the stage is the art of making a succession of pictures. were our theatres of the shape of a half-closed fan, like wagner's theatre, where the audience sit on seats that rise towards the broad end while the play is played at the narrow end, their pictures could be composed for eyes at a small number of points of view, instead of for eyes at many points of view, above and below and at the sides, and what is no better than a trade might become an art. with the eyes watching from the sides of a half-round, on the floor and in the boxes and galleries, would go the solid-built houses and the flat trees that shake with every breath of air; and we could make our pictures with robes that contrasted with great masses of colour in the back cloth and such severe or decorative forms of hills and trees and houses as would not overwhelm, as our naturalistic scenery does, the idealistic art of the poet, and all at a little price. naturalistic scene-painting is not an art, but a trade, because it is, at best, an attempt to copy the more obvious effects of nature by the methods of the ordinary landscape-painter, and by his methods made coarse and summary. it is but flashy landscape-painting and lowers the taste it appeals to, for the taste it appeals to has been formed by a more delicate art. decorative scene-painting would be, on the other hand, as inseparable from the movements as from the robes of the players and from the falling of the light; and being in itself a grave and quiet thing it would mingle with the tones of the voices and with the sentiment of the play, without overwhelming them under an alien interest. it would be a new and legitimate art appealing to a taste formed by itself and copying nothing but itself. mr. gordon craig used scenery of this kind at the purcell society performance the other day, and despite some marring of his effects by the half-round shape of the theatre, it was the first beautiful scenery our stage has seen. he created an ideal country where everything was possible, even speaking in verse, or speaking in music, or the expression of the whole of life in a dance, and i would like to see stratford-on-avon decorate its shakespeare with like scenery. as we cannot, it seems, go back to the platform and the curtain, and the argument for doing so is not without weight, we can only get rid of the sense of unreality, which most of us feel when we listen to the conventional speech of shakespeare, by making scenery as conventional. time after time his people use at some moment of deep emotion an elaborate or deliberate metaphor, or do some improbable thing which breaks an emotion of reality we have imposed upon him by an art that is not his, nor in the spirit of his. it also is an essential part of his method to give slight or obscure motives of many actions that our attention may dwell on what is of chief importance, and we set these cloudy actions among solid-looking houses, and what we hope are solid-looking trees, and illusion comes to an end, slain by our desire to increase it. in his art, as in all the older art of the world, there was much make-believe, and our scenery, too, should remember the time when, as my nurse used to tell me, herons built their nests in old men's beards! mr. benson did not venture to play the scene in _richard iii._ where the ghosts walk, as shakespeare wrote it, but had his scenery been as simple as mr. gordon craig's purple back cloth that made dido and ã�neas seem wandering on the edge of eternity, he would have found nothing absurd in pitching the tents of richard and richmond side by side. goethe has said, 'art is art, because it is not nature!' it brings us near to the archetypal ideas themselves, and away from nature, which is but their looking-glass. iii in _la peau de chagrin_ balzac spends many pages in describing a coquette, who seems the image of heartlessness, and then invents an improbable incident that her chief victim may discover how beautifully she can sing. nobody had ever heard her sing, and yet in her singing, and in her chatter with her maid, balzac tells us, was her true self. he would have us understand that behind the momentary self, which acts and lives in the world, and is subject to the judgment of the world, there is that which cannot be called before any mortal judgment seat, even though a great poet, or novelist, or philosopher be sitting upon it. great literature has always been written in a like spirit, and is, indeed, the forgiveness of sin, and when we find it becoming the accusation of sin, as in george eliot, who plucks her tito in pieces with as much assurance as if he had been clockwork, literature has begun to change into something else. george eliot had a fierceness one hardly finds but in a woman turned argumentative, but the habit of mind her fierceness gave its life to was characteristic of her century, and is the habit of mind of the shakespearian critics. they and she grew up in a century of utilitarianism, when nothing about a man seemed important except his utility to the state, and nothing so useful to the state as the actions whose effect can be weighed by the reason. the deeds of coriolanus, hamlet, timon, richard ii. had no obvious use, were, indeed, no more than the expression of their personalities, and so it was thought shakespeare was accusing them, and telling us to be careful lest we deserve the like accusations. it did not occur to the critics that you cannot know a man from his actions, because you cannot watch him in every kind of circumstance, and that men are made useless to the state as often by abundance as by emptiness, and that a man's business may at times be revelation, and not reformation. fortinbras was, it is likely enough, a better king than hamlet would have been, aufidius was a more reasonable man than coriolanus, henry v. was a better man-at-arms than richard ii., but after all, were not those others who changed nothing for the better and many things for the worse greater in the divine hierarchies? blake has said that 'the roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword are portions of eternity, too great for the eye of man,' but blake belonged by right to the ages of faith, and thought the state of less moment than the divine hierarchies. because reason can only discover completely the use of those obvious actions which everybody admires, and because every character was to be judged by efficiency in action, shakespearian criticism became a vulgar worshipper of success. i have turned over many books in the library at stratford-on-avon, and i have found in nearly all an antithesis, which grew in clearness and violence as the century grew older, between two types, whose representatives were richard ii., 'sentimental,' 'weak,' 'selfish,' 'insincere,' and henry v., 'shakespeare's only hero.' these books took the same delight in abasing richard ii. that school-boys do in persecuting some boy of fine temperament, who has weak muscles and a distaste for school games. and they had the admiration for henry v. that school-boys have for the sailor or soldier hero of a romance in some boys' paper. i cannot claim any minute knowledge of these books, but i think that these emotions began among the german critics, who perhaps saw something french and latin in richard ii., and i know that professor dowden, whose book i once read carefully, first made these emotions eloquent and plausible. he lived in ireland, where everything has failed, and he meditated frequently upon the perfection of character which had, he thought, made england successful, for, as we say, 'cows beyond the water have long horns.' he forgot that england, as gordon has said, was made by her adventurers, by her people of wildness and imagination and eccentricity; and thought that henry v., who only seemed to be these things because he had some commonplace vices, was not only the typical anglo-saxon, but the model shakespeare held up before england; and he even thought it worth while pointing out that shakespeare himself was making a large fortune while he was writing about henry's victories. in professor dowden's successors this apotheosis went further; and it reached its height at a moment of imperialistic enthusiasm, of ever-deepening conviction that the commonplace shall inherit the earth, when somebody of reputation, whose name i cannot remember, wrote that shakespeare admired this one character alone out of all his characters. the accusation of sin produced its necessary fruit, hatred of all that was abundant, extravagant, exuberant, of all that sets a sail for shipwreck, and flattery of the commonplace emotions and conventional ideals of the mob, the chief paymaster of accusation. iv i cannot believe that shakespeare looked on his richard ii. with any but sympathetic eyes, understanding indeed how ill-fitted he was to be king, at a certain moment of history, but understanding that he was lovable and full of capricious fancy, 'a wild creature' as pater has called him. the man on whom shakespeare modelled him had been full of french elegancies, as he knew from hollingshead, and had given life a new luxury, a new splendour, and been 'too friendly' to his friends, 'too favourable' to his enemies. and certainly shakespeare had these things in his head when he made his king fail, a little because he lacked some qualities that were doubtless common among his scullions, but more because he had certain qualities that are uncommon in all ages. to suppose that shakespeare preferred the men who deposed his king is to suppose that shakespeare judged men with the eyes of a municipal councillor weighing the merits of a town clerk; and that had he been by when verlaine cried out from his bed, 'sir, you have been made by the stroke of a pen, but i have been made by the breath of god,' he would have thought the hospital superintendent the better man. he saw indeed, as i think, in richard ii. the defeat that awaits all, whether they be artist or saint, who find themselves where men ask of them a rough energy and have nothing to give but some contemplative virtue, whether lyrical phantasy, or sweetness of temper, or dreamy dignity, or love of god, or love of his creatures. he saw that such a man through sheer bewilderment and impatience can become as unjust or as violent as any common man, any bolingbroke or prince john, and yet remain 'that sweet lovely rose.' the courtly and saintly ideals of the middle ages were fading, and the practical ideals of the modern age had begun to threaten the unuseful dome of the sky; merry england was fading, and yet it was not so faded that the poets could not watch the procession of the world with that untroubled sympathy for men as they are, as apart from all they do and seem, which is the substance of tragic irony. shakespeare cared little for the state, the source of all our judgments, apart from its shows and splendours, its turmoils and battles, its flamings out of the uncivilized heart. he did indeed think it wrong to overturn a king, and thereby to swamp peace in civil war, and the historical plays from _henry iv._ to _richard iii._, that monstrous birth and last sign of the wrath of heaven, are a fulfilment of the prophecy of the bishop of carlisle, who was 'raised up by god' to make it; but he had no nice sense of utilities, no ready balance to measure deeds, like that fine instrument, with all the latest improvements, gervinus and professor dowden handle so skilfully. he meditated as solomon, not as bentham meditated, upon blind ambitions, untoward accidents, and capricious passions, and the world was almost as empty in his eyes as it must be in the eyes of god. 'tired with all these, for restful death i cry;- as, to behold desert a beggar born, and needy nothing trimm'd in jollity, and purest faith unhappily forsworn, and gilded honour shamefully misplaced, and maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, and right perfection wrongfully disgrac'd, and strength by limping sway disabled, and art made tongue-tied by authority, and folly, doctor-like, controlling skill, and simple truth miscalled simplicity, and captive good attending captain ill: tired with all these, from these would i begone save that, to die, i leave my love alone.' v the greeks, a certain scholar has told me, considered that myths are the activities of the dã¦mons, and that the dã¦mons shape our characters and our lives. i have often had the fancy that there is some one myth for every man, which, if we but knew it, would make us understand all he did and thought. shakespeare's myth, it may be, describes a wise man who was blind from very wisdom, and an empty man who thrust him from his place, and saw all that could be seen from very emptiness. it is in the story of hamlet, who saw too great issues everywhere to play the trivial game of life, and of fortinbras, who came from fighting battles about 'a little patch of ground' so poor that one of his captains would not give 'six ducats' to 'farm it,' and who was yet acclaimed by hamlet and by all as the only befitting king. and it is in the story of richard ii., that unripened hamlet, and of henry v., that ripened fortinbras. to poise character against character was an element in shakespeare's art, and scarcely a play is lacking in characters that are the complement of one another, and so, having made the vessel of porcelain richard ii., he had to make the vessel of clay henry v. he makes him the reverse of all that richard was. he has the gross vices, the coarse nerves, of one who is to rule among violent people, and he is so little 'too friendly' to his friends that he bundles them out of doors when their time is over. he is as remorseless and undistinguished as some natural force, and the finest thing in his play is the way his old companions fall out of it broken-hearted or on their way to the gallows; and instead of that lyricism which rose out of richard's mind like the jet of a fountain to fall again where it had risen, instead of that phantasy too enfolded in its own sincerity to make any thought the hour had need of, shakespeare has given him a resounding rhetoric that moves men, as a leading article does to-day. his purposes are so intelligible to everybody that everybody talks of him as if he succeeded, although he fails in the end, as all men great and little fail in shakespeare, and yet his conquests abroad are made nothing by a woman turned warrior, and that boy he and katherine were to 'compound,' 'half french, half english,' 'that' was to 'go to constantinople and take the turk by the beard,' turns out a saint, and loses all his father had built up at home and his own life. shakespeare watched henry v. not indeed as he watched the greater souls in the visionary procession, but cheerfully, as one watches some handsome spirited horse, and he spoke his tale, as he spoke all tales, with tragic irony. vi the five plays, that are but one play, have, when played one after another, something extravagant and superhuman, something almost mythological. those nobles with their indifference to death and their immense energy seem at times no nearer the common stature of men than do the gods and the heroes of greek plays. had there been no renaissance and no italian influence to bring in the stories of other lands english history would, it may be, have become as important to the english imagination as the greek myths to the greek imagination; and many plays by many poets would have woven it into a single story whose contours, vast as those of greek myth, would have made living men and women seem like swallows building their nests under the architrave of some temple of the giants. english literature, because it would have grown out of itself, might have had the simplicity and unity of greek literature, for i can never get out of my head that no man, even though he be shakespeare, can write perfectly when his web is woven of threads that have been spun in many lands. and yet, could those foreign tales have come in if the great famine, the sinking down of popular imagination, the dying out of traditional phantasy, the ebbing out of the energy of race, had not made them necessary? the metaphors and language of euphuism, compounded of the natural history and mythology of the classics, were doubtless a necessity also, that something might be poured into the emptiness. yet how they injured the simplicity and unity of the speech! shakespeare wrote at a time when solitary great men were gathering to themselves the fire that had once flowed hither and thither among all men, when individualism in work and thought and emotion was breaking up the old rhythms of life, when the common people, no longer uplifted by the myths of christianity and of still older faiths, were sinking into the earth. the people of stratford-on-avon have remembered little about him, and invented no legend to his glory. they have remembered a drinking-bout of his, and invented some bad verses for him, and that is about all. had he been some hard-drinking, hard-living, hard-riding, loud-blaspheming squire they would have enlarged his fame by a legend of his dealings with the devil; but in his day the glory of a poet, like that of all other imaginative powers, had ceased, or almost ceased outside a narrow class. the poor gaelic rhymer leaves a nobler memory among his neighbours, who will talk of angels standing like flames about his death-bed, and of voices speaking out of bramble-bushes that he may have the wisdom of the world. the puritanism that drove the theatres into surrey was but part of an inexplicable movement that was trampling out the minds of all but some few thousands born to cultivated ease. may 1901. william blake and the imagination there have been men who loved the future like a mistress, and the future mixed her breath into their breath and shook her hair about them, and hid them from the understanding of their times. william blake was one of these men, and if he spoke confusedly and obscurely it was because he spoke things for whose speaking he could find no models in the world about him. he announced the religion of art, of which no man dreamed in the world about him; and he understood it more perfectly than the thousands of subtle spirits who have received its baptism in the world about us, because, in the beginning of important things--in the beginning of love, in the beginning of the day, in the beginning of any work, there is a moment when we understand more perfectly than we understand again until all is finished. in his time educated people believed that they amused themselves with books of imagination but that they 'made their souls' by listening to sermons and by doing or by not doing certain things. when they had to explain why serious people like themselves honoured the great poets greatly they were hard put to it for lack of good reasons. in our time we are agreed that we 'make our souls' out of some one of the great poets of ancient times, or out of shelley or wordsworth, or goethe or balzac, or flaubert, or count tolstoy, in the books he wrote before he became a prophet and fell into a lesser order, or out of mr. whistler's pictures, while we amuse ourselves, or, at best, make a poorer sort of soul, by listening to sermons or by doing or by not doing certain things. we write of great writers, even of writers whose beauty would once have seemed an unholy beauty, with rapt sentences like those our fathers kept for the beatitudes and mysteries of the church; and no matter what we believe with our lips, we believe with our hearts that beautiful things, as browning said in his one prose essay that was not in verse, have 'lain burningly on the divine hand,' and that when time has begun to wither, the divine hand will fall heavily on bad taste and vulgarity. when no man believed these things william blake believed them, and began that preaching against the philistine, which is as the preaching of the middle ages against the saracen. he had learned from jacob boehme and from old alchemist writers that imagination was the first emanation of divinity, 'the body of god,' 'the divine members,' and he drew the deduction, which they did not draw, that the imaginative arts were therefore the greatest of divine revelations, and that the sympathy with all living things, sinful and righteous alike, which the imaginative arts awaken, is that forgiveness of sins commanded by christ. the reason, and by the reason he meant deductions from the observations of the senses, binds us to mortality because it binds us to the senses, and divides us from each other by showing us our clashing interests; but imagination divides us from mortality by the immortality of beauty, and binds us to each other by opening the secret doors of all hearts. he cried again and again that every thing that lives is holy, and that nothing is unholy except things that do not live--lethargies, and cruelties, and timidities, and that denial of imagination which is the root they grew from in old times. passions, because most living, are most holy--and this was a scandalous paradox in his time--and man shall enter eternity borne upon their wings. and he understood this so literally that certain drawings to _vala_, had he carried them beyond the first faint pencillings, the first faint washes of colour, would have been a pretty scandal to his time and to our time. the sensations of this 'foolish body,' this 'phantom of the earth and water,' were in themselves but half-living things, 'vegetative' things, but passion that 'eternal glory' made them a part of the body of god. this philosophy kept him more simply a poet than any poet of his time, for it made him content to express every beautiful feeling that came into his head without troubling about its utility or chaining it to any utility. sometimes one feels, even when one is reading poets of a better time--tennyson or wordsworth, let us say--that they have troubled the energy and simplicity of their imaginative passions by asking whether they were for the helping or for the hindrance of the world, instead of believing that all beautiful things have 'lain burningly on the divine hand.' but when one reads blake, it is as though the spray of an inexhaustible fountain of beauty was blown into our faces, and not merely when one reads the _songs of innocence_, or the lyrics he wished to call 'the ideas of good and evil,' but when one reads those 'prophetic works' in which he spoke confusedly and obscurely because he spoke of things for whose speaking he could find no models in the world about him. he was a symbolist who had to invent his symbols; and his counties of england, with their correspondence to tribes of israel, and his mountains and rivers, with their correspondence to parts of a man's body, are arbitrary as some of the symbolism in the _axã«l_ of the symbolist villiers de l'isle adam is arbitrary, while they mix incongruous things as _axã«l_ does not. he was a man crying out for a mythology, and trying to make one because he could not find one to his hand. had he been a catholic of dante's time he would have been well content with mary and the angels; or had he been a scholar of our time he would have taken his symbols where wagner took his, from norse mythology; or have followed, with the help of prof. rhys, that pathway into welsh mythology which he found in 'jerusalem'; or have gone to ireland--and he was probably an irishman--and chosen for his symbols the sacred mountains, along whose sides the peasant still sees enchanted fires, and the divinities which have not faded from the belief, if they have faded from the prayers of simple hearts; and have spoken without mixing incongruous things because he spoke of things that had been long steeped in emotion; and have been less obscure because a traditional mythology stood on the threshold of his meaning and on the margin of his sacred darkness. if 'enitharmon' had been named freia, or gwydeon, or danu, and made live in ancient norway, or ancient wales, or ancient ireland, we would have forgotten that her maker was a mystic; and the hymn of her harping, that is in _vala_, would but have reminded us of many ancient hymns. 'the joy of woman is the death of her beloved, who dies for love of her, in torments of fierce jealousy and pangs of adoration. the lover's night bears on my song, and the nine spheres rejoice beneath my powerful control. they sing unwearied to the notes of my immortal hand. the solemn, silent moon reverberates the long harmony sounding upon my limbs. the birds and beasts rejoice and play, and every one seeks for his mate to prove his inmost joy. furious and terrible they rend the nether deep, the deep lifts up his rugged head, and lost in infinite hovering wings vanishes with a cry. the fading cry is ever dying, the living voice is ever living in its inmost joy.' 1897. william blake and his illustrations to _the divine comedy_ i. his opinions upon art william blake was the first writer of modern times to preach the indissoluble marriage of all great art with symbol. there had been allegorists and teachers of allegory in plenty, but the symbolic imagination, or, as blake preferred to call it, 'vision,' is not allegory, being 'a representation of what actually exists really and unchangeably.' a symbol is indeed the only possible expression of some invisible essence, a transparent lamp about a spiritual flame; while allegory is one of many possible representations of an embodied thing, or familiar principle, and belongs to fancy and not to imagination: the one is a revelation, the other an amusement. it is happily no part of my purpose to expound in detail the relations he believed to exist between symbol and mind, for in doing so i should come upon not a few doctrines which, though they have not been difficult to many simple persons, ascetics wrapped in skins, women who had cast away all common knowledge, peasants dreaming by their sheepfolds upon the hills, are full of obscurity to the man of modern culture; but it is necessary to just touch upon these relations, because in them was the fountain of much of the practice and of all the precept of his artistic life. if a man would enter into 'noah's rainbow,' he has written, and 'make a friend' of one of 'the images of wonder' which dwell there, and which always entreat him 'to leave mortal things,' 'then would he arise from the grave and meet the lord in the air'; and by this rainbow, this sign of a covenant granted to him who is with shem and japhet, 'painting, poetry and music,' 'the three powers in man of conversing with paradise which the flood "of time and space" did not sweep away,' blake represented the shapes of beauty haunting our moments of inspiration: shapes held by most for the frailest of ephemera, but by him for a people older than the world, citizens of eternity, appearing and reappearing in the minds of artists and of poets, creating all we touch and see by casting distorted images of themselves upon 'the vegetable glass of nature'; and because beings, none the less symbols, blossoms, as it were, growing from invisible immortal roots, hands, as it were, pointing the way into some divine labyrinth. if 'the world of imagination' was 'the world of eternity,' as this doctrine implied, it was of less importance to know men and nature than to distinguish the beings and substances of imagination from those of a more perishable kind, created by the phantasy, in uninspired moments, out of memory and whim; and this could best be done by purifying one's mind, as with a flame, in study of the works of the great masters, who were great because they had been granted by divine favour a vision of the unfallen world from which others are kept apart by the flaming sword that turns every way; and by flying from the painters who studied 'the vegetable glass' for its own sake, and not to discover there the shadows of imperishable beings and substances, and who entered into their own minds, not to make the unfallen world a test of all they heard and saw and felt with the senses, but to cover the naked spirit with 'the rotten rags of memory' of older sensations. the struggle of the first part of his life had been to distinguish between these two schools, and to cleave always to the florentine, and so to escape the fascination of those who seemed to him to offer the sleep of nature to a spirit weary with the labours of inspiration; but it was only after his return to london from felpham in 1804 that he finally escaped from 'temptations and perturbations' which sought to destroy 'the imaginative power' at 'the hands of venetian and flemish demons.' 'the spirit of titian'--and one must always remember that he had only seen poor engravings, and what his disciple, palmer, has called 'picture-dealers' titians'--'was particularly active in raising doubts concerning the possibility of executing without a model; and when once he had raised the doubt it became easy for him to snatch away the vision time after time'; and blake's imagination 'weakened' and 'darkened' until a 'memory of nature and of the pictures of various schools possessed his mind, instead of appropriate execution' flowing from the vision itself. but now he wrote, 'o glory, and o delight! i have entirely reduced that spectrous fiend to his station'--he had overcome the merely reasoning and sensual portion of the mind--'whose annoyance has been the ruin of my labours for the last twenty years of my life.... i speak with perfect confidence and certainty of the fact which has passed upon me. nebuchadnezzar had seven times passed over him, i have had twenty; thank god i was not altogether a beast as he was.... suddenly, on the day after visiting the truchsessian gallery of pictures'--this was a gallery containing pictures by albert dã¼rer and by the great florentines--'i was again enlightened with the light i enjoyed in my youth, and which had for exactly twenty years been closed from me, as by a door and window shutters.... excuse my enthusiasm, or rather madness, for i am really drunk with intellectual vision whenever i take a pencil or graver in my hand, as i used to be in my youth.' this letter may have been the expression of a moment's enthusiasm, but was more probably rooted in one of those intuitions of coming technical power which every creator feels, and learns to rely upon; for all his greatest work was done, and the principles of his art were formulated, after this date. except a word here and there, his writings hitherto had not dealt with the principles of art except remotely and by implication; but now he wrote much upon them, and not in obscure symbolic verse, but in emphatic prose, and explicit if not very poetical rhyme. in his _descriptive catalogue_, in _the address to the public_, in the notes on sir joshua reynolds, in _the book of moonlight_--of which some not very dignified rhymes alone remain--in beautiful detached passages in _the ms. book_, he explained spiritual art, and praised the painters of florence and their influence, and cursed all that has come of venice and holland. the limitation of his view was from the very intensity of his vision; he was a too literal realist of imagination, as others are of nature; and because he believed that the figures seen by the mind's eye, when exalted by inspiration, were 'eternal existences,' symbols of divine essences, he hated every grace of style that might obscure their lineaments. to wrap them about in reflected lights was to do this, and to dwell over-fondly upon any softness of hair or flesh was to dwell upon that which was least permanent and least characteristic, for 'the great and golden rule of art, as of life, is this: that the more distinct, sharp and wiry the boundary-line, the more perfect the work of art; and the less keen and sharp, the greater is the evidence of weak imitation, plagiarism and bungling.' inspiration was to see the permanent and characteristic in all forms, and if you had it not, you must needs imitate with a languid mind the things you saw or remembered, and so sink into the sleep of nature where all is soft and melting. 'great inventors in all ages knew this. protogenes and apelles knew each other by their line. raphael and michael angelo and albert dã¼rer are known by this and this alone. how do we distinguish the owl from the beast, the horse from the ox, but by the bounding outline? how do we distinguish one face or countenance from another but by the bounding-line and its infinite inflections and movements? what is it that builds a house and plants a garden but the definite and determinate? what is it that distinguished honesty from knavery but the hard and wiry line of rectitude and certainty in the actions and intentions? leave out this line and you leave out life itself; and all is chaos again, and the line of the almighty must be drawn out upon it before man or beast can exist.' he even insisted that 'colouring does not depend upon where the colours are put, but upon where the light and dark are put, and all depends upon the form or outline'--meaning, i suppose, that a colour gets its brilliance or its depth from being in light or in shadow. he does not mean by outline the bounding-line dividing a form from its background, as one of his commentators has thought, but the line that divides it from surrounding space, and unless you have an overmastering sense of this you cannot draw true beauty at all, but only 'the beauty that is appended to folly,' a beauty of mere voluptuous softness, 'a lamentable accident of the mortal and perishing life,' for 'the beauty proper for sublime art is lineaments, or forms and features capable of being the receptacles of intellect,' and 'the face or limbs that alter least from youth to old age are the face and limbs of the greatest beauty and perfection.' his praise of a severe art had been beyond price had his age rested a moment to listen, in the midst of its enthusiasm for correggio and the later renaissance, for bartolozzi and for stothard; and yet in his visionary realism, and in his enthusiasm for what, after all, is perhaps the greatest art, and a necessary part of every picture that is art at all, he forgot how he who wraps the vision in lights and shadows, in iridescent or glowing colour, having in the midst of his labour many little visions of these secondary essences, until form be half lost in pattern, may compel the canvas or paper to become itself a symbol of some not indefinite because unsearchable essence; for is not the bacchus and ariadne of titian a talisman as powerfully charged with intellectual virtue as though it were a jewel-studded door of the city seen on patmos? to cover the imperishable lineaments of beauty with shadows and reflected lights was to fall into the power of his 'vala,' the indolent fascination of nature, the woman divinity who is so often described in 'the prophetic books' as 'sweet pestilence,' and whose children weave webs to take the souls of men; but there was yet a more lamentable chance, for nature has also a 'masculine portion' or 'spectre' which kills instead of merely hiding, and is continually at war with inspiration. to 'generalize' forms and shadows, to 'smooth out' spaces and lines in obedience to 'laws of composition,' and of painting; founded, not upon imagination, which always thirsts for variety and delights in freedom, but upon reasoning from sensation which is always seeking to reduce everything to a lifeless and slavish uniformity; as the popular art of blake's day had done, and as he understood sir joshua reynolds to advise, was to fall into 'entuthon benithon,' or 'the lake of udan adan,' or some other of those regions where the imagination and the flesh are alike dead, that he names by so many resonant phantastical names. 'general knowledge is remote knowledge,' he wrote; 'it is in particulars that wisdom consists, and happiness too. both in art and life general masses are as much art as a pasteboard man is human. every man has eyes, nose and mouth; this every idiot knows. but he who enters into and discriminates most minutely the manners and intentions, the characters in all their branches, is the alone wise or sensible man, and on this discrimination all art is founded.... as poetry admits not a letter that is insignificant, so painting admits not a grain of sand or a blade of grass insignificant, much less an insignificant blot or blur.' against another desire of his time, derivative also from what he has called 'corporeal reason,' the desire for a 'tepid moderation,' for a lifeless 'sanity in both art and life,' he had protested years before with a paradoxical violence. 'the roadway of excess leads to the palace of wisdom,' and we must only 'bring out weight and measure in time of dearth.' this protest, carried, in the notes on sir joshua reynolds, to the point of dwelling with pleasure on the thought that 'the _lives of the painters_ say that raphael died of dissipation,' because dissipation is better than emotional penury, seemed as important to his old age as to his youth. he taught it to his disciples, and one finds it in its purely artistic shape in a diary written by samuel palmer, in 1824: 'excess is the essential vivifying spirit, vital spark, embalming spice of the finest art. there are many mediums in the _means_--none, oh, not a jot, not a shadow of a jot, in the _end_ of great art. in a picture whose merit is to be excessively brilliant, it can't be too brilliant, but individual tints may be too brilliant.... we must not begin with medium, but think always on excess and only use medium to make excess more abundantly excessive.' these three primary commands, to seek a determinate outline, to avoid a generalized treatment, and to desire always abundance and exuberance, were insisted upon with vehement anger, and their opponents called again and again 'demons' and 'villains,' 'hired' by the wealthy and the idle; but in private, palmer has told us, he could find 'sources of delight throughout the whole range of art,' and was ever ready to praise excellence in any school, finding, doubtless, among friends, no need for the emphasis of exaggeration. there is a beautiful passage in 'jerusalem' in which the merely mortal part of the mind, 'the spectre,' creates 'pyramids of pride,' and 'pillars in the deepest hell to reach the heavenly arches,' and seeks to discover wisdom in 'the spaces between the stars,' not 'in the stars,' where it is, but the immortal part makes all his labours vain, and turns his pyramids to 'grains of sand,' his 'pillars' to 'dust on the fly's wing,' and makes of 'his starry heavens a moth of gold and silver mocking his anxious grasp.' so when man's desire to rest from spiritual labour, and his thirst to fill his art with mere sensation and memory, seem upon the point of triumph, some miracle transforms them to a new inspiration; and here and there among the pictures born of sensation and memory is the murmuring of a new ritual, the glimmering of new talismans and symbols. it was during and after the writing of these opinions that blake did the various series of pictures which have brought him the bulk of his fame. he had already completed the illustrations to young's _night thoughts_--in which the great sprawling figures, a little wearisome even with the luminous colours of the original water-colour, became nearly intolerable in plain black and white--and almost all the illustrations to 'the prophetic books,' which have an energy like that of the elements, but are rather rapid sketches taken while some phantasmic procession swept over him, than elaborate compositions, and in whose shadowy adventures one finds not merely, as did dr. garth wilkinson, 'the hells of the ancient people, the anakim, the nephalim, and the rephaim ... gigantic petrifactions from which the fires of lust and intense selfish passion have long dissipated what was animal and vital'; not merely the shadows cast by the powers who had closed the light from him as 'with a door and window shutters,' but the shadows of those who gave them battle. he did now, however, the many designs to milton, of which i have only seen those to _paradise regained_; the reproductions of those to _comus_, published, i think, by mr. quaritch; and the three or four to _paradise lost_, engraved by bell scott--a series of designs which one good judge considers his greatest work; the illustrations to blair's _grave_, whose gravity and passion struggle with the mechanical softness and trivial smoothness of schiavonetti's engraving; the illustrations to thornton's _virgil_, whose influence is manifest in the work of the little group of landscape-painters who gathered about him in his old age and delighted to call him master. the member of the group, whom i have already so often quoted, has alone praised worthily these illustrations to the first _eclogue_: 'there is in all such a misty and dreamy glimmer as penetrates and kindles the inmost soul and gives complete and unreserved delight, unlike the gaudy daylight of this world. they are like all this wonderful artist's work, the drawing aside of the fleshly curtain, and the glimpse which all the most holy, studious saints and sages have enjoyed, of the rest which remains to the people of god.' now, too, he did the great series, the crowning work of his life, the illustrations to _the book of job_ and the illustrations to _the divine comedy_. hitherto he had protested against the mechanical 'dots and lozenges' and 'blots and blurs' of woollett and strange, but had himself used both 'dot and lozenge,' 'blot and blur,' though always in subordination 'to a firm and determinate outline'; but in marc antonio, certain of whose engravings he was shown by linnell, he found a style full of delicate lines, a style where all was living and energetic, strong and subtle. and almost his last words, a letter written upon his death-bed, attack the 'dots and lozenges' with even more than usually quaint symbolism, and praise expressive lines. 'i know that the majority of englishmen are bound by the indefinite ... a line is a line in its minutest particulars, straight or crooked. it is itself not intermeasurable by anything else ... but since the french revolution'--since the reign of reason began, that is--'englishmen are all intermeasurable with one another, certainly a happy state of agreement in which i do not agree.' the dante series occupied the last years of his life; even when too weak to get out of bed he worked on, propped up with the great drawing-book before him. he sketched a hundred designs, but left all incomplete, some very greatly so, and partly engraved seven plates, of which the 'francesca and paolo' is the most finished. it is not, i think, inferior to any but the finest in the job, if indeed to them, and shows in its perfection blake's mastery over elemental things, the swirl in which the lost spirits are hurried, 'a watery flame' he would have called it, the haunted waters and the huddling shapes. in the illustrations of purgatory there is a serene beauty, and one finds his dante and virgil climbing among the rough rocks under a cloudy sun, and in their sleep upon the smooth steps towards the summit, a placid, marmoreal, tender, starry rapture. all in this great series are in some measure powerful and moving, and not, as it is customary to say of the work of blake, because a flaming imagination pierces through a cloudy and indecisive technique, but because they have the only excellence possible in any art, a mastery over artistic expression. the technique of blake was imperfect, incomplete, as is the technique of well-nigh all artists who have striven to bring fires from remote summits; but where his imagination is perfect and complete, his technique has a like perfection, a like completeness. he strove to embody more subtle raptures, more elaborate intuitions than any before him; his imagination and technique are more broken and strained under a great burden than the imagination and technique of any other master. 'i am,' wrote blake, 'like others, just equal in invention and execution.' and again, 'no man can improve an original invention; nor can an original invention exist without execution, organized, delineated and articulated either by god or man ... i have heard people say, "give me the ideas; it is no matter what words you put them into;" and others say, "give me the designs; it is no matter for the execution."... ideas cannot be given but in their minutely appropriate words, nor can a design be made without its minutely appropriate execution.' living in a time when technique and imagination are continually perfect and complete, because they no longer strive to bring fire from heaven, we forget how imperfect and incomplete they were in even the greatest masters, in botticelli, in orcagna, and in giotto. the errors in the handiwork of exalted spirits are as the more phantastical errors in their lives; as coleridge's opium cloud; as villiers de l'isle adam's candidature for the throne of greece; as blake's anger against causes and purposes he but half understood; as the flickering madness an eastern scripture would allow in august dreamers; for he who half lives in eternity endures a rending of the structures of the mind, a crucifixion of the intellectual body. ii. his opinions on dante as blake sat bent over the great drawing-book, in which he made his designs to _the divine comedy_, he was very certain that he and dante represented spiritual states which face one another in an eternal enmity. dante, because a great poet, was 'inspired by the holy ghost'; but his inspiration was mingled with a certain philosophy, blown up out of his age, which blake held for mortal and the enemy of immortal things, and which from the earliest times has sat in high places and ruled the world. this philosophy was the philosophy of soldiers, of men of the world, of priests busy with government, of all who, because of the absorption in active life, have been persuaded to judge and to punish, and partly also, he admitted, the philosophy of christ, who in descending into the world had to take on the world; who, in being born of mary, a symbol of the law in blake's symbolic language, had to 'take after his mother,' and drive the money-changers out of the temple. opposed to this was another philosophy, not made by men of action, drudges of time and space, but by christ when wrapped in the divine essence, and by artists and poets, who are taught by the nature of their craft to sympathize with all living things, and who, the more pure and fragrant is their lamp, pass the further from all limitations, to come at last to forget good and evil in an absorbing vision of the happy and the unhappy. the one philosophy was worldly, and established for the ordering of the body and the fallen will, and so long as it did not call its 'laws of prudence' 'the laws of god,' was a necessity, because 'you cannot have liberty in this world without what you call moral virtue'; the other was divine, and established for the peace of the imagination and the unfallen will, and, even when obeyed with a too literal reverence, could make men sin against no higher principality than prudence. he called the followers of the first philosophy pagans, no matter by what name they knew themselves, because the pagans, as he understood the word pagan, believed more in the outward life, and in what he called 'war, princedom, and victory,' than in the secret life of the spirit; and the followers of the second philosophy christians, because only those whose sympathies had been enlarged and instructed by art and poetry could obey the christian command of unlimited forgiveness. blake had already found this 'pagan' philosophy in swedenborg, in milton, in wordsworth, in sir joshua reynolds, in many persons, and it had roused him so constantly and to such angry paradox that its overthrow became the signal passion of his life, and filled all he did and thought with the excitement of a supreme issue. its kingdom was bound to grow weaker so soon as life began to lose a little in crude passion and naã¯ve tumult, but blake was the first to announce its successor, and he did this, as must needs be with revolutionists who have 'the law' for 'mother,' with a firm conviction that the things his opponents held white were indeed black, and that the things they held black, white; with a strong persuasion that all busy with government are men darkness and 'something other than human life'; one is reminded of shelley, who was the next to take up the cry, though with a less abundant philosophic faculty, but still more of nietzsche, whose thought flows always, though with an even more violent current, in the bed blake's thought has worn. the kingdom that was passing was, he held, the kingdom of the tree of knowledge; the kingdom that was coming was the kingdom of the tree of life: men who ate from the tree of knowledge wasted their days in anger against one another, and in taking one another captive in great nets; men who sought their food among the green leaves of the tree of life condemned none but the unimaginative and the idle, and those who forget that even love and death and old age are an imaginative art. in these opposing kingdoms is the explanation of the petulant sayings he wrote on the margins of the great sketch-book, and of those others, still more petulant, which crabb robinson has recorded in his diary. the sayings about the forgiveness of sins have no need for further explanation, and are in contrast with the attitude of that excellent commentator, herr hettinger, who, though dante swooned from pity at the tale of francesca, will only 'sympathize' with her 'to a certain extent,' being taken in a theological net. 'it seems as if dante,' blake wrote, 'supposes god was something superior to the father of jesus; for if he gives rain to the evil and the good, and his sun to the just and the unjust, he can never have builded dante's hell, nor the hell of the bible, as our parsons explain it. it must have been framed by the dark spirit itself, and so i understand it.' and again, 'whatever task is of vengeance and whatever is against forgiveness of sin is not of the father but of satan, the accuser, the father of hell.' and again, and this time to crabb robinson, 'dante saw devils where i saw none. i see good only.' 'i have never known a very bad man who had not something very good about him.' this forgiveness was not the forgiveness of the theologian who has received a commandment from afar off, but of the poet and artist, who believes he has been taught, in a mystical vision, 'that the imagination is the man himself,' and believes he has discovered in the practice of his art that without a perfect sympathy there is no perfect imagination, and therefore no perfect life. at another moment he called dante 'an atheist, a mere politician busied about this world, as milton was, till, in his old age, returned to god whom he had had in his childhood.' 'everything is atheism,' he has already explained, 'which assumed the reality of the natural and unspiritual world.' dante, he held, assumed its reality when he made obedience to its laws a condition of man's happiness hereafter, and he set swedenborg beside dante in misbelief for calling nature 'the ultimate of heaven,' a lowest rung, as it were, of jacob's ladder, instead of a net woven by satan to entangle our wandering joys and bring our hearts into captivity. there are certain curious unfinished diagrams scattered here and there among the now separated pages of the sketch-book, and of these there is one which, had it had all its concentric rings filled with names, would have been a systematic exposition of his animosities and of their various intensity. it represents paradise, and in the midst, where dante emerges from the earthly paradise, is written 'homer,' and in the next circle 'swedenborg,' and on the margin these words: 'everything in dante's paradise shows that he has made the earth the foundation of all, and its goddess nature, memory,' memory of sensations, 'not the holy ghost.... round purgatory is paradise, and round paradise vacuum. homer is the centre of all, i mean the poetry of the heathen.' the statement that round paradise is vacuum is a proof of the persistence of his ideas, and of his curiously literal understanding of his own symbols; for it is but another form of the charge made against milton many years before in _the marriage of heaven and hell_. 'in milton the father is destiny, the son a ratio of the five senses,' blake's definition of the reason which is the enemy of the imagination, 'and the holy ghost vacuum.' dante, like other medieval mystics, symbolized the highest order of created beings by the fixed stars, and god by the darkness beyond them, the _primum mobile_. blake, absorbed in his very different vision, in which god took always a human shape, believed that to think of god under a symbol drawn from the outer world was in itself idolatry, but that to imagine him as an unpeopled immensity was to think of him under the one symbol furthest from his essence--it being a creation of the ruining reason, 'generalizing' away 'the minute particulars of life.' instead of seeking god in the deserts of time and space, in exterior immensities, in what he called 'the abstract void,' he believed that the further he dropped behind him memory of time and space, reason builded upon sensation, morality founded for the ordering of the world; and the more he was absorbed in emotion; and, above all, in emotion escaped from the impulse of bodily longing and the restraints of bodily reason, in artistic emotion; the nearer did he come to eden's 'breathing garden,' to use his beautiful phrase, and to the unveiled face of god. no worthy symbol of god existed but the inner world, the true humanity, to whose various aspects he gave many names, 'jerusalem,' 'liberty,' 'eden,' 'the divine vision,' 'the body of god,' 'the human form divine,' 'the divine members,' and whose most intimate expression was art and poetry. he always sang of god under this symbol: 'for mercy, pity, peace, and love is god our father dear; and mercy, pity, peace, and love is man, his child and care. for mercy has a human heart; pity a human face; and love the human form divine; and peace, the human dress. then every man of every clime, that prays in his distress, prays to the human form divine- love, mercy, pity, peace.' whenever he gave this symbol a habitation in space he set it in the sun, the father of light and life; and set in the darkness beyond the stars, where light and life die away, og and anak and the giants that were of old, and the iron throne of satan. by thus contrasting blake and dante by the light of blake's paradoxical wisdom, and as though there was no important truth hung from dante's beam of the balance, i but seek to interpret a little-understood philosophy rather than one incorporate in the thought and habits of christendom. every philosophy has half its truth from times and generations; and to us one-half of the philosophy of dante is less living than his poetry, while the truth blake preached and sang and painted is the root of the cultivated life, of the fragile perfect blossom of the world born in ages of leisure and peace, and never yet to last more than a little season; the life those phã¦acians, who told odysseus that they had set their hearts in nothing but in 'the dance and changes of raiment, and love and sleep,' lived before poseidon heaped a mountain above them; the lives of all who, having eaten of the tree of life, love, more than did the barbarous ages when none had time to live, 'the minute particulars of life,' the little fragments of space and time, which are wholly flooded by beautiful emotion because they are so little they are hardly of time and space at all. 'every space smaller than a globule of man's blood,' he wrote, 'opens into eternity of which this vegetable earth is but a shadow.' and again, 'every time less than a pulsation of the artery is equal' in its tenor and value 'to six thousand years, for in this period the poet's work is done, and all the great events of time start forth, and are conceived: in such a period, within a moment, a pulsation of the artery.' dante, indeed, taught, in the 'purgatorio,' that sin and virtue are alike from love, and that love is from god; but this love he would restrain by a complex eternal law, a complex external church. blake upon the other hand cried scorn upon the whole spectacle of external things, a vision to pass away in a moment, and preached the cultivated life, the internal church which has no laws but beauty, rapture and labour. 'i know of no other christianity, and of no other gospel, than the liberty, both of body and mind, to exercise the divine arts of imagination, the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow, and in which we shall live in our eternal or imaginative bodies when these vegetable mortal bodies are no more. the apostles knew of no other gospel. what are all their spiritual gifts? what is the divine spirit? is the holy ghost any other than an intellectual fountain? what is the harvest of the gospel and its labours? what is the talent which it is a curse to hide? what are the treasures of heaven which we are to lay up for ourselves? are they any other than mental studies and performances? what are all the gifts of the gospel, are they not all mental gifts? is god a spirit who must be worshipped in spirit and truth? are not the gifts of the spirit everything to man? o ye religious! discountenance every one among you who shall pretend to despise art and science. i call upon you in the name of jesus! what is the life of man but art and science? is it meat and drink? is not the body more than raiment? what is mortality but the things relating to the body which dies? what is immortality but the things relating to the spirit which lives immortally? what is the joy of heaven but improvement in the things of the spirit? what are the pains of hell but ignorance, idleness, bodily lust, and the devastation of the things of the spirit? answer this for yourselves, and expel from amongst you those who pretend to despise the labours of art and science, which alone are the labours of the gospel. is not this plain and manifest to the thought? can you think at all, and not pronounce heartily that to labour in knowledge is to build jerusalem, and to despise knowledge is to despise jerusalem and her builders? and remember, he who despises and mocks a mental gift in another, calling it pride, and selfishness, and sin, mocks jesus, the giver of every mental gift, which always appear to the ignorance-loving hypocrites as sins. but that which is sin in the sight of cruel man is not sin in the sight of our kind god. let every christian as much as in him lies engage himself openly and publicly before all the world in some mental pursuit for the building of jerusalem.' i have given the whole of this long passage because, though the very keystone of his thought, it is little known, being sunk, like nearly all of his most profound thoughts, in the mysterious prophetic books. obscure about much else, they are always lucid on this one point, and return to it again and again. 'i care not whether a man is good or bad,' are the words they put into the mouth of god, 'all i care is whether he is a wise man or a fool. go put off holiness and put on intellect.' this cultivated life, which seems to us so artificial a thing, is really, according to them, the laborious re-discovery of the golden age, of the primeval simplicity, of the simple world in which christ taught and lived, and its lawlessness is the lawlessness of him 'who being all virtue, acted from impulse and not from rules,' and his seventy disciples sent against religion and government. the historical christ was indeed no more than the supreme symbol of the artistic imagination, in which, with every passion wrought to perfect beauty by art and poetry, we shall live, when the body has passed away for the last time; but before that hour man must labour through many lives and many deaths. 'men are admitted into heaven not because they have curbed and governed their passions, but because they have cultivated their understandings. the treasures of heaven are not negations of passion but realities of intellect from which the passions emanate uncurbed in their eternal glory. the fool shall not enter into heaven, let him be ever so holy. holiness is not the price of entering into heaven. those who are cast out are all those who, having no passions of their own, because no intellect, have spent their lives in curbing and governing other people's lives by the various arts of poverty and cruelty of all kinds. the modern church crucifies christ with the head downwards. woe, woe, woe to you hypocrites.' after a time man has 'to return to the dark valley whence he came and begin his labours anew,' but before that return he dwells in the freedom of imagination, in the peace of the 'divine image,' 'the divine vision,' in the peace that passes understanding and is the peace of art. 'i have been very near the gates of death,' blake wrote in his last letter, 'and have returned very weak and an old man, feeble and tottering but not in spirit and life, not in the real man, the imagination which liveth for ever. in that i grow stronger and stronger as this foolish body decays.... flaxman is gone, and we must all soon follow, every one to his eternal home, leaving the delusions of goddess nature and her laws, to get into freedom from all the laws of the numbers,' the multiplicity of nature, 'into the mind in which every one is king and priest in his own house.' the phrase about the king and priest is a memory of the crown and mitre set upon dante's head before he entered paradise. our imaginations are but fragments of the universal imagination, portions of the universal body of god, and as we enlarge our imagination by imaginative sympathy, and transform with the beauty and peace of art, the sorrows and joys of the world, we put off the limited mortal man more and more and put on the unlimited 'immortal man.' 'as the seed waits eagerly watching for its flower and fruit, anxious its little soul looks out into the clear expanse to see if hungry winds are abroad with their invisible array, so man looks out in tree, and herb, and fish, and bird, and beast, collecting up the fragments of his immortal body into the elemental forms of everything that grows.... in pain he sighs, in pain he labours in his universe, sorrowing in birds over the deep, or howling in the wolf over the slain, and moaning in the cattle, and in the winds.' mere sympathy for living things is not enough because we must learn to separate their 'infected' from their eternal, their satanic from their divine part; and this can only be done by desiring always beauty, the one mask through which can be seen the unveiled eyes of eternity. we must then be artists in all things, and understand that love and old age and death are first among the arts. in this sense he insists that 'christ's apostles were artists,' that 'christianity is art,' and that 'the whole business of man is the arts.' dante, who deified law, selected its antagonist, passion, as the most important of sins, and made the regions where it was punished the largest. blake, who deified imaginative freedom, held 'corporeal reason' for the most accursed of things, because it makes the imagination revolt from the sovereignty of beauty and pass under the sovereignty of corporeal law, and this is 'the captivity in egypt.' true art is expressive and symbolic, and makes every form, every sound, every colour, every gesture, a signature of some unanalyzable imaginative essence. false art is not expressive but mimetic, not from experience but from observation, and is the mother of all evil, persuading us to save our bodies alive at no matter what cost of rapine and fraud. true art is the flame of the last day, which begins for every man, when he is first moved by beauty, and which seeks to burn all things until they 'become infinite and holy.' iii. the illustrations of dante the late mr. john addington symonds wrote--in a preface to certain dante illustrations by stradanus, a sixteenth-century artist of no great excellence, published in phototype by mr. unwin in 1892--that the illustrations of gustave dorã©, 'in spite of glaring artistic defects, must, i think, be reckoned first among numerous attempts to translate dante's conceptions into terms of plastic art.' one can only account for this praise of a noisy and demagogic art by supposing that a temperament, strong enough to explore with unfailing alertness the countless schools and influences of the renaissance in italy, is of necessity a little lacking in delicacy of judgment and in the finer substances of emotion. it is more difficult to account for so admirable a scholar not only preferring these illustrations to the work of what he called 'the graceful and affected botticelli,'--although 'dorã© was fitted for his task, not by dramatic vigour, by feeling for beauty, or by anything sternly in sympathy with the supreme poet's soul, but by a very effective sense of luminosity and gloom,'--but preferring them because 'he created a fanciful world, which makes the movement of dante's _dramatis personã¦_ conceivable, introducing the ordinary intelligence into those vast regions thronged with destinies of souls and creeds and empires.' when the ordinary student finds this intelligence in an illustrator, he thinks, because it is his own intelligence, that it is an accurate interpretation of the text, while work of the extraordinary intelligences is merely an expression of their own ideas and feelings. dorã© and stradanus, he will tell you, have given us something of the world of dante, but blake and botticelli have builded worlds of their own and called them dante's--as if dante's world were more than a mass of symbols of colour and form and sound which put on humanity, when they arouse some mind to an intense and romantic life that is not theirs; as if it was not one's own sorrows and angers and regrets and terrors and hopes that awaken to condemnation or repentance while dante treads his eternal pilgrimage; as if any poet or painter or musician could be other than an enchanter calling with a persuasive or compelling ritual, creatures, noble or ignoble, divine or dã¦monic, covered with scales or in shining raiment, that he never imagined, out of the bottomless deeps of imaginations he never foresaw; as if the noblest achievement of art was not when the artist enfolds himself in darkness, while he casts over his readers a light as of a wild and terrible dawn. let us therefore put away the designs to _the divine comedy_, in which there is 'an ordinary intelligence,' and consider only the designs in which the magical ritual has called up extraordinary shapes, the magical light glimmered upon a world, different from the dantesque world of our own intelligence in its ordinary and daily moods, upon a difficult and distinguished world. most of the series of designs to dante, and there are a good number, need not busy any one for a moment. genelli has done a copious series, which is very able in the 'formal' 'generalized' way which blake hated, and which is spiritually ridiculous. penelli has transformed the 'inferno' into a vulgar walpurgis night, and a certain schuler, whom i do not find in the biographical dictionaries, but who was apparently a german, has prefaced certain flaccid designs with some excellent charts, while stradanus has made a series for the 'inferno,' which has so many of the more material and unessential powers of art, and is so extremely undistinguished in conception, that one supposes him to have touched in the sixteenth century the same public dorã© has touched in the nineteenth. though with many doubts, i am tempted to value flaxman's designs to the 'inferno,' the 'purgatorio,' and the 'paradiso,' only a little above the best of these, because he does not seem to have ever been really moved by dante, and so to have sunk into a formal manner, which is a reflection of the vital manner of his homer and hesiod. his designs to _the divine comedy_ will be laid, one imagines, with some ceremony in that immortal wastepaper-basket in which time carries with many sighs the failures of great men. i am perhaps wrong, however, because flaxman even at his best has not yet touched me very deeply, and i hardly ever hope to escape this limitation of my ruling stars. that signorelli does not seem greatly more interesting except here and there, as in the drawing of 'the angel,' full of innocence and energy, coming from the boat which has carried so many souls to the foot of the mountain of purgation, can only be because one knows him through poor reproductions from frescoes half mouldered away with damp. a little-known series, drawn by adolph stã¼rler, an artist of german extraction, who was settled in florence in the first half of this century, are very poor in drawing, very pathetic and powerful in invention, and full of most interesting pre-raphaelitic detail. there are admirable and moving figures, who, having set love above reason, listen in the last abandonment of despair to the judgment of minos, or walk with a poignant melancholy to the foot of his throne through a land where owls and strange beasts move hither and thither with the sterile content of the evil that neither loves nor hates, and a cerberus full of patient cruelty. all stã¼rler's designs have, however, the languor of a mind that does its work by a succession of delicate critical perceptions rather than the decision and energy of true creation, and are more a curious contribution to artistic methods than an imaginative force. the only designs that compete with blake's are those of botticelli and giulio clovio, and these contrast rather than compete; for blake did not live to carry his 'paradiso' beyond the first faint pencillings, the first thin washes of colour, while botticelli only, as i think, became supremely imaginative in his 'paradiso,' and clovio never attempted the 'inferno' and 'purgatorio' at all. the imaginations of botticelli and clovio were overshadowed by the cloister, and it was only when they passed beyond the world or into some noble peace, which is not the world's peace, that they won a perfect freedom. blake had not such mastery over figure and drapery as had botticelli, but he could sympathize with the persons and delight in the scenery of the 'inferno' and the 'purgatorio' as botticelli could not, and could fill them with a mysterious and spiritual significance born perhaps of mystical pantheism. the flames of botticelli give one no emotion, and his car of beatrice is no symbolic chariot of the church led by the gryphon, half eagle, half lion, of christ's dual nature, but is a fragment of some mediã¦val pageant pictured with a merely technical inspiration. clovio, the illuminator of missals, has tried to create with that too easy hand of his a paradise of serene air reflected in a little mirror, a heaven of sociability and humility and prettiness, a heaven of women and of monks; but one cannot imagine him deeply moved, as the modern world is moved, by the symbolism of bird and beast, of tree and mountain, of flame and darkness. it was a profound understanding of all creatures and things, a profound sympathy with passionate and lost souls, made possible in their extreme intensity by his revolt against corporeal law, and corporeal reason, which made blake the one perfectly fit illustrator for the 'inferno' and the 'purgatorio': in the serene and rapturous emptiness of dante's paradise he would find no symbols but a few abstract emblems, and he had no love for the abstract, while with the drapery and the gestures of beatrice and virgil, he would have prospered less than botticelli or even clovio. 1897. symbolism in painting in england, which has made great symbolic art, most people dislike an art if they are told it is symbolic, for they confuse symbol and allegory. even johnson's dictionary sees no great difference, for it calls a symbol 'that which comprehends in its figure a representation of something else'; and an allegory, 'a figurative discourse, in which something other is intended than is contained in the words literally taken.' it is only a very modern dictionary that calls a symbol 'the sign or representation of any moral thing by the images or properties of natural things,' which, though an imperfect definition, is not unlike 'the things below are as the things above' of the emerald tablet of hermes! _the faery queen_ and _the pilgrim's progress_ have been so important in england that allegory has overtopped symbolism, and for a time has overwhelmed it in its own downfall. william blake was perhaps the first modern to insist on a difference; and the other day, when i sat for my portrait to a german symbolist in paris, whose talk was all of his love for symbolism and his hatred for allegory, his definitions were the same as william blake's, of whom he knew nothing. william blake has written, 'vision or imagination'--meaning symbolism by these words--'is a representation of what actually exists, really or unchangeably. fable or allegory is formed by the daughters of memory.' the german insisted with many determined gestures, that symbolism said things which could not be said so perfectly in any other way, and needed but a right instinct for its understanding; while allegory said things which could be said as well, or better, in another way, and needed a right knowledge for its understanding. the one gave dumb things voices, and bodiless things bodies; while the other read a meaning--which had never lacked its voice or its body--into something heard or seen, and loved less for the meaning than for its own sake. the only symbols he cared for were the shapes and motions of the body; ears hidden by the hair, to make one think of a mind busy with inner voices; and a head so bent that back and neck made the one curve, as in blake's 'vision of bloodthirstiness,' to call up an emotion of bodily strength; and he would not put even a lily, or a rose, or a poppy into a picture to express purity, or love, or sleep, because he thought such emblems were allegorical, and had their meaning by a traditional and not by a natural right. i said that the rose, and the lily, and the poppy were so married, by their colour and their odour, and their use, to love and purity and sleep, or to other symbols of love and purity and sleep, and had been so long a part of the imagination of the world, that a symbolist might use them to help out his meaning without becoming an allegorist. i think i quoted the lily in the hand of the angel in rossetti's 'annunciation,' and the lily in the jar in his 'childhood of mary virgin,' and thought they made the more important symbols, the women's bodies, and the angels' bodies, and the clear morning light, take that place, in the great procession of christian symbols, where they can alone have all their meaning and all their beauty. it is hard to say where allegory and symbolism melt into one another, but it is not hard to say where either comes to its perfection; and though one may doubt whether allegory or symbolism is the greater in the horns of michael angelo's 'moses,' one need not doubt that its symbolism has helped to awaken the modern imagination; while tintoretto's 'origin of the milky way,' which is allegory without any symbolism, is, apart from its fine painting, but a moment's amusement for our fancy. a hundred generations might write out what seemed the meaning of the one, and they would write different meanings, for no symbol tells all its meaning to any generation; but when you have said, 'that woman there is juno, and the milk out of her breast is making the milky way,' you have told the meaning of the other, and the fine painting, which has added so much irrelevant beauty, has not told it better. all art that is not mere storytelling, or mere portraiture, is symbolic, and has the purpose of those symbolic talismans which mediã¦val magicians made with complex colours and forms, and bade their patients ponder over daily, and guard with holy secrecy; for it entangles, in complex colours and forms, a part of the divine essence. a person or a landscape that is a part of a story or a portrait, evokes but so much emotion as the story or the portrait can permit without loosening the bonds that make it a story or a portrait; but if you liberate a person or a landscape from the bonds of motives and their actions, causes and their effects, and from all bonds but the bonds of your love, it will change under your eyes, and become a symbol of an infinite emotion, a perfected emotion, a part of the divine essence; for we love nothing but the perfect, and our dreams make all things perfect, that we may love them. religious and visionary people, monks and nuns, and medicine-men, and opium-eaters, see symbols in their trances; for religious and visionary thought is thought about perfection and the way to perfection; and symbols are the only things free enough from all bonds to speak of perfection. wagner's dramas, keats' odes, blake's pictures and poems, calvert's pictures, rossetti's pictures, villiers de l'isle adam's plays, and the black-and-white art of mr. beardsley and mr. ricketts, and the lithographs of mr. shannon, and the pictures of mr. whistler, and the plays of m. maeterlinck, and the poetry of verlaine, in our own day, but differ from the religious art of giotto and his disciples in having accepted all symbolisms, the symbolism of the ancient shepherds and star-gazers, that symbolism of bodily beauty which seemed a wicked thing to fra angelico, the symbolism in day and night, and winter and summer, spring and autumn, once so great a part of an older religion than christianity; and in having accepted all the divine intellect, its anger and its pity, its waking and its sleep, its love and its lust, for the substance of their art. a keats or a calvert is as much a symbolist as a blake or a wagner; but he is a fragmentary symbolist, for while he evokes in his persons and his landscapes an infinite emotion, a perfected emotion, a part of the divine essence, he does not set his symbols in the great procession as blake would have him, 'in a certain order, suited' to his 'imaginative energy.' if you paint a beautiful woman and fill her face, as rossetti filled so many faces, with an infinite love, a perfected love, 'one's eyes meet no mortal thing when they meet the light of her peaceful eyes,' as michael angelo said of vittoria colonna; but one's thoughts stray to mortal things, and ask, maybe, 'has her lover gone from her, or is he coming?' or 'what pre-destinated unhappiness has made the shadow in her eyes?' if you paint the same face, and set a winged rose or a rose of gold somewhere about her, one's thoughts are of her immortal sisters, pity and jealousy, and of her mother, ancestral beauty, and of her high kinsmen, the holy orders, whose swords make a continual music before her face. the systematic mystic is not the greatest of artists, because his imagination is too great to be bounded by a picture or a song, and because only imperfection in a mirror of perfection, or perfection in a mirror of imperfection, delight our frailty. there is indeed a systematic mystic in every poet or painter who, like rossetti, delights in a traditional symbolism, or, like wagner, delights in a personal symbolism; and such men often fall into trances, or have waking dreams. their thought wanders from the woman who is love herself, to her sisters and her forebears, and to all the great procession; and so august a beauty moves before the mind, that they forget the things which move before the eyes. william blake, who was the chanticleer of the new dawn, has written: 'if the spectator could enter into one of these images of his imagination, approaching them on the fiery chariot of his contemplative thought, if ... he could make a friend and companion of one of these images of wonder, which always entreat him to leave mortal things (as he must know), then would he arise from the grave, then would he meet the lord in the air, and then he would be happy.' and again, 'the world of imagination is the world of eternity. it is the divine bosom into which we shall all go after the death of the vegetated body. the world of imagination is infinite and eternal, whereas the world of generation or vegetation is finite and temporal. there exist in that eternal world the eternal realities of everything which we see reflected in the vegetable glass of nature.' every visionary knows that the mind's eye soon comes to see a capricious and variable world, which the will cannot shape or change, though it can call it up and banish it again. i closed my eyes a moment ago, and a company of people in blue robes swept by me in a blinding light, and had gone before i had done more than see little roses embroidered on the hems of their robes, and confused, blossoming apple-boughs somewhere beyond them, and recognized one of the company by his square, black curling beard. i have often seen him; and one night a year ago, i asked him questions which he answered by showing me flowers and precious stones, of whose meaning i had no knowledge, and he seemed too perfected a soul for any knowledge that cannot be spoken in symbol or metaphor. are he and his blue-robed companions, and their like, 'the eternal realities' of which we are the reflection 'in the vegetable glass of nature,' or a momentary dream? to answer is to take sides in the only controversy in which it is greatly worth taking sides, and in the only controversy which may never be decided. 1898. the symbolism of poetry i 'symbolism, as seen in the writers of our day, would have no value if it were not seen also, under one disguise or another, in every great imaginative writer,' writes mr. arthur symons in _the symbolist movement in literature_, a subtle book which i cannot praise as i would, because it has been dedicated to me; and he goes on to show how many profound writers have in the last few years sought for a philosophy of poetry in the doctrine of symbolism, and how even in countries where it is almost scandalous to seek for any philosophy of poetry, new writers are following them in their search. we do not know what the writers of ancient times talked of among themselves, and one bull is all that remains of shakespeare's talk, who was on the edge of modern times; and the journalist is convinced, it seems, that they talked of wine and women and politics, but never about their art, or never quite seriously about their art. he is certain that no one, who had a philosophy of his art or a theory of how he should write, has ever made a work of art, that people have no imagination who do not write without forethought and afterthought as he writes his own articles. he says this with enthusiasm, because he has heard it at so many comfortable dinner-tables, where some one had mentioned through carelessness, or foolish zeal, a book whose difficulty had offended indolence, or a man who had not forgotten that beauty is an accusation. those formulas and generalizations, in which a hidden sergeant has drilled the ideas of journalists and through them the ideas of all but all the modern world, have created in their turn a forgetfulness like that of soldiers in battle, so that journalists and their readers have forgotten, among many like events, that wagner spent seven years arranging and explaining his ideas before he began his most characteristic music; that opera, and with it modern music, arose from certain talks at the house of one giovanni bardi of florence; and that the pleiade laid the foundations of modern french literature with a pamphlet. goethe has said, 'a poet needs all philosophy, but he must keep it out of his work,' though that is not always necessary; and certainly he cannot know too much, whether about his own work, or about the procreant waters of the soul where the breath first moved, or about the waters under the earth that are the life of passing things; and almost certainly no great art, outside england, where journalists are more powerful and ideas less plentiful than elsewhere, has arisen without a great criticism, for its herald or its interpreter and protector, and it is perhaps for this reason that great art, now that vulgarity has armed itself and multiplied itself, is perhaps dead in england. all writers, all artists of any kind, in so far as they have had any philosophical or critical power, perhaps just in so far as they have been deliberate artists at all, have had some philosophy, some criticism of their art; and it has often been this philosophy, or this criticism, that has evoked their most startling inspiration, calling into outer life some portion of the divine life, of the buried reality, which could alone extinguish in the emotions what their philosophy or their criticism would extinguish in the intellect. they have sought for no new thing, it may be, but only to understand and to copy the pure inspiration of early times, but because the divine life wars upon our outer life, and must needs change its weapons and its movements as we change ours, inspiration has come to them in beautiful startling shapes. the scientific movement brought with it a literature, which was always tending to lose itself in externalities of all kinds, in opinion, in declamation, in picturesque writing, in word-painting, or in what mr. symons has called an attempt 'to build in brick and mortar inside the covers of a book'; and now writers have begun to dwell upon the element of evocation, of suggestion, upon what we call the symbolism in great writers. ii in 'symbolism in painting' i tried to describe the element of symbolism that is in pictures and sculpture, and described a little the symbolism in poetry, but did not describe at all the continuous indefinable symbolism which is the substance of all style. there are no lines with more melancholy beauty than these by burns- 'the white moon is setting behind the white wave, and time is setting with me, o!' and these lines are perfectly symbolical. take from them the whiteness of the moon and of the wave, whose relation to the setting of time is too subtle for the intellect, and you take from them their beauty. but, when all are together, moon and wave and whiteness and setting time and the melancholy cry, they evoke an emotion which cannot be evoked by any other arrangement of colours and sounds and forms. we may call this metaphorical writing, but it is better to call it symbolical writing, because metaphors are not profound enough to be moving, when they are not symbols, and when they are symbols they are the most perfect, because the most subtle, outside of pure sound, and through them one can the best find out what symbols are. if one begins the reverie with any beautiful lines that one can remember, one finds they are all like those by burns. begin with this line by blake- 'the gay fishes on the wave when the moon sucks up the dew;' or these lines by nash- 'brightness falls from the air, queens have died young and fair, dust hath closed helen's eye;' or these lines by shakespeare- 'timon hath made his everlasting mansion upon the beached verge of the salt flood; who once a day with his embossed froth the turbulent surge shall cover;' or take some line that is quite simple, that gets its beauty from its place in a story, and see how it flickers with the light of the many symbols that have given the story its beauty, as a sword-blade may flicker with the light of burning towers. all sounds, all colours, all forms, either because of their pre-ordained energies or because of long association, evoke indefinable and yet precise emotions, or, as i prefer to think, call down among us certain disembodied powers, whose footsteps over our hearts we call emotions; and when sound, and colour, and form are in a musical relation, a beautiful relation to one another, they become as it were one sound, one colour, one form, and evoke an emotion that is made out of their distinct evocations and yet is one emotion. the same relation exists between all portions of every work of art, whether it be an epic or a song, and the more perfect it is, and the more various and numerous the elements that have flowed into its perfection, the more powerful will be the emotion, the power, the god it calls among us. because an emotion does not exist, or does not become perceptible and active among us, till it has found its expression, in colour or in sound or in form, or in all of these, and because no two modulations or arrangements of these evoke the same emotion, poets and painters and musicians, and in a less degree because their effects are momentary, day and night and cloud and shadow, are continually making and unmaking mankind. it is indeed only those things which seem useless or very feeble that have any power, and all those things that seem useful or strong, armies, moving wheels, modes of architecture, modes of government, speculations of the reason, would have been a little different if some mind long ago had not given itself to some emotion, as a woman gives herself to her lover, and shaped sounds or colours or forms, or all of these, into a musical relation, that their emotion might live in other minds. a little lyric evokes an emotion, and this emotion gathers others about it and melts into their being in the making of some great epic; and at last, needing an always less delicate body, or symbol, as it grows more powerful, it flows out, with all it has gathered, among the blind instincts of daily life, where it moves a power within powers, as one sees ring within ring in the stem of an old tree. this is maybe what arthur o'shaughnessy meant when he made his poets say they had built nineveh with their sighing; and i am certainly never certain, when i hear of some war, or of some religious excitement, or of some new manufacture, or of anything else that fills the ear of the world, that it has not all happened because of something that a boy piped in thessaly. i remember once asking a seer to ask one among the gods who, as she believed, were standing about her in their symbolic bodies, what would come of a charming but seeming trivial labour of a friend, and the form answering, 'the devastation of peoples and the overwhelming of cities.' i doubt indeed if the crude circumstance of the world, which seems to create all our emotions, does more than reflect, as in multiplying mirrors, the emotions that have come to solitary men in moments of poetical contemplation; or that love itself would be more than an animal hunger but for the poet and his shadow the priest, for unless we believe that outer things are the reality, we must believe that the gross is the shadow of the subtle, that things are wise before they become foolish, and secret before they cry out in the market-place. solitary men in moments of contemplation receive, as i think, the creative impulse from the lowest of the nine hierarchies, and so make and unmake mankind, and even the world itself, for does not 'the eye altering alter all'? 'our towns are copied fragments from our breast; and all man's babylons strive but to impart the grandeurs of his babylonian heart.' iii the purpose of rhythm, it has always seemed to me, is to prolong the moment of contemplation, the moment when we are both asleep and awake, which is the one moment of creation, by hushing us with an alluring monotony, while it holds us waking by variety, to keep us in that state of perhaps real trance, in which the mind liberated from the pressure of the will is unfolded in symbols. if certain sensitive persons listen persistently to the ticking of a watch, or gaze persistently on the monotonous flashing of a light, they fall into the hypnotic trance; and rhythm is but the ticking of a watch made softer, that one must needs listen, and various, that one may not be swept beyond memory or grow weary of listening; while the patterns of the artist are but the monotonous flash woven to take the eyes in a subtler enchantment. i have heard in meditation voices that were forgotten the moment they had spoken; and i have been swept, when in more profound meditation, beyond all memory but of those things that came from beyond the threshold of waking life. i was writing once at a very symbolical and abstract poem, when my pen fell on the ground; and as i stooped to pick it up, i remembered some phantastic adventure that yet did not seem phantastic, and then another like adventure, and when i asked myself when these things had happened, i found that i was remembering my dreams for many nights. i tried to remember what i had done the day before, and then what i had done that morning; but all my waking life had perished from me, and it was only after a struggle that i came to remember it again, and as i did so that more powerful and startling life perished in its turn. had my pen not fallen on the ground and so made me turn from the images that i was weaving into verse, i would never have known that meditation had become trance, for i would have been like one who does not know that he is passing through a wood because his eyes are on the pathway. so i think that in the making and in the understanding of a work of art, and the more easily if it is full of patterns and symbols and music, we are lured to the threshold of sleep, and it may be far beyond it, without knowing that we have ever set our feet upon the steps of horn or of ivory. iv besides emotional symbols, symbols that evoke emotions alone,--and in this sense all alluring or hateful things are symbols, although their relations with one another are too subtle to delight us fully, away from rhythm and pattern,--there are intellectual symbols, symbols that evoke ideas alone, or ideas mingled with emotions; and outside the very definite traditions of mysticism and the less definite criticism of certain modern poets, these alone are called symbols. most things belong to one or another kind, according to the way we speak of them and the companions we give them, for symbols, associated with ideas that are more than fragments of the shadows thrown upon the intellect by the emotions they evoke, are the playthings of the allegorist or the pedant, and soon pass away. if i say 'white' or 'purple' in an ordinary line of poetry, they evoke emotions so exclusively that i cannot say why they move me; but if i say them in the same mood, in the same breath with such obvious intellectual symbols as a cross or a crown of thorns, i think of purity and sovereignty; while innumerable other meanings, which are held to one another by the bondage of subtle suggestion, and alike in the emotions and in the intellect, move visibly through my mind, and move invisibly beyond the threshold of sleep, casting lights and shadows of an indefinable wisdom on what had seemed before, it may be, but sterility and noisy violence. it is the intellect that decides where the reader shall ponder over the procession of the symbols, and if the symbols are merely emotional, he gazes from amid the accidents and destinies of the world; but if the symbols are intellectual too, he becomes himself a part of pure intellect, and he is himself mingled with the procession. if i watch a rushy pool in the moonlight, my emotion at its beauty is mixed with memories of the man that i have seen ploughing by its margin, or of the lovers i saw there a night ago; but if i look at the moon herself and remember any of her ancient names and meanings, i move among divine people, and things that have shaken off our mortality, the tower of ivory, the queen of waters, the shining stag among enchanted woods, the white hare sitting upon the hilltop, the fool of faery with his shining cup full of dreams, and it may be 'make a friend of one of these images of wonder,' and 'meet the lord in the air.' so, too, if one is moved by shakespeare, who is content with emotional symbols that he may come the nearer to our sympathy, one is mixed with the whole spectacle of the world; while if one is moved by dante, or by the myth of demeter, one is mixed into the shadow of god or of a goddess. so too one is furthest from symbols when one is busy doing this or that, but the soul moves among symbols and unfolds in symbols when trance, or madness, or deep meditation has withdrawn it from every impulse but its own. 'i then saw,' wrote gã©rard de nerval of his madness, 'vaguely drifting into form, plastic images of antiquity, which outlined themselves, became definite, and seemed to represent symbols of which i only seized the idea with difficulty.' in an earlier time he would have been of that multitude, whose souls austerity withdrew, even more perfectly than madness could withdraw his soul, from hope and memory, from desire and regret, that they might reveal those processions of symbols that men bow to before altars, and woo with incense and offerings. but being of our time, he has been like maeterlinck, like villiers de l'isle adam in _axã«l_, like all who are preoccupied with intellectual symbols in our time, a foreshadower of the new sacred book, of which all the arts, as somebody has said, are begging to dream, and because, as i think, they cannot overcome the slow dying of men's hearts that we call the progress of the world, and lay their hands upon men's heart-strings again, without becoming the garment of religion as in old times. v if people were to accept the theory that poetry moves us because of its symbolism, what change should one look for in the manner of our poetry? a return to the way of our fathers, a casting out of descriptions of nature for the sake of nature, of the moral law for the sake of the moral law, a casting out of all anecdotes and of that brooding over scientific opinion that so often extinguished the central flame in tennyson, and of that vehemence that would make us do or not do certain things; or, in other words, we should come to understand that the beryl stone was enchanted by our fathers that it might unfold the pictures in its heart, and not to mirror our own excited faces, or the boughs waving outside the window. with this change of substance, this return to imagination, this understanding that the laws of art, which are the hidden laws of the world, can alone bind the imagination, would come a change of style, and we would cast out of serious poetry those energetic rhythms, as of a man running, which are the invention of the will with its eyes always on something to be done or undone; and we would seek out those wavering, meditative, organic rhythms, which are the embodiment of the imagination, that neither desires nor hates, because it has done with time, and only wishes to gaze upon some reality, some beauty; nor would it be any longer possible for anybody to deny the importance of form, in all its kinds, for although you can expound an opinion, or describe a thing when your words are not quite well chosen, you cannot give a body to something that moves beyond the senses, unless your words are as subtle, as complex, as full of mysterious life, as the body of a flower or of a woman. the form of sincere poetry, unlike the form of the popular poetry, may indeed be sometimes obscure, or ungrammatical as in some of the best of the songs of innocence and experience, but it must have the perfections that escape analysis, the subtleties that have a new meaning every day, and it must have all this whether it be but a little song made out of a moment of dreamy indolence, or some great epic made out of the dreams of one poet and of a hundred generations whose hands were never weary of the sword. 1900. the theatre i i remember, some years ago, advising a distinguished, though too little recognized, writer of poetical plays to write a play as unlike ordinary plays as possible, that it might be judged with a fresh mind, and to put it on the stage in some small suburban theatre, where a small audience would pay its expenses. i said that he should follow it the year after, at the same time of the year, with another play, and so on from year to year; and that the people who read books, and do not go to the theatre, would gradually find out about him. i suggested that he should begin with a pastoral play, because nobody would expect from a pastoral play the succession of nervous tremours which the plays of commerce, like the novels of commerce, have substituted for the purification that comes with pity and terror to the imagination and intellect. he followed my advice in part, and had a small but perfect success, filling his small theatre for twice the number of performances he had announced; but instead of being content with the praise of his equals, and waiting to win their praise another year, he hired immediately a big london theatre, and put his pastoral play and a new play before a meagre and unintelligent audience. i still remember his pastoral play with delight, because, if not always of a high excellence, it was always poetical; but i remember it at the small theatre, where my pleasure was magnified by the pleasure of those about me, and not at the big theatre, where it made me uncomfortable, as an unwelcome guest always makes one uncomfortable. why should we thrust our works, which we have written with imaginative sincerity and filled with spiritual desire, before those quite excellent people who think that rossetti's women are 'guys,' that rodin's women are 'ugly,' and that ibsen is 'immoral,' and who only want to be left at peace to enjoy the works so many clever men have made especially to suit them? we must make a theatre for ourselves and our friends, and for a few simple people who understand from sheer simplicity what we understand from scholarship and thought. we have planned the irish literary theatre with this hospitable emotion, and, that the right people may find out about us, we hope to act a play or two in the spring of every year; and that the right people may escape the stupefying memory of the theatre of commerce which clings even to them, our plays will be for the most part remote, spiritual, and ideal. a common opinion is that the poetic drama has come to an end, because modern poets have no dramatic power; and mr. binyon seems to accept this opinion when he says: 'it has been too often assumed that it is the manager who bars the way to poetic plays. but it is much more probable that the poets have failed the managers. if poets mean to serve the stage, their dramas must be dramatic.' i find it easier to believe that audiences, who have learned, as i think, from the life of crowded cities to live upon the surface of life, and actors and managers, who study to please them, have changed, than that imagination, which is the voice of what is eternal in man, has changed. the arts are but one art; and why should all intense painting and all intense poetry have become not merely unintelligible but hateful to the greater number of men and women, and intense drama move them to pleasure? the audiences of sophocles and of shakespeare and of calderon were not unlike the audiences i have heard listening in irish cabins to songs in gaelic about 'an old poet telling his sins,' and about 'the five young men who were drowned last year,' and about 'the lovers that were drowned going to america,' or to some tale of oisin and his three hundred years in _tir nan oge_. mr. bridges' _return of ulysses_, one of the most beautiful and, as i think, dramatic of modern plays, might have some success in the aran islands, if the gaelic league would translate it into gaelic, but i am quite certain that it would have no success in the strand. blake has said that all art is a labour to bring again the golden age, and all culture is certainly a labour to bring again the simplicity of the first ages, with knowledge of good and evil added to it. the drama has need of cities that it may find men in sufficient numbers, and cities destroy the emotions to which it appeals, and therefore the days of the drama are brief and come but seldom. it has one day when the emotions of cities still remember the emotions of sailors and husbandmen and shepherds and users of the spear and the bow; as the houses and furniture and earthen vessels of cities, before the coming of machinery, remember the rocks and the woods and the hillside; and it has another day, now beginning, when thought and scholarship discover their desire. in the first day, it is the art of the people; and in the second day, like the dramas acted of old times in the hidden places of temples, it is the preparation of a priesthood. it may be, though the world is not old enough to show us any example, that this priesthood will spread their religion everywhere, and make their art the art of the people. when the first day of the drama had passed by, actors found that an always larger number of people were more easily moved through the eyes than through the ears. the emotion that comes with the music of words is exhausting, like all intellectual emotions, and few people like exhausting emotions; and therefore actors began to speak as if they were reading something out of the newspapers. they forgot the noble art of oratory, and gave all their thought to the poor art of acting, that is content with the sympathy of our nerves; until at last those who love poetry found it better to read alone in their rooms what they had once delighted to hear sitting friend by friend, lover by beloved. i once asked mr. william morris if he had thought of writing a play, and he answered that he had, but would not write one, because actors did not know how to speak poetry with the half-chant men spoke it with in old times. mr. swinburne's _locrine_ was acted a month ago, and it was not badly acted, but nobody could tell whether it was fit for the stage or not, for not one rhythm, not one cry of passion, was spoken with a musical emphasis, and verse spoken without a musical emphasis seems but an artificial and cumbersome way of saying what might be said naturally and simply in prose. as audiences and actors changed, managers learned to substitute meretricious landscapes, painted upon wood and canvas, for the descriptions of poetry, until the painted scenery, which had in greece been a charming explanation of what was least important in the story, became as important as the story. it needed some imagination, some gift for day-dreams, to see the horses and the fields and flowers of colonus as one listened to the elders gathered about oedipus, or to see 'the pendent bed and procreant cradle' of the 'martlet' as one listened to duncan before the castle of macbeth; but it needs no imagination to admire a painting of one of the more obvious effects of nature painted by somebody who understands how to show everything to the most hurried glance. at the same time the managers made the costumes of the actors more and more magnificent, that the mind might sleep in peace, while the eye took pleasure in the magnificence of velvet and silk and in the physical beauty of women. these changes gradually perfected the theatre of commerce, the masterpiece of that movement towards externality in life and thought and art, against which the criticism of our day is learning to protest. even if poetry were spoken as poetry, it would still seem out of place in many of its highest moments upon a stage, where the superficial appearances of nature are so closely copied; for poetry is founded upon convention, and becomes incredible the moment painting or gesture remind us that people do not speak verse when they meet upon the highway. the theatre of art, when it comes to exist, must therefore discover grave and decorative gestures, such as delighted rossetti and madox brown, and grave and decorative scenery, that will be forgotten the moment an actor has said 'it is dawn,' or 'it is raining,' or 'the wind is shaking the trees'; and dresses of so little irrelevant magnificence that the mortal actors and actresses may change without much labour into the immortal people of romance. the theatre began in ritual, and it cannot come to its greatness again without recalling words to their ancient sovereignty. it will take a generation, and perhaps generations, to restore the theatre of art; for one must get one's actors, and perhaps one's scenery, from the theatre of commerce, until new actors and new painters have come to help one; and until many failures and imperfect successes have made a new tradition, and perfected in detail the ideal that is beginning to float before our eyes. if one could call one's painters and one's actors from where one would, how easy it would be. i know some painters, who have never painted scenery, who could paint the scenery i want, but they have their own work to do; and in ireland i have heard a red-haired orator repeat some bad political verses with a voice that went through one like flame, and made them seem the most beautiful verses in the world; but he has no practical knowledge of the stage, and probably despises it. may 1899. ii dionysius, the areopagite, wrote that 'he has set the borders of the nations according to his angels.' it is these angels, each one the genius of some race about to be unfolded, that are the founders of intellectual traditions; and as lovers understand in their first glance all that is to befall them, and as poets and musicians see the whole work in its first impulse, so races prophesy at their awakening whatever the generations that are to prolong their traditions shall accomplish in detail. it is only at the awakening--as in ancient greece, or in elizabethan england, or in contemporary scandinavia--that great numbers of men understand that a right understanding of life and of destiny is more important than amusement. in london, where all the intellectual traditions gather to die, men hate a play if they are told it is literature, for they will not endure a spiritual superiority; but in athens, where so many intellectual traditions were born, euripides once changed hostility to enthusiasm by asking his playgoers whether it was his business to teach them, or their business to teach him. new races understand instinctively, because the future cries in their ears, that the old revelations are insufficient, and that all life is revelation beginning in miracle and enthusiasm, and dying out as it unfolds itself in what we have mistaken for progress. it is one of our illusions, as i think, that education, the softening of manners, the perfecting of law--countless images of a fading light--can create nobleness and beauty, and that life moves slowly and evenly towards some perfection. progress is miracle, and it is sudden, because miracles are the work of an all-powerful energy, and nature in herself has no power except to die and to forget. if one studies one's own mind, one comes to think with blake, that 'every time less than a pulsation of the artery is equal to six thousand years, for in this period the poet's work is done; and all the great events of time start forth and are conceived in such a period, within a pulsation of the artery.' february 1900. the celtic element in literature i ernest renan described what he held to be celtic characteristics in _the poetry of the celtic races_. i must repeat the well-known sentences: 'no race communed so intimately as the celtic race with the lower creation, or believed it to have so big a share of moral life.' the celtic race had 'a realistic naturalism,' 'a love of nature for herself, a vivid feeling for her magic, commingled with the melancholy a man knows when he is face to face with her, and thinks he hears her communing with him about his origin and his destiny.' 'it has worn itself out in mistaking dreams for realities,' and 'compared with the classical imagination the celtic imagination is indeed the infinite contrasted with the finite.' 'its history is one long lament, it still recalls its exiles, its flights across the seas.' 'if at times it seems to be cheerful, its tear is not slow to glisten behind the smile. its songs of joy end as elegies; there is nothing to equal the delightful sadness of its national melodies.' matthew arnold, in _the study of celtic literature_, has accepted this passion for nature, this imaginativeness, this melancholy, as celtic characteristics, but has described them more elaborately. the celtic passion for nature comes almost more from a sense of her 'mystery' than of her 'beauty,' and it adds 'charm and magic' to nature, and the celtic imaginativeness and melancholy are alike 'a passionate, turbulent, indomitable reaction against the despotism of fact.' the celt is not melancholy, as faust or werther are melancholy, from 'a perfectly definite motive,' but because of something about him 'unaccountable, defiant and titanic.' how well one knows these sentences, better even than renan's, and how well one knows the passages of prose and verse which he uses to prove that wherever english literature has the qualities these sentences describe, it has them from a celtic source. though i do not think any of us who write about ireland have built any argument upon them, it is well to consider them a little, and see where they are helpful and where they are hurtful. if we do not, we may go mad some day, and the enemy root up our rose-garden and plant a cabbage-garden instead. perhaps we must restate a little, renan's and arnold's argument. ii once every people in the world believed that trees were divine, and could take a human or grotesque shape and dance among the shadows; and that deer, and ravens and foxes, and wolves and bears, and clouds and pools, almost all things under the sun and moon, and the sun and moon, were not less divine and changeable. they saw in the rainbow the still bent bow of a god thrown down in his negligence; they heard in the thunder the sound of his beaten water-jar, or the tumult of his chariot wheels; and when a sudden flight of wild duck, or of crows, passed over their heads, they thought they were gazing at the dead hastening to their rest; while they dreamed of so great a mystery in little things that they believed the waving of a hand, or of a sacred bough, enough to trouble far-off hearts, or hood the moon with darkness. all old literatures are full of these or of like imaginations, and all the poets of races, who have not lost this way of looking at things, could have said of themselves, as the poet of the _kalevala_ said of himself, 'i have learned my songs from the music of many birds, and from the music of many waters.' when a mother in the _kalevala_ weeps for a daughter, who was drowned flying from an old suitor, she weeps so greatly that her tears become three rivers, and cast up three rocks, on which grow three birch-trees, where three cuckoos sit and sing, the one 'love, love,' the one 'suitor, suitor,' the one 'consolation, consolation.' and the makers of the sagas made the squirrel run up and down the sacred ash-tree carrying words of hatred from the eagle to the worm, and from the worm to the eagle; although they had less of the old way than the makers of the _kalavala_, for they lived in a more crowded and complicated world, and were learning the abstract meditation which lures men from visible beauty, and were unlearning, it may be, the impassioned meditation which brings men beyond the edge of trance and makes trees, and beasts, and dead things talk with human voices. the old irish and the old welsh, though they had less of the old way than the makers of the _kalavala_, had more of it than the makers of the sagas, and it is this that distinguishes the examples matthew arnold quotes of their 'natural magic,' of their sense of 'the mystery' more than of 'the beauty' of nature. when matthew arnold wrote it was not easy to know as much as we know now of folk song and folk belief, and i do not think he understood that our 'natural magic' is but the ancient religion of the world, the ancient worship of nature and that troubled ecstasy before her, that certainty of all beautiful places being haunted, which it brought into men's minds. the ancient religion is in that passage of the _mabinogion_ about the making of 'flower aspect.' gwydion and math made her 'by charms and illusions' 'out of flowers.' 'they took the blossoms of the oak, and the blossoms of the broom, and the blossoms of the meadow-sweet, and produced from them a maiden the fairest and most graceful that man ever saw; and they baptized her, and called her flower aspect'; and one finds it in the not less beautiful passage about the burning tree, that has half its beauty from calling up a fancy of leaves so living and beautiful, they can be of no less living and beautiful a thing than flame: 'they saw a tall tree by the side of the river, one half of which was in flames from the root to the top, and the other half was green and in full leaf.' and one finds it very certainly in the quotations he makes from english poets to prove a celtic influence in english poetry; in keats's 'magic casements opening on the foam of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn'; in his 'moving waters at their priest-like task of pure ablution round earth's human shore'; in shakespeare's 'floor of heaven,' 'inlaid with patens of bright gold'; and in his dido standing 'on the wild sea banks,' 'a willow in her hand,' and waving it in the ritual of the old worship of nature and the spirits of nature, to wave 'her love to come again to carthage.' and his other examples have the delight and wonder of devout worshippers among the haunts of their divinities. is there not such delight and wonder in the description of olwen in the _mabinogion_: 'more yellow was her hair than the flower of the broom, and her skin was whiter than the foam of the wave, and fairer were her hands and her fingers than the blossoms of the wood-anemone amidst the spray of the meadow fountains.' and is there not such delight and wonder in- 'meet we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead, by paved fountain or by rushy brook, or on the beached margent of the sea'? if men had never dreamed that fair women could be made out of flowers, or rise up out of meadow fountains and paved fountains, neither passage could have been written. certainly, the descriptions of nature made in what matthew arnold calls 'the faithful way,' or in what he calls 'the greek way,' would have lost nothing if all the meadow fountains or paved fountains were meadow fountains and paved fountains and nothing more. when keats wrote, in the greek way, which adds lightness and brightness to nature- 'what little town by river or sea-shore or mountain built with quiet citadel, is emptied of its folk, this pious morn'; when shakespeare wrote in the greek way- 'i know a bank where the wild thyme blows, where oxlips and the nodding violet grows'; when virgil wrote in the greek way- 'muscosi fontes et somno mollior herba,' and 'pallentes violas et summa papavera carpens narcissum et florem jungit bene olentis anethi'; they looked at nature without ecstasy, but with the affection a man feels for the garden where he has walked daily and thought pleasant thoughts. they looked at nature in the modern way, the way of people who are poetical, but are more interested in one another than in a nature which has faded to be but friendly and pleasant, the way of people who have forgotten the ancient religion. iii men who lived in a world where anything might flow and change, and become any other thing; and among great gods whose passions were in the flaming sunset, and in the thunder and the thunder-shower, had not our thoughts of weight and measure. they worshipped nature and the abundance of nature, and had always, as it seems, for a supreme ritual that tumultuous dance among the hills or in the depths of the woods, where unearthly ecstasy fell upon the dancers, until they seemed the gods or the godlike beasts, and felt their souls overtopping the moon; and, as some think, imagined for the first time in the world the blessed country of the gods and of the happy dead. they had imaginative passions because they did not live within our own strait limits, and were nearer to ancient chaos, every man's desire, and had immortal models about them. the hare that ran by among the dew might have sat upon his haunches when the first man was made, and the poor bunch of rushes under their feet might have been a goddess laughing among the stars; and with but a little magic, a little waving of the hands, a little murmuring of the lips, they too could become a hare or a bunch of rushes, and know immortal love and immortal hatred. all folk literature, and all literature that keeps the folk tradition, delights in unbounded and immortal things. the _kalevala_ delights in the seven hundred years that luonaton wanders in the depths of the sea with wã¤inã¤mã¶inen in her womb, and the mahomedan king in the song of roland, pondering upon the greatness of charlemagne, repeats over and over, 'he is three hundred years old, when will he weary of war?' cuchulain in the irish folk tale had the passion of victory, and he overcame all men, and died warring upon the waves, because they alone had the strength to overcome him. the lover in the irish folk song bids his beloved come with him into the woods, and see the salmon leap in the rivers, and hear the cuckoo sing, because death will never find them in the heart of the woods. oisin, new come from his three hundred years of faeryland, and of the love that is in faeryland, bids st. patrick cease his prayers a while and listen to the blackbird, because it is the blackbird of darrycarn that finn brought from norway, three hundred years before, and set its nest upon the oak-tree with his own hands. surely if one goes far enough into the woods, one will find there all that one is seeking? who knows how many centuries the birds of the woods have been singing? all folk literature has indeed a passion whose like is not in modern literature and music and art, except where it has come by some straight or crooked way out of ancient times. love was held to be a fatal sickness in ancient ireland, and there is a love-poem in _the songs of connacht_ that is like a death cry: 'my love, o she is my love, the woman who is most for destroying me, dearer is she for making me ill than the woman who would be for making me well. she is my treasure, o she is my treasure, the woman of the grey eyes ... a woman who would not lay a hand under my head.... she is my love, o she is my love, the woman who left no strength in me; a woman who would not breathe a sigh after me, a woman who would not raise a stone at my tomb.... she is my secret love, o she is my secret love. a woman who tells me nothing,... a woman who does not remember me to be out.... she is my choice, o she is my choice, the woman who would not look back at me, the woman who would not make peace with me.... she is my desire, o she is my desire: a woman dearest to me under the sun, a woman who would not pay me heed, if i were to sit by her side. it is she ruined my heart and left a sigh for ever in me.' there is another song that ends, 'the erne shall be in strong flood, the hills shall be torn down, and the sea shall have red waves, and blood shall be spilled, and every mountain valley and every moor shall be on high, before you shall perish, my little black rose.' nor do the old irish weigh and measure their hatred. the nurse of o'sullivan bere in the folk song prays that the bed of his betrayer may be the red hearth-stone of hell for ever. and an elizabethan irish poet cries: 'three things are waiting for my death. the devil, who is waiting for my soul and cares nothing for my body or my wealth; the worms, who are waiting for my body but care nothing for my soul or my wealth; my children, who are waiting for my wealth and care nothing for my body or my soul. o christ, hang all three in the one noose.' such love and hatred seek no mortal thing but their own infinity, and such love and hatred soon become love and hatred of the idea. the lover who loves so passionately can soon sing to his beloved like the lover in the poem by 'a. e.,' 'a vast desire awakes and grows into forgetfulness of thee.' when an early irish poet calls the irishman famous for much loving, and a proverb, a friend has heard in the highlands of scotland, talks of the lovelessness of the irishman, they may say but the same thing, for if your passion is but great enough it leads you to a country where there are many cloisters. the hater who hates with too good a heart soon comes also to hate the idea only; and from this idealism in love and hatred comes, as i think, a certain power of saying and forgetting things, especially a power of saying and forgetting things in politics, which others do not say and forget. the ancient farmers and herdsmen were full of love and hatred, and made their friends gods, and their enemies the enemies of gods, and those who keep their tradition are not less mythological. from this 'mistaking dreams,' which are perhaps essences, for 'realities' which are perhaps accidents, from this 'passionate, turbulent reaction against the despotism of fact,' comes, it may be, that melancholy which made all ancient peoples delight in tales that end in death and parting, as modern peoples delight in tales that end in marriage bells; and made all ancient peoples, who like the old irish had a nature more lyrical than dramatic, delight in wild and beautiful lamentations. life was so weighed down by the emptiness of the great forests and by the mystery of all things, and by the greatness of its own desires, and, as i think, by the loneliness of much beauty; and seemed so little and so fragile and so brief, that nothing could be more sweet in the memory than a tale that ended in death and parting, and than a wild and beautiful lamentation. men did not mourn merely because their beloved was married to another, or because learning was bitter in the mouth, for such mourning believes that life might be happy were it different, and is therefore the less mourning; but because they had been born and must die with their great thirst unslaked. and so it is that all the august sorrowful persons of literature, cassandra and helen and deirdre, and lear and tristan, have come out of legends and are indeed but the images of the primitive imagination mirrored in the little looking-glass of the modern and classic imagination. this is that 'melancholy a man knows when he is face to face' with nature, and thinks 'he hears her communing with him about' the mournfulness of being born and of dying; and how can it do otherwise than call into his mind 'its exiles, its flights across the seas,' that it may stir the ever-smouldering ashes? no gaelic poetry is so popular in gaelic-speaking places as the lamentations of oisin, old and miserable, remembering the companions and the loves of his youth, and his three hundred years in faeryland, and his faery love: all dreams withering in the winds of time lament in his lamentations: 'the clouds are long above me this night; last night was a long night to me; although i find this day long, yesterday was still longer. every day that comes to me is long.... no one in this great world is like me--a poor old man dragging stones. the clouds are long above me this night. i am the last man of the fianna, the great oisin, the son of finn, listening to the sound of bells. the clouds are long above me this night.' matthew arnold quotes the lamentation of leyrach hen as a type of the celtic melancholy, but i prefer to quote it as a type of the primitive melancholy; 'o my crutch, is it not autumn when the fern is red and the water flag yellow? have i not hated that which i love?... behold, old age, which makes sport of me, from the hair of my head and my teeth, to my eyes which women loved. the four things i have all my life most hated fall upon me together--coughing and old age, sickness and sorrow. i am old, i am alone, shapeliness and warmth are gone from me, the couch of honour shall be no more mine; i am miserable, i am bent on my crutch. how evil was the lot allotted to leyrach, the night he was brought forth! sorrows without end and no deliverance from his burden.' an elizabethan writer describes extravagant sorrow by calling it 'to weep irish'; and oisin and leyrach hen are, i think, a little nearer even to us modern irish than they are to most people. that is why our poetry and much of our thought is melancholy. 'the same man,' writes dr. hyde in the beautiful prose which he first writes in gaelic, 'who will to-day be dancing, sporting, drinking, and shouting, will be soliloquizing by himself to-morrow, heavy and sick and sad in his own lonely little hut, making a croon over departed hopes, lost life, the vanity of this world, and the coming of death.' iv matthew arnold asks how much of the celt must one imagine in the ideal man of genius. i prefer to say, how much of the ancient hunters and fishers and of the ecstatic dancers among hills and woods must one imagine in the ideal man of genius. certainly a thirst for unbounded emotion and a wild melancholy are troublesome things in the world, and do not make its life more easy or orderly, but it may be the arts are founded on the life beyond the world, and that they must cry in the ears of our penury until the world has been consumed and become a vision. certainly, as samuel palmer wrote, 'excess is the vivifying spirit of the finest art, and we must always seek to make excess more abundantly excessive.' matthew arnold has said that if he were asked 'where english got its turn for melancholy and its turn for natural magic,' he 'would answer with little doubt that it got much of its melancholy from a celtic source, with no doubt at all that from a celtic source is got nearly all its natural magic.' i will put this differently and say that literature dwindles to a mere chronicle of circumstance, or passionless phantasies, and passionless meditations, unless it is constantly flooded with the passions and beliefs of ancient times, and that of all the fountains of the passions and beliefs of ancient times in europe, the sclavonic, the finnish, the scandinavian, and the celtic, the celtic alone has been for centuries close to the main river of european literature. it has again and again brought 'the vivifying spirit' 'of excess' into the arts of europe. ernest renan has told how the visions of purgatory seen by pilgrims to lough derg--once visions of the pagan under-world, as the boat made out of a hollow tree that bore the pilgrim to the holy island were alone enough to prove--gave european thought new symbols of a more abundant penitence; and had so great an influence that he has written, 'it cannot be doubted for a moment that to the number of poetical themes europe owes to the genius of the celt is to be added the framework of the divine comedy.' a little later the legends of arthur and his table, and of the holy grail, once it seems the cauldron of an irish god, changed the literature of europe, and it may be changed, as it were, the very roots of man's emotions by their influence on the spirit of chivalry and on the spirit of romance; and later still shakespeare found his mab, and probably his puck, and one knows not how much else of his faery kingdom, in celtic legend; while at the beginning of our own day sir walter scott gave highland legends and highland excitability so great a mastery over all romance that they seem romance herself. in our own time scandinavian tradition, because of the imagination of richard wagner and of william morris and of the earlier and, as i think, greater heinrich ibsen, has created a new romance, and through the imagination of richard wagner, become all but the most passionate element in the arts of the modern world. there is indeed but one other element as passionate, the still unfaded legends of arthur and of the holy grail; and now a new fountain of legends, and, as i think, a more abundant fountain than any in europe, is being opened, the great fountain of gaelic legends; the tale of deirdre, who alone among the women who have set men mad was at once the white flame and the red flame, wisdom and loveliness; the tale of the sons of tuireann, with its unintelligible mysteries, an old grail quest as i think; the tale of the four children changed into four swans, and lamenting over many waters; the tale of the love of cuchulain for an immortal goddess, and his coming home to a mortal woman in the end; the tale of his many battles at the ford with that dear friend he kissed before the battles, and over whose dead body he wept when he had killed him; the tale of his death and of the lamentations of emer; the tale of the flight of grainne with diarmuid, strangest of all tales of the fickleness of woman, and the tale of the coming of oisin out of faeryland, and of his memories and lamentations. 'the celtic movement,' as i understand it, is principally the opening of this fountain, and none can measure of how great importance it may be to coming times, for every new fountain of legends is a new intoxication for the imagination of the world. it comes at a time when the imagination of the world is as ready, as it was at the coming of the tales of arthur and of the grail, for a new intoxication. the reaction against the rationalism of the eighteenth century has mingled with a reaction against the materialism of the nineteenth century, and the symbolical movement, which has come to perfection in germany in wagner, in england in the pre-raphaelites, and in france in villiers de l'isle adam, and mallarmã©, and maeterlinck, and has stirred the imagination of ibsen and d'annunzio, is certainly the only movement that is saying new things. the arts by brooding upon their own intensity have become religious, and are seeking, as i think verhaeren has said, to create a sacred book. they must, as religious thought has always done, utter themselves through legends; and the sclavonic and finnish legends tell of strange woods and seas, and the scandinavian legends are held by a great master, and tell also of strange woods and seas, and the welsh legends are held by almost as many great masters as the greek legends, while the irish legends move among known woods and seas, and have so much of a new beauty, that they may well give the opening century its most memorable symbols. 1897. i could have written this essay with much more precision and have much better illustrated my meaning if i had waited until lady gregory had finished her book of legends, _cuchulain of muirthemne_, a book to set beside the _morte d'arthur_ and the _mabinogion_. 1902. the autumn of the body our thoughts and emotions are often but spray flung up from hidden tides that follow a moon no eye can see. i remember that when i first began to write i desired to describe outward things as vividly as possible, and took pleasure, in which there was, perhaps, a little discontent, in picturesque and declamatory books. and then quite suddenly i lost the desire of describing outward things, and found that i took little pleasure in a book unless it was spiritual and unemphatic. i did not then understand that the change was from beyond my own mind, but i understand now that writers are struggling all over europe, though not often with a philosophic understanding of their struggle, against that picturesque and declamatory way of writing, against that 'externality' which a time of scientific and political thought has brought into literature. this struggle has been going on for some years, but it has only just become strong enough to draw within itself the little inner world which alone seeks more than amusement in the arts. in france, where movements are more marked, because the people are pre-eminently logical, _the temptation of s. anthony_, the last great dramatic invention of the old romanticism, contrasts very plainly with _axã«l_, the first great dramatic invention of the new; and maeterlinck has followed count villiers de l'isle adam. flaubert wrote unforgettable descriptions of grotesque, bizarre, and beautiful scenes and persons, as they show to the ear and to the eye, and crowded them with historic and ethnographical details; but count villiers de l'isle adam swept together, by what seemed a sudden energy, words behind which glimmered a spiritual and passionate mood, as the flame glimmers behind the dusky blue and red glass in an eastern lamp; and created persons from whom has fallen all even of personal characteristic except a thirst for that hour when all things shall pass away like a cloud, and a pride like that of the magi following their star over many mountains; while maeterlinck has plucked away even this thirst and this pride and set before us faint souls, naked and pathetic shadows already half vapour and sighing to one another upon the border of the last abyss. there has been, as i think, a like change in french painting, for one sees everywhere, instead of the dramatic stories and picturesque moments of an older school, frail and tremulous bodies unfitted for the labour of life, and landscape where subtle rhythms of colour and of form have overcome the clear outline of things as we see them in the labour of life. there has been a like change in england, but it has come more gradually and is more mixed with lesser changes than in france. the poetry which found its expression in the poems of writers like browning and of tennyson, and even of writers, who are seldom classed with them, like swinburne, and like shelley in his earlier years, pushed its limits as far as possible, and tried to absorb into itself the science and politics, the philosophy and morality of its time; but a new poetry, which is always contracting its limits, has grown up under the shadow of the old. rossetti began it, but was too much of a painter in his poetry to follow it with a perfect devotion; and it became a movement when mr. lang and mr. gosse and mr. dobson devoted themselves to the most condensed of lyric poems, and when mr. bridges, a more considerable poet, elaborated a rhythm too delicate for any but an almost bodiless emotion, and repeated over and over the most ancient notes of poetry, and none but these. the poets who followed have either, like mr. kipling, turned from serious poetry altogether, and so passed out of the processional order, or speak out of some personal or spiritual passion in words and types and metaphors that draw one's imagination as far as possible from the complexities of modern life and thought. the change has been more marked in english painting, which, when intense enough to belong to the procession order, began to cast out things, as they are seen by minds plunged in the labour of life, so much before french painting that ideal art is sometimes called english art upon the continent. i see, indeed, in the arts of every country those faint lights and faint colours and faint outlines and faint energies which many call 'the decadence,' and which i, because i believe that the arts lie dreaming of things to come, prefer to call the autumn of the body. an irish poet whose rhythms are like the cry of a sea-bird in autumn twilight has told its meaning in the line, 'the very sunlight's weary, and it's time to quit the plough.' its importance is the greater because it comes to us at the moment when we are beginning to be interested in many things which positive science, the interpreter of exterior law, has always denied: communion of mind with mind in thought and without words, foreknowledge in dreams and in visions, and the coming among us of the dead, and of much else. we are, it may be, at a crowning crisis of the world, at the moment when man is about to ascend, with the wealth, he has been so long gathering, upon his shoulders, the stairway he has been descending from the first days. the first poets, if one may find their images in the _kalevala_, had not homer's preoccupation with things, and he was not so full of their excitement as virgil. dante added to poetry a dialectic which, although he made it serve his laborious ecstasy, was the invention of minds trained by the labour of life, by a traffic among many things, and not a spontaneous expression of an interior life; while shakespeare shattered the symmetry of verse and of drama that he might fill them with things and their accidental relations to one another. each of these writers had come further down the stairway than those who had lived before him, but it was only with the modern poets, with goethe and wordsworth and browning, that poetry gave up the right to consider all things in the world as a dictionary of types and symbols and began to call itself a critic of life and an interpreter of things as they are. painting, music, science, politics, and even religion, because they have felt a growing belief that we know nothing but the fading and flowering of the world, have changed in numberless elaborate ways. man has wooed and won the world, and has fallen weary, and not, i think, for a time, but with a weariness that will not end until the last autumn, when the stars shall be blown away like withered leaves. he grew weary when he said, 'these things that i touch and see and hear are alone real,' for he saw them without illusion at last, and found them but air and dust and moisture. and now he must be philosophical above everything, even about the arts, for he can only return the way he came, and so escape from weariness, by philosophy. the arts are, i believe, about to take upon their shoulders the burdens that have fallen from the shoulders of priests, and to lead us back upon our journey by filling our thoughts with the essences of things, and not with things. we are about to substitute once more the distillation of alchemy for the analyses of chemistry and for some other sciences; and certain of us are looking everywhere for the perfect alembic that no silver or golden drop may escape. mr. symons has written lately on m. mallarmã©'s method, and has quoted him as saying that we should 'abolish the pretension, ã¦sthetically an error, despite its dominion over almost all the masterpieces, to enclose within the subtle pages other than--for example--the horror of the forest or the silent thunder in the leaves, not the intense dense wood of the trees,' and as desiring to substitute for the old lyric afflatus or the enthusiastic personal direction of the phrase' words 'that take light from mutual reflection, like an actual trail of fire over precious stones,' and 'to make an entire word hitherto unknown to the language' 'out of many vocables.' mr. symons understands these and other sentences to mean that poetry will henceforth be a poetry of essences, separated one from another in little and intense poems. i think there will be much poetry of this kind, because of an ever more arduous search for an almost disembodied ecstasy, but i think we will not cease to write long poems, but rather that we will write them more and more as our new belief makes the world plastic under our hands again. i think that we will learn again how to describe at great length an old man wandering among enchanted islands, his return home at last, his slow-gathering vengeance, a flitting shape of a goddess, and a flight of arrows, and yet to make all of these so different things 'take light by mutual reflection, like an actual trail of fire over precious stones,' and become 'an entire word,' the signature or symbol of a mood of the divine imagination as imponderable as 'the horror of the forest or the silent thunder in the leaves.' 1898. the moods literature differs from explanatory and scientific writing in being wrought about a mood, or a community of moods, as the body is wrought about an invisible soul; and if it uses argument, theory, erudition, observation, and seems to grow hot in assertion or denial, it does so merely to make us partakers at the banquet of the moods. it seems to me that these moods are the labourers and messengers of the ruler of all, the gods of ancient days still dwelling on their secret olympus, the angels of more modern days ascending and descending upon their shining ladder; and that argument, theory, erudition, observation, are merely what blake called 'little devils who fight for themselves,' illusions of our visible passing life, who must be made serve the moods, or we have no part in eternity. everything that can be seen, touched, measured, explained, understood, argued over, is to the imaginative artist nothing more than a means, for he belongs to the invisible life, and delivers its ever new and ever ancient revelation. we hear much of his need for the restraints of reason, but the only restraint he can obey is the mysterious instinct that has made him an artist, and that teaches him to discover immortal moods in mortal desires, an undecaying hope in our trivial ambitions, a divine love in sexual passion. 1895. the body of the father christian rosencrux the followers of the father christian rosencrux, says the old tradition, wrapped his imperishable body in noble raiment and laid it under the house of their order, in a tomb containing the symbols of all things in heaven and earth, and in the waters under the earth, and set about him inextinguishable magical lamps, which burnt on generation after generation, until other students of the order came upon the tomb by chance. it seems to me that the imagination has had no very different history during the last two hundred years, but has been laid in a great tomb of criticism, and had set over it inextinguishable magical lamps of wisdom and romance, and has been altogether so nobly housed and apparelled that we have forgotten that its wizard lips are closed, or but opened for the complaining of some melancholy and ghostly voice. the ancients and the elizabethans abandoned themselves to imagination as a woman abandons herself to love, and created great beings who made the people of this world seem but shadows, and great passions which made our loves and hatreds appear but ephemeral and trivial phantasies; but now it is not the great persons, or the great passions we imagine, which absorb us, for the persons and passions in our poems are mainly reflections our mirror has caught from older poems or from the life about us, but the wise comments we make upon them, the criticism of life we wring from their fortunes. arthur and his court are nothing, but the many-coloured lights that play about them are as beautiful as the lights from cathedral windows; pompilia and guido are but little, while the ever-recurring meditations and expositions which climax in the mouth of the pope are among the wisest of the christian age. i cannot get it out of my mind that this age of criticism is about to pass, and an age of imagination, of emotion, of moods, of revelation, about to come in its place; for certainly belief in a supersensual world is at hand again; and when the notion that we are 'phantoms of the earth and water' has gone down the wind, we will trust our own being and all it desires to invent; and when the external world is no more the standard of reality, we will learn again that the great passions are angels of god, and that to embody them 'uncurbed in their eternal glory,' even in their labour for the ending of man's peace and prosperity, is more than to comment, however wisely, upon the tendencies of our time, or to express the socialistic, or humanitarian, or other forces of our time, or even 'to sum up' our time, as the phrase is; for art is a revelation, and not a criticism, and the life of the artist is in the old saying, 'the wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the spirit.' 1895. the return of ulysses i m. maeterlinck, in his beautiful _treasure of the humble_, compares the dramas of our stage to the paintings of an obsolete taste; and the dramas of the stage for which he hopes, to the paintings of a taste that cannot become obsolete. 'the true artist,' he says, 'no longer chooses marius triumphing over the cimbrians, or the assassination of the duke of guise, as fit subjects for his art; for he is well aware that the psychology of victory or murder is but elementary and exceptional, and that the solemn voice of men and things, the voice that issues forth so timidly and hesitatingly, cannot be heard amidst the idle uproar of acts of violence. and therefore will he place on his canvas a house lost in the heart of the country, a door open at the end of a passage, a face or hands at rest.' i do not understand him to mean that our dramas should have no victories or murders, for he quotes for our example plays that have both, but only that their victories and murders shall not be to excite our nerves, but to illustrate the reveries of a wisdom which shall be as much a part of the daily life of the wise as a face or hands at rest. and certainly the greater plays of the past ages have been built after such a fashion. if this fashion is about to become our fashion also, and there are signs that it is, plays like some of mr. robert bridges will come out of that obscurity into which all poetry, that is not lyrical poetry, has fallen, and even popular criticism will begin to know something about them. some day the few among us, who care for poetry more than any temporal thing, and who believe that its delights cannot be perfect when we read it alone in our rooms and long for one to share its delights, but that they might be perfect in the theatre, when we share them friend with friend, lover with beloved, will persuade a few idealists to seek out the lost art of speaking, and seek out ourselves the lost art, that is perhaps nearest of all arts to eternity, the subtle art of listening. when that day comes we will talk much of mr. bridges; for did he not write scrupulous, passionate poetry to be sung and to be spoken, when there were few to sing and as yet none to speak? there is one play especially, _the return of ulysses_, which we will praise for perfect after its kind, the kind of our new drama of wisdom, for it moulds into dramatic shape, and with as much as possible of literal translation, those closing books of the odyssey which are perhaps the most perfect poetry of the world, and compels that great tide of song to flow through delicate dramatic verse, with little abatement of its own leaping and clamorous speed. as i read, the gathering passion overwhelms me, as it did when homer himself was the singer, and when i read at last the lines in which the maid describes to penelope the battle with the suitors, at which she looks through the open door, i tremble with excitement. '_penelope_: alas! what cries! say, is the prince still safe? _the maid_: he shieldeth himself well, and striketh surely; his foes fall down before him. ah! now what can i see? who cometh? lo! a dazzling helm, a spear of silver or electron; sharp and swift the piercings. how they fall! ha! shields are raised in vain. i am blinded, or the beggar-man hath waxed in strength. he is changed, he is young. o strange! he is all in golden armour. these are gods that slay the suitors. (_runs to penelope._) o lady, forgive me. tis ares' self. i saw his crispã¨d beard; i saw beneath his helm his curlã¨d locks.' the coming of athene helmed 'in silver or electron' and her transformation of ulysses are not, as the way is with the only modern dramas that popular criticism holds to be dramatic, the climax of an excitement of the nerves, but of that unearthly excitement which has wisdom for fruit, and is of like kind with the ecstasy of the seers, an altar flame, unshaken by the winds of the world, and burning every moment with whiter and purer brilliance. mr. bridges has written it in what is practically the classical manner, as he has done in _achilles in scyros_--a placid and charming setting for many placid and charming lyrics- 'and ever we keep a feast of delight the betrothal of hearts, when spirits unite, creating an offspring of joy, a treasure unknown to the bad, for whom the gods foredoom the glitter of pleasure and a dark tomb.' the poet who writes best in the shakespearian manner is a poet with a circumstantial and instinctive mind, who delights to speak with strange voices and to see his mind in the mirror of nature; while mr. bridges, like most of us to-day, has a lyrical and meditative mind, and delights to speak with his own voice and to see nature in the mirror of his mind. in reading his plays in a shakespearian manner, i find that he is constantly arranging his story in such and such a way because he has read that the persons he is writing of did such and such things, and not because his soul has passed into the soul of their world and understood its unchangeable destinies. his _return of ulysses_ is admirable in beauty, because its classical gravity of speech, which does not, like shakespeare's verse, desire the vivacity of common life, purifies and subdues all passion into lyrical and meditative ecstasies, and because the unity of place and time in the late acts compels a logical rather than instinctive procession of incidents; and if the shakespearian _nero: second part_ approaches it in beauty and in dramatic power, it is because it eddies about nero and seneca, who had both, to a great extent, lyrical and meditative minds. had mr. bridges been a true shakespearian, the pomp and glory of the world would have drowned that subtle voice that speaks amid our heterogeneous lives of a life lived in obedience to a lonely and distinguished ideal. ii the more a poet rids his verses of heterogeneous knowledge and irrelevant analysis, and purifies his mind with elaborate art, the more does the little ritual of his verse resemble the great ritual of nature, and become mysterious and inscrutable. he becomes, as all the great mystics have believed, a vessel of the creative power of god; and whether he be a great poet or a small poet, we can praise the poems, which but seem to be his, with the extremity of praise that we give this great ritual which is but copied from the same eternal model. there is poetry that is like the white light of noon, and poetry that has the heaviness of woods, and poetry that has the golden light of dawn or of sunset; and i find in the poetry of mr. bridges in the plays, but still more in the lyrics, the pale colours, the delicate silence, the low murmurs of cloudy country days, when the plough is in the earth, and the clouds darkening towards sunset; and had i the great gift of praising, i would praise it as i would praise these things. 1896. ireland and the arts the arts have failed; fewer people are interested in them every generation. the mere business of living, of making money, of amusing oneself, occupies people more and more, and makes them less and less capable of the difficult art of appreciation. when they buy a picture it generally shows a long-current idea, or some conventional form that can be admired in that lax mood one admires a fine carriage in or fine horses in; and when they buy a book it is so much in the manner of the picture that it is forgotten, when its moment is over, as a glass of wine is forgotten. we who care deeply about the arts find ourselves the priesthood of an almost forgotten faith, and we must, i think, if we would win the people again, take upon ourselves the method and the fervour of a priesthood. we must be half humble and half proud. we see the perfect more than others, it may be, but we must find the passions among the people. we must baptize as well as preach. the makers of religions have established their ceremonies, their form of art, upon fear of death, on the hope of the father in his child, upon the love of man and woman. they have even gathered into their ceremonies the ceremonies of more ancient faiths, for fear a grain of the dust turned into crystal in some past fire, a passion that had mingled with the religious idea, might perish if the ancient ceremony perished. they have renamed wells and images and given new meanings to ceremonies of spring and midsummer and harvest. in very early days the arts were so possessed by this method that they were almost inseparable from religion, going side by side with it into all life. but, to-day, they have grown, as i think, too proud, too anxious to live alone with the perfect, and so one sees them, as i think, like charioteers standing by deserted chariots and holding broken reins in their hands, or seeking to go upon their way drawn by the one passion which alone remains to them out of the passions of the world. we should not blame them, but rather a mysterious tendency in things which will have its end some day. in england, men like william morris, seeing about them passions so long separated from the perfect that it seemed as if they could not be changed until society had been changed, tried to unite the arts once more to life by uniting them to use. they advised painters to paint fewer pictures upon canvas, and to burn more of them on plates; and they tried to persuade sculptors that a candlestick might be as beautiful as a statue. but here in ireland, when the arts have grown humble, they will find two passions ready to their hands, love of the unseen life and love of country. i would have a devout writer or painter often content himself with subjects taken from his religious beliefs; and if his religious beliefs are those of the majority, he may at last move hearts in every cottage. while even if his religious beliefs are those of some minority, he will have a better welcome than if he wrote of the rape of persephone, or painted the burning of shelley's body. he will have founded his work on a passion which will bring him to many besides those who have been trained to care for beautiful things by a special education. if he is a painter or a sculptor he will find churches awaiting his hand everywhere, and if he follows the masters of his craft our other passion will come into his work also, for he will show his holy family winding among hills like those of ireland, and his bearer of the cross among faces copied from the faces of his own town. our art teachers should urge their pupils into this work, for i can remember, when i was myself a dublin art student, how i used to despond, when eagerness burned low, as it always must now and then, at seeing no market at all. but i would rather speak to those who, while moved in other things than the arts by love of country, are beginning to write, as i was some sixteen years ago, without any decided impulse to one thing more than another, and especially to those who are convinced, as i was convinced, that art is tribeless, nationless, a blossom gathered in no man's land. the greeks, the only perfect artists of the world, looked within their own borders, and we, like them, have a history fuller than any modern history of imaginative events; and legends which surpass, as i think, all legends but theirs in wild beauty, and in our land, as in theirs, there is no river or mountain that is not associated in the memory with some event or legend; while political reasons have made love of country, as i think, even greater among us than among them. i would have our writers and craftsmen of many kinds master this history and these legends, and fix upon their memory the appearance of mountains and rivers and make it all visible again in their arts, so that irishmen, even though they had gone thousands of miles away, would still be in their own country. whether they chose for the subject the carrying off of the brown bull, or the coming of patrick, or the political struggle of later times, the other world comes so much into it all that their love of it would move in their hands also, and as much, it may be, as in the hands of the greek craftsmen. in other words, i would have ireland recreate the ancient arts, the arts as they were understood in judã¦a, in india, in scandinavia, in greece and rome, in every ancient land; as they were understood when they moved a whole people and not a few people who have grown up in a leisured class and made this understanding their business. i think that my reader[2] will have agreed with most that i have said up till now, for we all hope for arts like these. i think indeed i first learned to hope for them myself in young ireland societies, or in reading the essays of davis. an englishman, with his belief in progress, with his instinctive preference for the cosmopolitan literature of the last century, may think arts like these parochial, but they are the arts we have begun the making of. i will not, however, have all my readers with me when i say that no writer, no artist, even though he choose brian boroihme or s. patrick for his subject, should try to make his work popular. once he has chosen a subject he must think of nothing but giving it such an expression as will please himself. as walt whitman has written- 'the oration is to the orator, the acting is to the actor and actress, not to the audience: and no man understands any greatness or goodness but his own or the indication of his own.' he must make his work a part of his own journey towards beauty and truth. he must picture saint or hero, or hillside, as he sees them, not as he is expected to see them, and he must comfort himself, when others cry out against what he has seen, by remembering that no two men are alike, and that there is no 'excellent beauty without strangeness.' in this matter he must be without humility. he may, indeed, doubt the reality of his vision if men do not quarrel with him as they did with the apostles, for there is only one perfection and only one search for perfection, and it sometimes has the form of the religious life and sometimes of the artistic life; and i do not think these lives differ in their wages, for 'the end of art is peace,' and out of the one as out of the other comes the cry: _sero te amavi, pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova! sero te amavi!_ the catholic church is not the less the church of the people because the mass is spoken in latin, and art is not less the art of the people because it does not always speak in the language they are used to. i once heard my friend mr. ellis say, speaking at a celebration in honour of a writer whose fame had not come till long after his death, 'it is not the business of a poet to make himself understood, but it is the business of the people to understand him. that they are at last compelled to do so is the proof of his authority.' and certainly if you take from art its martyrdom, you will take from it its glory. it might still reflect the passing modes of mankind, but it would cease to reflect the face of god. if our craftsmen were to choose their subjects under what we may call, if we understand faith to mean that belief in a spiritual life which is not confined to one church, the persuasion of their faith and their country, they would soon discover that although their choice seemed arbitrary at first, it had obeyed what was deepest in them. i could not now write of any other country but ireland, for my style has been shaped by the subjects i have worked on, but there was a time when my imagination seemed unwilling, when i found myself writing of some irish event in words that would have better fitted some italian or eastern event, for my style had been shaped in that general stream of european literature which has come from so many watersheds, and it was slowly, very slowly, that i made a new style. it was years before i could rid myself of shelley's italian light, but now i think my style is myself. i might have found more of ireland if i had written in irish, but i have found a little, and i have found all myself. i am persuaded that if the irishmen who are painting conventional pictures or writing conventional books on alien subjects, which have been worn away like pebbles on the shore, would do the same, they, too, might find themselves. even the landscape-painter, who paints a place that he loves, and that no other man has painted, soon discovers that no style learned in the studios is wholly fitted to his purpose. and i cannot but believe that if our painters of highland cattle and moss-covered barns were to care enough for their country to care for what makes it different from other countries, they would discover, when struggling, it may be, to paint the exact grey of the bare burren hills, and of a sudden it may be, a new style, their very selves. and i admit, though in this i am moved by some touch of fanaticism, that even when i see an old subject written of or painted in a new way, i am yet jealous for cuchulain, and for baile, and aillinn, and for those grey mountains that still are lacking their celebration. i sometimes reproach myself because i cannot admire mr. hughes' beautiful, piteous _orpheus and eurydice_ with an unquestioning mind. i say with my lips, 'the spirit made it, for it is beautiful, and the spirit bloweth where it listeth,' but i say in my heart, 'aengus and etain would have served his turn;' but one cannot, perhaps, love or believe at all if one does not love or believe a little too much. and i do not think with unbroken pleasure of our scholars who write about german writers or about periods of greek history. i always remember that they could give us a number of little books which would tell, each book for some one country, or some one parish, the verses, or the stories, or the events that would make every lake or mountain a man can see from his own door an excitement in his imagination. i would have some of them leave that work of theirs which will never lack hands, and begin to dig in ireland, the garden of the future, understanding that here in ireland the spirit of man may be about to wed the soil of the world. art and scholarship like these i have described would give ireland more than they received from her, for they would make love of the unseen more unshakable, more ready to plunge deep into the abyss, and they would make love of country more fruitful in the mind, more a part of daily life. one would know an irishman into whose life they had come--and in a few generations they would come into the life of all, rich and poor--by something that set him apart among men. he himself would understand that more was expected of him than of others because he had greater possessions. the irish race would have become a chosen race, one of the pillars that uphold the world. 1901. the galway plains lady gregory has just given me her beautiful _poets and dreamers_, and it has brought to mind a day two or three years ago when i stood on the side of slieve echtge, looking out over galway. the burren hills were to my left, and though i forget whether i could see the cairn over bald conan of the fianna, i could certainly see many places there that are in poems and stories. in front of me, over many miles of level galway plains, i saw a low blue hill flooded with evening light. i asked a countryman who was with me what hill that was, and he told me it was cruachmaa of the sidhe. i had often heard of cruachmaa of the sidhe even as far north as sligo, for the country people have told me a great many stories of the great host of the sidhe who live there, still fighting and holding festivals. i asked the old countryman about it, and he told me of strange women who had come from it, and who would come into a house having the appearance of countrywomen, but would know all that had happened in that house; and how they would always pay back with increase, though not by their own hands, whatever was given to them. and he had heard, too, of people who had been carried away into the hill, and how one man went to look for his wife there, and dug into the hill and all but got his wife again, but at the very moment she was coming out to him, the pick he was digging with struck her upon the head and killed her. i asked him if he had himself seen any of its enchantments, and he said, 'sometimes when i look over to the hill, i see a mist lying on the top of it, that goes away after a while.' a great part of the poems and stories in lady gregory's book were made or gathered between burren and cruachmaa. it was here that raftery, the wandering country poet of ninety years ago, praised and blamed, chanting fine verses, and playing badly on his fiddle. it is here the ballads of meeting and parting have been sung, and some whose lamentations for defeat are still remembered may have passed through this plain flying from the battle of aughrim. 'i will go up on the mountain alone; and i will come hither from it again. it is there i saw the camp of the gael, the poor troop thinned, not keeping with one another; och ochone!' and here, if one can believe many devout people whose stories are in the book, christ has walked upon the roads, bringing the needy to some warm fireside, and sending one of his saints to anoint the dying. i do not think these country imaginations have changed much for centuries, for they are still busy with those two themes of the ancient irish poets, the sternness of battle and the sadness of parting and death. the emotion that in other countries has made many love songs has here been given, in a long wooing, to danger, that ghostly bride. it is not a difference in the substance of things that the lamentations that were sung after battles are now sung for men who have died upon the gallows. the emotion has become not less, but more noble, by the change, for the man who goes to his death with the thought- 'it is with the people i was, it is not with the law i was,' has behind him generations of poetry and poetical life. the poets of to-day speak with the voice of the unknown priest who wrote, some two hundred years ago, that _sorrowful lament for ireland_, lady gregory has put into passionate and rhythmical prose- 'i do not know of anything under the sky that is friendly or favourable to the gael, but only the sea that our need brings us to, or the wind that blows to the harbour the ship that is bearing us away from ireland; and there is reason that these are reconciled with us, for we increase the sea with our tears, and the wandering wind with our sighs.' there is still in truth upon these great level plains a people, a community bound together by imaginative possessions, by stories and poems which have grown out of its own life, and by a past of great passions which can still waken the heart to imaginative action. one could still, if one had the genius, and had been born to irish, write for these people plays and poems like those of greece. does not the greatest poetry always require a people to listen to it? england or any other country which takes its tune from the great cities and gets its taste from schools and not from old custom, may have a mob, but it cannot have a people. in england there are a few groups of men and women who have good taste, whether in cookery or in books; and the great multitudes but copy them or their copiers. the poet must always prefer the community where the perfected minds express the people, to a community that is vainly seeking to copy the perfected minds. to have even perfectly the thoughts that can be weighed, the knowledge that can be got from books, the precision that can be learned at school, to belong to any aristocracy, is to be a little pool that will soon dry up. a people alone are a great river; and that is why i am persuaded that where a people has died, a nation is about to die. 1903. emotion of multitude i have been thinking a good deal about plays lately, and i have been wondering why i dislike the clear and logical construction which seems necessary if one is to succeed on the modern stage. it came into my head the other day that this construction, which all the world has learnt from france, has everything of high literature except the emotion of multitude. the greek drama has got the emotion of multitude from its chorus, which called up famous sorrows, long-leaguered troy, much-enduring odysseus, and all the gods and heroes to witness, as it were, some well-ordered fable, some action separated but for this from all but itself. the french play delights in the well-ordered fable, but by leaving out the chorus it has created an art where poetry and imagination, always the children of far-off multitudinous things, must of necessity grow less important than the mere will. this is why, i said to myself, french dramatic poetry is so often a little rhetorical, for rhetoric is the will trying to do the work of the imagination. the shakespearean drama gets the emotion of multitude out of the sub-plot which copies the main plot, much as a shadow upon the wall copies one's body in the firelight. we think of king lear less as the history of one man and his sorrows than as the history of a whole evil time. lear's shadow is in gloster, who also has ungrateful children, and the mind goes on imagining other shadows, shadow beyond shadow till it has pictured the world. in _hamlet_, one hardly notices, so subtly is the web woven, that the murder of hamlet's father and the sorrow of hamlet are shadowed in the lives of fortinbras and ophelia and laertes, whose fathers, too, have been killed. it is so in all the plays, or in all but all, and very commonly the sub-plot is the main plot working itself out in more ordinary men and women, and so doubly calling up before us the image of multitude. ibsen and maeterlinck have on the other hand created a new form, for they get multitude from the wild duck in the attic, or from the crown at the bottom of the fountain, vague symbols that set the mind wandering from idea to idea, emotion to emotion. indeed all the great masters have understood, that there cannot be great art without the little limited life of the fable, which is always the better the simpler it is, and the rich, far-wandering, many-imaged life of the half-seen world beyond it. there are some who understand that the simple unmysterious things living as in a clear noon-light are of the nature of the sun, and that vague many-imaged things have in them the strength of the moon. did not the egyptian carve it on emerald that all living things have the sun for father and the moon for mother, and has it not been said that a man of genius takes the most after his mother? 1903. footnotes: [1] 'marianne's dream' was certainly copied from a real dream of somebody's, but like images come to the mystic in his waking state. [2] this essay was first published in the _united irishman_. transcriber's note: unmatched quotation marks and spelling variants are presented as in the original text. _the trembling of the veil_ privately printed books (_uniform with this volume_) the story-teller's holiday (_george moore_) _july 1918_ avowals (_george moore_) _september 1919_ esther waters (_george moore_) _october 1920_ the coming of gabrielle (_george moore_) _december 1920_ héloise and abélard (_george moore_) _february 1921_ nine tales from "les contes drolatiques" of balzac (_translated by robert crawford_) _november 1921_ a portrait of george moore in a study of his work (_john freeman_) _may 1922_ the cauldron of annwn (_thomas evelyn ellis_) _june 1922_ [illustration: _emery walker ph.oc. from a picture by charles shannon_] the trembling of the veil by w. b. yeats london privately printed for subscribers only by t. werner laurie, ltd. 1922 _to_ john quinn _my friend and helper, and friend and helper of certain people mentioned in this book_. gift printed in great britain the trembling of the veil _this edition consists of one thousand copies numbered and signed._ _this is no._ 24 preface _i have found in an old diary a quotation from stephane mallarmé, saying that his epoch was troubled by the trembling of the veil of the temple. as those words were still true, during the years of my life described in this book, i have chosen the trembling of the veil for its title._ _except in one or two trivial details, where i have the warrant of old friendship, i have not, without permission, quoted conversation or described occurrence from the private life of named or recognisable persons. i have not felt my freedom abated, for most of the friends of my youth are dead and over the dead i have an historian's rights. they were artists and writers and certain among them men of genius, and the life of a man of genius, because of his greater sincerity, is often an experiment that needs analysis and record. at least my generation so valued personality that it thought so. i have said all the good i know and all the evil: i have kept nothing back necessary to understanding._ _w. b. yeats._ _may, 1922. thoor ballylee._ contents page book i four years 1887-1891 3 book ii ireland after the fall of parnell 83 book iii hodos camelionis 135 book iv the tragic generation 157 book v the stirring of the bones 225 book i four years--1887-1891 the trembling of the veil _four years_ 1887-1891 i at the end of the 'eighties my father and mother, my brother and sisters and myself, all newly arrived from dublin, were settled in bedford park in a red-brick house with several mantelpieces of wood, copied from marble mantelpieces designed by the brothers adam, a balcony and a little garden shadowed by a great horse-chestnut tree. years before we had lived there, when the crooked ostentatiously picturesque streets with great trees casting great shadows had been a new enthusiasm: the pre-raphaelite movement at last affecting life. but now exaggerated criticism had taken the place of enthusiasm, the tiled roofs, the first in modern london, were said to leak, which they did not, and the drains to be bad, though that was no longer true; and i imagine that houses were cheap. i remember feeling disappointed because the co-operative stores, with their little seventeenth century panes, had lost the romance they had when i had passed them still unfinished on my way to school; and because the public house, called the tabard after chaucer's inn, was so plainly a common public house; and because the great sign of a trumpeter designed by rooke, the pre-raphaelite artist, had been freshened by some inferior hand. the big red-brick church had never pleased me, and i was accustomed, when i saw the wooden balustrade that ran along the slanting edge of the roof where nobody ever walked or could walk, to remember the opinion of some architect friend of my father's, that it had been put there to keep the birds from falling off. still, however, it had some village characters and helped us to feel not wholly lost in the metropolis. i no longer went to church as a regular habit, but go i sometimes did, for one sunday morning i saw these words painted on a board in the porch: "the congregation are requested to kneel during prayers; the kneelers are afterwards to be hung upon pegs provided for the purpose." in front of every seat hung a little cushion and these cushions were called "kneelers." presently the joke ran through the community, where there were many artists who considered religion at best an unimportant accessory to good architecture and who disliked that particular church. ii i could not understand where the charm had gone that i had felt, when as a school-boy of twelve or thirteen i had played among the unfinished houses, once leaving the marks of my two hands, blacked by a fall among some paint, upon a white balustrade. sometimes i thought it was because these were real houses, while my play had been among toy-houses some day to be inhabited by imaginary people full of the happiness that one can see in picture books. i was in all things pre-raphaelite. when i was fifteen or sixteen my father had told me about rossetti and blake and given me their poetry to read; and once at liverpool on my way to sligo i had seen dante's dream in the gallery there, a picture painted when rossetti had lost his dramatic power and to-day not very pleasing to me, and its colour, its people, its romantic architecture had blotted all other pictures away. it was a perpetual bewilderment that my father, who had begun life as a pre-raphaelite painter, now painted portraits of the first comer, children selling newspapers, or a consumptive girl with a basket of fish upon her head, and that when, moved perhaps by some memory of his youth, he chose some theme from poetic tradition, he would soon weary and leave it unfinished. i had seen the change coming bit by bit and its defence elaborated by young men fresh from the paris art-schools. "we must paint what is in front of us," or "a man must be of his own time," they would say, and if i spoke of blake or rossetti they would point out his bad drawing and tell me to admire carolus duran and bastien-lepage. then, too, they were very ignorant men; they read nothing, for nothing mattered but "knowing how to paint," being in reaction against a generation that seemed to have wasted its time upon so many things. i thought myself alone in hating these young men, now indeed getting towards middle life, their contempt for the past, their monopoly of the future, but in a few months i was to discover others of my own age, who thought as i did, for it is not true that youth looks before it with the mechanical gaze of a well-drilled soldier. its quarrel is not with the past, but with the present, where its elders are so obviously powerful and no cause seems lost if it seem to threaten that power. does cultivated youth ever really love the future, where the eye can discover no persecuted royalty hidden among oak leaves, though from it certainly does come so much proletarian rhetoric? i was unlike others of my generation in one thing only. i am very religious, and deprived by huxley and tyndall, whom i detested, of the simple-minded religion of my childhood, i had made a new religion, almost an infallible church out of poetic tradition: a fardel of stories, and of personages, and of emotions, inseparable from their first expression, passed on from generation to generation by poets and painters with some help from philosophers and theologians. i wished for a world, where i could discover this tradition perpetually, and not in pictures and in poems only, but in tiles round the chimney-piece and in the hangings that kept out the draught. i had even created a dogma: "because those imaginary people are created out of the deepest instinct of man, to be his measure and his norm, whatever i can imagine those mouths speaking may be the nearest i can go to truth." when i listened they seemed always to speak of one thing only: they, their loves, every incident of their lives, were steeped in the supernatural. could even titian's "ariosto" that i loved beyond other portraits have its grave look, as if waiting for some perfect final event, if the painters before titian had not learned portraiture, while painting into the corner of compositions full of saints and madonnas, their kneeling patrons? at seventeen years old i was already an old-fashioned brass cannon full of shot, and nothing had kept me from going off but a doubt as to my capacity to shoot straight. iii i was not an industrious student and knew only what i had found by accident and i found nothing i cared for after titian, and titian i knew from an imitation of his _supper of emmaus_ in dublin, till blake and the pre-raphaelites; and among my father's friends were no pre-raphaelites. some indeed had come to bedford park in the enthusiasm of the first building and others to be near those that had. there was todhunter, a well-off man who had bought my father's pictures while my father was still pre-raphaelite; once a dublin doctor he was now a poet and a writer of poetical plays; a tall, sallow, lank, melancholy man, a good scholar and a good intellect; and with him my father carried on a warm exasperated friendship, fed i think by old memories and wasted by quarrels over matters of opinion. of all the survivors he was the most dejected and the least estranged, and i remember encouraging him, with a sense of worship shared, to buy a very expensive carpet designed by morris. he displayed it without strong liking and would have agreed had there been any to find fault. if he had liked anything strongly he might have been a famous man, for a few years later he was to write, under some casual patriotic impulse, certain excellent verses now in all irish anthologies; but with him every book was a new planting, and not a new bud on an old bough. he had i think no peace in himself. but my father's chief friend was york powell, a famous oxford professor of history, a broad-built, broad-headed, brown-bearded man clothed in heavy blue cloth and looking, but for his glasses and the dim sight of a student, like some captain in the merchant service. one often passed with pleasure from todhunter's company to that of one who was almost ostentatiously at peace. he cared nothing for philosophy, nothing for economics, nothing for the policy of nations; for history, as he saw it, was a memory of men who were amusing or exciting to think about. he impressed all who met him, and seemed to some a man of genius, but he had not enough ambition to shape his thought, or conviction to give rhythm to his style and remained always a poor writer. i was too full of unfinished speculations and premature convictions to value rightly his conversation, informed by a vast erudition, which would give itself to every casual association of speech and company, precisely because he had neither cause nor design. my father, however, found powell's concrete narrative manner in talk a necessary completion of his own, and when i asked him in a letter many years later where he got his philosophy replied "from york powell" and thereon added, no doubt remembering that powell was without ideas, "by looking at him." then there was a good listener, a painter in whose hall hung a big picture painted in his student days of ulysses sailing home from the phaeacian court, an orange and a skin of wine at his side, blue mountains towering behind; but who lived by drawing domestic scenes and lovers' meetings for a weekly magazine that had an immense circulation among the imperfectly educated. to escape the boredom of work, which he never turned to but under pressure of necessity and usually late at night, with the publisher's messenger in the hall, he had half-filled his studio with mechanical toys, of his own invention, and perpetually increased their number. a model railway train at intervals puffed its way along the walls, passing several railway stations and signal boxes; and on the floor lay a camp with attacking and defending soldiers and a fortification that blew up when the attackers fired a pea through a certain window; while a large model of a thames barge hung from the ceiling. opposite our house lived an old artist who worked also for the illustrated papers for a living, but painted landscapes for his pleasure, and of him i remember nothing except that he had outlived ambition, was a good listener, and that my father explained his gaunt appearance by his descent from pocahontas. if all these men were a little like becalmed ships, there was certainly one man whose sails were full. three or four doors off on our side of the road lived a decorative artist in all the naïve confidence of popular ideals and the public approval. he was our daily comedy. "i myself and sir frederick leighton are the greatest decorative artists of the age," was among his sayings, and a great lych-gate, bought from some country church-yard, reared its thatched roof, meant to shelter bearers and coffin, above the entrance to his front garden to show that he at any rate knew nothing of discouragement. in this fairly numerous company--there were others though no other face rises before me--my father and york powell found listeners for a conversation that had no special loyalties, or antagonisms; while i could only talk upon set topics, being in the heat of my youth, and the topics that filled me with excitement were never spoken of. iv bedford park had a red brick clubhouse with a little theatre that began to stir my imagination. i persuaded todhunter to write a pastoral play and have it performed there. a couple of years before, while we were still in dublin, he had given at hengler's circus, remodelled as a greek theatre, a most expensive performance of his _helena of troas_, an oratorical swinburnian play which i had thought as unactable as it was unreadable. since i was seventeen i had constantly tested my own ambition with keats's praise of him who "left great verses to a little clan," so it was but natural that i should spend an evening persuading him that we had nothing to do with the great public, that it should be a point of honour to be content with our own little public, that he should write of shepherds and shepherdesses because people would expect them to talk poetry and move without melodrama. he wrote his _sicilian idyll_, which i have not looked at for thirty years, and never rated very high as poetry, and had the one unmistakable success of his life. the little theatre was full for twice the number of performances intended, for artists, men of letters and students had come from all over london. i made through these performances a close friend and a discovery that was to influence my life. todhunter had engaged several professional actors with a little reputation, but had given the chief woman's part to florence farr, who had qualities no contemporary professional practice could have increased, the chief man's part to an amateur, heron allen, solicitor, fiddler and popular writer on palmistry. heron allen and florence farr read poetry for their pleasure. while they were upon the stage no one else could hold an eye or an ear. their speech was music, the poetry acquired a nobility, a passionate austerity that made it seem akin for certain moments to the great poetry of the world. heron allen, who had never spoken in public before except to lecture upon the violin, had the wisdom to reduce his acting to a series of poses, to be the stately shepherd with not more gesture than was needed to "twitch his mantle blue" and to let his grace be foil to florence farr's more impassioned delivery. when they closed their mouths, and some other player opened his, breaking up the verse to make it conversational, jerking his body or his arms that he might seem no austere poetical image but very man, i listened in raging hatred. i kept my seat with difficulty, i searched my memory for insulting phrases, i even muttered them to myself that the people about might hear. i had discovered for the first time that in the performance of all drama that depends for its effect upon beauty of language, poetical culture may be more important than professional experience. florence farr lived in lodgings some twenty minutes' walk away at brook green, and i was soon a constant caller, talking over plays that i would some day write her. she had three great gifts, a tranquil beauty like that of demeter's image near the british museum reading room door, and an incomparable sense of rhythm and a beautiful voice, the seeming natural expression of the image. and yet there was scarce another gift that she did not value above those three. we all have our simplifying image, our genius, and such hard burden does it lay upon us that, but for the praise of others, we would deride it and hunt it away. she could only express hers through an unfashionable art, an art that has scarce existed since the seventeenth century, and so could only earn unimportant occasional praise. she would dress without care or calculation as if to hide her beauty and seem contemptuous of its power. if a man fell in love with her she would notice that she had seen just that movement upon the stage or had heard just that intonation and all seemed unreal. if she read out some poem in english or in french all was passion, all a traditional splendour, but she spoke of actual things with a cold wit or under the strain of paradox. wit and paradox alike sought to pull down whatever had tradition or passion and she was soon to spend her days in the british museum reading room and become erudite in many heterogeneous studies moved by an insatiable, destroying curiosity. i formed with her an enduring friendship that was an enduring exasperation--"why do you play the part with a bent back and a squeak in the voice? how can you be a character actor, you who hate all our life, you who belong to a life that is a vision?" but argument was no use, and some nurse in euripedes must be played with all an old woman's infirmities and not as i would have it, with all a sybil's majesty, because "it is no use doing what nobody wants," or because she would show that she "could do what the others did." i used in my rage to compare her thoughts, when her worst mood was upon her, to a game called spillikens which i had seen played in my childhood with little pieces of bone that you had to draw out with a hook from a bundle of like pieces. a bundle of bones instead of demeter's golden sheaf! her sitting room at the brook green lodging house was soon a reflection of her mind, the walls covered with musical instruments, pieces of oriental drapery, and egyptian gods and goddesses painted by herself in the british museum. v presently a hansom drove up to our door at bedford park with miss maud gonne, who brought an introduction to my father from old john o'leary, the fenian leader. she vexed my father by praise of war, war for its own sake, not as the creator of certain virtues but as if there were some virtue in excitement itself. i supported her against my father, which vexed him the more, though he might have understood that, apart from the fact that carolus duran and bastien-lepage were somehow involved, a man so young as i could not have differed from a woman so beautiful and so young. to-day, with her great height and the unchangeable lineaments of her form, she looks the sybil i would have had played by florence farr, but in that day she seemed a classical impersonation of the spring, the virgilian commendation "she walks like a goddess" made for her alone. her complexion was luminous, like that of apple blossom through which the light falls, and i remember her standing that first day by a great heap of such blossoms in the window. in the next few years i saw her always when she passed to and fro between dublin and paris, surrounded, no matter how rapid her journey and how brief her stay at either end of it, by cages full of birds, canaries, finches of all kinds, dogs, a parrot, and once a full-grown hawk from donegal. once when i saw her to her railway carriage i noticed how the cages obstructed wraps and cushions and wondered what her fellow travellers would say, but the carriage remained empty. it was years before i could see into the mind that lay hidden under so much beauty and so much energy. vi some quarter of an hour's walk from bedford park, out on the high road to richmond, lived w. e. henley, and i, like many others, began under him my education. his portrait, a lithograph by rothenstein, hangs over my mantelpiece among portraits of other friends. he is drawn standing, but because doubtless of his crippled legs he leans forward, resting his elbows upon some slightly suggested object--a table or a window-sill. his heavy figure and powerful head, the disordered hair standing upright, his short irregular beard and moustache, his lined and wrinkled face, his eyes steadily fixed upon some object, in complete confidence and self-possession, and yet as in half-broken reverie, all are there exactly as i remember him. i have seen other portraits and they too show him exactly as i remember him, as though he had but one appearance and that seen fully at the first glance and by all alike. he was most human--human i used to say like one of shakespeare's characters--and yet pressed and pummelled, as it were, into a single attitude, almost into a gesture and a speech as by some overwhelming situation. i disagreed with him about everything, but i admired him beyond words. with the exception of some early poems founded upon old french models i disliked his poetry, mainly because he wrote in _vers libre_, which i associated with tyndall and huxley, and bastien-lepage's clownish peasant staring with vacant eyes at her great boots; and filled it with unimpassioned description of an hospital ward where his leg had been amputated. i wanted the strongest passions, passions that had nothing to do with observation, sung in metrical forms that seemed old enough to be sung by men half-asleep or riding upon a journey. furthermore, pre-raphaelism affected him as some people are affected by a cat in the room, and though he professed himself at our first meeting without political interests or convictions, he soon grew into a violent unionist and imperialist. i used to say when i spoke of his poems: "he is like a great actor with a bad part; yet who would look at hamlet in the grave scene if salvini played the grave-digger?" and i might so have explained much that he said and did. i meant that he was like a great actor of passion--character-acting meant nothing to me for many years--and an actor of passion will display some one quality of soul, personified again and again, just as a great poetical painter, titian, botticelli, rossetti, may depend for his greatness upon a type of beauty which presently we call by his name. irving, the last of the sort on the english stage, and in modern england and france it is the rarest sort, never moved me but in the expression of intellectual pride and though i saw salvini but once i am convinced that his genius was a kind of animal nobility. henley, half inarticulate--"i am very costive," he would say--beset with personal quarrels, built up an image of power and magnanimity till it became, at moments, when seen as it were by lightning, his true self. half his opinions were the contrivance of a sub-consciousness that sought always to bring life to the dramatic crisis and expression to that point of artifice where the true self could find its tongue. without opponents there had been no drama, and in his youth ruskinism and pre-raphaelitism, for he was of my father's generation, were the only possible opponents. how could one resent his prejudice when, that he himself might play a worthy part, he must find beyond the common rout, whom he derided and flouted daily, opponents he could imagine moulded like himself? once he said to me in the height of his imperial propaganda, "tell those young men in ireland that this great thing must go on. they say ireland is not fit for self-government, but that is nonsense. it is as fit as any other european country, but we cannot grant it." and then he spoke of his desire to found and edit a dublin newspaper. it would have expounded the gaelic propaganda then beginning, though dr hyde had, as yet, no league, our old stories, our modern literature--everything that did not demand any shred or patch of government. he dreamed of a tyranny, but it was that of cosimo de' medici. vii we gathered on sunday evenings in two rooms, with folding doors between, and hung, i think, with photographs from dutch masters, and in one room there was always, i think, a table with cold meat. i can recall but one elderly man--dunn his name was--rather silent and full of good sense, an old friend of henley's. we were young men, none as yet established in his own, or in the world's opinion, and henley was our leader and our confidant. one evening, i found him alone amused and exasperated: "young a----," he cried "has just been round to ask my advice. would i think it a wise thing if he bolted with mrs b----? 'have you quite determined to do it?' i asked him. 'quite.' 'well,' i said, 'in that case i refuse to give you any advice.'" mrs b---was a beautiful talented woman, who, as the welsh triad said of guinievere, "was much given to being carried off." i think we listened to him, and often obeyed him, partly because he was quite plainly not upon the side of our parents. we might have a different ground of quarrel, but the result seemed more important than the ground, and his confident manner and speech made us believe, perhaps for the first time, in victory. and besides, if he did denounce, and in my case he certainly did, what we held in secret reverence, he never failed to associate it with things or persons that did not move us to reverence. once i found him just returned from some art congress in liverpool or in manchester. "the salvation armyism of art," he called it, and gave a grotesque description of some city councillor he had found admiring turner. henley, who hated all that ruskin praised, thereupon derided turner, and finding the city councillor the next day on the other side of the gallery, admiring some pre-raphaelite there, derided that pre-raphaelite. the third day henley discovered the poor man on a chair in the middle of the room staring disconsolately upon the floor. he terrified us also and certainly i did not dare, and i think none of us dared, to speak our admiration for book or picture he condemned, but he made us feel always our importance, and no man among us could do good work, or show the promise of it, and lack his praise. i can remember meeting of a sunday night charles whibley, kenneth grahame, author of _the golden age_, barry pain, now a well-known novelist, r. a. m. stevenson, art critic and a famous talker, george wyndham, later on a cabinet minister and irish chief secretary, and now or later oscar wilde, who was some ten years older than the rest of us. but faces and names are vague to me and while faces that i met but once may rise clearly before me, a face met on many a sunday has perhaps vanished. kipling came sometimes, i think, but i never met him; and stepniak, the nihilist, whom i knew well elsewhere but not there, said--"i cannot go more than once a year, it is too exhausting." henley got the best out of us all, because he had made us accept him as our judge and we knew that his judgment could neither sleep, nor be softened, nor changed, nor turned aside. when i think of him, the antithesis that is the foundation of human nature being ever in my sight, i see his crippled legs as though he were some vulcan perpetually forging swords for other men to use; and certainly i always thought of c----, a fine classical scholar, a pale and seemingly gentle man, as our chief swordsman and bravo. when henley founded his weekly newspaper, first _the scots_, afterwards _the national observer_, this young man wrote articles and reviews notorious for savage wit; and years afterwards when _the national observer_ was dead, henley dying, and our cavern of outlaws empty, i met him in paris very sad and i think very poor. "nobody will employ me now," he said. "your master is gone," i answered, "and you are like the spear in an old irish story that had to be kept dipped in poppy-juice that it might not go about killing people on its own account." i wrote my first good lyrics and tolerable essays for _the national observer_, and as i always signed my work could go my own road in some measure. henley often revised my lyrics, crossing out a line or a stanza and writing in one of his own, and i was comforted by my belief that he also rewrote kipling then in the first flood of popularity. at first, indeed, i was ashamed of being rewritten and thought that others were not, and only began investigation when the editorial characteristics--epigrams, archaisms, and all--appeared in the article upon paris fashions and in that upon opium by an egyptian pasha. i was not compelled to full conformity for verse is plainly stubborn; and in prose, that i might avoid unacceptable opinions, i wrote nothing but ghost or fairy stories, picked up from my mother or some pilot at rosses point and henley saw that i must needs mix a palette fitted to my subject matter. but if he had changed every "has" into "hath" i would have let him, for had not we sunned ourselves in his generosity? "my young men outdo me and they write better than i," he wrote in some letter praising charles whibley's work, and to another friend with a copy of my _man who dreamed of fairyland_: "see what a fine thing has been written by one of my lads." viii my first meeting with oscar wilde was an astonishment. i never before heard a man talking with perfect sentences, as if he had written them all over night with labour and yet all spontaneous. there was present that night at henley's, by right of propinquity or of accident, a man full of the secret spite of dulness, who interrupted from time to time, and always to check or disorder thought; and i noticed with what mastery he was foiled and thrown. i noticed, too, that the impression of artificiality that i think all wilde's listeners have recorded came from the perfect rounding of the sentences and from the deliberation that made it possible. that very impression helped him, as the effect of metre, or of the antithetical prose of the seventeenth century, which is itself a true metre, helped its writers, for he could pass without incongruity from some unforeseen, swift stroke of wit to elaborate reverie. i heard him say a few nights later: "give me _the winter's tale_, 'daffodils that come before the swallow dare' but not _king lear_. what is _king lear_ but poor life staggering in the fog?" and the slow, carefully modulated cadence sounded natural to my ears. that first night he praised walter pater's _studies in the history of the renaissance_: "it is my golden book; i never travel anywhere without it; but it is the very flower of decadence: the last trumpet should have sounded the moment it was written." "but," said the dull man, "would you not have given us time to read it?" "oh no," was the retort, "there would have been plenty of time afterwards--in either world." i think he seemed to us, baffled as we were by youth, or by infirmity, a triumphant figure, and to some of us a figure from another age, an audacious italian fifteenth century figure. a few weeks before i had heard one of my father's friends, an official in a publishing firm that had employed both wilde and henley as editors, blaming henley who was "no use except under control" and praising wilde, "so indolent but such a genius"; and now the firm became the topic of our talk. "how often do you go to the office?" said henley. "i used to go three times a week," said wilde, "for an hour a day but i have since struck off one of the days." "my god," said henley, "i went five times a week for five hours a day and when i wanted to strike off a day they had a special committee meeting." "furthermore," was wilde's answer, "i never answered their letters. i have known men come to london full of bright prospects and seen them complete wrecks in a few months through a habit of answering letters." he too knew how to keep our elders in their place, and his method was plainly the more successful, for henley had been dismissed. "no he is not an aesthete," henley commented later, being somewhat embarrassed by wilde's pre-raphaelite entanglement; "one soon finds that he is a scholar and a gentleman." and when i dined with wilde a few days afterwards he began at once, "i had to strain every nerve to equal that man at all"; and i was too loyal to speak my thought: "you and not he said all the brilliant things." he like the rest of us had felt the strain of an intensity that seemed to hold life at the point of drama. he had said on that first meeting "the basis of literary friendship is mixing the poisoned bowl"; and for a few weeks henley and he became close friends till, the astonishment of their meeting over, diversity of character and ambition pushed them apart, and, with half the cavern helping, henley began mixing the poisoned bowl for wilde. yet henley never wholly lost that first admiration, for after wilde's downfall he said to me: "why did he do it? i told my lads to attack him and yet we might have fought under his banner." ix it became the custom, both at henley's and at bedford park, to say that r. a. m. stevenson, who frequented both circles, was the better talker. wilde had been trussed up like a turkey by undergraduates, dragged up and down a hill, his champagne emptied into the ice tub, hooted in the streets of various towns, and i think stoned, and no newspaper named him but in scorn; his manner had hardened to meet opposition and at times he allowed one to see an unpardonable insolence. his charm was acquired and systematized, a mask which he wore only when it pleased him, while the charm of stevenson belonged to him like the colour of his hair. if stevenson's talk became monologue we did not know it, because our one object was to show by our attention that he need never leave off. if thought failed him we would not combat what he had said, or start some new theme, but would encourage him with a question; and one felt that it had been always so from childhood up. his mind was full of phantasy for phantasy's sake and he gave as good entertainment in monologue as his cousin robert louis in poem or story. he was always "supposing"; "suppose you had two millions what would you do with it?" and "suppose you were in spain and in love how would you propose?" i recall him one afternoon at our house at bedford park, surrounded by my brother and sisters and a little group of my father's friends, describing proposals in half a dozen countries. there your father did it, dressed in such and such a way with such and such words, and there a friend must wait for the lady outside the chapel door, sprinkle her with holy water and say, "my friend jones is dying for love of you." but when it was over those quaint descriptions, so full of laughter and sympathy, faded or remained in the memory as something alien from one's own life, like a dance i once saw in a great house, where beautifully dressed children wound a long ribbon in and out as they danced. i was not of stevenson's party and mainly i think because he had written a book in praise of velasquez, praise at that time universal wherever pre-raphaelism was accurst, and to my mind, that had to pick its symbols where its ignorance permitted, velasquez seemed the first bored celebrant of boredom. i was convinced from some obscure meditation that stevenson's conversational method had joined him to my elders and to the indifferent world, as though it were right for old men, and unambitious men and all women, to be content with charm and humour. it was the prerogative of youth to take sides and when wilde said: "mr bernard shaw has no enemies but is intensely disliked by all his friends," i knew it to be a phrase i should never forget, and felt revenged upon a notorious hater of romance, whose generosity and courage i could not fathom. x i saw a good deal of wilde at that time--was it 1887 or 1888?--i have no way of fixing the date except that i had published my first book _the wanderings of usheen_ and that wilde had not yet published his _decay of lying_. he had, before our first meeting, reviewed my book and despite its vagueness of intention, and the inexactness of its speech, praised without qualification; and what was worth more than any review he had talked about it and now he asked me to eat my christmas dinner with him believing, i imagine, that i was alone in london. he had just renounced his velveteen, and even those cuffs turned backward over the sleeves, and had begun to dress very carefully in the fashion of the moment. he lived in a little house at chelsea that the architect godwin had decorated with an elegance that owed something to whistler. there was nothing mediaeval, nor pre-raphaelite, no cupboard door with figures upon flat gold, no peacock blue, no dark background. i remember vaguely a white drawing room with whistler etchings, "let in" to white panels, and a dining room all white, chairs, walls, mantelpiece, carpet, except for a diamond-shaped piece of red cloth in the middle of the table under a terra-cotta statuette, and i think a red shaded lamp hanging from the ceiling to a little above the statuette. it was perhaps too perfect in its unity, his past of a few years before had gone too completely, and i remember thinking that the perfect harmony of his life there, with his beautiful wife and his two young children, suggested some deliberate artistic composition. he commended and dispraised himself during dinner by attributing characteristics like his own to his country: "we irish are too poetical to be poets; we are a nation of brilliant failures, but we are the greatest talkers since the greeks." when dinner was over he read me from the proofs of _the decay of lying_ and when he came to the sentence: "schopenhauer has analysed the pessimism that characterises modern thought, but hamlet invented it. the world has become sad because a puppet was once melancholy," i said, "why do you change 'sad' to 'melancholy'?" he replied that he wanted a full sound at the close of his sentence, and i thought it no excuse and an example of the vague impressiveness that spoilt his writing for me. only when he spoke, or when his writing was the mirror of his speech, or in some simple fairy tale, had he words exact enough to hold a subtle ear. he alarmed me, though not as henley did, for i never left his house thinking myself fool or dunce. he flattered the intellect of every man he liked; he made me tell him long irish stories and compared my art of storytelling to homer's; and once when he had described himself as writing in the census paper "age 19, profession genius, infirmity talent" the other guest, a young journalist fresh from oxford or cambridge, said, "what should i have written?" and was told that it should have been "profession talent, infirmity genius." when, however, i called, wearing shoes a little too yellow--unblackened leather had just become fashionable--i realized their extravagance when i saw his eyes fixed upon them; and another day wilde asked me to tell his little boy a fairy story, and i had but got as far as "once upon a time there was a giant" when the little boy screamed and ran out of the room. wilde looked grave and i was plunged into the shame of clumsiness that afflicts the young. when i asked for some literary gossip for some provincial newspaper, that paid me a few shillings a month, he explained very explicitly that writing literary gossip was no job for a gentleman. though to be compared to homer passed the time pleasantly, i had not been greatly perturbed had he stopped me with: "is it a long story?" as henley would certainly have done. i was abashed before him as wit and man of the world alone. i remember that he deprecated the very general belief in his success or his efficiency, and i think with sincerity. one form of success had gone: he was no more the lion of the season and he had not discovered his gift for writing comedy, yet i think i knew him at the happiest moment of his life. no scandal had touched his name, his fame as a talker was growing among his equals, and he seemed to live in the enjoyment of his own spontaneity. one day he began: "i have been inventing a christian heresy," and he told a detailed story, in the style of some early father, of how christ recovered after the crucifixion, and escaping from the tomb, lived on for many years, the one man upon earth who knew the falsehood of christianity. once st paul visited his town and he alone in the carpenters' quarter did not go to hear him preach. the other carpenters noticed that henceforth, for some unknown reason, he kept his hands covered. a few days afterwards i found wilde with smock frocks in various colours spread out upon the floor in front of him, while a missionary explained that he did not object to the heathen going naked upon week days, but insisted upon clothes in church. he had brought the smock frocks in a cab that the only art-critic whose fame had reached central africa might select a colour; so wilde sat there weighing all with a conscious ecclesiastic solemnity. xi of late years i have often explained wilde to myself by his family history. his father was a friend or acquaintance of my father's father and among my family traditions there is an old dublin riddle: "why are sir william wilde's nails so black?" answer, "because he has scratched himself." and there is an old story still current in dublin of lady wilde saying to a servant, "why do you put the plates on the coal-scuttle? what are the chairs meant for?" they were famous people and there are many like stories; and even a horrible folk story, the invention of some connaught peasant, that tells how sir william wilde took out the eyes of some men, who had come to consult him as an oculist, and laid them upon a plate, intending to replace them in a moment, and how the eyes were eaten by a cat. as a certain friend of mine, who has made a prolonged study of the nature of cats, said when he first heard the tale, "cats love eyes." the wilde family was clearly of the sort that fed the imagination of charles lever, dirty, untidy, daring, and what charles lever, who loved more normal activities, might not have valued so highly, very imaginative and learned. lady wilde, who when i knew her received her friends with blinds drawn and shutters closed that none might see her withered face, longed always perhaps, though certainly amid much self-mockery, for some impossible splendour of character and circumstance. she lived near her son in level chelsea, but i have heard her say, "i want to live on some high place, primrose hill or highgate, because i was an eagle in my youth." i think her son lived with no self-mockery at all an imaginary life; perpetually performed a play which was in all things the opposite of all that he had known in childhood and early youth; never put off completely his wonder at opening his eyes every morning on his own beautiful house, and in remembering that he had dined yesterday with a duchess, and that he delighted in flaubert and pater, read homer in the original and not as a schoolmaster reads him for the grammar. i think, too, that because of all that half-civilized blood in his veins he could not endure the sedentary toil of creative art and so remained a man of action, exaggerating, for the sake of immediate effect, every trick learned from his masters, turning their easel painting into painted scenes. he was a parvenu, but a parvenu whose whole bearing proved that if he did dedicate every story in _the house of pomegranates_ to a lady of title, it was but to show that he was jack and the social ladder his pantomime beanstalk. "did you ever hear him say 'marquess of dimmesdale'?" a friend of his once asked me. "he does not say 'the duke of york' with any pleasure." he told me once that he had been offered a safe seat in parliament and, had he accepted, he might have had a career like that of beaconsfield, whose early style resembles his, being meant for crowds, for excitement, for hurried decisions, for immediate triumphs. such men get their sincerity, if at all, from the contact of events; the dinner table was wilde's event and made him the greatest talker of his time, and his plays and dialogues have what merit they possess from being now an imitation, now a record, of his talk. even in those days i would often defend him by saying that his very admiration for his predecessors in poetry, for browning, for swinburne and rossetti, in their first vogue while he was a very young man, made any success seem impossible that could satisfy his immense ambition: never but once before had the artist seemed so great, never had the work of art seemed so difficult. i would then compare him with benvenuto cellini who, coming after michael angelo, found nothing left to do so satisfactory as to turn bravo and quarrel with the man who broke michael angelo's nose. xii i cannot remember who first brought me to the old stable beside kelmscott house, william morris's house at hammersmith, and to the debates held there upon sunday evenings by the socialist league. i was soon of the little group who had supper with morris afterwards. i met at these suppers very constantly walter crane, emery walker, in association with cobden sanderson, the printer of many fine books, and less constantly bernard shaw and cockerell, now of the museum of cambridge, and perhaps but once or twice hyndman the socialist and the anarchist prince kropotkin. there, too, one always met certain more or less educated workmen, rough of speech and manner, with a conviction to meet every turn. i was told by one of them, on a night when i had done perhaps more than my share of the talking, that i had talked more nonsense in one evening than he had heard in the whole course of his past life. i had merely preferred parnell, then at the height of his career, to michael davitt, who had wrecked his irish influence by international politics. we sat round a long unpolished and unpainted trestle table of new wood in a room where hung rossetti's _pomegranate_, a portrait of mrs. morris, and where one wall and part of the ceiling were covered by a great persian carpet. morris had said somewhere or other that carpets were meant for people who took their shoes off when they entered a house and were most in place upon a tent floor. i was a little disappointed in the house, for morris was an old man content at last to gather beautiful things rather than to arrange a beautiful house. i saw the drawing-room once or twice, and there alone all my sense of decoration, founded upon the background of rossetti's pictures, was satisfied by a big cupboard painted with a scene from chaucer by burne-jones; but even there were objects, perhaps a chair or a little table, that seemed accidental, bought hurriedly perhaps and with little thought, to make wife or daughter comfortable. i had read as a boy, in books belonging to my father, the third volume of _the earthly paradise_, and _the defence of guenevere_, which pleased me less, but had not opened either for a long time. _the man who never laughed again_ had seemed the most wonderful of tales till my father had accused me of preferring morris to keats, got angry about it, and put me altogether out of countenance. he had spoiled my pleasure, for now i questioned while i read and at last ceased to read; nor had morris written as yet those prose romances that became after his death so great a joy that they were the only books i was ever to read slowly that i might not come too quickly to the end. it was now morris himself that stirred my interest, and i took to him first because of some little tricks of speech and body that reminded me of my old grandfather in sligo, but soon discovered his spontaneity and joy and made him my chief of men. to-day i do not set his poetry very high, but for an odd altogether wonderful line, or thought; and yet, if some angel offered me the choice, i would choose to live his life, poetry and all, rather than my own or any other man's. a reproduction of his portrait by watts hangs over my mantelpiece with henley's, and those of other friends. its grave wide-open eyes, like the eyes of some dreaming beast, remind me of the open eyes of titian's "ariosto," while the broad vigorous body suggests a mind that has no need of the intellect to remain sane, though it give itself to every phantasy: the dreamer of the middle ages. it is "the fool of fairy ... wide and wild as a hill," the resolute european image that yet half remembers buddha's motionless meditation, and has no trait in common with the wavering, lean image of hungry speculation, that cannot but fill the mind's eye because of certain famous hamlets of our stage. shakespeare himself foreshadowed a symbolic change, that shows a change in the whole temperament of the world, for though he called his hamlet "fat" and even "scant of breath," he thrust between his fingers agile rapier and dagger. the dream world of morris was as much the antithesis of daily life as with other men of genius, but he was never conscious of the antithesis and so knew nothing of intellectual suffering. his intellect, unexhausted by speculation or casuistry, was wholly at the service of hand and eye, and whatever he pleased he did with an unheard of ease and simplicity, and if style and vocabulary were at times monotonous, he could not have made them otherwise without ceasing to be himself. instead of the language of chaucer and shakespeare, its warp fresh from field and market, if the woof were learned, his age offered him a speech, exhausted from abstraction, that only returned to its full vitality when written learnedly and slowly. the roots of his antithetical dream were visible enough: a never idle man of great physical strength and extremely irascible--did he not fling a badly baked plum pudding through the window upon christmas day?--a man more joyous than any intellectual man of our world, called himself "the idle singer of an empty day," created new forms of melancholy, and faint persons, like the knights and ladies of burne-jones, who are never, no not once in forty volumes, put out of temper. a blunderer who had said to the only unconverted man at a socialist picnic in dublin, to prove that equality came easy, "i was brought up a gentleman and now as you can see associate with all sorts" and left wounds thereby that rankled after twenty years, a man of whom i have heard it said "he is always afraid that he is doing something wrong and generally is," wrote long stories with apparently no other object than that his persons might show to one another, through situations of poignant difficulty the most exquisite tact. he did not project like henley or like wilde, an image of himself, because having all his imagination set upon making and doing he had little self knowledge. he imagined instead new conditions of making and doing; and in the teeth of those scientific generalizations that cowed my boyhood, i can see some like imagining in every great change, believing that the first flying fish first leaped, not because it sought "adaptation" to the air, but out of horror of the sea. xiii soon after i began to attend the lectures a french class was started in the old coach-house for certain young socialists who planned a tour in france, and i joined it, and was for a time a model student constantly encouraged by the compliments of the old french mistress. i told my father of the class, and he asked me to get my sisters admitted. i made difficulties and put off speaking of the matter, for i knew that the new and admirable self i was making would turn, under family eyes, into plain rag-doll. how could i pretend to be industrious, and even carry dramatisation to the point of learning my lessons, when my sisters were there and knew that i was nothing of the kind? but i had no argument i could use, and my sisters were admitted. they said nothing unkind, so far as i can remember, but in a week or two i was my old procrastinating idle self and had soon left the class altogether. my elder sister stayed on and became an embroideress under miss may morris, and the hangings round morris's big bed at kelmscott house, oxfordshire, with their verses about lying happily in bed when "all birds sing in the town of the tree," were from her needle, though not from her design. she worked for the first few months at kelmscott house, hammersmith, and in my imagination i cannot always separate what i saw and heard from her report, or indeed from the report of that tribe or guild who looked up to morris as to some worshipped mediaeval king. he had no need for other people. i doubt if their marriage or death made him sad or glad, and yet no man i have known was so well loved; you saw him producing everywhere organisation and beauty, seeming, almost in the same instant, helpless and triumphant; and people loved him as children are loved. people much in his neighbourhood became gradually occupied with him or about his affairs, and, without any wish on his part, as simple people become occupied with children. i remember a man who was proud and pleased because he had distracted morris's thoughts from an attack of gout by leading the conversation delicately to the hated name of milton. he began at swinburne: "o, swinburne," said morris, "is a rhetorician; my masters have been keats and chaucer, for they make pictures." "does not milton make pictures?" asked my informant. "no," was the answer, "dante makes pictures, but milton, though he had a great earnest mind, expressed himself as a rhetorician." "great earnest mind" sounded strange to me, and i doubt not that were his questioner not a simple man morris had been more violent. another day the same man started by praising chaucer, but the gout was worse, and morris cursed chaucer for destroying the english language with foreign words. he had few detachable phrases, and i can remember little of his speech, which many thought the best of all good talk, except that it matched his burly body and seemed within definite boundaries inexhaustible in fact and expression. he alone of all the men i have known seemed guided by some beast-like instinct and never ate strange meat. "balzac! balzac!" he said to me once, "oh, that was the man the french bourgeoisie read so much a few years ago." i can remember him at supper praising wine: "why do people say it is prosaic to be inspired by wine? has it not been made by the sunlight and the sap?" and his dispraising houses decorated by himself: "do you suppose i like that kind of house? i would like a house like a big barn, where one ate in one corner, cooked in another corner, slept in the third corner, and in the fourth received one's friends"; and his complaining of ruskin's objection to the underground railway: "if you must have a railway the best thing you can do with it is to put it in a tube with a cork at each end." i remember, too, that when i asked what led up to his movement, he replied: "oh, ruskin and carlyle, but somebody should have been beside carlyle and punched his head every five minutes." though i remember little, i do not doubt that, had i continued going there on sunday evenings, i should have caught fire from his words and turned my hand to some mediaeval work or other. just before i had ceased to go there i had sent my _wanderings of usheen_ to his daughter, hoping of course that it might meet his eyes, and soon after sending it i came upon him by chance in holborn--"you write my sort of poetry," he said and began to praise me and to promise to send his praise to _the commonwealth_, the league organ, and he would have said more had he not caught sight of a new ornamental cast-iron lamp post and got very heated upon that subject. i did not read economics, having turned socialist because of morris's lectures and pamphlets, and i think it unlikely that morris himself could read economics. that old dogma of mine seemed germane to the matter. if the men and women imagined by the poets were the norm, and if morris had, in let us say "news from nowhere," then running through _the commonwealth_, described such men and women, living under their natural conditions, or as they would desire to live, then those conditions themselves must be the norm and could we but get rid of certain institutions the world would turn from eccentricity. perhaps morris himself justified himself in his own heart by as simple an argument, and was, as the socialist d---said to me one night, walking home after some lecture, "an anarchist without knowing it." certainly i and all about me, including d---himself, were for chopping up the old king for medea's pot. morris had told us to have nothing to do with the parliamentary socialists, represented for men in general by the fabian society and hyndman's social democratic federation and for us in particular by d----. during the period of transition mistakes must be made, and the discredit of these mistakes must be left to "the bourgeoisie"; and besides, when you begin to talk of this measure, or that other, you lose sight of the goal, and see, to reverse swinburne's description of tiresias, "light on the way but darkness on the goal." by mistakes morris meant vexatious restrictions and compromises--"if any man puts me into a labour squad, i will lie on my back and kick." that phrase very much expresses our idea of revolutionary tactics: we all intended to lie upon our back and kick. d----, pale and sedentary, did not dislike labour squads and we all hated him with the left side of our heads, while admiring him immensely with the right side. he alone was invited to entertain mrs morris, having many tales of his irish uncles, more especially of one particular uncle who had tried to commit suicide by shutting his head into a carpet-bag. at that time he was an obscure man, known only for a witty speaker at street corners and in park demonstrations. he had, with an assumed truculence and fury, cold logic, an invariable gentleness, an unruffled courtesy, and yet could never close a speech without being denounced by a journeyman hatter, with an italian name. converted to socialism by d----, and to anarchism by himself, with swinging arm and uplifted voice, this man put, and perhaps, exaggerated our scruple about parliament. "i lack," said d----, "the bump of reverence"; whereon the wild man shouted: "you 'ave a 'ole." there are moments when looking back i somewhat confuse my own figure with that of the hatter, image of our hysteria, for i too became violent with the violent solemnity of a religious devotee. i can even remember sitting behind d---and saying some rude thing or other over his shoulder. i don't remember why i gave it up but i did quite suddenly and the push may have come from a young workman who was educating himself between morris and karl marx. he had planned a history of the navy, and when i had spoken of the battleships of nelson's day had said, "o, that was the decadence of the battleship," but if his naval interests were mediæval, his ideas about religion were pure karl marx, and we were soon in perpetual argument. then gradually the attitude towards religion of almost everybody but morris, who avoided the subject altogether, got upon my nerves, for i broke out after some lecture or other with all the arrogance of raging youth. they attacked religion, i said, or some such words, and yet there must be a change of heart and only religion could make it. what was the use of talking about some new revolution putting all things right, when the change must come, if come it did, with astronomical slowness, like the cooling of the sun, or it may have been like the drying of the moon? morris rang his chairman's bell, but i was too angry to listen, and he had to ring it a second time before i sat down. he said that night at supper, "of course i know there must be a change of heart, but it will not come as slowly as all that. i rang my bell because you were not being understood." he did not show any vexation, but i never returned after that night; and yet i did not always believe what i had said, and only gradually gave up thinking of and planning for some near sudden change for the better. xiv i spent my days at the british museum and must, i think, have been delicate, for i remember often putting off hour after hour consulting some necessary book because i shrank from lifting the heavy volumes of the catalogue; and yet to save money for my afternoon coffee and roll i often walked the whole way home to bedford park. i was compiling, for a series of shilling books, an anthology of irish fairy-stories and, for an american publisher, a two-volume selection from the irish novelists that would be somewhat dearer. i was not well paid, for each book cost me more than three months' reading; and i was paid for the first some twelve pounds ("o, mr. e.," said publisher to editor, "you must never again pay so much!") and for the second twenty, but i did not think myself badly paid, for i had chosen the work for my own purposes. though i went to sligo every summer, i was compelled to live out of ireland the greater part of every year, and was but keeping my mind upon what i knew must be the subject-matter of my poetry. i believed that if morris had set his stories amid the scenery of his own wales, for i knew him to be of welsh extraction and supposed wrongly that he had spent his childhood there, that if shelley had nailed his _prometheus_, or some equal symbol, upon some welsh or scottish rock, their art had entered more intimately, more microscopically, as it were, into our thought and had given perhaps to modern poetry a breadth and stability like that of ancient poetry. the statues of mausolus and artemisia at the british museum, private, half-animal, half-divine figures, all unlike the grecian athletes and egyptian kings in their near neighbourhood, that stand in the middle of the crowd's applause, or sit above measuring it out unpersuadable justice, became to me, now or later, images of an unpremeditated joyous energy, that neither i nor any other man, racked by doubt and inquiry, can achieve; and that yet, if once achieved, might seem to men and women of connemara or of galway their very soul. in our study of that ruined tomb raised by a queen to her dead lover, and finished by the unpaid labour of great sculptors, after her death from grief, or so runs the tale, we cannot distinguish the handiworks of scopas and praxiteles; and i wanted to create once more an art where the artist's handiwork would hide as under those half anonymous chisels, or as we find it in some old scots ballads, or in some twelfth or thirteenth century arthurian romance. that handiwork assured, i had martyred no man for modelling his own image upon pallas athena's buckler; for i took great pleasure in certain allusions to the singer's life, one finds in old romances and ballads, and thought his presence there all the more poignant because we discover it half lost, like portly chaucer, behind his own maunciple and pardoner upon the canterbury roads. wolfram von eschenbach, singing his german parsifal, broke off some description of a famished city to remember that in his own house at home the very mice lacked food, and what old ballad singer was it who claimed to have fought by day in the very battle he sang by night? so masterful indeed was that instinct that when the minstrel knew not who his poet was, he must needs make up a man: "when any stranger asks who is the sweetest of singers, answer with one voice: 'a blind man; he dwells upon rocky chios; his songs shall be the most beautiful for ever.'" elaborate modern psychology sounds egotistical, i thought, when it speaks in the first person, but not those simple emotions which resemble the more, the more powerful they are, everybody's emotion, and i was soon to write many poems where an always personal emotion was woven into a general pattern of myth and symbol. when the fenian poet says that his heart has grown cold and callous--"for thy hapless fate, dear ireland, and sorrows of my own"--he but follows tradition and if he does not move us deeply, it is because he has no sensuous musical vocabulary that comes at need, without compelling him to sedentary toil and so driving him out from his fellows. i thought to create that sensuous, musical vocabulary, and not for myself only, but that i might leave it to later irish poets, much as a mediæval japanese painter left his style as an inheritance to his family, and was careful to use a traditional manner and matter, yet did something altogether different, changed by that toil, impelled by my share in cain's curse, by all that sterile modern complication, by my "originality," as the newspapers call it. morris set out to make a revolution that the persons of his _well at the world's end_ or his _waters of the wondrous isles_, always, to my mind, in the likeness of artemisia and her man, might walk his native scenery; and i, that my native scenery might find imaginary inhabitants, half-planned a new method and a new culture. my mind began drifting vaguely towards that doctrine of "the mask" which has convinced me that every passionate man (i have nothing to do with mechanist, or philanthropist, or man whose eyes have no preference) is, as it were, linked with another age, historical or imaginary, where alone he finds images that rouse his energy. napoleon was never of his own time, as the naturalistic writers and painters bid all men be, but had some roman emperor's image in his head and some condottiere blood in his heart; and when he crowned that head at rome with his own hands he had covered, as may be seen from david's painting, his hesitation with that emperor's old suit. xv i had various women friends on whom i would call towards five o'clock mainly to discuss my thoughts that i could not bring to a man without meeting some competing thought, but partly because their tea and toast saved my pennies for the 'bus ride home; but with women, apart from their intimate exchanges of thought, i was timid and abashed. i was sitting on a seat in front of the british museum feeding pigeons when a couple of girls sat near and began enticing my pigeons away, laughing and whispering to one another, and i looked straight in front of me, very indignant, and presently went into the museum without turning my head towards them. since then i have often wondered if they were pretty or merely very young. sometimes i told myself very adventurous love-stories with myself for hero, and at other times i planned out a life of lonely austerity, and at other times mixed the ideals and planned a life of lonely austerity mitigated by periodical lapses. i had still the ambition, formed in sligo in my teens, of living in imitation of thoreau on innisfree, a little island in lough gill, and when walking through fleet street very homesick i heard a little tinkle of water and saw a fountain in a shop-window which balanced a little ball upon its jet, and began to remember lake water. from the sudden remembrance came my poem _innisfree_, my first lyric with anything in its rhythm of my own music. i had begun to loosen rhythm as an escape from rhetoric and from that emotion of the crowd that rhetoric brings, but i only understood vaguely and occasionally that i must for my special purpose use nothing but the common syntax. a couple of years later i would not have written that first line with its conventional archaism--"arise and go"--nor the inversion in the last stanza. passing another day by the new law courts, a building that i admired because it was gothic--"it is not very good," morris had said, "but it is better than anything else they have got and so they hate it"--i grew suddenly oppressed by the great weight of stone, and thought, "there are miles and miles of stone and brick all round me," and presently added, "if john the baptist or his like were to come again and had his mind set upon it, he could make all these people go out into some wilderness leaving their buildings empty," and that thought, which does not seem very valuable now, so enlightened the day that it is still vivid in the memory. i spent a few days at oxford copying out a seventeenth century translation of poggio's _liber facetiarum_ or the _hypneroto-machia_ of poliphili for a publisher; i forget which, for i copied both; and returned very pale to my troubled family. i had lived upon bread and tea because i thought that if antiquity found locust and wild honey nutritive, my soul was strong enough to need no better. i was always planning some great gesture, putting the whole world into one scale of the balance and my soul into the other and imagining that the whole world somehow kicked the beam. more than thirty years have passed and i have seen no forcible young man of letters brave the metropolis, without some like stimulant; and all after two or three, or twelve or fifteen years, according to obstinacy, have understood that we achieve, if we do achieve, in little sedentary stitches as though we were making lace. i had one unmeasured advantage from my stimulant: i could ink my socks, that they might not show through my shoes, with a most haughty mind, imagining myself, and my torn tackle, somewhere else, in some far place "under the canopy ... i' the city of kites and crows." in london i saw nothing good and constantly remembered that ruskin had said to some friend of my father's--"as i go to my work at the british museum i see the faces of the people become daily more corrupt." i convinced myself for a time, that on the same journey i saw but what he saw. certain old women's faces filled me with horror, faces that are no longer there, or if they are pass before me unnoticed: the fat blotched faces, rising above double chins, of women who have drunk too much beer and eaten much meat. in dublin i had often seen old women walking with erect heads and gaunt bodies, talking to themselves with loud voices, mad with drink and poverty, but they were different, they belonged to romance. da vinci had drawn women who looked so and so carried their bodies. xvi i attempted to restore one old friend of my father's to the practice of his youth, but failed, though he, unlike my father, had not changed his belief. my father brought me to dine with jack nettleship at wigmore street, once inventor of imaginative designs and now a painter of melodramatic lions. at dinner i had talked a great deal--too much, i imagine, for so young a man, or maybe for any man--and on the way home my father, who had been plainly anxious that i should make a good impression, was very angry. he said i had talked for effect and that talking for effect was precisely what one must never do; he had always hated rhetoric and emphasis and had made me hate it; and his anger plunged me into great dejection. i called at nettleship's studio the next day to apologise, and nettleship opened the door himself and received me with enthusiasm. he had explained to some woman guest that i would probably talk well, being an irishman, but the reality had surpassed, etc., etc. i was not flattered, though relieved at not having to apologise, for i soon discovered that what he really admired was my volubility, for he himself was very silent. he seemed about sixty, had a bald head, a grey beard, and a nose, as one of my father's friends used to say, like an opera-glass, and sipped cocoa all the afternoon and evening from an enormous tea-cup that must have been designed for him alone, not caring how cold the cocoa grew. years before he had been thrown from his horse, while hunting, and broke his arm, and because it had been badly set suffered great pain for a long time. a little whisky would always stop the pain, and soon a little became a great deal and he found himself a drunkard, but having signed his liberty away for certain months he was completely cured. he had acquired, however, the need of some liquid which he could sip constantly. i brought him an admiration settled in early boyhood, for my father had always said, "george wilson was our born painter, but nettleship our genius," and even had he shown me nothing i could care for, i had admired him still because my admiration was in my bones. he showed me his early designs, and they, though often badly drawn, fulfilled my hopes. something of blake they certainly did show, but had in place of blake's joyous, intellectual energy a saturnian passion and melancholy. "god creating evil," the death-like head with a woman and a tiger coming from the forehead, which rossetti--or was it browning?--had described "as the most sublime design of ancient or modern art," had been lost, but there was another version of the same thought, and other designs never published or exhibited. they rise before me even now in meditation, especially a blind titan-like ghost floating with groping hands above the tree-tops. i wrote a criticism, and arranged for reproductions with the editor of an art magazine, but after it was written and accepted the proprietor, lifting what i considered an obsequious caw in the huxley, tyndall, carolus duran, bastien-lepage rookery, insisted upon its rejection. nettleship did not mind its rejection, saying, "who cares for such things now? not ten people," but he did mind my refusal to show him what i had written. though what i had written was all eulogy, i dreaded his judgment for it was my first art criticism. i hated his big lion pictures, where he attempted an art too much concerned with the sense of touch, with the softness or roughness, the minutely observed irregularity of surfaces, for his genius; and i think he knew it. "rossetti used to call my pictures pot-boilers," he said, "but they are all--all"--and he waved his arm to the canvasses--"symbols." when i wanted him to design gods, and angels, and lost spirits once more, he always came back to the point "nobody would be pleased." "everybody should have a _raison d'être_" was one of his phrases. "mrs ----'s articles are not good but they are her _raison d'être_." i had but little knowledge of art for there was little scholarship in the dublin art school, so i overrated the quality of anything that could be connected with my general beliefs about the world. if i had been able to give angelical or diabolical names to his lions i might have liked them also and i think that nettleship himself would have liked them better and liking them better have become a better painter. we had the same kind of religious feeling, but i could give a crude philosophical expression to mine while he could only express his in action or with brush and pencil. he often told me of certain ascetic ambitions, very much like my own, for he had kept all the moral ambition of youth, as for instance--"yeats, the other night i was arrested by a policeman--was walking round regent's park barefooted to keep the flesh under--good sort of thing to do. i was carrying my boots in my hand and he thought i was a burglar and even when i explained and gave him half a crown, he would not let me go till i had promised to put on my boots before i met the next policeman." he was very proud and shy and i could not imagine anybody asking him questions and so i was content to take these stories as they came: confirmations of what i had heard of him in boyhood. one story in particular had stirred my imagination for, ashamed all my boyhood of my lack of physical courage, i admired what was beyond my imitation. he thought that any weakness, even a weakness of body, had the character of sin and while at breakfast with his brother, with whom he shared a room on the third floor of a corner house, he said that his nerves were out of order. presently he left the table, and got out through the window and on to a stone ledge that ran along the wall under the windowsills. he sidled along the ledge, and turning the corner with it, got in at a different window and returned to the table. "my nerves," he said, "are better than i thought." nettleship said to me: "has edwin ellis ever said anything about the effect of drink upon my genius?" "no," i answered. "i ask," he said, "because i have always thought that ellis has some strange medical insight." though i had answered no, ellis had only a few days before used these words: "nettleship drank his genius away." ellis, but lately returned from perugia where he had lived many years, was another old friend of my father's but some years younger than nettleship or my father. nettleship had found his simplifying image, but in his painting had turned away from it, while ellis, the son of alexander ellis, a once famous man of science, who was perhaps the last man in england to run the circle of the sciences without superficiality, had never found that image at all. he was a painter and poet, but his painting, which did not interest me, showed no influence but that of leighton. he had started perhaps a couple of years too late for pre-raphaelite influence, for no great pre-raphaelite picture was painted after 1870, and left england too soon for that of the french painters. he was, however, sometimes moving as a poet and still more often an astonishment. i have known him cast something just said into a dozen lines of musical verse, without apparently ceasing to talk; but the work once done he could not or would not amend it, and my father thought he lacked all ambition. yet he had at times nobility of rhythm--an instinct for grandeur, and after thirty years i still repeat to myself his address to mother earth- "o mother of the hills, forgive our towers, o mother of the clouds forgive our dreams." and there are certain whole poems that i read from time to time or try to make others read. there is that poem where the manner is unworthy of the matter, being loose and facile, describing adam and eve fleeing from paradise. adam asks eve what she carries so carefully, and eve replies that it is a little of the apple-core kept for their children. there is that vision concerning _christ the less_, a too hurriedly written ballad, where the half of christ sacrificed to the divine half "that fled to seek felicity" wanders wailing through golgotha, and there is _the saint and the youth_, in which i can discover no fault at all. he loved complexities--"seven silences like candles round her face" is a line of his--and whether he wrote well or ill had always a manner which i would have known from that of any other poet. he would say to me, "i am a mathematician with the mathematics left out"--his father was a great mathematician--or "a woman once said to me, 'mr ellis, why are your poems like sums?'" and certainly he loved symbols and abstractions. he said once, when i had asked him not to mention something or other, "surely you have discovered by this time that i know of no means whereby i can mention a fact in conversation." he had a passion for blake, picked up in pre-raphaelite studios, and early in our acquaintance put into my hands a scrap of notepaper on which he had written some years before an interpretation of the poem that begins "the fields from islington to marylebone, to primrose hill and st. john's wood, were builded over with pillars of gold, and there jerusalem's pillars stood." the four quarters of london represented blake's four great mythological personages, the zoas, and also the four elements. these few sentences were the foundation of all study of the philosophy of william blake that requires an exact knowledge for its pursuit and that traces the connection between his system and that of swedenborg or of boehme. i recognised certain attributions, from what is sometimes called the christian cabbala, of which ellis had never heard, and with this proof that his interpretation was more than fantasy he and i began our four years' work upon the prophetic books of william blake. we took it as almost a sign of blake's personal help when we discovered that the spring of 1889, when we first joined our knowledge, was one hundred years from the publication of _the book of thel_, the first published of the prophetic books, as though it were firmly established that the dead delight in anniversaries. after months of discussion and reading we made a concordance of all blake's mystical terms, and there was much copying to be done in the museum and at red hill, where the descendants of blake's friend and patron, the landscape painter john linnell, had many manuscripts. the linnells were narrow in their religious ideas and doubtful of blake's orthodoxy, whom they held, however, in great honour, and i remember a timid old lady who had known blake when a child saying, "he had very wrong ideas, he did not believe in the historical jesus." one old man sat always beside us, ostensibly to sharpen our pencils but perhaps really to see that we did not steal the manuscripts, and they gave us very old port at lunch, and i have upon my dining-room walls their present of blake's dante engravings. going thither and returning ellis would entertain me by philosophical discussion varied with improvised stories, at first folk-tales which he professed to have picked up in scotland, and, though i had read and collected many folk tales, i did not see through the deceit. i have a partial memory of two more elaborate tales, one of an italian conspirator flying barefoot, from i forget what adventure through i forget what italian city, in the early morning. fearing to be recognised by his bare feet, he slipped past the sleepy porter at an hotel, calling out "number so and so" as if he were some belated guest. then passing from bedroom door to door he tried on the boots, and just as he got a pair to fit, a voice cried from the room: "who is that?" "merely me, sir," he called back, "taking your boots." the other was of a martyr's bible, round which the cardinal virtues had taken personal form--this a fragment of blake's philosophy. it was in the possession of an old clergyman when a certain jockey called upon him, and the cardinal virtues, confused between jockey and clergyman, devoted themselves to the jockey. as whenever he sinned a cardinal virtue interfered and turned him back to virtue, he lived in great credit, and made, but for one sentence, a very holy death. as his wife and family knelt round in admiration and grief he suddenly said "damn." "o my dear," said his wife, "what a dreadful expression." he answered, "i am going to heaven," and straightway died. it was a long tale, for there were all the jockey's vain attempts to sin, as well as all the adventures of the clergyman, who became very sinful indeed, but it ended happily for when the jockey died the cardinal virtues returned to the clergyman. i think he would talk to any audience that offered, one audience being the same as another in his eyes, and it may have been for this reason that my father called him unambitious. when he was a young man he had befriended a reformed thief and had asked the grateful thief to take him round the thieves' quarters of london. the thief, however, hurried him away from the worst saying, "another minute and they would have found you out. if they were not the stupidest of men in london, they had done so already." ellis had gone through a detailed, romantic and witty account of all the houses he had robbed and all the throats he had cut in one short life. his conversation would often pass out of my comprehension, or indeed i think of any man's, into a labyrinth of abstraction and subtlety and then suddenly return with some verbal conceit or turn of wit. the mind is known to attain in certain conditions of trance a quickness so extraordinary that we are compelled at times to imagine a condition of unendurable intellectual intensity from which we are saved by the merciful stupidity of the body, and i think that the mind of edwin ellis was constantly upon the edge of trance. once we were discussing the symbolism of sex in the philosophy of blake and had been in disagreement all the afternoon. i began talking with a new sense of conviction and after a moment ellis, who was at his easel, threw down his brush and said that he had just seen the same explanation in a series of symbolic visions. "in another moment," he said, "i should have been off." we went into the open air and walked up and down to get rid of that feeling, but presently we came in again and i began again my explanation, ellis lying upon the sofa. i had been talking some time when mrs ellis came into the room and said, "why are you sitting in the dark?" ellis answered, "but we are not," and then added in a voice of wonder, "i thought the lamp was lit, and that i was sitting up, and now i find that i am lying down and that we are in darkness." i had seen a flicker of light over the ceiling but thought it a reflection from some light outside the house, which may have been the case. xvii i had already met most of the poets of my generation. i had said, soon after the publication of _the wanderings of usheen_, to the editor of a series of shilling reprints, who had set me to compile tales of the irish fairies, "i am growing jealous of other poets and we will all grow jealous of each other unless we know each other and so feel a share in each other's triumph." he was a welshman, lately a mining engineer, ernest rhys, a writer of welsh translations and original poems, that have often moved me greatly though i can think of no one else who has read them. he was perhaps a dozen years older than myself and through his work as editor knew everybody who would compile a book for seven or eight pounds. between us we founded the rhymers' club, which for some years was to meet every night in an upper room with a sanded floor in an ancient eating house in the strand called the cheshire cheese. lionel johnson, ernest dowson, victor plarr, ernest radford, john davidson, richard le gallienne, t. w. rolleston, selwyn image, edwin ellis, and john todhunter came constantly for a time, arthur symons and herbert home, less constantly, while william watson joined but never came and francis thompson came once but never joined; and sometimes if we met in a private house, which we did occasionally, oscar wilde came. it had been useless to invite him to the cheshire cheese for he hated bohemia. "olive schreiner," he said once to me, "is staying in the east end because that is the only place where people do not wear masks upon their faces, but i have told her that i live in the west end because nothing in life interests me but the mask." we read our poems to one another and talked criticism and drank a little wine. i sometimes say when i speak of the club, "we had such and such ideas, such and such a quarrel with the great victorians, we set before us such and such aims," as though we had many philosophical ideas. i say this because i am ashamed to admit that i had these ideas and that whenever i began to talk of them a gloomy silence fell upon the room. a young irish poet, who wrote excellently but had the worst manners, was to say a few years later, "you do not talk like a poet, you talk like a man of letters," and if all the rhymers had not been polite, if most of them had not been to oxford or cambridge, the greater number would have said the same thing. i was full of thought, often very abstract thought, longing all the while to be full of images, because i had gone to the art school instead of a university. yet even if i had gone to a university, and learned all the classical foundations of english literature and english culture, all that great erudition which once accepted frees the mind from restlessness, i should have had to give up my irish subject matter, or attempt to found a new tradition. lacking sufficient recognized precedent i must needs find out some reason for all i did. i knew almost from the start that to overflow with reasons was to be not quite well-born, and when i could i hid them, as men hide a disagreeable ancestry; and that there was no help for it seeing that my country was not born at all. i was of those doomed to imperfect achievement, and under a curse, as it were, like some race of birds compelled to spend the time, needed for the making of the nest, in argument as to the convenience of moss and twig and lichen. le gallienne and davidson, and even symons, were provincial at their setting out, but their provincialism was curable, mine incurable; while the one conviction shared by all the younger men, but principally by johnson and home, who imposed their personalities upon us, was an opposition to all ideas, all generalizations that can be explained and debated. e---fresh from paris would sometimes say--"we are concerned with nothing but impressions," but that itself was a generalization and met but stony silence. conversation constantly dwindled into "do you like so and so's last book?" "no, i prefer the book before it," and i think that but for its irish members, who said whatever came into their heads, the club would not have survived its first difficult months. i saw--now ashamed that i saw "like a man of letters," now exasperated at their indifference to the fashion of their own river-bed--that swinburne in one way, browning in another, and tennyson in a third, had filled their work with what i called "impurities," curiosities about politics, about science, about history, about religion; and that we must create once more the pure work. our clothes were, for the most part unadventurous like our conversation, though i indeed wore a brown velveteen coat, a loose tie, and a very old inverness cape, discarded by my father twenty years before and preserved by my sligo-born mother whose actions were unreasoning and habitual like the seasons. but no other member of the club, except le gallienne, who wore a loose tie, and symons, who had an inverness cape that was quite new and almost fashionable, would have shown himself for the world in any costume but "that of an english gentleman." "one should be quite unnoticeable," johnson explained to me. those who conformed most carefully to the fashion in their clothes, generally departed furthest from it in their handwriting, which was small, neat, and studied, one poet--which, i forget--having founded his upon the handwriting of george herbert. dowson and symons i was to know better in later years when symons became a very dear friend, and i never got behind john davidson's scottish roughness and exasperation, though i saw much of him, but from the first i devoted myself to lionel johnson. he and horne and image and one or two others, shared a man-servant and an old house in charlotte street, fitzroy square, typical figures of transition, doing as an achievement of learning and of exquisite taste what their predecessors did in careless abundance. all were pre-raphaelite, and sometimes one might meet in the rooms of one or other a ragged figure, as of some fallen dynasty, simeon solomon the pre-raphaelite painter, once the friend of rossetti and of swinburne, but fresh now from some low public house. condemned to a long term of imprisonment for a criminal offence, he had sunk into drunkenness and misery. introduced one night, however, to some man who mistook him, in the dim candle light, for another solomon, a successful academic painter and r.a., he started to his feet in a rage with, "sir, do you dare to mistake me for that mountebank?" though not one had hearkened to the feeblest caw, or been spattered by the smallest dropping from any huxley, tyndall, carolus duran, bastien-lepage bundle of old twigs i began by suspecting them of lukewarmness, and even backsliding, and i owe it to that suspicion that i never became intimate with horne, who lived to become the greatest english authority upon italian life in the fourteenth century and to write the one standard work on botticelli. connoisseur in several arts, he had designed a little church in the manner of inigo jones for a burial ground near the marble arch. though i now think his little church a masterpiece, its style was more than a century too late to hit my fancy, at two or three and twenty; and i accused him of leaning towards that eighteenth century "that taught a school of dolts to smooth, inlay, and clip, and fit till, like the certain wands of jacob's wit, their verses tallied." another fanaticism delayed my friendship with two men, who are now my friends and in certain matters my chief instructors. somebody, probably lionel johnson, brought me to the studio of charles ricketts and charles shannon, certainly heirs of the great generation, and the first thing i saw was a shannon picture of a lady and child, arrayed in lace silk and satin, suggesting that hated century. my eyes were full of some more mythological mother and child and i would have none of it and i told shannon that he had not painted a mother and child, but elegant people expecting visitors and i thought that a great reproach. somebody writing in _the germ_ had said that a picture of a pheasant and an apple was merely a picture of something to eat and i was so angry with the indifference to subject, which was the commonplace of all art criticism since bastien-lepage, that i could at times see nothing else but subject. i thought that, though it might not matter to the man himself whether he loved a white woman or a black, a female pickpocket or a regular communicant of the church of england, if only he loved strongly, it certainly did matter to his relations and even under some circumstances to his whole neighbourhood. sometimes indeed, like some father in molière, i ignored the lover's feelings altogether and even refused to admit that a trace of the devil, perhaps a trace of colour, may lend piquancy, especially if the connection be not permanent. among these men, of whom so many of the greatest talents were to live such passionate lives and die such tragic deaths, one serene man, t. w. rolleston, seemed always out of place; it was i brought him there, intending to set him to some work in ireland later on. i have known young dublin working men slip out of their workshop to see the second thomas davis passing by, and even remember a conspiracy, by some three or four, to make him "the leader of the irish race at home and abroad," and all because he had regular features; and when all is said alexander the great and alcibiades were personable men, and the founder of the christian religion was the only man who was neither a little too tall nor a little too short, but exactly six feet high. we in ireland thought as do the plays and ballads, not understanding that, from the first moment wherein nature foresaw the birth of bastien-lepage, she has only granted great creative power to men whose faces are contorted with extravagance or curiosity, or dulled with some protecting stupidity. i had now met all those who were to make the 'nineties of the last century tragic in the history of literature, but as yet we were all seemingly equal, whether in talent or in luck, and scarce even personalties to one another. i remember saying one night at the cheshire cheese, when more poets than usual had come, "none of us can say who will succeed, or even who has or has not talent. the only thing certain about us is that we are too many." xviii i have described what image--always opposite to the natural self or the natural world--wilde, henley, morris, copied or tried to copy, but i have not said if i found an image for myself. i know very little about myself and much less of that anti-self: probably the woman who cooks my dinner or the woman who sweeps out my study knows more than i. it is perhaps because nature made me a gregarious man, going hither and thither looking for conversation, and ready to deny from fear or favour his dearest conviction, that i love proud and lonely things. when i was a child and went daily to the sexton's daughter for writing lessons, i found one poem in her school reader that delighted me beyond all others: a fragment of some metrical translation from aristophanes wherein the birds sing scorn upon mankind. in later years my mind gave itself to gregarious shelley's dream of a young man, his hair blanched with sorrow, studying philosophy in some lonely tower, or of his old man, master of all human knowledge, hidden from human sight in some shell-strewn cavern on the mediterranean shore. one passage above all ran perpetually in my ears- "some feign that he is enoch: others dream he was pre-adamite, and has survived cycles of generation and of ruin. the sage, in truth, by dreadful abstinence, and conquering penance of the mutinous flesh, deep contemplation and unwearied study, in years outstretched beyond the date of man, may have attained to sovereignty and science over those strong and secret things and thoughts which others fear and know not. _mahmud._ i would talk with this old jew. _hassan._ thy will is even now made known to him where he dwells in a sea-cavern 'mid the demonesi, less accessible than thou or god! he who would question him must sail alone at sunset where the stream of ocean sleeps around those foamless isles, when the young moon is westering as now, and evening airs wander upon the wave; and, when the pines of that bee-pasturing isle, green erebinthus, quench the fiery shadow of his gilt prow within the sapphire water, then must the lonely helmsman cry aloud 'ahasuerus!' and the caverns round will answer 'ahasuerus!' if his prayer be granted, a faint meteor will arise, lighting him over marmora; and a wind will rush out of the sighing pine-forest, and with the wind a storm of harmony unutterably sweet, and pilot him through the soft twilight to the bosphorus: thence, at the hour and place and circumstance fit for the matter of their conference, the jew appears. few dare, and few who dare win the desired communion." already in dublin, i had been attracted to the theosophists because they had affirmed the real existence of the jew, or of his like, and, apart from whatever might have been imagined by huxley, tyndall, carolus duran, and bastien-lepage, i saw nothing against his reality. presently having heard that madame blavatsky had arrived from france, or from india, i thought it time to look the matter up. certainly if wisdom existed anywhere in the world it must be in some such lonely mind admitting no duty to us, communing with god only, conceding nothing from fear or favour. have not all peoples, while bound together in a single mind and taste, believed that such men existed and paid them that honour, or paid it to their mere shadow, which they have refused to philanthropists and to men of learning. xix i found madame blavatsky in a little house at norwood, with but, as she said, three followers left--the society of psychical research had just reported on her indian phenomena--and as one of the three followers sat in an outer room to keep out undesirable visitors, i was kept a long time kicking my heels. presently i was admitted and found an old woman in a plain loose dark dress: a sort of old irish peasant woman with an air of humour and audacious power. i was still kept waiting, for she was deep in conversation with a woman visitor. i strayed through folding doors into the next room and stood, in sheer idleness of mind, looking at a cuckoo clock. it was certainly stopped, for the weights were off and lying upon the ground, and yet, as i stood there the cuckoo came out and cuckooed at me. i interrupted madame blavatsky to say, "your clock has hooted me." "it oftens hoots at a stranger," she replied. "is there a spirit in it?" i said. "i do not know," she said, "i should have to be alone to know what is in it." i went back to the clock and began examining it and heard her say: "do not break my clock." i wondered if there was some hidden mechanism and i should have been put out, i suppose, had i found any, though henley had said to me, "of course she gets up fraudulent miracles, but a person of genius has to do something; sarah bernhardt sleeps in her coffin." presently the visitor went away and madame blavatsky explained that she was a propagandist for women's rights who had called to find out "why men were so bad." "what explanation did you give her?" i said. "that men were born bad, but women made themselves so," and then she explained that i had been kept waiting because she had mistaken me for some man, whose name resembled mine and who wanted to persuade her of the flatness of the earth. when i next saw her she had moved into a house at holland park, and some time must have passed--probably i had been in sligo where i returned constantly for long visits--for she was surrounded by followers. she sat nightly before a little table covered with green baize and on this green baize she scribbled constantly with a piece of white chalk. she would scribble symbols, sometimes humorously explained, and sometimes unintelligible figures, but the chalk was intended to mark down her score when she played patience. one saw in the next room a large table where every night her followers and guests, often a great number, sat down to their vegetable meal, while she encouraged or mocked through the folding doors. a great passionate nature, a sort of female dr johnson, impressive i think to every man or woman who had themselves any richness, she seemed impatient of the formalism of the shrill abstract idealism of those about her, and this impatience broke out in railing and many nicknames: "o you are a flap-doodle, but then you are a theosophist and a brother." the most devout and learned of all her followers said to me, "h. p. b. has just told me that there is another globe stuck on to this at the north pole, so that the earth has really a shape something like a dumb-bell." i said, for i knew that her imagination contained all the folklore of the world, "that must be some piece of eastern mythology." "o no it is not," he said, "of that i am certain, and there must be something in it or she would not have said it." her mockery was not kept for her followers alone, and her voice would become harsh, and her mockery lose fantasy and humour, when she spoke of what seemed to her scientific materialism. once i saw this antagonism, guided by some kind of telepathic divination, take a form of brutal fantasy. i brought a very able dublin woman to see her and this woman had a brother, a physiologist whose reputation, though known to specialists alone, was european, and because of this brother a family pride in everything scientific and modern. the dublin woman scarcely opened her mouth the whole evening and her name was certainly unknown to madame blavatsky, yet i saw at once in that wrinkled old face bent over the cards, and the only time i ever saw it there, a personal hostility, the dislike of one woman for another. madame blavatsky seemed to bundle herself up, becoming all primeval peasant, and began complaining of her ailments, more especially of her bad leg. but of late her master--her "old jew," her "ahasuerus"--cured it, or set it on the way to be cured. "i was sitting here in my chair," said she, "when the master came in and brought something with him which he put over my knee, something warm which enclosed my knee--it was a live dog which he had cut open." i recognized a cure used sometimes in mediaeval medicine. she had two masters and their portraits, ideal indian heads, painted by some most incompetent artist, stood upon either side of the folding doors. one night when talk was impersonal and general, i sat gazing through the folding doors into the dimly lighted dining room beyond. i noticed a curious red light shining upon a picture and got up to see where the red light came from. it was the picture of an indian and as i came near it slowly vanished. when i returned to my seat, madame blavatsky said, "what did you see?" "a picture," i said. "tell it to go away." "it is already gone." "so much the better," she said, "i was afraid it was mediumship. but it is only clairvoyance." "what is the difference?" "if it had been mediumship, it would have stayed in spite of you. beware of mediumship; it is a kind of madness; i know for i have been through it." i found her almost always full of gaiety that, unlike the occasional joking of those about her, was illogical and incalculable and yet always kindly and tolerant. i had called one evening to find her absent but expected every moment. she had been somewhere at the seaside for her health and arrived with a little suite of followers. she sat down at once in her big chair, and began unfolding a brown paper parcel while all looked on full of curiosity. it contained a large family bible. "this is a present for my maid," she said. "what a bible and not even annotated!" said some shocked voice. "well, my children," was the answer, "what is the good of giving lemons to those who want oranges?" when i first began to frequent her house, as i soon did very constantly, i noticed a handsome clever woman of the world there, who seemed certainly very much out of place, penitent though she thought herself. presently there was much scandal and gossip for the penitent was plainly entangled with two young men, who were expected to grow into ascetic sages. the scandal was so great that madame blavatsky had to call the penitent before her and to speak after this fashion, "we think that it is necessary to crush the animal nature; you should live in chastity in act and thought. initiation is granted only to those who are entirely chaste," and so it ran on for some time. however, after some minutes in that vehement style, the penitent standing crushed and shamed before her, she had wound up, "i cannot permit you more than one." she was quite sincere but thought that nothing mattered but what happened in the mind, and that if we could not master the mind our actions were of little importance. one young man filled her with exasperation for she thought that his settled gloom came from his chastity. i had known him in dublin where he had been accustomed to interrupt long periods of asceticism, in which he would eat vegetables and drink water, with brief outbreaks of what he considered the devil. after an outbreak he would for a few hours dazzle the imagination of the members of the local theosophical society with poetical rhapsodies about harlots and street lamps, and then sink into weeks of melancholy. a fellow-theosophist once found him hanging from the windowpole, but cut him down in the nick of time. i said to the man who cut him down, "what did you say to each other?" he said, "we spent the night telling comic stories and laughing a great deal." this man, torn between sensuality and visionary ambition, was now the most devout of all, and told me that in the middle of the night he could often hear the ringing of the little "astral bell" whereby madame blavatsky's master called her attention, and that, although it was a silvery low tone, it made the whole house shake. another night i found him waiting in the hall to show in those who had right of entrance, on some night when the discussion was private, and as i passed he whispered into my ear, "madame blavatsky is perhaps not a real woman at all. they say that her dead body was found many years ago upon some russian battlefield." she had two dominant moods, both of extreme activity, one calm and philosophic, and this was the mood always on that night in the week when she answered questions upon her system, and as i look back after thirty years i often ask myself, "was her speech automatic? was she a trance medium, or in some similar state, one night in every week?" in the other mood she was full of fantasy and inconsequent raillery. "that is the greek church, a triangle like all true religion," i recall her saying, as she chalked out a triangle on the green baize, and then as she made it disappear in meaningless scribbles, "it spread out and became a bramble bush like the church of rome." then rubbing it all out except one straight line, "now they have lopped off the branches and turned it into a broomstick and that is protestantism." and so it was night after night always varied and unforeseen. i have observed a like sudden extreme change in others, half whose thought was supernatural and lawrence oliphant records somewhere or other like observations. i can remember only once finding her in a mood of reverie, something had happened to damp her spirits, some attack upon her movement, or upon herself. she spoke of balzac, whom she had seen but once, of alfred de musset, whom she had known well enough to dislike for his morbidity, and george sand, whom she had known so well that they had dabbled in magic together of which "neither knew anything at all" in those days; and she ran on, as if there was nobody there to overhear her, "i used to wonder at and pity the people who sell their souls to the devil, but now i only pity them. they do it to have somebody on their side," and added to that, after some words i have forgotten, "i write, write, write as the wandering jew walks, walks, walks." besides the devotees, who came to listen and to turn every doctrine into a new sanction for the puritanical convictions of their victorian childhood, cranks came from half europe and from all america, and they came that they might talk. one american said to me, "she has become the most famous woman in the world by sitting in a big chair and permitting us to talk." they talked and she played patience, and totted up her score on the green baize, and generally seemed to listen, but sometimes she would listen no more. there was a woman who talked perpetually of "the divine spark" within her, until madame blavatsky stopped her with--"yes, my dear, you have a divine spark within you and if you are not very careful you will hear it snore." a certain salvation army captain probably pleased her, for if vociferous and loud of voice, he had much animation. he had known hardship and spoke of his visions while starving in the streets and he was still perhaps a little light in the head. i wondered what he could preach to ignorant men, his head ablaze with wild mysticism, till i met a man who had heard him talking near covent garden to some crowd in the street. "my friends," he was saying, "you have the kingdom of heaven within you and it would take a pretty big pill to get that out." meanwhile i had got no nearer to proving that the sage ahasuerus "dwells in a sea cavern 'mid the demonesi," nor did i learn any more of those "masters" whose representative madame blavatsky claimed to be. all there seemed to feel their presence, and all spoke of them as if they were more important than any visible inhabitant of the house. when madame blavatsky was more silent, less vivid than usual, it was "because her masters were angry;" they had rebuked her because of some error, and she professed constant error. once i seemed in their presence, or that of some messenger of theirs. it was about nine at night, and half a dozen of us sat round her big table cloth, when the room seemed to fill with the odour of incense. somebody came from upstairs, but could smell nothing--had been outside the influence it seems--but to myself and the others, it was very strong. madame blavatsky said it was a common indian incense, and that some pupil of her master's was present; she seemed anxious to make light of the matter and turned the conversation to something else. certainly it was a romantic house, and i did not separate myself from it by my own will. i had learned from blake to hate all abstraction, and, affected by the abstraction of what were called "esoteric teachings," i began a series of experiments. some book or magazine published by the society had quoted from that essay of magic, which sibley, the eighteenth century astrologer, had bound up with his big book upon astrology. if you burnt a flower to ashes and put the ashes under, i think, the receiver of an air pump, and stood the receiver in the moonlight for so many nights, the ghost of the flower would appear hovering over its ashes. i got together a committee which performed this experiment without results. the "esoteric teachings" had declared that a certain very pure kind of indigo was the symbol of one of the seven principles into which they divided human nature. i got with some difficulty a little of this pure indigo, and gave portions of it to members of the committee, and asked them to put it under their pillows at night and record their dreams. i argued that all natural scenery must be divided into seven types according to these principles, and by their study we could rid the mind of abstraction. presently a secretary, a friendly, intelligent man, asked me to come and see him, and, when i did, complained that i was causing discussion and disturbance. a certain fanatical hungry face had been noticed red and tearful, and it was quite plain that i was not in agreement with their methods or their philosophy. "we have certain definite ideas," he said, "and we have but one duty, to spread them through the world. i know that all these people become dogmatic, that they believe what they can never prove, that their withdrawal from family life is for them a great misfortune, but what are we to do? we have been told that all spiritual influx into the society will come to an end in 1897 for exactly one hundred years; before that date our fundamental ideas must be spread in all countries." i knew the doctrine, and it made me wonder why that old woman, or the "masters" from whom, whatever they were or were not, her genius had come, insisted upon it; for influx of some kind there must always be. did they dread heresy, or had they no purpose but the greatest possible immediate effect? xx at the british museum reading room i often saw a man of thirty-six, or thirty-seven, in a brown velveteen coat, with a gaunt resolute face, and an athletic body, who seemed before i heard his name, or knew the nature of his studies, a figure of romance. presently i was introduced, where or by what man or woman i do not remember. he was called liddle mathers, but would soon, under the touch of "the celtic movement," become macgregor mathers, and then plain macgregor. he was the author of _the kabbala unveiled_, and his studies were two only--magic and the theory of war, for he believed himself a born commander and all but equal in wisdom and in power to that old jew. he had copied many manuscripts on magic ceremonial and doctrine in the british museum, and was to copy many more in continental libraries, and it was through him mainly that i began certain studies and experiences, that were to convince me that images well up before the mind's eye from a deeper source than conscious or subconscious memory. i believe that his mind in those early days did not belie his face and body, though in later years it became unhinged, for he kept a proud head amid great poverty. one that boxed with him nightly has told me that for many weeks he could knock him down, though mathers was the stronger man, and only knew long after that during those weeks mathers starved. with him i met an old white-haired oxfordshire clergyman, the most panic-stricken person i have ever known, though mathers' introduction had been "he unites us to the great adepts of antiquity." this old man took me aside that he might say--"i hope you never invoke spirits--that is a very dangerous thing to do. i am told that even the planetary spirits turn upon us in the end." i said, "have you ever seen an apparition?" "o yes, once," he said. "i have my alchemical laboratory in a cellar under my house where the bishop cannot see it. one day i was walking up and down there when i heard another footstep walking up and down beside me. i turned and saw a girl i had been in love with when i was a young man, but she died long ago. she wanted me to kiss her. o no, i would not do that." "why not?" i said. "o she might have got power over me." "has your alchemical research had any success?" i said. "yes, i once made the elixir of life. a french alchemist said it had the right smell and the right colour" (the alchemist may have been eliphas levi, who visited england in the 'sixties, and would have said anything) "but the first effect of the elixir is that your nails fall out and your hair falls off. i was afraid that i might have made a mistake and that nothing else might happen, so i put it away on a shelf. i meant to drink it when i was an old man, but when i got it down the other day it had all dried up." soon after my first meeting with mathers he emerged into brief prosperity, becoming for two or three years curator of a private museum at forest hill, and marrying a young and beautiful wife, the sister of the philosopher, henri bergson. his house at forest hill was soon a romantic place to a little group, florence farr, myself, and some dozen fellow students. i think that it was she, her curiosity being insatiable, who first brought news of that house and that she brought it in mockery and in wonder. mathers had taken her for a walk through a field of sheep and had said, "look at the sheep. i am going to imagine myself a ram," and at once all the sheep ran after him; another day he had tried to quell a thunder storm by making symbols in the air with a masonic sword, but the storm had not been quelled; and then came the crowning wonder. he had given her a piece of cardboard on which was a coloured geometrical symbol and had told her to hold it to her forehead and she had found herself walking upon a cliff above the sea, seagulls shrieking overhead. i did not think the ram story impossible, and even tried half a dozen times to excite a cat by imagining a mouse in front of its nose, but still some chance movement of the flock might have deceived her. but what could have deceived her in that final marvel? then another brought a like report, and presently my own turn came. he gave me a cardboard symbol and i closed my eyes. sight came slowly, there was not that sudden miracle as if the darkness had been cut with a knife, for that miracle is mostly a woman's privilege, but there rose before me mental images that i could not control: a desert and black titan raising himself up by his two hands from the middle of a heap of ancient ruins. mathers explained that i had seen a being of the order of salamanders because he had shown me their symbol, but it was not necessary even to show the symbol, it would have been sufficient that he imagined it. i had already written in my diary, under some date in 1887, that madame blavatsky's masters were "trance personalities," and i must have meant such beings as my black titan, only more lasting and more powerful. i had found when a boy in dublin on a table in the royal irish academy a pamphlet on japanese art and read there of an animal painter so remarkable that horses he had painted upon a temple wall, had slipped down after dark and trampled the neighbours' fields of rice. somebody had come into the temple in the early morning, had been startled by a shower of water drops, had looked up and seen painted horses still wet from the dew-covered fields, but now "trembling into stillness." i had soon mastered mathers' symbolic system, and discovered that for a considerable minority--whom i could select by certain unanalysable characteristics--the visible world would completely vanish, and that world, summoned by the symbol, take its place. one day when alone in a third-class carriage, in the very middle of the railway bridge that crosses the thames near victoria, i smelt incense. i was on my way to forest hill; might it not come from some spirit mathers had called up? i had wondered when i smelt it at madame blavatsky's--if there might be some contrivance, some secret censer, but that explanation was no longer possible. i believed that salamander of his but an image, and presently i found analogies between smell and image. it must be from thought but what certainty had i, that what had taken me by surprise, could be from my own thought, and if a thought could affect the sense of smell, why not the sense of touch? then i discovered among that group of students that surrounded macgregor, a man who had fought a cat in his dreams and awaked to find his breast covered with scratches. was there an impassable barrier between those scratches and the trampled fields of rice? it would seem so, and yet all was uncertainty. what fixed law would our experiments leave to our imagination? mathers had learning but no scholarship, much imagination and imperfect taste, but if he made some absurd statement, some incredible claim, some hackneyed joke, we would half consciously change claim, statement or joke, as though he were a figure in a play of our composition. he was a necessary extravagance, and he had carried further than anyone else, a claim implicit in the romantic movement from the time of shelley and of goethe; and in body and in voice at least he was perfect; so might faust have looked at the end of his hundred years. in the credulity of our youth we secretly wondered if he had not met with, perhaps even been taught by some old man who had found the elixir. nor did he undeceive us. "if you find the elixir," he was accustomed to say, "you always look a few years younger than the age at which you found it. if you find it at sixty you will look fifty for a hundred years." none of us would have admitted that we believed in stone or elixir, the old oxfordshire clergyman excited no belief, yet one among us certainly laboured with crucible or athanor. ten years ago i called upon an elderly solicitor, on some business, but at his private house, and i remembered whose pupil he had been when i found among the ashes of the hearth a little earthen pot. he pretended that he studied alchemy that he might some day write its history, and i found when i questioned others, that for twenty years there had been just such a little pot among the ashes. xxi i generalized a great deal and was ashamed of it. i thought it was my business in life to be an artist and a poet, and that there could be no business comparable to that. i refused to read books and even to meet people who excited me to generalization, all to no purpose. i said my prayers much as in childhood, though without the old regularity of hour and place, and i began to pray that my imagination might somehow be rescued from abstraction and became as preoccupied with life as had been the imagination of chaucer. for ten or twelve years more i suffered continual remorse, and only became content when my abstractions had composed themselves into picture and dramatization. my very remorse helped to spoil my early poetry, giving it an element of sentimentality through my refusal to permit it any share of an intellect which i considered impure. even in practical life i only very gradually began to use generalizations, that have since become the foundation of all i have done, or shall do, in ireland. for all i know all men may have been so timid, for i am persuaded that our intellects at twenty contain all the truths we shall ever find, but as yet we do not know truths that belong to us from opinions, caught up in casual irritation or momentary fantasy. as life goes on we discover that certain thoughts sustain us in defeat, or give us victory, whether over ourselves or others, and it is these thoughts, tested by passion, that we call convictions. among subjective men (in all those, that is, who must spin a web out of their own bowels) the victory is an intellectual daily recreation of all that exterior fate snatches away, and so that fate's antithesis; while what i have called "the mask" is an emotional antithesis to all that comes out of their internal nature. we begin to live when we have conceived life as tragedy. xxii a conviction that the world was now but a bundle of fragments possessed me without ceasing. i had tried this conviction on the rhymers, thereby plunging into greater silence an already too silent evening. "johnson," i was accustomed to say, "you are the only man i know whose silence has beak and claw." i had lectured on it to some london irish society, and i was to lecture upon it later on in dublin, but i never found but one interested man, an official of the primrose league, who was also an active member of the fenian brotherhood. "i am an extreme conservative apart from ireland," i have heard him explain; and i have no doubt that personal experience made him share the sight of any eye that saw the world in fragments. i had been put into a rage by the followers of huxley, tyndall, carolus duran, and bastien-lepage, who not only asserted the unimportance of subject whether in art or literature, but the independence of the arts from one another. upon the other hand, i delighted in every age where poet and artist confined themselves gladly to some inherited subject matter known to the whole people, for i thought that in man and race alike there is something called "unity of being," using that term as dante used it when he compared beauty in the _convito_ to a perfectly proportioned human body. my father, from whom i had learned the term, preferred a comparison to a musical instrument so strung that if we touch a string all the strings murmur faintly. there is not more desire, he had said, in lust than in true love, but in true love desire awakens pity, hope, affection, admiration, and, given appropriate circumstance, every emotion possible to man. when i began, however, to apply this thought to the state and to argue for a law-made balance among trades and occupations my father displayed at once the violent free trader and propagandist of liberty. i thought that the enemy of this unity was abstraction, meaning by abstraction not the distinction but the isolation of occupation, or class or faculty- "call down the hawk from the air let him be hooded, or caged, till the yellow eye has grown mild, for larder and spit are bare, the old cook enraged, the scullion gone wild." i knew no mediaeval cathedral, and westminster, being a part of abhorred london, did not interest me, but i thought constantly of homer and dante, and the tombs of mausolus and artemisia, the great figures of king and queen and the lesser figures of greek and amazon, centaur and greek. i thought that all art should be a centaur finding in the popular lore its back and its strong legs. i got great pleasure too from remembering that homer was sung, and from that tale of dante hearing a common man sing some stanza from _the divine comedy_, and from don quixote's meeting with some common man that sang ariosto. morris had never seemed to care greatly for any poet later than chaucer and though i preferred shakespeare to chaucer i begrudged my own preference. had not europe shared one mind and heart, until both mind and heart began to break into fragments a little before shakespeare's birth? music and verse began to fall apart when chaucer robbed verse of its speed that he might give it greater meditation, though for another generation or so minstrels were to sing his lengthy elaborated _troilus and criseyde_; painting parted from religion in the later renaissance that it might study effects of tangibility undisturbed; while, that it might characterize, where it had once personified, it renounced, in our own age, all that inherited subject matter which we have named poetry. presently i was indeed to number character itself among the abstractions, encouraged by congreve's saying that "passions are too powerful in the fair sex to let humour," or as we say character, "have its course." nor have we fared better under the common daylight, for pure reason has notoriously made but light of practical reason, and has been made light of in its turn from that morning when descartes discovered that he could think better in his bed than out of it; nor needed i original thought to discover, being so late of the school of morris, that machinery had not separated from handicraft wholly for the world's good, nor to notice that the distinction of classes had become their isolation. if the london merchants of our day competed together in writing lyrics they would not, like the tudor merchants, dance in the open street before the house of the victor; nor do the great ladies of london finish their balls on the pavement before their doors as did the great venetian ladies, even in the eighteenth century, conscious of an all enfolding sympathy. doubtless because fragments broke into ever smaller fragments we saw one another in a light of bitter comedy, and in the arts, where now one technical element reigned and now another, generation hated generation, and accomplished beauty was snatched away when it had most engaged our affections. one thing i did not foresee, not having the courage of my own thought: the growing murderousness of the world. "turning and turning in the widening gyre the falcon cannot hear the falconer; things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity." xxiii if abstraction had reached, or all but reached its climax, escape might be possible for many, and if it had not, individual men might still escape. if chaucer's personages had disengaged themselves from chaucer's crowd, forgot their common goal and shrine, and after sundry magnifications became each in turn the centre of some elizabethan play, and had after split into their elements and so given birth to romantic poetry, must i reverse the cinematograph? i thought that the general movement of literature must be such a reversal, men being there displayed in casual, temporary, contact as at the tabard door. i had lately read tolstoy's _anna karenina_ and thought that where his theoretical capacity had not awakened there was such a turning back: but a nation or an individual with great emotional intensity might follow the pilgrims as it were to some unknown shrine, and give to all those separated elements and to all that abstract love and melancholy, a symbolical, a mythological coherence. not chaucer's rough tongued riders, but rather an ended pilgrimage, a procession of the gods! arthur symons brought back from paris stories of verhaeren and maeterlinck, and so brought me confirmation, as i thought, and i began to announce a poetry like that of the sufi's. i could not endure, however, an international art, picking stories and symbols where it pleased. might i not, with health and good luck to aid me, create some new _prometheus unbound_; patrick or columbkil, oisin or fion, in prometheus' stead; and, instead of caucasus, cro-patric or ben bulben? have not all races had their first unity from a polytheism, that marries them to rock and hill? we had in ireland imaginative stories, which the uneducated classes knew and even sang, and might we not make those stories current among the educated classes, rediscovering for the work's sake what i have called "the applied arts of literature," the association of literature, that is, with music, speech, and dance; and at last, it might be, so deepen the political passion of the nation that all, artist and poet, craftsman and day-labourer would accept a common design? perhaps even these images, once created and associated with river and mountain, might move of themselves and with some powerful, even turbulent life, like those painted horses that trampled the rice fields of japan. xxiv i used to tell the few friends to whom i could speak these secret thoughts that i would make the attempt in ireland but fail, for our civilization, its elements multiplying by division like certain low forms of life, was all-powerful; but in reality i had the wildest hopes. to-day i add to that first conviction, to that first desire for unity, this other conviction, long a mere opinion vaguely or intermittently apprehended: nations, races, and individual men are unified by an image, or bundle of related images, symbolical or evocative of the state of mind, which is of all states of mind not impossible, the most difficult to that man, race, or nation; because only the greatest obstacle that can be contemplated without despair, rouses the will to full intensity. a powerful class by terror, rhetoric, and organized sentimentality, may drive their people to war but the day draws near when they cannot keep them there; and how shall they face the pure nations of the east when the day comes to do it with but equal arms? i had seen ireland in my own time turn from the bragging rhetoric and gregarious humour of o'connell's generation and school, and offer herself to the solitary and proud parnell as to her anti-self, buskin following hard on sock, and i had begun to hope, or to half hope, that we might be the first in europe to seek unity as deliberately as it had been sought by theologian, poet, sculptor, architect, from the eleventh to the thirteenth century. doubtless we must seek it differently, no longer considering it convenient to epitomize all human knowledge, but find it we well might could we first find philosophy and a little passion. book ii ireland after the fall of parnell _ireland after the fall of parnell_ i a couple of years before the death of parnell, i had wound up my introduction to those selections from the irish novelists with the prophecy of an intellectual movement at the first lull in politics, and now i wished to fulfil my prophecy. i did not put it in that way, for i preferred to think that the sudden emotion that now came to me, the sudden certainty that ireland was to be like soft wax for years to come, was a moment of supernatural insight. how could i tell, how can i tell even now? there was a little irish society of young people, clerks, shop boys, and shop girls, called "the southwark irish literary society," and it had ceased to meet because the girls got the giggles when any member of the committee got up to speak. every member of it had said all he had to say many times over. i had given them a lecture about the falling asunder of the human mind, as an opening flower falls asunder, and all had professed admiration because i had made such a long speech without quotation or narrative; and now i invited the committee to my father's house at bedford park, and there proposed a new organization, "the irish literary society." t. w. rolleston came to that first meeting, and it was because he had much tact, and a knowledge of the technical business of committees, that a society was founded which was joined by every london-irish author and journalist. in a few months somebody had written its history, and published that history, illustrated by our portraits, at a shilling. when it was published i was in dublin, founding a society there called "the national literary society," and affiliating it with certain young ireland societies in country towns which seemed anxious to accept its leadership. i had definite plans; i wanted to create an irish theatre; i was finishing my _countess cathleen_ in its first meagre version, and thought of a travelling company to visit our country branches; but before that there must be a popular imaginative literature. i arranged with mr. fisher unwin and his reader, mr edward garnett--a personal friend of mine--that when our organization was complete mr fisher unwin was to publish for it a series of books at a shilling each. i told only one man of this arrangement, for after i had made my plans i heard an alarming rumour. old sir charles gavan duffy was coming from australia to start an irish publishing house, and publish a series of books, and i did not expect to agree with him, but knew that i must not seek a quarrel. the two societies were necessary because their lectures must take the place of an educated popular press, which we had not, and have not now, and create a standard of criticism. irish literature had fallen into contempt; no educated man ever bought an irish book; in dublin professor dowden, the one man of letters with an international influence, was accustomed to say that he knew an irish book by its smell, because he had once seen some books whose binding had been fastened together by rotten glue; and standish o'grady's last book upon ancient irish history--a book rather wild, rather too speculative, but forestalling later research--had not been reviewed by any periodical or newspaper in england or in ireland. at first i had great success, for i brought with me a list of names written down by some member of the southwark irish literary society, and for six weeks went hither and thither appealing and persuading. my first conversation was over a butter-tub in some dublin back street, and the man agreed with me at once; everybody agreed with me; all felt that something must be done, but nobody knew what. perhaps they did not understand me, perhaps i kept back my full thoughts, perhaps they only seemed to listen; it was enough that i had a plan, and was determined about it. when i went to lecture in a provincial town, a workman's wife, who wrote patriotic stories in some weekly newspaper, invited me to her house, and i found all her children in their sunday best. she made a little speech, very formal and very simple, in which she said that what she wrote had no merit, but that it paid for her children's schooling; and she finished her speech by telling her children never to forget that they had seen me. one man compared me to thomas davis, another said i could organise like davitt, and i thought to succeed as they did, and as rapidly. i did not examine this applause, nor the true thoughts of those i met, nor the general condition of the country, but i examined myself a great deal, and was puzzled at myself. i knew that i was shy and timid, that i would often leave some business undone, or purchase unmade, because i shrank from facing a strange office or a shop a little grander than usual, and yet, here was i delightedly talking to strange people every day. it was many years before i understood that i had surrendered myself to the chief temptation of the artist, creation without toil. metrical composition is always very difficult to me, nothing is done upon the first day, not one rhyme is in its place; and when at last the rhymes begin to come, the first rough draft of a six-line stanza takes the whole day. at that time i had not formed a style, and sometimes a six-line stanza would take several days, and not seem finished even then; and i had not learnt, as i have now, to put it all out of my head before night, and so the last night was generally sleepless, and the last day a day of nervous strain. but now i had found the happiness that shelley found when he tied a pamphlet to a fire balloon. ii at first i asked no help from prominent persons, and when some clerk or shop-assistant would say "dr so-and-so or professor so-and-so will have nothing to do with us" i would answer, "when we prove we can gather sheep shepherds will come." presently, come they did, old, middle-aged, or but little older than myself, but all with some authority in their town: john o'leary, john f. taylor, and douglas hyde, and standish o'grady, and of these much presently; dr. sigerson who has picked a quarrel with me and of whom i shall say nothing that he may not pick another; count plunkett, sinn feiner of late and minister of dail eireann; dr. coffey, now head of the national university; george coffey, later on curator of the irish antiquities at the museum of the royal dublin society; patrick j. mccall, poet and publican of patrick street, and later member of corporation; richard ashe king, novelist and correspondent of _truth_, a gentle, intelligent person, typical of nothing; and others, known or unknown. we were now important, had our committee room in the mansion house, and i remember that the old mansion house butler recognised our importance so fully, that he took us into his confidence once in every week, while we sat waiting for a quorum. he had seen many lord mayors, and remembered those very superior lord mayors who lived before the extension of the municipal franchise, and spoke of his present masters with contempt. among our persons of authority, and among the friends and followers they had brought, there were many who at that time found it hard to refuse if anybody offered for sale a pepper-pot shaped to suggest a round tower with a wolf-dog at its foot, and who would have felt it inappropriate to publish an irish book, that had not harp and shamrock and green cover, so completely did their minds move amid young ireland images and metaphors, and i thought with alarm of the coming of sir charles gavan duffy; while here and there i noticed that smooth, smiling face that we discover for the first time in certain pictures by velasquez; all that hungry, mediaeval speculation vanished, that had worn the faces of el greco and in its place a self-complacent certainty that all had been arranged, provided for, set out in clear type, in manual of devotion or of doctrine. these, however, were no true disciples of young ireland, for young ireland had sought a nation unified by political doctrine, a subservient art and letters aiding and abetting. the movement of thought, which had in the 'fifties and 'fourties at paris and london and boston, filled literature, and especially poetical literature with curiosities about science, about history about politics, with moral purpose and educational fervour--abstractions all--had created a new instrument for irish politics, a method of writing that took its poetical style from campbell, scott, macauley, and beranger, with certain elements from gaelic, and its prose style--in john mitchell, the only young ireland prose writer who had a style at all--from carlyle. to recommend this method of writing as literature without much reservation and discrimination i contended was to be deceived or to practice deception. if one examined some country love-song, one discovered that it was not written by a man in love, but by a patriot who wanted to prove that we did indeed possess, in the words of daniel o'connell, "the finest peasantry upon earth." yet one well-known anthology was introduced by the assertion that such love-poetry was superior to "affected and artificial" english love-songs like "drink to me only with thine eyes"--"affected and artificial," the very words used by english victorians who wrote for the newspapers to discourage capricious, personal writing. however, the greater number even of those who thought our famous anthology, _the spirit of the nation_, except for three or four songs, but good election rhyme, looked upon it much as certain enlightened believers look upon the story of adam and eve and the apple, or that of jonah and the whale, which they do not question publicly, because such stories are an integral part of religion to simple men and women. i, upon the other hand, being in the intemperance of my youth, denied, as publicly as possible, merit to all but a few ballads translated from gaelic writers, or written out of a personal and generally tragic experience. iii the greater number of those who joined my society had come under the seal of young ireland at that age when we are all mere wax; the more ambitious had gone daily to some public library to read the bound volumes of thomas davis's old newspaper, and tried to see the world as davis saw it. no philosophic speculation, no economic question of the day, disturbed an orthodoxy which, unlike that of religion had no philosophic history, and the religious bigot was glad that it should be so. some few of the younger men were impatient, and it was these younger men, more numerous in the london than in the dublin society, who gave me support; and we had been joined by a few older men--some personal friends of my own or my father--who had only historical interest in thomas davis and his school. young ireland's prose had been as much occupied with irish virtue, and more with the invader's vices, than its poetry, and we were soon mired and sunk into such problems as to whether cromwell was altogether black, the heads of the old irish clans altogether white, the danes mere robbers and church burners (they tell me at rosses point that the danes keep to this day the maps of the rosses fields they were driven out of in the 9th century, and plot their return) and as to whether we were or were not once the greatest orators in the world. all the past had been turned into a melodrama with ireland for blameless hero and poet, novelist and historian had but one object, that we should hiss the villain, and only a minority doubted that the greater the talent the greater the hiss. it was all the harder to substitute for that melodrama a nobler form of art, because there really had been, however different in their form, villain and victim; yet fight that rancour i must, and if i had not made some head against it in 1892 and 1893 it might have silenced in 1907 john synge, the greatest dramatic genius of ireland. i am writing of disputes that happened many years ago, that led in later years to much bitterness, and i may exaggerate their immediate importance and violence, but i think i am right in saying that disputes about the merits of young ireland so often interrupted our discussion of rules, or of the merit of this or that lecturer, and were so aggravated and crossed by the current wrangle between parnellite and anti-parnellite that they delayed our public appearance for a year. other excited persons, doubtless, seeing that we are of a race intemperate of speech, had looked up from their rancours to the dead lord mayors upon the wall, superior men whose like we shall not see again, but never, i think, from rancours so seemingly academic. i was preparing the way without knowing it for a great satirist and master of irony, for master works stir vaguely in many before they grow definite in one man's mind, and to help me i had already flitting through my head, jostling other ideas and so not yet established there, a conviction that we should satirize rather than praise, that original virtue arises from the discovery of evil. if we were, as i had dreaded, declamatory, loose, and bragging, we were but the better fitted, that once declared and measured, to create unyielding personality, manner at once cold and passionate, daring long premeditated act; and if bitter beyond all the people of the world, we might yet lie, that too declared and measured, nearest the honeyed comb:- "like the clangour of a bell sweet and harsh, harsh and sweet, that is how he learnt so well to take the roses for his meat." iv there were others with followers of their own, and too old or indifferent to join our society. old men who had never accepted young ireland, or middle-aged men kept by some family tradition to the school of thought before it arose, to the ireland of daniel o'connell and of lever and of thomas moore, convivial ireland with the traditional tear and smile. they sang moore's _melodies_, admitted no poetry but his, and resented young ireland's political objections to it as much as my generation's objection to its artificial and easy rhythm; one, an old commercial traveller, a gaelic scholar who kept an erect head and the animal vigour of youth, frequented the houses of our leading men, and would say in a loud voice, "thomas moore, sir, is the greatest heroic poet of ancient or modern times." i think it was the fire worshippers in _lalla rookh_ that he preferred to homer; or, jealous for the music of the _melodies_, denounce wagner, then at the top of his vogue; "i would run ten miles through a bog to escape him," he would cry. then there was a maker of tombstones of whom we had heard much but had seen little, an elderly fighting man, lately imprisoned for beating a wine-merchant. a young member of the london society, afterwards librarian to the national university, d. j. o'donohue, who had published a dictionary of the irish poets, containing, i think, two thousand names, had come to dublin and settled there in a fit of patriotism. he had been born in london, and spoke the most cockney dialect imaginable, and had picked up--probably from london critics--a dislike for the poetry of thomas moore. the tombstone maker invited him to tea, and he arrived with a bundle of books, which he laid beside him upon the table. during tea he began expounding that dislike of his; his host was silent, but he went on, for he was an obstinate little man. presently the tombstone-maker rose, and having said solemnly, "i have never permitted that great poet to be slandered in my presence," seized his guest by the back of the collar, and flung him out into the street, and after that flung out the books one after another. meanwhile the guest--as he himself told the tale--stood in the middle of the street repeating, "nice way to treat a man in your own 'ouse." v i shared a lodging full of old books and magazines, covered with dirt and dust, with the head of the fenian brotherhood, john o'leary. "in this country," he had said to me, "a man must have upon his side the church or the fenians, and you will never have the church." he had been converted to nationality by the poems of davis, and he wished for some analogous movement to that of davis, but he had known men of letters, had been the friend of whistler, and knew the faults of the old literature. we had made him the president of our society, and without him i could do nothing, for his long imprisonment and longer exile, his magnificent appearance, and, above all, the fact that he alone had personality, a point of view not made for the crowd's sake, but for self-expression, made him magnetic to my generation. he and i had long been friends, he had stayed with us at bedford park, and my father had painted his portrait, but if i had not shared his lodging he would have opposed me. he was an old man, and my point of view was not that of his youth, and it often took me half the day to make him understand--so suspicious he was of all innovation--some simple thing that he would presently support with ardour. he had grown up in a european movement when the revolutionist thought that he, above all men, must appeal to the highest motive, be guided by some ideal principle, be a little like cato or like brutus, and he had lived to see the change dostoievsky examined in _the possessed_. men who had been of his party--and oftener their sons--preached assassination and the bomb; and, worst of all, the majority of his countrymen followed after constitutional politicians who practised opportunism, and had, as he believed, such low morals that they would lie, or publish private correspondence, if it might advance their cause. he would split every practical project into its constituent elements, like a clerical casuist, to find if it might not lead into some moral error; but, were the project revolutionary, he would sometimes temper condemnation with pity. though he would cast off his oldest acquaintance did he suspect him of rubbing shoulders with some carrier of bombs, i have heard him say of a man who blew himself up in an attempt to blow up westminster bridge, "he was not a bad man, but he had too great a moral nature for his intellect, not that he lacked intellect." he did not explain, but he meant, i suppose, that the spectacle of injustice might madden a good man more quickly than some common man. such men were of his own sort, though gone astray, but the constitutional politicians he had been fighting all his life, and all they did displeased him. it was not that he thought their aim wrong, or that they could not achieve it; he had accepted gladstone's home rule bill; but that in his eyes they degraded manhood. "if england has been brought to do us justice by such men," he would say, "that is not because of our strength, but because of her weakness." he had a particular hatred for the rush of emotion that followed the announcement of gladstone's conversion, for what was called "the union of hearts," and derided its sentimentality; "nations may respect one another," he would say, "they cannot love." his ancestors had probably kept little shops, or managed little farms in county tipperary, yet he hated democracy, though he never used the word either for praise or blame, with more than feudal hatred. "no gentleman can be a socialist," he said, and then, with a thoughtful look, "he might be an anarchist." he had no philosophy, but things distressed his palate, and two of those things were international propaganda and the organised state, and socialism aimed at both, nor could he speak such words as "philanthropy," "humanitarianism," without showing by his tone of voice that they offended him. the church pleased him little better; there was an old fenian quarrel there, and he would say, "my religion is the old persian, to pull the bow and tell the truth." he had no self-consciousness, no visible pride, and would have hated anything that could have been called a gesture, was indeed scarce artist enough to invent a gesture; yet he would never speak of the hardship of his prison life--though abundantly enough of its humours--and once, when i pressed him, replied, "i was in the hands of my enemy, why should i complain?" a few years ago i heard that the governor of the prison had asked why he did not report some unnecessary discomfort, and o'leary had said, "i did not come here to complain." now that he is dead, i wish that i could question him, and perhaps discover whether in early youth he had come across some teacher who had expounded roman virtue, but i doubt if i would have learnt anything, for i think the wax had long forgotten the seal--if seal there were. the seal was doubtless made before the eloquent humanitarian 'forties and 'fifties, and was one kind with that that had moulded the youthful mind of savage landor. stephens, the founder of fenianism, had discovered him searching the second-hand bookstalls for rare editions, and enrolled him in his organization. "you have no chance of success," o'leary had said "but it will be good for the _morale_ of the country" (_morale_ was his great word), "and i will join on the condition that i am never asked to enrol anybody." he still searched the second-hand bookstalls, and had great numbers of books, especially of irish history and literature, and when i, exhausted over our morning's casuistry, would sit down to my day's work (i was writing _the secret rose_) he would make his tranquil way to the dublin quays. in the evening, over his coffee, he would write passages for his memoirs upon postcards and odd scraps of paper, taking immense trouble with every word and comma, for the great work must be a masterpiece of style. when it was finished, it was unreadable, being dry, abstract, and confused; no picture had ever passed before his mind's eye. he was a victim, i think, of a movement where opinions stick men together, or keep them apart, like a kind of bird lime, and without any relation to their natural likes and tastes, and where men of rich nature must give themselves up to an irritation which they no longer recognise because it is always present. i often wonder why he gave me his friendship, why it was he who found almost all the subscribers for my _wanderings of usheen_, and why he now supported me in all i did, for how could he like verses that were all picture, all emotion, all association, all mythology? he could not have approved my criticism either, for i exalted mask and image above the 18th century logic which he loved, and set experience before observation, emotion before fact. yet he would say, "i have only three followers, taylor, yeats, and rolleston," and presently he cast out rolleston--"davitt wants to convert thousands, but i want two or three." i think that perhaps it was because he no more wished to strengthen irish nationalism by second-rate literature than by second-rate morality, and was content that we agreed in that. "there are things a man must not do to save a nation," he had once told me, and when i asked what things, had said, "to cry in public," and i think it probable that he would have added, if pressed, "to write oratorical or insincere verse." o'leary's movements and intonations were full of impulse, but john f. taylor's voice in private discussion had no emotional quality except in the expression of scorn; if he moved an arm it moved from the shoulder or elbow alone, and when he walked he moved from the waist only, and seemed an automaton, a wooden soldier, as if he had no life that was not dry and abstract. except at moments of public oratory, he lacked all personality, though when one saw him respectful and gentle with o'leary, as with some charming woman, one saw that he felt its fascination. in letters, or in painting, it repelled him unless it were harsh and obvious, and, therefore, though his vast erudition included much art and letters, he lacked artistic feeling, and judged everything by the moral sense. he had great ambition, and had he joined some established party, or found some practicable policy, he might have been followed, might have produced even some great effect, but he must have known that in defeat no man would follow him, as they followed o'leary, as they followed parnell. his oratory was noble, strange, even beautiful, at moments the greatest i have ever listened to; but, the speech over, where there had been, as it seemed, so little of himself, all coming from beyond himself, we saw precisely as before an ungainly body in unsuitable, badly-fitting clothes, and heard an excited voice speaking ill of this man or that other. we knew that he could never give us that one price we would accept, that he would never find a practicable policy; that no party would admit, no government negotiate with, a man notorious for a temper, that, if it gave him genius, could at times carry him to the edge of insanity. born in some country town, the son of some little watchmaker, he had been a shop assistant, put himself to college and the bar, learned to speak at temperance meetings and young ireland societies, and was now a queen's counsel famous for his defence of country criminals, whose cases had seemed hopeless--taylor's boys, their neighbours called them or they called themselves. he had shaped his style and his imagination from carlyle, the chief inspirer of self-educated men in the 'eighties and early 'nineties. "i prefer emerson's _oversoul_," the condalkin cobbler said to me, "but i always read carlyle when i am wild with the neighbours"; but he used his master's style, as mitchell had done before, to abase what his master loved, to exalt what his master scorned. his historical erudition seemed as vast as that of york powell, but his interests were not powell's, for he had no picture before the mind's eye, and had but one object--a plea of not guilty--entered in his country's name before a jury which he believed to be packed. o'leary cared nothing for his country's glory, its individuality alone seemed important in his eyes; he was like some man, who serves a woman all his life without asking whether she be good or bad, wise or foolish; but taylor cared for nothing else; he was so much o'leary's disciple that he would say in conversation, "we are demoralised, what case for change if we are not?" for o'leary admitted no ground for reform outside the moral life, but when he spoke to the great plea he would make no admission. he spoke to it in the most obscure places, in little halls in back streets where the white-washed walls are foul with grease from many heads, before some audience of medical students or of shop assistants, for he was like a man under a curse, compelled to hide his genius, and compelled to show in conspicuous places his ill judgment and his temper. his distaste for myself, broken by occasional tolerance, in so far as it was not distaste for an imagination that seemed to him aesthetic rather than ethical, was because i had published irish folk-lore in english reviews to the discredit, as he thought, of the irish peasantry, and because, england within earshot, i found fault with the young ireland prose and poetry. he would have hated _the playboy of the western world_, and his death a little before its performance was fortunate for synge and myself. his articles are nothing, and his one historical work, a life of hugh o'neill, is almost nothing, lacking the living voice; and now, though a most formidable man, he is forgotten, but for the fading memory of a few friends, and for what an enemy has written here and elsewhere. did not leonardo da vinci warn the imaginative man against pre-occupation with arts that cannot survive his death? vi when carleton was dying in 1870, he said there would be nothing more about irish literature for twenty years, and his words were fulfilled, for the land war had filled ireland with its bitterness; but imagination had begun to stir again. i had the same confidence in the future that lady gregory and i had eight or nine years later, when we founded an irish theatre, though there were neither, as it seemed, plays or players. there were already a few known men to start my popular series, and to keep it popular until the men, whose names i did not know, had learnt to express themselves. i had met dr. douglas hyde when i lived in dublin, and he was still an undergraduate. i have a memory of meeting in college rooms for the first time a very dark young man, who filled me with surprise, partly because he had pushed a snuffbox towards me, and partly because there was something about his vague serious eyes, as in his high cheek bones, that suggested a different civilization, a different race. i had set him down as a peasant, and wondered what brought him to college, and to a protestant college, but somebody explained that he belonged to some branch of the hydes of castle hyde, and that he had a protestant rector for father. he had much frequented the company of old countrymen, and had so acquired the irish language, and his taste for snuff, and for moderate quantities of a detestable species of illegal whiskey distilled from the potato by certain of his neighbours. he had already--though intellectual dublin knew nothing of it--considerable popularity as a gaelic poet, mowers and reapers singing his songs from donegal to kerry. years afterwards i was to stand at his side and listen to galway mowers singing his gaelic words without knowing whose words they sang. it is so in india, where peasants sing the words of the great poet of bengal without knowing whose words they sing, and it must often be so where the old imaginative folk life is undisturbed, and it is so amongst schoolboys who hand their story books to one another without looking at the title page to read the author's name. here and there, however, the peasants had not lost the habit of gaelic criticism, picked up, perhaps, from the poets who took refuge among them after the ruin of the great catholic families, from men like that o'rahilly, who cries in a translation from the gaelic that is itself a masterpiece of concentrated passion- "the periwinkle and the tough dog-fish towards evening time have got into my dish." an old rascal was kept in food and whiskey for a fortnight by some connaught village under the belief that he was craoibhin aoibhin, "the pleasant little branch," as doctor hyde signed himself in the newspapers where the villagers had found his songs. the impostor's thirst only strengthened belief in his genius, for the gaelic song-writers have had the infirmities of robert burns, "it is not the drink but the company," one of the last has sung. since that first meeting doctor hyde and i had corresponded, and he had sent me in manuscript the best tale in my _faery and folk tales_, and i think i had something to do with the london publication of his _beside the fire_, a book written in the beautiful english of connaught, which is gaelic in idiom and tudor in vocabulary, and indeed, the first book to use it in the expression of emotion and romance, for carleton and his school had turned it into farce. henley had praised him, and york powell had said, "if he goes on as he has begun, he will be the greatest folk-loreist who has ever lived"; and i know no first book of verse of our time that is at once so romantic and so concrete as his gaelic _abhla de'n craoibh_; but in a few years dublin was to laugh him, or rail him, out of his genius. he had no critical capacity, having indeed for certain years the uncritical folk-genius, as no educated irish or englishman has ever had it, writing out of an imitative sympathy like that of a child catching a tune and leaving it to chance to call the tune; and the failure of our first attempt to create a modern irish literature permitted the ruin of that genius. he was to create a great popular movement, far more important in its practical results than any movement i could have made, no matter what my luck, but, being neither quarrelsome nor vain, he will not be angry if i say--for the sake of those who come after us--that i mourn for the "greatest folk-loreist who ever lived," and for the great poet who died in his youth. the harps and pepperpots got him and the harps and pepperpots kept him till he wrote in our common english--"it must be either english or irish," said some patriotic editor, young ireland practice in his head--that needs such sifting that he who would write it vigorously must write it like a learned language, and took for his model the newspaper upon his breakfast table, and became for no base reason beloved by multitudes who should never have heard his name till their schoolmasters showed it upon his tomb. that very incapacity for criticism made him the cajoler of crowds, and of individual men and women; "he should not be in the world at all," said one admiring elderly woman, "or doing the world's work"; and for certain years young irish women were to display his pseudonym, "craoibhin aoibhin," in gilt letters upon their hat bands. "dear craoibhin aoibhin,......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?" vii standish o'grady, upon the other hand, was at once all passion and all judgment. and yet those who knew him better than i assured me he could find quarrel in a straw; and i did know that he had quarrelled a few years back with jack nettleship. nettleship's account had been, "my mother cannot endure the god of the old testament, but likes jesus christ; whereas i like the god of the old testament, and cannot endure jesus christ; and we have got into the way of quarrelling about it at lunch; and once, when o'grady lunched with us, he said it was the most disgraceful spectacle he had ever seen, and walked out." indeed, i wanted him among my writers, because of his quarrels, for, having much passion and little rancour, the more he quarrelled, the nobler, the more patched with metaphor, the more musical his style became, and if he were in his turn attacked, he knew a trick of speech that made us murmur, "we do it wrong, being so majestical, to offer it the show of violence." sometimes he quarrelled most where he loved most. a unionist in politics, a leader-writer on _the daily express_, the most conservative paper in ireland, hater of every form of democracy, he had given all his heart to the smaller irish landowners, to whom he belonged, and with whom his childhood had been spent, and for them he wrote his books, and would soon rage over their failings in certain famous passages that many men would repeat to themselves like poets' rhymes. all round us people talked or wrote for victory's sake, and were hated for their victories--but here was a man whose rage was a swan-song over all that he had held most dear, and to whom for that very reason every irish imaginative writer owed a portion of his soul. in his unfinished _history of ireland_ he had made the old irish heroes, fion, and oisin, and cuchullan, alive again, taking them, for i think he knew no gaelic, from the dry pages of o'curry and his school, and condensing and arranging, as he thought homer would have arranged and condensed. lady gregory has told the same tales, but keeping closer to the gaelic text, and with greater powers of arrangement and a more original style, but o'grady was the first, and we had read him in our 'teens. i think that, had i succeeded, a popular audience could have changed him little, and that his genius would have stayed, as it had been shaped by his youth in some provincial society, and that to the end he would have shown his best in occasional thrusts and parries. but i do think that if, instead of that one admirable little book _the bog of stars_, we had got all his histories and imaginative works into the hands of our young men, he might have brought the imagination of ireland nearer the image and the honeycomb. lionel johnson was to be our critic, and above all our theologian, for he had been converted to catholicism, and his orthdoxy, too learned to question, had accepted all that we did, and most of our plans. historic catholicism, with all its counsels and its dogmas, stirred his passion like the beauty of a mistress, and the unlearned parish priests who thought good literature or good criticism dangerous were in his eyes "all heretics." he belonged to a family that had called itself irish some generations back, and its recent english generations but enabled him to see as one single sacred tradition irish nationality and catholic religion. how should he fail to know the holy land? had he not been in egypt? he had joined our london irish literary society, attended its committee meetings, and given lectures in london, in dublin, and in belfast, on irish novelists and irish poetry, reading his lectures always, and yet affecting his audience as i, with my spoken lectures, could not, perhaps because ireland had still the shape it had received from the eighteenth century, and so felt the dignity, not the artifice, of his elaborate periods. he was very little, and at a first glance he seemed but a schoolboy of fifteen. i remember saying one night at the rhymers', when he spoke of passing safely, almost nightly, through seven dials, then a dangerous neighbourhood, "who would expect to find anything in your pockets but a pegtop and a piece of string?" but one never thought of his small stature when he spoke or read. he had the delicate strong features of a certain filleted head of a greek athlete in the british museum, an archaistic graeco-roman copy of a masterpiece of the fourth century, and that resemblance seemed symbolic of the austere nobility of his verse. he was now in his best years, writing with great ease and power; neither i, nor, i think, any other, foresaw his tragedy. he suffered from insomnia, and some doctor, while he was still at the university, had recommended alcohol, and he had, in a vain hope of sleep, increased the amount, as rossetti had increased his doses of chloral, and now he drank for drinking's sake. he drank a great deal too much, and, though nothing could, it seemed, disturb his calm or unsteady his hand or foot, his doctrine, after a certain number of glasses, would become more ascetic, more contemptuous of all that we call human life. i have heard him, after four or five glasses of wine, praise some church father who freed himself from sexual passion by a surgical operation, and deny with scorn, and much historical evidence, that a gelded man lost anything of intellectual power. even without stimulant his theology conceded nothing to human weakness, and i can remember his saying with energy, "i wish those people who deny the eternity of punishment could realise their unspeakable vulgarity." now that i know his end, i see him creating, to use a favourite adjective of his, "marmorean" verse, and believing the most terrible doctrines to keep down his own turbulence. one image of that stay in dublin is so clear before me that it has blotted out most other images of that time. he is sitting at a lodging-house table, which i have just left at three in the morning, and round him lie or sit in huddled attitudes half-a-dozen men in various states of intoxication: and he is looking straight before him with head erect, and one hand resting upon the table. as i reach the stairs i hear him say, in a clear, unshaken voice, "i believe in nothing but the holy roman catholic church." he sometimes spoke of drink as something which he could put aside at any moment, and his friends believed, and i think he liked us to believe, that he would shortly enter a monastery. did he deceive us deliberately? did he himself already foresee the moment when he would write _the dark angel_? i am almost certain that he did, for he had already written _mystic and cavalier_, where the historical setting is, i believe, but masquerade. "go from me: i am one of those, who fall. what! hath no cold wind swept your heart at all, in my sad company? before the end, go from me, dear my friend! yours are the victories of light: your feet rest from good toil, where rest is brave and sweet. but after warfare in a mourning gloom i rest in clouds of doom. * * * * * seek with thine eyes to pierce this crystal sphere: canst read a fate there, prosperous and clear? only the mists, only the weeping clouds: dimness, and airy shrouds. * * * * * o rich and sounding voices of the air! interpreters and prophets of despair: priests of a fearful sacrament! i come to make with you my home." viii sir charles gavan duffy arrived. he brought with him much manuscript, the private letters of a young ireland poetess, a dry but informing unpublished historical essay by davis, and an unpublished novel by william carleton, into the middle of which he had dropped a hot coal, so that nothing remained but the borders of every page. he hired a young man to read him, after dinner, carlyle's _heroes and hero-worship_, and before dinner was gracious to all our men of authority and especially to our harps and pepperpots. taylor compared him to odysseus returning to ithaca, and every newspaper published his biography. he was a white-haired old man, who had written the standard history of young ireland, had emigrated to australia, had been the first australian federalist, and later prime minister, but, in all his writings, in which there is so much honesty, so little rancour, there is not one sentence that has any meaning when separated from its place in argument or narrative, not one distinguished because of its thought or music. one imagined his youth in some little gaunt irish town, where no building or custom is revered for its antiquity; and there speaking a language where no word, even in solitude, is ever spoken slowly and carefully because of emotional implication; and of his manhood of practical politics, of the dirty piece of orange-peel in the corner of the stairs as one climbs up to some newspaper office; of public meetings where it would be treacherous amid so much geniality to speak, or even to think of anything that might cause a moment's misunderstanding in one's own party. no argument of mine was intelligible to him, and i would have been powerless, but that fifty years ago he had made an enemy, and though that enemy was long dead, his school remained. he had attacked, why or with what result i do not remember, the only young ireland politician who had music and personality, though rancorous and devil-possessed. at some public meeting of ours, where he spoke amid great applause, in smooth, gladstonian periods, of his proposed irish publishing firm, one heard faint hostile murmurs, and at last a voice cried, "remember newry," and a voice answered, "there is a grave there!" and a part of the audience sang, "here's to john mitchell that is gone, boys, gone; here's to the friends that are gone." the meeting over, a group of us, indignant that the meeting we had called for his welcome should have contained those malcontents, gathered about him to apologize. he had written a pamphlet, he explained: he would give us copies. we would see that he was in the right, how badly mitchell had behaved. but in ireland personality, if it be but harsh and hard, has lovers, and some of us, i think, may have gone home muttering, "how dare he be in the right if mitchell is in the wrong?" ix he wanted "to complete the young ireland movement"--to do all that had been left undone because of the famine, or the death of davis, or his own emigration; and all the younger men were upon my side in resisting that. they might not want the books i wanted, but they did want books written by their own generation, and we began to struggle with him over the control of the company. taylor became very angry, and i can understand what i looked like in his eyes, when i remember edwin ellis's seriously-intended warning, "it is bad manners for a man under thirty to permit himself to be in the right." but john o'leary supported me throughout. when gavin duffy had gone to london to draw up articles of association for his company, for which he had found many shareholders in dublin, the dispute became very fierce. one night members of the general public climbed the six flights of stairs to our committee room, now no longer in the mansion house, and found seats for themselves just behind our chairs. we were all too angry to send them away, or even to notice their presence, for i was accused of saying at a public meeting in cork, "our books," when i should have said, "sir charles gavan duffy's books." i was not taylor's match with the spoken word, and barely matched him with the written word. at twenty-seven or twenty-eight i was immature and clumsy, and o'leary's support was capricious, for, being but a spectator of life, he would desert me if i used a bad argument, and would not return till i found a good one; and our chairman, dr. hyde, "most popular of men," sat dreaming of his old white cockatoo in far-away roscommon. our very success had been a misfortune, for an opposition which had been literary and political, now that it had spread to the general public, brought religious prejudice to its aid. suddenly, when the company seemed all but established, and a scheme had been thought out which gave some representation on its governing board to contemporary irish writers, gavan duffy produced a letter from archbishop walsh, and threw the project up. the letter had warned him that after his death the company would fall under a dangerous influence. at this moment the always benevolent friend, to whom i had explained in confidence, when asking his support, my arrangements with my publisher, went to gavan duffy and suggested that they should together offer mr fisher unwin a series of irish books, and mr fisher unwin and his reader accepted the series under the belief that it was my project that they accepted. i went to london to find the contract signed, and that all i could do was to get two sub-editors appointed, responsible to the two societies. two or three good books were published, especially dr. hyde's _short history of gaelic literature_, and standish o'grady's _bog of stars_; but the series was killed by its first volume, thomas davis's dry but informing historical essay. so important had our movement seemed that ten thousand copies had been sold before anybody had time to read it, and then came a dead stop. gavan duffy knew nothing of my plans, and so was guiltless, and my friend had heard me discuss many things that evening. i had perhaps dispraised the humanitarian stephen phillips, already in his first vogue, and praised francis thompson, but half-rescued from his gutter; or flouted his belief in the perpetual marriage of genius and virtue by numbering the vices of famous men; this man's venery, that man's drink. he could not be expected to remember that where i had said so much of no account, i said one thing, and he had made no reply, that i thought of great account. he died a few months ago, and it would have surprised and shocked him if any man had told him that he was unforgiven; had he not forgotten all about it long ago? a german doctor has said that if we leave an umbrella at a friend's house it is because we have a sub-conscious desire to re-visit that house; and he had perhaps a sub-conscious desire that my too tumultuous generation should not have its say. x i was at sligo when i received a letter from john o'leary, saying that i could do no more in dublin, for even the younger men had turned against me, were "jealous," his letter said, though what they had to be jealous of god knows. he said further that it was all my own fault, that he had warned me what would happen if i lived on terms of intimacy with those i tried to influence. i should have kept myself apart and alone. it was all true; through some influence from an earlier generation, from walt whitman, perhaps, i had sat talking in public bars, had talked late into the night at many men's houses, showing all my convictions to men that were but ready for one, and used conversation to explore and discover among men who looked for authority. i did not yet know that intellectual freedom and social equality are incompatible; and yet, if i had, could hardly have lived otherwise, being too young for silence. the trouble came from half a dozen obscure young men, who having nothing to do attended every meeting and were able to overturn a project, that seemed my only bridge to other projects, including a travelling theatre. we had planned small libraries of irish literature in connection with our country branches; we collected books and money, sending a lecturer to every branch and taking half the proceeds of that lecture to buy books. maud gonne, whose beauty could draw a great audience in any country town, had been the lecturer. the scheme was very nearly self-supporting, and six or seven bundles of books, chosen after much disputation by john o'leary, j. f. taylor, and myself, had been despatched to some six or seven branches. "the country will support this work" taylor had said somewhere on some public platform, "because we are the most inflammable people on god's earth," his harsh voice giving almost a quality of style to carlylian commonplace; but we are also a very jealous people. the half-a-dozen young men, if a little jealous of me, were still more jealous of those country branches which were getting so much notice, and where there was so much of that peasant mind their schoolmasters had taught them to despise. one must be english or irish, they would have said. i returned to find a great box of books appropriated for some dublin purpose and the whole scheme abandoned. i know that it was a bitter moment because i remember with gratitude words spoken not to my ear, but for my ear, by a young man who had lately joined our society, mr. stephen mckenna, now well-known amongst scholars for his distinguished translations of plotinus, and i seem to remember that i lost through anger what gift of persuasion i may possess, and that i was all the more helpless because i felt that even the best of us disagreed about everything at heart. i began to feel that i needed a hostess more than a society, but that i was not to find for years to come. i tried to persuade maud gonne to be that hostess, but her social life was in paris, and she had already formed a new ambition, the turning of french public opinion against england. without intellectual freedom there can be no agreement, and in nationalist dublin there was not--indeed there still is not--any society where a man is heard by the right ears, but never overheard by the wrong, and where he speaks his whole mind gaily, and is not the cautious husband of a part; where phantasy can play before matured into conviction; where life can shine and ring, and lack utility. mere life lacking the protection of wealth or rank, or some beauty's privilege of caprice cannot choose its company, taking up and dropping men merely because it likes, or dislikes, their manners and their looks, and in its stead opinion crushes and rends, and all is hatred and bitterness: wheel biting upon wheel, a roar of steel or iron tackle, a mill of argument grinding all things down to mediocrity. if, as i think, minds and metals correspond the goldsmiths of paris foretold the french revolution when they substituted steel for that unserviceable gold in the manufacture of the more expensive jewel work, and made those large, flat steel buttons for men of fashion whereby the card players were able to cheat by studying the reflections of the cards. xi no country could have more natural distaste for equality, for in every circle there was some man ridiculous for posing as the type of some romantic or distinguished quality. one of our friends, a man of talent and of learning, whose ancestors had come, he believed, from denmark in the ninth century, looked and talked the distinguished foreigner so perfectly that a patriotic newspaper gave particulars of his supposed relations in contemporary denmark! a half-mad old man who had served for a few months in the pope's army, many years before, still rode an old white warhorse in all national processions, and, if their enemies were not lying, one town councillor had challenged another to a duel by flinging his glove upon the floor; while a popular lord mayor had boasted in a public speech that he never went to bed at night without reading at least twelve pages of _sappho_. then, too, in those conversations of the small hours, to which o'leary had so much objected, whenever we did not speak of art and letters, we spoke of parnell. we told each other that he had admitted no man to his counsel; that when some member of his party found himself in the same hotel by chance, that member would think to stay there a presumption, and move to some other lodging; and, above all, we spoke of his pride, that made him hide all emotion while before his enemy. once he had seemed callous and indifferent to the house of commons, foster had accused him of abetting assassination, but when he came among his followers his hands were full of blood, because he had torn them with his nails. what excitement there would have been, what sense of mystery would have stirred all our hearts, and stirred hearts all through the country, where there was still, and for many years to come, but one overmastering topic, had we known the story mrs. parnell tells of that scene on brighton pier. he and the woman that he loved stood there upon a night of storm, when his power was at its greatest height, and still unthreatened. he caught her from the ground and held her at arm's length out over the water and she lay there motionless, knowing that, had she moved, he would have drowned himself and her. perhaps unmotived self-immolation, were that possible, or else at mere suggestion of storm and night, were as great evidence as such a man could give of power over self, and so of the expression of the self. xii when i look back upon my irish propaganda of those years i can see little but its bitterness. i never met with, or but met to quarrel with, my father's old family acquaintance; or with acquaintance i myself might have found, and kept, among the prosperous educated class, who had all the great appointments at university or castle; and this i did by deliberate calculation. if i must attack so much that seemed sacred to irish nationalist opinion, i must, i knew, see to it that no man suspect me of doing it to flatter unionist opinion. whenever i got the support of some man who belonged by birth and education to university or castle, i would say, "now you must be baptized of the gutter." i chose royal visits especially for demonstrations of disloyalty, rolling up with my own hands the red carpet spread by some elderly nationalist, softened or weakened by time, to welcome viceroyalty; and threatening, if the london society drank to the king's health, that my friends and i would demonstrate against it by turning our glasses upside down; and was presently to discover that one can grow impassioned and fanatical about opinions, which one has chosen as one might choose a side upon the football field; and i thought many a time of the pleasant dublin houses that would never ask me to dine; and the still pleasanter houses with trout-streams near at hand, that would never ask me upon a visit. i became absurdly sensitive, glancing about me in certain public places, the private view of our academy, or the like, to discover imagined enemies; and even now, after twenty or thirty years, i feel at times that i have not recovered my natural manner. yet it was in those pleasant houses, among the young men and the young girls, that we were to make our converts. when we loathe ourselves or our world, if that loathing but turn to intellect, we see self or world and its anti-self as in one vision; when loathing remains but loathing, world or self consumes itself away, and we turn to its mechanical opposite. popular nationalism and unionism so changed into one another, being each but the other's headache. the nationalist abstractions were like the fixed ideas of some hysterical woman, a part of the mind turned into stone, and all the rest a seething and burning; and unionist ireland had re-acted from that seething and burning to a cynical indifference, and from those fixed ideas to whatever might bring the most easy and obvious success. i remember taylor at some public debate, stiff of body and tense of voice; and the contrasting figure of fitzgibbon, the lord justice of appeal of the moment and his calm, flowing sentences, satisfactory to hear and impossible to remember. taylor speaks of a little nation of antiquity, which he does not name, "set between the great empire of persia and the great empire of rome." into the mouths of those great empires he puts the arguments of fitzgibbon, and such as he, "join with our greatness! what in comparison to that is your little, beggarly nationality?" and then i recall the excitement, the shiver of the nerves, as his voice rose to an ecstatic cry, "out of that nation came the salvation of the world." i remember, too, and grow angry, as it were yesterday, a letter from that lord justice of appeal, who had changed his politics for advancement's sake, recommending a correspondent to avoid us, because we dissuaded people from the study of "shakespeare and kingsley." edward dowden, my father's old friend, with his dark romantic face, the one man of letters dublin unionism possessed, was withering in that barren soil. towards the end of his life he confessed to a near friend that he would have wished before all things to have been the lover of many women; and some careless lecture, upon the youthful goethe, had in early life drawn down upon him the displeasure of the protestant archbishop. and yet he turned shakespeare into a british benthamite, flattered shelley but to hide his own growing lack of sympathy, abandoned for like reason that study of goethe that should have been his life-work, and at last cared but for wordsworth, the one great poet who, after brief blossom, was cut and sawn into planks of obvious utility. i called upon him from time to time out of gratitude for old encouragements, and because, among the dublin houses open to me, his alone was pleasant to the eye, with its many books and its air of scholarship. but when o'grady had declared, rancorous for once but under substantial provocation, that he had "a bad head and a worse heart," i found my welcome troubled and called no more. xiii the one house where nobody thought or talked politics was a house in ely place, where a number of young men lived together, and, for want of a better name, were called theosophists. beside the resident members, other members dropped in and out during the day, and the reading-room was a place of much discussion about philosophy and about the arts. the house had been taken in the name of the engineer to the board of works, a black-bearded young man, with a passion for manichean philosophy, and all accepted him as host; and sometimes the conversation, especially when i was there, became too ghostly for the nerves of his young and delicate wife, and he would be made angry. i remember young men struggling, with inexact terminology and insufficient learning, for some new religious conception, on which they could base their lives; and some few strange or able men. at the top of the house lived a medical student who read plato and took haschisch, and a young scotchman who owned a vegetarian restaurant, and had just returned from america, where he had gone as the disciple of the prophet harris, and where he would soon return in the train of some new prophet. when one asked what set him on his wanderings, he told of a young highlander, his friend in boyhood, whose cap was always plucked off at a certain twist in the road, till the fathers of the village fastened it upon his head by recommending drink and women. when he had gone, his room was inherited by an american hypnotist, who had lived among the zuni indians with the explorer cushant, and told of a zuni indian who, irritated by some white man's praise of telephone and telegraph, cried out, "can they do that?" and cast above his head two handfuls of sand that burst into flame, and flamed till his head seemed wrapped in fire. he professed to talk the philosophy of the zuni indians, but it seemed to me the vague platonism that all there talked, except that he spoke much of men passing in sleep into the heart of mountains; a doctrine that was presently incorporated in the mythology of the house, to send young men and women hither and thither inquiring for sacred places. on a lower floor lived a strange red-haired girl, all whose thoughts were set upon painting and poetry, conceived as abstract images like love and penury in the _symposium_; and to these images she sacrificed herself with asiatic fanaticism. the engineer had discovered her starving somewhere in an unfurnished or half-furnished room, and that she had lived for many weeks upon bread and shell-cocoa, so that her food never cost her more than a penny a day. born into a county family, who were so haughty that their neighbours called them the royal family, she had quarrelled with a mad father, who had never, his tenants declared, "unscrewed the top of his flask with any man," because she wished to study art, had ran away from home, had lived for a time by selling her watch, and then by occasional stories in an irish paper. for some weeks she had paid half-a-crown a week to some poor woman to see her to the art schools and back, for she considered it wrong for a woman to show herself in public places unattended; but of late she had been unable to afford the school fees. the engineer engaged her as a companion for his wife, and gave her money enough to begin her studies once more. she had talent and imagination, a gift for style; but, though ready to face death for painting and poetry, conceived as allegorical figures, she hated her own genius, and had not met praise and sympathy early enough to overcome the hatred. face to face with paint and canvas, pen and paper, she saw nothing of her genius but its cruelty, and would have scarce arrived before she would find some excuse to leave the schools for the day, if indeed she had not invented over her breakfast some occupation so laborious that she could call it a duty, and so not go at all. most watched her in mockery, but i watched in sympathy; composition strained my nerves and spoiled my sleep; and yet, as far back as i could trace--and in ireland we have long memories--my paternal ancestors had worked at some intellectual pursuit, while hers had shot and hunted. she could at any time, had she given up her profession, which her father had raged against, not because it was art, but because it was a profession, have returned to the common comfortable life of women. when, a little later, she had quarrelled with the engineer or his wife, and gone back to bread and shell-cocoa i brought her an offer from some dublin merchant of fairly well paid advertisement work, which would have been less laborious than artistic creation; but she said that to draw advertisements was to degrade art, thanked me elaborately, and did not disguise her indignation. she had, i believe, returned to starvation with joy, for constant anaemia would shortly give her an argument strong enough to silence her conscience when the allegorical images glared upon her, and, apart from that, starvation and misery had a large share in her ritual of worship. xiv at the top of the house and at the time i remember best, in the same room with the young scotchman, lived mr. george russell (a.e.), and the house and the society were divided into his adherents and those of the engineer; and i heard of some quarrelling between the factions. the rivalry was sub-conscious. neither had willingly opposed the other in any matter of importance. the engineer had all the financial responsibility, and george russell was, in the eyes of the community, saint and genius. had either seen that the question at issue was the leadership of mystical thought in dublin, he would, i think, have given way, but the dispute seemed trivial. at the weekly meetings, anything might be discussed; no chairman called a speaker to order; an atheistic workman could denounce religion, or a pious catholic confound theosophy with atheism; and the engineer, precise and practical, disapproved. he had an object. he wished to make converts for a definite form of belief, and here an enemy, if a better speaker, might make all the converts. he wished to confine discussion to members of the society, and had proposed in committee, i was told, a resolution on the subject; while russell, who had refused to join my national literary society, because the party of harp and pepperpot had set limits to discussion, resisted, and at last defeated him. in a couple of years some new dispute arose; he resigned, and founded a society which drew doctrine and method from america or london; and russell became, as he is to-day, the one masterful influence among young dublin men and women who love religious speculation, but have no historical faith. when russell and i had been at the art school six or seven years before, he had been almost unintelligible. he had seemed incapable of coherent thought, and perhaps was so at certain moments. the idea came upon him, he has told me, that, if he spoke he would reveal that he had lost coherence; and for the three days that the idea lasted spent the hours of daylight wandering upon the dublin mountains, that he might escape the necessity for speech. i used to listen to him at that time, mostly walking through the streets at night, for the sake of some stray sentence, beautiful and profound, amid many words that seemed without meaning; and there were others, too, who walked and listened, for he had become, i think, to all his fellow students, sacred, as the fool is sacred in the east. we copied the model laboriously, but he would draw without research into the natural form, and call his study "st. john in the wilderness"; but i can remember the almost scared look and the half-whisper of a student, now a successful sculptor, who said, pointing to the modelling of a shoulder, "that is too easy, a great deal too easy!" for with brush and pencil he was too coherent. we derided each other, told absurd tales to one another's discredit, but we never derided him, or told tales to his discredit. he stood outside the sense of comedy his friend john eglinton has called "the social cement" of our civilization; and we would "gush" when we spoke of him, as men do when they praise something incomprehensible. but when he painted there was no difficulty in comprehending. how could that ease and rapidity of composition, so far beyond anything that we could attain to, belong to a man whose words seemed often without meaning? a few months before i had come to ireland he had sent me some verses, which i had liked till edwin ellis had laughed me from my liking by proving that no line had a rhythm that agreed with any other, and that, the moment one thought he had settled upon some scheme of rhyme, he would break from it without reason. but now his verse was clear in thought and delicate in form. he wrote without premeditation or labour. it had, as it were, organized itself, and grown as nervous and living as if it had, as dante said of his own work, paled his cheek. the society he belonged to published a little magazine, and he had asked the readers to decide whether they preferred his prose or his verse, and it was because they so willed it that he wrote the little transcendental verses afterwards published in _homeward songs by the way_. life was not expensive in that house, where, i think, no meat was eaten; i know that out of the sixty or seventy pounds a year which he earned as accountant in a dublin shop, he saved a considerable portion for his private charity; and it was, i think, his benevolence that gave him his lucidity of speech, and, perhaps, of writing. if he convinced himself that any particular activity was desirable in the public interest or in that of his friends, he had at once the ardour that came to another from personal ambition. he was always surrounded with a little group of infirm or unlucky persons, whom he explained to themselves and to others, turning cat to griffin, goose to swan. in later years he was to accept the position of organizer of a co-operative banking system, before he had even read a book upon economics or finance, and within a few months to give evidence before a royal commission upon the system, as an acknowledged expert, though he had brought to it nothing but his impassioned versatility. at the time i write of him, he was the religious teacher, and that alone--his painting, his poetry, and his conversation all subservient to that one end. men watched him with awe or with bewilderment; it was known that he saw visions continually, perhaps more continually than any modern man since swedenborg; and when he painted and drew in pastel what he had seen, some accepted the record without hesitation, others, like myself, noticing the academic graeco-roman forms, and remembering his early admiration for the works of gustave moreau, divined a subjective element, but no one doubted his word. one might not think him a good observer, but no one could doubt that he reported with the most scrupulous care what he believed himself to have seen; nor did he lack occasional objective corroboration. walking with some man in his park--his demesne, as we say in ireland--he had seen a visionary church at a particular spot, and the man had dug and uncovered its foundations; then some woman had met him with, "oh, mr russell, i am so unhappy," and he had replied, "you will be perfectly happy this evening at seven o'clock," and left her to her blushes. she had an appointment with a young man for seven o'clock. i had heard of this a day or so after the event, and i asked him about it, and was told it had suddenly come into his head to use those words; but why he did not know. he and i often quarrelled, because i wanted him to examine and question his visions, and write them out as they occurred; and still more because i thought symbolic what he thought real like the men and women that had passed him on the road. were they so much a part of his sub-conscious life that they would have vanished had he submitted them to question; were they like those voices that only speak, those strange sights that only show themselves for an instant, when the attention has been withdrawn; that phantasmagoria of which i had learnt something in london: and had his verse and his painting a like origin? and was that why the same hand that painted a certain dreamy, lovely sandy shore, now in the dublin municipal gallery, could with great rapidity fill many canvases with poetical commonplace; and why, after writing _homeward songs by the way_, where all is skilful and much exquisite, he would never again write a perfect book? was it precisely because in swedenborg alone the conscious and the sub-conscious became one, as in that marriage of the angels, which he has described as a contact of the whole being, that coleridge thought swedenborg both man and woman? russell's influence, which was already great, had more to support it than his versatility, or the mystery that surrounded him, for his sense of justice, and the daring that came from his own confidence in it, had made him the general counsellor. he would give endless time to a case of conscience, and no situation was too difficult for his clarity; and certainly some of the situations were difficult. i remember his being summoned to decide between two ladies who had quarrelled about a vacillating admirer, and called each other, to each other's faces, the worst names in our somewhat anaemic modern vocabulary; and i have heard of his success on an occasion when i think no other but dostoievsky's idiot could have avoided offence. the society was very young, and, as its members faced the world's moral complexities as though they were the first that ever faced them, they drew up very vigorous rules. one rule was that if any member saw a fault growing upon any other member, it was his duty to point it out to that member. a certain young man become convinced that a certain young woman had fallen in love with him; and, as an unwritten rule pronounced love and the spiritual life incompatible, that was a heavy fault. as the young man felt the delicacy of the situation, he asked for russell's help, and side by side they braved the offender, who, i was told, received their admonishment with surprised humility, and promised amendment. his voice would often become high, and lose its self-possession during intimate conversation, and i especially could put him in a rage; but the moment the audience became too large for intimacy, or some exciting event had given formality to speech, he would be at the same moment impassioned and impersonal. he had, and has, the capacity, beyond that of any man i have known, to put with entire justice not only the thoughts, but the emotions, of the most opposite parties and personalities, as it were dissolving some public or private uproar into drama by corneille or by racine; and men who have hated each other must sometimes have been reconciled, because each heard his enemy's argument put into better words than he himself had found for his own; and this gift was in later years to give him political influence, and win him respect from irish nationalist and unionist alike. it was, perhaps, because of it, joined to a too literal acceptance of those noble images of moral tradition which are so like late graeco-roman statues, that he had seen all human life as a mythological system, where, though all cats are griffins, the more dangerous griffins are only found among politicians he has not spoken to, or among authors he has but glanced at; while those men and women who bring him their confessions and listen to his advice, carry but the snowiest of swan's plumage. nor has it failed to make him, as i think, a bad literary critic; demanding plays and poems where the characters must attain a stature of seven feet, and resenting as something perverse and morbid all abatement from that measure. i sometimes wonder what he would have been had he not met in early life the poetry of emerson and walt whitman, writers who have begun to seem superficial precisely because they lack the vision of evil; and those translations of the upanishads, which it is so much harder to study by the sinking flame of indian tradition than by the serviceable lamp of emerson and walt whitman. we are never satisfied with the maturity of those whom we have admired in boyhood; and, because we have seen their whole circle--even the most successful life is but a segment--we remain to the end their harshest critics. one old schoolfellow of mine will never believe that i have fulfilled the promise of some rough unscannable verses that i wrote before i was eighteen. does any imaginative man find in maturity the admiration that his first half-articulate years aroused in some little circle; and is not the first success the greatest? certainly, i demanded of russell some impossible things, and if i had any influence upon him--and i have little doubt that i had, for we were very intimate--it may not have been a good influence for i thought there could be no aim for poet or artist except expression of a "unity of being" like that of a "perfectly proportioned human body"--though i would not at the time have used that phrase. i remember that i was ironic and indignant when he left the art schools because his "will was weak, and must grow weaker if he followed any emotional pursuit;" as, later, when he let the readers of a magazine decide between his prose and his verse. i now know that there are men who cannot possess "unity of being," who must not seek it or express it--and who, so far from seeking an anti-self, a mask that delineates a being in all things the opposite to their natural state, can but seek the suppression of the anti-self, till the natural state alone remains. these are those who must seek no image of desire, but await that which lies beyond their mind, unities not of the mind, but unities of nature, unities of god: the man of science, the moralist, the humanitarian, the politician, st. simon stylites upon his pillar, st. antony in his cavern; all whose pre-occupation is to know themselves for fragments, and at last for nothing; to hollow their hearts out till they are void and without form, to summon a creator by revealing chaos, to become the lamp for another's wick and oil; and indeed it may be that it has been for their guidance in a very special sense that the "perfectly proportioned human body" suffered crucifixion. for them mask and image are of necessity morbid, turning their eyes upon themselves, as though they were of those who can be law unto themselves, of whom chapman has written, "neither is it lawful that they should stoop to any other law," whereas they are indeed of those who can but ask, "have i behaved as well as so-and-so?" "am i a good man according to the commandments?" or, "do i realise my own nothingness before god?" "have my experiments and observations excluded the personal factor with sufficient rigour?" such men do not assume wisdom or beauty as shelley did, when he masked himself as ahasuerus, or as prince athanais, nor do they pursue an image through a world that had else seemed an uninhabitable wilderness till, amid the privations of that pursuit, the image is no more named pandemos, but urania; for such men must cast all masks away and fly the image, till that image, transfigured because of their cruelties of self-abasement, becomes itself some image or epitome of the whole natural or supernatural world, and itself pursues. the wholeness of the supernatural world can only express itself in personal form, because it has no epitome but man, nor can _the hound of heaven_ fling itself into any but an empty heart. we may know the fugitives from others poets because, like george herbert, like francis thompson, like george russell, their imaginations grow more vivid in the expression of something which they have not themselves created, some historical religion or cause. but if the fugitive should live, as i think russell does at times, as it is natural for a morris or a henley or a shelley to live, hunters and pursuers all, his art surrenders itself to moral or poetical commonplace, to a repetition of thoughts and images that have no relation to experience. i think that russell would not have disappointed even my hopes had he, instead of meeting as an impressionable youth with our modern subjective romanticism, met with some form of traditional belief, which condemned all that romanticism admires and praises, indeed, all images of desire; for such condemnation would have turned his intellect towards the images of his vision. it might, doubtless, have embittered his life, for his strong intellect would have been driven out into the impersonal deeps where the man shudders; but it would have kept him a religious teacher, and set him, it may be, among the greatest of that species; politics, for a vision-seeking man, can be but half achievement, a choice of an almost easy kind of skill instead of that kind which is, of all those not impossible, the most difficult. is it not certain that the creator yawns in earthquake and thunder and other popular displays, but toils in rounding the delicate spiral of a shell? xv i heard the other day of a dublin man recognizing in london an elderly man who had lived in that house in ely place in his youth, and of that elderly man, at the sudden memory, bursting into tears. though i have no such poignant memories, for i was never of it, never anything but a dissatisfied critic, yet certain vivid moments come back to me as i write. ...russell has just come in from a long walk on the two rock mountain, very full of his conversation with an old religious beggar, who kept repeating, "god possesses the heavens, but he covets the earth--he covets the earth." * * * * * i get in talk with a young man who has taken the orthodox side in some debate. he is a stranger, but explains that he has inherited magical art from his father, and asks me to his rooms to see it in operation. he and a friend of his kill a black cock, and burn herbs in a big bowl, but nothing happens except that the friend repeats again and again, "oh, my god," and when i ask him why he has said that, does not know that he has spoken; and i feel that there is something very evil in the room. * * * * * we are sitting round the fire one night, and a member, a woman, tells a dream that she has just had. she dreamed that she saw monks digging in a garden. they dug down till they found a coffin, and when they took off the lid she saw that in the coffin lay a beautiful young man in a dress of gold brocade. the young man railed against the glory of the world, and when he had finished, the monks closed the coffin reverently, and buried it once more. they smoothed the ground, and then went on with their gardening. * * * * * i have a young man with me, an official of the national literary society, and i leave him in the reading-room with russell, while i go upstairs to see the young scotchman. i return after some minutes to find that the young man has become a theosophist, but a month later, after an interview with a friar, to whom he gives an incredible account of his new beliefs, he goes to mass again. book iii hodos camelionis _hodos camelionis_ i when staying with hyde in roscommon, i had driven over to lough kay, hoping to find some local memory of the old story of tumaus costello, which i was turning into a story now called _proud costello, macdermot's daughter, and the bitter tongue_. i was rowed up the lake that i might find the island where he died; i had to find it from hyde's account in _the love-songs of connaught_, for when i asked the boatman, he told the story of hero and leander, putting hero's house on one island, and leander's on another. presently we stopped to eat our sandwiches at the "castle rock," an island all castle. it was not an old castle, being but the invention of some romantic man, seventy or eighty years ago. the last man who had lived there had been dr. hyde's father, and he had but stayed a fortnight. the gaelic-speaking men in the district were accustomed, instead of calling some specially useless thing a "white elephant," to call it "the castle on the rock." the roof was, however, still sound, and the windows unbroken. the situation in the centre of the lake, that has little wood-grown islands, and is surrounded by wood-grown hills, is romantic, and at one end, and perhaps at the other too, there is a stone platform where meditative persons might pace to and fro. i planned a mystical order which should buy or hire the castle, and keep it as a place where its members could retire for a while for contemplation, and where we might establish mysteries like those of eleusis and samothrace; and for ten years to come my most impassioned thought was a vain attempt to find philosophy and to create ritual for that order. i had an unshakeable conviction, arising how or whence i cannot tell, that invisible gates would open as they opened for blake, as they opened for swedenborg, as they opened for boehme, and that this philosophy would find its manuals of devotion in all imaginative literature, and set before irishmen for special manual an irish literature which, though made by many minds, would seem the work of a single mind, and turn our places of beauty or legendary association into holy symbols. i did not think this philosophy would be altogether pagan, for it was plain that its symbols must be selected from all those things that had moved men most during many, mainly christian, centuries. i thought that for a time i could rhyme of love, calling it _the rose_, because of the rose's double meaning; of a fisherman who had "never a crack" in his heart; of an old woman complaining of the idleness of the young, or of some cheerful fiddler, all those things that "popular poets" write of, but that i must some day, on that day when the gates began to open, become difficult or obscure. with a rhythm that still echoed morris i prayed to the red rose, to intellectual beauty: "come near, come near, come near--ah, leave me still a little space for the rose-breath to fill, lest i no more hear common things.... but seek alone to hear the strange things said by god to the bright hearts of those long dead, and learn to chant a tongue men do not know." i do not remember what i meant by "the bright hearts," but a little later i wrote of spirits "with mirrors in their hearts." my rituals were not to be made deliberately, like a poem, but all got by that method mathers had explained to me, and with this hope i plunged without a clue into a labyrinth of images, into that labyrinth that we are warned against in those _oracles_ which antiquity has attributed to zoroaster, but modern scholarship to some alexandrian poet. "stoop not down to the darkly splendid world wherein lieth continually a faithless depth and hades wrapped in cloud, delighting in unintelligible images." ii i found a supporter at sligo in my elderly uncle, a man of fifty-three or fifty-four, with the habits of a much older man. he had never left the west of ireland, except for a few days to london every year, and a single fortnight's voyage to spain on board a trading schooner, in his boyhood. he was in politics a unionist and tory of the most obstinate kind, and knew nothing of irish literature or history. he was, however, strangely beset by the romance of ireland, as he discovered it among the people who served him, sailing upon his ships or attending to his horses, and, though narrow and obstinate of opinion, and puritanical in his judgment of life, was perhaps the most tolerant man i have ever known. he never expected anybody to agree with him, and if you did not upset his habits by cheating him over a horse, or by offending his taste, he would think as well of you as he did of other men, and that was not very well; and help you out of any scrape whatever. i was accustomed to people much better read than he, much more liberal-minded, but they had no life but the intellectual life, and if they and i differed, they could not take it lightly, and were often angry, and so for years now i had gone to sligo, sometimes because i could not afford my dublin lodging, but most often for freedom and peace. he would receive me with "i have learned that your friend so and so has been seen at the gresham hotel talking to mr william redmond. what will not people do for notoriety?" he considered all irish nationalist members of parliament as outside the social pale, but after dinner, when conversation grew intimate, would talk sympathetically of the fenians in ballina, where he spent his early manhood, or of the fenian privateer that landed the wounded man at sligo in the 'sixties. when parnell was contesting an election at sligo a little before his death, other unionist magistrates refused or made difficulties when asked for some assistance, what i do not remember, made necessary under election law; and so my uncle gave that assistance. he walked up and down some town hall assembly-room or some courtroom with parnell, but would tell me nothing of that conversation, except that parnell spoke of gladstone with extravagant hatred. he would not repeat words spoken by a great man in his bitterness, yet parnell at the moment was too angry to care who listened. i knew one other man who kept as firm a silence; he had attended parnell's last public meeting, and after it sat alone beside him, and heard him speak of the followers that had fallen away, or were showing their faint hearts; but parnell was the chief devotion of his life. when i first began my visits, he had lived in the town itself, and close to a disreputable neighbourhood called the burrough, till one evening, while he sat over his dinner, he heard a man and woman quarrelling under his window. "i mind the time," shouted the man, "when i slept with you and your daughter in the one bed." my uncle was horrified, and moved to a little house about a quarter of a mile into the country, where he lived with an old second-sighted servant, and a man-servant to look after the racehorse that was browsing in the neighbouring field, with a donkey to keep it company. his furniture had not been changed since he set up house for himself as a very young man, and in a room opposite his dining-room were the saddles of his youth, and though he would soon give up riding, they would be oiled and the stirrups kept clean and bright till the day of his death. some love-affair had gone wrong when he was a very young man; he had now no interest in women; certainly never sought favour of a woman, and yet he took great care of his appearance. he did not let his beard grow, though he had, or believed that he had, for he was hypochondriacal, a sensitiveness of the skin that forced him to spend an hour in shaving, and he would take to club and dumb-bell if his waist thickened by a hair's breadth, and twenty years after, when a very old man, he had the erect shapely figure of his youth. i often wondered why he went through so much labour, for it was not pride, which had seemed histrionic in his eyes--and certainly he had no vanity; and now, looking back, i am convinced that it was from habit, mere habit, a habit formed when he was a young man, and the best rider of his district. probably through long association with mary battle, the second-sighted servant, he had come to believe much in the supernatural world, and would tell how several times, arriving home with an unexpected guest, he had found the table set for three, and that he himself had dreamed of his brother's illness in liverpool before he had other news of it. he saw me using images learned from mathers to start reverie, and, though i held out for a long time, thinking him too old and habit-bound, he persuaded me to tell him their use, and from that on we experimented continually, and after a time i began to keep careful record. in summer he always had the same little house at rosses point, and it was there that he first became sensitive to the cabalistic symbols. there are some high sandhills and low cliffs, and i adopted the practice of walking by the seashore while he walked on cliff or sandhill; i, without speaking, would imagine the symbol, and he would notice what passed before his mind's eye, and in a short time he would practically never fail of the appropriate vision. in the symbols which are used certain colours are classified as "actives," while certain other colours are "passives," and i had soon discovered that if i used "actives" george pollexfen would see nothing. i therefore gave him exercises to make him sensitive to those colours, and gradually we found ourselves well fitted for this work, and he began to take as lively an interest, as was possible to a nature given over to habit, in my plans for the castle on the rock. i worked with others, sworn to the scheme for the most part, and i made many curious observations. it was the symbol itself, or, at any rate, not my conscious intention that produced the effect, for if i made an error and told someone, let us say, to gaze at the wrong symbol--they were painted upon cards--the vision would be suggested by the symbol, not by my thought, or two visions would appear side by side, one from the symbol and one from my thought. when two people, between whose minds there was even a casual sympathy, worked together under the same symbolic influence, the dream or reverie would divide itself between them, each half being the complement of the other; and now and again these complementary dreams, or reveries, would arise spontaneously. i find, for instance, in an old notebook, "i saw quite suddenly a tent with a wooden badly-carved idol, painted dull red; a man looking like a red indian was prostrate before it. the idol was seated to the left. i asked g. what he saw. he saw a most august immense being, glowing with a ruddy opalescent colour, sitting on a throne to the left", or, to summarise from a later notebook,... i am meditating in one room and my fellow-student in another, when i see a boat full of tumult and movement on a still sea, and my friend sees a boat with motionless sails upon a tumultuous sea. there was nothing in the originating symbol to suggest a boat. we never began our work until george's old servant was in her bed; and yet, when we went upstairs to our beds, we constantly heard her crying out with nightmare, and in the morning we would find that her dream echoed our vision. one night, started by what symbol i forget, we had seen an allegorical marriage of heaven and earth. when mary battle brought in the breakfast next morning, i said, "well, mary, did you dream anything last night?" and she replied (i am quoting from an old notebook) "indeed she had," and that it was "a dream she would not have liked to have had twice in one night." she had dreamed that her bishop, the catholic bishop of sligo, had gone away "without telling anybody," and had married "a very high-up lady," "and she not too young, either." she had thought in her dream, "now all the clergy will get married, and it will be no use going to confession." there were "layers upon layers of flowers, many roses, all round the church." another time, when george pollexfen had seen in answer to some evocation of mine a man with his head cut in two, she woke to find that she "must have cut her face with a pin, as it was all over blood." when three or four saw together, the dream or vision would divide itself into three or four parts, each seeming complete in itself, and all fitting together, so that each part was an adaptation of a single meaning to a particular personality. a visionary being would give, let us say, a lighted torch to one, an unlighted candle to another, an unripe fruit to a third, and to the fourth a ripe fruit. at times coherent stories were built up, as if a company of actors were to improvise, and play, not only without previous consultation, but without foreseeing at any moment what would be said or done the moment after. who made the story? was it the mind of one of the visionaries? perhaps, for i have endless proof that, where two worked together, the symbolic influence commonly took upon itself, though no word was spoken, the quality of the mind that had first fixed a symbol in the mind's eye. but, if so, what part of the mind? one friend, in whom the symbolic impulse produced actual trance, described an elaborate and very strange story while the trance was upon him, but upon waking told a story that after a certain point was quite different. "they gave me a cup of wine, and after that i remembered nothing." while speaking out of trance he had said nothing of the cup of wine, which must have been offered to a portion of his mind quite early in the dream. then, too, from whence come the images of the dream? not always, i was soon persuaded, from the memory, perhaps never in trance or sleep. one man, who certainly thought that eve's apple was the sort that you got from the greengrocer, and as certainly never doubted its story's literal truth, said, when i used some symbol to send him to eden, that he saw a walled garden on the top of a high mountain, and in the middle of it a tree with great birds in the branches, and fruit out of which, if you held a fruit to your ear, came the sound of fighting. i had not at the time read dante's _purgatorio_, and it caused me some trouble to verify the mountain garden, and, from some passage in the zohar, the great birds among the boughs; while a young girl, on being sent to the same garden, heard "the music of heaven" from a tree, and on listening with her ear against the trunk, found that it was made by the "continual clashing of swords." whence came that fine thought of music-making swords, that image of the garden, and many like images and thoughts? i had as yet no clear answer, but knew myself face to face with the anima mundi described by platonic philosophers, and more especially in modern times by henry more, which has a memory independent of individual memories, though they constantly enrich it with their images and their thoughts. iii at sligo we walked twice every day, once after lunch and once after dinner, to the same gate on the road to knocknarea; and at rosses point, to the same rock upon the shore; and as we walked we exchanged those thoughts that never rise before me now without bringing some sight of mountain or of shore. considering that mary battle received our thoughts in sleep, though coarsened or turned to caricature, do not the thoughts of the scholar or the hermit, though they speak no word, or something of their shape and impulse, pass into the general mind? does not the emotion of some woman of fashion, caught in the subtle torture of self-analysing passion, pass down, although she speak no word, to joan with her pot, jill with her pail and, it may be, with one knows not what nightmare melancholy to tom the fool? seeing that a vision could divide itself in divers complementary portions, might not the thought of philosopher or poet or mathematician depend at every moment of its progress upon some complementary thought in minds perhaps at a great distance? is there nation-wide multiform reverie, every mind passing through a stream of suggestion, and all streams acting and reacting upon one another, no matter how distant the minds, how dumb the lips? a man walked, as it were, casting a shadow, and yet one could never say which was man and which was shadow, or how many the shadows that he cast. was not a nation, as distinguished from a crowd of chance comers, bound together by these parallel streams or shadows; that unity of image, which i sought in national literature, being but an originating symbol? from the moment when these speculations grew vivid, i had created for myself an intellectual solitude, most arguments that could influence action had lost something of their meaning. how could i judge any scheme of education, or of social reform, when i could not measure what the different classes and occupations contributed to that invisible commerce of reverie and of sleep; and what is luxury and what necessity when a fragment of gold braid, or a flower in the wallpaper may be an originating impulse to revolution or to philosophy? i began to feel myself not only solitary but helpless. iv i had not taken up these subjects wilfully, nor through love of strangeness, nor love of excitement, nor because i found myself in some experimental circle, but because unaccountable things had happened even in my childhood, and because of an ungovernable craving. when supernatural events begin, a man first doubts his own testimony, but when they repeat themselves again and again, he doubts all human testimony. at least he knows his own bias, and may perhaps allow for it, but how trust historian and psychologist that have for two hundred years ignored in writing of the history of the world, or of the human mind, so momentous a part of human experience? what else had they ignored and distorted? when mesmerists first travelled about as public entertainers, a favourite trick was to tell a mesmerised man that some letter of the alphabet had ceased to exist, and after that to make him write his name upon the blackboard. brown, or jones, or robinson would become upon the instant, and without any surprise or hesitation, rown, or ones, or obinson. was modern civilisation a conspiracy of the sub-conscious? did we turn away from certain thoughts and things because the middle ages lived in terror of the dark, or had some seminal illusion been imposed upon us by beings greater than ourselves for an unknown purpose? even when no facts of experience were denied, might not what had seemed logical proof be but a mechanism of change, an automatic impulse? once in london, at a dinner party, where all the guests were intimate friends, i had written upon a piece of paper, "in five minutes york powell will talk of a burning house," thrust the paper under my neighbour's plate, and imagined my fire symbol, and waited in silence. powell shifted conversation from topic to topic and within the five minutes was describing a fire he had seen as a young man. when locke's french translator coste asked him how, if there were no "innate ideas," he could explain the skill shown by a bird in making its nest, locke replied, "i did not write to explain the actions of dumb creatures," and his translator thought the answer "very good, seeing that he had named his book _a philosophical essay upon human understanding_." henry more, upon the other hand, considered that the bird's instinct proved the existence of the anima mundi, with its ideas and memories. did modern enlightenment think with coste that locke had the better logic, because it was not free to think otherwise? v i ceased to read modern books that were not books of belief older than any european church, and founded that interested me, i tried to trace it back to its earliest use, believing that there must be a tradition of belief older than any european church, and founded upon the experience of the world before the modern bias. it was this search for a tradition that urged george pollexfen and myself to study the visions and thoughts of the country people, and some country conversation repeated by one or the other often gave us a day's discussion. these visions, we soon discovered, were very like those we called up by symbol. mary battle, looking out of the window at rosses point, saw coming from knocknarea, where queen maeve, according to local folklore, is buried under a great heap of stones, "the finest woman you ever saw travelling right across from the mountains and straight to here."--i quote a record written at the time. "she looked very strong, but not wicked" (that is to say, not cruel). "i have seen the irish giant" (some big man shown at a fair). "and though he was a fine man he was nothing to her, for he was round and could not have stepped out so soldierly ... she had no stomach on her but was slight and broad in the shoulders, and was handsomer than any one you ever saw; she looked about thirty." and when i asked if she had seen others like her, she said, "some of them have their hair down, but they look quite different, more like the sleepy-looking ladies one sees in the papers. those with their hair up are like this one. the others have long white dresses, but those with their hair up have short dresses, so that you can see their legs right up to the calf." and when i questioned her, i found that they wore what might well be some kind of buskin. "they are fine and dashing-looking, like the men one sees riding their horses in twos and threes on the slopes of the mountains with their swords swinging. there is no such race living now, none so finely proportioned ... when i think of her and the ladies now they are like little children running about not knowing how to put their clothes on right ... why, i would not call them women at all." not at this time, but some three or four years later, when the visions came without any conscious use of symbol for a short time, and with much greater vividness, i saw two or three forms of this incredible beauty, one especially that must always haunt my memory. then, too, the master pilot told us of meeting at night close to the pilot house a procession of women in what seemed the costume of another age. were they really people of the past, revisiting, perhaps, the places where they lived, or must i explain them, as i explained that vision of eden as a mountain garden, by some memory of the race, as distinct from individual memory? certainly these spirits, as the country people called them, seemed full of personality; were they not capricious, generous, spiteful, anxious, angry, and yet did that prove them more than images and symbols? when i used a combined earth and fire and lunar symbol, my seer, a girl of twenty-five, saw an obvious diana and her dogs, about a fire in a cavern. presently, judging from her closed eyes, and from the tone of her voice, that she was in trance, not in reverie, i wished to lighten the trance a little, and made through carelessness or hasty thinking a symbol of dismissal; and at once she started and cried out, "she says you are driving her away too quickly. you have made her angry." then, too, if my visions had a subjective element, so had mary battle's, for her fairies had but one tune, _the distant waterfall_, and she never heard anything described in a sermon at the cathedral that she did not "see it after," and spoke of seeing in this way the gates of purgatory. furthermore, if my images could affect her dreams, the folk-images could affect mine in turn, for one night i saw between sleeping and waking a strange long bodied pair of dogs, one black and one white, that i found presently in some country tale. how, too, could one separate the dogs of the country tale from those my uncle heard bay in his pillow? in order to keep myself from nightmare, i had formed the habit of imagining four watch-dogs, one at each corner of my room, and, though i had not told him or anybody, he said, "here is a very curious thing; most nights now, when i lay my head upon the pillow, i hear a sound of dogs baying--the sound seems to come up out of the pillow." a friend of strindberg's, in _delirium tremens_, was haunted by mice, and a friend in the next room heard the squealing of the mice. vi to that multiplicity of interest and opinion, of arts and sciences, which had driven me to conceive a unity of culture defined and evoked by unity of image, i had but added a multiplicity of images, and i was the more troubled because, the first excitement over, i had done nothing to rouse george pollexfen from the gloom and hypochondria always thickening about him. i asked no help of books, for i believed that the truth i sought would come to me like the subject of a poem, from some moment of passionate experience, and that if i filled my exposition with other men's thought, other men's investigation, i would sink into all that multiplicity of interest and opinion. that passionate experience could never come--of that i was certain--until i had found the right image or right images. from what but the image of apollo, fixed always in memory and passion, did his priesthood get that occasional power, a classical historian has described, of lifting great stones and snapping great branches; and did not gemma galgani, like many others that had gone before, in 1889 cause deep wounds to appear in her body by contemplating her crucifix? in the essay that wilde read to me one christmas day, occurred these words--"what does not the world owe to the imitation of christ, what to the imitation of caesar?" and i had seen macgregor mathers paint little pictures combining the forms of men, animals, and birds, according to a rule which provided a form for every possible mental condition, and i had heard him describing, upon what authority i do not remember, how citizens of ancient egypt assumed, when in contemplation, the images of their gods. but now image called up image in an endless procession, and i could not always choose among them with any confidence; and when i did choose, the image lost its intensity, or changed into some other image. i had but exchanged the temptation of flaubert's _bouvard et pecuchet_ for that of his _st. anthony_, and i was lost in that region a cabalistic manuscript, shown me by macgregor mathers, had warned me of; astray upon the path of the cameleon, upon _hodos camelionis_. vii now that i am a settled man and have many birds--the canaries have just hatched out four nestlings--i have before me the problem that locke waved aside. as i gave them an artificial nest, a hollow vessel like a saucer, they had no need of that skill the wild bird shows, each species having its own preference among the lichen, or moss; but they could sort out wool and hair and a certain soft white down that i found under a big tree. they would twist a stem of grass till it was limber, and would wind it all about the centre of the nest, and when the four grey eggs were laid, the mother bird knew how to turn them over from time to time, that they might be warmed evenly; and how long she must leave them uncovered, that the white might not be dried up, and when to return that the growing bird might not take cold. then the young birds, even when they had all their feathers, were very still as compared with the older birds, as though any habit of movement would disturb the nest or make them tumble out. one of them would now and again pass on the food that he had received from his mother's beak to some other nestling. the father had often pecked the mother bird before the eggs were laid, but now, until the last nestling was decently feathered, he took his share in the feeding, and was very peaceable, and it was only when the young could be left to feed themselves that he grew jealous and had to be put into another cage. when i watch my child, who is not yet three years old, i can see so many signs of knowledge from beyond her own mind; why else should she be so excited when a little boy passes outside the window, and take so little interest in a girl; why should she put a cloak about her, and look over her shoulder to see it trailing upon the stairs, as she will some day trail a dress; and why, above all, as she lay against her mother's side, and felt the unborn child moving within, did she murmur, "baby, baby?" when a man writes any work of genius, or invents some creative action, is it not because some knowledge or power has come into his mind from beyond his mind? it is called up by an image, as i think; all my birds' adventures started when i hung a little saucer at one side of the cage, and at the other a bundle of hair and grass; but our images must be given to us, we cannot choose them deliberately. viii i know now that revelation is from the self, but from that age-long memoried self, that shapes the elaborate shell of the mollusc and the child in the womb, that teaches the birds to make their nest; and that genius is a crisis that joins that buried self for certain moments to our trivial daily mind. there are, indeed, personifying spirits that we had best call but gates and gate-keepers, because through their dramatic power they bring our souls to crisis, to mask and image, caring not a straw whether we be juliet going to her wedding, or cleopatra to her death; for in their eyes nothing has weight but passion. we have dreamed a foolish dream these many centuries in thinking that they value a life of contemplation, for they scorn that more than any possible life, unless it be but a name for the worst crisis of all. they have but one purpose, to bring their chosen man to the greatest obstacle he may confront without despair. they contrived dante's banishment, and snatched away his beatrice, and thrust villon into the arms of harlots, and sent him to gather cronies at the foot of the gallows, that dante and villon might through passion become conjoint to their buried selves, turn all to mask and image, and so be phantoms in their own eyes. in great lesser writers like landor and like keats we are shown that image and that mask as something set apart; andromeda and her perseus--though not the sea-dragon--but in a few in whom we recognise supreme masters of tragedy, the whole contest is brought into the circle of their beauty. such masters, villon and dante, let us say, would not, when they speak through their art, change their luck; yet they are mirrored in all the suffering of desire. the two halves of their nature are so completely joined that they seem to labour for their objects, and yet to desire whatever happens, being at the same instant predestinate and free, creation's very self. we gaze at such men in awe, because we gaze not at a work of art, but at the re-creation of the man through that art, the birth of a new species of man, and, it may even seem that the hairs of our heads stand up, because that birth, that re-creation, is from terror. had not dante and villon understood that their fate wrecked what life could not rebuild, had they lacked their vision of evil, had they cherished any species of optimism, they could but have found a false beauty, or some momentary instinctive beauty, and suffered no change at all, or but changed as do the wild creatures, or from devil well to devil sick, and so round the clock. they and their sort alone earn contemplation, for it is only when the intellect has wrought the whole of life to drama, to crisis, that we may live for contemplation, and yet keep our intensity. and these things are true also of nations, but the gate-keepers who drive the nation to war or anarchy that it may find its image are different from those who drive individual men, though i think at times they work together. and as i look backward upon my own writing, i take pleasure alone in those verses where it seems to me i have found something hard, cold, some articulation of the image, which is the opposite of all that i am in my daily life, and all that my country is; yet man or nation can no more make mask or image than the seed can be made by the soil into which it is cast. ille. "what portion in the world can the artist have, who has awakened from the common dream, but dissipation and despair? hic. and yet no one denies to keats, love of the world. remember his deliberate happiness. ille. his art is happy, but who knows his mind? i see a schoolboy, when i think of him, with face and nose pressed to a sweet-shop window. for certainly he sank into his grave his senses and his heart unsatisfied, and made, being poor, ailing, and ignorant.... shut out from all the luxury of the world, luxuriant song." book iv the tragic generation _the tragic generation_ i two or three years after our return to bedford park _the doll's house_ had been played at the royalty theatre in dean street, the first ibsen play to be played in england, and somebody had given me a seat for the gallery. in the middle of the first act, while the heroine was asking for macaroons, a middle-aged washerwoman who sat in front of me, stood up and said to the little boy at her side, "tommy, if you promise to go home straight, we will go now;" and at the end of the play, as i wandered through the entrance hall, i heard an elderly critic murmur, "a series of conversations terminated by an accident." i was divided in mind, i hated the play; what was it but carolus durand, bastien-lepage, huxley and tyndall, all over again; i resented being invited to admire dialogue so close to modern educated speech that music and style were impossible. "art is art because it is not nature," i kept repeating to myself, but how could i take the same side with critic and washerwoman? as time passed ibsen became in my eyes the chosen author of very clever young journalists, who, condemned to their treadmill of abstraction, hated music and style; and yet neither i nor my generation could escape him because, though we and he had not the same friends, we had the same enemies. i bought his collected works in mr. archer's translation out of my thirty shillings a week and carried them to and fro upon my journeys to ireland and sligo, and florence farr, who had but one great gift, the most perfect poetical elocution, became prominent as an ibsen actress and had almost a success in _rosmersholm_, where there is symbolism and a stale odour of spoilt poetry. she and i and half our friends found ourselves involved in a quarrel with the supporters of old fashioned melodrama, and conventional romance, and in the support of the new dramatists who wrote in what the daily press chose to consider the manner of ibsen. in 1894 she became manageress of the avenue theatre with a play of dr. todhunter's, called _the comedy of sighs_, and mr bernard shaw's _arms and the man_. she asked me to write a one act play for her niece, miss dorothy paget, a girl of eight or nine, to make her first stage appearance in; and i, with my irish theatre in mind, wrote _the land of heart's desire_, in some discomfort when the child was theme, as i knew nothing of children, but with an abundant mind when mary bruin was for i knew an irish woman whose unrest troubled me and lay beyond my comprehension. when she opened her theatre she had to meet a hostile audience, almost as violent as that synge met in january, 1907, and certainly more brutal, for the abbey audience had no hatred for the players, and i think but little for synge himself. nor had she the certainty of final victory to give her courage, for _the comedy of sighs_ was a rambling story told with a little paradoxical wit. she had brought the trouble upon herself perhaps, for always in revolt against her own poetical gift, which now seemed obsolete, and against her own demeter-like face in the mirror, she had tried when interviewed by the press to shock and startle--to seem to desire enemies; and yet, unsure of her own judgment being out of her own trade, had feared to begin with shaw's athletic wit, and now outraged convention saw its chance. for two hours and a half, pit and gallery drowned the voices of the players with boos and jeers that were meant to be bitter to the author who sat visible to all in his box surrounded by his family, and to the actress struggling bravely through her weary part; and then pit and gallery went home to spread their lying story that the actress had a fit of hysterics in her dressing-room. todhunter had sat on to the end, and there were, i think, four acts of it, listening to the howling of his enemies, while his friends slipped out one by one, till one saw everywhere their empty seats, but nothing could arouse the fighting instincts of that melancholy man. next day i tried to get him to publish his book of words with satirical designs and illustrations, by beardsley, who was just rising into fame, and an introduction attacking the public, but though petulant and irascible he was incapable of any emotion that could give life to a cause. he shared the superstition still current in the theatre, that the public wants sincere drama, but is kept from it by some conspiracy of managers or newspapers, and could not get out of his head that the actors were to blame. shaw, whose turn came next, had foreseen all months before, and had planned an opening that would confound his enemies. for the first few minutes _arms and the man_ is crude melodrama and then just when the audience are thinking how crude it is, it turns into excellent farce. at the dress rehearsal, a dramatist who had his own quarrel with the public, was taken in the noose; for at the first laugh he stood up, turned his back on the stage, scowled at the audience, and even when everybody else knew what turn the play had taken, continued to scowl, and order those nearest to be silent. on the first night the whole pit and gallery, except certain members of the fabian society, started to laugh at the author and then, discovering that they themselves were being laughed at, sat there not converted--their hatred was too bitter for that--but dumbfounded, while the rest of the house cheered and laughed. in the silence that greeted the author after the cry for a speech one man did indeed get his courage and boo loudly. "i assure the gentleman in the gallery," was shaw's answer, "that he and i are of exactly the same opinion, but what can we do against a whole house who are of the contrary opinion?" and from that moment bernard shaw became the most formidable man in modern letters, and even the most drunken of medical students knew it. my own play, which had been played with _the comedy of sighs_, had roused no passions, but had pleased a sufficient minority for florence farr to keep it upon the stage with _arms and the man_, and i was in the theatre almost every night for some weeks. "oh, yes, the people seem to like _arms and the man_," said one of mr shaw's players to me, "but we have just found out that we are all wrong. mr shaw did really mean it quite seriously, for he has written a letter to say so, and we must not play for laughs any more." another night i found the manager, triumphant and excited, the prince of wales and the duke of edinburgh had been there, and the duke of edinburgh had spoken his dislike out loud so that the whole stalls could hear, but the prince of wales had been "very pleasant" and "got the duke of edinburgh away as soon as possible." "they asked for me," he went on, "and the duke of edinburgh kept on repeating, 'the man is mad,' meaning mr shaw, and the prince of wales asked who mr shaw was, and what he meant by it." i myself was almost as bewildered for though i came mainly to see how my own play went, and for the first fortnight to vex my most patient actors with new lines, i listened with excitement to see how the audience would like certain passages of _arms and the man_. i hated it; it seemed to me inorganic, logical straightness and not the crooked road of life and i stood aghast before its energy as to-day before that of the stone drill by mr. epstein or of some design by mr wyndham lewis. he was right to claim samuel butler for his master, for butler was the first englishman to make the discovery, that it is possible to write with great effect without music, without style, either good or bad, to eliminate from the mind all emotional implication and to prefer plain water to every vintage, so much metropolitan lead and solder to any tendril of the vine. presently i had a nightmare that i was haunted by a sewing machine, that clicked and shone, but the incredible thing was that the machine smiled, smiled perpetually. yet i delighted in shaw the formidable man. he could hit my enemies and the enemies of all i loved, as i could never hit, as no living author that was dear to me could ever hit. florence farr's way home was mine also for a part of the way, and it was often of this that we talked, and sometimes, though not always, she would share my hesitations, and for years to come i was to wonder whenever shaw became my topic, whether the cock crowed for my blame or for my praise. ii shaw and wilde, had no catastrophe come, would have long divided the stage between them, though they were most unlike--for wilde believed himself to value nothing but words in their emotional associations, and he had turned his style to a parade as though it were his show, and he lord mayor. i was at sligo again and i saw the announcement of his action against lord queensberry, when starting from my uncle's house to walk to knocknarea to dine with cochrane of the glen, as he was called, to distinguish him from others of that name, an able old man. he had a relation, a poor mad girl, who shared our meals, and at whom i shuddered. she would take a flower from the vase in front of her and push it along the tablecloth towards any male guest who sat near. the old man himself had strange opinions, born not from any mental eccentricity, but from the solitude of his life; and a freedom from all prejudice that was not of his own discovery. "the world is getting more manly," he would say, "it has begun to drink port again," or "ireland is going to become prosperous. divorced couples now choose ireland for a retreat, just as before scotland became prosperous they began to go there. there are a divorced wife and her lover living at the other side of the mountain." i remember that i spoke that night of wilde's kindness to myself, said i did not believe him guilty, quoted the psychologist bain, who has attributed to every sensualist "a voluminous tenderness," and described wilde's hard brilliance, his dominating self-possession. i considered him essentially a man of action, that he was a writer by perversity and accident, and would have been more important as soldier or politician; and i was certain that, guilty or not guilty, he would prove himself a man. i was probably excited, and did most of the talking, for if cochrane had talked, i would have remembered an amusing sentence or two; but he was certainly sympathetic. a couple of days later i received a letter from lionel johnson, denouncing wilde with great bitterness. he had "a cold scientific intellect;" he got a "sense of triumph and power; at every dinner-table he dominated, from the knowledge that he was guilty of that sin which, more than any other possible to man, would turn all those people against him if they but knew." he wrote in the mood of his poem, _to the destroyer of a soul_, addressed to wilde, as i have always believed, though i know nothing of the circumstance that made him write it. i might have known that wilde's phantasy had taken some tragic turn, and that he was meditating upon possible disaster, but one took all his words for play--had he not called insincerity "a mere multiplication of the personality" or some such words? i had met a man who had found him in a barber's shop in venice, and heard him explain, "i am having my hair curled that i may resemble nero;" and when, as editor of an irish anthology, i had asked leave to quote "tread gently, she is near under the snow," he had written that i might do so if i pleased, but his most characteristic poem was that sonnet with the lines "lo! with a little rod i did but touch the honey's romance- and must i lose a soul's inheritance." when in london for my play i had asked news from an actor who had seen him constantly. "he is in deep melancholy," was the answer. "he says that he tries to sleep away as much of life as possible, only leaving his bed at two or three in the afternoon, and spending the rest of the day at the café royal. he has written what he calls the best short story in the world, and will have it that he repeats to himself on getting out of bed and before every meal. 'christ came from a white plain to a purple city, and as he passed through the first street, he heard voices overhead, and saw a young man lying drunk upon a window sill, "why do you waste your soul in drunkenness?" he said. "lord, i was a leper and you healed me, what else can i do?" a little further through the town he saw a young man following a harlot, and said, "why do you dissolve your soul in debauchery?" and the young man answered, "lord, i was blind, and you healed me, what else can i do?" at last in the middle of the city he saw an old man crouching, weeping upon the ground, and when he asked why he wept, the old man answered, "lord, i was dead and you raised me into life, what else can i do but weep?"'" wilde published that story a little later, but spoiled it with the verbal decoration of his epoch, and i have to repeat it to myself as i first heard it, before i can see its terrible beauty. i no more doubt its sincerity than i doubt that his parade of gloom, all that late rising, and sleeping away his life, that elaborate playing with tragedy, was an attempt to escape from an emotion by its exaggeration. he had three successful plays running at once; he had been almost poor, and now, his head full of flaubert, found himself with ten thousand a year:--"lord, i was dead, and you raised me into life, what else can i do but weep." a comedian, he was in the hands of those dramatists who understand nothing but tragedy. a few days after the first production of my _land of heart's desire_, i had my last conversation with him. he had come into the theatre as the curtain fell upon my play, and i knew that it was to ask my pardon that he overwhelmed me with compliments; and yet i wonder if he would have chosen those precise compliments, or spoken so extravagantly, but for the turn his thoughts had taken: "your story in _the national observer_, _the crucifixion of the outcast_, is sublime, wonderful, wonderful." some business or other brought me to london once more and i asked various irish writers for letters of sympathy, and i was refused by none but edward dowden, who gave me what i considered an irrelevant excuse--his dislike for everything that wilde had written. i heard that wilde was at his mother's house in oakley street, and i called there, but the irish servant told me, her face drawn and tragic as in the presence of death, that he was not there, but that i could see his brother. willie wilde received me with, "who are you; what do you want?" but became all friendship when i told him that i had brought letters of sympathy. he took the bundle of letters in his hand, but said, "do these letters urge him to run away? every friend he has is urging him to, but we have made up our minds that he must stay and take his chance." "no," i said, "i certainly do not think that he should run away, nor do those letters advise it." "letters from ireland," he said. "thank you, thank you. he will be glad to get those letters, but i would keep them from him if they advised him to run away." then he threw himself back in his chair and began to talk with incoherent emotion, and in phrases that echoed now and again his brother's style at its worst; there were tear in his eyes, and he was, i think, slightly intoxicated. "he could escape, oh, yes, he could escape--there is a yacht in the thames, and five thousand pounds to pay his bail--well, not exactly in the thames, but there is a yacht--oh, yes, he could escape, even if i had to inflate a balloon in the back yard with my own hand, but he has resolved to stay, to face it out, to stand the music like christ. you must have heard--it is not necessary to go into detail--but he and i, we have not been friends; but he came to me like a wounded stag, and i took him in." "after his release"--after the failure of his action against lord queensberry, i think--"stewart headlam engaged a room at an hotel and brought him there under another name, but the manager came up and said, 'are you mr. wilde?' you know what my brother is, you know how he would answer that. he said, 'yes, i am oscar wilde,' and the manager said he must not stay. the same thing happened in hotel after hotel, and at last he made up his mind to come here. it is his vanity that has brought all this disgrace upon him; they swung incense before him." he dwelt upon the rhythm of the words as his brother would have done--"they swung it before his heart." his first emotion at the thought of the letters over, he became more simple, and explained that his brother considered that his crime was not the vice itself, but that he should have brought such misery upon his wife and children, and that he was bound to accept any chance, however slight, that might reestablish his position. "if he is acquitted," he said, "he will stay out of england for a few years, and can then gather his friends about him once more--even if he is condemned he will purge his offence--but if he runs away he will lose every friend that he has." i heard later, from whom i forget now, that lady wilde had said, "if you stay, even if you go to prison, you will always be my son, it will make no difference to my affection, but if you go, i will never speak to you again." while i was there, some woman who had just seen him--willie wilde's wife, i think--came in, and threw herself in a chair, and said in an exhausted voice, "it is all right now, he has made up his mind to go to prison if necessary." before his release, two years later, his brother and mother were dead, and a little later his wife, struck by paralysis during his imprisonment, i think, was dead, too; and he himself, his constitution ruined by prison life, followed quickly; but i have never doubted, even for an instant, that he made the right decision, and that he owes to that decision half of his renown. cultivated london, that before the action against lord queensberry had mocked his pose and affected style, and refused to acknowledge his wit, was now full of his advocates, though i did not meet a single man who considered him innocent. one old enemy of his overtook me in the street and began to praise his audacity, his self-possession. "he has made," he said, "of infamy a new thermopylae." i had written in reply to lionel johnson's letter that i regretted wilde's downfall but not that of his imitators, but johnson had changed with the rest. "why do you not regret the fall of wilde's imitators"--i had but tried to share what i thought his opinion--"they were worthless, but should have been left to criticism." wilde himself was a martyr in his eyes, and when i said that tragedy might give his art a greater depth, he would not even grant a martyr's enemies that poor merit, and thought wilde would produce, when it was all over, some comedy exactly like the others, writing from an art where events could leave no trace. everywhere one met writers and artists who praised his wit and eloquence in the witness box, or repeated some private saying. willie redmond told of finding him, to his astonishment, at the conversazione of some theatrical society, standing amid an infuriated crowd, mocking with more than all his old satirical wit the actors and their country. he had said to a well-known painter during one or other of the trials, "my poor brother writes to me that he is defending me all over london; my poor, dear brother, he could compromise a steam engine." his brother, too, had suffered a change, for, if rumour did not wrong him, "the wounded stag" had not been at all graciously received. "thank god my vices were decent," had been his comment, and refusing to sit at the same table, he had dined at some neighbouring hotel at his brother's expense. his successful brother who had scorned him for a drunken ne'er-do-well was now at his mercy, and besides, he probably shared, until tragedy awoke another self, the rage and contempt that filled the crowds in the street, and all men and women who had an over-abundant normal sexual instinct. "wilde will never lift his head again," said the art critic, gleeson white, "for he has against him all men of infamous life." when the verdict was announced the harlots in the street outside danced upon the pavement. iii somewhere about 1450, though later in some parts of europe by a hundred years or so, and in some earlier, men attained to personality in great numbers, "unity of being," and became like a "perfectly proportioned human body," and as men so fashioned held places of power, their nations had it too, prince and ploughman sharing that thought and feeling. what afterwards showed for rifts and cracks were there already, but imperious impulse held all together. then the scattering came, the seeding of the poppy, bursting of pea-pod, and for a time personality seemed but the stronger for it. shakespeare's people make all things serve their passion, and that passion is for the moment the whole energy of their being--birds, beasts, men, women, landscape, society, are but symbols and metaphors, nothing is studied in itself, the mind is a dark well, no surface, depth only. the men that titian painted, the men that jongsen painted, even the men of van dyck, seemed at moments like great hawks at rest. in the dublin national gallery there hung, perhaps there still hangs, upon the same wall, a portrait of some venetian gentleman by strozzi, and mr. sargent's painting of president wilson. whatever thought broods in the dark eyes of that venetian gentleman, has drawn its life from his whole body; it feeds upon it as the flame feeds upon the candle--and should that thought be changed, his pose would change, his very cloak would rustle for his whole body thinks. president wilson lives only in the eyes, which are steady and intent; the flesh about the mouth is dead, and the hands are dead, and the clothes suggest no movement of his body, nor any movement but that of the valet, who has brushed and folded in mechanical routine. there, all was an energy flowing outward from the nature itself; here, all is the anxious study and slight deflection of external force; there man's mind and body were predominantly subjective; here all is objective, using those words not as philosophy uses them, but as we use them in conversation. the bright part of the moon's disk, to adopt the symbolism of a certain poem, is subjective mind, and the dark, objective mind, and we have eight and twenty phases for our classification of mankind, and of the movement of his thought. at the first phase--the night where there is no moonlight--all is objective, while when, upon the fifteenth night, the moon comes to the full, there is only subjective mind. the mid-renaissance could but approximate to the full moon "for there is no human life at the full or the dark," but we may attribute to the next three nights of the moon the men of shakespeare, of titian, of strozzi, and of van dyck, and watch them grow more reasonable, more orderly, less turbulent, as the nights pass; and it is well to find before the fourth--the nineteenth moon counting from the start--a sudden change, as when a cloud becomes rain, or water freezes, for the great transitions are sudden; popular, typical men have grown more ugly and more argumentative; the face that van dyck called a fatal face has faded before cromwell's warty opinionated head. henceforth no mind made like "a perfectly proportioned human body" shall sway the public, for great men must live in a portion of themselves, become professional and abstract; but seeing that the moon's third quarter is scarce passed, that abstraction has attained but not passed its climax, that a half, as i affirm it, of the twenty-second night still lingers, they may subdue and conquer; cherish, even, some utopian dream; spread abstraction ever further till thought is but a film, and there is no dark depth any more, surface only. but men who belong by nature to the nights near to the full are still born, a tragic minority, and how shall they do their work when too ambitious for a private station, except as wilde of the nineteenth phase, as my symbolism has it, did his work. he understood his weakness, true personality was impossible, for that is born in solitude, and at his moon one is not solitary; he must project himself before the eyes of others, and, having great ambition, before some great crowd of eyes; but there is no longer any great crowd that cares for his true thought. he must humour and cajole and pose, take worn-out stage situations, for he knows that he may be as romantic as he please, so long as he does not believe in his romance, and all that he may get their ears for a few strokes of contemptuous wit in which he does believe. we rhymers did not humour and cajole; but it was not wholly from demerit, it was in part because of different merit, that he refused our exile. shaw, as i understand him, has no true quarrel with his time, its moon and his almost exactly coincide. he is quite content to exchange narcissus and his pool for the signal box at a railway junction, where goods and travellers pass perpetually upon their logical glittering road. wilde was a monarchist, though content that monarchy should turn demagogue for its own safety, and he held a theatre by the means whereby he held a london dinner table. "he who can dominate a london dinner table," he had boasted, "can dominate the world." while shaw has but carried his street-corner socialist eloquence on to the stage, and in him one discovers, in his writing and his public speech, as once--before their outline had been softened by prosperity or the passage of the years--in his clothes and in his stiff joints, the civilization that sargent's picture has explored. neither his crowd nor he have yet made that discovery that brought president wilson so near his death, that the moon draws to its fourth quarter. but what happens to the individual man whose moon has come to that fourth quarter, and what to the civilization...? i can but remember pipe music to-night, though i can half hear beyond it in the memory a weightier music, but this much at any rate is certain--the dream of my early manhood, that a modern nation can return to unity of culture, is false; though it may be we can achieve it for some small circle of men and women, and there leave it till the moon bring round its century. "the cat went here and there and the moon spun round like a top, and the nearest kin of the moon the creeping cat looked up. * * * * minnaloushe creeps through the grass from moonlit place to place; the sacred moon overhead has taken a new phase. does minnaloushe know that her pupils will pass from change to change, and that from round to crescent from crescent to round they range? minnaloushe creeps through the grass alone, important and wise, and lifts to the changing moon her changing eyes." iv henley's troubles and infirmities were growing upon him. he, too, an ambitious, formidable man, who showed alike in his practice and in his theory, in his lack of sympathy for rossetti and landor, for instance, that he never understood how small a fragment of our own nature can be brought to perfect expression, nor that even but with great toil, in a much divided civilization; though, doubtless, if our own phase be right, a fragment may be an image of the whole, the moon's still scarce crumbled image, as it were, in a glass of wine. he would be, and have all poets be, a true epitome of the whole mass, a herrick and dr. johnson in the same body and because this--not so difficult before the mermaid closed its door--is no longer possible, his work lacks music, is abstract, as even an actor's movement can be when the thought of doing is plainer to his mind than the doing itself: the straight line from cup to lip, let us say, more plain than the hand's own sensation weighed down by that heavy spillable cup. i think he was content, when he had called before our eyes--before the too understanding eyes of his chosen crowd--the violent burly man that he had dreamed, content with the mere suggestion, and so did not work long enough at his verses. he disliked victor hugo as much as he did rossetti, and yet rossetti's translation from _les burgraves_, because of its mere technical mastery, out-sings henley in his own song- "my mother is dead; god's patience wears; it seems my chaplain will not have done. love on: who cares? who cares? love on." i can read his poetry with emotion, but i read it for some glimpse of what he might have been as border balladist, or cavalier, or of what he actually was, not as poet but as man. he had what wilde lacked, even in his ruin, passion, was maybe as passionate as some great man of action, as parnell, let us say. when he and stevenson quarrelled, he cried over it with some woman or other, and his notorious article was but for vengeance upon mrs. stevenson, who had arranged for the public eye, what he considered an imaginary figure, with no resemblance to the gay companion who had founded his life, to that life's injury, upon "the august, the immortal musketeers." she had caused the quarrel, as he believed, and now she had robbed him over again, by blotting from the world's memory the friend of his youth; and because he believed it i read those angry paragraphs with but deeper sympathy for the writer; and i think that the man who has left them out of henley's collected writings has wronged his memory, as mrs. stevenson wronged the memory of stevenson. he was no contemplative man, no pleased possessor of wooden models and paper patterns, but a great passionate man, and no friend of his would have him pictured otherwise. i saw little of him in later years, but i doubt if he was ever the same after the death of his six-year old daughter. few passages of his verse touch me as do those few mentions of her though they lack precision of word and sound. when she is but a hope, he prays that she may have his 'gift of life' and his wife's 'gift of love,' and when she is but a few months old he murmurs over her sleep- when you wake in your crib, you an inch of experience- vaulted about with the wonder of darkness; wailing and striving to reach from your feebleness something you feel will be good to and cherish you. and now he commends some friend "boyish and kind, and shy," who greeted him, and greeted his wife, "that day we brought our beautiful one to lie in the green peace" and who is now dead himself, and after that he speaks of love "turned by death to longing" and so, to an enemy. when i spoke to him of his child's death he said, "she was a person of genius; she had the genius of the mind, and the genius of the body." and later i heard him talk of her as a man talks of something he cannot keep silence over because it is in all his thoughts. i can remember, too, his talking of some book of natural history he had read, that he might be able to answer her questions. he had a house now at mortlake on the thames with a great ivy tod shadowing door and window, and one night there he shocked and startled a roomful of men by showing how far he could be swept beyond our reach in reveries of affection. the dull man, who had tried to put wilde out of countenance, suddenly said to the whole room, roused by i cannot remember what incautious remark of mine made to some man at my side: "yeats believes in magic; what nonsense." henley said, "no, it may not be nonsense; black magic is all the go in paris now." and then turning towards me with a changed sound in his voice, "it is just a game, isn't it." i replied, not noticing till too late his serious tone, and wishing to avoid discussion in the dull man's company, "one has had a vision; one wants to have another, that is all." then henley said, speaking in a very low voice, "i want to know how i am to get to my daughter. i was sitting here the other night when she came into the room and played round the table and went out again. then i saw that the door was shut and i knew that i had seen a vision." there was an embarrassed silence, and then somebody spoke of something else and we began to discuss it hurriedly and eagerly. v i came now to be more in london, never missing the meetings of the rhymers' club, nor those of the council of the irish literary society, where i constantly fought out our irish quarrels and pressed upon the unwilling gavan duffy the books of our new movement. the irish members of parliament looked upon us with some hostility because we had made it a matter of principle never to put a politician in the chair, and upon other grounds. one day, some old irish member of parliament made perhaps his only appearance at a gathering of members. he recited with great emotion a ballad of his own composition in the manner of young ireland, repeating over his sacred names, wolfe tone, emmet, and owen roe, and mourning that new poets and new movements should have taken something of their sacredness away. the ballad had no literary merit, but i went home with a troubled conscience; and for a dozen years perhaps, till i began to see the result of our work in a deepened perception of all those things that strengthen race, that trouble remained. i had in mind that old politician as i wrote but the other day- "our part to murmur name upon name as a mother names her child." the rhymers had begun to break up in tragedy, though we did not know that till the play had finished. i have never found a full explanation of that tragedy; sometimes i have remembered that, unlike the victorian poets, almost all were poor men, and had made it a matter of conscience to turn from every kind of money-making that prevented good writing, and that poverty meant strain, and for the most part, a refusal of domestic life. then i have remembered that johnson had private means, and that others who came to tragic ends, had wives and families. another day i think that perhaps our form of lyric, our insistence upon emotion which has no relation to any public interest, gathered together, overwrought, unstable men; and remember the moment after that the first to go out of his mind had no lyrical gift, and that we valued him mainly because he seemed a witty man of the world; and that a little later another who seemed, alike as man and writer, dull and formless, went out of his mind, first burning poems which i cannot believe would have proved him as the one man who saw them claims, a man of genius. the meetings were always decorous and often dull; some one would read out a poem and we would comment, too politely for the criticism to have great value; and yet that we read out our poems, and thought that they could be so tested, was a definition of our aims. _love's nocturne_ is one of the most beautiful poems in the world, but no one can find out its beauty, so intricate its thought and metaphor, till he has read it over several times, or often stopped his reading to think out the meaning of some passage, and the _faustine_ of swinburne, where many separate verses are powerful and musical, could not, were it read out, be understood with pleasure, however clearly it were read, because it has no more logical structure than a bag of shot. i shall, however, remember all my life that evening when lionel johnson read or spoke aloud in his musical monotone, where meaning and cadence found the most precise elocution, his poem suggested "by the statue of king charles at charing cross." it was as though i listened to a great speech. nor will that poem be to me again what it was that first night. for long i only knew dowson's _o mors_, to quote but the first words of its long title, and his _villanelle of sunset_ from his reading, and it was because of the desire to hold them in my hand that i suggested the first _book of the rhymers' club_. they were not speech but perfect song, though song for the speaking voice. it was perhaps our delight in poetry that was, before all else, speech or song, and could hold the attention of a fitting audience like a good play or good conversation, that made francis thompson, whom we admired so much--before the publication of his first poem i had brought to the cheshire cheese the proof sheets of his _ode to the setting sun_, his first published poem--come but once and refuse to contribute to our book. preoccupied with his elaborate verse, he may have seen only that which we renounced, and thought what seemed to us simplicity, mere emptiness. to some members this simplicity was perhaps created by their tumultuous lives, they praised a desired woman and hoped that she would find amid their praise her very self, or at worst, their very passion; and knew that she, ignoramus that she was, would have slept in the middle of _love's nocturne_, lofty and tender though it be. woman herself was still in our eyes, for all that, romantic and mysterious, still the priestess of her shrine, our emotions remembering the _lilith_ and the _sybilla palmifera_ of rossetti; for as yet that sense of comedy, which was soon to mould the very fashion plates, and, in the eyes of men of my generation, to destroy at last the sense of beauty itself, had scarce begun to show here and there, in slight subordinate touches among the designs of great painters and craftsmen. it could not be otherwise, for johnson's favourite phrase, that life is ritual, expressed something that was in some degree in all our thoughts, and how could life be ritual if woman had not her symbolical place? if rossetti was a sub-conscious influence, and perhaps the most powerful of all, we looked consciously to pater for our philosophy. three or four years ago i re-read _marius the epicurean_, expecting to find i cared for it no longer, but it still seemed to me, as i think it seemed to us all, the only great prose in modern english, and yet i began to wonder if it, or the attitude of mind of which it was the noblest expression, had not caused the disaster of my friends. it taught us to walk upon a rope, tightly stretched through serene air, and we were left to keep our feet upon a swaying rope in a storm. pater had made us learned; and, whatever we might be elsewhere, ceremonious and polite, and distant in our relations to one another, and i think none knew as yet that dowson, who seemed to drink so little and had so much dignity and reserve, was breaking his heart for the daughter of the keeper of an italian eating house, in dissipation and drink; and that he might that very night sleep upon a sixpenny bed in a doss house. it seems to me that even yet, and i am speaking of 1894 and 1895, we knew nothing of one another, but the poems that we read and criticised; perhaps i have forgotten or was too much in ireland for knowledge, but of this i am certain, we shared nothing but the artistic life. sometimes johnson and symons would visit our sage at oxford, and i remember johnson, whose reports however were not always to be trusted, returning with a sentence that long ran in my head. he had noticed books on political economy among pater's books, and pater had said, "everything that has occupied man, for any length of time, is worthy of our study." perhaps it was because of pater's influence that we, with an affectation of learning, claimed the whole past of literature for our authority, instead of finding it like the young men in the age of comedy that followed us, in some new, and so still unrefuted authority; that we preferred what seemed still uncrumbled rock, to the still unspotted foam; that we were traditional alike in our dress, in our manner, in our opinions, and in our style. why should men, who spoke their opinions in low voices, as though they feared to disturb the readers in some ancient library, and timidly as though they knew that all subjects had long since been explored, all questions long since decided in books whereon the dust settled--live lives of such disorder and seek to rediscover in verse the syntax of impulsive common life? was it that we lived in what is called "an age of transition" and so lacked coherence, or did we but pursue antithesis? vi all things, apart from love and melancholy, were a study to us; horne already learned in botticelli had begun to boast that when he wrote of him there would be no literature, all would be but learning; symons, as i wrote when i first met him, studied the music halls, as he might have studied the age of chaucer; while i gave much time to what is called the christian cabala; nor was there any branch of knowledge johnson did not claim for his own. when i had first gone to see him in 1888 or 1889, at the charlotte street house, i had called about five in the afternoon, but the man servant that he shared with horne and image, told me that he was not yet up, adding with effusion "he is always up for dinner at seven." this habit of breakfasting when others dined had been started by insomnia, but he came to defend it for its own sake. when i asked if it did not separate him from men and women he replied, "in my library i have all the knowledge of the world that i need." he had certainly a considerable library, far larger than that of any young man of my acquaintance, so large that he wondered if it might not be possible to find some way of hanging new shelves from the ceiling like chandeliers. that room was always a pleasure to me, with its curtains of grey corduroy over door and window and book case, and its walls covered with brown paper, a fashion invented, i think, by horne, that was soon to spread. there was a portrait of cardinal newman, looking a little like johnson himself, some religious picture by simeon solomon, and works upon theology in greek and latin and a general air of neatness and severity; and talking there by candle light it never seemed very difficult to murmur villiers de l'isle adam's proud words, "as for living--our servants will do that for us." yet i can now see that johnson himself in some hidden, half-conscious part of him desired the world he had renounced, desired it as an object of study. i was often puzzled as to when and where he could have met the famous men or beautiful women, whose conversation, often wise, and always appropriate, he quoted so often, and it was not till a little before his death that i discovered that these conversations were imaginary. he never altered a detail of speech, and would quote what he had invented for gladstone or newman for years without amplification or amendment, with what seemed a scholar's accuracy. his favourite quotations were from newman, whom, i believe, he had never met, though i can remember nothing now but newman's greeting to johnson, "i have always considered the profession of a man of letters a third order of the priesthood!" and these quotations became so well known that at newman's death, the editor of _the nineteenth century_ asked them for publication. because of his delight in all that was formal and arranged he objected to the public quotation of private conversation even after death, and this scruple helped his refusal. perhaps this dreaming was made a necessity by his artificial life, yet before that life began he wrote from oxford to his tory but flattered family, that as he stood mounted upon a library ladder in his rooms taking a book from a shelf, gladstone, about to pass the open door on his way upstairs to some college authority, had stopped, hesitated, come into the room and there spent an hour of talk. presently it was discovered that gladstone had not been near oxford on the date given; yet he quoted that conversation without variation of a word until the end of his life, and i think believed in it as firmly as did his friends. these conversations were always admirable in their drama, but never too dramatic or even too polished to lose their casual accidental character; they were the phantasmagoria through which his philosophy of life found its expression. if he made his knowledge of the world out of his phantasy, his knowledge of tongues and books was certainly very great; and yet was that knowledge as great as he would have us believe? did he really know welsh, for instance, had he really as he told me, made his only love song, his incomparable _morfydd_ out of three lines in welsh, heard sung by a woman at her door on a walking tour in wales, or did he but wish to hide that he shared in their emotion? "o, what are the winds? and what are the waters? mine are your eyes." he wanted us to believe that all things, his poetry with its latin weight, his religion with its constant reference to the fathers of the church, or to the philosophers of the church, almost his very courtesy were a study and achievement of the intellect. arthur symons' poetry made him angry, because it would substitute for that achievement, parisian impressionism, "a london fog, the blurred tawny lamplight, the red omnibus, the dreary rain, the depressing mud, the glaring gin shop, the slatternly shivering women, three dexterous stanzas telling you that and nothing more." i, on the other hand, angered him by talking as if art existed for emotion only, and for refutation he would quote the close of the aeschylean trilogy, the trial of orestes on the acropolis. yet at moments the thought came to him that intellect, as he conceived it, was too much a thing of many books, that it lacked lively experience. "yeats," he has said to me, "you need ten years in a library, but i have need of ten years in the wilderness." when he said "wilderness" i am certain, however, that he thought of some historical, some bookish desert, the thebaid, or the lands about the mareotic sea. his best poetry is natural and impassioned, but he spoke little of it, but much about his prose, and would contend that i had no right to consider words made to read, less natural than words made to be spoken; and he delighted in a sentence in his book on thomas hardy, that kept its vitality, as he contended, though two pages long. he punctuated after the manner of the seventeenth century and was always ready to spend an hour discussing the exact use of the colon. "one should use a colon where other people use a semi-colon, a semi-colon where other people use a comma," was, i think, but a condescension to my ignorance for the matter was plainly beset with many subtleties. vii not till some time in 1895 did i think he could ever drink too much for his sobriety--though what he drank would certainly be too much for that of most of the men whom i knew--i no more doubted his self-control, though we were very intimate friends, than i doubted his memories of cardinal newman. the discovery that he did was a great shock to me, and, i think, altered my general view of the world. i had, by my friendship with o'leary, by my fight against gavan duffy, drawn the attention of a group of men, who at that time controlled what remained of the old fenian movement in england and scotland; and at a moment when an attempt, that came to nothing, was being made to combine once more our constitutional and unconstitutional politics, i had been asked to represent them at some convention in the united states. i went to consult johnson, whom i found sitting at a table with books about him. i was greatly tempted, because i was promised complete freedom of speech; and i was at the time enraged by some wild articles published by some irish american newspaper, suggesting the burning down of the houses of irish landlords. nine years later i was lecturing in america, and a charming old irishman came to see me with an interview to write, and we spent, and as i think in entire neglect of his interview, one of the happiest hours i have ever spent, comparing our tales of the irish fairies, in which he very firmly believed. when he had gone i looked at his card, to discover that he was the writer of that criminal incitement. i told johnson that if i had a week to decide in i would probably decide to go, but as they had only given me three days, i had refused. he would not hear of my refusal with so much awaiting my condemnation; and that condemnation would be effective with catholics, for he would find me passages in the fathers, condemning every kind of political crime, that of the dynamiter and the incendiary especially. i asked how could the fathers have condemned weapons they had never heard of, but those weapons, he contended, were merely developments of old methods and weapons; they had decided all in principle; but i need not trouble myself about the matter, for he would put into my hands before i sailed the typewritten statement of their doctrine, dealing with the present situation in the utmost detail. he seemed perfectly logical, but a little more confident and impassioned than usual, and i had, i think, promised to accept--when he rose from his chair, took a step towards me in his eagerness, and fell on to the floor; and i saw that he was drunk. from that on, he began to lose control of his life; he shifted from charlotte street, where, i think, there was fear that he would overset lamp or candle and burn the house, to gray's inn, and from gray's inn to old rambling rooms in lincoln's inn fields, and at last one called to find his outer door shut, the milk on the doorstep sour. sometimes i would urge him to put himself, as jack nettleship had done, into an institute. one day when i had been very urgent, he spoke of "a craving that made every atom of his body cry out" and said the moment after, "i do not want to be cured," and a moment after that, "in ten years i shall be penniless and shabby, and borrow half-crowns from friends." he seemed to contemplate a vision that gave him pleasure, and now that i look back, i remember that he once said to me that wilde got, perhaps, an increase of pleasure and excitement from the degradation of that group of beggars and blackmailers where he sought his pathics, and i remember, too, his smile at my surprise, as though he spoke of psychological depths i could never enter. did the austerity, the melancholy of his thoughts, that spiritual ecstasy which he touched at times, heighten, as complementary colours heighten one another, not only the vision of evil, but its fascination? was it only villon, or did dante also feel the fascination of evil, when shown in its horror, and, as it were, judged and lost; and what proud man does not feel temptation strengthened from the certainty that his intellect is not deceived? viii i began now to hear stories of dowson, whom i knew only at the rhymers, or through some chance meeting at johnson's. i was indolent and procrastinating, and when i thought of asking him to dine, or taking some other step towards better knowledge, he seemed to be in paris, or at dieppe. he was drinking, but, unlike johnson, who, at the autopsy after his death, was discovered never to have grown, except in the brain, after his fifteenth year, he was full of sexual desire. johnson and he were close friends, and johnson lectured him out of the fathers upon chastity, and boasted of the great good done him thereby. but the rest of us counted the glasses emptied in their talk. i began to hear now in some detail of the restaurant-keeper's daughter, and of her marriage to the waiter, and of that weekly game of cards with her that filled so great a share of dowson's emotional life. sober, he would look at no other woman, it was said, but, drunk, would desire whatever woman chance brought, clean or dirty. johnson was stern by nature, strong by intellect, and always, i think, deliberately picked his company, but dowson seemed gentle, affectionate, drifting. his poetry shows how sincerely he felt the fascination of religion, but his religion had certainly no dogmatic outline, being but a desire for a condition of virginal ecstasy. if it is true, as arthur symons, his very close friend, has written, that he loved the restaurant-keeper's daughter for her youth, one may be almost certain that he sought from religion some similar quality, something of that which the angels find who move perpetually, as swedenborg has said, towards "the dayspring of their youth." johnson's poetry, like johnson himself before his last decay, conveys an emotion of joy, of intellectual clearness, of hard energy; he gave us of his triumph; while dowson's poetry is sad, as he himself seemed, and pictures his life of temptation and defeat, "unto us they belong us the bitter and gay, wine and women and song." their way of looking at their intoxication showed their characters. johnson, who could not have written _dark angel_ if he did not suffer from remorse, showed to his friends an impenitent face, and defeated me when i tried to prevent the foundation of an irish convivial club--it was brought to an end after one meeting by the indignation of the members' wives--whereas the last time i saw dowson he was pouring out a glass of whiskey for himself in an empty corner of my room and murmuring over and over in what seemed automatic apology "the first to-day." ix two men are always at my side, lionel johnson and john synge whom i was to meet a little later; but johnson is to me the more vivid in memory, possibly because of the external finish, the clearly-marked lineaments of his body, which seemed but to express the clarity of his mind. i think dowson's best verse immortal, bound, that is, to outlive famous novels and plays and learned histories and other discursive things, but he was too vague and gentle for my affections. i understood him too well, for i had been like him but for the appetite that made me search out strong condiments. though i cannot explain what brought others of my generation to such misfortune, i think that (falling backward upon my parable of the moon) i can explain some part of dowson's and johnson's dissipation- "what portion in the world can the artist have, who has awaked from the common dream, but dissipation and despair?" when edmund spencer described the islands of phaedria and of acrasia he aroused the indignation of lord burleigh, "that rugged forehead" and lord burleigh was in the right if morality were our only object. in those islands certain qualities of beauty, certain forms of sensuous loveliness were separated from all the general purposes of life, as they had not been hitherto in european literature--and would not be again, for even the historical process has its ebb and flow, till keats wrote his _endymion_. i think that the movement of our thought has more and more so separated certain images and regions of the mind, and that these images grow in beauty as they grow in sterility. shakespeare leaned, as it were, even as craftsman, upon the general fate of men and nations, had about him the excitement of the playhouse; and all poets, including spencer in all but a few pages, until our age came, and when it came almost all, have had some propaganda or traditional doctrine to give companionship with their fellows. had not matthew arnold his faith in what he described as the best thought of his generation? browning his psychological curiosity, tennyson, as before him shelley and wordsworth, moral values that were not aesthetic values? but coleridge of the _ancient mariner_, and _kubla khan_, and rossetti in all his writings made what arnold has called that "morbid effort," that search for "perfection of thought and feeling, and to unite this to perfection of form," sought this new, pure beauty, and suffered in their lives because of it. the typical men of the classical age (i think of commodus, with his half-animal beauty, his cruelty, and his caprice), lived public lives, pursuing curiosities of appetite, and so found in christianity, with its thebaid and its mariotic sea the needed curb. but what can the christian confessor say to those who more and more must make all out of the privacy of their thought, calling up perpetual images of desire, for he cannot say "cease to be artist, cease to be poet," where the whole life is art and poetry, nor can he bid men leave the world, who suffer from the terrors that pass before shut-eyes. coleridge, and rossetti though his dull brother did once persuade him that he was an agnostic, were devout christians, and steinbock and beardsley were so towards their lives' end, and dowson and johnson always, and yet i think it but deepened despair and multiplied temptation. "dark angel, with thine aching lust, to rid the world of penitence: malicious angel, who still dost my soul such subtil violence! when music sounds, then changest thou a silvery to a sultry fire: nor will thine envious heart allow delight untortured by desire. through thee, the gracious muses turn to furies, o mine enemy! and all the things of beauty burn with flames of evil ecstasy. because of thee, the land of dreams becomes a gathering place of fears: until tormented slumber seems one vehemence of useless tears." why are these strange souls born everywhere to-day? with hearts that christianity, as shaped by history, cannot satisfy. our love letters wear out our love; no school of painting outlasts its founders, every stroke of the brush exhausts the impulse, pre-raphaelitism had some twenty years; impressionism thirty perhaps. why should we believe that religion can never bring round its antithesis? is it true that our air is disturbed, as malarmé said, by "the trembling of the veil of the temple," or "that our whole age is seeking to bring forth a sacred book?" some of us thought that book near towards the end of last century, but the tide sank again. x i do not know whether john davidson, whose life also was tragic, made that "morbid effort," that search for "perfection of thought and feeling," for he is hidden behind failure, to unite it "to perfection of form." at eleven one morning i met him in the british museum reading room, probably in 1894, when i was in london for the production of _the land of heart's desire_, but certainly after some long absence from london. "are you working here?" i said; "no," he said, "i am loafing, for i have finished my day's work." "what, already?" "i work an hour a day--i cannot work longer without exhaustion, and even as it is, if i meet anybody and get into talk, i cannot write the next day; that is why i loaf when my work is finished." no one had ever doubted his industry; he had supported his wife and family for years by "devilling" many hours a day for some popular novelist. "what work is it?" i said. "i am writing verse," he answered. "i had been writing prose for a long time, and then one day i thought i might just as well write what i liked, as i must starve in any case. it was the luckiest thought i ever had, for my agent now gets me forty pounds for a ballad, and i made three hundred out of my last book of verse." he was older by ten years than his fellow rhymers; a national schoolmaster from scotland, he had been dismissed, he told us, for asking for a rise in his salary, and had come to london with his wife and children. he looked older than his years. "ellis," he had said, "how old are you?" "fifty," edwin ellis replied, or whatever his age was. "then i will take off my wig. i never take off my wig when there is a man under thirty in the room." he had endured and was to endure again, a life of tragic penury, which was made much harder by the conviction that the world was against him, that he was refused for some reason his rightful position. ellis thought that he pined even for social success, and i that his scots jealousy kept him provincial and but half articulate. during the quarrel over parnell's grave a quotation from goethe ran through the papers, describing our irish jealousy: "the irish seem to me like a pack of hounds, always dragging down some noble stag." but i do not think we object to distinction for its own sake; if we kill the stag, it is that we may carry off his head and antlers. "the irish people," o'leary used to say, "do not know good from bad in any art, but they do not hate the good once it is pointed out to them because it is good." an infallible church, with its mass in latin, and its mediaeval philosophy, and our protestant social prejudice, have kept our ablest men from levelling passions; but davidson with a jealousy, which may be scottish, seeing that carlyle had it, was quick to discover sour grapes. he saw in delicate, laborious, discriminating taste, an effeminate pedantry, and would, when that mood was on him, delight in all that seemed healthy, popular, and bustling. once when i had praised herbert horne for his knowledge and his taste, he burst out, "if a man must be a connoisseur, let him be a connoisseur in women." he, indeed, was accustomed, in the most characteristic phrase of his type, to describe the rhymers as lacking in "blood and guts," and very nearly brought us to an end by attempting to supply the deficiency by the addition of four scotsmen. he brought all four upon the same evening, and one read out a poem upon the life boat, evidently intended for a recitation; another described how, when gold-digging in australia, he had fought and knocked down another miner for doubting the rotundity of the earth; while of the remainder i can remember nothing except that they excelled in argument. he insisted upon their immediate election, and the rhymers, through that complacency of good manners whereby educated englishmen so often surprise me, obeyed, though secretly resolved never to meet again; and it cost me seven hours' work to get another meeting, and vote the scotsmen out. a few days later i chanced upon davidson at some restaurant; he was full of amiability, and when we parted shook my hand, and proclaimed enthusiastically that i had "blood and guts." i think he might have grown to be a successful man had he been enthusiastic instead about dowson or johnson, or horne or symons, for they had what i still lacked, conscious deliberate craft, and what i must lack always, scholarship. they had taught me that violent energy, which is like a fire of straw, consumes in a few minutes the nervous vitality, and is useless in the arts. our fire must burn slowly, and we must constantly turn away to think, constantly analyse what we have done, be content even to have little life outside our work, to show, perhaps, to other men, as little as the watch-mender shows, his magnifying glass caught in his screwed-up eye. only then do we learn to conserve our vitality, to keep our mind enough under control and to make our technique sufficiently flexible for expression of the emotions of life as they arise. a few months after our meeting in the museum, davidson had spent his inspiration. "the fires are out," he said, "and i must hammer the cold iron." when i heard a few years ago that he had drowned himself, i knew that i had always expected some such end. with enough passion to make a great poet, through meeting no man of culture in early life, he lacked intellectual receptivity, and, anarchic and indefinite, lacked pose and gesture, and now no verse of his clings to my memory. xi gradually arthur symons came to replace in my intimate friendship, lionel johnson from whom i was slowly separated by a scruple of conscience. if he came to see me he sat tongue-tied unless i gave him the drink that seemed necessary to bring his vitality to but its normal pitch, and if i called upon him he drank so much that i became his confederate. once, when a friend and i had sat long after our proper bed-time at his constantly repeated and most earnest entreaty, knowing what black melancholy would descend upon him at our departure, and with the unexpressed hope of getting him to his bed, he fixed upon us a laughing and whimsical look, and said:--"i want you two men to understand that you are merely two men that i am drinking with." that was the only time that i was to hear from him an imaginary conversation that had not an air of the most scrupulous accuracy. he gave two accounts of a conversation with wilde in prison; in one wilde wore his hair long, and in the other it had been cropped by the prison barber. he was gradually losing, too, the faculty of experience, and in his prose and verse repeated the old ideas and emotions, but faintly, as though with fading interest. i am certain that he prayed much, and on those rare days that i came upon him dressed and active before midday or but little after, i concluded that he had been to morning mass at farm street. when with johnson i had tuned myself to his mood, but arthur symons, more than any man i have ever known, could slip as it were into the mind of another, and my thoughts gained in richness and in clearness from his sympathy, nor shall i ever know how much my practice and my theory owe to the passages that he read me from catullus and from verlaine and mallarmé. i had read _axel_ to myself or was still reading it, so slowly, and with so much difficulty, that certain passages had an exaggerated importance, while all remained so obscure that i could without much effort imagine that here at last was the sacred book i longed for. an irish friend of mine lives in a house where beside a little old tower rises a great new gothic hall and stair, and i have sometimes got him to extinguish all light but a little roman lamp, and in that faint light and among great vague shadows, blotting away the unmeaning ornament, have imagined myself partaking in some incredible romance. half-a-dozen times, beginning in boyhood with shelley's _prometheus unbound_, i have in that mood possessed for certain hours or months the book that i long for; and symons, without ever being false to his own impressionist view of art and of life, deepened as i think my longing. it seems to me, looking backward, that we always discussed life at its most intense moment, that moment which gives a common sacredness to the song of songs, and to the sermon on the mount, and in which one discovers something supernatural, a stirring as it were of the roots of the hair. he was making those translations from mallarmé and from verlaine, from calderon, from st. john of the cross, which are the most accomplished metrical translations of our time, and i think that those from mallarmé may have given elaborate form to my verses of those years, to the latter poems of _the wind among the reeds_, to _the shadowy waters_, while villiers de l'isle adam had shaped whatever in my _rosa alchemica_ pater had not shaped. i can remember the day in fountain court when he first read me herodiade's address to some sibyl who is her nurse and it may be the moon also: "the horror of my virginity delights me, and i would envelope me in the terror of my tresses, that, by night, inviolate reptile, i might feel the white and glimmering radiance of thy frozen fire, thou that art chaste and diest of desire, white night of ice and of the cruel snow! eternal sister, my lone sister, lo my dreams uplifted before thee! now, apart, so rare a crystal is my dreaming heart, and all about me lives but in mine own image, the idolatrous mirror of my pride, mirroring this herodiade diamond-eyed." yet i am certain that there was something in myself compelling me to attempt creation of an art as separate from everything heterogenous and casual, from all character and circumstance, as some herodiade of our theatre, dancing seemingly alone in her narrow moving luminous circle. certainly i had gone a great distance from my first poems, from all that i had copied from the folk-art of ireland, as from the statue of mausolus and his queen, where the luminous circle is motionless and contains the entire popular life; and yet why am i so certain? i can imagine an aran islander who had strayed into the luxembourg gallery, turning bewildered from impressionist or post-impressionist, but lingering at moreau's "jason," to study in minute astonishment the elaborate background, where there are so many jewels, so much wrought stone and moulded bronze. had not lover promised mistress in his own island song, "a ship with a gold and silver mast, gloves of the skin of a fish, and shoes of the skin of a bird, and a suit of the dearest silk in ireland?" xii hitherto when in london i had stayed with my family in bedford park, but now i was to live for some twelve months in chambers in the temple that opened through a little passage into those of arthur symons. if anybody rang at either door, one or other would look through a window in the connecting passage, and report. we would then decide whether one or both should receive the visitor, whether his door or mine should be opened, or whether both doors were to remain closed. i have never liked london, but london seemed less disagreeable when one could walk in quiet, empty places after dark, and upon a sunday morning sit upon the margin of a fountain almost as alone as if in the country. i was already settled there, i imagine, when a publisher called and proposed that symons should edit a review or magazine, and symons consented on the condition that beardsley were art editor--and i was delighted at his condition, as i think were all his other proposed contributors. aubrey beardsley had been dismissed from the art editorship of _the yellow book_ under circumstances that had made us indignant. he had illustrated wilde's _salome_, his strange satiric art had raised the popular press to fury, and at the height of the excitement aroused by wilde's condemnation, a popular novelist, a woman who had great influence among the most conventional part of the british public, had written demanding his dismissal. "she owed it to her position before the british people," she had said. beardsley was not even a friend of wilde's--they even disliked each other--he had no sexual abnormality, but he was certainly unpopular, and the moment had come to get rid of unpopular persons. the public at once concluded--they could hardly conclude otherwise, he was dismissed by telegram--that there was evidence against him, and beardsley, who was some twenty-three years old, being embittered and miserable, plunged into dissipation. we knew that we must face an infuriated press and public, but being all young we delighted in enemies and in everything that had an heroic air. xiii we might have survived but for our association with beardsley, perhaps, but for his _under the hill_, a rabelaisian fragment promising a literary genius as great maybe as his artistic genius, and for the refusal of the bookseller who controlled the railway bookstalls to display our wares. the bookseller's manager, no doubt looking for a design of beardsley's, pitched upon blake's _anteus setting virgil and dante upon the verge of cocytus_ as the ground of refusal, and when arthur symons pointed out that blake was considered "a very spiritual artist" replied, "o, mr symons, you must remember that we have an audience of young ladies as well as an audience of agnostics." however, he called arthur symons back from the door to say, "if contrary to our expectations _the savoy_ should have a large sale, we should be very glad to see you again." as blake's design illustrated an article of mine, i wrote a letter upon that remarkable saying to a principal daily newspaper. but i had mentioned beardsley, and i was told that the editor had made it a rule that his paper was never to mention beardsley's name. i said upon meeting him later, "would you have made the same rule in the case of hogarth?" against whom much the same objection could be taken, and he replied with what seemed to me a dreamy look, as though suddenly reminded of a lost opportunity--"ah, there was no popular press in hogarth's day." we were not allowed to forget that in our own day there was a popular press, and its opinions began to affect our casual acquaintance, and even our comfort in public places. at some well-known house, an elderly man to whom i had just been introduced, got up from my side and walked to the other end of the room; but it was as much my reputation as an irish rebel as the evil company that i was supposed to keep, that excited some young men in a railway carriage to comment upon my general career in voices raised that they might catch my attention. i discovered, however, one evening that we were perhaps envied as well as despised. i was in the pit at some theatre, and had just noticed arthur symons a little in front of me, when i heard a young man, who looked like a shop-assistant or clerk, say, "there is arthur symons. if he can't get an order, why can't he pay for a stall." clearly we were supposed to prosper upon iniquity, and to go to the pit added a sordid parsimony. at another theatre i caught sight of a woman that i once liked, the widow of some friend of my father's youth, and tried to attract her attention, but she had no eyes for anything but the stage curtain; and at some house where i met no hostility to myself, a popular novelist snatched out of my hand a copy of _the savoy_, and opening it at beardsley's drawing, called _the barber_, began to expound its bad drawing and wound up with, "now if you want to admire really great black and white art, admire the punch cartoons of mr lindley sambourne," and our hostess, after making peace between us, said, "o, mr yeats, why do you not send your poems to _the spectator_ instead of to _the savoy_." the answer, "my friends read the _savoy_ and they do not read _the spectator_," brought a look of deeper disapproval. yet, even apart from beardsley, we were a sufficiently distinguished body: max beerbohm, bernard shaw, ernest dowson, lionel johnson, arthur symons, charles conder, charles shannon, havelock ellis, selwyn image, joseph conrad; but nothing counted but the one hated name. i think that had we been challenged we might have argued something after this fashion:--"science through much ridicule and some persecution has won its right to explore whatever passes before its corporeal eye, and merely because it passes: to set as it were upon an equality the beetle and the whale though ben jonson could find no justification for the entomologist in _the new inn_, but that he had been crossed in love. literature now demands the same right of exploration of all that passes before the mind's eyes, and merely because it passes." not a complete defence, for it substitutes a spiritual for a physical objective, but sufficient it may be for the moment, and to settle our place in the historical process. the critic might well reply that certain of my generation delighted in writing with an unscientific partiality for subjects long forbidden. yet is it not most important to explore especially what has been long forbidden, and to do this not only "with the highest moral purpose," like the followers of ibsen, but gaily, out of sheer mischief, or sheer delight in that play of the mind. donne could be as metaphysical as he pleased, and yet never seemed unhuman and hysterical as shelley often does, because he could be as physical as he pleased; and besides who will thirst for the metaphysical, who have a parched tongue, if we cannot recover the vision of evil? i have felt in certain early works of my own which i have long abandoned, and here and there in the work of others of my generation, a slight, sentimental sensuality which is disagreeable, and doesn't exist in the work of donne, let us say, because he, being permitted to say what he pleased, was never tempted to linger, or rather to pretend that we can linger, between spirit and sense. how often had i heard men of my time talk of the meeting of spirit and sense, yet there is no meeting but only change upon the instant, and it is by the perception of a change like the sudden "blacking out" of the lights of the stage, that passion creates its most violent sensation. xiv dowson was now at dieppe, now at a normandy village. wilde, too, was at dieppe; and symons, beardsley, and others would cross and recross, returning with many tales, and there were letters and telegrams. dowson wrote a protest against some friend's too vivid essay upon the disorder of his life, and explained that in reality he was living a life of industry in a little country village; but before the letter arrived that friend received a wire, "arrested, sell watch and send proceeds." dowson's watch had been left in london--and then another wire, "am free." dowson, ran the tale as i heard it ten years after, had got drunk and fought the baker, and a deputation of villagers had gone to the magistrate and pointed out that monsieur dowson was one of the most illustrious of english poets. "quite right to remind me," said the magistrate, "i will imprison the baker." a rhymer had seen dowson at some cafe in dieppe with a particularly common harlot, and as he passed, dowson, who was half drunk, caught him by the sleeve and whispered, "she writes poetry--it is like browning and mrs browning." then there came a wonderful tale, repeated by dowson himself, whether by word of mouth or by letter i do not remember. wilde has arrived in dieppe, and dowson presses upon him the necessity of acquiring "a more wholesome taste." they empty their pockets on to the café table, and though there is not much, there is enough if both heaps are put into one. meanwhile the news has spread, and they set out accompanied by a cheering crowd. arrived at their destination, dowson and the crowd remain outside, and presently wilde returns. he says in a low voice to dowson, "the first these ten years, and it will be the last. it was like cold mutton"--always, as henley had said, "a scholar and a gentleman," he no doubt remembered the sense in which the elizabethan dramatists used the words "cold mutton"--and then aloud so that the crowd may hear him, "but tell it in england, for it will entirely restore my character." xv when the first few numbers of _the savoy_ had been published, the contributors and the publisher gave themselves a supper, and symons explained that certain among us were invited afterwards to the publisher's house, and if i went there that once i need never go again. i considered the publisher a scandalous person, and had refused to meet him; we were all agreed as to his character, and only differed as to the distance that should lie between him and us. i had just received two letters, one from t. w. rolleston protesting with all the conventional moral earnestness of an article in _the spectator_ newspaper, against my writing for such a magazine; and one from a. e. denouncing that magazine, which he called the "organ of the incubi and the succubi," with the intensity of a personal conviction. i had forgotten that arthur symons had borrowed the letters until as we stood about the supper table waiting for the signal to be seated, i heard the infuriated voice of the publisher shouting, "give me the letter, give me the letter, i will prosecute that man," and i saw symons waving rolleston's letter just out of reach. then symons folded it up and put it in his pocket, and began to read out a. e. and the publisher was silent, and i saw beardsley listening. presently beardsley came to me and said, "yeats, i am going to surprise you very much. i think your friend is right. all my life i have been fascinated by the spiritual life--when a child i saw a vision of a bleeding christ over the mantelpiece--but after all to do one's work when there are other things one wants to do so much more, is a kind of religion." something, i forget what, delayed me a few minutes after the supper was over, and when i arrived at our publisher's i found beardsley propped up on a chair in the middle of the room, grey and exhausted, and as i came in he left the chair and went into another room to spit blood, but returned immediately. our publisher, perspiration pouring from his face, was turning the handle of a hurdy gurdy piano--it worked by electricity, i was told, when the company did not cut off the supply--and very plainly had had enough of it, but beardsley pressed him to labour on, "the tone is so beautiful," "it gives me such deep pleasure," etc., etc. it was his method of keeping our publisher at a distance. another image competes with that image in my memory. beardsley has arrived at fountain court a little after breakfast with a young woman who belongs to our publisher's circle and certainly not to ours, and is called "twopence coloured," or is it "penny plain." he is a little drunk and his mind has been running upon his dismissal from _the yellow book_, for he puts his hand upon the wall and stares into a mirror. he mutters, "yes, yes. i look like a sodomite," which he certainly did not. "but no, i am not that," and then begins railing, against his ancestors, accusing them of that and this, back to and including the great pitt, from whom he declares himself descended. xvi i can no more justify my convictions in these brief chapters, where i touch on fundamental things, than shakespeare could justify within the limits of a sonnet, his conviction that the soul of the wide world dreams of things to come; and yet as i have set out to describe nature as i see it, i must not only describe events but those patterns into which they fall, when i am the looker-on. a french miracle-working priest once said to maud gonne and myself and to an english catholic who had come with us, that a certain holy woman had been the "victim" for his village, and that another holy woman who had been "victim" for all france, had given him her crucifix, because he, too, was doomed to become a "victim." french psychical research has offered evidence to support the historical proofs that such saints as lydwine of schiedam, whose life suggested to paul claudel his _l'annonce faite à marie_, did really cure disease by taking it upon themselves. as disease was considered the consequence of sin, to take it upon themselves was to copy christ. all my proof that mind flows into mind, and that we cannot separate mind and body, drives me to accept the thought of victimage in many complex forms, and i ask myself if i cannot so explain the strange, precocious genius of beardsley. he was in my lunar metaphor a man of the thirteenth phase, his nature on the edge of unity of being, the understanding of that unity by the intellect his one overmastering purpose; whereas lydwine de schiedam and her like, being of the saints, are at the seven and twentieth phase, and seek a unity with a life beyond individual being; and so being all subjective he would take upon himself not the consequences, but the knowledge of sin. i surrender myself to the wild thought that by so doing he enabled persons who had never heard his name, to recover innocence. i have so often, too, practised meditations, or experienced dreams, where the meditations or dreams of two or three persons contrast and complement one another, in so far as those persons are in themselves complementary or contrasting, that i am convinced that it is precisely from the saint or potential saint that he would gather this knowledge. i see in his fat women and shadowy, pathetic girls, his horrible children, half child, half embryo, in all the lascivious monstrous imagery of the privately published designs, the phantasms that from the beginning have defied the scourge and the hair shirt. i once said to him half seriously, "beardsley, i was defending you last night in the only way in which it is possible to defend you, by saying that all you draw is inspired by rage against iniquity," and he answered, "if it were so inspired the work would be in no way different," meaning, as i think, that he drew with such sincerity that no change of motive could change the image. i know that some turn of disease had begun to parade erotic images before his eyes, and i do not doubt that he drew these images. "i make a blot upon the paper," he said to me; "and i begin to shove the ink about and something comes." but i was wrong to say that he drew these things in rage against iniquity, for to know that rage he must needs be objective, concerned with other people, with the church or the divinity, with something outside his own head, and responsible not for the knowledge but for the consequence of sin. his preparation had been the exhaustion of sin in act, while the preparation of the saint is the exhaustion of his pride, and instead of the saint's humility, he had come to see the images of the mind in a kind of frozen passion, the virginity of the intellect. does not all art come when a nature, that never ceases to judge itself, exhausts personal emotion in action or desire so completely that something impersonal, something that has nothing to do with action or desire, suddenly starts into its place, something which is as unforeseen, as completely organized, even as unique, as the images that pass before the mind between sleeping and waking. but all art is not victimage; and much of the hatred of the art of beardsley came from the fact that victimage, though familiar under another name to french criticism since the time of baudelaire, was not known in england. he pictures almost always disillusion, and apart from those privately published drawings which he tried upon his deathbed to have destroyed, there is no representation of desire. even the beautiful women are exaggerated into doll-like prettiness by a spirit of irony, or are poignant with a thwarted or corrupted innocence. i see his art with more understanding now, than when he lived, for in 1895 or 1896, i was in despair at the new breath of comedy that had begun to wither the beauty that i loved, just when that beauty seemed about to unite itself to mystery. i said to him once, "you have never done anything to equal your salome with the head of john the baptist." i think, that for the moment he was sincere when he replied, "yes, yes; but beauty is so difficult." it was for the moment only, for as the popular rage increased and his own disease increased, he became more and more violent in his satire, or created out of a spirit of mockery a form of beauty where his powerful logical intellect eliminated every outline that suggested meditation or even satisfied passion. the distinction between the image, between the apparition as it were, and the personal action and desire, took a new form at the approach of death. he made two or three charming and blasphemous designs; i think especially of a madonna and child, where the child has a foolish, doll-like face, and an elaborate modern baby's dress; and of a st. rose of lima in an expensive gown decorated with roses, ascending to heaven upon the bosom of the madonna, her face enraptured with love, but with that form of it which is least associated with sanctity. i think that his conversion to catholicism was sincere, but that so much of impulse as could exhaust itself in prayer and ceremony, in formal action and desire, found itself mocked by the antithetical image; and yet i am perhaps mistaken, perhaps it was merely his recognition that historical christianity had dwindled to a box of toys, and that it might be amusing to empty the whole box on to the counterpane. xvii i had been a good deal in paris, though never very long at any time, my later visits with a member of the rhymer's club whose curiosity or emotion was roused by every pretty girl. he treated me with a now admiring, now mocking wonder, because being in love, and in no way lucky in that love, i had grown exceedingly puritanical so far as my immediate neighbourhood was concerned. one night, close to the luxembourg, a strange young woman in bicycling costume, came out of a side street, threw one arm about his neck, walked beside us in perfect silence for a hundred yards or so, and then darted up another side street. he had a red and white complexion and fair hair, but how she discovered that in the dark i could not understand. i became angry and reproachful, but he defended himself by saying, "you never meet a stray cat without caressing it: i have similar instincts." presently we found ourselves at some café--the café d'harcourt, i think--and when i looked up from my english newspaper, i found myself surrounded with painted ladies and saw that he was taking vengeance. i could not have carried on a conversation in french, but i was able to say, "that gentleman over there has never refused wine or coffee to any lady," and in a little they had all settled about him like greedy pigeons. i had put my ideal of those years, an ideal that passed away with youth, into my description of _proud costello_. "he was of those ascetics of passion, who keep their hearts pure for love or for hatred, as other men for god, for mary and for the saints." my friend was not interested in passion. a woman drew him to her by some romantic singularity in her beauty or her circumstance, and drew him the more if the curiosity she aroused were half intellectual. a little after the time i write of, throwing himself into my chair after some visit to a music-hall or hippodrome, he began, "o, yeats, i was never in love with a serpent-charmer before." he was objective. for him "the visible world existed" as he was fond of quoting, and i suspect him of a moon that had entered its fourth quarter. xviii at first i used to stay with macgregor mathers and his gracious young wife near the champ de mars, or in the rue mozart, but later by myself in a student's hotel in the latin quarter, and i cannot remember always where i stayed when this or that event took place. macgregor mathers, or macgregor, for he had now shed the "mathers," would come down to breakfast one day with his horace, the next day with his macpherson's ossian, and read out fragments during breakfast, considering both books of equal authenticity. once when i questioned that of ossian, he got into a rage--what right had i to take sides with the english enemy--and i found that for him the eighteenth century controversy still raged. at night he would dress himself in highland dress, and dance the sword dance, and his mind brooded upon the ramifications of clans and tartans. yet i have at moments doubted whether he had seen the highlands, or even, until invited there by some white rose society, scotland itself. every sunday he gave to the evocation of spirits, and i noted that upon that day he would spit blood. that did not matter, he said, because it came from his head, not his lungs; what ailed him i do not know, but i think that he lived under some great strain, and presently i noted that he was drinking neat brandy, not to drunkenness, but to detriment of mind and body. he began to foresee changes in the world, announcing in 1893 or 1894, the imminence of immense wars, and was it in 1895 or 1896 that he learned ambulance work, and made others learn it? he had a sabre wound on his wrist--or perhaps his forehead, for my memory is not clear--got in some student riot that he had mistaken for the beginning of war. it may have been some talk of his that made me write the poem that begins: "the dews drop slowly and dreams gather; unknown spears suddenly hurtle before my dream awakened eyes, and then the clash of fallen horsemen and the cries of unknown perishing armies beat about my ears." war was to bring, or be brought by, anarchy, but that would be a passing stage, he declared, for his dreams were all napoleonic. he certainly foresaw some great role that he could play, had made himself an acknowledged master of the war-game, and for a time taught it to french officers for his living. he was to die of melancholia, and was perhaps already mad at certain moments or upon certain topics, though he did not make upon me that impression in those early days, being generous, gay, and affable. i have seen none that lacked philosophy and trod _hodos camelionis_ come to good there; and he lacked it but for a vague affirmation, that he would have his friends affirm also, each for himself, "there is no part of me that is not of the gods." once, when he had told me that he met his teachers in some great crowd, and only knew that they were phantoms by a shock that was like an electric shock to his heart, i asked him how he knew that he was not deceived or hallucinated. he said, "i had been visited by one of them the other night, and i followed him out, and followed him down that little lane to the right. presently i fell over the milk boy, and the milk boy got in a rage because he said that not only i but the man in front had fallen over him." he like all that i have known, who have given themselves up to images, and to the murmuring of images, thought that when he had proved that an image could act independently of his mind, he had proved also that neither it, nor what it had murmured, had originated there. yet had i need of proof to the contrary, i had it while under his roof. i was eager for news of the spanish-american war, and went to the rue mozart before breakfast to buy a _new york herald_. as i went out past the young normandy servant who was laying breakfast, i was telling myself some schoolboy romance, and had just reached a place where i carried my arm in a sling after some remarkable escape. i bought my paper and returned, to find macgregor on the doorstep. "why, you are all right," he said, "what did the bonne mean by telling me that you had hurt your arm and carried it in a sling." once when i met him in the street in his highland clothes, with several knives in his stocking, he said, "when i am dressed like this i feel like a walking flame," and i think that everything he did was but an attempt to feel like a walking flame. yet at heart he was, i think, gentle, and perhaps even a little timid. he had some impediment in his nose that gave him a great deal of trouble, and it could have been removed had he not shrunk from the slight operation; and once when he was left in a mouse-infested flat with some live traps, he collected his captives into a large birdcage, and to avoid the necessity of their drowning, fed them there for weeks. being a self-educated, un-scholarly, though learned man, he was bound to express the fundamental antithesis in the most crude form, and being arrogant, to prevent as far as possible that alternation between the two natures which is, it may be, necessary to sanity. when the nature turns to its spiritual opposite alone there can be no alternation, but what nature is pure enough for that. i see paris in the eighteen-nineties as a number of events separated from one another, and without cause or consequence, without lot or part in the logical structure of my life; i can often as little find their dates as i can those of events in my early childhood. william sharp, who came to see me there, may have come in 1895, or on some visit four or five years later, but certainly i was in an hotel in the boulevard raspail. when he stood up to go he said, "what is that?" pointing to a geometrical form painted upon a little piece of cardboard that lay upon my window sill. and then before i could answer, looked out of the window saying, "there is a funeral passing." i said, "that is curious, as the death symbol is painted upon the card." i did not look, but i am sure there was no funeral. a few days later he came back and said, "i have been very ill; you must never allow me to see that symbol again." he did not seem anxious to be questioned, but years later he said, "i will now tell you what happened in paris. i had two rooms at my hotel, a front sitting-room and a bedroom leading out of it. as i passed the threshold of the sitting-room, i saw a woman standing at the bureau writing, and presently she went into my bedroom. i thought somebody had got into the wrong room by mistake, but when i went to the bureau i saw the sheet of paper she had seemed to write upon, and there was no writing upon it. i went into my bed-room and i found nobody, but as there was a door from the bedroom on to the stairs i went down the stairs to see if she had gone that way. when i got out into the street i saw her just turning a corner, but when i turned the corner there was nobody there, and then i saw her at another corner. constantly seeing her and losing her like that i followed till i came to the seine, and there i saw her standing at an opening in the wall, looking down into the river. then she vanished, and i cannot tell why, but i went to the opening in the wall and stood there, just as she had stood, taking just the same attitude. then i thought i was in scotland, and that i heard a sheep bell. after that i must have lost consciousness, for i knew nothing till i found myself lying on my back, dripping wet, and people standing all round. i had thrown myself into the seine." i did not believe him, and not because i thought the story impossible, for i knew he had a susceptibility beyond that of any one i had ever known, to symbolic or telepathic influence, but because he never told one anything that was true; the facts of life disturbed him and were forgotten. the story had been created by the influence but it had remained a reverie, though he may in the course of years have come to believe that it happened as an event. the affectionate husband of his admiring and devoted wife, he had created an imaginary beloved, had attributed to her the authorship of all his books that had any talent, and though habitually a sober man, i have known him to get drunk, and at the height of his intoxication when most men speak the truth, to attribute his state to remorse for having been unfaithful to fiona macleod. paul verlaine alternated between the two halves of his nature with so little apparent resistance that he seemed like a bad child, though to read his sacred poems is to remember perhaps that the holy infant shared his first home with the beasts. in what month was it that i received a note inviting me to "coffee and cigarettes plentifully," and signed "yours quite cheerfully, paul verlaine?" i found him at the top of a tenement house in the rue st. jacques, sitting in an easy chair, his bad leg swaddled in many bandages. he asked me, speaking in english, if i knew paris well, and added, pointing to his leg, that it had scorched his leg for he know it "well, too well" and "lived in it like a fly in a pot of marmalade." he took up an english dictionary, one of the few books in the room, and began searching for the name of his disease, selecting after a long search and with, as i understood, only comparative accuracy "erysipelas." meanwhile his homely, middle-aged mistress made the coffee and found the cigarettes; it was obviously she who had given the room its character; her canaries in several cages hanging in the window, and her sentimental lithographs nailed here and there among the nude drawings and newspaper caricatures of her lover as various kinds of monkey, which he had pinned upon the wall. a slovenly, ragged man came in, his trousers belted with a piece of rope and an opera hat upon his head. she drew a box over to the fire, and he sat down, now holding the opera hat upon his knees, and i think he must have acquired it very lately for he kept constantly closing and opening it. verlaine introduced him by saying, "he is a poor man, but a good fellow, and is so like louis xi to look at that we call him louis the xith." i remember that verlaine talked of victor hugo who was "a supreme poet, but a volcano of mud as well as of flame," and of villiers de l'isle adam who was "exalté" and wrote excellent french; and of _in memoriam_, which he had tried to translate and could not. "tennyson is too noble, too anglais; when he should have been brokenhearted, he had many reminiscences." at verlaine's burial, but a few months after, his mistress quarrelled with a publisher at the graveside as to who owned the sheet by which the body had been covered, and louis xi stole fourteen umbrellas that he found leaning against a tree in the cemetery. xix i am certain of one date, for i have gone to much trouble to get it right. i met john synge for the first time in the autumn of 1896, when i was one and thirty, and he four and twenty. i was at the hotel corneille instead of my usual lodging, and why i cannot remember for i thought it expensive. synge's biographer says that you boarded there for a pound a week, but i was accustomed to cook my own breakfast, and dine at an anarchist restaurant in the boulevard s. jacques for little over a shilling. some one, whose name i forget, told me there was a poor irishman at the top of the house, and presently introduced us. synge had come lately from italy, and had played his fiddle to peasants in the black forest; six months of travel upon fifty pounds; and was now reading french literature and writing morbid and melancholy verse. he told me that he had learned irish at trinity college, so i urged him to go to the aran islands and find a life that had never been expressed in literature, instead of a life where all had been expressed. i did not divine his genius, but i felt he needed something to take him out of his morbidity and melancholy. perhaps i would have given the same advice to any young irish writer who knew irish, for i had been that summer upon inishmaan and inishmore, and was full of the subject. my friends and i had landed from a fishing boat to find ourselves among a group of islanders, one of whom said he would bring us to the oldest man upon inishmaan. this old man, speaking very slowly, but with laughing eyes, had said, "if any gentleman has done a crime, we'll hide him. there was a gentleman that killed his father, and i had him in my own house six months till he got away to america." from that on i saw much of synge, and brought him to maude gonne's, under whose persuasion perhaps, he joined the "young ireland society of paris," the name we gave to half a dozen parisian irish, signed, but resigned after a few months because "it wanted to stir up continental nations against england, and england will never give us freedom until she feels she is safe," the one political sentence i ever heard him speak. over a year was to pass before he took my advice and settled for a while in an aran cottage, and became happy, having escaped at last, as he wrote, "from the squalor of the poor and the nullity of the rich." i almost forget the prose and verse he showed me in paris, though i read it all through again when after his death i decided, at his written request, what was to be published and what not. indeed, i have but a vague impression, as of a man trying to look out of a window and blurring all that he sees by breathing upon the window. according to my lunar parable, he was a man of the twenty-third phase, a man whose subjective lives--for a constant return to our life is a part of my dream--were over, who must not pursue an image, but fly from it, all that subjective dreaming, that had once been power and joy, now corrupting within him. he had to take the first plunge into the world beyond himself, the first plunge away from himself that is always pure technique, the delight in doing, not because one would or should, but merely because one can do. he once said to me, "a man has to bring up his family and be as virtuous as is compatible with so doing, and if he does more than that he is a puritan; a dramatist has to express his subject and to find as much beauty as is compatible with that, and if he does more he is an aesthete," that is to say, he was consciously objective. whenever he tried to write drama without dialect he wrote badly, and he made several attempts, because only through dialect could he escape self-expression, see all that he did from without, allow his intellect to judge the images of his mind as if they had been created by some other mind. his objectivity was, however, technical only, for in those images paraded all the desires of his heart. he was timid, too shy for general conversation, an invalid and full of moral scruple, and he was to create now some ranting braggadocio, now some tipsy hag full of poetical speech, and now some young man or girl full of the most abounding health. he never spoke an unkind word, had admirable manners, and yet his art was to fill the streets with rioters, and to bring upon his dearest friends enemies that may last their lifetime. no mind can engender till divided into two, but that of a keats or a shelley falls into an intellectual part that follows, and a hidden emotional flying image, whereas in a mind like that of synge the emotional part is dreaded and stagnant, while the intellectual part is a clear mirror-like technical achievement. but in writing of synge i have run far ahead, for in 1896 he was but one picture among many. i am often astonished when i think that we can meet unmoved some person, or pass some house, that in later years is to bear a chief part in our life. should there not be some flutter of the nerve or stopping of the heart like that macgregor experienced at the first meeting with a phantom? xx many pictures come before me without date or order. i am walking somewhere near the luxembourg gardens when synge, who seldom generalises and only after much thought, says, "there are three things any two of which have often come together but never all three; ecstasy, asceticism, austerity; i wish to bring all three together." * * * * * i notice that macgregor considers william sharp vague and sentimental, while sharp is repelled by macgregor's hardness and arrogance. william sharp met macgregor in the louvre, and said, "no doubt considering your studies you live upon milk and fruit." and macgregor replied, "no, not exactly milk and fruit, but very nearly so;" and now sharp has lunched with macgregor and been given nothing but brandy and radishes. * * * * * macgregor is much troubled by ladies who seek spiritual advice, and one has called to ask his help against phantoms who have the appearance of decayed corpses, and try to get into bed with her at night. he has driven her away with one furious sentence, "very bad taste on both sides." * * * * * i am sitting in a café with two french americans, one in the morning, while we are talking wildly, and some are dancing, there is a tap at the shuttered window; we open it and three ladies enter, the wife of a man of letters, who thought to find no one but a confederate, and her husband's two young sisters whom she has brought secretly to some disreputable dance. she is very confused at seeing us, but as she looks from one to another understands that we have taken some drug and laughs; caught in our dream we know vaguely that she is scandalous according to our code and to all codes, but smile at her benevolently and laugh. * * * * * i am at stuart merrill's, and i meet there a young jewish persian scholar. he has a large gold ring, seemingly very rough, made by some amateur, and he shows me that it has shaped itself to his finger, and says, "that is because it contains no alloy--it is alchemical gold." i ask who made the gold, and he says a certain rabbi, and begins to talk of the rabbi's miracles. we do not question him--perhaps it is true--perhaps he has imagined at all--we are inclined to accept every historical belief once more. * * * * * i am sitting in a cafe with two french americans, a german poet douchenday, and a silent man whom i discover to be strindberg, and who is looking for the philosopher's stone. the french american reads out a manifesto he is about to issue to the latin quarter; it proposes to establish a communistic colony of artists in virginia, and there is a footnote to explain why he selects virginia, "art has never flourished twice in the same place. art has never flourished in virginia." douchenday, who has some reputation as a poet, explains that his poems are without verbs, as the verb is the root of all evil in the world. he wishes for an art where all things are immoveable, as though the clouds should be made of marble. i turn over the page of one of his books which he shows me, and find there a poem in dramatic form, but when i ask if he hopes to have it played he says:--"it could only be played by actors before a black marble wall, with masks in their hands. they must not wear the masks for that would not express my scorn for reality." * * * * * i go to the first performance of alfred jarry's _ubu roi_, at the théatre de l'oeuvre, with the rhymer who had been so attractive to the girl in the bicycling costume. the audience shake their fists at one another, and the rhymer whispers to me, "there are often duels after these performances," and he explains to me what is happening on the stage. the players are supposed to be dolls, toys, marionettes, and now they are all hopping like wooden frogs, and i can see for myself that the chief personage, who is some kind of king, carries for sceptre a brush of the kind that we use to clean a closet. feeling bound to support the most spirited party, we have shouted for the play, but that night at the hotel corneille i am very sad, for comedy, objectivity, has displayed its growing power once more. i say, "after stephane mallarmé, after paul verlaine, after gustave moreau, after puvis de chavannes, after our own verse, after all our subtle colour and nervous rhythm, after the faint mixed tints of conder, what more is possible? after us the savage god." book v the stirring of the bones _the stirring of the bones_ i it may have been the spring of 1897 that maud gonne, who was passing through london, told me that for some reason unknown to her, she had failed to get a dublin authorization for an american lecturing tour. the young dublin nationalists planned a monument to wolfe tone which, it was hoped, might exceed in bulk and in height that of the too compromised and compromising daniel o'connell, and she proposed to raise money for it by these lectures. i had left the temple and taken two rooms in bloomsbury, and in bloomsbury lived important london nationalists, elderly doctors, who had been medical students during the fenian movement. so i was able to gather a sufficient committee to pass the necessary resolution. she had no sooner sailed than i found out why the dublin committee had refused it, or rather put it off by delay and vague promises. a prominent irish american had been murdered for political reasons, and another irish american had been tried and acquitted, but was still accused by his political opponents, and the dispute had spread to london and to ireland, and had there intermixed itself with current politics and gathered new bitterness. my committee, and the majority of the nationalist irish societies throughout england were upon one side, and the dublin committee and the majority of the nationalist societies in ireland upon the other, and feeling ran high. maud gonne had the same friends that i had, and the dublin committee could not be made to understand that whatever money she collected would go to the movement, and not to her friends and their opponents. it seemed to me that if i accepted the presidency of the '98 commemoration association of great britain, i might be able to prevent a public quarrel, and so make a great central council possible; and a public quarrel i did prevent, though with little gain perhaps to anybody, for at least one active man assured me that i had taken the heart out of his work, and no gain at all perhaps to the movement, for our central council had commonly to send two organizers or to print two pamphlets, that both parties might be represented when one pamphlet or one organizer had served. ii it was no business of mine, and that was precisely why i could not keep out of it. every enterprise that offered, allured just in so far as it was not my business. i still think that in a species of man, wherein i count myself, nothing so much matters as unity of being, but if i seek it as goethe sought, who was not of that species, i but combine in myself, and perhaps as it now seems, looking backward, in others also, incompatibles. goethe, in whom objectivity and subjectivity were intermixed i hold, as the dark is mixed with the light at the eighteenth lunar phase, could but seek it as wilhelm meister seeks it intellectually, critically, and through a multitude of deliberately chosen experiences; events and forms of skill gathered as if for a collector's cabinet; whereas true unity of being, where all the nature murmurs in response if but a single note be touched, is found emotionally, instinctively, by the rejection of all experience not of the right quality, and by the limitation of its quantity. of all this i knew nothing, for i saw the world by the light of what my father had said, speaking about some frenchman who frequented the dissecting rooms to overcome his dread in the interest of that unity. my father had mocked, but had not explained why he had mocked, and i, for my unhappiness had felt a shuddering fascination. nor did i understand as yet how little that unity, however wisely sought, is possible without a unity of culture in class or people that is no longer possible at all. "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." iii i went hither and thither speaking at meetings in england and scotland and occasionally at tumultuous dublin conventions, and endured some of the worst months of my life. i had felt years before that i had made a great achievement when the man who trained my uncle's horses invited me to share his xmas dinner, which we roasted in front of his harness room fire; and now i took an almost equal pride in an evening spent with some small organizer into whose spitoon i secretly poured my third glass of whiskey. i constantly hoped for some gain in self-possession, in rapidity of decision, in capacity for disguise, and am at this moment, i dare say, no different for it all, having but burgeoned and withered like a tree. when maud gonne returned she became our directing mind both in england and in ireland, and it was mainly at her bidding that our movement become a protest against the dissensions, the lack of dignity, of the parnellite and anti-parnellite parties, who had fought one another for seven or eight years, till busy men passed them by, as they did those performing cats that in my childhood i used to see, pretending to spit at one another on a table, outside charing cross station. both parliamentary parties seeing that all young ireland, and a good part of old, were in the movement, tried to join us, the anti-parnellite without abandoning its separate identity. they were admitted i think, but upon what terms i do not remember. i and two or three others had to meet michael davitt, and a member of parliament called f. x. o'brien to talk out the question of separate identity, and i remember nothing of what passed but the manner and image of michael davitt. he seemed hardly more unfitted for such negotiation, perhaps even for any possible present politics, than i myself, and i watched him with sympathy. one knows by the way a man sits in his chair if he have emotional intensity, and davitt's suggested to me a writer, a painter, an artist of some kind, rather than a man of action. then, too, f. x. o'brien did not care whether he used a good or a bad argument, whether he seemed a fool or a clever man, so that he carried his point, but if he used a bad argument davitt would bring our thought back to it though he had to wait several minutes and re-state it. one felt that he had lived always with small unimaginative, effective men whom he despised; and that perhaps through some lack of early education, perhaps because nine years' imprisonment at the most plastic period of his life had jarred or broken his contact with reality, he had failed, except during the first months of the land league, to dominate those men. he told me that if the split in the irish party had not come he would have carried the land league into the highlands, and recovered for ireland as much of scotland as was still gaelic in blood or in language. our negotiations, which interested so much f. x. o'brien and my two negotiators, a barrister and a doctor, bored him i thought, even more than they did me, to whom they were a novelty; but the highland plan with its historical foundation and its vague possibilities excited him, and it seemed to me that what we said or did stirred him, at other moments also, to some similar remote thought and emotion. i think he returned my sympathy, for a little before his death he replied to some words of congratulation i sent him after the speech in which he resigned his seat in the house of commons, with an account of some project of his for improving the quality of the irish representation there. iv i think that he shared with poet and philosopher the necessity of speaking the whole mind or remaining silent or ineffective, and he had been for years in a movement, where, to adapt certain words of a friend of mine, it was as essential to carry the heart upon the sleeve as the tongue in the cheek. the founders of the irish agrarian movement had acted upon the doctrine, contradicted by religious history, that ignorant men will not work for an idea, or feel a political passion for its own sake, and that you must find "a lever" as it was called, some practical grievance; and i do not think that i am fantastic in believing that this faith in "levers," universal among revolutionaries, is but a result of that mechanical philosophy of the eighteenth century, which has, as coleridge said, turned the human mind into the quicksilver at the back of a mirror, though it still permits a work of art to seem "a mirror dawdling along a road." o'leary had told me the story, not i think hitherto published. a prominent irish american, not long released from the prison where fenianism had sent him, cabled to parnell:--"take up land reform side by side with the national question and we will support you. see kickham." what had parnell, a landowner and a haughty man, to do with the peasant or the peasant's grievance? and he was indeed so ignorant of both that he asked kickham, novelist and fenian leader, if he thought the people would take up a land agitation, and kickham answered:--"i am only afraid they would go to the gates of hell for it;" and o'leary's comment was, "and so they have." and so was founded an agitation where some men pretended to national passion for the land's sake; some men to agrarian passion for the nation's sake; some men to both for their own advancement, and this agitation at the time i write of had but old men to serve it, who found themselves after years of labour, some after years of imprisonment, derided for unscrupulous rascals. unscrupulous they certainly were, for they had grown up amid make-believe, and now because their practical grievance was too near settlement to blind and to excite, their make-believe was visible to all. they were as eloquent as ever, they had never indeed shared anything in common but the sentimental imagery, the poetical allusions inherited from a still earlier generation, but were faced by a generation that had turned against all oratory. i recall to my memory a member of parliament who had fought for parnell's policy after parnell's death, and much against his own interest, who refused to attend a meeting my friends had summoned at the declaration of the boer war, because he thought "england was in the right," and yet a week later when the dublin mob had taken the matter up, advised irish soldiers to shoot their officers and join president kruger. i recall another and more distinguished politician who supported the anti-parnellite party in his declining years, and in his vigorous years had raked up some scandal about some colonial governor. a friend of mine, after advising that governor's son to write his father's life, had remembered the scandal and called in her alarm upon the politician; "i do beseech you," he had said and with the greatest earnestness, "to pay no attention whatever to anything i may have said during an election." certain of these men, all public prepossessions laid aside, were excellent talkers, genial and friendly men, with memories enriched by country humour, and much half sentimental, half practical philosophy, and at moments by poetical feeling that was not all an affectation, found very moving by english sympathisers, of the tear and the smile in erin's eye. they may even have had more sincerity than their sort elsewhere, but they had inherited a cause that men had died for, and they themselves had gone to jail for it, and had so worn their hereditary martyrdom that they had seemed for a time no common men, and now must pay the penalty. "i have just told mahaffy," wilde had said to me, "that it is a party of men of genius," and now john o'leary, taylor, and many obscure sincere men had pulled them down; and yet, should what followed, judged by an eye that thinks most of the individual soul, be counted as more clearly out of the common? a movement first of poetry, then of sentimentality, and land hunger, had struggled with, and as the nation passed into the second period of all revolutions, had given way before a movement of abstraction and hatred; and after some twenty years of the second period, though abstraction and hatred have won their victory, there is no clear sign, of a third, a _tertium quid_, and a reasonable frame of mind. seeing that only the individual soul can attain to its spiritual opposite, a nation in tumult must needs pass to and fro between mechanical opposites, but one hopes always that those opposites may acquire sex and engender. at moments when i have thought of the results of political subjection upon ireland i have remembered a story told me by oscar wilde who professed to have found it in a book of magic, "if you carve a cerberus upon an emerald," he said, "and put it in the oil of a lamp and carry it into a room where your enemy is, two heads will come upon his shoulders and devour one another." instead of sharing our traditional sentimental rhetoric with every man who had found a practical grievance, whether one care a button for the grievance or not, most of us were prosecuting heretics. nationality was like religion, few could be saved, and meditation had but one theme--the perfect nation and its perfect service. "public opinion," said an anonymous postcard sent to a friend of mine, "will compel you to learn irish," and it certainly did compel many persons of settled habits to change tailor and cloth. i believed myself dressed according to public opinion, until a letter of apology from my tailor informed me that "it takes such a long time getting connemara cloth as it has to come all the way from scotland." the ireland of men's affections must be, as it were, self-moving, self-creating, though as yet (avoiding a conclusion that seemed hopeless) but few added altogether separate from england politically. men for the moment were less concerned with the final achievement than with independence from english parties and influence during the struggle for it. we had no longer any leaders, abstractions were in their place; and our conventions, where o'leary presided interrupting discussion without the least consideration for rules of procedure when the moment came for his cup of coffee, were dominated by little groups, the gaelic propagandists, though still very few, being the most impassioned, which had the intensity and narrowness of theological sects. i had in my head a project to reconcile old and new that gave maud gonne and myself many stirring conversations upon journeys by rail to meetings in scotland, in dublin, or in the midlands. should we not persuade the organizations in dublin and in london, when the time drew near for the unveiling of our statue, or even perhaps for the laying of its foundation stone, to invite the leaders of parnellite or anti-parnellite, of the new group of unionists who had almost changed sides in their indignation at the over-taxation of ireland, to lay their policy before our convention--could we not then propose and carry that the convention sit permanently, or appoint some executive committee to direct irish policy and report from time to time. the total withdrawal from westminster had been proposed in the 'seventies, before the two devouring heads were of equal strength, and now that the abstract head seemed the strongest, would be proposed again, but the convention could send them thither, not as an independent power, but as its delegation, and only when, and for what purpose the convention might decide. i dreaded some wild fenian movement, and with literature perhaps more in my mind than politics, dreamed of that unity of culture which might begin with some few men controlling some form of administration. i began to talk my project over with various organizers, who often interrupted their attention which was perhaps only politeness, with some new jibe at mr. dillon or mr. redmond. i thought i had maud gonne's support, but when i overheard her conversation, she commonly urged the entire withdrawal of the irish members, or if she did refer to my scheme, it was to suggest the sending to england of eighty ragged and drunken dublin beggars or eighty pugilists "to be paid by results." she was the first who spoke publicly or semi-publicly of the withdrawal of the irish members as a practical policy for our time, so far as i know, but others may have been considering it. a nation in crisis becomes almost like a single mind, or rather like those minds i have described that become channels for parallel streams of thought, each stream taking the colour of the mind it flows through. these streams are not set moving, as i think, through conversation or publication, but through "telepathic contact" at some depth below that of normal consciousness, and it is only years afterwards, when future events have shown the themes' importance, that we discover that they are different expressions of a common theme. that self-moving, self-creating nation necessitated an irish centre of policy, and i planned a premature impossible peace between those two devouring heads because i was sedentary and thoughtful; but maud gonne was not sedentary, and i noticed that before some great event she did not think but became exceedingly superstitous. are not such as she aware, at moments of great crisis, of some power beyond their own minds; or are they like some good portrait painter of my father's generation and only think when the model is under their eye? once upon the eve of some demonstration, i found her with many caged larks and finches which she was about to set free for the luck's sake. i abandoned my plans on discovering that our young men, not yet educated by mr. birrell's university, would certainly shout down everyone they disagreed with, and that their finance was so extravagant that we must content ourselves with a foundation stone and an iron rail to protect it, for there could never be a statue; while she carried out every plan she made. her power over crowds was at its height, and some portion of the power came because she could still, even when pushing an abstract principle to what seemed to me an absurdity, keep her own mind free, and so when men and women did her bidding they did it not only because she was beautiful, but because that beauty suggested joy and freedom. besides there was an element in her beauty that moved minds full of old gaelic stories and poems, for she looked as though she lived in an ancient civilization where all superiorities whether of the mind or the body were a part of public ceremonial, were in some way the crowd's creation, as the pope entering the vatican is the crowd's creation. her beauty, backed by her great stature, could instantly affect an assembly, and not as often with our stage beauties because obvious and florid, for it was incredibly distinguished, and if--as must be that it might seem that assembly's very self, fused, unified, and solitary--her face, like the face of some greek statue, showed little thought, her whole body seemed a master work of long labouring thought, as though a scopas had measured and calculated, consorted with egyptian sages, and mathematicians out of babylon, that he might outface even artemisia's sepulchral image with a living norm. but in that ancient civilization abstract thought scarce existed, while she but rose partially and for a moment out of raging abstraction; and for that reason, as i have known another woman do, she hated her own beauty, not its effect upon others, but its image in the mirror. beauty is from the antithetical self, and a woman can scarce but hate it, for not only does it demand a painful daily service, but it calls for the denial or the dissolution of the self. "how many centuries spent the sedentary soul, in toil of measurement beyond eagle or mole beyond hearing and seeing or archimedes' guess, to raise into being that loveliness?" v on the morning of the great procession, the greatest in living memory, the parnellite and anti-parnellite members of parliament, huddled together like cows in a storm, gather behind our carriage, and i hear john redmond say to certain of his late enemies, "i went up nearer the head of the procession, but one of the marshals said, 'this is not your place, mr redmond; your place is further back.' 'no,' i said, 'i will stay here.' 'in that case,' he said, 'i will lead you back.'" later on i can see by the pushing and shouldering of a delegate from south africa how important place and procedure is; and noticing that maud gonne is cheered everywhere, and that the irish members march through street after street without welcome, i wonder if their enemies have not intended their humiliation. * * * * * we are at the mansion house banquet, and john dillon is making the first speech he has made before a popular dublin audience since the death of parnell; and i have several times to keep my london delegates from interrupting. dillon is very nervous, and as i watch him the abstract passion begins to rise within me, and i am almost overpowered by an instinct of cruelty; i long to cry out, "had zimri peace who slew his master?" * * * * * is our foundation stone still unlaid when the more important streets are decorated for queen victoria's jubilee? i find maud gonne at her hotel talking to a young working-man who looks very melancholy. she had offered to speak at one of the regular meetings of his socialist society about queen victoria, and he has summoned what will be a great meeting in the open air. she has refused to speak, and he says that her refusal means his ruin, as nobody will ever believe that he had any promise at all. when he has left without complaint or anger, she gives me very cogent reasons against the open air meeting, but i can think of nothing but the young man and his look of melancholy. he has left his address, and presently at my persuasion, she drives to his tenement, where she finds him and his wife and children crowded into a very small space--perhaps there was only one room--and, moved by the sight, promises to speak. the young man is james connolly who, with padraic pearce, is to make the insurrection of 1916 and to be executed. * * * * * the meeting is held in college green and is very crowded, and maud gonne speaks, i think, standing upon a chair. in front of her is an old woman with a miniature of lord edward fitzgerald, which she waves in her excitement, crying out, "i was in it before she was born." maud gonne tells how that morning she had gone to lay a wreath upon a martyr's tomb at st. michael's church, for it is the one day in the year when such wreaths are laid, but has been refused admission because it is the jubilee. then she pauses, and after that her voice rises to a cry, "must the graves of our dead go undecorated because victoria has her jubilee?" * * * * * it is eight or nine at night, and she and i have come from the city hall, where the convention has been sitting, that we may walk to the national club in rutland square, and we find a great crowd in the street, who surround us and accompany us. presently i hear a sound of breaking glass, the crowd has begun to stone the windows of decorated houses, and when i try to speak that i may restore order, i discover that i have lost my voice through much speaking at the convention. i can only whisper and gesticulate, and as i am thus freed from responsibility, i share the emotion of the crowd, and perhaps even feel as they feel when the glass crashes. maud gonne has a look of exultation as she walks with her laughing head thrown back. later that night connolly carries in procession a coffin with the words "british empire" upon it, and police and mob fight for its ownership, and at last that the police may not capture, it is thrown into the liffey. and there are fights between police and window-breakers, and i read in the morning papers that many have been wounded; some two hundred heads have been dressed at the hospitals; an old woman killed by baton blows, or perhaps trampled under the feet of the crowd; and that two thousand pounds worth of decorated plate glass windows have been broken. i count the links in the chain of responsibility, run them across my fingers, and wonder if any link there is from my workshop. * * * * * queen victoria visits the city, and dublin unionists have gathered together from all ireland some twelve thousand children and built for them a grandstand, and bought them sweets and buns that they may cheer. a week later maud gonne marches forty thousand children through the streets of dublin, and in a field beyond drumcondra, and in the presence of a priest of their church, they swear to cherish towards england until the freedom of ireland has been won, an undying enmity. how many of these children will carry bomb or rifle when a little under or a little over thirty? * * * * * feeling is still running high between the dublin and london organizations, for a london doctor, my fellow-delegate, has called a little after breakfast to say he was condemned to death by a certain secret society the night before. he is very angry, though it does not seem that his life is in danger, for the insult is beyond endurance. * * * * * we arrive at chancery lane for our committee meeting, but it is derby day, and certain men who have arranged a boxing match are in possession of our rooms. we adjourn to a neighbouring public-house where there are little pannelled cubicles as in an old-fashioned eating house, that we may direct the secretary how to answer that week's letters. we are much interrupted by a committee man who has been to the derby, and now, half lying on the table, keeps repeating, "i know what you all think. let us hand on the torch, you think, let us hand it on to our children, but i say no! i say, let us order an immediate rising." presently one of the boxers arrives, sent up to apologise it seems, and to explain that we had not been recognized. he begins his apology but stops, and for a moment fixes upon us a meditative critical eye. "no, i will not," he cries. "what do i care for anyone now but venus and adonis and the other planets of heaven." * * * * * french sympathisers have been brought to see the old buildings in galway, and with the towns of southern france in their mind's eye, are not in the least moved. the greater number are in a small crowded hotel. presently an acquaintance of mine, peeping, while it is still broad day, from his bedroom window, sees the proprietress of the hotel near the hall door, and in the road a serious-minded, quixotic dublin barrister, with a little boy who carries from a stick over his shoulder twelve chamber pots. he hears one angry, and one soft pleading explanatory voice, "but, madam, i feel certain that at the unexpected arrival of so many guests, so many guests of the nation, i may say, you must have found yourself unprepared." "never have i been so insulted." "madam, i am thinking of the honour of my country." * * * * * i am at maud gonne's hotel, and an italian sympathiser cipriani, the friend of garibaldi, is there, and though an old man now, he is the handsomest man i have ever seen. i am telling a ghost story in english at one end of the room, and he is talking politics in french at the other. somebody says, "yeats believes in ghosts," and cipriani interrupts for a moment his impassioned declamation to say in english, and with a magnificent movement and intonation, "as for me, i believe in nothing but cannon." * * * * * i call at the office of the dublin organization in westmoreland street, and find the front door open, and the office door open, and though the office is empty the cupboard door open and eighteen pounds in gold upon the shelf. * * * * * at a london committee meeting i notice a middle-aged man who slips into the room for a moment, whispers something to the secretary, lays three or four shillings on a table, and slips out. i am told that he is an irish board-school teacher who, in early life, took an oath neither to drink nor smoke, but to contribute the amount so saved weekly to the irish cause. * * * * * vi a few months before i was drawn into politics, i made a friendship that was to make possible that old project of an irish theatre. arthur symons and i were staying at tillyra castle in county galway with mr. edward martyn, when lady gregory, whom i had met once in london for a few minutes drove over, and after symon's return to london i stayed at her house, which is some four miles from tillyra. i was in poor health, the strain of youth had been greater than it commonly is, even with imaginative men, who must always, i think, find youth bitter, and i had lost myself besides as i had done periodically for years, upon _hodos camelionis_. the first time was in my eighteenth or nineteenth years, when i tried to create a more multitudinous dramatic form, and now i had got there through a novel that i could neither write nor cease to write which had _hodos camelionis_ for its theme. my chief person was to see all the modern visionary sects pass before his bewildered eyes, as flaubert's st. anthony saw the christian sects, and i was as helpless to create artistic, as my chief person to create philosophic order. it was not that i do not love order, or that i lack capacity for it, but that--and not in the arts and in thought only--i outrun my strength. it is not so much that i choose too many elements, as that the possible unities themselves seem without number, like those angels, that in henry more's paraphrase of the schoolman's problem, dance spurred and booted upon the point of a needle. perhaps fifty years ago i had been in less trouble, but what can one do when the age itself has come to _hodos camelionis_? lady gregory seeing that i was ill brought me from cottage to cottage to gather folk-belief, tales of the fairies, and the like, and wrote down herself what we had gathered, considering that this work, in which one let others talk, and walked about the fields so much, would lie, to use a country phrase, "very light upon the mind." she asked me to return there the next year, and for years to come i was to spend my summers at her house. when i was in good health again, i found myself indolent, partly perhaps because i was affrighted by that impossible novel, and asked her to send me to my work every day at eleven, and at some other hour to my letters, rating me with idleness if need be, and i doubt if i should have done much with my life but for her firmness and her care. after a time, though not very quickly, i recovered tolerable industry, though it has only been of late years that i have found it possible to face an hour's verse without a preliminary struggle and much putting off. certain woods at sligo, the woods above dooney rock and those above the waterfall at ben bulben, though i shall never perhaps walk there again, are so deep in my affections that i dream about them at night; and yet the woods at coole, though they do not come into my dream are so much more knitted to my thought, that when i am dead they will have, i am persuaded, my longest visit. when we are dead, according to my belief, we live our lives backward for a certain number of years, treading the paths that we have trodden, growing young again, even childish again, till some attain an innocence that is no longer a mere accident of nature, but the human intellect's crowning achievement. it was at coole that the first few simple thoughts that now, grown complex, through their contact with other thoughts, explain the world, came to me from beyond my own mind. i practised meditations, and these, as i think, so affected my sleep that i began to have dreams that differed from ordinary dreams in seeming to take place amid brilliant light, and by their invariable coherence, and certain half-dreams, if i can call them so, between sleep and waking. i have noticed that such experiences come to me most often amid distraction, at some time that seems of all times the least fitting, as though it were necessary for the exterior mind to be engaged elsewhere, and it was during 1897 and 1898, when i was always just arriving from or just setting out to some political meeting, that the first dreams came. i was crossing a little stream near inchy wood and actually in the middle of a stride from bank to bank, when an emotion never experienced before swept down upon me. i said, "that is what the devout christian feels, that is how he surrenders his will to the will of god." i felt an extreme surprise for my whole imagination was preoccupied with the pagan mythology of ancient ireland, i was marking in red ink upon a large map, every sacred mountain. the next morning i awoke near dawn, to hear a voice saying, "the love of god is infinite for every human soul because every human soul is unique, no other can satisfy the same need in god." lady gregory and i had heard many tales of changelings, grown men and women as well as children, who as the people believe are taken by the fairies, some spirit or inanimate object bewitched into their likeness remaining in their stead, and i constantly asked myself what reality there could be in these tales, often supported by so much testimony. i woke one night to find myself lying upon my back with all my limbs rigid, and to hear a ceremonial measured voice which did not seem to be mine speaking through my lips, "we make an image of him who sleeps," it said, "and it is not him who sleeps, and we call it emmanuel." after many years that thought, others often found as strangely being added to it, became the thought of the mask, which i have used in these memoirs to explain men's characters. a few months ago at oxford i was asking myself why it should be "an image of him who sleeps," and took down from the shelf not knowing why i was doing so, a book which i had never read, burkitt's _early eastern christianity_, and opened it at random. my eyes lit upon a passage from a gnostic hymn telling how a certain king's son being exiled, slept in egypt, a symbol of the natural state, and while he slept an angel brought him a royal mantle; and at the bottom of the page i found a footnote saying that the word mantle did not represent the meaning properly for that which the angel gave had the exile's own form and likeness. i did not, however, find in the gnostic hymn my other thought that egypt and that which the mask represents are antithetical. that, i think, became clear, though i had had some premonitions when a countryman told lady gregory and myself that he had heard the crying of new-dropped lambs in november--spring in the world of fairy, being november with us. * * * * * on the sea coast at duras, a few miles from coole, an old french count, florimond de bastero, lived for certain months in every year. lady gregory and i talked over my project of an irish theatre looking out upon the lawn of his house, watching a large flock of ducks that was always gathered for his arrival from paris, and that would be a very small flock, if indeed it were a flock at all, when he set out for rome in the autumn. i told her that i had given up my project because it was impossible to get the few pounds necessary for a start in little halls, and she promised to collect or give the money necessary. that was her first great service to the irish intellectual movement. she reminded me the other day that when she first asked me what she could do to help our movement i suggested nothing; and, certainly, no more foresaw her genius that i foresaw that of john synge, nor had she herself foreseen it. our theatre had been established before she wrote or had any ambition to write, and yet her little comedies have merriment and beauty, an unusual combination, and those two volumes where the irish heroic tales are arranged and translated in an english so simple and so noble, may do more than other books to deepen irish imagination. they contain our ancient literature, are something better than our _mabinogion_, are almost our _morte d'arthur_. it is more fitting, however, that in a book of memoirs i should speak of her personal influence, and especially as no witness is likely to arise better qualified to speak. if that influence were lacking, ireland would be greatly impoverished, so much has been planned out in the library, or among the woods at coole; for it was there that john shawe taylor found the independence from class and family that made him summon the conference between landlord and tenant, that brought land purchase, and it was there that hugh lane formed those irish ambitions that led to his scattering many thousands, and gathering much ingratitude; and where, but for that conversation at florimond de bastero's, had been the genius of synge? i have written these words instead of leaving all to posterity, and though my friend's ear seems indifferent to praise or blame, that young men to whom recent events are often more obscure than those long past, may learn what debts they owe and to what creditor. end. printed in great britain by the dunedin press limited, edinburgh transcriber's notes: passages in italics are indicated by _italics_. periods after "mr" and "mrs" are used inconsistently in the original. the following misprints have been corrected: "philospohy" corrected to "philosophy" (page 51) "unkown" corrected to "unknown" (page 87) "have have" corrected to "have" (page 92) "comparson" corrected to "comparison" (page 117) "politicion" corrected to "politician" (page 128) "spendid" corrected to "splendid" (page 137) "mother'" corrected to "mother's" (page 151) "discoverey" corrected to "discovery" (page 161) "shakesspeare's" corrected to "shakespeare's" (page 169) "knowlege" corrected to "knowledge" (page 183) "mechnical" corrected to "mechanical" (page 230) "delgation" corrected to "delegation" (page 234) "precedure" corrected to "procedure" (page 237) other than the corrections listed above, inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from the original. 