The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats. Volume 3 of 8. The Countess Cathleen. The Land of Heart's Desire. The Unicorn from the Stars

BRIDGET BRUINShe is the child of gentle people; lookAt her white hands and at her pretty dress.I have 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 usWould never please a high-born child like you.THE CHILDOld mother, my old mother, the green dawnBrightens 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 BRUINThe young are idle.THE CHILDOld father, you are wise,And all the years have gathered in your heartTo 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 BRUINO, who would think to find so young a childLoving old age and wisdom?

[BRIDGET gives her more bread and honey.

THE CHILDNo more, mother.MAURTEEN BRUINWhat a small bite! The milk is ready now;What a small sip!THE CHILDPut on my shoes, old mother,For I would like to dance now I have eaten.The reeds are dancing by Coolaney lake,And I would like to dance until the reedsAnd the white waves 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 HARTYou cannot know how naughty your words are!That is our Blessed Lord!THE CHILDHide it away!BRIDGET BRUINI have begun to be afraid, again!THE CHILDHide it away!MAURTEEN BRUINThat would be wickedness!BRIDGET BRUINThat would be sacrilege!THE CHILDThe tortured thing!Hide it away!MAURTEEN BRUINHer parents are to blame.FATHER HARTThat is the image of the Son of God.

[THE CHILD puts her arm round his neck and kisses him.

THE CHILDHide it away! Hide it away!MAURTEEN BRUINNo! no!FATHER HARTBecause you are so young and little a childI will go take it down.THE CHILDHide it away,And cover it out of sight and out of mind.

[FATHER HART takes it down and carries it towards the inner room.

FATHER HARTSince 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 CalvaryTrouble the morning stars in their first song.[Puts the crucifix in the inner room.THE CHILDHere is level ground for dancing. I will dance.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 heardOther small steps beating upon the floor,And a faint music blowing in the wind,Invisible pipes giving her feet the time.SHAWN BRUINI heard no step but hers.MAIRE BRUINLook to the bolt!Because the unholy powers are abroad.MAURTEEN BRUIN [to THE CHILD]Come over here, and if you promise meNot to talk wickedly of holy thingsI will give you something.THE CHILDBring it me, old father![MAURTEEN BRUIN goes into the next room.FATHER HARTI 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 BRUINIt will buy lots of toys; see how it glitters!THE CHILDCome, tell me, do you love me?MAURTEEN BRUINI love you!THE CHILDAh, but you love this fireside!FATHER HARTI love you.THE CHILDBut you love Him above.BRIDGET BRUINShe is blaspheming.THE CHILD [to MAIRE]And do you love me?MAIRE BRUINI – I do not know.THE CHILDYou 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 BRUINQueen of the Angels and kind Saints, defend us!Some dreadful fate has fallen: a while agoThe wind cried out and took the primroses,And she ran by me laughing in the wind,And I gave milk and fire, and she came inAnd made you hide the blessed crucifix.FATHER HARTYou fear because of her wild, pretty prattle;She knows no better.[To THE CHILD] Child, how old are you?THE CHILDWhen winter sleep is abroad my hair grows thin,My feet unsteady. When the leaves awakenMy mother carries me in her golden arms.I’ll soon put on my womanhood and marryThe spirits of wood and water, but who can tellWhen I was born for the first time? I thinkI am much older than the eagle cockThat blinks and blinks on Ballygawley Hill,And he is the oldest thing under the moon.FATHER HARTShe is of the faery people.THE CHILDI am Brig’s daughter.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 in a stupor 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 HARTI 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 tearsCan cross these little cressets of the wood.FATHER HARTBe 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 CHILDYou shall go with me, newly-married bride,And gaze upon a merrier multitude;White-armed Nuala and Aengus of the birds,And Feacra of the hurtling foam, and himWho 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 HARTDaughter, I call you unto home and love!THE CHILDStay, 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 HARTDaughter, I point you out the way to heaven.THE CHILDBut 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 lightsWe follow singing, over valley and hill.FATHER HARTBy the dear name of the One crucified,I bid you, Maire Bruin, come to me.THE CHILDI 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 menAnd own all lands; last night they merrily dancedAbout his chapel belfry! [To MAIRE] Come away,I hear my brethren bidding us away!FATHER HARTI will go fetch the crucifix again.

[They hang about him in terror and prevent him from moving.

BRIDGET BRUINThe enchanted flowers will kill us if you go.MAURTEEN BRUINThey turn the flowers to little twisted flames.SHAWN BRUINThe little twisted flames burn up the heart.THE CHILDI hear them crying, ‘Newly-married bride,Come to the woods and waters and pale lights.’MAIRE BRUINI will go with you.FATHER HARTShe is lost, alas!THE CHILD [standing by the door]Then, follow: but the heavy body of clayAnd clinging mortal hope must fall from you,For we who ride the winds, run on the waves,And dance upon the mountains, are more lightThan dewdrops on the banners of the dawn.MAIRE BRUINThen take my soul.[SHAWN BRUIN goes over to her.SHAWN BRUINBeloved, do not leave me!Remember when I met you by the wellAnd took your hand in mine and spoke of love.MAIRE BRUINDear face! Dear voice!THE CHILDCome, newly-married bride!MAIRE BRUINI always loved her world – and yet – and yet —[Sinks into his arms.THE CHILD [from the door]White bird, white bird, come with me, little bird.MAIRE BRUINShe calls my soul!THE CHILDCome with me, little bird!MAIRE BRUINI can hear songs and dancing!SHAWN BRUINStay with me!MAIRE BRUINI think that I would stay – and yet – and yet —THE CHILDCome, little bird with crest of gold!MAIRE BRUIN [very softly]And yet —THE CHILDCome, little bird with silver feet!

[MAIRE dies, and THE CHILD goes.

SHAWN BRUINShe is dead!BRIDGET BRUINCome from that image there: she is far away:You have thrown your arms about a drift of leavesOr bole of an ash-tree changed into her image.FATHER HARTThus do the spirits of evil snatch their preyAlmost 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 prideComes knocking with thin knuckles on the heart.A VOICE [singing 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 awayWhile 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 singOf 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.’

[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 UNICORN FROM THE STARS

PERSONS IN THE PLAY

THE UNICORN FROM THE STARS

ACT I

Interior of a coachbuilder’s workshop. Parts of a gilded coach, among them an ornament representing a lion and unicorn. THOMAS working at a wheel. FATHER JOHN coming from door of inner room.

FATHER JOHN

I have prayed over Martin. I have prayed a long time, but there is no move in him yet.

THOMAS

You are giving yourself too much trouble, Father. It’s as good for you to leave him alone till the doctor’s bottle will come. If there is any cure at all for what is on him, it is likely the doctor will have it.

FATHER JOHN

I think it is not doctor’s medicine will help him in this case.

THOMAS

It will, it will. The doctor has his business learned well. If Andrew had gone to him the time I bade him and had not turned again to bring yourself to the house, it is likely Martin would be walking at this time. I am loth to trouble you, Father, when the business is not of your own sort. Any doctor at all should be able and well able to cure the falling sickness.

FATHER JOHN

It is not any common sickness that is on him now.

THOMAS

I thought at the first it was gone to sleep he was. But when shaking him and roaring at him failed to rouse him, I knew well it was the falling sickness. Believe me, the doctor will reach it with his drugs.

FATHER JOHN

Nothing but prayer can reach a soul that is so far beyond the world as his soul is at this moment.

THOMAS

You are not saying that the life is gone out of him!

FATHER JOHN

No, no, his life is in no danger. But where he himself, the spirit, the soul, is gone, I cannot say. It has gone beyond our imaginings. He is fallen into a trance.

THOMAS

He used to be queer as a child, going asleep in the fields, and coming back with talk of white horses he saw, and bright people like angels or whatever they were. But I mended that. I taught him to recognise stones beyond angels with a few strokes of a rod. I would never give in to visions or to trances.

FATHER JOHN

We who hold the faith have no right to speak against trance or vision. Saint Elizabeth had them, Saint Benedict, Saint Anthony, Saint Columcille. Saint Catherine of Siena often lay a long time as if dead.

THOMAS

That might be so in the olden time, but those things are gone out of the world now. Those that do their work fair and honest have no occasion to let the mind go rambling. What would send my nephew, Martin Hearne, into a trance, supposing trances to be in it, and he rubbing the gold on the lion and unicorn that he had taken in hand to make a good job of for the top of the coach?

FATHER JOHN [taking up ornament]

It is likely it was that sent him off. The flashing of light upon it would be enough to throw one that had a disposition to it into a trance. There was a very saintly man, though he was not of our church; he wrote a great book called Mysterium Magnum was seven days in a trance. Truth, or whatever truth he found, fell upon him like a bursting shower, and he a poor tradesman at his work. It was a ray of sunlight on a pewter vessel that was the beginning of all. [Goes to the door and looks in.] There is no stir in him yet. It is either the best thing or the worst thing can happen to anyone, that is happening to him now.

THOMAS

And what in the living world can happen to a man that is asleep on his bed?

FATHER JOHN

There are some would answer you that it is to those who are awake that nothing happens, and it is they that know nothing. He is gone where all have gone for supreme truth.

THOMAS[Sitting down again and taking up tools.]

Well, maybe so. But work must go on and coachbuilding must go on, and they will not go on the time there is too much attention given to dreams. A dream is a sort of a shadow, no profit in it to anyone at all. A coach, now, is a real thing and a thing that will last for generations and be made use of to the last, and maybe turn to be a hen-roost at its latter end.

FATHER JOHN

I think Andrew told me it was a dream of Martin’s that led to the making of that coach.

THOMAS

Well, I believe he saw gold in some dream, and it led him to want to make some golden thing, and coaches being the handiest, nothing would do him till he put the most of his fortune into the making of this golden coach. It turned out better than I thought, for some of the lawyers came looking at it at Assize time, and through them it was heard of at Dublin Castle.. and who now has it ordered but the Lord Lieutenant! [FATHER JOHN nods.] Ready it must be and sent off it must be by the end of the month. It is likely King George will be visiting Dublin, and it is he himself will be sitting in it yet.

FATHER JOHN

Martin has been working hard at it, I know.

THOMAS

You never saw a man work the way he did, day and night, near ever since the time six months ago he first came home from France.

FATHER JOHN

I never thought he would be so good at a trade. I thought his mind was only set on books.

THOMAS

He should be thankful to myself for that. Any person I will take in hand, I make a clean job of them the same as I would make of any other thing in my yard – coach, half-coach, hackney-coach, ass-car, common-car, post-chaise, calash, chariot on two wheels, on four wheels. Each one has the shape Thomas Hearne put on it, and it in his hands; and what I can do with wood and iron, why would I not be able to do it with flesh and blood, and it in a way my own?

FATHER JOHN

Indeed, I know you did your best for Martin.

THOMAS

Every best. Checked him, taught him the trade, sent him to the monastery in France for to learn the language and to see the wide world; but who should know that if you did not know it, Father John, and I doing it according to your own advice?

FATHER JOHN

I thought his nature needed spiritual guidance and teaching, the best that could be found.

THOMAS

I thought myself it was best for him to be away for a while. There are too many wild lads about this place. He to have stopped here, he might have taken some fancies, and got into some trouble, going against the Government maybe the same as Johnny Gibbons that is at this time an outlaw, having a price upon his head.

FATHER JOHN

That is so. That imagination of his might have taken fire here at home. It was better putting him with the Brothers, to turn it to imaginings of heaven.

THOMAS

Well, I will soon have a good hardy tradesman made of him now that will live quiet and rear a family, and be maybe appointed coachbuilder to the Royal Family at the last.

FATHER JOHN [at window]

I see your brother Andrew coming back from the doctor; he is stopping to talk with a troop of beggars that are sitting by the side of the road.

THOMAS

There, now, is another that I have shaped. Andrew used to be a bit wild in his talk and in his ways, wanting to go rambling, not content to settle in the place where he was reared. But I kept a guard over him; I watched the time poverty gave him a nip, and then I settled him into the business. He never was so good a worker as Martin, he is too fond of wasting his time talking vanities. But he is middling handy, and he is always steady and civil to customers. I have no complaint worth while to be making this last twenty years against Andrew.

[ANDREW comes in.]ANDREW

Beggars there outside going the road to the Kinvara fair. They were saying there is news that Johnny Gibbons is coming back from France on the quiet; the king’s soldiers are watching the ports for him.

THOMAS

Let you keep now, Andrew, to the business you have in hand. Will the doctor be coming himself or did he send a bottle that will cure Martin?

ANDREW

The doctor can’t come, for he’s down with the lumbago in the back. He questioned me as to what ailed Martin, and he got a book to go looking for a cure, and he began telling me things out of it, but I said I could not be carrying things of that sort in my head. He gave me the book then, and he has marks put in it for the places where the cures are.. wait now… [Reads] ‘Compound medicines are usually taken inwardly, or outwardly applied; inwardly taken, they should be either liquid or solid; outwardly, they should be fomentations or sponges wet in some decoctions.’

THOMAS

He had a right to have written it out himself upon a paper. Where is the use of all that?

ANDREW

I think I moved the mark maybe.. here, now, is the part he was reading to me himself… ‘The remedies for diseases belonging to the skins next the brain, headache, vertigo, cramp, convulsions, palsy, incubus, apoplexy, falling sickness.’

THOMAS

It is what I bid you to tell him that it was the falling sickness.

ANDREW [dropping book]

O, my dear, look at all the marks gone out of it! Wait, now, I partly remember what he said.. a blister he spoke of.. or to be smelling hartshorn.. or the sneezing powder.. or if all fails, to try letting the blood.

FATHER JOHN

All this has nothing to do with the real case. It is all waste of time.

ANDREW

That is what I was thinking myself, Father. Sure it was I was the first to call out to you when I saw you coming down from the hill-side, and to bring you in to see what could you do. I would have more trust in your means than in any doctor’s learning. And in case you might fail to cure him, I have a cure myself I heard from my grandmother – God rest her soul! – and she told me she never knew it to fail. A person to have the falling sickness, to cut the top of his nails and a small share of the hair of his head, and to put it down on the floor, and to take a harry-pin and drive it down with that into the floor and to leave it there. ‘That is the cure will never fail,’ she said, ‘to rise up any person at all having the falling sickness.’

FATHER JOHN [hand on ear]

I will go back to the hill-side, I will go back to the hill-side; but no, no, I must do what I can. I will go again, I will wrestle, I will strive my best to call him back with prayer.

[Goes in and shuts door.ANDREW

It is queer Father John is sometimes, and very queer. There are times when you would say that he believes in nothing at all.

THOMAS

If you wanted a priest, why did you not get our own parish priest that is a sensible man, and a man that you would know what his thoughts are? You know well the bishop should have something against Father John to have left him through the years in that poor mountainy place, minding the few unfortunate people that were left out of the last famine. A man of his learning to be going in rags the way he is, there must be some good cause for that.

ANDREW

I had all that in mind and I bringing him. But I thought he would have done more for Martin than what he is doing. To read a Mass over him I thought he would, and to be convulsed in the reading it, and some strange thing to have gone out with a great noise through the doorway.

THOMAS

It would give no good name to the place such a thing to be happening in it. It is well enough for labouring-men and for half-acre men. It would be no credit at all such a thing to be heard of in this house, that is for coachbuilding the capital of the county.

ANDREW

If it is from the devil this sickness comes, it would be best to put it out whatever way it would be put out. But there might no bad thing be on the lad at all. It is likely he was with wild companions abroad, and that knocking about might have shaken his health. I was that way myself one time.

THOMAS

Father John said that it was some sort of a vision or a trance, but I would give no heed to what he would say. It is his trade to see more than other people would see, the same as I myself might be seeing a split in a leather car hood that no other person would find out at all.

ANDREW

If it is the falling sickness is on him, I have no objection to that – a plain, straight sickness that was cast as a punishment on the unbelieving Jews. It is a thing that might attack one of a family, and one of another family, and not to come upon their kindred at all. A person to have it, all you have to do is not to go between him and the wind, or fire, or water. But I am in dread trance is a thing might run through the house the same as the cholera morbus.

THOMAS

In my belief there is no such thing as a trance. Letting on people do be to make the world wonder the time they think well to rise up. To keep them to their work is best, and not to pay much attention to them at all.

ANDREW

I would not like trances to be coming on myself. I leave it in my will if I die without cause, a holly-stake to be run through my heart the way I will lie easy after burial, and not turn my face downwards in my coffin. I tell you I leave it on you in my will.

THOMAS

Leave thinking of your own comforts, Andrew, and give your mind to the business. Did the smith put the irons yet on to the shafts of this coach?

ANDREW

I will go see did he.

THOMAS

Do so, and see did he make a good job of it. Let the shafts be sound and solid if they are to be studded with gold.

ANDREW

They are, and the steps along with them – glass sides for the people to be looking in at the grandeur of the satin within – the lion and the unicorn crowning all. It was a great thought Martin had the time he thought of making this coach!

THOMAS

It is best for me to go see the smith myself and leave it to no other one. You can be attending to that ass-car out in the yard wants a new tyre in the wheel – out in the rear of the yard it is. [They go to door.] To pay attention to every small thing, and to fill up every minute of time shaping whatever you have to do, that is the way to build up a business.

[They go out.FATHER JOHN [bringing in MARTIN]

They are gone out now – the air is fresher here in the workshop – you can sit here for a while. You are now fully awake, you have been in some sort of a trance or a sleep.

MARTIN

Who was it that pulled at me? Who brought me back?

FATHER JOHN

It is I, Father John, did it. I prayed a long time over you and brought you back.

MARTIN

You, Father John, to be so unkind! O leave me, leave me alone!

FATHER JOHN

You are in your dream still.

MARTIN

It was no dream, it was real. Do you not smell the broken fruit – the grapes? the room is full of the smell.

FATHER JOHN

Tell me what you have seen, where you have been?

MARTIN

There were horses – white horses rushing by, with white shining riders – there was a horse without a rider, and someone caught me up and put me upon him and we rode away, with the wind, like the wind —