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

Автор

William Butler Yeats

Жанр

Зарубежная классика

Год написания книги

2017

<< 1 ... 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 ... 60 >>

На страницу:

Перейти

14 из 60

Настройки чтения

Размер шрифта

Высота строк

Поля

ALEEL

Being silent,
I have said all – farewell, farewell; and yet no,
Give me your hand to kiss.

CATHLEEN

I kiss your brow,
But will not say farewell. I am often weary,
And I would hear the harp-string.

ALEEL

I cannot stay,
For I would hide my sorrow among the hills —
Listen, listen, the hills are calling me.

    [They listen for a moment.

CATHLEEN

I hear the cry of curlew.

ALEEL

Then I will out
Where I can hear wind cry and water cry
And curlew cry: how does the saying go
That calls them the three oldest cries in the world?
Farewell, farewell, I will go wander among them,
Because there is no comfort under a roof-tree.

    [He goes out.

CATHLEEN

[Looking through the door after him.]

I cannot see him. He has come to the great door.
I must go pray. Would that my heart and mind
Were as little shaken as this candle-light.

    [She goes into the chapel. The TWO MERCHANTS enter.

SECOND MERCHANT

Who was the man that came from the great door
While we were still in the shadow?

FIRST MERCHANT

Aleel, her lover.

SECOND MERCHANT

It may be that he has turned her thought from us
And we can gather our merchandise in peace.

FIRST MERCHANT

No, no, for she is kneeling.

SECOND MERCHANT

Shut the door.
Are all our drudges here?

FIRST MERCHANT

[Closing the chapel door.]

I bid them follow.
Can you not hear them breathing upon the stairs?
I have sat this hour under the elder-tree.

SECOND MERCHANT

I had bid you rob her treasury, and yet
I found you sitting drowsed and motionless,
Your chin bowed to your knees, while on all sides,
Bat-like from bough and roof and window-ledge,
Clung evil souls of men, and in the woods,
Like streaming flames, floated upon the winds
The elemental creatures.

FIRST MERCHANT

I have fared ill;
She prayed so hard I could not cross the threshold
Till this young man had turned her prayer to dreams.
You have had a man to kill: how have you fared?

SECOND MERCHANT

I lay in the image of a nine-monthed bonyeen,
By Tubber-vanach cross-roads: Father John
Came, sad and moody, murmuring many prayers;
I seemed as though I came from his own sty;