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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

Год написания книги
2017
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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 from tears,
Who flattered Edain’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
After the fall of twilight on May Eve.

[MAIRE BRUIN goes over to the window and takes flowers from the bowl and strews them outside the door.

FATHER HART

You do well, daughter, because God permits
Great power to the good people on May Eve.

SHAWN 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 [in a dreamy voice]

I had no sooner flung them by the door
Than the wind cried and hurried them away;
And then a child came running in the wind
And caught them in her hands and fondled them:
Her dress was green: her hair was of red gold;
Her face was pale as water before dawn.

FATHER HART

Whose child can this be?

MAURTEEN BRUIN

No one’s child at all.
She often dreams that someone has gone by
When there was nothing but a puff of wind.

MAIRE BRUIN

They will not bring good luck into the house,
For they have blown the primroses away;
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.

MAIRE BRUIN

He will smile,
Father, perhaps, and open His great door,
And call the pretty and kind into His house.

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,
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