The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats. Volume 2 of 8

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William Butler Yeats

Жанр

Зарубежная классика

Год написания книги

2017

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Our love shall be like theirs
When we have put their changeless image on.

DECTORA

I am a woman, I die at every breath.

AIBRIC

Let the birds scatter for the tree is broken.
And there’s no help in words. [To the SAILORS.] To the other ship,
And I will follow you and cut the rope
When I have said farewell to this man here,
For neither I nor any living man
Will look upon his face again.

[The SAILORS go out.

FORGAEL [to DECTORA]

Go with him,
For he will shelter you and bring you home.

AIBRIC

[Taking FORGAEL’S hand.]

I’ll do it for his sake.

DECTORA

No. Take this sword
And cut the rope, for I go on with Forgael.

AIBRIC

[Half-falling into the keen.]

The yew bough has been broken into two,
And all the birds are scattered – O! O! O!
Farewell! farewell!

[He goes out.

DECTORA

The sword is in the rope —
The rope’s in two – it falls into the sea,
It whirls into the foam. O ancient worm,
Dragon that loved the world and held us to it,
You are broken, you are broken. The world drifts away,
And I am left alone with my beloved,
Who cannot put me from his sight for ever.
We are alone for ever, and I laugh,
Forgael, because you cannot put me from you.
The mist has covered the heavens, and you and I
Shall be alone for ever. We two – this crown —
I half remember. It has been in my dreams.
Bend lower, O king, that I may crown you with it.
O flower of the branch, O bird among the leaves,
O silver fish that my two hands have taken
Out of the running stream, O morning star,
Trembling in the blue heavens like a white fawn
Upon the misty border of the wood,
Bend lower, that I may cover you with my hair,
For we will gaze upon this world no longer.

[The scene darkens, and the harp once more begins to burn as with a faint fire. FORGAEL is kneeling at DECTORA’S feet

FORGAEL

[Gathering DECTORA’S hair about him.]

Beloved, having dragged the net about us,
And knitted mesh to mesh, we grow immortal;
And that old harp awakens of itself
To cry aloud to the grey birds, and dreams,
That have had dreams for father, live in us.

APPENDIX I

ACTING VERSION OF THE SHADOWY WATERS

FORGAEL

AIBRIC

SAILORS

DECTORA

The scene is the same as in the text except that the sail is dull copper colour. The poop rises several feet above the stage, and from the overhanging stern hangs a lanthorn with a greenish light. The sea or sky is represented by a semi-circular cloth of which nothing can be seen except a dark abyss, for the stage is lighted by arc-lights so placed upon a bridge over the proscenium as to throw a perpendicular light upon the stage. The light is dim, and there are deep shadows which waver as if with the passage of clouds over the moon. The persons are dressed in blue and green, and move but little. Some sailors are discovered crouching by the sail. Forgael is asleep and Aibric standing by the tiller on the raised poop.

First Sailor. It is long enough, and too long, Forgael has been bringing us through the waste places of the great sea.

Second Sailor. We did not meet with a ship to make a prey of these eight weeks, or any shore or island to plunder or to harry. It is a hard thing, age to be coming on me, and I not to get the chance of doing a robbery that would enable me to live quiet and honest to the end of my lifetime.

First Sailor. We are out since the new moon. What is worse again, it is the way we are in a ship, the barrels empty and my throat shrivelled with drought, and nothing to quench it but water only.