Part 1 (1/2)
Responsibilities.
by William Butler Yeats.
_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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sion'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 Ches.h.i.+re Cheese,_ _Here's an old story I've re-made,_ _Imagining 'twould better please_ _Your ears than stories now in fas.h.i.+on,_ _Though you may think I waste my breath_ _Pretending that there can be pa.s.sion_ _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 G.o.ds 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 pa.s.sion 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 pus.h.i.+ng it into my s.h.i.+rt, 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 pa.s.ses, Why are the G.o.ds by men betrayed!'
But thereon every G.o.d 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 G.o.ds 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 pa.s.sed, 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, b.u.t.ted 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sion 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.