The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats. Volume 4 of 8. The Hour-glass. Cathleen ni Houlihan. The Golden Helmet. The Irish Dramatic Movement. Yeats William Butler
for a neckcloth,
And a white cloth on his head, —
What is that you are singing, ma’am?
Singing I am about a man I knew one time, yellow-haired Donough that was hanged in Galway.
I am come to cry with you, woman,
My hair is unwound and unbound;
I remember him ploughing his field,
Turning up the red side of the ground,
And building his barn on the hill
With the good mortared stone;
O! we’d have pulled down the gallows
Had it happened in Enniscrone!
What was it brought him to his death?
He died for love of me: many a man has died for love of me.
Her trouble has put her wits astray.
Is it long since that song was made? Is it long since he got his death?
Not long, not long. But there were others that died for love of me a long time ago.
Were they neighbours of your own, ma’am?
Come here beside me and I’ll tell you about them. [MICHAEL sits down beside her at the hearth.] There was a red man of the O’Donnells from the north, and a man of the O’Sullivans from the south, and there was one Brian that lost his life at Clontarf by the sea, and there were a great many in the west, some that died hundreds of years ago, and there are some that will die to-morrow.
Is it in the west that men will die to-morrow?
Come nearer, nearer to me.
Is she right, do you think? Or is she a woman from beyond the world?
She doesn’t know well what she’s talking about, with the want and the trouble she has gone through.
The poor thing, we should treat her well.
Give her a drink of milk and a bit of the oaten cake.
Maybe we should give her something along with that, to bring her on her way. A few pence or a shilling itself, and we with so much money in the house.
Indeed I’d not begrudge it to her if we had it to spare, but if we go running through what we have, we’ll soon have to break the hundred pounds, and that would be a pity.
Shame on you, Peter. Give her the shilling and your blessing with it, or our own luck will go from us.
Will you have a drink of milk, ma’am?
It is not food or drink that I want.
Here is something for you.
This is not what I want. It is not silver I want.
What is it you would be asking for?
If anyone would give me help he must give me himself, he must give me all.
[PETER goes over to the table staring at the shilling in his hand in a bewildered way, and stands whispering to BRIDGET.
Have you no one to care you in your age, ma’am?
I have not. With all the lovers that brought me their love, I never set out the bed for any.
Are you lonely going the roads, ma’am?
I have my thoughts and I have my hopes.
What hopes have you to hold to?
The hope of getting my beautiful fields back again; the hope of putting the strangers out of my house.
What way will you do that, ma’am?
I have good friends that will help me. They are gathering to help me now. I am not afraid. If they are put down to-day they will get the upper hand to-morrow. [She gets up.] I must be going to meet my friends. They are coming to help me and I must be there to welcome them. I must call the neighbours together to welcome them.
I will go with you.
It is not her friends you have to go and welcome, Michael; it is the girl coming into the house you have to welcome. You have plenty to do, it is food and drink you have to bring to the house. The woman that is coming home is not coming with empty hands; you would not have an empty house before her. [To the OLD WOMAN.] Maybe you don’t know, ma’am, that my son is going to be married to-morrow.
It is not a man going to his marriage that I look to for help.
Who is she, do you think, at all?
You did not tell us your name yet, ma’am.
Some call me the Poor Old Woman, and there are some that call me Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan.
I think I knew someone of that name once. Who was it, I wonder? It must have been someone I knew when I was a boy. No, no; I remember, I heard it in a song.
They are wondering that there were songs made for me; there have been many songs made for me. I heard one on the wind this morning.
[Sings.] Do not make a great keening
When the graves have been dug to-morrow.
Do not call the white-scarfed riders
To the burying that shall be to-morrow.
Do not spread food to call strangers
To the wakes that shall be to-morrow;
Do not give money for prayers
For the dead that shall die to-morrow.
they will have no need of prayers, they will have no need of prayers.
I do not know what that song means, but tell me something I can do for you.
Come over to me, Michael.
Hush, father, listen to her.
It is a hard service they take that help me. Many that are red-cheeked now will be pale-cheeked; many that have been free to walk the hills and the bogs and the rushes, will be sent to walk hard streets in far countries; many a good plan will be broken; many that have gathered money will not stay to spend it; many a child will be born and there will be no father at its christening to give it a name. They that had red cheeks will have pale cheeks for my sake; and for all that, they will think they are well paid.
They shall be remembered for ever,
They shall be alive for ever,
They shall be speaking for ever,
The people shall hear them for ever.
Look