clothes and turns toward the inner room, but stops at the sound of cheering outside.)
PETER. There is the shouting come to our own door. What is it has happened?
(Neighbors come crowding in, PATRICK and DELIA with them.)
PATRICK. There are ships in the bay; the French are landing at Killala. (PETER takes his pipe from his mouth and his hat off and stands up. The clothes slip from MICHAEL'S arm.)
DELIA. Michael! (He takes no notice.)
Michael! (He turns towards her.) Why do you look at me like a BRIDGET goes over tostranger? (She drops his arm.
PATRICK. The boys are all hurrying down the hillsides to meet the French.
DELIA. Michael won't be going to join the French.
BRIDGET. (To PETER.) Tell him not to go, Peter.
PETER.
It's no use. He doesn't hear a word we're say
BRIDGET. Try, Delia, and coax him over to the fire. DELIA. Michael, Michael, you won't leave me! You won't join the French and we going to be married to-morrow! (She puts her arms about him. He turns to her as if about to yield.)
OLD WOMAN's voice outside—
"They shall be remembered for ever
The people shall hear them for ever."
(MICHAEL breaks away from DELIA and goes out.) BRIDGET (laying her hand on PATRICK'S arm). Did you see an old woman going down the path?
PATRICK. I did not, but I saw a young girl and she had the walk of a queen.
THE OLD AGE OF QUEEN MAEVE.
Maeve, the great queen, was pacing to and fro,
Between the walls covered with beaten bronze
In her high house at Cruachan; the long hearth,
Flickering with ash and hazel, but half showed Where the tired horse-boys lay upon the rushes, Or on the benches underneath the walls,
In comfortable sleep. All living slept;
But that great queen, who more than half the night
Had paced from door to fire, and fire to door.
Though now in her old age, in her young age
She had been beautiful in that old way
That's all but gone, for the proud heart is gone,
And the fool heart of the counting-house fears all
But soft beauty and indolent desire.
She could have called over the rim of the world
Whatever woman's lover had hit her fancy,
And yet had been great bodied and great limbed,
Fashioned to be the mother of strong children,
And she'd had lucky eyes and a high heart,
And wisdom that caught fire like the dried flax,
At need, and made her beautiful and fierce,
Sudden and laughing.
O, unquiet heart,
Why do you praise another, praising her
As if there were no tale but your own tale
Worth knitting to a measure of sweet sound!
Have I not bid you tell of that great queen
Who has been buried some two thousand years?
When night was at its deepest, a wild goose
Cried from the porter's lodge, and with long clamor
Shook the ale-horns and shields upon their hooks,
But the horse-boys slept on, as though some power
Had filled the house with Druid heaviness;
And wondering who of the many-changing Sidhe
Had come, as in old times, to counsel her,
Maeve walked, yet with slow footfall, being old,
To that small chamber by the outer gate.
The porter slept, although he sat upright
With still and stony limbs and open eyes.
Maeve waited, and when that ear-piercing noise
Broke from his parted lips, and broke again,
She laid a hand on either of his shoulders
And shook him wide awake, and bid him say:
Who of the wandering many-changing ones
Had troubled his sleep. But all he had to say
Was that the air, being heavy, and the dogs
More still than they had been for a good month,
He had fallen asleep, and though he had dreamed nothing,
He could remember when he had had fine dreams,
It was before the time of the great war
Over the White-horned Bull, and the Brown Bull.
She turned away; he turned again to sleep,
That no god troubled now, and, wondering
What matters were afoot among the Sidhe,
Maeve walked through that great hall, and with a sigh
Lifted the curtain of her sleeping-room,
Remembering that she, too, had seemed divine
To many thousand eyes, and to her own
One that the generations had long waited
That work too difficult for mortal hands
Might be accomplished. Bunching the curtain up
She saw her husband, Ailell, sleeping there,
And thought of days when he 'd had a straight body,
And of that famous Fergus, Nessa's husband,
Who had been the lover of her middle life.
Suddenly Ailell spoke out of his sleep,
And not with his own voice, or a man's voice,
But with the burning, live, unshaken voice
Of those that it may be shall never fade.
He said, "High queen of Cruachan and Magh Ai,
A king of the Great Plain would speak with you."
And with glad voice Maeve answered him, "What king
Of the far-wandering shadows has come to me,
As in the old days, when they would come and go
About my threshold to counsel and to help?"
The parted lips replied, "I seek your help,
For I am Aengus, and I am crossed in love."
How may a mortal whose life gutters out,
Help them that wander, with hand clasping hand,
By rivers where the rain has never dimmed
Their haughty images that cannot fade,
For all their beauty, like a hollow dream?"
"I come from the undimmed rivers to bid you call
The children of the Maines out of sleep,
And set them digging into Anbual's hill.
We shadows, while they uproot his earthy house,
Will overthrow his shadows, and carry off
Caer, his blue-eyed daughter, that I love.
I helped your fathers when they bulit these walls,
And I would have your help in my great need,
Queen of high Cruachan."
With speedy feet and a most thankful heart,
For you have been, O Aengus of the birds,
Our giver of good counsel and good luck."
And with a groan as if the mortal breath
Could but awaken sadly upon lips
That happier breath had moved, her husband turned
Face downward, tossing in a troubled sleep;
But Maeve, and not with a slow, feeble foot,
Came to the threshold of the painted house,
Where her grandchildren slept, and cried aloud
Until the pillared dark began to stir
With shouting and the clang of unhooked arms.
She told them of the many-changing ones;
And all that night, and all through the next day
To middle night they dug into the hill.
At middle night, great cats with silver claws,
Bodies of shadow, and blind eyes like pearls,
Came up out of the hole, and red-eared hounds
With long white bodies came out of the air
Suddenly, and ran at them and harried them.
The Maines' children dropped their spades and stood
With quaking joints and terror-stricken faces,
Till Maeve called out, "These are but common men,
The Maines' children have not dropped their spades
Because Earth, crazy for its broken power,
Casts up a show, and the winds answer it
With holy shadows." Her high heart was glad,
And when the uproar ran along the grass,
She followed with light footfall in the midst,
Till it died out where an old thorn tree stood.
Friend of these many years, you too have stood
With equal courage in that whirling rout,
For you, although you have not her wandering heart
Have all that greatness, and not hers alone,
For there is no high story about queens
In any ancient book but tells of you,
And when I've heard how they grew old and died,
Or fell into unhappiness, I've said,
"She will grow old and die, and she has wept,"
And when I'd write it out anew, the words
Half crazy with the thought, " she too has wept,"
Outrun the measure.
I'd tell of that great queen, Who stood amid a silence by the thorn
Until two lovers came out of the air
With bodies made out of soft fire. The one
About whose face birds wagged their fiery wings
Said, "Aengus and his sweetheart give their thanks
To Maeve and to Maeve's household, owing all
In owing them the bride-bed that gives peace."
Then Maeve, "O, Aengus, master of all lovers,
A thousand years ago you held high talk
With the first kings of many pillared Cruachan,
O, when will you grow weary?
They had vanished, But out of the dark air over her head there came A murmur of soft words and meeting lips.
O'Driscoll drove with a song
The wild duck and the drake
From the tall and the tufted reeds
Of the drear Hart Lake.
And he saw how the reeds grew dark
At the coming of night tide,
And dreamed of the long dim hair
Of Bridget his bride.
He heard, while he sang and dreamed,
A piper piping away,
And never was piping so sad,
And never was piping so gay.
And he saw young men and young girls
Who danced on a level place,
And Bridget his bride among them
With a sad and a gay face.
The dancers crowded about him
And many a sweet thing said,
And a young man brought him red wine
And a young girl white bread.
But Bridget drew him by the sleeve
Away from the merry bands,
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