The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays by Gordon Bottomley et al. (best books to read .TXT) 📕

Bartley will have a fine coffin out of the white boards, and a deep grave surely. What more can we want than that? No man at all can be living for ever, and we must be satisfied.

(She kneels down again, and the curtain falls slowly).

THE LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE[1]

William Butler Yeats

[Footnote 1: Reprinted by arrangement with Mr. Yeats and the
Macmillan Company, New York, publishers of Mr. Yeats's Collected
Works (1912).]

CHARACTERS

MAURTEEN BRUIN
BRIDGET BRUIN, his wife
SHAWN BRUIN, their son
MAIRE BRUIN, wife of Shawn
FATHER HART
A FAERY CHILD

SCENE: In the Barony of Kilmacowan, in the county of Sligo, at a remote time.

SETTING: a room with a hearth on the floor in the middle of a deep alcove on the right. There are benches in the alcove, and a table; a crucifix on the wall. The alcove is full of a glow of light from the fire. There is an open door facing the audience, to the left, and to the left of this a bench. Through the door one can see the forest. It is night, but the moon or a late sunset glimmers through the trees, and carries the eye far off into a vague, mysterious world. MAURTEEN BRUIN, SHAWN BRUIN, and BRIDGET BRUIN sit in the alcove at the table, or about the fire. They are dressed in the costume of some remote time, and near them sits an old priest, FATHER HART, in the garb of a friar. There is food and drink upon the table. MAIRE BRUIN stands by the door, reading a yellow manuscript. If she looks up, she can see through the door into the wood.

                        BRIDGET BRUIN
  Because I bade her go and feed the calves,
  She took that old book down out of the thatch
  And has been doubled over it all day.
  We should be deafened by her groans and moans
  Had she to work as some do, Father Hart,
  Get up at dawn like me, and mend and scour;
  Or ride abroad in the boisterous night like you,
  The pyx and blessed bread under your arm.

                        SHAWN BRUIN
  You are too cross.

                        BRIDGET BRUIN
                        The young side with the young.

                        MAURTEEN BRUIN
  She quarrels with my wife a bit at times,
  And is too deep just now in the old book!
  But do not blame her greatly; she will grow
  As quiet as a puff-ball in a tree
  When but the moons of marriage dawn and die
  For half a score of times.

                        FATHER HART
                                Their hearts are wild
  As be the hearts of birds, till children come.

                        BRIDGET BRUIN
  She would not mind the griddle, milk the cow,
  Or even lay the knives and spread the cloth.

                        FATHER HART
  I never saw her read a book before;
  What may it be?

                        MAURTEEN BRUIN
                      I do not rightly know;
  It has been in the thatch for fifty years.
  My father told me my grandfather wrote it,
  Killed a red heifer and bound it with the hide.
  But draw your chair this way—supper is spread;
  And little good he got out of the book,
  Because it filled his house with roaming bards,
  And roaming ballad-makers and the like,
  And wasted all his goods.—Here is the wine:
  The griddle bread's beside you, Father Hart.
  Colleen, what have you got there in the book
  That you must leave the bread to cool? Had I,
  Or had my father, read or written books
  There were no stocking stuffed with golden guineas
  To come, when I am dead, to Shawn and you.

                        FATHER HART
  You should not fill your head with foolish dreams.
  What are you reading?

                        MARIE BRUIN
                           How a Princess Edane,
  A daughter of a King of Ireland, heard
  A voice singing on a May Eve like this,
  And followed, half awake and half asleep,
  Until she came into the Land of Faëry,
  Where nobody gets old and godly and grave,
  Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise,
  Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue;
  And she is still there, busied with a dance,
  Deep in the dewy shadow of a wood,
  Or where stars walk upon a mountain-top.

                        MAURTEEN BRUIN
  Persuade the colleen to put by the book:
  My grandfather would mutter just such things,
  And he was no judge of a dog or horse,
  And any idle boy could blarney him:
  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 Edane'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.

                        MAURTEEN BRUIN
  That's true—but she's too young to know it's true.

                        BRIDGET BRUIN
  She's old enough to know that it is wrong
  To mope and idle.

                        SHAWN BRUIN
                      I've little blame for her;
  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.

                        MARIE 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.

                        MARIE 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.

                        MARIE 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.)

                        MARIE BRUIN
  A little queer old woman cloaked in green,
  Who came to beg a porringer of milk.

                        BRIDGET BRUIN
  The good people go asking milk and fire
  Upon May Eve—Woe on the house that gives,
  For they have power upon it for a year.
  I knew you would bring evil on the house.

                        MAURTEEN BRUIN
  Who was she?

                        MARIE BRUIN
                Both the tongue and face were strange.

                        MAURTEEN BRUIN
  Some strangers came last week to Clover Hill;
  She must be one of them.

                        BRIDGET BRUIN
                            I am afraid.

                        MAURTEEN BRUIN
  The priest will keep all harm out of the house.

                        FATHER HART
  The cross will keep all harm out of the house
  While it hangs there.

                        MAURTEEN BRUIN
                      Come, sit beside me, colleen,
  And put away your dreams of discontent,
  For I would have you light up my last days
  Like the good glow of the turf, and when I die
  I will make you the wealthiest hereabout:
  For hid away where nobody can find
  I have a stocking full of yellow guineas.

                        BRIDGET BRUIN
  You are the fool of every pretty face,
  And I must pinch and pare that my son's wife
  May have all kinds of ribbons for her head.

                        MAURTEEN BRUIN
  Do not be cross; she is a right good girl!
  The butter is by your elbow, Father Hart.
  My colleen, have not Fate and Time and Change
  Done well for me and for old Bridget there?
  We have a hundred acres of good land,
  And sit beside each other at the fire,
  The wise priest of our parish to our right,
  And you and our dear son to left of us.
  To sit beside the board and drink good wine
  And watch the turf smoke coiling from the fire
  And feel content and wisdom in your heart,
  This is the best of life; when we are young
  We long to tread a way none trod before,
  But find the excellent old way through love
  And through the care of children to the hour
  For bidding Fate and Time and Change good-bye.

    (A knock at the door. MAIRE BRUIN opens it and then
      takes a sod of turf out of the hearth in the tongs and
      goes out through the door. SHAWN follows her and
      meets her coming in.)

                        SHAWN BRUIN
  What is it draws you to the chill o' the wood?
  There is a light among the stems of the trees
  That makes one shiver.

                        MARIE BRUIN
                          A little queer old man
  Made me a sign to show he wanted fire
  To light his pipe.

                        BRIDGET BRUIN
                        You've given milk and fire,
  Upon the unluckiest night of the year, and brought,
  For all you know, evil upon the house.
  Before you married you were idle and fine,
  And went about with ribbons on your head;
  And now—no, father, I will speak my mind,
  She is not a fitting wife for any man—

                        SHAWN BRUIN
  Be quiet, mother!

                        MAURTEEN BRUIN
                          You are much too cross!

                        MARIE BRUIN
  What do I care if I have given this house,
  Where I must hear all day a bitter tongue,
  Into the power of faëries!

                        BRIDGET BRUIN
                            You know well
  How calling the good people by that name
  Or talking of them over much at all
  May bring all kinds of evil on the house.

                        MARIE BRUIN
  Come, faëries, take me out of this dull house!
  Let me have all the freedom I have lost;
  Work when I will and idle when I will!
  Faëries, come take me out of this dull world,
  For I would ride with you upon the wind,
  Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
  And dance upon the mountains like a flame!

                        FATHER HART
  You cannot know the meaning of your words.

                        MARIE BRUIN
  Father, I am right weary of four tongues:
  A tongue that is too crafty and too wise,
  A tongue that is too godly and too grave,
  A tongue that is more bitter than the tide,
  And a kind tongue too full of drowsy love,
  Of drowsy love and my captivity.

    (SHAWN BRUIN comes over to her and leads her to the
      settle.)

                        SHAWN BRUIN
  Do not blame me: I often lie awake
  Thinking that all things trouble your bright head—
  How beautiful it is—such broad pale brows
  Under a cloudy blossoming of hair!
  Sit down beside me here—these are too old,
  And have forgotten they were ever young.

                        MARIE BRUIN
  Oh, you are the great door-post of this house,
  And I, the red nasturtium, climbing up.

    (She takes SHAWN'S hand, but looks shyly at the priest
      and lets it go.)

                        FATHER HART
  Good daughter, take his hand—by love alone
  God binds us to Himself and to the hearth
  And shuts us from the waste beyond His peace,
  From maddening freedom and bewildering light.

                        SHAWN BRUIN
  Would that the world were mine to give it you
  With every quiet hearth and barren waste,
  The maddening freedom of its woods and tides,
  And the bewildering light upon its hills.

                        MARIE BRUIN
  Then I would take and break it in my hands
  To see you smile watching it crumble away.

                        SHAWN BRUIN
  Then I would mould a world of fire and dew
  With no one bitter, grave, or over wise,
  And nothing marred or old to do you wrong,
  And crowd the enraptured quiet of the sky
  With candles burning to your lonely face.

                        MARIE BRUIN
  Your looks are all the candles that I need.

                        SHAWN BRUIN
  Once a fly dancing in a beam of