Читать книгу The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats. Volume 3 of 8. The Countess Cathleen. The Land of Heart's Desire. The Unicorn from the Stars - Yeats William Butler, William Butler Yeats - Страница 3

You are all thumbs.

Hear how the dog bays, mother,

And how the gray hen flutters in the coop.

Strange things are going up and down the land,

These famine times: by Tubber-vanach crossroads

A woman met a man with ears spread out,

And they moved up and down like wings of bats.

Shemus stays late.

By Carrick-orus churchyard,

A herdsman met a man who had no mouth,

Nor ears, nor eyes: his face a wall of flesh;

He saw him plainly by the moon.

White Mary,

Bring Shemus home out of the wicked woods;

Save Shemus from the wolves; Shemus is daring;

And save him from the demons of the woods,

Who have crept out and wander on the roads,

Deluding dim-eyed souls now newly dead,

And those alive who have gone crazed with famine.

Save him, White Mary Virgin.

And but now

I thought I heard far-off tympans and harps.

Shemus has come.

May he bring better food

Than the lean crow he brought us yesterday.

Shemus, you are late home: you have been lounging

And chattering with some one: you know well

How the dreams trouble me, and how I pray,

Yet you lie sweating on the hill from morn,

Or linger at the crossways with all comers,

Telling or gathering up calamity.

You would rail my head off. Here is a good dinner.

A wolf is better than a carrion crow.

I searched all day: the mice and rats and hedgehogs

Seemed to be dead, and I could hardly hear

A wing moving in all the famished woods,

Though the dead leaves and clauber of four forests

Cling to my footsole. I turned home but now,

And saw, sniffing the floor in a bare cow-house,

This young wolf here: the crossbow brought him down.

Praise be the saints![After a pause.

Why did the house dog bay?

He heard me coming and smelt food – what else?

We will not starve awhile.

What food is within?

There is a bag half full of meal, a pan

Half full of milk.

And we have one old hen.

The bogwood were less hard.

Before you came

She made a great noise in the hencoop, Shemus.

What fluttered in the window?

Two horned owls

Have blinked and fluttered on the window sill

From when the dog began to bay.

Hush, hush.

They are off again: ladies or gentlemen

Travel in the woods with tympan and with harp.

Teig, put the wolf upon the biggest hook

And shut the door.

Sit on the creepy stool

And call up a whey face and a crying voice,

And let your head be bowed upon your knees.

Come in, your honours: a full score of evenings

This threshold worn away by many a foot

Has been passed only by the snails and birds

And by our own poor hunger-shaken feet.

Are you so hungry?

Lady, I fell but now,

And lay upon the threshold like a log.

I have not tasted a crust for these four days.

Had I more money I would give it you,

But we have passed by many cabins to-day;

And if you come to-morrow to my house

You shall have twice the sum. I am the owner

Of a long empty castle in these woods.

Then you are Countess Cathleen: you and yours

Are ever welcome under my poor thatch.

Will you sit down and warm you by the sods?

We must find out this castle in the wood

Before the chill o’ the night.

Do not blame me,

Good woman, for the tympan and the harp:

I was bid fly the terror of the times

And wrap me round with music and sweet song

Or else pine to my grave. I have lost my way;

Aleel, the poet, who should know these woods,

Because we met him on their border but now

Wandering and singing like the foam of the sea,

Is so wrapped up in dreams of terrors to come

That he can give no help.

You’re almost there.

There is a trodden way among the hazels

That brings your servants to their marketing.

When we are gone draw to the door and the bolt,

For, till we lost them half an hour ago,

Two gray horned owls hooted above our heads

Of terrors to come. Tympan and harp awake!

For though the world drift from us like a sigh,

Music is master of all under the moon;

And play ‘The Wind that blows by Cummen Strand.’

Impetuous heart, be still, be still:

Your sorrowful love may never be told;

Cover it up with a lonely tune.

He who could bend all things to His will

Has covered the door of the infinite fold

With the pale stars and the wandering moon.

Shut to the door and shut the woods away,

For, till they had vanished in the thick of the leaves,

Two gray horned owls hooted above our heads.

When wealthy and wise folk wander from their peace

And fear wood things, poor folk may draw the bolt

And pray before the fire.

The Mother of God,

Hushed by the waving of the immortal wings,

Has dropped in a doze and cannot hear the poor:

I passed by Margaret Nolan’s; for nine days

Her mouth was green with dock and dandelion;

And now they wake her.

I will go the next;

Our parents’ cabins bordered the same field.

God, and the Mother of God, have dropped asleep,

For they are weary of the prayers and candles;

But Satan pours the famine from his bag,

And I am mindful to go pray to him

To cover all this table with red gold.

Teig, will you dare me to it?

Not I, father.

O Shemus, hush, maybe your mind might pray

In spite o’ the mouth.

Two crowns and twenty pennies.

Is yonder quicken wood?

He swayed about,

And so I tied him to a quicken bough

And slung him from my shoulder.

Shemus! Shemus!

What, would you burn the blessed quicken wood?

A spell to ward off demons and ill faeries.

You know not what the owls were that peeped in,

For evil wonders live in this old wood,

And they can show in what shape please them best.

And we have had no milk to leave of nights

To keep our own good people kind to us.

And Aleel, who has talked with the great Sidhe,

Is full of terrors to come.

I would eat my supper

With no less mirth if squatting by the hearth

Were dulacaun or demon of the pit

Clawing its knees, its hoof among the ashes.

Who knows what evil you have brought to us?

I fear the wood things, Shemus.

Do not open.

A crown and twenty pennies are not enough

To stop the hole that lets the famine in.

Look! look!

The Mother of God has dropped asleep,

And all her household things have gone to wrack.

O Mary, Mother of God, be pitiful!

Have you food here?

For those who can pay well.

We are rich merchants seeking merchandise.

Come in, your honours.

No, do not come in:

We have no food, not even for ourselves.

There is a wolf on the big hook in the cupboard.

Forgive her: she is not used to quality,

And is half crazed with being much alone.

How did you know I had taken a young wolf?

Fine wholesome food, though maybe somewhat strong.

I would rest here: the night is somewhat chilly,

And my feet footsore going up and down

From land to land and nation unto nation:

The fire burns dimly; feed it with this bough.

What have you in the bags?

Don’t mind her, sir:

Women grow curious and feather-thoughted

Through being in each other’s company

More than is good for them.

Our bags are full

Of golden pieces to buy merchandise.

These are great gentlemen.

Come to the fire,

Here is the headiest wine you ever tasted.

Wine that can hush asleep the petty war

Of good and evil, and awake instead

A scented flame flickering above that peace

The bird of prey knows well in his deep heart.

I do not understand you, but your wine

Sets me athirst: its praise made your eyes lighten.

I am thirsting for it.

Ay, come drink and drink,

I bless all mortals who drink long and deep.

My curse upon the salt-strewn road of monks.

You must have seen rare sights and done rare things.

What think you of the master whom we serve?

I have grown weary of my days in the world

Because I do not serve him.

More of this

When we have eaten, for we love right well

A merry meal, a warm and leaping fire

And easy hearts.

Come, Maire, and cook the wolf.

I will not cook for you.

Maire is mad.

That wine is the suddenest wine man ever tasted.

I will not cook for you: you are not human:

Before you came two horned owls looked at us;

The dog bayed, and the tongue of Shemus maddened.

When you came in the Virgin’s blessed shrine

Fell from its nail, and when you sat down here

You poured out wine as the wood sidheogs do

When they’d entice a soul out of the world.

Why did you come to us? Was not death near?

We are two merchants.

If you be not demons,

Go and give alms among the starving poor,

You seem more rich than any under the moon.

If we knew where to find deserving poor,

We would give alms.

Then ask of Father John.

We know the evils of mere charity,

And have been planning out a wiser way.

Let each man bring one piece of merchandise.

And have the starving any merchandise?

We do but ask what each man has.

Merchants,

Their swine and cattle, fields and implements,

Are sold and gone.

They have not sold all yet.

What have they?

They have still their souls.

Come hither.

See you these little golden heaps? Each one

Is payment for a soul. From charity

We give so great a price for those poor flames.

Say to all men we buy men’s souls – away.

This pile is for you and this one here for you.

Shemus and Teig, Teig —

Out of the way.

Cry out at cross-roads and at chapel doors

And market-places that we buy men’s souls,

Giving so great a price that men may live

In mirth and ease until the famine ends.

Destroyers of souls, may God destroy you quickly!

No curse can overthrow the immortal demons.

You shall at last dry like dry leaves, and hang

Nailed like dead vermin to the doors of God.

You shall be ours. This famine shall not cease.

You shall eat grass, and dock, and dandelion,

And fail till this stone threshold seem a wall,

And when your hands can scarcely drag your body

We shall be near you.

Bring the meal out.

Burn it.      [MAIRE faints.

Now she has swooned, our faces go unscratched;

Bring me the gray hen, too.

These need much burning.

This stool and this chair here will make good fuel.

My master will break up the sun and moon

And quench the stars in the ancestral night

And overturn the thrones of God and the angels.