I made some of these poems walking about among the Seven Woods, before the big wind of nineteen hundred and three blew down so many trees, & troubled the wild creatures, & changed the look of things; and I thought out there a good part of the play which follows. The first shape of it came to me in a dream, but it changed much in the making, foreshadowing, it may be, a change that may bring a less dream-burdened will into my verses. I never re-wrote anything so many times; for at first I could not make these wills that stream into mere life poetical. But now I hope to do easily much more of the kind, and that our new Irish players will find the buskin and the sock. ON BAILE'S STRAND: A PLAY. THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY. CUCHULLAIN, the King of Muirthemne. CONCOBAR, the High King of Ullad. DAIRE, a King. FINTAIN, a blind man. BARACH, a fool. A Young Man. Young Kings and Old Kings. SCENE: A great hall by the sea close to Dundalgan. There are two great chairs on either side of the hall, each raised a little from the ground, and on the back of the one chair is carved and painted a woman with a fish's tail, and on the back of the other a hound. There are smaller chairs and benches raised in tiers round the walls. There is a great ale vat at one side near a small door, & a large door at the back through which one can see the sea. Barach, a tall thin man with long ragged hair, dressed in skins, comes in at the side door. He is leading Fintain, a fat blind man, who is somewhat older. BARACH. I will shut the door, for this wind out of the sea gets into my bones, and if I leave but an inch for the wind there is one like a flake of sea-frost that might come into the house. FINTAIN. What is his name, fool? BARACH. It's a woman from among the Riders of the Sidhe. It's Boann herself from the river. She has left the Dagda's bed, and gone through the salt of the sea & up here to the strand of Baile, and all for love of me. Let her keep her husband's bed, for she'll have none of me. Nobody knows how lecherous these goddesses are. I see her in every kind of shape but oftener than not she's in the wind and cries 'give a kiss and put your arms about me.' But no, she'll have no more of me. Yesterday when I put out my lips to kiss her, there was nothing there but the wind. She's bad, Fintain. O, she's bad. I had better shut the big door too. (He is going towards the big door but turns hearing Fintain's voice.) FINTAIN. (Who has been feeling about with his stick.) What's this and this? BARACH. They are chairs. FINTAIN. And this? BARACH. Why, that's a bench. FINTAIN. And this? BARACH. A big chair. FINTAIN. (Feeling the back of the chair.) There is a sea-woman carved upon it. BARACH. And there is another big chair on the other side of the hall. FINTAIN.