_While I wrought out these fitful Danaan rhymes, My heart would brim with dreams about the times When we bent down above the fading coals; And talked of the dark folk, who live in souls Of passionate men, like bats in the dead trees; And of the wayward twilight companies, Who sigh with mingled sorrow and content, Because their blossoming dreams have never bent Under the fruit of evil and of good: And of the embattled flaming multitude Who rise, wing above wing, flame above flame, And, like a storm, cry the Ineffable Name, And with the clashing of their sword blades make A rapturous music, till the morning break, And the white hush end all, but the loud beat Of their long wings, the flash of their white feet._ THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN "The sorrowful are dumb for thee" _Lament of Morion Shehone for Miss Mary Bourke_ TO MAUD GONNE SHEMUS RUA A Peasant MARY His Wife TEIG His Son ALEEL A Poet THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN OONA Her Foster Mother Two Demons disguised as Merchants Peasants, Servants, Angelical Beings _The Scene is laid in Ireland and in old times_ SCENE I SCENE.--_A room with lighted fire, and a door into the open air, through which one sees, perhaps, the trees of a wood, and these trees should be painted in flat colour upon a gold or diapered sky. The walls are of one colour. The scent should have the effect of missal painting._ MARY, a_ woman of forty years or so, is grinding a quern_. MARY What can have made the grey hen flutter so? (TEIG, _a boy of fourteen, is coming in with turf, which he lays beside the hearth_.) TEIG They say that now the land is famine struck The graves are walking. MARY There is something that the hen hears. TEIG And that is not the worst; at Tubber-vanach A woman met a man with ears spread out, And they moved up and down like a bat's wing. MARY What can have kept your father all this while? TEIG Two nights ago, at Carrick-orus churchyard, A herdsman met a man who had no mouth, Nor eyes, nor ears; his face a wall of flesh; He saw him plainly by the light of the moon. MARY Look out, and tell me if your father's coming. (TEIG _goes to door_.) TEIG Mother! MARY What is it? TEIG In the bush beyond, There are two birds--if you can call them birds-- I could not see them rightly for the leaves. But they've the shape and colour of horned owls And I'm half certain they've a human face. MARY Mother of God, defend us! TEIG