God pity them! Bring all the old and ailing to this house, For I will have no sorrow of my own From this day onward. [_The SERVANT goes out. Some of the musicians follow him, some linger in the doorway. The COUNTESS CATHLEEN kneels beside OONA._ Can you tell me, mother, How I may mend the times, how staunch this wound That bleeds in the earth, how overturn the famine, How drive these demons to their darkness again? OONA. The demons hold our hearts between their hands, For the apple is in our blood, and though heart break There is no medicine but Michael’s trump. Till it has ended parting and old age And hail and rain and famine and foolish laughter; The dead are happy, the dust is in their ears. ACT III. _Hall of the COUNTESS CATHLEEN as before. SERVANT enters and goes towards the oratory door._ SERVANT. Here is yet another would see your ladyship. CATHLEEN [_within_]. Who calls me? SERVANT. There is a man would speak with you, And by his face he has some pressing news, Some moving tale. CATHLEEN [_coming to chapel door_]. I cannot rest or pray, For all day long the messengers run hither On one another’s heels, and every message More evil than the one that had gone before. Who is the messenger? SERVANT. Aleel, the poet. CATHLEEN. There is no hour he is not welcome to me, Because I know of nothing but a harp-string That can remember happiness. [_SERVANT goes out and ALEEL comes in._ And now I grow forgetful of evil for awhile. ALEEL. I have come to bid you leave this castle, and fly Out of these woods. CATHLEEN. What evil is there here, That is not everywhere from this to the sea? ALEEL. They who have sent me walk invisible. CATHLEEN. Men say that the wise people of the raths Have given you wisdom. ALEEL. I lay in the dusk Upon the grassy margin of a lake Among the hills, where none of mortal creatures But the swan comes—my sleep became a fire. One walked in the fire with birds about his head. CATHLEEN. Ay, Aengus of the birds. ALEEL. He may be Aengus, But it may be he bears an angelical name. Lady, he bid me call you from these woods; He bids you bring Oona, your foster-mother, And some few serving-men and live in the hills Among the sounds of music and the light Of waters till the evil days are gone. [_He kneels._] For here some terrible death is waiting you; Some unimaginable evil, some great darkness That fable has not dreamt of, nor sun nor moon Scattered. CATHLEEN. And he had birds about his head? ALEEL.