CATHLEEN (half rising) Lay all the bags of money in a heap, And when I am gone, old Oona, share them out To every man and woman: judge, and give According to their needs. A PEASANT WOMAN. And will she give Enough to keep my children through the dearth? ANOTHER PEASANT WOMAN. O, Queen of Heaven, and all you blessed saints, Let us and ours be lost so she be shriven. CATHLEEN. Bend down your faces, Oona and Aleel; I gaze upon them as the swallow gazes Upon the nest under the eave, before She wander the loud waters. Do not weep Too great a while, for there is many a candle On the High Altar though one fall. Aleel, Who sang about the dancers of the woods, That know not the hard burden of the world, Having but breath in their kind bodies, farewell And farewell, Oona, you who played with me, And bore me in your arms about the house When I was but a child and therefore happy, Therefore happy, even like those that dance. The storm is in my hair and I must go. (She dies.) OONA. Bring me the looking-glass. (A WOMAN brings it to her out of the inner room. OONA holds it over the lips Of CATHLEEN. All is silent for a moment. And then she speaks in a half scream:) O, she is dead! A PEASANT. She was the great white lily of the world. A PEASANT. She was more beautiful than the pale stars. AN OLD PEASANT WOMAN. The little plant I love is broken in two. (ALEEL takes looking-glass from OONA and flings it upon the floor so that it is broken in many pieces.) ALEEL. I shatter you in fragments, for the face That brimmed you up with beauty is no more: And die, dull heart, for she whose mournful words Made you a living spirit has passed away And left you but a ball of passionate dust. And you, proud earth and plumy sea, fade out! For you may hear no more her faltering feet, But are left lonely amid the clamorous war Of angels upon devils. (He stands up; almost every one is kneeling, but it has grown so dark that only confused forms can be seen.) And I who weep Call curses on you, Time and Fate and Change, And have no excellent hope but the great hour When you shall plunge headlong through bottomless space. (A flash of lightning followed immediately by thunder.) A PEASANT WOMAN. Pull him upon his knees before his curses Have plucked thunder and lightning on our heads. ALEEL. Angels and devils clash in the middle air, And brazen swords clang upon brazen helms. (A flash of lightning followed immediately by thunder.) Yonder a bright spear, cast out of a sling, Has torn through Balor's eye, and the dark clans Fly screaming as they fled Moytura of old. (Everything is lost in darkness.) AN OLD MAN. The Almighty wrath at our great weakness and sin Has blotted out the world and we must die.