Although they have no blood or living nerves Who once lay warm and live the live-long night In one another's arms, and know their part In life, being now but of the people of dreams, Is a dreams part; although they are but shadows Hovering between a thorn tree and a stone Who have heaped up night on winged night; although No shade however harried and consumed Would change his own calamity for theirs, Their manner of life were blessed could their lips A moment meet; but when he has bent his head Close to her head or hand would slip in hand The memory of their crime flows up between And drives them apart. YOUNG MAN The memory of a crime-- He took her from a husband's house it may be, But does the penance for a passionate sin Last for so many centuries? THE GIRL No, no, The man she chose, the man she was chosen by Cared little and cares little from whose house They fled towards dawn amid the flights of arrows Or that it was a husband's and a king's; And how if that were all could she lack friends On crowded roads or on the unpeopled hill? Helen herself had opened wide the door Where night by night she dreams herself awake And gathers to her breast a dreaming man. YOUNG MAN What crime can stay so in the memory? What crime can keep apart the lips of lovers Wandering and alone? THE GIRL Her king and lover Was overthrown in battle by her husband And for her sake and for his own, being blind And bitter and bitterly in love, he brought A foreign army from across the sea. YOUNG MAN You speak of Dermot and of Dervorgilla Who brought the Norman in? THE GIRL Yes, yes I spoke Of that most miserable, most accursed pair Who sold their country into slavery, and yet They were not wholly miserable and accursed If somebody of their race at last would say: 'I have forgiven them.' YOUNG MAN Oh, never, never Will Dermot and Dervorgilla be forgiven. THE GIRL If someone of their race forgave at last Lip would be pressed on lip. YOUNG MAN Oh, never, never Will Dermot and Dervorgilla be forgiven. You have told your story well, so well indeed I could not help but fall into the mood And for a while believe that it was true Or half believe, but better push on now. The horizon to the East is growing bright. (They go once round stage)