God
forsakes
us.
Yeats
_
CATHLEEN.
Be silent. [_The cry ceases. _
Saw you any one?
OONA.
Mavrone,
That my good mistress should lose all this money.
CATHLEEN.
You three upon my right hand, ride and ride;
I will give a farm to him who finds the thieves.
[_A man with keys at his girdle has entered while she
was speaking. _
A PEASANT.
The porter trembles.
THE PORTER.
It is all no use;
Demons were here. I sat beside the door
In my stone niche, and two owls passed me by,
Whispering with human voices.
THE OLD PEASANT.
God forsakes us.
CATHLEEN.
Old man, old man, He never closed a door
Unless one opened. I am desolate,
For a most sad resolve wakes in my heart:
But always I have faith. Old men and women,
Be silent; He does not forsake the world,
But stands before it modelling in the clay
And moulding there His image. Age by age
The clay wars with His fingers and pleads hard
For its old, heavy, dull, and shapeless ease;
At times it crumbles and a nation falls,
Now moves awry and demon hordes are born.
[_The peasants cross themselves. _
But leave me now, for I am desolate,
I hear a whisper from beyond the thunder.
[_She steps down from the oratory door. _
Yet stay an instant. When we meet again
I may have grown forgetful. Oona, take
These two--the larder and the dairy keys.
[_To THE OLD PEASANT. _] But take you this. It opens the small room
Of herbs for medicine, of hellebore,
Of vervain, monkshood, plantain, and self-heal
And all the others; and the book of cures
Is on the upper shelf. You understand,
Because you doctored goats and cattle once.
CATHLEEN.
Be silent. [_The cry ceases. _
Saw you any one?
OONA.
Mavrone,
That my good mistress should lose all this money.
CATHLEEN.
You three upon my right hand, ride and ride;
I will give a farm to him who finds the thieves.
[_A man with keys at his girdle has entered while she
was speaking. _
A PEASANT.
The porter trembles.
THE PORTER.
It is all no use;
Demons were here. I sat beside the door
In my stone niche, and two owls passed me by,
Whispering with human voices.
THE OLD PEASANT.
God forsakes us.
CATHLEEN.
Old man, old man, He never closed a door
Unless one opened. I am desolate,
For a most sad resolve wakes in my heart:
But always I have faith. Old men and women,
Be silent; He does not forsake the world,
But stands before it modelling in the clay
And moulding there His image. Age by age
The clay wars with His fingers and pleads hard
For its old, heavy, dull, and shapeless ease;
At times it crumbles and a nation falls,
Now moves awry and demon hordes are born.
[_The peasants cross themselves. _
But leave me now, for I am desolate,
I hear a whisper from beyond the thunder.
[_She steps down from the oratory door. _
Yet stay an instant. When we meet again
I may have grown forgetful. Oona, take
These two--the larder and the dairy keys.
[_To THE OLD PEASANT. _] But take you this. It opens the small room
Of herbs for medicine, of hellebore,
Of vervain, monkshood, plantain, and self-heal
And all the others; and the book of cures
Is on the upper shelf. You understand,
Because you doctored goats and cattle once.
