No More Learning

FIRST MERCHANT.

Ay, ay,
Soft, handsome, and still young--not much, I think.

[_Reading in the parchment. _

She has love letters in a little jar
On the high shelf between the pepper-pot
And wood-cased hour-glass.

THE WOMAN.

O, the scandalous parchment!

FIRST MERCHANT [_reading_].

She hides them from her husband, who buys horses,
And is not much at home. You are almost safe.
I give you fifty crowns. [_She turns to go. _
A hundred, then.

[_She takes them, and goes into the crowd. _

Come--deal, deal, deal; it is for charity
We buy such souls at all; a thousand sins
Made them our master's long before we came.
Come, deal--come, deal.
You seem resolved to starve
Until your bones show through your skin. Come, deal,
Or live on nettles, grass, and dandelion.
Or do you dream the famine will go by?
The famine is hale and hearty; it is mine
And my great master's; it shall no wise cease
Until our purpose end: the yellow vapour
That brought it bears it over your dried fields
And fills with violent phantoms of the lost,
And grows more deadly as day copies day.
See how it dims the daylight. Is that peace
Known to the birds of prey so dread a thing?
They, and the souls obedient to our master,
And those who live with that great other spirit
Have gained an end, a peace, while you but toss
And swing upon a moving balance beam.

[_ALEEL enters; the wires of his harp are broken. _

ALEEL.

Here, take my soul, for I am tired of it;
I do not ask a price.

FIRST MERCHANT [_reading_].

A man of songs:
Alone in the hushed passion of romance,
His mind ran all on sidheoges and on tales
Of Fenian labours and the Red Branch kings,
And he cared nothing for the life of man:
But now all changes.

ALEEL.

Ay, because her face,
The face of Countess Cathleen, dwells with me:
The sadness of the world upon her brow:
The crying of these strings grew burdensome,
Therefore I tore them; see; now take my soul.

FIRST MERCHANT.

We cannot take your soul, for it is hers.