No More Learning

Listen to that low-laughing string of the moon
And you will recollect my face and voice,
For you have listened to me playing it
These thousand years.

[_He starts up, listening to the birds. The harp
slips from his hands, and remains leaning against the
bulwarks behind him. _

What are the birds at there?
Why are they all a-flutter of a sudden?
What are you calling out above the mast?
If railing and reproach and mockery
Because I have awakened her to love
By magic strings, I'll make this answer to it:
Being driven on by voices and by dreams
That were clear messages from the ever-living,
I have done right. What could I but obey?
And yet you make a clamour of reproach.

_Dectora_ [_laughing_]. Why, it's a wonder out of reckoning
That I should keen him from the full of the moon
To the horn, and he be hale and hearty.

_Forgael. _ How have I wronged her now that she is merry?
But no, no, no! your cry is not against me.
You know the councils of the ever-living,
And all the tossing of your wings is joy,
And all that murmuring's but a marriage song;
But if it be reproach, I answer this:
There is not one among you that made love
By any other means. You call it passion,
Consideration, generosity;
But it was all deceit, and flattery
To win a woman in her own despite,
For love is war, and there is hatred in it;
And if you say that she came willingly--

_Dectora. _ Why do you turn away and hide your face,
That I would look upon for ever?

_Forgael. _ My grief.

_Dectora. _ Have I not loved you for a thousand years?

_Forgael. _ I never have been golden-armed Iollan.

_Dectora. _ I do not understand. I know your face
Better than my own hands.

_Forgael. _ I have deceived you
Out of all reckoning.

_Dectora. _ Is it not true
That you were born a thousand years ago,
In islands where the children of Aengus wind
In happy dances under a windy moon,
And that you'll bring me there?