No More Learning

Who calls me?

SERVANT.

There is a man would speak with you,
And by his face he has some pressing news,
Some moving tale.

CATHLEEN [_coming to chapel door_].

I cannot rest or pray,
For all day long the messengers run hither
On one another's heels, and every message
More evil than the one that had gone before.
Who is the messenger?

SERVANT.

Aleel, the poet.

CATHLEEN.

There is no hour he is not welcome to me,
Because I know of nothing but a harp-string
That can remember happiness.

[_SERVANT goes out and ALEEL comes in. _

And now
I grow forgetful of evil for awhile.

ALEEL.

I have come to bid you leave this castle, and fly
Out of these woods.

CATHLEEN.
What evil is there here,
That is not everywhere from this to the sea?

ALEEL.

They who have sent me walk invisible.

CATHLEEN.

Men say that the wise people of the raths
Have given you wisdom.

ALEEL.

I lay in the dusk
Upon the grassy margin of a lake
Among the hills, where none of mortal creatures
But the swan comes--my sleep became a fire.
One walked in the fire with birds about his head.

CATHLEEN.

Ay, Aengus of the birds.

ALEEL.

He may be Aengus,
But it may be he bears an angelical name.
Lady, he bid me call you from these woods;
He bids you bring Oona, your foster-mother,
And some few serving-men and live in the hills
Among the sounds of music and the light
Of waters till the evil days are gone.

[_He kneels. _]

For here some terrible death is waiting you;
Some unimaginable evil, some great darkness
That fable has not dreamt of, nor sun nor moon
Scattered.

CATHLEEN.