No More Learning

Father, I am right weary of four tongues:
A tongue that is too crafty and too wise,
A tongue that is too godly and too grave,
A tongue that is more bitter than the tide,
And a kind tongue too full of drowsy love,
Of drowsy love and my captivity.

[_SHAWN BRUIN comes over to her and leads her to the
settle. _

SHAWN BRUIN.

Do not blame me; I often lie awake
Thinking that all things trouble your bright head--
How beautiful it is--such broad pale brows
Under a cloudy blossoming of hair!
Sit down beside me here--these are too old,
And have forgotten they were ever young.

MAIRE BRUIN.

O, you are the great door-post of this house,
And I, the red nasturtium, climbing up.

[_She takes SHAWN'S hand, but looks shyly at the priest
and lets it go. _

FATHER HART.

Good daughter, take his hand--by love alone
God binds us to Himself and to the hearth
And shuts us from the waste beyond His peace,
From maddening freedom and bewildering light.

SHAWN BRUIN.

Would that the world were mine to give it you
With every quiet hearth and barren waste,
The maddening freedom of its woods and tides,
And the bewildering light upon its hills.

MAIRE BRUIN.

Then I would take and break it in my hands
To see you smile watching it crumble away.

SHAWN BRUIN.
Then I would mould a world of fire and dew
With no one bitter, grave, or over-wise,
And nothing marred or old to do you wrong;
And crowd the enraptured quiet of the sky
With candles burning to your lonely face.

MAIRE BRUIN.

Your looks are all the candles that I need.

SHAWN BRUIN.

Once a fly dancing in a beam of the sun,
Or the light wind blowing out of the dawn,
Could fill your heart with dreams none other knew,
But now the indissoluble sacrament
Has mixed your heart that was most proud and cold
With my warm heart for ever; and sun and moon
Must fade and heaven be rolled up like a scroll;
But your white spirit still walk by my spirit.

[_A VOICE sings in the distance. _

MAIRE BRUIN.

Did you hear something call? O, guard me close,
Because I have said wicked things to-night;
And seen a pale-faced child with red-gold hair,
And longed to dance upon the winds with her.

A VOICE [_close to the door_].

_The wind blows out of the gates of the day,
The wind blows over the lonely of heart,
And the lonely of heart is withered away,
While the faeries dance in a place apart,
Shaking their milk-white feet in a ring,
Tossing their milk-white arms in the air;
For they hear the wind laugh, and murmur and sing
Of a land where even the old are fair,
And even the wise are merry of tongue;
But I heard a reed of Coolaney say,
'When the wind has laughed and murmured and sung,
The lonely of heart is withered away! '_

MAURTEEN BRUIN.

I am right happy, and would make all else
Be happy too. I hear a child outside,
And will go bring her in out of the cold.

[_He opens the door. A CHILD dressed in pale green and
with red-gold hair comes into the house.