William Butler Yeats: Quotations (8)

John Sherman [ & Dhoya] (London: T. Fisher Unwin 1891): ‘[…] As he went through the streets his heart went out to every familiar place and sight: the rows of tumble-down thatched cottages; the slated roofs of the shops; the women selling gooseberries; the river bridge; the high walls of the garden where it was said the gardener used to see the ghost of a former owner in the shape of a rabbit; the street corner no child would pass at nightfall for fear of the headless soldier; the deserted flour store; the wharves covered with grass. All.these he watched with Celtic devotion, that devotion carried to the ends of the,world by the Celtic exiles, and since old times surrounding their journeyings with rumours of plaintive songs.’ (q.p.; quoted in G. J. Watson, ed., The Short Fiction of W. B. Yeats, Penguin 1995, Intro., p.xx.)

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John Sherman and Dhoya (both 1891): John Sherman (Chapman & Hall Shakespeare Head Press 1890): ‘… for love is based on inequality a friendship is on equality.’ (201.) [Old women taking geese to Liverpool market:] ‘Why are ye goin’ among them savages in London, Misther John? Why don’t ye stay among your own people - for what have we in this life but a mouthful of air?’ (p.207.) [John’s return to Ballah:] ‘Again his eyes gladdened, for he knew he had found his present. He would live in his love and the days it passed. He would live that his law might be fulfilled. Now, was he sure of this truth - the saints on the one hand, the animals on the other, live in the moment as it passes. Thitherward had his days brought him. This was the one grain they had ground. To grind one grain is sufficient for a lifetime.’ (pp.268-9.) ‘… an old day-dream of his - Inisfree. Its rocky centre, covered with many bushes, rose some forty feet above the lake. Often when life and its difficulties had seemed to him like the lessons of some elder boy given to a younger by mistake, it had seemed good to dream of going away to that islet and building a wooden hut there and burning a few years out rowing to and fro, fishing, or lying on the island slopes by day, and listening at night to the ripple of the water and the quivering of the bushes - full always of unknown creatures - and going out at morning, to see the island’s edge marked by the feet of birds.’ (p.255.)

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The Countess Cathleen (1892): [The scene is laid in Ireland in old times:] SCENE I. (Mary/Teigue:) ‘What can have made the grey hen flutter so? / They say that now the land is famine-struck / the graves are walking.’ [3] ‘God and the Mother of God have dropped asleep [..; 4.]; what can be do but live on sorrel and dock, / And dandelion, till our mouths are green?’ [5] Countess: ‘and old grey castle’; Mary: ‘set among impassable walls’; Countess: ‘I lived all my childhood in that house’ [6-7]; Mary: ‘For my old father served your fathers, lady / Longer than books can tell - and it were strange / If you and yours should not be welcome here.’ [7] Countess: ‘I gave for all and that was all I had. / But look, my purse is empty. I have passed / By starving men and women all this day, / And they have had the rest’ [8] [Eastern merchants enter; 11]; ‘the Master of all merchants’ [12]; ‘we buy men’s souls / and give so good a price that all may live / In mirth and comforth till the famine’s down, / Because we are Christian men’ [15] Mary: ‘Destroyer of men’s souls, God will destroy you quickly […] Nailed like dead vermin to the door of God.’ [15]; [Maeve on Knocknarea: 17-18]; Cro-Patrick [20]; [Aleel] ‘never was baptised’ [20]

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The Countess Cathleen (1892) - SCENE II. Cathleen [after the theft of cabbages:] ‘There’s no soul / But it’s unlike all others in the world’ [21]; Shemus [lilting]: ‘There’s money for a soul, sweet yellow money.’ [22] Steward: ‘A hundred kegs of gold’ [23]; Countess: ‘Keeping this house alone, sell all I have, / Go barter where you please, but come again / With herds of cattle and with ships of meal.’ Steward: ‘God’s blessings light upon your ladyship. / You will have saved the land.’ [23]; Countess: ‘Come, follow me, for the earth burns my feet / Till I have changed my house to such a refuge / That the old and ailing, and all weak of heart, / May escape from beak and claw; all, all shall come / Till the walls burst and the roof fall on us. / From this day out I have nothing of my own.’ [24]

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The Countess Cathleen (1892) - SCENE III. Aleel [visited by ‘angelical’ dream:] ‘he bid me call you from these woods … For here some terrible death is waiting you’ [25]; Countess: ‘He bids me go / Where none of mortal creatures but the swan / Dabbles … I cannot … a night of prayer has made me weary’ [26]; Countess: ‘No, not angelical, but of the old gods, / Who wander about the world to waken the heart - / The passionate, proud heart - that all the angels, / … would rock to sleep.’ [27]; ‘I have sworn … to pray before this altar … till Heaven has saved by people’ [27]; [Countess sends Aleel away; enter merchants: 27-29]; Merchants: ‘for a soul like yours, I head them say, / They would give five hundred thousands crowns and more.’ [31]: Countess: ‘How can a heap of crowns pay for a soul? / Is the green grave so terrible a thing?’ [31]’; Oona: ‘the treasure-room broken in’ [stolen: 32]

The Countess Cathleen (1892) - SCENE IV. [Peasants discuss gold]; Aleel: ‘Impetuous heart be still, be still, / Your sorrowful love can never be told, / Cover it up with a lonely tune, / He who could bend all things to His will / Has covevred the door of the infinite fold / With the pale star and the wandering moon.’ [35-36].

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The Countess Cathleen (1892) - SCENE V. Merchants: ‘What has she in her coffers but mice?’ [37]; [Shemus [of Mary, now dead:] ‘There’s nobody could put it into her head / That death is the worst thing can happen us … With all the lies that she had heard in chapel.’ [38]; ‘The scandalous book!’ [containing ‘sins’ of neighbours: 39]; Aleel: ‘Here, take my soul, for I am tired of it’; Shemus: ‘[…] His love for Countess Cathleen has so crazed him / He hardly understands what he is saying.’ [40]; Merchant: ‘We cannot take your soul, for it is hers’ [40]; ‘The name [of God] is like a fire to all damned souls’ [42]; Middle-Aged Man: ‘Give me my soul again’ [42]; Countess: ‘The people starve, therefore the people go / Thronging to you. I hear a cry from them / And it is in my ears by night and day, / and I would have five hundred thousand crowns / That I may feed them till the dearth go by. […] I offer my own soul’ [43]; ‘Bend down you faces, Oona and Aleel; / I gaze upon them as the swallow gazes / Upon the nest under the eave, before / She wanders the loud waters. Do not weep / Too great a while, for there is many a candle / On the High Altar though one fall. Aleel, / Who sang about the dancers of the woods [47] / That know not the hard burden of the world, / […] farewell … The storm is in my hair and I must go. [dies; 47-48]; [Aleel breaks looking glass:] ‘I shatter you in fragments, for the face / That brimmed you up with beauty is no more’ [48]; [Moytura: 49]; darkness is broken by a visionary light [49]; Angel: ‘[…] Mary of the seven times wounded heart / Has kissed her lips, and the long blessed hair / Has fallen on her face’ [50]; Oona: ‘[…] I would die and go to her I love; / The years like great black oxen tread the world, /And God the herdsman goads them on behind, / And I am broken by their passing feet.’ (END).

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The Countess Kathleen (1892): MARY: ‘For my old fathers served your fathers, lady, / Longer than books can tell - and it were strange / If you and yours should not be welcome here.’ (Collected Plays, 1960, p.7.) Countess Cathleen (preparing to buy back the souls of the peasants) ‘Come, follow me, for the earth burns my feet / Till I have changed my house to such a refuge / That the old and ailing, and all weak of heat, / May escape from beak and claw; all, all, shall come / Till the walls burst and the roof fall on us. / From this day out I have nothing of my own.’ (p.24). ‘The people starve, therefore the people go / Thronging to you. I hear a cry come from them / And it is in my ears by night and day, / And I would have five hundred thousand crowns / That I may feed them till the dearth go by.’ (p.43). ‘[T]he souls … [43] have slipped out of our bond, because your face / Has shed a light on them and filled their hearts. (Ibid., 44.) ALEEL: ‘Demons are out, old heron.’ (p.46). ‘Oh that so many pitchers of rough clay / Should prosper and the porcelain break in two!’ (p.46.) Bend down your faces, Oona and Aleel! / I gaze upon them as the swallow gazes / Upon the nest under the eave, before / She wanders the loud waters. Do not weep / Too great a while, for there is many a candle / On the High Altar though one fall. Aleel, / Who sang about the dancers of the woods [47] / That know not the hard burden of the world, / Having but breath in their kind bodies, farewell! / And farewell, Oona, you who played with me, / And bore me in your arms about the house / When I was but a child and therefore happy.Therefore happy, even like those that dance. / The storm is in my hair and I must go.’ She dies; (p.48.) ‘A sound of wailing in unnumbered hovels, / And I must go down, down, I know not where’; ‘The Light of Lights / Looks always on the motive not the deed, / The Shadow of Shadows on the deed alone’. Also: Two nights ago, at Carrick-orus churchyard / A herdsman met a man who had no mouth, / Nor eyes, nor ears; his face a wall of flesh.’ (Countess Cathleen, Variorum Edn., ll.8-10, p.7; quoted in Una Kealy, “George Fitzmaurice”, PhD Diss., UU 2005, p.18.)

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The Land of Heart’s Desire (1894): ‘Stay and come with me, newly-married bride, / For if you hear him you grow like the rest; / Bear children, cook, and bend above the churn, / And wrangle, over butter, fowl, and eggs, / Until, at last, grown old and bitter of tongue, / You’re crouching and shivering at the grave.’ (Yeats, Variorum Edition of the Plays, pp.205-06; for full text, see “Library”, Classics [infra].)

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Kathleen Ni Houlihan (London: A. H. Bullen 1902), first performed at St. Teresa’s Abstinence Assoc. Hall, Clarendon St., 2-4 April 1902; PLOT: Michael Gillane is called from his marriage to Delia Cahel by the Old Woman to fight for Ireland in the 1798 Rebellion in the West of Ireland]. ‘BRIDGET: ‘It is a wonder that you are not worn out with so much wandering’. OLD WOMAN: ‘Sometimes my feet are tired and my hands are quiet, but there is no quiet in my heart. When the people see me quiet, they think old age has come on me and that the stir has gone out of me. But when the trouble is on me I must be talking to my friends.’ BRIDGET: ‘What was it put you wondering?’ OLD WOMAN, ‘Too many strangers in the house.’ BRIDGET: ‘Indeed you look as if you’d had you’re share of trouble.’ OLD WOMAN, ‘I have had trouble indeed. BRIDGET: ‘What was it put the trouble on you? OLD WOMAN, ‘My land that was taken from me.’ Peter, ‘Was it much land they took from you?’ OLD WOMAN, ‘My four beautiful green fields.’ Also, ‘If any one would give me help he must give me himself, he must give me all […] [sings:] […] For the death that [he?] shall die tomorrow […] They will have no need of prayers / They will have no need of prayers’; ‘It is a hard service they take that help me. Many that are red-cheeked now will be pale-cheeked; many that have been free to walk the hills and the bogs and the rushes will be sent to walk hard streets in far countries; many that have gathered money will not stay to spend it; many a child will be born and there will be no father at its christening to give it a name. They that have red cheeks will have pale cheeks for my sake, and for all that, they will think they are well paid.’ [She goes out; her voice is head outside singing:] ‘They shall be remembered forever / They shall be alive for ever, / They shall be speaking for ever, / The people shall hear them for ever.’ (Collected Plays, Macmillan 1960, p.86; Variorum Plays, p.229; quoted in Tuohy, Yeats: An Illustrated Biography, Macmillan 1976, p.102.) Peter [to Patrick, laying a hand on his arm], ‘Did you see an old woman going down the path?’ Patrick, ‘I did not, but I saw a young girl, and she had the walk of a queen’ [End]. Note: A revival performance of Cathleen Ni Houlihan was planned for Easter Week but cancelled because of the Rising.

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Kathleen Ni Houlihan (1902): THE OLD WOMAN (various speeches): I have travelled far, very far; there are few have travelled so far as myself, and there’s many a one that doesn’t make me welcome. There was one that had strong sons I thought were friends of mine, but they were shearing their sheep, and they wouldn’t listen to me. […] Sometimes my feet are tired and my hands are quiet, but there is no quiet in my heart. When the people see me quiet, they think old age has come on me and that all the stir has gone ouot of me. But when the trouble is on me I must be talking to my friends. […] Too many strangers in the house […]. I have had trouble indeed […] My land was taken froom me […] My four beautiful green fields […] Singing I am about a man I knew one time, yellow-haired Donough that was hanged in Galway […] He died for love of me: many a man has died for love of me […] There were others that died for live of me a long time ago […] If anyone would give me help he must give me himself, he must give me all […]. With all the lovers that brought me their love I never set out the bed for any […]. I have my thoughts and I have my hopes […] I have good friends that will healp me. They are gathering to help me now. I am not afaird. If they are put down today they will get the upper hand tomorow. I must be going to meet my friends. They are coming to help me and I must be there to welcome them. I must call the neighbours together to welcome them […]. It is not a man going to his marriage that I look to for help […]. Some call me the Poor Old Woman, and there are some that call me Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan […]. They are wondering that there were songs made for me; there have been songs made for me, I have heard one of them on the wind this morning […] It is a hard service they have that help me. Many that are red-cheeked now will be pale-cheeked; many that have been free to walk the hills and the bogs and the rushes will be sent to walk hard streets in far countries; many a good plan will be broken; many that have gathered money will not stay to spend it; many a child will be born and there will be no father at its christening to give it a name. They that have red cheeks will have pale cheeks for my sake, and for all that they will think they are well paid.

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The King’s Threshold (1904): ‘What evil thing will come upon the world / If the Arts perish? / The world that lacked them would be like a woman / That, looking on the cloven lips of a hare, / Brings forth a hare-lipped child.’ (Variorum Edition of the Plays, pp.264-65.)

Resurrection (1934), Introduction: ‘Presently Oisin and his islands faded and the sort of images that come into “Rosa Alchemica” and “The Adoration of the Magi” took their place. Our civilisation was about to reverse itself, or some new civilisation about to be born from all that our age had rejected, from all that my stories symbolised as a harlet, and take after its mother; because we had worshipped a single god it would worship many or receive from Joachim de Flora’s Holy Spirit a multitudinous influx.’ (Explorations, p.393; quoted in G. J. Watson, notes to “The Adoration of the Magi”, in W. B. Yeats: Short Fiction, Penguin 1995, p.262.)