The Green Helmet and Other Poems Part 2

How should the world be luckier if this house, Where pa.s.sion and precision have been one Time out of mind, became too ruinous To breed the lidless eye that loves the sun?

And the sweet laughing eagle thoughts that grow Where wings have memory of wings, and all That comes of the best knit to the best? Although Mean roof-trees were the st.u.r.dier for its fall, How should their luck run high enough to reach The gifts that govern men, and after these To gradual Time's last gift, a written speech Wrought of high laughter, loveliness and ease?

AT THE ABBEY THEATRE

_Imitated from Ronsard_

Dear Craoibhin Aoibhin, look into our case.

When we are high and airy hundreds say That if we hold that flight they'll leave the place, While those same hundreds mock another day Because we have made our art of common things, So bitterly, you'd dream they longed to look All their lives through into some drift of wings.

You've dandled them and fed them from the book And know them to the bone; impart to us-- We'll keep the secret--a new trick to please.

Is there a bridle for this Proteus That turns and changes like his draughty seas?

Or is there none, most popular of men, But when they mock us that we mock again?

THESE ARE THE CLOUDS

These are the clouds about the fallen sun, The majesty that shuts his burning eye; The weak lay hand on what the strong has done, Till that be tumbled that was lifted high And discord follow upon unison, And all things at one common level lie.

And therefore, friend, if your great race were run And these things came, so much the more thereby Have you made greatness your companion, Although it be for children that you sigh: These are the clouds about the fallen sun, The majesty that shuts his burning eye.

AT GALWAY RACES

Out yonder, where the race course is, Delight makes all of the one mind, Riders upon the swift horses, The field that closes in behind: We, too, had good attendance once, Hearers and hearteners of the work; Aye, hors.e.m.e.n for companions, Before the merchant and the clerk Breathed on the world with timid breath.

Sing on: sometime, and at some new moon, We'll learn that sleeping is not death, Hearing the whole earth change its tune, Its flesh being wild, and it again Crying aloud as the race course is, And we find hearteners among men That ride upon horses.

A FRIEND'S ILLNESS

Sickness brought me this Thought, in that scale of his: Why should I be dismayed Though flame had burned the whole World, as it were a coal, Now I have seen it weighed Against a soul?

ALL THINGS CAN TEMPT ME

All things can tempt me from this craft of verse: One time it was a woman's face, or worse-- The seeming needs of my fool-driven land; Now nothing but comes readier to the hand Than this accustomed toil. When I was young, I had not given a penny for a song Did not the poet sing it with such airs That one believed he had a sword upstairs; Yet would be now, could I but have my wish, Colder and dumber and deafer than a fish.

THE YOUNG MAN'S SONG

I whispered, "I am too young,"

And then, "I am old enough,"

Wherefore I threw a penny To find out if I might love; "Go and love, go and love, young man, If the lady be young and fair,"

Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny, I am looped in the loops of her hair.

Oh love is the crooked thing, There is n.o.body wise enough To find out all that is in it, For he would be thinking of love Till the stars had run away, And the shadows eaten the moon; Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny, One cannot begin it too soon.

THE GREEN HELMET

_An Heroic Farce_

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

LAEGAIRE LAEGAIRE'S WIFE CONALL CONALL'S WIFE CUCHULAIN LAEG, _Cuchulain's chariot-driver_ EMER RED MAN, _A Spirit_

Horse Boys and Scullions, Black Men, etc.

THE GREEN HELMET

_An Heroic Farce_

SCENE: _A house made of logs. There are two windows at the back and a door which cuts off one of the corners of the room. Through the door one can see low rocks which make the ground outside higher than it is within, and beyond the rocks a misty moon-lit sea. Through the windows one can see nothing but the sea. There is a great chair at the opposite side to the door, and in front of it a table with cups and a flagon of ale. Here and there are stools._

_At the Abbey Theatre the house is orange red and the chairs and tables and flagons black, with a slight purple tinge which is not clearly distinguishable from the black. The rocks are black with a few green touches. The sea is green and luminous, and all the characters except the RED MAN and the Black Men are dressed in various shades of green, one or two with touches of purple which look nearly black. The Black Men all wear dark purple and have eared caps, and at the end their eyes should look green from the reflected light of the sea. The RED MAN is altogether in red. He is very tall, and his height increased by horns on the Green Helmet. The effect is intentionally violent and startling._

LAEGAIRE

What is that? I had thought that I saw, though but in the wink of an eye, A cat-headed man out of Connaught go pacing and spitting by; But that could not be.

CONALL

You have dreamed it--there's nothing out there.