The Green Helmet and Other Poems Part 3

I killed them all before daybreak--I hoked them out of their lair; I cut off a hundred heads with a single stroke of my sword, And then I danced on their graves and carried away their h.o.a.rd.

LAEGAIRE

Does anything stir on the sea?

CONALL

Not even a fish or a gull: I can see for a mile or two, now that the moon's at the full.

[_A distant shout._]

LAEGAIRE

Ah--there--there is someone who calls us.

CONALL

But from the landward side, And we have nothing to fear that has not come up from the tide; The rocks and the bushes cover whoever made that noise, But the land will do us no harm.

LAEGAIRE

It was like Cuchulain's voice.

CONALL

But that's an impossible thing.

LAEGAIRE

An impossible thing indeed.

CONALL

For he will never come home, he has all that he could need In that high windy Scotland--good luck in all that he does.

Here neighbour wars on neighbour and why there is no man knows, And if a man is lucky all wish his luck away, And take his good name from him between a day and a day.

LAEGAIRE

I would he'd come for all that, and make his young wife know That though she may be his wife, she has no right to go Before your wife and my wife, as she would have gone last night Had they not caught at her dress, and pulled her as was right; And she makes light of us though our wives do all that they can.

She spreads her tail like a peac.o.c.k and praises none but her man.

CONALL

A man in a long green cloak that covers him up to the chin Comes down through the rocks and hazels.

LAEGAIRE

Cry out that he cannot come in.

CONALL

He must look for his dinner elsewhere, for no one alive shall stop Where a shame must alight on us two before the dawn is up.

LAEGAIRE

No man on the ridge of the world must ever know that but us two.

CONALL

[_Outside door_]

Go away, go away, go away.

YOUNG MAN

[_Outside door_]

I will go when the night is through And I have eaten and slept and drunk to my heart's delight.

CONALL

A law has been made that none shall sleep in this house to-night.

YOUNG MAN

Who made that law?

CONALL

We made it, and who has so good a right?

Who else has to keep the house from the Shape-Changers till day?

YOUNG MAN

Then I will unmake the law, so get you out of the way.

[_He pushes past CONALL and goes into house_]

CONALL

I thought that no living man could have pushed me from the door, Nor could any living man do it but for the dip in the floor; And had I been rightly ready there's no man living could do it, Dip or no dip.

LAEGAIRE

Go out--if you have your wits, go out, A stone's throw further on you will find a big house where Our wives will give you supper, and you'll sleep sounder there, For it's a luckier house.

YOUNG MAN

I'll eat and sleep where I will.