Sonnet-51 by Shakespeare

Thus can my love excuse the slow offence,

Of my dull bearer, when from thee I speed,

From where thou art, why should I haste me thence?

Till I return of posting is no need.

O what excuse will my poor beast then find,

When swift extremity can seem but slow?

Then should I spur though mounted on the wind,

In winged speed no motion shall I know,

Then can no horse with my desire keep pace,

Therefore desire (of perfect'st love being made)

Shall neigh (no dull flesh) in his fiery race,

But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade,

Since from thee going, he went wilful-slow,

Towards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go.

Sonnet-50 by Shakespeare

How heavy do I journey on the way,

When what I seek (my weary travel's end)

Doth teach that case and that repose to say

'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend.'

The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,

Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,

As if by some instinct the wretch did know

His rider loved not speed being made from thee:

The bloody spur cannot provoke him on,

That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,

Which heavily he answers with a groan,

More sharp to me than spurring to his side,

For that same groan doth put this in my mind,

My grief lies onward and my joy behind.

Sonnet-49 by Shakespeare

Against that time (if ever that time come)

When I shall see thee frown on my defects,

When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,

Called to that audit by advised respects,

Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,

And scarcely greet me with that sun thine eye,

When love converted from the thing it was

Shall reasons find of settled gravity;

Against that time do I ensconce me here

Within the knowledge of mine own desert,

And this my hand, against my self uprear,

To guard the lawful reasons on thy part,

To leave poor me, thou hast the strength of laws,

Since why to love, I can allege no cause.

Sonnet-48 by Shakespeare

How careful was I when I took my way,

Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,

That to my use it might unused stay

From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!

But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,

Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,

Thou best of dearest, and mine only care,

Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.

Thee have I not locked up in any chest,

Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,

Within the gentle closure of my breast,

From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part,

And even thence thou wilt be stol'n I fear,

For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.

Sonnet-47 by Shakespeare

Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,

And each doth good turns now unto the other,

When that mine eye is famished for a look,

Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother;

With my love's picture then my eye doth feast,

And to the painted banquet bids my heart:

Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,

And in his thoughts of love doth share a part.

So either by thy picture or my love,

Thy self away, art present still with me,

For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,

And I am still with them, and they with thee.

Or if they sleep, thy picture in my sight

Awakes my heart, to heart's and eye's delight.

Sonnet-46 by Shakespeare

Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,

How to divide the conquest of thy sight,

Mine eye, my heart thy picture's sight would bar,

My heart, mine eye the freedom of that right,

My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,

(A closet never pierced with crystal eyes)

But the defendant doth that plea deny,

And says in him thy fair appearance lies.

To side this title is impanelled

A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart,

And by their verdict is determined

The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part.

As thus, mine eye's due is thy outward part,

And my heart's right, thy inward love of heart.

Sonnet-45 by Shakespeare

The other two, slight air, and purging fire,

Are both with thee, wherever I abide,

The first my thought, the other my desire,

These present-absent with swift motion slide.

For when these quicker elements are gone

In tender embassy of love to thee,

My life being made of four, with two alone,

Sinks down to death, oppressed with melancholy.

Until life's composition be recured,

By those swift messengers returned from thee,

Who even but now come back again assured,

Of thy fair health, recounting it to me.

This told, I joy, but then no longer glad,

I send them back again and straight grow sad.

Sonnet-44 by Shakespeare

If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,

Injurious distance should not stop my way,

For then despite of space I would be brought,

From limits far remote, where thou dost stay,

No matter then although my foot did stand

Upon the farthest earth removed from thee,

For nimble thought can jump both sea and land,

As soon as think the place where he would be.                 

But ah, thought kills me that I am not thought

To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,

But that so much of earth and water wrought,

I must attend, time's leisure with my moan.

Receiving nought by elements so slow,

But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.

Sonnet-43 by Shakespeare

When most I wink then do mine eyes best see,

For all the day they view things unrespected,

But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,

And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.

Then thou whose shadow shadows doth make bright

How would thy shadow's form, form happy show,

To the clear day with thy much clearer light,

When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!

How would (I say) mine eyes be blessed made,

By looking on thee in the living day,

When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade,

Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!

All days are nights to see till I see thee,

And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me

Sonnet-42 by Shakespeare

That thou hast her it is not all my grief,

And yet it may be said I loved her dearly,

That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,

A loss in love that touches me more nearly.

Loving offenders thus I will excuse ye,

Thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her,

And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,

Suff'ring my friend for my sake to approve her.

If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,

And losing her, my friend hath found that loss,

Both find each other, and I lose both twain,

And both for my sake lay on me this cross,

But here's the joy, my friend and I are one,

Sweet flattery, then she loves but me alone.

Sonnet-41 by Shakespeare

Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,

When I am sometime absent from thy heart,

Thy beauty, and thy years full well befits,

For still temptation follows where thou art.

Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,

Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed.

And when a woman woos, what woman's son,

Will sourly leave her till he have prevailed?

Ay me, but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,

And chide thy beauty, and thy straying youth,

Who lead thee in their riot even there

Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth:

Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,

Thine by thy beauty being false to me.

Sonnet-40 by Shakespeare

Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all,

What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?

No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call,

All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more:

Then if for my love, thou my love receivest,

I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest,

But yet be blamed, if thou thy self deceivest

By wilful taste of what thy self refusest.

I do forgive thy robbery gentle thief

Although thou steal thee all my poverty:

And yet love knows it is a greater grief

To bear greater wrong, than hate's known injury.

Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,

Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes.

Sonnet-39 by Shakespeare

O how thy worth with manners may I sing,

When thou art all the better part of me?

What can mine own praise to mine own self bring:

And what is't but mine own when I praise thee?

Even for this, let us divided live,

And our dear love lose name of single one,

That by this separation I may give:

That due to thee which thou deserv'st alone:

O absence what a torment wouldst thou prove,

Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave,

To entertain the time with thoughts of love,

Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive.

And that thou teachest how to make one twain,

By praising him here who doth hence remain.

Sonnet-38 by Shakespeare

How can my muse want subject to invent

While thou dost breathe that pour'st into my verse,

Thine own sweet argument, too excellent,

For every vulgar paper to rehearse?

O give thy self the thanks if aught in me,

Worthy perusal stand against thy sight,

For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,

When thou thy self dost give invention light?

Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth

Than those old nine which rhymers invocate,

And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth

Eternal numbers to outlive long date.

If my slight muse do please these curious days,

The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.

Sonnet-37 by Shakespeare

As a decrepit father takes delight,

To see his active child do deeds of youth,

So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite

Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.

For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,

Or any of these all, or all, or more

Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,

I make my love engrafted to this store:

So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,

Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give,

That I in thy abundance am sufficed,

And by a part of all thy glory live:

Look what is best, that best I wish in thee,

This wish I have, then ten times happy me.

Sonnet-36 by Shakespeare

Let me confess that we two must be twain,

Although our undivided loves are one:

So shall those blots that do with me remain,

Without thy help, by me be borne alone.

In our two loves there is but one respect,

Though in our lives a separable spite,

Which though it alter not love's sole effect,

Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.

I may not evermore acknowledge thee,

Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,

Nor thou with public kindness honour me,

Unless thou take that honour from thy name:

But do not so, I love thee in such sort,

As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.

Sonnet-35 by Shakespeare

No more be grieved at that which thou hast done,

Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud,

Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,

And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.

All men make faults, and even I in this,

Authorizing thy trespass with compare,

My self corrupting salving thy amiss,

Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are:

For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,

Thy adverse party is thy advocate,

And 'gainst my self a lawful plea commence:

Such civil war is in my love and hate,

That I an accessary needs must be,

To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.

Sonnet-34 by Shakespeare

Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,

And make me travel forth without my cloak,

To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,

Hiding thy brav'ry in their rotten smoke?

'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,

To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,

For no man well of such a salve can speak,

That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:

Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief,

Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss,

Th' offender's sorrow lends but weak relief

To him that bears the strong offence's cross.

Ah but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,

And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds.

Sonnet-33 by Shakespeare

Full many a glorious morning have I seen,

Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,

Kissing with golden face the meadows green;

Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy:

Anon permit the basest clouds to ride,

With ugly rack on his celestial face,

And from the forlorn world his visage hide

Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:

Even so my sun one early morn did shine,

With all triumphant splendour on my brow,

But out alack, he was but one hour mine,

The region cloud hath masked him from me now.

Yet him for this, my love no whit disdaineth,

Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth.

Sonnet-32 by Shakespeare

If thou survive my well-contented day,

When that churl death my bones with dust shall cover

And shalt by fortune once more re-survey

These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover:

Compare them with the bett'ring of the time,

And though they be outstripped by every pen,

Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,

Exceeded by the height of happier men.

O then vouchsafe me but this loving thought,

'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,

A dearer birth than this his love had brought

To march in ranks of better equipage:

But since he died and poets better prove,

Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love'

Sonnet-31 by Shakespeare

Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,

Which I by lacking have supposed dead,

And there reigns love and all love's loving parts,

And all those friends which I thought buried.

How many a holy and obsequious tear

Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye,

As interest of the dead, which now appear,

But things removed that hidden in thee lie.

Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,

Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,

Who all their parts of me to thee did give,

That due of many, now is thine alone.

Their images I loved, I view in thee,

And thou (all they) hast all the all of me.

Sonnet-30 by Shakespeare

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:

Then can I drown an eye (unused to flow)

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,

And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,

And moan th' expense of many a vanished sight.

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before.

But if the while I think on thee (dear friend)

All losses are restored, and sorrows end.

Sonnet-29 by Shakespeare

When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon my self and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,

Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least,

Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

(Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate,

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Sonnet-28 by Shakespeare

How can I then return in happy plight

That am debarred the benefit of rest?

When day's oppression is not eased by night,

But day by night and night by day oppressed.

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And each (though enemies to either's reign)

Do in consent shake hands to torture me,

The one by toil, the other to complain

How far I toil, still farther off from thee.

I tell the day to please him thou art bright,

And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:

So flatter I the swart-complexioned night,

When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even.

But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,

And night doth nightly make grief's length seem stronger

Sonnet-27 by Shakespeare

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,

The dear respose for limbs with travel tired,

But then begins a journey in my head

To work my mind, when body's work's expired.

For then my thoughts (from far where I abide)

Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,

And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,

Looking on darkness which the blind do see.

Save that my soul's imaginary sight

Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,

Which like a jewel (hung in ghastly night)

Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.

Lo thus by day my limbs, by night my mind,

For thee, and for my self, no quiet find.

Sonnet-26 by shakespeare

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage

Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit;

To thee I send this written embassage

To witness duty, not to show my wit.

Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine

May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it;

But that I hope some good conceit of thine

In thy soul's thought (all naked) will bestow it:

Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,

Points on me graciously with fair aspect,

And puts apparel on my tattered loving,

To show me worthy of thy sweet respect,

Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee,

Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.

Sonnet-25 by Shakespeare

Let those who are in favour with their stars,

Of public honour and proud titles boast,

Whilst I whom fortune of such triumph bars

Unlooked for joy in that I honour most;

Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread,

But as the marigold at the sun's eye,

And in themselves their pride lies buried,

For at a frown they in their glory die.

The painful warrior famoused for fight,

After a thousand victories once foiled,

Is from the book of honour razed quite,

And all the rest forgot for which he toiled:

Then happy I that love and am beloved

Where I may not remove nor be removed

Sonnet-24 by Shakespeare

Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stelled,

Thy beauty's form in table of my heart,

My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,

And perspective it is best painter's art.

For through the painter must you see his skill,

To find where your true image pictured lies,

Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,

That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes:

Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done,

Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me

Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun

Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;

Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,

They draw but what they see, know not the heart.

Sonnet-23 by Shakespeare

As an unperfect actor on the stage,

Who with his fear is put beside his part,

Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,

Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart;

So I for fear of trust, forget to say,

The perfect ceremony of love's rite,

And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,

O'ercharged with burthen of mine own love's might:

O let my looks be then the eloquence,

And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,

Who plead for love, and look for recompense,

More than that tongue that more hath more expressed.

O learn to read what silent love hath writ,

To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.

Sonnet-22 by Shakespeare

My glass shall not persuade me I am old,

So long as youth and thou are of one date,

But when in thee time's furrows I behold,

Then look I death my days should expiate.

For all that beauty that doth cover thee,

Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,

Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me,

How can I then be elder than thou art?

O therefore love be of thyself so wary,

As I not for my self, but for thee will,

Bearing thy heart which I will keep so chary

As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.

Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain,

Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again.

Sonnet-21 by Shakespeare

So is it not with me as with that muse,

Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,

Who heaven it self for ornament doth use,

And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,

Making a couplement of proud compare

With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems:

With April's first-born flowers and all things rare,

That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.

O let me true in love but truly write,

And then believe me, my love is as fair,

As any mother's child, though not so bright

As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air:

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Let them say more that like of hearsay well,

I will not praise that purpose not to sell.

Sonnet-20 by Shakespeare

A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,

Hast thou the master mistress of my passion,

A woman's gentle heart but not acquainted

With shifting change as is false women's fashion,

An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling:

Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth,

A man in hue all hues in his controlling,

Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.

And for a woman wert thou first created,

Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,

And by addition me of thee defeated,

By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.

But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,

Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.

Sonnet-19 by Shakespeare

Devouring Time blunt thou the lion's paws,

And make the earth devour her own sweet brood,

Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,

And burn the long-lived phoenix, in her blood,

Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st,

And do whate'er thou wilt swift-footed Time

To the wide world and all her fading sweets:

But I forbid thee one most heinous crime,

O carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,

Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen,

Him in thy course untainted do allow,

For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.

Yet do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,

My love shall in my verse ever live young.

Sonnet-18 by Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed,

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:

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But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Sonnet-17 by Shakespeare

Who will believe my verse in time to come

If it were filled with your most high deserts?

Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb

Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts:

If I could write the beauty of your eyes,

And in fresh numbers number all your graces,

The age to come would say this poet lies,

Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces.

So should my papers (yellowed with their age)

Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,

And your true rights be termed a poet's rage,

And stretched metre of an antique song.

But were some child of yours alive that time,

You should live twice in it, and in my rhyme.

Sonnet-16 By Shakespeare

But wherefore do not you a mightier way

Make war upon this bloody tyrant Time?

And fortify your self in your decay

With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?

Now stand you on the top of happy hours,

And many maiden gardens yet unset,

With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,

Much liker than your painted counterfeit:

So should the lines of life that life repair

Which this (Time's pencil) or my pupil pen

Neither in inward worth nor outward fair

Can make you live your self in eyes of men.

To give away your self, keeps your self still,

And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill.

sonnet-15 by Shakespeare

When I consider every thing that grows

Holds in perfection but a little moment.

That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows

Whereon the stars in secret influence comment.

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When I perceive that men as plants increase,

Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky:

Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,

And wear their brave state out of memory.

Then the conceit of this inconstant stay,

Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,

Where wasteful time debateth with decay

To change your day of youth to sullied night,

And all in war with Time for love of you,

As he takes from you, I engraft you new

Sonnet- 14 by Shakespeare

Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck,

And yet methinks I have astronomy,

But not to tell of good, or evil luck,

Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality,

Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell;

Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,

Or say with princes if it shall go well

By oft predict that I in heaven find.

But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,

And constant stars in them I read such art

As truth and beauty shall together thrive

If from thy self, to store thou wouldst convert:

Or else of thee this I prognosticate,

Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.

RIDERS TO THE SEA -Drama by J.M. Synge

RIDERS TO THE SEA

( play in one act)

First performed at the Molesworth Hall, Dublin, February 25th, 1904.

SCENE. -- An Island off the West of Ireland. (Cottage kitchen,with nets, oil-skins, spinning wheel, some new boards standing by the wall, etc.  Cathleen, a girl of about twenty, finishes kneading cake, and puts it down in the pot-oven by the fire; then wipes her hands, and begins to spin at the wheel. NORA, a young girl, puts her head in at the door.)

NORA [In a low voice.]: Where is she?

CATHLEEN: She's lying down, God help her, and may be sleeping, if she's able.

[Nora comes in softly, and takes a bundle from under her shawl.]

CATHLEEN [Spinning the wheel rapidly.]: What is it you have?

NORA: The young priest is after bringing them. It's a shirt and a plain stocking were got off a drowned man in Donegal.

[Cathleen stops her wheel with a sudden movement, and leans out to listen.]

NORA: We're to find out if it's Michael's they are, some time herself will be down looking by the sea.

CATHLEEN: How would they be Michael's, Nora.  How would he go the length of that way to the far north?

NORA: The young priest says he's known the like of it.  "If it's Michael's they are," says he, "you can tell herself he's got a clean burial by the grace of God, and if they're not his, let no one say a word about them, for she'll be getting her death," says he, "with crying and lamenting."

[The door which Nora half closed is blown open by a gust of wind.]

CATHLEEN [Looking out anxiously.]: Did you ask him would he stop Bartley going this day with the horses to the Galway fair?

NORA: "I won't stop him," says he, "but let you not be afraid. Herself does be saying prayers half through the night, and the Almighty God won't leave her destitute," says he, "with no son living."

CATHLEEN: Is the sea bad by the white rocks, Nora?

NORA:  Middling bad, God help us.  There's a great roaring in the west, and it's worse it'll be getting when the tide's turned to the wind.

[She goes over to the table with the bundle.]

Shall I open it now?

CATHLEEN: Maybe she'd wake up on us, and come in before we'd done.

[Coming to the table.]

It's a long time we'll be, and the two of us crying.

NORA: [Goes to the inner door and listens.]: She's moving about on the bed.  She'll be coming in a minute.

CATHLEEN: Give me the ladder, and I'll put them up in the turf-loft, the way she won't know of them at all, and maybe when the tide turns she'll be going down to see would he be floating from the east.

[They put the ladder against the gable of the chimney; Cathleen goes up a few steps and hides the bundle in the turf-loft.  Maurya comes from the inner room]

MAURYA[Looking up at Cathleen and speaking querulously.]: Isn't it turf enough you have for this day and evening?

CATHLEEN: There's a cake baking at the fire for a short space. [Throwing down the turf] and Bartley will want it when the tide turns if he goes to Connemara. [Nora picks up the turf and puts it round the pot-oven.]

MAURYA [Sitting down on a stool at the fire]: He won't go this day with the wind rising from the south and

west.  He won't  go this day, for the young priest will stop him surely.

NORA: He'll not stop him, mother, and I heard Eamon Simon and Stephen Pheety and Colum Shawn saying he would go.

MAURYA: Where is he itself?

NORA: He went down to see would there be another boat sailing in the week, and I'm thinking it won't be long till he's here now, for the tide's turning at the green head, and the hooker' tacking from the east.

CATHLEEN: I hear some one passing the big stones.

NORA [Looking out]:He's coming now, and he in a hurry.

BARTLEY: [Comes in and looks round the room. Speaking sadly and quietly]: Where is the bit of new rope, Cathleen, was bought in Connemara?

CATHLEEN [Coming down]: Give it to him, Nora; it's on a nail by the white boards.  I hung it up this morning, for the pig with the black feet was eating it.

NORA [Giving him a rope]: Is that it, Bartley?

MAURYA: You'd do right to leave that rope, Bartley, hanging by the boards (Bartley takes the rope]).  It will be wanting in this place, I'm telling you, if Michael is washed up to-morrow morning, or the next morning, or any morning in the week, for it's a deep grave we'll make him by the grace of God.

BARTLEY [Beginning to work with the rope]: I've no halter the way I can ride down on the mare, and I must

go now quickly.  This is the one boat going for two weeks or beyond it, and the fair will be a good fair for horses I heard them saying below.

MAURYA: It's a hard thing they'll be saying below if the body is washed up and there's no man in it to make the coffin, and I after iving a big price for the finest white boards you'd find in  Connemara

[She looks round at the boards.]

BARTLEY: How would it be washed up, and we after looking each day for ine days, and a strong wind blowing a while back from the west nd south?

MAURYA: If it wasn't found itself, that wind is raising the sea, and here was a star up against the moon, and it rising in the ight.  If it was a hundred horses, or a thousand horses you had itself, what is the price of a thousand horses against a son where there is one son only?

BARTLEY [Working at the halter, to Cathleen]: Let you go down each day, and see the sheep aren't jumping in

on the rye, and if the jobber comes you can sell the pig with the black feet if there is a good price going.

MAURYA: How would the like of her get a good price for a pig?

BARTLEY [To Cathleen]: If the west wind holds with the last bit of the moon let you and Nora get up weed enough for another cock for the kelp. It's hard set we'll be from this day with no one in it but one man to work.

MAURYA: It's hard set we'll be surely the day you're drownd'd with the rest.  What way will I live and the girls with me, and I an old woman looking for the grave?

[Bartley lays down the halter, takes off his old coat, and puts on a newer one of the same flannel]

BARTLEY [To Nora]: Is she coming to the pier?

NORA [Looking out]: She's passing the green head and letting fall her sails.

BARTLEY [Getting his purse and tobacco]: I'll have half an hour to go down, and you'll see me coming

again in two days, or in three days, or maybe in four days if the wind is bad.

MAURYA [Turning round to the fire, and putting her shawl over her head]: Isn't it a hard and cruel man won't hear a word from an old woman, and she holding him from the sea?

CATHLEEN: It's the life of a young man to be going on the sea, and who would listen to an old woman with one thing and she saying it over?

BARTLEY [Taking the halter] : I must go now quickly.  I'll ride down on the red mare, and the gray pony'll run behind me.  .  .  The blessing of God on you.[He goes out]

MAURYA [Crying out as he is in the door]: He's gone now, God spare us, and we'll not see him again.  He's

gone now, and when the black night is falling I'll have no son left me in the world.

CATHLEEN: Why wouldn't you give him your blessing and he looking round in the door?  Isn't it sorrow enough is on every one in this house without your sending him out with an unlucky word behind him, and a hard word in his ear? [Maurya takes up the tongs and begins raking the fire aimlessly without looking round]

NORA [Turning towards her]: You're taking away the turf from the cake.

CATHLEEN [Crying out]: The Son of God forgive us, Nora, we're after forgetting his bit of bread.

[She comes over to the fire]

NORA: And it's destroyed he'll be going till dark night, and he after eating nothing since the sun went up.

CATHLEEN [Turning the cake out of the oven]: It's destroyed he'll be, surely.  There's no sense left on any

person in a house where an old woman will be talking for ever.[Maurya sways herself on her stool]

CATHLEEN [Cutting off some of the bread and rolling it in a cloth; to Maurya]: Let you go down now to the spring well and give him this and he passing.  You'll see him then and the dark word will be broken, and you can say "God speed you," the way he'll be easy in his mind.

MAURYA [Taking the bread]: Will I be in it as soon as himself?

CATHLEEN: If you go now quickly.

MAURYA [Standing up unsteadily]: It's hard set I am to walk.

CATHLEEN [Looking at her anxiously]: Give her the stick, Nora, or maybe she'll slip on the big stones.

NORA: What stick?

CATHLEEN: The stick Michael brought from Connemara.

MAURYA [Taking a stick Nora gives her]: In the big world the old people do be leaving things after them for their sons and children, but in this place it is the young men do be leaving things behind for them that do be old.

[She goes out slowly. Nora goes over to the ladder]

CATHLEEN: Wait, Nora, maybe she'd turn back quickly.  She's that sorry, God help her, you wouldn't know the thing she'd do.

NORA:Is she gone round by the bush?

CATHLEEN [Looking out]: She's gone now.  Throw it down quickly, for the Lord knows when she'll be out of it again.

NORA [Getting the bundle from the loft]: The young priest said he'd be passing to-morrow, and we might

go down and speak to him below if it's Michael's they are surely.

CATHLEEN [Taking the bundle]: Did he say what way they were found?

NORA [Coming down]: "There were two men," says he, "and they rowing round with poteen before the cocks crowed, and the oar of one of them caught the body, and they passing the black cliffs of the north."

CATHLEEN [Trying to open the bundle]: Give me a knife, Nora, the string's perished with the salt

water, and there's a black knot on it you wouldn't loosen in a week.

NORA [Giving her a knife]: I've heard tell it was a long way to Donegal.

CATHLEEN [Cutting the string]: It is surely.  There was a man in here a while ago -- the man sold us that knife -- and he said if you set off walking from the rocks beyond, it would be seven days you'd be in Donegal.

NORA: And what time would a man take, and he floating?

[Cathleen opens the bundle and takes out a bit of a stocking. They look at them eagerly]

CATHLEEN [In a low voice]: The Lord spare us, Nora! isn't it a queer hard thing to say if it's his they are surely?

NORA: I'll get his shirt off the hook the way we can put the one flannel on the other [she looks through some clothes hanging in the corner]  It's not with them, Cathleen, and where will it be?

CATHLEEN: I'm thinking Bartley put it on him in the morning, for his own shirt was heavy with the salt in it [pointing to the corner]. There's a bit of a sleeve was of the same stuff.  Give me that and it will do.

[Nora brings it to her and they compare the flannel.]

CATHLEEN: It's the same stuff, Nora; but if it is itself aren't there great rolls of it in the shops of Galway, and isn't it many another man may have a shirt of it as well as Michael himself?

NORA [Who has taken up the stocking and counted the stitches, crying out]: It's Michael, Cathleen, it's Michael; God spare his soul, and what will herself say when she hears this story, and Bartley on the sea?

CATHLEEN [Taking the stocking]: It's a plain stocking.

NORA: It's the second one of the third pair I knitted, and I put up three score stitches, and I dropped four of them.

CATHLEEN [Counts the stitches]: It's that number is in it [crying out] Ah, Nora, isn't it a bitter thing to think of him floating that way to the far north, and no one to keen him but the black hags that do be flying on the sea?

NORA [Swinging herself round, and throwing out her arms on the clothes]: And isn't it a pitiful thing when there is nothing left of a man who was a great rower and fisher, but a bit of an old shirt and a plain stocking?

CATHLEEN [After an instant.]: Tell me is herself coming, Nora?  I hear a little sound on the path.

NORA [Looking out.]: She is, Cathleen.  She's coming up to the door.

CATHLEEN: Put these things away before she'll come in.  Maybe it's easier she'll be after giving her blessing to Bartley, and we won't let on we've heard anything the time he's on the sea.

NORA [Helping Cathleen to close the bundle]: We'll put them here in the corner.

[They put them into a hole in the chimney corner.  Cathleen goes back to the spinning-wheel]

NORA: Will she see it was crying I was?

CATHLEEN: Keep your back to the door the way the light'll not be on you.

[Nora sits down at the chimney corner, with her back to the door. Maurya comes in very slowly, without looking at the girls, and goes over to her stool at the other side of the fire.  The cloth with the bread is still in her hand.  The girls look at each other, and Nora points to the bundle of bread]

CATHLEEN [After spinning for a moment]: You didn't give him his bit of bread?

[Maurya begins to keen softly, without turning round]

CATHLEEN: Did you see him riding down? [Maurya goes on keening]

CATHLEEN [A little impatiently]: God forgive you; isn't it a better thing to raise your voice and tell what you seen, than to be making lamentation for a thing that's done?  Did you see Bartley, I'm saying to you?

MAURYA [With a weak voice]: My heart's broken from this day.

CATHLEEN [As before]: Did you see Bartley?

MAURYA: I seen the fearfulest thing.

CATHLEEN [Leaves her wheel and looks out]: God forgive you; he's riding the mare now over the green head,

and the gray pony behind him.

MAURYA: [Starts, so that her shawl falls back from her head and shows her white tossed hair.  With a frightened voice]: The gray pony behind him.

CATHLEEN [Coming to the fire]: What is it ails you, at all?

MAURYA [Speaking very slowly]: I've seen the fearfulest thing any person has seen, since the day Bride Dara seen the dead man with the child in his arms.

CATHLEEN AND NORA: Uah. [They crouch down in front of the old woman at the fire]

NORA: Tell us what it is you seen.

MAURYA: I went down to the spring well, and I stood there saying a prayer to myself.  Then Bartley came along, and he riding on the red mare with the gray pony behind him [she puts up her hands, as if to hide something from her eyes]  The Son of God spare us, Nora!

CATHLEEN: What is it you seen.

MAURYA: I seen Michael himself.

CATHLEEN [Speaking softly]: You did not, mother; it wasn't Michael you seen, for his body

is after being found in the far north, and he's got a clean burial by the grace of God.

MAURYA [A little defiantly]: I'm after seeing him this day, and he riding and galloping.

Bartley came first on the red mare; and I tried to say "God speed you," but something choked the words in my throat.  He went by quickly; and "the blessing of God on you," says he, and I could say nothing.  I looked up then, and I crying, at the gray pony, and there was Michael upon it -- with fine clothes on him, and new shoes on his feet.

CATHLEEN [Begins to keen]: It's destroyed we are from this day.  It's destroyed, surely.

NORA: Didn't the young priest say the Almighty God wouldn't leave her destitute with no son living?

MAURYA [In a low voice, but clearly]: It's little the like of him knows of the sea.  .  .  . Bartley  will be lost now, and let you call in Eamon and make me a good coffin out of the white boards, for I won't live after them. I've had a husband, and a husband's father, and six sons in this house -- six fine men, though it was a hard birth I had with every one of them and they coming to the world -- and some of them were found and some of them were not found, but they're gone now the lot of them.  .  .  There were Stephen, and Shawn, were lost in the great wind, and found after in the Bay of Gregory of the Golden Mouth, and carried up the two of them on the one plank, and in by that door. [She pauses for a moment, the girls start as if they heard something through the door that is half open behind them]

NORA [In a whisper]: Did you hear that, Cathleen?  Did you hear a noise in the north-east?

CATHLEEN [In a whisper]: There's some one after crying out by the seashore.

MAURYA: [Continues without hearing anything.]: There was Sheamus and his father, and his own father again,

were lost in a dark night, and not a stick or sign was seen of them when the sun went up.  There was Patch after was drowned out of a curagh that turned over.  I was sitting here with Bartley, and he a baby, lying on my two knees, and I seen two women, and three women, and four women coming in, and they crossing themselves, and not saying a word.  I looked out then, and there were men coming after them, and they holding a thing in the half of a red sail, and water dripping out of it – it was a dry day, Nora -- and leaving a track to the door.

[She pauses again with her hand stretched out towards the door. It opens softly and old women begin to come in, crossing themselves on the threshold, and kneeling down in front of the stage with red petticoats over their heads]

MAURYA [Half in a dream, to Cathleen]: Is it Patch, or Michael, or what is it at all?

CATHLEEN: Michael is after being found in the far north, and when he is found there how could he be here in this place?

MAURYA: There does be a power of young men floating round in the sea, and what way would they know if it was Michael they had, or another man like him, for when a man is nine days in the sea, and the wind blowing, it's hard set his own mother would be to say what man was it.

CATHLEEN: It's Michael, God spare him, for they're after sending us a bit of his clothes from the far north.

[She reaches out and hands Maurya the clothes that belonged to Michael. Maurya stands up slowly, and takes them into her hands. NORA looks out]

NORA: They're carrying a thing among them and there's water dripping out of it and leaving a track by the big stones.

CATHLEEN [In a whisper to the women who have come in.]: Is it Bartley it is?

ONE OF THE WOMEN: It is surely, God rest his soul.

[Two younger women come in and pull out the table.  Then men carry in the body of Bartley, laid on a plank, with a bit of a sail over it, and lay it on the table]

CATHLEEN [To the women, as they are doing so]: What way was he drowned?

ONE OF THE WOMEN: The gray pony knocked him into the sea, and he was washed out where there is a great surf on the white rocks.

[Maurya has gone over and knelt down at the head of the table. The women are keening softly and swaying hemselves with a slow movement.  Cathleen and Nora kneel at the other end of the table.  The men kneel near the door]

MAURYA [Raising her head and speaking as if she did not see the people around her]: They're all gone now, and there isn't anything more the sea can do to me. . . .  I'll have no call now to be up crying and praying when the wind breaks from the south, and you can hear the surf is in the east, and the surf is in the west, making a great stir with the two noises, and they hitting one on the other.  I'll have no call now to be going down and getting Holy

Water in the dark nights after Samhain, and I won't care what way the sea is when the other women will be keening. [to Nora] Give me the Holy Water, Nora, there's a small sup still on the dresser.

[Nora gives it to her]

MAURYA [Drops Michael's clothes across Bartley's feet, and sprinkles the Holy Water over him]: It isn't that I haven't prayed for you, Bartley, to the Almighty God.  It isn't that I haven't said prayers in the dark night till you wouldn't know what I'ld be saying; but it's a great rest I'll have now, and it's time surely.  It's a great rest I'll have now, and great sleeping in the long nights after Samhain, if it's only a bit of wet flour we do have to eat, and maybe a fish that would be stinking.

[She kneels down again, crossing herself, and saying prayers under her breath]

CATHLEEN [To an old man]: Maybe yourself and Eamon would make a coffin when the sun rises.  We have fine white boards herself bought, God help her, thinking Michael would be found, and I have a new cake you can

eat while you'll be working.

THE OLD MAN [Looking at the boards]: Are there nails with them?

CATHLEEN: There are not, Colum; we didn't think of the nails.

ANOTHER MAN: It's a great wonder she wouldn't think of the nails, and all the coffins she's seen made already.

CATHLEEN: It's getting old she is, and broken.

[Maurya stands up again very slowly and spreads out the pieces of Michael's clothes beside the body, sprinkling them with the last of the Holy Water]

NORA [In a whisper to Cathleen]: She's quiet now and easy; but the day Michael was drowned you could hear her crying out from this to the spring well.  It's fonder she was of Michael, and would any one have thought that?

CATHLEEN [Slowly and clearly.]: An old woman will be soon tired with anything she will do, and isn't it nine days herself is after crying and keening, and making great sorrow in the house?

MAURYA [Puts the empty cup mouth downwards on the table, and lays her hands together on Bartley's feet]

They're all together this time, and the end is come.  May the Almighty God have mercy on Bartley's soul, and on Michael's soul, and on the souls of Sheamus and Patch, and Stephen and Shawn [bending her head]; and may He have mercy on my soul, Nora, and on the soul of every one is left living in the world. [She pauses, and the keen rises a little more loudly from the women, then sinks away]

MAURYA [Continuing.]: Michael has a clean burial in the far north, by the grace of the Almighty God.  Bartley will have a fine coffin out of the white boards, and a deep grave surely. What more can we want than that?  No man at all can be living for ever, and we must be satisfied.

[She kneels down again and the curtain falls slowly]