dead.
O! O! O! for golden-armed Iollan.
FORGAEL.
It was so given out, but I will prove
That the grave-diggers in a dreamy frenzy
Have buried nothing but my golden arms.
Listen to that low-laughing string of the moon
And you will recollect my face and voice,
For you have listened to me playing it
These thousand years.
[He starts up, listening to the birds. The harp slips from his hands, and remains leaning against the bulwarks behind him. The light goes out of it.
What are the birds at there?
Why are they all a-flutter of a sudden?
What are you calling out above the mast?
If railing and reproach and mockery
Because I have awakened her to love
My magic strings, I’ll make this answer to it:
Being driven on by voices and by dreams
That were clear messages from the ever-living,
I have done right. What could I but obey?
And yet you make a clamour of reproach.
DECTORA [laughing].
Why, it’s a wonder out of reckoning
That I should keen him from the full of the moon
To the horn, and he be hale and hearty.
FORGAEL.
How have I wronged her now that she is merry?
But no, no, no! your cry is not against me.
You know the councils of the ever-living,
And all that tossing of your wings is joy,
And all that murmuring’s but a marriage song;
But if it be reproach, I answer this:
There is not one among you that made love
By any other means. You call it passion,
Consideration, generosity;
But it was all deceit, and flattery
To win a woman in her own despite,
For love is war, and there is hatred in it;
And if you say that she came willingly—
DECTORA.
Why do you turn away and hide your face,
That I would look upon for ever?
FORGAEL.
My grief.
DECTORA.
Have I not loved you for a thousand years?
FORGAEL.
I never have been golden-armed Iollan.
DECTORA.
I do not understand. I know your face
Better than my own hands.
FORGAEL.
I have deceived you
Out of all reckoning.
DECTORA.
Is it not true
That you were born a thousand years ago,
In islands where the children of Aengus wind
In happy dances under a windy moon,
And that you’ll bring me there?
FORGAEL.
I have deceived you;
I have deceived you utterly.
DECTORA.
How can that be?
Is it that though your eyes are full of love
Some other woman has a claim on you,
And I’ve but half?
FORGAEL.
Oh, no!
DECTORA.
And if there is,
If there be half a hundred more, what matter?
I’ll never give another thought to it;
No, no, nor half a thought; but do not speak.
Women are hard and proud and stubborn-hearted,
Their heads being turned with praise and flattery;
And that is why their lovers are afraid
To tell them a plain story.
FORGAEL.
That’s not the story;
But I have done so great a wrong against you,
There is no measure that it would not burst.
I will confess it all.
DECTORA.
What do I care,
Now that my body has begun to dream,
And you have grown to be a burning sod
In the imagination and intellect?
If something that’s most fabulous were true—
If you had taken me by magic spells,
And killed a lover or husband at my feet—
I would not let you speak, for I would know
That it was yesterday and not to-day
I loved him; I would
