brief longing and deceiving hope
    And bodily tenderness, and finds that even
    The bed of love, that in the imagination
    Had seemed to be the giver of all peace,
    Is no more than a wine-cup in the tasting,
    And as soon finished.
Aibric.                     All that ever loved
    Have loved that way—there is no other way.
Forgael. Yet never have two lovers kissed but they
    Believed there was some other near at hand,
    And almost wept because they could not find it.
Aibric. When they have twenty years; in middle life
    They take a kiss for what a kiss is worth,
    And let the dream go by.
Forgael.                     It’s not a dream,
    But the reality that makes our passion
    As a lamp shadow—no—no lamp, the sun.
    What the world’s million lips are thirsting for
    Must be substantial somewhere.
Aibric.                     I have heard the Druids
    Mutter such things as they awake from trance.
    It may be that the Ever-living know it—
    No mortal can.
Forgael.                     Yes; if they give us help.
Aibric. They are besotting you as they besot
    The crazy herdsman that will tell his fellows
    That he has been all night upon the hills,
    Riding to hurley, or in the battle-host
    With the Ever-living.
Forgael.                      What if he speak the truth,
    And for a dozen hours have been a part
    Of that more powerful life?
Aibric.                      His wife knows better.
    Has she not seen him lying like a log,
    Or fumbling in a dream about the house?
    And if she hear him mutter of wild riders,
    She knows that it was but the cart-horse coughing
    That set him to the fancy.
Forgael.                      All would be well
    Could we but give us wholly to the dreams,
    And get into their world that to the sense
    Is shadow, and not linger wretchedly
    Among substantial things; for it is dreams
    That lift us to the flowing, changing world
    That the heart longs for. What is love itself,
    Even though it be the lightest of light love,
    But dreams that hurry from beyond the world
    To make low laughter more than meat and drink,
    Though it but set us sighing? Fellow-wanderer,
    Could we but mix ourselves into a dream,
    Not in its image on the mirror!
Aibric.                      While
    We’re in the body that’s impossible.
Forgael. And yet I cannot think they’re leading me
    To death; for they that promised to me love
    As those that can outlive the moon have known it,
    Had the world’s total life gathered up, it seemed,
    Into their shining limbs—I’ve had great teachers.
    Aengus and Edain ran up out of the wave—
    You’d never doubt that it was life they promised
    Had you looked on them face to face as I did,
    With so red lips, and running on such feet,
    And having such wide-open, shining eyes.
Aibric. It’s certain they are leading you to death.
    None but the dead, or those that never lived,
    Can know that ecstasy. Forgael! Forgael!
    They have made you follow the man-headed birds,
    And you have told me that their journey lies
    Towards the country of the dead.
Forgael.                      What matter
    If I am going to my death?—for there,
    Or somewhere, I shall find the love they have promised.
    That much is certain. I shall find a woman,
    One of the Ever-living, as I think—
    One of the Laughing People—and she and I
    Shall light upon a place in the world’s core,
    Where passion grows to be a changeless thing,
    Like charmèd apples made of chrysoprase,
    Or chrysoberyl, or beryl, or chrysolite;
    And there, in juggleries of sight and sense,
    Become one movement, energy, delight,
    Until the overburthened moon is dead.
[A number of Sailors enter hurriedly.]
First Sailor. Look there! there in the mist! a ship of spice!
    And we are almost on her!
Second Sailor.                      We had not known
    But for the ambergris and sandalwood.
First Sailor. No; but opoponax and cinnamon.
Forgael [taking the tiller from Aibric]. The Ever-living have kept my bargain for me,
    And paid you on the nail.
Aibric.                      Take up that rope
    To make her fast while we are plundering her.
First Sailor. There is a king and queen upon her deck,
    And where there is one woman there’ll be others.
Aibric. Speak lower, or they’ll hear.
First Sailor.                      They cannot hear;
    They are too busy with each other. Look!
    He has stooped down and kissed her on the lips.
Second Sailor. When she finds out we have better men aboard
    She may not be too sorry in the end.
First Sailor. She will be like a wild cat; for these queens
    Care more about the kegs of silver and gold
    And the high fame that come to them in marriage,
    Than a strong body and a ready hand.
Second Sailor. There’s nobody is natural but a robber,
    And that is why the world totters about
    Upon its bandy legs.
Aibric.                      Run at them now,
    And overpower the crew while yet asleep!
[The Sailors go out.]
[Voices and the clashing of swords are heard from the
other ship, which cannot be seen because of the sail.]
A Voice. Armed men have come upon us! O I am slain!
Another Voice. Wake all below!
Another Voice.                      Why have you broken our sleep?
First Voice. Armed men have come upon us! O I am slain!
Forgael [who has remained at the tiller]. There! there they come! Gull, gannet, or diver,
    But with a man’s head, or a fair woman’s,
    They hover over the masthead awhile
    To wait their friends; but when their friends have come
    They’ll fly upon that secret way of theirs.
    One—and one—a couple—five together;
    And I will hear them talking in a minute.
    Yes, voices! but I do not catch the words.
    Now I can hear. There’s one of them that says,
    ‘How light we are, now we are changed to birds!’
    Another answers, ‘Maybe we shall find
    Our heart’s desire now that we are so light.’
    And then one asks another how he died,
    And says,

  By PanEris using Melati.

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