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ANOTHER SAILOR.

Let every man draw out his sword

And gather round him, that no god may know

The hand that wounds.

(Forgael has taken the harp in his hands and is leaning against the bulwark. The sailors draw their swords, and come toward him. Forgael plays slowly and faintly.)

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He has thrown a druid dream upon the air.
Strike quickly; it will fade out when you strike.

A SAILOR.

I am afraid of his low laughing harp.

(Forgael changes the air.)

DECTORA.

(Looking over the bulwark in a half dream.)

I shall be home now in a little while,

Hearing the harpers play, the pine wood crackle,
The handmaids laugh and whisper in the door.
VOL. CLXX.-NO. 522.

46

A SAILOR.

Who said we had a skin of yellow ale?

ANOTHER SAILOR.

I said the ale was brown.

ANOTHER SAILOR.

(Who has gone into the other ship.)

I have found the ale,

I had thrown it down behind this coil of rope.

ANOTHER SAILOR.

Forgael can die to-morrow. Come to the ale.

ANOTHER SAILOR.

Come to the ale: for he can die to-morrow.

(They go on to the other ship.)

AIBRIC.

(Who lingers looking at Dectora.)

She will say something in a little while,
'And I shall laugh with joy.

A VOICE ON THE OTHER SHIP.

Come hither, Aibric,

And tell me a love story while I drink.

AIBRIC.

Ah, well, they are calling me-they are calling me.

(He goes forward and into the other ship.)

FORGAEL.

How little and reedy a sound awakes a god

To cry his folding cry.

(He changes the tune again; Dectora leans against the bulwark as if very sleepy and gradually sinks down on the deck.)

DECTORA.

(As if in sleep.)

There is some man

That I would bid my people put to death.
I think he lives in Lochlann. No, not there;
Among the Hebrides.

FORGAEL.

When she awakens,

The years that have gone over her from the hour
When she dreamed first of love, shall flicker out
'And leave her dreaming. When I looked on her,
I grew as old as Time, and she grows young
'As the ageless birds of Engus, or the birds
The white fool makes at morning out of foam;
For love is a-weaving when a woman's heart
Grows young and a man's heart grows old in a twinkling.
(He changes the air.)

Her eyelids tremble and the white foam fades;
The stars would hurl their crowns among the foam
Were they but lifted up.

DECTORA.

(Slowly waking.)

The red hound is fled.

Why did you say that I have followed him
For these nine years? O! Arrow upon arrow!
My eyes are troubled by the silver arrows;
Ah, they have pierced his heart!

(She wakes.)

I have slept long,

I fought twelve battles dressed in golden armor.
I have forgot it all. How soon dreams fade!

I will drink out of the stream. The stream is gone

Before I dropped asleep, a kingfisher

Shook the pale apple blossom over it;
'And now the waves are crying in my ears,
'And a cold wind is blowing in my hair.

FORGAEL.

(Going over to her.)

A hound that had lain hid in the red rushes
Breathed out a druid vapor, and crumbled away
The grass and the blue shadow on the stream
And the pale blossom; but I woke instead
The winds and waters to be your home forever;
And overturned the demon with a sound

I had woven of the sleep that is in pools
Among great trees, and in the wings of owls,
And under lovers' eyelids.

(He stoops and holds the harp toward her.)

Bend your head

And lean your lips devoutly to this harp,
For he who gave it called it Angus' harp
And said it was mightier than the sun and moon,
Or than the shivering casting net of the stars.

(She takes the harp in her hands and kisses it.)

DECTORA.

O, Engus of the herds, watch over me.

I sat beside my foster mother, and now

I am caught in woven nets of enchantment. Look! I have wet this braid of hair with tears while asleep.

FORGAEL.

(Standing upright beside her.)

He watches over none but faithful lovers.
Edaine came out of Midher hill, and lay
Beside young Engus in his tower of glass,
Where time is drowned in odor-laden winds
And druid moons, and murmuring of boughs,
And sleepy boughs, and boughs where apples made
Of opal and ruby and pale chrysolite
Awake unsleeping fires; and wove seven strings,
Sweet with all music, out of his long hair,

Because her hands had been made wild by love;

And when one changed her to a silver fly,
He made a harp with druid apple-wood
That she among her winds might know he wept;
And from that hour, he has watched over none
But faithful lovers.

DECTORA.

(Half rising.)

Whither have you come,

Beseeching hands and more beseeching eyes?
I have been waiting you. A moment since
My foster mother sang in an old rhyme

That my true love would come in a ship of pearl
Under a silken sail and silver yard,

And bring me where the children of Angus wind

In happy dances, under a windy moon;

But these waste waters and wind-beaten sails
Are wiser witchcraft, for our peace awakes
In one another's arms.

(He has taken her in his arms.)

FORGAEL.

Engus has seen

His well-beloved through a mortal's eyes;
And she, no longer blown among the winds,
Is laughing through a mortal's eyes.

DECTORA.

(Peering out over the waters.)

O look!

A red-eared hound follows a hornless deer.
There! There! They have gone quickly, for already
The cloudy waters and the glimmering winds
Have covered them.

FORGAEL.

Where did they vanish away?

DECTORA.

Where the moon makes a cloudy light in the mist.

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