Mother: It is glad you should be and happy.
Timothy: Happy, is it? Give me a hareskin cap
for to put over my ears, having wool in it very thick!
(Sings.) "Silent, O Moyle, be the roar of thy water,
Break not ye breezes your chain of repose,
While murmuring mournfully Lir's lonely daughter
Tells to the night-star her tale of woes.
"When shall the swan, her death-note singing,
Sleep with wings in darkness furl'd?
When will heaven its sweet bells ringing
Call my spirit from this stormy world?"
Mother: Come with me now and I'll be chatting
to you.
Timothy: Why would I be listening to your
blather when I have the voices of the four winds to
be listening to? The night wind, the east wind,
the black wind and the wind from the south!
Conan: Such a thing I never saw before in all
my natural life.
Timothy: To be hearing, without understanding
it, the language of the tribes of the birds! (Puts
hands over ears again.) There's too many sounds
in the world! The sounds of the earth are terrible!
The roots squeezing and jostling one another
through the clefts, and the crashing of the acorn
from the oak. The cry of the little birdeen in
under the silence of the hawk!
Conan: (To Mother.) As it you let it loose
upon him, let you bring him away to some hole or
cave of the earth.
Timothy: It is my desire to go cast myself in
the ocean where there'll be but one sound of its
waves, the fishes in its meadows being dumb!
(Goes to corner and hides his head in a sack.)
Mother: Even so there might likely be a mermaid
playing reels on her silver comb, and yourself
craving after the world you left.
(Sings: Air, "Spailpin Fanach.")
"You think to go from every woe to peace in the
wide ocean,
But you will find your foolish mind repent its
foolish notion.
When dog-fish dash and mermaids splash their
finny tails to find you,
I'll make a bet that you'll regret the world you
left behind you!"
Celia: (Clattering in with broom, etc.) What
are ye doing, coming in this room again after I
having it settled so nice? I'll allow no one in the
place again, only carriage company that will have
no speck of dust upon the sole of their shoe!