THE CHILD
Come, little bird with silver feet!
(MAIRE dies, and the child goes.)
SHAWN BRUIN
She is dead!
BRIDGET BRUIN
Come from that image: body and soul are gone.
You have thrown your arms about a drift of leaves
Or bole of an ash tree changed into her image.
FATHER HART
Thus do the spirits of evil snatch their prey
Almost out of the very hand of God;
And day by day their power is more and more,
And men and women leave old paths, for pride
Comes knocking with thin knuckles on the heart.
A VOICE (singing outside)
The wind blows out of the gates of the day,
The wind blows over the lonely of heart,
And the lonely of heart is withered away
While the faëries dance in a place apart,
Shaking their milk-white feet in a ring,
Tossing their milk-white arms in the air;
For they hear the wind laugh and murmur and sing
Of a land where even the old are fair,
And even the wise are merry of tongue;
But I heard a reed of Coolaney say,
"When the wind has laughed and murmured and sung,
The lonely of heart is withered away."
(The song is taken up by many voices, who sing loudly, as if in triumph. Some of the voices seem to come from within the house.)
[CURTAIN]
THE RIDING TO LITHEND[1]
Gordon Bottomley