And will she give
Enough to keep my children through the dearth?
ANOTHER PEASANT WOMAN
O, Queen of Heaven, and all you blessed saints,
Let us and ours be lost, so she be shriven.
CATHLEEN
Bend down your faces, Oona and Aleel;
I gaze upon them as the swallow gazes
Upon the nest under the eave, before
She wander the loud waters. Do not weep
Too great a while, for there is many a candle
On the High Altar though one fall. Aleel,
Who sang about the dancers of the woods,
That know not the hard burden of the world,
Having but breath in their kind bodies, farewell!
And farewell, Oona, you who played with me
And bore me in your arms about the house
When I was but a child—and therefore happy,
Therefore happy even like those that dance.
The storm is in my hair and I must go.
(She dies.)
OONA
Bring me the looking-glass.
(A woman brings it to her out of inner room. OONA holds glass over the lips of CATHLEEN. All is silent for a moment, then she speaks in a half-scream.)