Chapter VII: Part 7

O wise men, riddle me this: what if the dream come true?
What if the dream come true? and if millions unborn shall dwell
In the house that I shaped in my heart, the noble house of my thought?
Lord, I have staked my soul, I have staked the lives of my kin
On the truth of Thy dreadful word. Do not remember my failures,
But remember this my faith.

And so I speak.
Yea, ere my hot youth pass, I speak to my people and say:
Ye shall be foolish as I; ye shall scatter, not save;
Ye shall venture your all, lest ye lose what is more than all;
Ye shall call for a miracle, taking Christ at His word.
And for this I will answer, O people, answer here and hereafter,
O people that I have loved shall we not answer together?

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THE REBEL

I am come of the seed of the people, the people that sorrow,
That have no treasure but hope,
No riches laid up but a memory
Of an Ancient glory.
My mother bore me in bondage, in bondage my mother was born,
I am of the blood of serfs;
The children with whom I have played, the men and women with whom I
have eaten,
Have had masters over them, have been under the lash of masters,
And, though gentle, have served churls;
The hands that have touched mine, the dear hands whose touch is
familiar to me,
Have worn shameful manacles, have been bitten at the wrist by
manacles,
Have grown hard with the manacles and the task-work of strangers,
I am flesh of the flesh of these lowly, I am bone of their bone,
I that have never submitted;
I that have a soul greater than the souls of my people’s masters,
I that have vision and prophecy and the gift of fiery speech,
I that have spoken with God on the top of His holy hill.

And because I am of the people, I understand the people,
I am sorrowful with their sorrow, I am hungry with their desire:
My heart has been heavy with the grief of mothers,
My eyes have been wet with the tears of children,
I have yearned with old wistful men,
And laughed or cursed with young men;
Their shame is my shame, and I have reddened for it,
Reddened for that they have served, they who should be free,
Reddened for that they have gone in want, while others have been full,
Reddened for that they have walked in fear of lawyers and of their
jailors
With their writs of summons and their handcuffs,
Men mean and cruel!
I could have borne stripes on my body rather than this shame of my
people.

And now I speak, being full of vision;
I speak to my people, and I speak in my people’s name to the masters
of my people.
I say to my people that they are holy, that they are august, despite
their chains,
That they are greater than those that hold them, and stronger and
purer,
That they have but need of courage, and to call on the name of their
God,
God the unforgetting, the dear God that loves the peoples
For whom He died naked, suffering shame.
And I say to my people’s masters: Beware,
Beware of the thing that is coming, beware of the risen people,
Who shall take what ye would not give. Did ye think to conquer the
people,
Or that Law is stronger than life and than men’s desire to be free?
We will try it out with you, ye that have harried and held,
Ye that have bullied and bribed, tyrants, hypocrites, liars!

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CHRISTMAS

1915

O King that was born
To set bondsmen free,
In the coming battle,
Help the Gael!

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THE WAYFARER

The beauty of the world hath made me sad,
This beauty that will pass;
Sometimes my heart hath shaken with great joy
To see a leaping squirrel in a tree,
Or a red lady-bird upon a stalk,
Or little rabbits in a field at evening,
Lit by a slanting sun,
Or some green hill where shadows drifted by
Some quiet hill where mountainy man hath sown
And soon would reap; near to the gate of Heaven;
Or children with bare feet upon the sands
Of some ebbed sea, or playing on the streets
Of little towns in Connacht,
Things young and happy.
And then my heart hath told me:
These will pass,
Will pass and change, will die and be no more,
Things bright and green, things young and happy;
And I have gone upon my way
Sorrowful.

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APPENDIX

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APPENDIX

THE SINGER

The following is the version of a passage in this play, which was with the Author’s manuscript:

COLM. Is it to die like rats you’d have us because the word is not
given?

CUIMIN. Our plans are not finished. Our orders are not here.

COLM. Our plans will never be finished. Our orders may never be here.

CUIMIN. We’ve no one to lead us.

COLM. Didn’t you elect me your captain?

CUIMIN. We did, but not to bid us rise out when the whole country is
quiet. We were to get the word from the men that are over the people.
They’ll speak when the time comes. (_The door opens again and Feichin
comes in with two or three others._) Am I speaking lie or truth, men?
Colm here wants us to rise out before the word comes. I say we must
wait for the word. What do you say, Feichin, you that’s got a wiser
head than these young fellows?

FEICHIN. God forgive me if I’m wrong, but I say we should wait for our
orders.

CUIMIN. What do you say, Diarmaid?

DIARMAID. I like you, Colm, for the way you spoke so well and bravely;
but I’m slow to give my voice to send out the boys of this
mountain--our poor little handful--to stand with their poor little
pikes against the big guns of the Gall. If we had news that they were
rising in the other countrysides; but we’ve got no news.

COLM. Master, you haven’t spoken yet. I’m afraid to ask you to speak.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN. Cuimin is right when he says that we must not rise
out until we get the word; but what do you say, neighbours, if the man
that’ll give the word is under the roof of this house?

DIARMAID. What do you mean?

MAOILSHEACHLAINN (_going to the door of the room and throwing it
open_). Let you rise out, MacDara, and reveal yourself to the men that
are waiting your word!

FEICHIN. Has MacDara come home?

_MacDara comes out of the room, Maire ni Fhiannachta and Sighle
stand behind him in the doorway._

DIARMAID (_starting up_). That is the man that stood among the people
in the fair of Uachtar Ard! (_He goes up to MacDara and kisses his
hand._) I could not get near you yesterday, MacDara, the crowds were
so great. What was on me that I didn’t know you? Sure I ought to have
known that sad, proud head. Maire, men and women yet unborn will bless
the pains of your first childing.

MAIRE (_comes forward and takes her son’s hand and kisses it_). Soft
hand that played at my breast, strong hand that will fall heavy on the
Gall, brave hand that will break the yoke! Men of the mountain, my
son, MacDara, is the Singer that has quickened the dead years and the
young blood. Let the horsemen that sleep in Aileach rise up to-day and
follow him into the war!

_They come forward, one by one, and kiss his hand, Colm and Sighle
last._

COLM. The Gall have marched from Clifden, MacDara. I wanted to rise
out to-day, but these old men think it is not yet time.

CUIMIN. We were waiting for the word.

MACDARA. And must I speak the word? Old men, you have left me no
choice. I had hoped that more would not be asked of me than to sow the
secret word of hope, and that the toil of the reaping would be for
others. But I see that one does not serve

IOSAGAN

Author’s Foreword to _Iosagán agus Sgealta eile_, which is here translated by Mr. Joseph Campbell:

Putting these stories in order, it is no wonder that my thoughts are
on the friends that told them to me, and on the lonely place on the
edge of Ireland where they live. I see before my eyes a countryside,
hilly, crossed with glens, full of rivers, brimming with lakes; great
horns threatening their tops on the verge of the sky in the
north-west; a narrow, moaning bay stretching in from the sea on each
side of a “ross;” the “ross” rising up from the round of the bay, but
with no height compared with the nigh-hand hills or the horns far off;
a little cluster of houses in each little glen and mountain gap, and a
solitary cabin here and there on the shoulder of the hills. I think I
hear the ground-bass of the waterfalls and rivers, the sweet cry of
the golden plover and curlew, and the low voice of the people in talk
by the fireside.... My blessing with you little book, to Rossnageeragh
and to them in it, my friends!

It is from the “_patairidhe beaga_,” the “little soft young things”
that Old Matthias used see making sport to themselves on the green
that I heard the greater part of the first story. They do be there
always, every sunny evening and every fine Sunday morning, running and
throwing leaps exactly as they would be when Old Matthias would sit
looking on them. I never saw Iosagan among them, but it’s like He does
be there, for all that. Isn’t His wish to be rejoicing on the earth,
and isn’t His delight to be along with His Father’s children?... I
have told in the story itself the place and the time I heard THE
PRIEST. It’s well I remember Nora’s little house, and the kindly
little woman herself, and the three children. Paraig is serving Mass
now, and I hear Taimeen has “_Fromsó Framsó_,” by heart.... It was
from Brideen herself that I heard the adventures of Barbara. One
evening that we went in on Oilean ni Raithnighe (the Ferny Island), I
and she, it was she told it to me, and we sitting on the brink of the
lake looking over on the Big Rock. She showed me Barbara’s grave the
same evening after our coming home, and she took a promise from me
that I’d say a prayer for her friend’s soul every night of my life.
Brideen will be going to school next year, and she will be able to
read the story of Barbara out of this, I hope she will like it.... As
for EOINEEN OF THE BIRDS, I don’t know who it was I heard it from,
unless it was from the swallows themselves. Yes, I think it was they
told it to me one evening that I was stretched in the heather looking
at them flying here and there over Loch Eireamhlach. From what mouth
the swallows heard the start of the story, I don’t know. From the
song-thrush and from that yellow-bunting that have their nests in a
ditch of the garden, it’s like.

To you, sweet friends, people of the telling of my stories, both
little and big, I give and dedicate this little book.

CHRONOLOGICAL NOTE

THE SINGER was written in the late Autumn of 1915. Joseph Plunkett was profoundly impressed when he read it. “If Pearse were dead,” he said, “this would cause a sensation.” Mr. Pearse rather deprecated his view that the play was entirely a personal revelation. No Irish MS. is extant. The two poems THE REBEL and THE FOOL also belong to the same period, and are in no sense translations. The same may be said of ON THE STRAND OF HOWTH and THE MOTHER. With the exceptions of SONG FOR MARY MAGDALENE, RANN OF THE LITTLE PLAYMATE (both taken from THE MASTER), CHRIST’S COMING, CHRISTMAS 1915, DORD FEINNE, and the WAYFARER (written in Kilmainham Jail, May, 1916), the remaining Poems are translations of _Suantraide agus Goltraide_ (1914). These twelve poems, DORD FEINNE, and CHRIST’S COMING, are the only poems in this volume originally written in Irish.

THE KING was first produced as an open air play upon the banks of the river which runs through the Hermitage, Rathfarnham, by the students of St. Enda’s College. In reference to its subsequent production at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, 17th May, 1913, Mr. Pearse wrote in _An Macaomh_, Vol. II, No. 2, 1913: “The play we decided to produce along with THE POST OFFICE, was my morality _An Rí_. We had enacted it during the previous summer with much pageantry of horses and marchings, at a place in our grounds where an old castellated bridge, not unlike an entrance to a monastery, is thrown across a stream. Since that performance I had added some speeches with the object of slightly deepening the characterization.” William Pearse played the Abbot’s part.

THE MASTER was produced Whitsuntide, 1915, at the Irish Theatre, Hardwicke Street, Dublin, with William Pearse as Ciaran. No Irish MS. is extant. _Iosagán_, the dramatization of the author’s story of the same name, was first acted in Cullenswood House, Rathmines, Dublin, in February, 1910, by St. Enda students. Mr. Pearse writes in _An Macaomh_, Vol. I., No. 2, 1909: “In _Iosagán_ I have religiously followed the phraseology of the children and old men in _Iar-Connacht_ from whom I have learned the Irish I speak. I have put no word, no speech into the mouths of my little boys which the real little boys of the parish I have in mind--boys whom I know as well as I know my pupils in _Sgoil Eanna_--would not use in the same circumstances. I have given their daily conversation, anglicism, vulgarisms and all; if I gave anything else my picture would be a false one. _Iosagán_ is not a play for ordinary theatres or for ordinary players. It requires a certain atmosphere and a certain attitude of mind on the part of the actors. It has in fact been written for performance in a particular place and by particular players. I know that in that place and by those players it will be treated with the reverence due to a prayer.”

The first six stories here given are translations of _An Mátair_ (1916). The last four stories are translations of _Iosagán agus Sgéalta eile_, some of which were published in _An Claideam Soluis_ in 1905-6, re-published a few years later in book-form.

D. R.

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Transcriber’s Notes

This file uses _underscores_ to indicate italic text.

In some cases, Irish words appear to be printed with grave accents rather than the acute síneadh fada. In this edition all Irish words use only the modern standard fada.

The page images used to create this ebook are inconsistent as to whether there is a fada over the “a” in “Pádraic”, and it is not always clear whether the fadas that do appear were printed with the volume or added in afterwards. As there is no fada the majority of the time, the fadas appearing in the front matter of the volumes have been omitted.

On page 102, the words “Íosa” and “Ísuccán” were printed in cló Gaelach, Irish script. They are presented here in Roman script.

The end of the Appendix section on _The Singer_, on page v, ends with no punctuation; this has been left as is.

New original cover art included with this ebook is granted to the public domain.

The following changes and corrections have been made:

• Table of Contents: Added question mark after title “WHY DO YE TORTURE ME?” to match title above poem. • p. xii: Replaced “Paraic” with “Paraig” in phrase “Paraig wearing a surplice.” • p. 24: Replaced period with comma in phrase “I meant this to be a home-coming, but it seems....” • p. 51: Added period after phrase “It is not, but mine.” • p. 72: Removed second period before phrase “He is fond of little Iollann.” • p. 76: Replaced “ladybird” with “lady-bird” before phrase “We watch the wee lady-bird fly far away.” • p. 81: Replaced “Ciarnn” with “Ciaran” before phrase “What do you call your rann?” • p. 91: Added comma in phrase “Bid him to come in, Iollann.” • p. 105: Replaced comma with period before phrase “Yon one gave me enough.” • p. 106: Added period before phrase “I’ll make a _lúrabóg_ of you!” • p. 189: Added opening double quotation mark before phrase “I’d rather it than anything I have in the world.” • p. 221: Removed opening quotation mark before phrase “Do you think, Sean.” • p. 225: Added opening double quotation mark before phrase “that she didn’t know the railway.” • p. 225: Moved closing double quotation mark from after to before phrase “says my father.” • p. 266: Changed comma to period after phrase “but that’s not the fairing.” • p. 269: Replaced “Padaric” with “Padraic” in phrase “bless my Uncle Padaric that’s now in America” • p. 276: Changed single to double closing quotation mark after phrase “Niamh of the Golden Head.” • p. 280: Changed “its” to “it’s” and “head” to “Head” in phrase “it’s Niamh Goldy-Head would go out on the hill.” • Appendix p. iii: Changed “the the” to “the” in phrase “because the word is not given.” • Appendix p. iii: Changed “do do” to “do” in phrase “What do you say, Feichin.” • Appendix p. vii: Removed closing double quotation mark after phrase “my morality _An Rí_.”