William Butler Yeats

 p.51

The Old Age of Queen Maeve

1. Maeve the great queen was pacing to and fro,
   Between the walls covered with beaten bronze,
   In her high house at Cruachan; the long hearth,
   Flickering with ash and hazel, but half showed
   Where the tired horse-boys lay upon the rushes,
   Or on the benches underneath the walls,
   In comfortable sleep; all living slept
   But that great queen, who more than half the night
   Had paced from door to fire and fire to door.
   Though now in her old age, in her young age
   She had been beautiful in that old way
   That's all but gone; for the proud heart is gone,
   And the fool heart of the counting-house fears all
   But soft beauty and indolent desire.  p.52
   She could have called over the rim of the world
   Whatever woman's lover had hit her fancy,
   And yet had been great bodied and great limbed,
   Fashioned to be the mother of strong children;
   And she'd had lucky eyes and a high heart,
   And wisdom that caught fire like the dried flax,
   At need, and made her beautiful and fierce,
   Sudden and laughing.
   <caesura TEIform="caesura"/>O unquiet heart,
   Why do you praise another, praising her,
   As if there were no tale but your own tale
   Worth knitting to a measure of sweet sound?
   Have I not bid you tell of that great queen
   Who has been buried some two thousand years?
2. When night was at its deepest, a wild goose
   Cried from the porter's lodge, and with long clamour
   Shook the ale horns and shields upon their hooks;
   But the horse-boys slept on, as though some power
   Had filled the house with Druid heaviness;
   And wondering who of the many-changing Sidhe
   Had come as in the old times to counsel her,  p.53
   Maeve walked, yet with slow footfall, being old,
   To that small chamber by the outer gate.
   The porter slept, although he sat upright
   With still and stony limbs and open eyes.
   Maeve waited, and when that ear-piercing noise
   Broke from his parted lips and broke again,
   She laid a hand on either of his shoulders,
   And shook him wide awake, and bid him say
   Who of the wandering many-changing ones
   Had troubled his sleep. But all he had to say
   Was that, the air being heavy and the dogs
   More still than they had been for a good month,
   He had fallen asleep, and, though he had dreamed nothing,
   He could remember when he had had fine dreams.
   It was before the time of the great war
   Over the White-Horned Bull, and the Brown Bull.
3. She turned away; he turned again to sleep
   That no god troubled now, and, wondering
   What matters were afoot among the Sidhe,
   Maeve walked through that great hall, and with a sigh
   Lifted the curtain of her sleeping-room,
   Remembering that she too had seemed divine  p.54
   To many thousand eyes, and to her own
   One that the generations had long waited
   That work too difficult for mortal hands
   Might be accomplished. Bunching the curtain up
   She saw her husband Ailell sleeping there,
   And thought of days when he'd had a straight body,
   And of that famous Fergus, Nessa's husband,
   Who had been the lover of her middle life.
4. Suddenly Ailell spoke out of his sleep,
   And not with his own voice or a man's voice,
   But with the burning, live, unshaken voice,
   Of those that it may be can never age.
   He said, "High Queen of Cruachan and Magh Ai,
   A king of the Great Plain would speak with you."
   And with glad voice Maeve answered him, "What king
   Of the far wandering shadows has come to me?
   As in the old days when they would come and go
   About my threshold to counsel and to help."
   The parted lips replied, "I seek your help,
   For I am Aengus, and I am crossed in love."
   "How may a mortal whose life gutters out
   Help them that wander with hand clasping hand,  p.55
   Their haughty images that cannot wither,
   For all their beauty's like a hollow dream,
   Mirrored in streams that neither hail nor rain
   Nor the cold North has troubled?"
   <caesura TEIform="caesura"/> He replied:
   "I am from those rivers and I bid you call
   The children of the Maines out of sleep,
   And set them digging under Bual's hill.
   We shadows, while they uproot his earthy house,
   Will overthrow his shadows and carry off
   Caer, his blue-eyed daughter that I love.
   I helped your fathers when they built these walls,
   And I would have your help in my great need,
   Queen of high Cruachan."
   <caesura TEIform="caesura"/> "I obey your will
   With speedy feet and a most thankful heart:
   For you have been, O Aengus of the birds,
   Our giver of good counsel and good luck."
   And with a groan, as if the mortal breath
   Could but awaken sadly upon lips
   That happier breath had moved, her husband turned
   Face downward, tossing in a troubled sleep;
   But Maeve, and not with a slow feeble foot,
   Came to the threshold of the painted house,
   Where her grandchildren slept, and cried aloud,
   Until the pillared dark began to stir  p.56
   With shouting and the clang of unhooked arms.
   She told them of the many-changing ones;
   And all that night, and all through the next day
   To middle night, they dug into the hill.
   At middle night great cats with silver claws,
   Bodies of shadow and blind eyes like pearls,
   Came up out of the hole, and red-eared hounds
   With long white bodies came out of the air
   Suddenly, and ran at them and harried them.
5. The Maines' children dropped their spades, and stood
   With quaking joints and terror-strucken faces,
   Till Maeve called out: "These are but common men.
   The Maines' children have not dropped their spades,
   Because Earth, crazy for its broken power,
   Casts up a show and the winds answer it
   With holy shadows." Her high heart was glad,
   And when the uproar ran along the grass
   She followed with light footfall in the midst,
   Till it died out where an old thorn tree stood.
6. Friend of these many years, you too had stood
   With equal courage in that whirling rout;  p.57
   For you, although you've not her wandering heart,
   Have all that greatness, and not hers alone,
   For there is no high story about queens
   In any ancient book but tells of you;
   And when I've heard how they grew old and died,
   Or fell into unhappiness, I've said:
   "She will grow old and die, and she has wept!"
   And when I'd write it out anew, the words,
   Half crazy with the thought, She too has wept!
   Outrun the measure.
   <caesura TEIform="caesura"/>I'd tell of that great queen
   Who stood amid a silence by the thorn
   Until two lovers came out of the air
   With bodies made out of soft fire. The one,
   About whose face birds wagged their fiery wings,
   Said: "Aengus and his sweetheart give their thanks
   To Maeve and to Maeve's household, owing all
   In owing them the bride-bed that gives peace."
   Then Maeve: "O Aengus, Master of all lovers,
   A thousand years ago you held high talk
   With the first kings of many-pillared Cruachan.  p.58
   O when will you grow weary?"
   <caesura TEIform="caesura"/> They had vanished;
   But out of the dark air over her head there came
   A murmur of soft words and meeting lips.

@incollection{E910001-056,
  author 	 = {William Butler Yeats},
  title 	 = {The Old Age of Queen Maeve},
  editor 	 = {William Butler Yeats},
  booktitle 	 = {Later Poems},
  publisher 	 = {Macmillan},
  address 	 = {London},
  date 	 = {1922},
  pages 	 = {51–58}
}
 E910001-056.bib