Pádraic H. Pearse

THE SINGER

MAIRE.

Mend the fire, Sighle, jewel.

SIGHLE.

Are you cold?

MAIRE.

The feet of me are cold.

SIGHLE.

You had a right to go to bed.

MAIRE.

I couldn't have slept, child. I had a feeling that something was drawing near to us. That something or somebody was coming here. All day yesterday I heard footsteps abroad on the street.

SIGHLE.

'Twas the dry leaves. The quicken trees in the gap were losing their leaves in the high wind.

MAIRE.

Maybe so. Did you think that Colm looked anxious in himself last night when he was going out?

SIGHLE.

I may as well quench that candle. The dawn has whitened.

MAIRE.

Did you think, daughter, that Colm looked anxious and sorrowful in himself when he was going out?

SIGHLE.

I did.

MAIRE.

Was he saying anything to you?

SIGHLE.

He was. (They work silently for a few minutes then Sighle stops and speaks.) Maire ni Fhiannachta, I think I ought to tell you what your son said to me. I have been going over and over it in my mind all the long hours of the night. It is not right for the two of us to be sitting at this fire with a secret like that coming between us. Will I tell you what Colm said to me?

MAIRE.

You may tell me if you like, Sighle girl.

SIGHLE.

He said to me that he was very fond of me.

MAIRE

(who has stopped spinning).

Yes, daughter?

SIGHLE.

And … and he asked me if he came safe out of the trouble, would I marry him.

MAIRE.

What did you say to him?

SIGHLE.

I told him that I could not give him any answer.

MAIRE.

Did he ask you why you could not give him an answer?

SIGHLE.

He did; and I didn't know what to tell him.

MAIRE.

Can you tell me?

SIGHLE.

Do you remember the day I first came to your house, Maire?

MAIRE.

I do well.

SIGHLE.

Do you remember how lonely I was?

MAIRE.

I do, you creature. Didn't I cry myself when the priest brought you in to me? And you caught hold of my skirt and wouldn't let it go, but cried till I thought your heart would break. “They've put my mammie in the ground”, you kept saying. “She was asleep, and they put her in the ground.”

SIGHLE.

And you went down on your knees beside me and put your two arms around me, and put your cheek against my cheek and said nothing but “God comfort you; God comfort you.” And when I stopped crying a little, you brought me over to the fire. Your two sons were at the fire, Maire. Colm was in the ingle where I am now; MacDara was sitting where you are. MacDara stooped down and lifted me on to his knee — I was only a wee shy child. He stroked my hair. Then he began singing a little song to me, a little song that had sad words in it, but that had joy in the heart of it, and in the beat of it; and the words and the music grew very caressing and soothing like, … like my mother's hand when it was on my cheek, or my mother's kiss on my mouth when I'd be half asleep —

MAIRE.

Yes, daughter?

SIGHLE.

And it soothed me, and soothed me; and I began to think that I was at home again, and I fell asleep in MacDara's arms — oh, the strong, strong arms of him, with his soft voice soothing me — when I woke up long after that I was still in his arms  p.7with my head on his shoulder. I opened my eyes and looked up at him. He smiled at me and said, “That was a good, long sleep.” I … put up my face to him to be kissed, and he bent down his head and kissed me. He was so gentle, so gentle. (Maire cries silently.) I had no right to tell you all this. God forgive me for bringing those tears to you, Maire ni Fhiannachta.

MAIRE.

Whist, girl. You had a right to tell me. Go on, jewel … my boy, my poor boy!

SIGHLE.

I was only a wee shy child —

MAIRE.

Eight years you were, no more, the day the priest brought you into the house.

SIGHLE.

How old was MacDara?

MAIRE.

He was turned fifteen. Fifteen he was on St. MacDara's day, the year your mother died.

SIGHLE.

This house was as dear to me nearly as my mother's house from that day. You were good to me, Maire ni Fhiannachta, and your two boys were good to me, but —

MAIRE.

Yes, daughter.

SIGHLE.

MacDara was like sun and moon to me, like dew and rain to me, like strength  p.8and sweetness to me. I don't know did he know I was so fond of him. I think he did, because —

MAIRE.

He did know, child.

SIGHLE.

How do you know that he knew? Did he tell you? Did you know?

MAIRE.

I am his mother. Don't I know every fibre of his body? Don't I know every thought of his mind? He never told me; but well I knew.

SIGHLE.

He put me into his songs. That is what made me think he knew. My name was in many a song that he made. Often when I was at the fosaidheacht he would come up into the green mám to me, with a little song that he had made. It was happy for us in the green mám that time.

MAIRE.

It was happy for us all when MacDara was here.

SIGHLE.

The heart in the breast of me nearly broke when they banished him from us.

MAIRE.

I knew it well.

SIGHLE.

I used to lie awake in the night with his songs going through my brain, and the music of his voice. I used to call his name up in the green mám. At Mass his  p.9face used to come between me and the white Host.

MAIRE.

We have both been lonely for him. The house has been lonely for him.

SIGHLE.

Colm never knew I was so fond of MacDara. When MacDara went away Colm was kinder to me than ever, but, indeed, he was always kind.

MAIRE.

Colm is a kind boy.

SIGHLE.

It was not till yesterday he told me he was fond of me; I never thought it, I liked him well, but I never thought there would be word of marriage between us. I don't think he would have spoken if it was not for the trouble coming. He says it will be soon now.

MAIRE.

It will be very soon.

SIGHLE.

I shiver when I think of them all going out to fight. They will go out laughing: I see them with their cheeks flushed and their red lips apart. And then they will lie very still on the hillside, so still and white, with no red in their cheeks, but maybe a red wound in their white breasts, or on their white foreheads. Colm's hair will be dabbled with blood.

MAIRE.

Whist, daughter. That is no  p.10talk for one that was reared in this house. I am his mother, and I do not grudge him.

SIGHLE.

Forgive me, you have known more sorrow than I, and I think only of my own sorrow. (She rises and kisses Maire.) I am proud other times to think of so many young men, young men with straight, strong limbs, and smooth, white flesh, going out into great peril because a voice has called to them to right the wrong of the people. Oh, I would like to see the man that has set their hearts on fire with the breath of his voice! They say that he is very young. They say that he is one of ourselves — a mountainy man that speaks our speech, and has known hunger and sorrow.

MAIRE.

The strength and the sweetness he has come, maybe, out of his sorrow.

SIGHLE.

I heard Diarmaid of the Bridge say that he was at the fair of Uachtar Ard yesterday. There were hundreds in the streets striving to see him.

MAIRE.

I wonder would he be coming here into Cois-Fhairrge, or is it into the Joyce country he would go? I don't know but it's his coming I felt all day yesterday,  p.11and all night. I thought, maybe, it might be —

SIGHLE.

Who did you think it might be?

MAIRE.

I thought it might be my son was coming to me.

SIGHLE.

Is it MacDara?

MAIRE.

Yes, MacDara.

SIGHLE.

Do you think would he come back to be with the boys in the trouble?

MAIRE.

He would.

SIGHLE.

Would he be left back now?

MAIRE.

Who would let or stay him and he homing like a homing bird? Death only; God between us and harm!

SIGHLE.

Amen.

MAIRE.

There is Colm in to us.

SIGHLE

(looking out of the window)

Aye, he's on the street.

MAIRE.

Poor Colm!

COLM.

Did you not go to bed, mother?

MAIRE.

I did not, Colm. I was too uneasy to sleep. Sighle kept me company all night.

COLM.

It's a pity of the two of you to be up like this.

MAIRE.

We would be more lonesome in bed than here chatting. Had you many boys at the drill to-night?

COLM.

We had, then. There were ten and three score.

MAIRE.

When will the trouble be, Colm?

COLM.

It will be to-morrow, or after to-morrow; or maybe sooner. There's a man expected from Galway with the word.

MAIRE.

Is it the mountains you'll take to, or to march to Uachtar Ard or to Galway?

COLM.

It's to march we'll do, I'm thinking. Diarmaid of the Bridge and Cuimin Eanna and the master will be into us shortly. We have some plans to make and the master wants to write some orders.

MAIRE.

Is it you will be their captain?

COLM.

It is, unless a better man comes in my place.

MAIRE.

What better man would come?

COLM.

There is talk of the Singer coming. He was at the fair of Uachtar Ard yesterday.

MAIRE.

Let you put on the kettle, Sighle, and ready the room. The master will be asking a cup of tea. Will you lie down for an hour, Colm?

COLM.

I will not. They will be in on us now.

MAIRE.

Let you make haste, Sighle. Ready the room. Here, give me the kettle.

COLM

(after a pause)

Was Sighle talking to you, mother?

MAIRE.

She was, son.

COLM.

What did she say?

MAIRE.

She told me what you said to her last night. You must be patient, Colm. Don't press her to give you an answer too soon. She has strange thoughts in her heart, and strange memories.

COLM.

What memories has she?

MAIRE.

Many a woman has memories.

COLM.

Sighle has no memories but of this house and of her mother. What is she but a child?

MAIRE.

And what are you but a child? Can't you have patience? Children have memories, but the memories sometimes die. Sighle's memories have not died yet.

COLM.

This is queer talk. What does she remember?

MAIRE.

Whist, there's someone on the street.

COLM

(looking out of the window)

It's Cuimin and the master.

MAIRE.

Be patient, son. Don't vex your head. What are you both but children yet?

CUIMIN AND MAOILSHEACHLAINN

(entering)

God save all here.

MAIRE.

God save you men. Will you sit? The kettle is on the boil. Give the master the big chair, Colm.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN

(sitting down near the fire on the chair which Colm places for him)

You're early stirring, Maire.

MAIRE.

I didn't lie down at all, master.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

Is it to sit up all night you did?

MAIRE.

It is, then. Sighle kept me company.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

'Tis a pity of the women of the world. Too good they are for us, and too full of care. I'm afraid that there was many a woman on this mountain that sat up last night. Aye, and many a woman in Ireland. 'Tis women that keep all the great vigils.

MAIRE

(getting the tea)

Why wouldn't we sit up to have a cup of tea ready for you? Won't you go west into the room?

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

We'd as lief drink it here beside the fire.

MAIRE.

Sighle is readying the room. You'll want the table to write on, maybe.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

We'll go west so.

MAIRE.

Wait till Sighle has the table laid. The tea will be drawn in a minute.

COLM

(to Maoilsheachlainn).

Was there any word of the messenger at the forge, master?

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

There was not.

CUIMIN.

When we were coming up the boreen I saw a man breasting Cnoc an Teachta that I thought might be him.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

I don't think it was him. He was walking slowly, and sure the messenger that brings that great story will come on the wings of the wind.

COLM.

Perhaps it was one of the boys you saw going home from the drill.

CUIMIN.

No, it was a stranger. He looked like a mountainy man that would be coming from a distance. He might be someone that was at the fair of Uachtar Ard yesterday, and that stayed the evening after selling.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

Aye, there did a lot stay, I'm told, talking about the word that's expected.

CUIMIN.

The Singer was there, I believe. Diarmaid of the Bridge said that he spoke to them all at the fair, and that there did a lot stay in the town after the fair thinking he'd speak to them again. They say he has the talk of an angel.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

What sort is he to look at?

CUIMIN.

A poor man of the mountains. Young they say he is, and pale like a man that lived in cities, but with the dress and the speech of a mountainy man; shy in himself and very silent, till he stands up to talk to the people. And then he has the voice of a silver trumpet, and words so beautiful that they make the people cry.  p.17 And there is terrible anger in him, for all that he is shrinking and gentle. Diarmaid said that in the Joyce country they think it is some hero that has come back again to lead the people against the Gall, or maybe the angel, or the Son of Mary Himself that has come down on earth.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN

(looking towards the door)

There's a footstep abroad.

MAIRE

(who has been sitting very straight in her chair listening intently)

That is my son's step.

COLM.

Sure, amn't I here, mother?

MAIRE.

That is MacDara's step.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

I wish it was MacDara, Maire. 'Tis maybe Diarmaid or the mountainy man we saw on the road.

MAIRE.

It is not Diarmaid. It is MacDara.

MACDARA.

God save all here.

ALL.

And you, likewise.

MAIRE

(who has risen and is stretching out her hands)

I felt you coming to me, little son!

MACDARA

(Springing to her and folding her in his arms)

Little mother! Little mother!

MAIRE

(raising her head)

Along all the quiet roads and across all the rough mountains, and through all the crowded towns, I felt you drawing near to me.

MACDARA.

Oh, the long years, the long years!

MAIRE.

I am crying for pride at the sight of you. Neighbours, neighbours, this is MacDara, the first child that I bore to my husband.

MACDARA

(Kissing Colm)

My little brother! (To Cuimin), Cuimin Eanna! (To Maoilsheachlainn), Master! (They shake hands.)

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

Welcome home.

CUIMIN.

Welcome home.

MACDARA

(Looking round)

Where is … (He sees Sighle in the doorway.) Sighle! (He approaches her and takes her hand.) Little, little Sighle! … I … Mother, sometimes when I was in the middle of great crowds, I have seen this fireplace, and you standing with your hands stretched out to me as you stood a minute ago, and Sighle in the doorway of the room; and my heart has cried out to you.

MAIRE.

I used to hear the crying of your heart. Often and often here by the fireside or abroad on the street I would stand and say, “MacDara is crying out to me now. The heart in him is yearning.” And this while back I felt you draw near, draw near, step by step. Last night I felt you very near to me. Do you remember me saying, Sighle, that I felt someone coming, and that I thought maybe it might be MacDara?

SIGHLE.

You did.

MAIRE.

I knew that something glorious was coming to the mountain with to-day's dawn. Red dawns and white dawns I have seen on the hills, but none like this dawn. Come in, jewel, and sit down awhile in the  p.20room. Sighle has the table laid. The tea is drawn. Bring in the griddle-cakes, Sighle. Come in, master. Come in, Cuimin.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

No, Maire, we'll sit here a while. You and the children will like to be by yourselves. Go in, west, children. Cuimin and I have plans to make. We're expecting Diarmaid of the Bridge in.

MAIRE.

We don't grudge you a share in our joy, master. Nor you, Cuimin.

CUIMIN.

No, go on in, Maire. We'll go west after you. We want to talk here.

MAIRE.

Well, come in when you have your talk out. There's enough tea on the pot for everybody. In with you, children.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

This is great news, MacDara to be back.

CUIMIN.

Do you think will he be with us?

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

Is it a boy with that gesture of the head, that proud, laughing  p.21gesture, to be a coward or a stag? You don't know the heart of this boy, Cuimin; the love that's in it, and the strength. You don't know the mind he has, so gracious, so full of wisdom. I taught him when he was only a little ladeen. 'Tis a pity that he had ever to go away from us. And yet, I think, his exile has made him a better man. His soul must be full of great remembrances.

CUIMIN.

I never knew rightly why he was banished.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

Songs he was making that were setting the people's hearts on fire.

CUIMIN.

Aye, I often heard his songs.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

They were full of terrible love for the people and of great anger against the Gall. Some said there was irreligion in them and blasphemy against God. But I never saw it, and I don't believe it. There are some would have us believe that God is on the side of the Gall. Well, word came down from Galway or from Dublin that he would be put in prison, and maybe excommunicated if he did not go away. He was only a gossoon of eighteen, or maybe twenty. The priest p.22 counselled him to go, and not to bring sorrow on his mother's house. He went away one evening without taking farewell or leave of anyone.

CUIMIN.

Where has he been since, I don't know?

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

In great cities, I'd say, and in lonely places. He has the face of a scholar, or of a priest, or of a clerk, on him. He must have read a lot, and thought a lot, and made a lot of songs.

CUIMIN.

I don't know is he as strong a boy as Colm.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

He's not as robust in himself as Colm is, but there was great strength in the grip of his hand. I'd say that he'd wield a camán or a pike with any boy on the mountain.

CUIMIN.

He'll be a great backing to us if he is with us. The people love him on account of the songs he used to make. There's not a man that won't do his bidding.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

That's so. And his counsel will be useful to us. He'll make better plans than you or I, Cuimin.

CUIMIN.

I wonder what's keeping Diarmaid.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

Some news that was at the forge or at the priest's house, maybe. He went east the road to see if there was sign of a word from Galway.

CUIMIN.

I'll be uneasy till he comes. (He gets up and walks to the window and looks out; Maoilsheachlainn remains deep in thought by the fire. Cuimin returns from the window and continues.) Is it to march we'll do, or to fight here in the hills?

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

Out Maam Gap we'll go and meet the boys from the Joyce country. We'll leave some to guard the Gap and some at Leenane. We'll march the road between the lakes, through Maam and Cornamona and Clonbur to Cong. Then we'll have friends on our left at Ballinrobe and on our right at Tuam. What is there to stop us but the few men the Gall have in Clifden?

CUIMIN.

And if they march against us, we can destroy them from the mountains.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

We can. It's into a trap they'll walk.

MacDara appears in the doorway of the room with a cup of tea and some griddle-cake in his hand.

MACDARA.

I've brought you out a cup of tea, master. I thought it long you were sitting here.

MAOlLSHEACHLAINN

(taking it)

God bless you, MacDara.

MACDARA.

Go west, Cuimin. There's a place at the table for you now.

CUIMIN

(rising and going in)

I may as well. Give me a call, boy, when Diarmaid comes.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

This is a great day, MacDara.

MACDARA.

It is a great day and a glad day, and yet it is a sorrowful day.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

How can the day of your home-coming be sorrowful?

MACDARA.

Has not every great joy a great sorrow at its core? Does not the joy of home-coming enclose the pain of departing? I have a strange feeling, master, I have only finished a long journey, and I feel as if I were about to take another long journey. I meant this to be a home-coming. but it seems only like a meeting on the way.…When my mother stood up to meet me with her arms stretched out to me, I thought of Mary meeting her Son on the Dolorous Way.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

That was a queer thought. What was it that drew you home?

MACDARA.

Some secret thing that I have no name for. Some feeling that I must see my mother, and Colm, and Sighle, again. A feeling that I must face some great adventure with their kisses on my lips. I seemed to see myself brought to die before a great crowd that stood cold and silent; and there were some that cursed me in their hearts for having brought death into their houses. Sad dead faces seemed to reproach me. Oh, the wise, sad faces of the dead—and the keening of the women rang in my ears. But I felt that the kisses of those three, warm on my mouth, would be as wine in my blood, strengthening me to bear what men said, and to die with only love and pity in my heart, and no bitterness.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

It was strange that you should see yourself like that.

MACDARA.

It was foolish. One has strange, lonesome thoughts when one is in the middle of crowds. But I am glad of that thought, for it drove me home. I felt so lonely away from here…My mother's hair is greyer than it was.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

Aye, she has been ageing. She has had great sorrows: your father dead and you banished. Colm is grown a fine, strapping boy.

MACDARA.

He is. There is some shyness between Colm and me. We have not spoken yet as we used to.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

When boys are brought up together and then parted for a long time there is often shyness between them when they meet again… Do you find Sighle changed?

MACDARA.

No; and, yet— yes. Master, she is very beautiful. I did not know a woman could be so beautiful. I thought that all beauty was in the heart, that beauty was a secret thing that could be seen only with the eyes of reverie, or in a dream of some unborn splendour. I had schooled myself to think physical beauty an unholy thing. I tried to keep my heart virginal; and sometimes in the street of a city when I have stopped to look at the white limbs of some beautiful child, and have felt the pain that the sight of great beauty brings, I have wished that I could blind my eyes so that I might shut out the sight of everything that  p.27tempted me. At times I have rebelled against that, and have cried aloud that God would not have filled the world with beauty, even to the making drunk of the sight, if beauty were not of heaven. But, then, again, I have said, “This is the subtlest form of temptation; this is to give to one's own desire the sanction of God's will.” And I have hardened my heart and kept myself cold and chaste as the top of a high mountain. But now I think I was wrong, for beauty like Sighle's must be holy.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

Surely a good and comely girl is holy. You question yourself too much, MacDara. You brood too much. Do you remember when you were a gossoon, how you cried over the wild duck whose wing you broke by accident with a stone, and made a song about the crane whose nest you found ravished, and about the red robin you found perished on the doorstep? And how the priest laughed because you told him in confession that you had stolen drowned lilies from the river?

MACDARA

(laughing)

Aye, it was at a station in Diarmaid of the Bridge's, and when the priest laughed my face got red, p.28 and everyone looked at us, and I got up and ran out of the house.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN

(laughing)

I remember it well. We thought it was what you told him you were in love with his house-keeper.

MACDARA.

It's little but I was, too. She used to give me apples out of the priest's apple-garden. Little brown russet apples, the sweetest I ever tasted. I used to think that the apples of the Hesperides that the Children of Tuireann went to quest must have been like them.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

It's a wonder but you made a poem about them.

MACDARA.

I did. I made a poem in Deibhidhe of twenty quatrains.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

Did you make many songs while you were away?

MACDARA.

When I went away first my heart was as if dead and dumb and I could not make any songs. After a little while, when I was going through the sweet, green country, and I used to come to little towns where I'd see children playing, my heart seemed to open again like hard ground that would be watered with rain. The first song  p.29that I made was about the children that I saw playing in the street of Kilconnell. The next song that I made was about an old dark man that I met on the causeway of Aughrim. I made a glad, proud song when I saw the broad Shannon flow under the bridge of Athlone. I made many a song after that before I reached Dublin.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

How did it fare with you in Dublin?

MACDARA.

I went to a bookseller and gave him the book of my songs to print. He said that he dared not print them; that the Gall would put him in prison and break up his printing-press. I was hungry and I wandered through the streets. Then a man who saw me read an Irish poster on the wall spoke to me and asked me where I came from. I told him my story. In a few days he came to me and said that he had found work for me to teach Irish and Latin and Greek in a school. I went to the school and taught in it for a year. I wrote a few poems and they were printed in a paper. One day the Brother who was over the school came to me and asked me was it I that had written those poems. I  p.30 said it was. He told me then that I could not teach in the school any longer. So I went away.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

What happened to you after that?

MACDARA.

I wandered in the streets until I saw a notice that a teacher was wanted to teach a boy. I went to the house and a lady engaged me to teach her little son for ten shillings a week. Two years I spent at that. The boy was a winsome child, and he grew into my heart. I thought it a wonderful thing to have the moulding of a mind, of a life, in my hands. Do you ever think that, you who are a schoolmaster?

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

It's not much time I get for thinking.

MACDARA.

I have done nothing all my life but think: think and make poems.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

If the thoughts and the poems are good, that is a good life's work.

MACDARA.

Aye, they say that to be busy with the things of the spirit is better than to be busy with the things of the body. But I am not sure, master. Can the Vision  p.31Beautiful alone content a man? I think true man is divine in this, that, like God, he must needs create, he must needs do.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

Is not a poet a maker?

MACDARA.

No, he is only a voice that cries out, a sigh that trembles into rest. The true teacher must suffer and do. He must break bread to the people: he must go into Gethsemane and toil up the steep of Golgotha…Sometimes I think that to be a woman and to serve and suffer as women do is to be the highest thing. Perhaps that is why I felt it proud and wondrous to be a teacher, for a teacher does that. I gave to the little lad I taught the very flesh and blood and breath that were my life. I fed him on the milk of my kindness; I breathed into him my spirit.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

Did he repay you for that great service?

MACDARA.

Can any child repay its mother? Master, your trade is the most sorrowful of all trades. You are like a poor mother who spends herself in nursing children who go away and never come back to her.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

Was your little pupil untrue to you?

MACDARA.

Nay; he was so true to me that his mother grew jealous of me. A good mother and a good teacher are always jealous of each other. That is why a teacher's trade is the most sorrowful of all trades. If he is a bad teacher his pupil squanders away from him. If he is a good teacher his pupil's folk grow jealous of him. My little pupil's mother bade him choose between her and me.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

Which did he choose?

MACDARA.

He chose his mother. How could I blame him?

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

What did you do?

MACDARA.

I shouldered my bundle and took to the roads.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

How did it fare with you?

MACDARA.

It fares ill with one who is so poor that he has no longer even his dreams. I was the poorest shuiler on the roads of Ireland, for I had no single illusion left to me. I could neither pray when I came to a holy well nor drink in a public-house  p.33 when I had got a little money. One seemed to me as foolish as the other.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

Did you make no songs in those days?

MACDARA.

I made one so bitter that when I recited it at a wake they thought I was some wandering, wicked spirit, and they put me out of the house.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

Did you not pray at all?

MACDARA.

Once, as I knelt by the cross of Kilgobbin, it became clear to me, with an awful clearness, that there was no God. Why pray after that? I burst into a fit of laughter at the folly of men in thinking that there is a God. I felt inclined to run through the villages and cry aloud, “People, it is all a mistake; there is no God.”

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

MacDara, this grieves me.

MACDARA.

Then I said, “why take away their illusion? If they find out that there is no God, their hearts will be as lonely as mine.” So I walked the roads with my secret.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

MacDara, I am sorry for this. You must pray, you must pray.  p.34 You will find God again. He has only hidden His face from you.

MACDARA.

No, He has revealed His Face to me. His Face is terrible and sweet, Maoilsheachlainn. I know It well now.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

Then you found Him again?

MACDARA.

His Name is suffering. His Name is loneliness. His Name is abjection.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

I do not rightly understand you, and yet I think you are saying something that is true.

MACDARA.

I have lived with the homeless and with the breadless. Oh, Maoilsheachlainn, the poor, the poor! I have seen such sad childings, such bare marriage feasts, such candleless wakes! In the pleasant country places I have seen them, but oftener in the dark, unquiet streets of the city. My heart has been heavy with the sorrow of mothers, my eyes have been wet with the tears of children. The people, Maoilsheachlainn, the dumb, suffering people: reviled and outcast, yet pure and splendid and faithful. In them I saw, or seemed to see again, the Face of God. Ah, it is a tear-stained face,  p.35blood-stained, defiled with ordure, but it is the Holy Face!

{⬌}

 ¹

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

What news have you with you?

DIARMAID.

The Gall have marched from Clifden.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

Is it into the hills?

DIARMAID.

By Letterfrack they have come, and the Pass of Kylemore, and through Glen Inagh.

COLM.

And no word from Galway yet?

DIARMAID.

No word, nor sign of a word.

COLM.

They told us to wait for the word. We've waited too long.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

The messenger may have been caught. Perhaps the Gall are marching from Galway too.

COLM.

We'd best strike ourselves, so.

CUIMIN.

Is it to strike before the word is given?

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.

COLM.

They should have spoken before the Gall marched.

CUIMIN.

What call have you to say what they should or what they should not have done? Am I speaking lie or truth, men? Are we to rise out before the word comes? I say we must wait for the word. What do you say, Diarmaid, you that was our messenger to Galway?

DIARMAID.

I like the way Colm has spoken, and we may live to say that he spoke wisely as well as bravely; but I'm slow to give my voice to send out the boys of this mountain— our poor little handful—  p.37to stand with their poor 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.

CUIMIN.

What do you say, master? You're wiser than any of us.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

I say to Colm that a greater one than he or I may give us the word before the day is old. Let you have patience, Colm—

COLM.

My mother told me to have patience this morning, when MacDara's step was on the street. Patience, and I after waiting seven years before I spoke, and then to speak too late!

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

What are you saying at all?

COLM.

I am saying this, master, that I'm going out the road to meet the Gall, if only five men of the mountain follow me.

CUIMIN.

You will not, Colm.

COLM.

I will.

DIARMAID.

This is throwing away men's lives.

COLM.

Men's lives get very precious to  p.38 them when they have bought out their land.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

Listen to me, Colm—

SIGHLE

(as in a reverie)

“They will go out laughing,” I said, but Colm has gone out with anger in his heart. And he was so kind … Love is a terrible thing. There is no pain so great as the pain of love — I wish MacDara and I were children in the green mám and that we did not know that we loved each other … Colm will lie dead on the road to Glen Inagh, and MacDara will go out to die … There is nothing in the world but love and death.

MACDARA

(in a low voice)

She has dropped asleep, Sighle.

SIGHLE.

She watched long, MacDara. We all watched long.

MACDARA.

Every long watch ends. Every traveller comes home.

SIGHLE.

Sometimes when people watch it is death that comes.

MACDARA.

Could there be a royaller coming, Sighle?…Once I wanted life. You and I to be together in one place always: that is what I wanted. But now I see that we shall be together for a little time only; that I have to do a hard, sweet thing, and that I must do it alone. And because I love you I would not have it different. I wanted to have your kiss on my lips, Sighle, as well as my mother's and Colm's. But I will deny myself that.(Sighle is crying.) Don't cry, child. Stay near my mother while she lives— it may be for a little while of years. You poor women suffer so much pain, so much sorrow, and yet you do not die until long after your strong, young sons and lovers have died.

MACDARA.

She is calling me.

SIGHLE.

Is he gone, master?

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

Gone out the road  p.40with ten or fifteen of the young lads. Is MacDara within still?

SIGHLE.

He was here in the kitchen a while. His mother called him and he went back to her.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

I think, maybe, that Colm did what was right. We are too old to be at the head of work like this. Was MacDara talking to you about the trouble?

SIGHLE.

He said that he would have to do a hard, sweet thing, and that he would have to do it alone.

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

I'm sorry but I called him before Colm went out.

SIGHLE.

What is that noise like voices?

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

It is the boys coming up the hillside. There was a great crowd gathering below at the cross.

The voices swell loud outside the door. Cuimin Eanna, Diarmaid, and some others come in.

DIARMAID.

The men say we did wrong to let Colm go out with that little handful. They say we should all have marched.

CUIMIN.

And I say Colm was wrong to go before he got his orders. Are we all to go out and get shot down because one man is hotheaded? Where is the plan that was to come from Galway?

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

Men, I'm blaming myself for not saying the thing I'm going to say before we let Colm go. We talk about getting word from Galway. What would you say, neighbours, if the man that will give the word is under the roof of this house.

CUIMIN.

Who is it 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 for your word.

ONE OF THE NEWCOMERS.

Has MacDara come home?

DIARMAID

(starting up from where he has been sitting)

That is the man that stood among the people in the fair of Uachtar Ard! (He goes up to MacDara and kisses his hand.)  p.42I could not get near you yesterday, MacDara, with the crowds that were round you. What was on me that didn't know you? Sure, I had a right to know that sad, proud head. Maire ni Fhiannachta, men and women yet unborn will bless the pains of your first childing.

MAIRE

(in a low voice)

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 this mountain, my son MacDara is the Singer that has quickened the dead years and all the quiet dust! Let the horsemen that sleep in Aileach rise up and follow him into the war! Weave your winding-sheets, women, for there will be many a noble corpse to be waked before the new moon!

MAOILSHEACHLAINN.

Let you speak, MacDara, and tell us is it time.

MACDARA.

Where is Colm?

DIARMAID.

Gone out the road to fight the Gall, himself and fifteen.

MACDARA.

Has not Colm spoken by his deed already?

CUIMIN.

You are our leader.

MACDARA.

Your leader is the man that spoke first. Give me a pike and I will follow Colm. Why did you let him go out with fifteen men only? You are fourscore on the mountain.

DIARMAID.

We thought it a foolish thing for fourscore to go into battle against four thousand, or, maybe, forty thousand.

MACDARA.

And so it is a foolish thing. Do you want us to be wise?

CUIMIN.

This is strange talk.

MACDARA.

I will talk to you more strangely yet. It is for your own souls' sakes I would have had the fourscore go, and not for Colm's sake, or for the battle's sake, for the battle is won whether you go or not.

THE NEWCOMER.

Young Colm has fallen at the Glen foot.

MACDARA.

The fifteen were too many. Old men, you did not do your work well enough. You should have kept all back but one. One man can free a people as one Man redeemed the world. I will take no pike, I will go into the battle with bare hands. I will stand up before the Gall as Christ hung naked before men on the tree!

THE CURTAIN DESCENDS.

@incollection{E950004-001,
  author 	 = {Pádraic Pearse},
  title 	 = {The Singer},
  booktitle 	 = {Plays Stories Poems},
  address 	 = {Dublin},
  publisher 	 = {Talbot Press},
  date 	 = {1966},
  pages 	 = {1–44}
}
 E950004-001.bib