Play · 1919
The Dreaming of the Bones
The stage is any bare place in a room close to the wall. A screen with a pattern of mountain and sky can stand against the wall, or a curtain with a like pattern hang upon it, but the pattern must only symbolize or suggest. One musician enters and then two others, the first stands singing while the others take their places. Then all three sit down against the wall by their instruments, which are already there—a drum, a zither, and a flute. Or they unfold a cloth as in ‘The Hawk’s Well,’ while the instruments are carried in.
First Musician
or all three musicians, singing
Why does my heart beat so?Did not a shadow pass?It passed but a moment ago.Who can have trod in the grass?What rogue is night-wandering?Have not old writers saidThat dizzy dreams can springFrom the dry bones of the dead?And many a night it seemsThat all the valley fillsWith those fantastic dreams.They overflow the hills,So passionate is a shade,Like wine that fills to the topA grey-green cup of jade,Or maybe an agate cup.speaking The hour before dawn and the moon covered up.The little village of Abbey is covered up;The little narrow trodden way that runsFrom the white road to the Abbey of CorcomroeIs covered up; and all about the hillsAre like a circle of Agate or of Jade.Somewhere among great rocks on the scarce grassBirds cry, they cry their loneliness.Even the sunlight can be lonely here,Even hot noon is lonely. I hear a footfall—A young man with a lantern comes this way.He seems an Aran fisher, for he wearsThe flannel bawneen and the cow-hide shoe.He stumbles wearily, and stumbling prays.
A young man enters, praying in Irish
Once more the birds cry in their loneliness,But now they wheel about our heads; and nowThey have dropped on the grey stone to the north-east.
A man and a girl both in the costume of a past time, come in. They wear heroic masks
Young Man
raising his lantern
Who is there? I cannot see what you are like,Come to the light.
Stranger
But what have you to fear?
Young Man
And why have you come creeping through the dark.
The Girl blows out lantern
The wind has blown my lantern out. Where are you?I saw a pair of heads against the skyAnd lost them after, but you are in the rightI should not be afraid in County Clare;And should be or should not be have no choice,I have to put myself into your hands,Now that my candle’s out.
Stranger
You have fought in Dublin?
Young Man
I was in the Post Office, and if takenI shall be put against a wall and shot.
Stranger
You know some place of refuge, have some planOr friend who will come to meet you?
Young Man
I am to lieAt daybreak on the mountain and keep watchUntil an Aran coracle puts inAt Muckanish or at the rocky shoreUnder Finvarra, but would break my neckIf I went stumbling there alone in the dark.
Stranger
We know the pathways that the sheep tread out,And all the hiding-places of the hills,And that they had better hiding-places once.
Young Man
You’d say they had better before English robbersCut down the trees or set them upon fireFor fear their owners might find shelter there.What is that sound?
Stranger
An old horse gone astrayHe has been wandering on the road all night.
Young Man
I took him for a man and horse. PoliceAre out upon the roads. In the late RisingI think there was no man of us but hatedTo fire at soldiers who but did their dutyAnd were not of our race, but when a manIs born in Ireland and of Irish stockWhen he takes part against us—
Stranger
I will put you safe,No living man shall set his eyes upon you.I will not answer for the dead.
Young Man
The dead?
Stranger
For certain days the stones where you must lieHave in the hour before the break of dayBeen haunted.
Young Man
But I was not born at midnight.
Stranger
Many a man born in the full daylightCan see them plain, will pass them on the high-roadOr in the crowded market-place of the town,And never know that they have passed.
Young Man
My GrandamWould have it they did penance everywhereOr lived through their old lives again.
Stranger
In a dream;And some for an old scruple must hang spittedUpon the swaying tops of lofty trees;Some are consumed in fire, some withered upBy hail and sleet out of the wintry North,And some but live through their old lives again.
Young Man
Well, let them dream into what shape they pleaseAnd fill waste mountains with the invisible tumultOf the fantastic conscience. I have no dread;They cannot put me into jail or shoot me,And seeing that their blood has returned to fieldsThat have grown red from drinking blood like mineThey would not if they could betray.
Stranger
This pathwayRuns to the ruined Abbey of Corcomroe;The Abbey passed, we are soon among the stoneAnd shall be at the ridge before the cocksOf Aughanish or BailevlehanOr grey Aughtmana shake their wings and cry.
They go round the stage once
First Musician
speaking They’ve passed the shallow well and the flat stoneFouled by the drinking cattle, the narrow laneWhere mourners for five centuries have carriedNoble or peasant to his burial.An owl is crying out above their heads.singing Why should the heart take frightWhat sets it beating so?The bitter sweetness of the nightHas made it but a lonely thing.Red bird of March, begin to crow,Up with the neck and clap the wing,Red cock, and crow.
They go once round the stage. The first musician speaks.
And now they have climbed through the long grassy fieldAnd passed the ragged thorn trees and the gapIn the ancient hedge; and the tomb-nested owlAt the foot’s level beats with a vague wing.singing My head is in a cloud;I’d let the whole world go.My rascal heart is proudRemembering and remembering.Red bird of March, begin to crow,Up with the neck and clap the wingRed cock and crow.
They go round the stage. The first musician speaks.
They are among the stones above the ashAbove the briar and thorn and the scarce grass;Hidden amid the shadow far below themThe cat-headed bird is crying out.singing The dreaming bones cry outBecause the night winds blowAnd heaven’s a cloudy blot;Calamity can have its fling.Red bird of March begin to crow,Up with the neck and clap the wingRed cock and crow.
The Stranger
We’re almost at the summit and can rest.The road is a faint shadow there; and thereThe abbey lies amid its broken tombs.In the old days we should have heard a bellCalling the monks before day broke to pray;And when the day has broken on the ridge,The crowing of its cocks.
Young Man
Is there no houseFamous for sanctity or architectural beautyIn Clare or Kerry, or in all wide ConnachtThe enemy has not unroofed?
Stranger
Close to the altarBroken by wind and frost and worn by timeDonogh O’Brien has a tomb, a name in Latin.He wore fine clothes and knew the secrets of womenBut he rebelled against the King of ThomondAnd died in his youth.
Young Man
And why should he rebel?The King of Thomond was his rightful master.It was men like Donogh who made Ireland weak—My curse on all that troop, and when I dieI’ll leave my body, if I have any choice,Far from his ivy tod and his owl; have thoseWho, if your tale is true, work out a penanceUpon the mountain-top where I am to hide,Come from the Abbey graveyard?
The Girl
They have not that luck,But are more lonely, those that are buried there,Warred in the heat of the blood; if they were rebelsSome momentary impulse made them rebelsOr the comandment of some petty kingWho hated Thomond. Being but common sinners,No callers in of the alien from overseaThey and their enemies of Thomond’s partyMix in a brief dream battle above their bones,Or make one drove or drift in amity,Or in the hurry of the heavenly roundForget their earthly names; these are aloneBeing accursed.
Young Man
And if what seems is trueAnd there are more upon the other sideThan on this side of death, many a ghostMust meet them face to face and pass the wordEven upon this grey and desolate hill.
Young Girl
Until this hour no ghost or living manHas spoken though seven centuries have runSince they, weary of life and of men’s eyes,Flung down their bones in some forgotten placeBeing accursed.
Young Man
I have heard that there are soulsWho, having sinned after a monstrous fashionTake on them, being dead, a monstrous imageTo drive the living, should they meet its face,Crazy, and be a terror to the dead.
Young Girl
But theseWere comely even in their middle lifeAnd carry, now that they are dead, the imageOf their first youth, for it was in that youthTheir sin began.
Young Man
I have heard of angry ghostsWho wander in a wilful solitude.
The Girl
These have no thought but love; nor joyBut that upon the instant when their penanceDraws to its height and when two hearts are wrungNearest to breaking, if hearts of shadows break,His eyes can mix with hers; nor any pangThat is so bitter as that double glance,Being accursed.
Young Man
But what is this strange penance—That when their eyes have met can wring them most?
The Girl
Though eyes can meet, their lips can never meet.
Young Man
And yet it seems they wander side by side.But doubtless you would say that when lips meetAnd have not living nerves, it is no meeting.
The Girl
Although they have no blood or living nervesWho once lay warm and live the live-long nightIn one another’s arms, and know their partIn life, being now but of the people of dreams,Is a dreams part; although they are but shadowsHovering between a thorn tree and a stoneWho have heaped up night on winged night; althoughNo shade however harried and consumedWould change his own calamity for theirs,Their manner of life were blessed could their lipsA moment meet; but when he has bent his headClose to her head or hand would slip in handThe memory of their crime flows up betweenAnd drives them apart.
Young Man
The memory of a crime—He took her from a husband’s house it may be,But does the penance for a passionate sinLast for so many centuries?
The Girl
No, no,The man she chose, the man she was chosen byCared little and cares little from whose houseThey fled towards dawn amid the flights of arrowsOr that it was a husband’s and a king’s;And how if that were all could she lack friendsOn crowded roads or on the unpeopled hill?Helen herself had opened wide the doorWhere night by night she dreams herself awakeAnd gathers to her breast a dreaming man.
Young Man
What crime can stay so in the memory?What crime can keep apart the lips of loversWandering and alone?
The Girl
Her king and loverWas overthrown in battle by her husbandAnd for her sake and for his own, being blindAnd bitter and bitterly in love, he broughtA foreign army from across the sea.
Young Man
You speak of Dermot and of DervorgillaWho brought the Norman in?
The Girl
Yes, yes I spokeOf that most miserable, most accursed pairWho sold their country into slavery, and yetThey were not wholly miserable and accursedIf somebody of their race at last would say:‘I have forgiven them.’
Young Man
Oh, never, neverWill Dermot and Dervorgilla be forgiven.
The Girl
If someone of their race forgave at lastLip would be pressed on lip.
Young Man
Oh, never, neverWill Dermot and Dervorgilla be forgiven.You have told your story well, so well indeedI could not help but fall into the moodAnd for a while believe that it was trueOr half believe, but better push on now.The horizon to the East is growing bright.
They go once round stage
So here we’re on the summit. I can seeThe Aran Islands, Connemara Hills,And Galway in the breaking light; there tooThe enemy has toppled wall and roofAnd torn from ancient walls to boil his potThe oaken panelling that had been dearTo generations of children and old men.But for that pair for whom you would have my pardonIt might be now like Bayeux or like CaenOr little Italian town amid its wallsFor though we have neither coal nor iron oreTo make us rich and cover heaven with smokeOur country, if that crime were uncommittedHad been most beautiful. Why do you dance?Why do you gaze and with so passionate eyesOne on the other and then turn awayCovering your eyes and weave it in a dance,Who are you? what are you? you are not natural.
The Girl
Seven hundred years our lips have never met.
Young Man
Why do you look so strangely at one another,So strangely and so sweetly?
The Girl
Seven hundred years.
Young Man
So strangely and so sweetly. All the ruin,All, all their handiwork is blown awayAs though the mountain air had blown it awayBecause their eyes have met. They cannot hear,Being folded up and hidden in their dance.The dance is changing now. They have dropped their eyes,They have covered up their eyes as though their heartsHad suddenly been broken—never, neverShall Dermot and Dervorgilla be forgiven.They have drifted in the dance from rock to rock.They have raised their hands as though to snatch the sleepThat lingers always in the abyss of the skyThough they can never reach it. A cloud floats upAnd covers all the mountain head in a moment.And now it lifts and they are swept away.I had almost yielded and forgiven it all—This is indeed a place of terrible temptation.
The Musicians begin unfolding and folding a black cloth. The First Musician comes forward to the front of the stage, at the centre. He holds the cloth before him. The other two come one on either side and unfold it. They afterwards fold it up in the same way. While it is unfolded, the Young Man leaves the stage
The Musicians
I
singing At the grey round of the hillMusic of a lost kingdomRuns, runs and is suddenly still.The winds out of Clare-GalwayCarry it: suddenly it is still.
I have heard in the night airA wandering airy music;And moidered in that snareA man is lost of a sudden,In that sweet wandering snare.
What finger first beganMusic of a lost kingdom.They dreamed that laughed in the sun.Dry bones that dream are bitter,They dream and darken our sun.
Those crazy fingers playA wandering airy music;Our luck is withered away,And wheat in the wheat-ear withered,And the wind blows it away.
II
My heart ran wild when it heardThe curlew cry before dawnAnd the eddying cat-headed bird;But now the night is gone.I have heard from far belowThe strong March birds a-crow,Stretch neck and clap the wing,Red cocks, and crow.
Text: Two Plays for Dancers (Cuala Press, Dundrum, 1919). Public domain.