f CUCHULAIN

Old memories:
A dying boy, with handsome face
Upturned upon a beaten place;
A sacred yew-tree on a strand;
A woman that held in steady hand
In all the happiness of her youth
Before her man had broken troth,
A burning wisp to light the door;
And many a round or crescent more;
Dead men and women. Memories
Have pulled my head upon my knees.

WOMAN of the SIDHE

Could you that have loved many a woman
That did not reach beyond the human,
Lacking a day to be complete,
Love one that though her heart can beat,
Lacks it but by an hour or so.

GHOST of CUCHULAIN

I know you now for long ago
I met you on the mountain side,
Beside a well that seemed long dry,
Beside old thorns where the hawk flew.
I held out arms and hands but you,
That now seem friendly, fled away
Half woman and half bird of prey.

WOMAN of the SIDHE

Hold out your arms and hands again
You were not so dumbfounded when
I was that bird of prey and yet
I am all woman now.

GHOST of CUCHULAIN

I am not
The young and passionate man I was
And though that brilliant light surpass
All crescent forms, my memories
Weigh down my hands, abash my eyes.

WOMAN of the SIDHE

Then kiss my mouth. Though memory
Be beauty's bitterest enemy
I have no dread for at my kiss
Memory on the moment vanishes:
Nothing but beauty can remain.

GHOST of CUCHULAIN

And shall I never know again
Intricacies of blind remorse?

WOMAN of the SIDHE

Time shall seem to stay his course,
For when your mouth and my mouth meet
All my round shall be complete
Imagining all its circles run;
And there shall be oblivion
Even to quench Cuchulain's drouth,
Even to still that heart.

GHOST of CUCHULAIN

Your mouth.

(They are about to kiss, he turns away)

O Emer, Emer.

WOMAN of the SIDHE

So then it is she
Made you impure with memory.

GHOST of CUCHULAIN

Still in that dream I see you stand,
A burning wisp in your right hand,
To wait my coming to the house,
As when our parents married us.

WOMAN of the SIDHE

Being among the dead you love her
That valued every slut above her
While you still lived.

GHOST of CUCHULAIN

O my lost Emer.

WOMAN of the SIDHE

And there is not