r as you remember it, the sing and lilt that are in the lines.
It tells of the luring away by a fairy child of the soul of a newly
married bride on May-Eve, and of her death when her soul has passed to
the "Land of Heart's Desire"--

"Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise,
Where nobody gets old and godly and grave,
Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue,
And where kind tongues bring no captivity."

It is a story out of folk-lore, and so far back in time, and so far away
from the life that we know is it, that all that happens seems not only
possible but inevitable.

"The Land of Heart's Desire" was the first play of Mr. Yeats to be put
on the stage, being presented at the Avenue Theatre in London in 1894;
and it was also the first play of Mr. Yeats to be put on in America,
being presented with Miss Mabel Taliaferro in the fairy's role as the
curtain-raiser to Mrs. Le Moyne's production of "In a Balcony," in the
spring of 1901. Fragile as is its charm, it crossed the footlights and
made itself felt as a new beauty of the theatre. It was the lyrical
interbreathings that appealed most to me, but the strife of priest and
fairy for Maire Bruin's soul was very real drama. It was the fairy's
song, however, that haunted me after I left the theatre, as it could not
but be. It haunts me still, coming into my mind whenever I think of Mr.
Yeats, as inevitably as the last lines of "The Countess Cathleen," or as
"The Lake Isle of Innisfree," or "The Valley of the Black Pig," or "The
Rose of the World," or the ecstasies of Forgael and Dectora, or the song
in "Deirdre." "The lonely of heart is withered away" is its burden, a
burden that will not out of mind.

"The Land of Heart's Desire" has probably been most often played,
counting American performances as well as performances in Ireland and
England, being played as frequently by amateurs as by professionals in
this country, but the prose play "Cathleen ni Houlihan," because of its
national theme, has had more playings in Ireland. Its effect upon the
stage is very different from its effect in the study. Read, it seems
allegory too obvious to impress. The old woman, Cathleen ni Houlihan,
with "too many strangers in the house" and with her "four beautiful
green fields" taken from her, is so patently Ireland possessed by
England, all four provinces, that one fails to feel the deep humanity of
the sacrifices of Michael Gillane for her, his country, even though that