Here is no place for you,
For he and his pretensions now are finished.
Begone before the men at arms are bidden
To hurl you from the door.

OLDEST PUPIL.

Take up his body
And cry that driven from the populous door
He seeks high waters and the mountain birds
To claim a portion of their solitude.
(They make a litter with cloak and staffs and lay Seanchan
on it.)

YOUNGEST PUPIL.

And cry that when they took his ancient right
They took all common sleep; therefore he claims
The mountain for his mattress and his pillow.

OLDEST PUPIL.

And there he can sleep on, not noticing
Although the world be changed from worse to worse,
Amid the changeless clamour of the curlew.
(They raise the litter on their shoulders and move a few steps)

YOUNGEST PUPIL.

(motioning to them to stop)
Yet make triumphant music; sing aloud
For coming times will bless what he has blessed
And curse what he has cursed.

OLDEST PUPIL.

No, no, be still;
Or pluck a solemn music from the strings.
You wrong his greatness speaking so of triumph.

YOUNGEST PUPIL.

O silver trumpets, be you lifted up
And cry to the great race that is to come.
Long-throated swans upon the waves of time
Sing loudly, for beyond the wall of the world
That race may hear our music and awake.

OLDEST PUPIL.

(motioning the musicians to lower their trumpets)
Not what it leaves behind it in the light
But what it carries with it to the dark
Exalts the soul; nor song nor trumpet-blast
Can call up races from the worsening world
To mend the wrong and mar the solitude
Of the great shade we follow to the tomb.
(Fedelm and the pupils go out carrying the litter. Some play
a mournful music.)

NOTE ON 'THOUGHTS UPON THE PRESENT STATE OF THE WORLD' SECTION SIX.

The country people see at times certain apparitions whom they name now
'fallen angels' now 'ancient inhabitants of the country,' and describe
as riding at whiles 'with flowers upon the heads of the horses.' I have
assumed in the sixth poem that these horsemen, now that the times
worsen, give way to worse. My last symbol Robert Artisson was an evil
spirit much run after in Kilkenny at the start of the fourteenth
century. Are not those who travel in