Poems. W. B. Yeats

      CATHLEEN

      And if it be a sin, while faith's unbroken

       God cannot help but pardon. There is no soul

       But it's unlike all others in the world,

       Nor one but lifts a strangeness to God's love

       Till that's grown infinite, and therefore none

       Whose loss were less than irremediable

       Although it were the wickedest in the world.

      (Enter TEIG and SHEMUS.)

      STEWARD

      What are you running for? Pull off your cap,

       Do you not see who's there?

      SHEMUS

      I cannot wait.

       I am running to the world with the best news

       That has been brought it for a thousand years.

      STEWARD

      Then get your breath and speak.

      SHEMUS

      If you'd my news

       You'd run as fast and be as out of breath.

      TEIG

      Such news, we shall be carried on men's shoulders.

      SHEMUS

      There's something every man has carried with him

       And thought no more about than if it were

       A mouthful of the wind; and now it's grown

       A marketable thing!

      TEIG

      And yet it seemed

       As useless as the paring of one's nails.

      SHEMUS

      What sets me laughing when I think of it,

       Is that a rogue who's lain in lousy straw,

       If he but sell it, may set up his coach.

      TEIG (laughing)

      There are two gentlemen who buy men's souls.

      CATHLEEN

      O God!

      TEIG

      And maybe there's no soul at all.

      STEWARD

      They're drunk or mad.

      TEIG

      Look at the price they give.

      (Showing money.)

      SHEMUS (tossing up money)

      "Go cry it all about the world," they said.

       "Money for souls, good money for a soul."

      CATHLEEN

      Give twice and thrice and twenty times their money,

       And get your souls again. I will pay all.

      SHEMUS

      Not we! not we! For souls—if there are souls—

       But keep the flesh out of its merriment.

       I shall be drunk and merry.

      TEIG

      Come, let's away.

      (He goes.)

      CATHLEEN

      But there's a world to come.

      SHEMUS

      And if there is,

       I'd rather trust myself into the hands

       That can pay money down than to the hands

       That have but shaken famine from the bag.

      (He goes out R.)

      (Lilting)

      "There's money for a soul, sweet yellow money.

       There's money for men's souls, good money, money."

      CATHLEEN (to ALEEL)

      Go call them here again, bring them by force,

       Beseech them, bribe, do anything you like;

      (ALEEL goes.)

      And you too follow, add your prayers to his.

      (OONA, who has been praying, goes out.)

      Steward, you know the secrets of my house.

       How much have I?

      STEWARD

      A hundred kegs of gold.

      CATHLEEN

      How much have I in castles?

      STEWARD

      As much more.