MAIRE BRUIN.

O, you are the great door-post of this house,
And I the red nasturtium climbing up.

    [She takes SHAWN’S hand but looks shyly at the priest and lets it
    go.

FATHER HART.

Good daughter, take his hand—­by love alone
God binds us to Himself and to the hearth
And shuts us from the waste beyond His peace,
From maddening freedom and bewildering light.

SHAWN BRUIN.

Would that the world were mine to give it you
With every quiet hearth and barren waste,
The maddening freedom of its woods and tides,
And the bewildering lights upon its hills.

MAIRE BRUIN.

Then I would take and break it in my hands
To see you smile watching it crumble away.

SHAWN BRUIN.

Then I would mould a world of fire and dew
With no one bitter, grave, or over wise,
And nothing marred or old to do you wrong. 
And crowd the enraptured quiet of the sky
With candles burning to your lonely face.

MAIRE BRUIN.

Your looks are all the candles that I need.

SHAWN BRUIN.

Once a fly dancing in a beam o’ the sun,
Or the light wind blowing out of the dawn,
Could fill your heart with dreams none other knew,
But now the indissoluble sacrament
Has mixed your heart that was most proud and cold
With my warm heart for ever; and sun and moor,
Must fade and heaven be rolled up like a scroll;
But your white spirit still walk by my spirit. 
For not a power in earth and heaven and hell
Can break this bond binding heart unto heart.

    [A VOICE sings in the distance.

MAIRE BRUIN.

Did you hear something call?  O, guard me close,
Because I have said wicked things to-night.

A VOICE (close to the door).

The wind blows out of the gates of the day,
  The wind blows over the lonely of heart
And the lonely of heart is withered away,
  While the faeries dance in a place apart,
Shaking their milk-white feet in a ring,
  Tossing their milk-white arms in the air;
For they hear the wind laugh, and murmur, and sing
  Of a land where even the old are fair,
And even the wise are merry of tongue;
  But I heard a reed of Coolaney say,
’When the wind has laughed and murmured and sung,
  The lonely of heart must wither away!’

MAURTEEN BRUIN.

I am right happy, and would make all else
Be happy too.  I hear a child outside,
And will go bring her in out of the cold.

    [He opens the door.  A CHILD dressed in a green jacket with a red
    cap comes into the house.

THE CHILD.

I tire of winds and waters and pale lights!

MAURTEEN BRUIN.

You are most welcome.  It is cold out there,
Who’d think to face such cold on a May Eve.