Page:Plays in Prose and Verse (1922).djvu/147

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ON BAILE'S STRAND
131

cuchulain. The most of men feel that,
But you and I leave names upon the harp.

conchubar. You play with arguments as lawyers do,
And put no heart in them. I know your thoughts,
For we have slept under the one cloak and drunk
From the one wine cup. I know you to the bone.
I have heard you cry, aye in your very sleep,
‘I have no son,’ and with such bitterness
That I have gone upon my knees and prayed
That it might be amended.

cuchulain. For you thought
That I should be as biddable as others
Had I their reason for it; but that’s not true;
For I would need a weightier argument
Than one that marred me in the copying,
As I have that clean hawk out of the air
That, as men say, begot this body of mine
Upon a mortal woman.

conchubar. Now as ever
You mock at every reasonable hope,
And would have nothing, or impossible things.
What eye has ever looked upon the child
Would satisfy a mind like that?

cuchulain. I would leave