Page:Plays in Prose and Verse (1922).djvu/149

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ON BAILE'S STRAND
133

“Ah! how wise!’ ‘What will you have for supper?’
‘What shall I wear that I may please you, sir?’
And keep that humming through the day and night
For ever. A fierce woman of thé camp!
But I am getting angry about nothing.
You have never seen her. Ah! Conchubar, had you seen her
With that high, laughing, turbulent head of hers
Thrown backward, and the bowstring at her ear,
Or sitting at the fire with those grave eyes
Full of good counsel as it were with wine,
Or when love ran through all the lineaments
Of her wild body—although she had no child,
None other had all beauty, queen, or lover,
Or was so fitted to give birth to kings.

conchubar. There’s nothing I can say but drifts you farther
From the one weighty matter. That very woman—
For I know well that you are praising Aoife—
Now hates you and will leave no subtilty
Unknotted that might run into a noose
About your throat, no army in idleness
That might bring ruin on this land you serve.

cuchulain. No wonder in that, no wonder at all in that.