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Title: A New End For 'The King's Threshold'
Author: William Butler Yeats [
More Titles by Yeats]
YOUNGEST PUPIL.
Die Seanchan and proclaim the right of the poets.
SEANCHAN.
Come nearer me, that I may know how face
Differs from face, and touch you with my hands.
O more than kin, O more than children could be,
For children are but born out of our blood
And share our frailty. O my chicks, my chicks,
That I have nourished underneath my wings
And fed upon my soul. (He stands up and begins to walk
down steps) I need no help.
He needs no help that joy has lifted up
Like some miraculous beast out of Ezekiel.
The man that dies has the chief part in the story,
And I will mock and mock and mock that image yonder
That evil picture in the sky--no, no--
I have all my strength again, I will outface it.
O look upon the moon that's standing there
In the blue daylight--notice her complexion
Because it is the white of leprosy
And the contagion that afflicts mankind
Falls from the moon. When I and these are dead
We should be carried to some windy hill
To lie there with uncovered face awhile
That mankind and that leper there may know
Dead faces laugh.
(He falls and then half rises.)
King, king, dead faces laugh.
(He dies)
OLDEST PUPIL.
King, king, he is dead; some strange triumphant thought
So filled his heart with joy that it has burst
Being grown too mighty for our frailty,
And we who gaze grow like him and abhor
The moments that come between us and that death
You promised us.
KING.
Take up his body.
Go where you please and lay it where you please,
So that I cannot see his face or any
That cried him towards his death.
YOUNGEST PUPIL.
Dead faces laugh!
The ancient right is gone, the new remains
And that is death.
(They go towards the king holding out their halters)
We are impatient men,
So gather up the halters in your hands.
KING.
Drive them away.
(He goes into the palace. The soldiers block the way before the pupils.)
SOLDIER.
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.)
[The end]
William Butler Yeats's poem: A New End For 'the King's Threshold'
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