Bridget.  You’ve given milk and fire
Upon the unluckiest night of the year and brought,
For all you know, evil upon the house. 
Before you married you were idle and fine
And went about with ribbons on your head;
And now—­no, Father, I will speak my mind
She is not a fitting wife for any man—­

Shawn.  Be quiet, Mother!

Maurteen.  You are much too cross.

Mary.  What do I care if I have given this house,
Where I must hear all day a bitter tongue,
Into the power of faeries

Bridget.  You know well
How calling the good people by that name,
Or talking of them over much at all,
May bring all kinds of evil on the house.

Mary.  Come, faeries, take me out of this dull house! 
Let me have all the freedom I have lost;
Work when I will and idle when I will! 
Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame.

Father hart.  You cannot know the meaning of your words.

Mary.  Father, I am right weary of four tongues: 
A tongue that is too crafty and too wise,
A tongue that is too godly and too grave,
A tongue that is more bitter than the tide,
And a kind tongue too full of drowsy love,
Of drowsy love and my captivity.

(Shawn Bruin leads her to a seat at the left of the door.)

Shawn.  Do not blame me; I often lie awake
Thinking that all things trouble your bright head. 
How beautiful it is—­your broad pale forehead
Under a cloudy blossoming of hair! 
Sit down beside me here—­these are too old,
And have forgotten they were ever young.

Mary.  O, you are the great door-post of this house,
And I the branch of blessed quicken wood,
And if I could I’d hang upon the post,
Till I had brought good luck into the house.

(She would put her arms about him, but looks shyly at the priest and lets her arms fall.)

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

Shawn.  Would that the world were mine to give it you,
And not its quiet hearths alone, but even
All that bewilderment of light and freedom. 
If you would have it.

Mary.  I would take the world
And break it into pieces in my hands
To see you smile watching it crumble away.

Shawn.  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.