Page:Plays in Prose and Verse (1922).djvu/88

72. Why, that’s the very truth. It is as though the moon changed everything— Myself and all that I can hear and see; For when the heavy body has grown weak, There’s nothing that can tether the wild mind That, being moonstruck and fantastical, Goes where it fancies. I have even thought I knew your voice and face, but now the words Are so unlikely that I needs must ask Who is it that bids me put my hunger by.

. I am your oldest pupil, Seanchan; The one that has been with you many years— So many, that you said at Candlemas That I had almost done with school, and knew All but all that poets understand.

. My oldest pupil? No, that cannot be, For it is some one of the courtly crowds That have been round about me from sunrise, And I am tricked by dreams; but I’ll refute them. At Candlemas I bid that pupil tell me Why poetry is honoured, wishing to know If he had any weighty argument For distant countries and strange, churlish kings. What did he answer?