At the Hawk's Well, Yeats, p.20-28

• Time--The Irish Heroic Age
• What were his life soon done!
  ...
  A mother that saw her son
  ...
  Would cry, 'How little worth
  Were all my hopes and fears
  And the hard pain of his birth!
• FIRST MUSICIAN [speaking]. Night falls;
  The mountain side grows dark;
  ...
  The guardian of the well is sitting
  ...
  Her heavy eyes
  Know nothing, or but look upon stone.
• SECOND MUSICIAN. I am afraid of this place.
• FIRST MUSICIAN [speaking]. The old man climbs up hither
  Who has been watching his well
  These fifty years.
• MUSICIANS [singing]. ...
  Why wander and nothing to find?
  Better grow old and sleep.'
• OLD MAN [speaking]. Why don't you speak to me? Why don't you say:
  'Are you not weary gathering those sticks?
  ...
  It is enough to drive an old man crazy
  To look all day upon these broken rocks,
  And ragged thorns, and that one stupid face,
  And speak and get no answer.
• YOUNG MAN [who has entered through the audience during the last speech]. Then speak to me,
  For youth is not more patient than old age;
  And though I have trod the rocks for half a day
  I cannot find what I am looking for.
• YOUNG MAN. I am named Cuchulain, I am Sualtim's son.
• OLD MAN. What mischief brings you hither?--you are like those
  Who are crazy for shedding men's blood,
  And for the love of women.
• OLD MAN. There is no house to sack among these hills
  Nor beautiful woman to be carried off.
• YOUNG MAN. ...
  And there a solitary girl keeps watch
  Among grey boulders. He who drinks, they say,
  Of that miraculous water lives for ever.
• OLD MAN. And do you think so great a gift is found
  By no more toil than spreading out a sail,
  And climbing a steep hill? O, folly of youth,
• YOUNG MAN. I will stand here and wait. Why should the luck
  Of Sualtim's son desert him now? For never
  Have I had long to wait for anything.
• OLD MAN. ...
  And yet the dancers have deceived me. Thrice
  I have awakened from a sudden sleep
  To find the stones were wet.
• OLD MAN. The Woman of the Sidhe herself,
  The mountain witch, the unappeasable shadow.
  ...
  The old are cursed already. That curse may be
  Never top win a woman's love and keep it;
  ...
  Or you will be so maddened that you kill them
  With your own hand.
• OLD MAN. ...
  I have been watching all my life and maybe
  Only a little cupful will bubble up.
• [He covers his head. The GUARDIAN OF THE WELL throws off her cloak and rises. Her dress under the cloak suggests a hawk.]
• YOUNG MAN. Why do you fix those eyes of a hawk upon me?
  I am not afraid of you, bird, woman, or witch.
• OLD MAN. She has but led you from the fountain. Look!
  Though stones and leaves are dark where it has flowed,
  There's not a drop to drink.
• [The MUSICIANS cry 'Aoife!' 'Aoife!' and strike gong.]
• OLD MAN. She has roused up the fierce woman of the hills,
  Aoife, and all her troop, to take your life,
  And never till you are lying in the earth
  Can you know rest.
• YOUNG MAN. I will face them.
  [He goes out, no longer as if in a dream, but shouldering his spear and calling:]
  He comes! Cuchulain, son of Sualtim, comes!
• Who but an idiot would praise
  Dry stones in a well?
  'The man that I praise',
  Cries out the leafless tree,
  'Has married and stays
  By an old hearth, and he
  On naught has set store
  But children and dogs on the floor.
  Who but an idiot would praise
  A withered tree.
  [They go out.]