The Countess Cathleen

A grey hen flutters at an unseen alarm; in the famine-struck woods, people whisper that the graves are walking. Then Countess Cathleen reaches a starving family’s door with an empty purse—and a heart that cannot pass suffering by.

First published in 1892, W. B. Yeats’s verse drama unfolds in an Ireland where hunger has emptied homes and fear gives every rustle in the woods a monstrous shape. Cathleen, returning to the castle where she spent her childhood, finds that poverty has followed her even here: she gives away all she has, while Shemus curses the rich and calls on whatever powers might bring gold. As strange visitors approach, the question is no longer only how the hungry will eat, but what price they may pay. What has answered Shemus’s invitation?

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