running away. (She turns and clings to him.)
The dawn and evening are a little while, the
winter and the summer pass quickly, and what
way would you and I, Naisi, have joy for
ever?
NAISI. We'll have the joy is highest till
our age is come, for it isn't Fergus's talk of
great deeds could take us back to Emain.
DEIRDRE. It isn't to great deeds you're
going but to near troubles, and the shortening
of your days the time that they are bright and
sunny; and isn't it a poor thing that I, Deirdre,
could not hold you away?
NAISI. I've said we'd stay in Alban
always.
DEIRDRE. There's no place to stay al-
ways. . . . It's a long time we've had,
pressing the lips together, going up and down,
resting in our arms, Naisi, waking with the
smell of June in the tops of the grasses, and
listening to the birds in the branches that are
highest. . . . It's a long time we've had, but
the end has come, surely.


59

NAISI. Would you have us go to Emain,
though if any ask the reason we do not know
it, and we journeying as the thrushes come