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.