c of paradise. Ah, now I hear, now I
understand. It is made of the continual clashing of swords!

JOHNNY B. That is the best music. We will clash them sure enough. We
will clash our swords and our pikes on the bayonets of the red
soldiers. It is well you rose up from the dead to lead us! Come on now,
come on!

MARTIN. Who are you? Ah, I remember.... Where are you asking me to come
to?

PAUDEEN. To come on, to be sure, to the attack on the barracks at
Aughanish. To carry on the work you took in hand last night.

MARTIN. What work did I take in hand last night? Oh, yes, I remember
... some big house ... we burned it down.... But I had not understood
the vision when I did that. I had not heard the command right. That was
not the work I was sent to do.

PAUDEEN. Rise up now and bid us what to do. Your great name itself will
clear the road before you. It is you yourself will have freed all
Ireland before the stooks will be in stacks!

MARTIN. Listen, I will explain ... I have misled you. It is only now I
have the whole vision plain. As I lay there I saw through everything, I
know all. It was but a frenzy, that going out to burn and to destroy.
What have I to do with the foreign army? What I have to pierce is the
wild heart of time. My business is not reformation but revelation.

JOHNNY B. If you are going to turn back now from leading us, you are no
better than any other traitor that ever gave up the work he took in
hand. Let you come and face now the two hundred men you brought out,
daring the power of the law last night, and give them your reason for
failing them.

MARTIN. I was mistaken when I set out to destroy church and law. The
battle we have to fight is fought out in our own minds. There is a
fiery moment, perhaps once in a lifetime, and in that moment we see the
only thing that matters. It is in that moment the great battles are
lost and won, for in that moment we are a part of the host of heaven.

PAUDEEN. Have you betrayed us to the naked hangman with your promises
and with your drink? If you brought us out here to fail us and to
ridicule us, it is the last day you will live!

JOHNNY B. The curse of my heart on you! It would be right to send you
to your own place on the flagstone of the traitors in hell. When once I
have made an end of you, I will be as well satisfied to be going to my
death for it as if I was going home!

MARTIN. Father John, Father John, can you not hear? Can you not see?
Are you b