Poetry quotes

A man has a hope for heaven, But soulless a faery dies,

As a leaf that is old, and withered and cold When the wint’ry vapours rise.

A man has a hope for heaven, But soulless a faery dies, As a leaf that is old, and withered and cold When the wint’ry vapours rise.

Soon shall our wings be stilled, And our laughter over and done,

So let us dance where the yellow lance Of the barley shoots in the sun.

They may not pass the portal, Poor earth-enkindled pair, Though sad is many a spirit Το pass and leave them there Still staring at their flowers, That dull and faded are.

If one should rise beside thee, The other is not far.

Go ask the youngest angel, She will say with bated breath, By the door of Mary’s garden Are the spirits Love and Death.

An omen!

A creeping horror is all over me.

Enter an Old Knight. They cast themselves down before him.

A bearded witch, her sluggish head low bent On her broad breast! beneath her withered brows Shine dull unmoving eyes. What thing art thou? I sought thee not.

Men call me Infamy. I know not what I am.

Lover, the voice that summoned thee was mine.

Men call me Infamy. I know not what I am.

Lover, the voice that summoned thee was mine.

For all I gave the voice, for all my youth, For all my joy.—Ah woe!

Two spirit things a man hath for his friends:

Sorrow that gives for guerdon liberty,

And joy, the touching of whose finger lends To lightest of light things all sanctity.

The child pursuing lizards in the grass, The sage, who deep in central nature delves, The preacher watching for the evil hour to pass,

All these are souls that fly from their dread selves.

The squirrel yonder, hushed and wise Forswears his wandering ’mong the pine, And wherefore, then, should thy grey eyes Wander away from mine?

The talking winds have found their home, Eve-soothed in some far leafy rest, And wherefore should thy bright brow roam Madonna from my breast?

A little while and⁠—red eve dies⁠— Our love shall be of yesterday,

Ah, let us kiss each other’s eyes, And laugh our love away.

A little while and—red eve dies— Our love shall be of yesterday,

Ah, let us kiss each other’s eyes, And laugh our love away.

“I laughed upon the lips of Sophocles, I go as soft as folly; I am Fate.” This heard I where among the apple trees, Wild indolence and music have no date.

“

I laughed upon the lips of Sophocles, I go as soft as folly; I am Fate.

” This heard I where among the apple trees, Wild indolence and music have no date.

The giddy bee’s complacent croon, Where long grey grasses bow and bend,

In all its honey-thickened tune Has no word of the sulphurous end.

The sunflowers weave a golden clime, As though their season had no date, Nod to the iron shoes of Time, And play with his immortal hate.

The sunflowers weave a golden clime, As though their season had no date,

Nod to the iron shoes of Time, And play with his immortal hate.

And, maiden, be thou mirthful too, Lay down the burden of thy race, For God is walking in the dew, An evening presence fills the place.

And, maiden, be thou mirthful too, Lay down the burden of thy race,

For God is walking in the dew, An evening presence fills the place.

The hollow woodlands feel Him there, And dread no more foul autumn’s wing, And shake their birds upon the air, And like a silver trumpet ring.

Kingdoms rising, kingdoms falling, Bowing nations, plumèd wars—

Weigh them in an hour of dreaming, Cooking chestnuts on the bars.

All the words that I gather, And all the words that I write, Must spread out their wings untiring, And never rest in their flight, Till they come where your sad, sad heart is, And sing to you in the night, Beyond where the waters …

All the words that I gather, And all the words that I write, Must spread out their wings untiring, And never rest in their flight,

Till they come where your sad, sad heart is, And sing to you in the night,

Beyond where the waters are moving, Storm darkened or starry bright.

All the words that I gather, And all the words that I write,

Must spread out their wings untiring, And never rest in their flight,

Till they come where your sad, sad heart is, And sing to you in the night, Beyond where the waters are moving, Storm darkened or starry bright.

The road-side trees keep murmuring Ah, wherefore murmur ye, As in the old days long gone by, Green oak and poplar tree?

The well-known faces are all gone And the fret lies on me.

You who are bent, and bald, and blind, With a heavy heart and a wandering mind, Have known three centuries, poets sing, Of dalliance with a demon thing.

You who are bent, and bald, and blind, With a heavy heart and a wandering mind, Have known three centuries, poets sing, Of dalliance with a demon thing.

Sad to remember, sick with years,

The swift innumerable spears, The horsemen with their floating hair, And bowls of barley, honey, and wine, And feet of maidens dancing in tune, And the white body that lay by mine;

Sad to remember, sick with years, The swift innumerable spears, The horsemen with their floating hair, And bowls of barley, honey, and wine, And feet of maidens dancing in tune, And the white body that lay by mine;

But the tale, though words be lighter than air, Must live to be old like the wandering moon.

Caolte, and Conan, and Finn were there, When we followed a deer with our baying hounds, With Bran, Sgeolan, and Lomair, And passing the Firbolgs’ burial mounds Came to the cairn-heaped grassy hill Where passionate Maive is stony still;

And found on the dove-grey edge of the sea A pearl-pale, high-born lady, who rode On a horse with bridle of findrinny;

And like a sunset were her lips, A stormy sunset on doomed ships;

A citron colour gloomed in her hair, But down to her feet white vesture flowed, And with the glimmering crimson glowed Of many a figured embroidery;

And it was bound with a pearl-pale shell That wavered like the summer streams, As her soft bosom rose and fell.

You are still wrecked among heathen dreams.

“Why do you wind no horn?” she said. “And every hero droop his head? The hornless deer is not more sad That many a peaceful moment had, More sleek than any granary mouse, In his own leafy forest house Among the waving fields of fern:

“Why do you wind no horn?” she said. “And every hero droop his head? The hornless deer is not more sad That many a peaceful moment had, More sleek than any granary mouse, In his own leafy forest house Among the waving fields of fern:

The hunting of heroes should be glad.

” “O pleasant woman,” answered Finn, “We think on Oscar’s pencilled urn, And on the heroes lying slain, On Gavra’s raven-covered plain; But where are your noble kith and kin, And into what country do you ride?”

O Patric, by your brazen bell,

There was no limb of mine but fell Into a desperate gulf of love!

“You only will I wed,” I cried, “And I will make a thousand songs, And set your name all names above, And captives bound with leathern thongs Shall kneel and praise you, one by one, At evening in my western dun.”

“O Usheen, mount by me and ride To shores by the wash of the tremulous tide, Where men have heaped no burial mounds, And the days pass by like a wayward tune,

Where broken faith has never been known, And the blushes of first love never have flown;

And there I will give you a hundred hounds; No mightier creatures bay at the moon;

But when the horse had felt my weight, He shook himself and neighed three times: Caolte, Conan, and Finn came near, And wept, and raised their lamenting hands, And bid me stay, with many a tear;

But we rode out from the human lands.

In what far kingdom do you go, Ah, Fenians, with the shield and bow? Or are you phantoms white as snow, Whose lips had life’s most prosperous glow?

And caught the silver harp away, And, weeping over the white strings, hurled It down in a leaf-hid, hollow place That kept dim waters from the sky; And each one said with a long, long sigh, “

O saddest harp in all the world, Sleep there till the moon and the stars die!

” And now still sad we came to where A beautiful young man dreamed within A house of wattles, clay, and skin; One hand upheld his beardless chin;

… fills with stars night’s purple cup, And wakes the sluggard seeds of corn, And stirs the young kid’s budding horn And makes the infant ferns unwrap, And for the peewit paints his cap, And rolls along the unwieldy sun, And makes the little planets run:

And if joy were not on the earth, There were an end of change and birth,

And earth and heaven and hell would die, And in some gloomy barrow lie Folded like a frozen fly; Then mock at Death and Time with glances And waving arms and wandering dances.

Then mock at Death and Time with glances And waving arms and wandering dances. “

Men’s hearts of old were drops of flame That from the saffron morning came,

Or drops of silver joy that fell Out of the moon’s pale twisted shell; But now hearts cry that hearts are slaves, And toss and turn in narrow caves; But here there is nor law nor rule, Nor have hands held a weary tool;

Then mock at Death and Time with glances And waving arms and wandering dances. “Men’s hearts of old were drops of flame That from the saffron morning came, Or drops of silver joy that fell Out of the moon’s pale twisted shell;

But now hearts cry that hearts are slaves, And toss and turn in narrow caves;

But here there is nor law nor rule, Nor have hands held a weary tool; And here there is nor Change nor Death, But only kind and merry breath, For joy is God and God is joy.”

But now hearts cry that hearts are slaves, And toss and turn in narrow caves; But here there is nor law nor rule, Nor have hands held a weary tool; And here there is nor Change nor Death, But only kind and merry breath,

For joy is God and God is joy.

” With one long glance on maid and boy And the pale blossom of the moon, He fell into a Druid swoon.

He has over-lingered his welcome; the days, Grown desolate, whisper and sigh to each other; He hears the storm in the chimney above, And bends to the fire and shakes with the cold,

While his heart still dreams of battle and love, And the cry of the hounds on the hills of old.

“But we are apart in the grassy places, Where care cannot trouble the least of our days, Or the softness of youth be gone from our faces, Or love’s first tenderness die in our gaze.

Like drops of honey came their words, But fainter than a young lamb’s bleat. “An old man stirs the fire to blaze, In the house of a child, of a friend, of a brother;

He has over-lingered his welcome; the days, Grown desolate, whisper and sigh to each other;

He hears the storm in the chimney above, And bends to the fire and shakes with the cold, While his heart still dreams of battle and love, And the cry of the hounds on the hills of old.

“But we are apart in the grassy places, Where care cannot trouble the least of our days, Or the softness of youth be gone from our faces, Or love’s first tenderness die in our gaze.

The hare grows old as she plays in the sun

And gazes around her with eyes of brightness; Before the swift things that she dreamed of were done She limps along in an aged whiteness;

“But till the moon has taken all, I wage War on the mightiest men under the skies, And they have fallen or fled, age after age.

Light is man’s love, and lighter is man’s rage; His purpose drifts and dies.

” And then lost Niam murmured, “Love, we go To the Island of Forgetfulness, for lo! The Islands of Dancing and of Victories Are empty of all power.” “And which of these Is the Island of Content?” “None know,” she said;

And by me, in soft red raiment, the Fenians moved in loud streams, And Grania, walking and smiling, sewed with her needle of bone.

So lived I and lived not, so wrought I and wrought not, with creatures of dreams,

In a long iron sleep, as a fish in the water goes dumb as a stone. At times our slumber was lightened. When the sun was on silver or gold; When brushed with the wings of the owls, in the dimness they love going by;

Long fled the foam-flakes around me, the winds fled out of the vast, Snatching the bird in secret; nor knew I, embosomed apart, When they froze the cloth on my body like armour riveted fast,

For Remembrance, lifting her leanness, keened in the gates of my heart.

Till fattening the winds of the morning, an odour of new-mown hay Came and my forehead fell low, and my tears like berries fell down;

And I rode and I rode, and I cried out, “The Fenians hunt wolves in the night, So sleep they by daytime.” A voice cried, “

The Fenians a long time are dead.

” A whitebeard stood hushed on the pathway, the flesh of his face as dried grass, And in folds round his eyes and his mouth, he sad as a child without milk;

A voice cried, “The Fenians a long time are dead.” A whitebeard stood hushed on the pathway, the flesh of his face as dried grass, And in folds round his eyes and his mouth, he sad as a child without milk;

And the dreams of the islands were gone, and I knew how men sorrow and pass,

And their hound, and their horse, and their love, and their eyes that glimmer like silk. And wrapping my face in my hair, I murmured, “In old age they ceased”;

If when the battle is half won, I fling away my sword, blood dim, Or leave some service all undone, Beloved, blame the Danaan whim, And blame the snare they set for me. (Ah, mournful Danaan quicken tree!)

Cast out all hope, cast out all fear, And taste with me the faeries’ meat,

For while I blamed them I could hear Dark Joan call the berries sweet, Where Niam heads the revelry. (Ah, mournful Danaan quicken tree!)

I pray that I ever be weaving An intellectual tune, But weaving it out of threads From the distaff of the moon.

Wisdom and dreams are one,

For dreams are the flowers ablow, And Wisdom the fruit of the garden: God planted him long ago.

Looking down into the fountain.

Where moves there any beautiful as I,

Save, with the little golden greedy carp, Gold unto gold, a gleam in its long hair, My image yonder? Spreading her hand over the water. Ah, my beautiful, What roseate fingers! Turning away. No;

Looking down into the fountain. Where moves there any beautiful as I, Save, with the little golden greedy carp, Gold unto gold, a gleam in its long hair, My image yonder? Spreading her hand over the water.

Ah, my beautiful, What roseate fingers!

Turning away. No; nor is there one Of equal power in spells and secret rites. The proudest or most coy of spirit things, Hide where he will, in wave or wrinkled moon, Obeys.

Putting the bag and hour-glass on the table and resting on his scythe.

Grey hairs and crutches, crutches and grey hairs,

Mansions of memories and mellow thoughts Where dwell the minds of old men having peace, And—

My glass I will not sell.

Without my glass I’d be a sorry clown.

Yet whiter beard have you than Merlin had.

I lose! They’re loaded dice.

Time always plays With loaded dice.

Another chance! Come, father; Come to the chess, for young girls’ wits are better Than old men’s any day, as Merlin found.

Places the chess-board on her knees.

The passing of those little grains is snow Upon my soul, old Time.

She lays the hour-glass on its side.

Should my plots fail I’d die.

Thus play we first with pawns, poor things and weak; And then the great ones come, and last the king.

So men in life and I in magic play; First dreams, and goblins, and the lesser sprites, And now with Father Time I’m face to face.

I must be careful now. I have such plots— Such war plots, peace plots, love plots—every side;

I cannot go into the bloodless land Among the whimpering ghosts.

Already? Chance hath a skill!

By tables that were fallen into dust Ere yonder palm commenced his thousand years?

Is not thy body but the garnered rust Of ancient passions and of ancient fears?

Then wherefore fear the usury of Time, Or Death that cometh with the next life-key? Nay, rise and flatter her with golden rhyme, For as things were so shall things ever be.

Then wherefore fear the usury of Time, Or Death that cometh with the next life-key? Nay, rise and flatter her with golden rhyme,

For as things were so shall things ever be.

Flames the shuttle of the lightning across the driving sleet, Ay, and shakes in sea-green waverings along the fishers’ street; Gone the stars and gone the white moon, gone and puffed away and dead. Never storm arose so swiftly;

Flames the shuttle of the lightning across the driving sleet, Ay, and shakes in sea-green waverings along the fishers’ street; Gone the stars and gone the white moon, gone and puffed away and dead.

Never storm arose so swiftly; scarce the children were in bed,

Scarce the old and wizen houses had their doors and windows shut. Ah! it dwelt within the twilight as the worm within the nut. “Waken, waken, sleepy fishers; no hour is this for sleep,” Cries a voice at roaring midnight beside the moonless deep.

Gone the stars and gone the white moon, gone and puffed away and dead. Never storm arose so swiftly; scarce the children were in bed, Scarce the old and wizen houses had their doors and windows shut.

Ah! it dwelt within the twilight as the worm within the nut.

“Waken, waken, sleepy fishers; no hour is this for sleep,” Cries a voice at roaring midnight beside the moonless deep. Half dizzy with the lightning there runs a gathering band— “Watcher, wherefore have ye called us?”

Prayed those forgotten fishers, till in the eastern skies Came olive fires of morning and on the darkness fed,

By the slow heaving ocean⁠—mumbling mother of the dead.

A moonlit moor. Fairies leading a child.

How “the only good is musing mild,

And evil still is action’s child.

“With action all the world is vexed,” He’d find for this some holy text.

Three spans high as he rose to his feet, And his hair was as yellow as waving wheat.

Now, what has a fairy to do with a priest Who is six feet high in his socks at least?

He drew from his cap a feather grey, On the nose of the sleeper he made it play;

“

Man of wisdom, dost thou know Where the souls of fairies go?

”

Then away and away will I wander, And measure the minds of the flowers, And gaze on the meadow-mice wary, And number their days and their hours—

You are wasting away, little fairy.

O shining ones, lightly with song pass, Ah! leave me, I pray you and beg.

Deep in the woodland paused they, the six feet Lapped in the lemon daffodils; a bee In the long grass—four eyes droop low—a seat Of moss, a maiden weaving. Singeth she: “

I am lone Lady Quietness, my sweet, And on this loom I weave thy destiny.

”

A grey professor passing cried, “How few the mind’s intemperance rule! What shallow thoughts about deep things!

The world grows old and plays the fool.

”

The Maker of the stars and worlds To His own house did him betake,

And on that city dropped a tear, And now that city is a lake.

Singing in this London street To the rhythm of their feet, By a window’s feeble light Are two ragged children bright— Larger sparrows of the town, Nested ’mong the vapours brown. Far away the starry mirth Hangs o’er all the wooded earth.

Singing in this London street To the rhythm of their feet, By a window’s feeble light Are two ragged children bright— Larger sparrows of the town, Nested ’mong the vapours brown.

Far away the starry mirth Hangs o’er all the wooded earth.

If these merry ones should know, Footing in the feeble glow, Of a wide wood’s leafy leisure, Would they foot so fleet a measure? Ah no!

Two spirit-things a man hath for his friends— Sorrow, that gives for guerdon liberty, And joy, the touching of whose finger lends To lightest of all light things sanctity.

Long thou for nothing, neither sad nor gay;

Long thou for nothing, neither night nor day; Not even “I long to see thy longing over,” To the ever-longing and mournful spirit say.

Long thou for nothing, neither sad nor gay; Long thou for nothing, neither night nor day; Not even “I long to see thy longing over,” To the ever-longing and mournful spirit say.

The ghosts went by me with their lips apart

From death’s late languor as these lines I read On Brahma’s gateway, “They within have fed The soul upon the ashes of the heart.”

The ghosts went by me with their lips apart From death’s late languor as these lines I read On Brahma’s gateway, “

They within have fed The soul upon the ashes of the heart.

”

“Around, the twitter of the lips of dust A tossing laugh between their red abides; With patient beauty yonder Attic bust In the deep alcove’s dimness smiles and hides.”

The heart of noon folds silence and folds sleep,

For noon and midnight from each other borrow, And Joy, in growing deeper and more deep, Walks in the vesture of her sister Sorrow.

The heart of noon folds silence and folds sleep, For noon and midnight from each other borrow,

And Joy, in growing deeper and more deep, Walks in the vesture of her sister Sorrow.

When you are sad, The mother of the stars weeps too, And all her starlight is with sorrow mad, And tears of fire fall gently in the dew.

The heart of noon folds silence and folds sleep, For noon and midnight from each other borrow, And Joy, in growing deeper and more deep, Walks in the vesture of her sister Sorrow.

When you are sad, The mother of the stars weeps too,

And all her starlight is with sorrow mad, And tears of fire fall gently in the dew.

When you are sad, The mother of the wave sighs too, And her dim wave bids man be no more glad, And then the whole world’s trouble weeps with you.

Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!

Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways: Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide; The Druid, gray, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed, Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold;

Come near, that no more blinded by man’s fate, I find under the boughs of love and hate, In all poor foolish things that live a day,

Eternal beauty wandering on her way.

Come near, come near, come near—Ah, leave me still A little space for the rose-breath to fill! Lest I no more hear common things that crave;

The weak worm hiding down in its small cave, The field mouse running by me in the grass, And heavy mortal hopes that toil and pass; But seek alone to hear the strange things said By God to the bright hearts of those long dead,

And learn to chaunt a tongue men do not know.

Come near; I would, before my time to go, Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways: Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.

Look on my thin gray hair and hollow cheeks And on these hands that may not lift the sword, This body trembling like a wind-blown reed.

No woman’s loved me, no man sought my help.

A king is but a foolish labourer Who wastes his blood to be another’s dream.

Look on my thin gray hair and hollow cheeks And on these hands that may not lift the sword, This body trembling like a wind-blown reed. No woman’s loved me, no man sought my help.

A king is but a foolish labourer Who wastes his blood to be another’s dream.

Take, if you must, this little bag of dreams; Unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round.

A king is but a foolish labourer Who wastes his blood to be another’s dream.

Take, if you must, this little bag of dreams;

Unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round.

Take, if you must, this little bag of dreams; Unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round.

I see my life go dripping like a river From change to change; I have been many things,

A green drop in the surge, a gleam of light Upon a sword, a fir-tree on a hill, An old slave grinding at a heavy quern, A king sitting upon a chair of gold, And all these things were wonderful and great;

But now I have grown nothing, knowing all, And the whole world weighs down upon my heart:

Ah! Druid, Druid, how great webs of sorrow Lay hidden in the small slate-coloured thing?

A man came slowly from the setting sun, To Emer, raddling raiment in her dun, And said, “I am that swineherd, whom you bid Go watch the road between the wood and tide, But now I have no need to watch it more.”

But now I have grown nothing, knowing all, And the whole world weighs down upon my heart: Ah! Druid, Druid, how great webs of sorrow Lay hidden in the small slate-coloured thing?

A man came slowly from the setting sun,

To Emer, raddling raiment in her dun, And said, “I am that swineherd, whom you bid Go watch the road between the wood and tide, But now I have no need to watch it more.”

“I only ask what way my journey lies.

For He who made you bitter, made you wise.

”

“

The dooms of men are in God’s hidden place.

”

Cuchulain stirred, Stared on the horses of the sea, and heard The cars of battle and his own name cried; And fought with the invulnerable tide.

Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?

For these red lips, with all their mournful pride, Mournful that no new wonder may betide, Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam, And Usna’s children died.

Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream? For these red lips, with all their mournful pride, Mournful that no new wonder may betide,

Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam,

And Usna’s children died.

Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream? For these red lips, with all their mournful pride, Mournful that no new wonder may betide, Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam, And Usna’s children died.

We and the labouring world are passing by:

Amid men’s souls, that waver and give place, Like the pale waters in their wintry race, Under the passing stars, foam of the sky, Lives on this lonely face.

We and the labouring world are passing by: Amid men’s souls, that waver and give place, Like the pale waters in their wintry race, Under the passing stars, foam of the sky, Lives on this lonely face.

Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode:

Before you were, or any hearts to beat, Weary and kind one lingered by His seat; He made the world to be a grassy road Before her wandering feet.

Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode: Before you were, or any hearts to beat, Weary and kind one lingered by His seat;

He made the world to be a grassy road Before her wandering feet.

If Michael, leader of God’s host When Heaven and Hell are met, Looked down on you from Heaven’s door-post He would his deeds forget.

Brooding no more upon God’s wars In his Divine homestead,

He would go weave out of the stars A chaplet for your head.

And all folk seeing him bow down, And white stars tell your praise, Would come at last to God’s great town, Led on by gentle ways;

And God would bid His warfare cease, Saying all things were well;

And softly make a rosy peace, A peace of Heaven with Hell.

Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World! The tall thought-woven sails, that flap unfurled Above the tide of hours, trouble the air, And God’s bell buoyed to be the water’s care;

And God would bid His warfare cease, Saying all things were well; And softly make a rosy peace, A peace of Heaven with Hell.

Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!

The tall thought-woven sails, that flap unfurled Above the tide of hours, trouble the air, And God’s bell buoyed to be the water’s care; While hushed from fear, or loud with hope, a band With blown, spray-dabbled hair gather at hand.

… Who have sought more than is in rain or dew Or in the sun and moon, or on the earth, Or sighs amid the wandering, starry mirth, Or comes in laughter from the sea’s sad lips And wage God’s battles in the long grey ships.

The sad, the lonely, the insatiable,

To these Old Night shall all her mystery tell; God’s bell has claimed them by the little cry Of their sad hearts, that may not live nor die.

Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World! You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring The bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing.

Beauty grown sad with its eternity

Made you of us, and of the dim grey sea. Our long ships loose thought-woven sails and wait, For God has bid them share an equal fate;

Give to these children, new from the world, Rest far from men,

Is anything better, anything better? Tell us it then:

Us who are old, old and gay, O so old! Thousands of years, thousands of years, If all were told.

Us who are old, old and gay, O so old! Thousands of years, thousands of years, If all were told.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

The angels are stooping Above your bed; They weary of trooping With the whimpering dead.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

The angels are stooping Above your bed;

They weary of trooping With the whimpering dead.

The angels are stooping Above your bed; They weary of trooping With the whimpering dead.

God’s laughing in heaven To see you so good;

The Sailing Seven Are gay with His mood.

I sigh that kiss you, For I must own That I shall miss you When you have grown.

A pity beyond all telling Is hid in the heart of love:

The folk who are buying and selling, The clouds on their journey above, The cold wet winds ever blowing, And the shadowy hazel grove Where mouse-grey waters are flowing, Threaten the head that I love.

The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves, The brilliant moon and all the milky sky, And all that famous harmony of leaves, Had blotted out man’s image and his cry.

A girl arose that had red mournful lips,

And seemed the greatness of the world in tears. Doomed like Odysseus and the labouring ships And proud as Priam murdered with his peers;

A girl arose that had red mournful lips,

And seemed the greatness of the world in tears.

Doomed like Odysseus and the labouring ships And proud as Priam murdered with his peers;

How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!

We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee; And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky, Has awaked in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.

For I would we were changed to white birds on the wandering foam: I and you!

I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a Danaan shore,

Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no more; Soon far from the rose and the lily, and fret of the flames would we be, Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea!

I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a Danaan shore,

Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no more;

Soon far from the rose and the lily, and fret of the flames would we be, Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea!

And left her to the indifferent stars above Until I carved these words:

She was more beautiful than thy first love, But now lies under boards.

All the heavy days are over; Leave the body’s coloured pride Underneath the grass and clover, With the feet laid side by side.

Who will go drive with Fergus now, And pierce the deep wood’s woven shade, And dance upon the level shore? Young man, lift up your russet brow, And lift your tender eyelids, maid,

And brood on hopes and fears no more.

And no more turn aside and brood Upon Love’s bitter mystery; For Fergus rules the brazen cars, And rules the shadows of the wood, And the white breast of the dim sea And all dishevelled wandering stars.

Who will go drive with Fergus now, And pierce the deep wood’s woven shade, And dance upon the level shore? Young man, lift up your russet brow, And lift your tender eyelids, maid, And brood on hopes and fears no more.

And no more turn aside and brood Upon Love’s bitter mystery;

For Fergus rules the brazen cars, And rules the shadows of the wood, And the white breast of the dim sea And all dishevelled wandering stars.

How Time may never mar their faery vows Under the woven roofs of quicken boughs:

The singing shook him out of his new ease.

He wandered by the sands of Lisadell; His mind ran all on money cares and fears, And he had known at last some prudent years Before they heaped his grave under the hill;

That none may feel the power of squall and wave And no one any leaf-crowned dancer miss Until He burn up Nature with a kiss:

The man has found no comfort in the grave.

There was a green branch hung with many a bell When her own people ruled this tragic Eire; And from its murmuring greenness, calm of faery, A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell.

There was a green branch hung with many a bell When her own people ruled this tragic Eire; And from its murmuring greenness, calm of faery, A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell.

It charmed away the merchant from his guile,

And turned the farmer’s memory from his cattle, And hushed in sleep the roaring ranks of battle: And all grew friendly for a little while.

It charmed away the merchant from his guile, And turned the farmer’s memory from his cattle, And hushed in sleep the roaring ranks of battle:

And all grew friendly for a little while.

Ah, Exiles, wandering over lands and seas, And planning, plotting always that some morrow May set a stone upon ancestral Sorrow? I also bear a bell branch full of ease.

Though lads are making pikes again For some conspiracy, And crazy rascals rage their fill At human tyranny; My contemplations are of time That has transfigured me.

There’s not a woman turns her face Upon a broken tree,

And yet the beauties that I loved Are in my memory; I spit into the face of Time That has transfigured me.

There’s not a woman turns her face Upon a broken tree, And yet the beauties that I loved Are in my memory;

I spit into the face of Time That has transfigured me.

The old priest Peter Gilligan Was weary night and day; For half his flock were in their beds, Or under green sods lay.

“

I have no rest, nor joy, nor peace, For people die and die

”; And after cried he, “God forgive! My body spake, not I!”

They slowly into millions grew, And leaves shook in the wind;

And God covered the world with shade, And whispered to mankind.

Upon the time of sparrow chirp When the moths came once more, The old priest Peter Gilligan Stood upright on the floor.

“He who is wrapped in purple robes, With planets in His care, Had pity on the least of things Asleep upon a chair.”

Beloved, gaze in thine own heart, The holy tree is growing there;

From joy the holy branches start, And all the trembling flowers they bear, The changing colours of its fruit Have dowered the stars with merry light; The surety of its hidden root Has planted quiet in the night;

When looking on their shaken hair, And dreaming how they dance and dart, Thine eyes grow full of tender care: Beloved, gaze in thine own heart.

Gaze no more in the bitter glass

The demons, with their subtle guile, Lift up before us when they pass, Or only gaze a little while; For there a fatal image grows, That the stormy night receives, Roots half hidden under snows, Broken boughs and blackened leaves.

For there a fatal image grows, That the stormy night receives, Roots half hidden under snows, Broken boughs and blackened leaves.

All things turn to barrenness In the dim glass the demons hold,

The glass of outer weariness, Made when God slept in times of old. There, through the broken branches, go The ravens of unresting thought; Peering and flying to and fro, To see men’s souls bartered and bought.

All things turn to barrenness In the dim glass the demons hold, The glass of outer weariness, Made when God slept in times of old.

There, through the broken branches, go The ravens of unresting thought;

Peering and flying to and fro, To see men’s souls bartered and bought. When they are heard upon the wind, And when they shake their wings; alas! Thy tender eyes grow all unkind: Gaze no more in the bitter glass.

For God goes by with white foot-fall.

I cast my heart into my rhymes,

That you, in the dim coming times, May know how my heart went with them After the red-rose-bordered hem.

While still I may, I write for you The love I lived, the dream I knew.

From our birthday, until we die, Is but the winking of an eye;

And we, our singing and our love, What measurer Time has lit above, And all benighted things that go About my table to and fro, Are passing on to where may be, In truth’s consuming ecstasy No place for love and dream at all;

For God goes by with white foot-fall. I cast my heart into my rhymes, That you, in the dim coming times, May know how my heart went with them After the red-rose-bordered hem.

There was a man whom Sorrow named his friend

And he, of his high comrade Sorrow dreaming, Went walking with slow steps along the gleaming And humming sands, where windy surges wend:

The sea swept on and cried her old cry still, Rolling along in dreams from hill to hill; He fled the persecution of her glory And, in a far-off, gentle valley stopping, Cried all his story to the dewdrops glistening,

But naught they heard, for they are always listening, The dewdrops, for the sound of their own dropping.

And then the man whom Sorrow named his friend, Sought once again the shore, and found a shell, And thought, I will my heavy story tell Till my own words, re-echoing, shall send Their sadness through a hollow, pearly heart;

Vijaya, I have brought my evening rice;

The sun has laid his chin on the gray wood, Weary, with all his poppies gathered round him.

The hour when Kama, full of sleepy laughter, Rises, and showers abroad his fragrant arrows, Piercing the twilight with their murmuring barbs.

And in the flaming forests cower the lion And lioness, with all their whimpering cubs;

And, ever pacing on the verge of things, The phantom, Beauty, in a mist of tears;

While we alone have round us woven woods, And feel the softness of each other’s hand, Amrita, while—

And may some dreadful ill befall her quick!

I loved another; now I love no other.

Among the mouldering of ancient woods You live, and on the village border she, With her old father the blind wood-cutter; I saw her standing in her door but now.

Swear by the parents of the gods, Dread oath, who dwell on sacred Himalay, On the far Golden Peak; enormous shapes,

Who still were old when the great sea was young;

On their vast faces mystery and dreams; Their hair along the mountains rolled and filled From year to year by the unnumbered nests Of aweless birds, and round their stirless feet The joyous flocks of deer and antelope, Who never hear the unforgiving hound. Swear!

Who holds the world between His bill and made us strong or weak Is an undying moorfowl, and He lives beyond the sky,

The rains are from His dripping wing, the moonbeams from His eye.

I passed a little further on and heard a lotus talk:

Who made the grass and made the worms and made my feathers gay, He is a monstrous peacock, and He waveth all the night His languid tail above us, lit with myriad spots of light.

The island dreams under the dawn And great boughs drop tranquillity;

The peahens dance on a smooth lawn, A parrot sways upon a tree, Raging at his own image in the enamelled sea.

Here we will moor our lonely ship And wander ever with woven hands, Murmuring softly lip to lip, Along the grass, along the sands,

Murmuring how far away are the unquiet lands:

How we alone of mortals are Hid under quiet bows apart, While our love grows an Indian star, A meteor of the burning heart, One with the tide that gleams, the wings that gleam and dart,

How we alone of mortals are Hid under quiet bows apart,

While our love grows an Indian star, A meteor of the burning heart,

One with the tide that gleams, the wings that gleam and dart,

The heavy boughs, the burnished dove That moans and sighs a hundred days: How when we die our shades will rove, When eve has hushed the feathered ways, With vapoury footsole among the water’s drowsy blaze.

Autumn is over the long leaves that love us,

And over the mice in the barley sheaves; Yellow the leaves of the rowan above us, And yellow the wet wild-strawberry leaves.

Autumn is over the long leaves that love us, And over the mice in the barley sheaves; Yellow the leaves of the rowan above us, And yellow the wet wild-strawberry leaves.

The hour of the waning of love has beset us,

And weary and worn are our sad souls now; Let us part, ere the season of passion forget us, With a kiss and a tear on thy drooping brow.

And then she: “Although our love is waning, let us stand By the lone border of the lake once more, Together in that hour of gentleness

When the poor tired child, Passion, falls asleep:

How far away the stars seem, and how far Is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!”

And then she: “Although our love is waning, let us stand By the lone border of the lake once more, Together in that hour of gentleness When the poor tired child, Passion, falls asleep:

How far away the stars seem, and how far Is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!

”

Turning, he saw that she had thrust dead leaves Gathered in silence, dewy as her eyes, In bosom and hair. “Ah, do not mourn,” he said, “That we are tired, for other loves await us; Hate on and love through unrepining hours.

Before us lies eternity; our souls Are love, and a continual farewell.

”

And under the blinking of the stars Fell on the pirates by the deep, And hurled them in the gulf of sleep: These hands won many a torque of gold.

They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.

But slowly, as I shouting slew And trampled in the bubbling mire, In my most secret spirit grew A whirling and a wandering fire: I stood: keen stars above me shone, Around me shone keen eyes of men:

I wander on, and wave my hands, And sing, and shake my heavy locks.

The grey wolf knows me; by one ear I lead along the woodland deer;

The hares run by me growing bold. They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.

To and fro we leap And chase the frothy bubbles, While the world is full of troubles And is anxious in its sleep.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

To and fro we leap And chase the frothy bubbles, While the world is full of troubles And is anxious in its sleep. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes From the hills above Glen-Car, In pools among the rushes That scarce could bathe a star, We seek for slumbering trout And whispering in their ears Give them unquiet dreams Leaning softly out From ferns that drop their tear Over …

For he comes, the human child, To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, From a world more full of weeping than he can understand.

Shy one, shy one, Shy one of my heart,

She moves in the firelight Pensively apart.

She carries in the dishes, And lays them in a row.

To an isle in the water With her would I go.

She carries in the candles And lights the curtained room, Shy in the doorway And shy in the gloom;

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet; She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.

She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;

But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.

In a field by the river my love and I did stand, And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand. She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;

But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

You waves, though you dance by my feet like children at play, Though you glow and you glance, though you purr and you dart;

And ah, you proud maiden, you are not so fair when his oar Is heard on the water, as they were, the proud and apart, Who paced in the eve by the nets on the pebbly shore,

When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.

Good Father John O’Hart In penal days rode out To a shoneen who had free lands And his own snipe and trout.

But Father John went up, And Father John went down; And he wore small holes in his shoes, And he wore large holes in his gown.

All loved him, only the shoneen, Whom the devils have by the hair,

From the wives, and the cats, and the children, To the birds in the white of the air.

But if when any one died Came keeners hoarser than rooks,

He bade them give over their keening; For he was a man of books.

And these were the works of John, When weeping score by score, People came into Coloony; For he’d died at ninety-four.

Keening from Inishmurray, Nor stayed for bite or sup;

This way were all reproved Who dig old customs up.

Come round me, little childer; There, don’t fling stones at me Because I mutter as I go; But pity Moll Magee.

I lay upon my baby; Ye little childer dear, I looked on my cold baby When the morn grew frosty and clear.

A weary woman sleeps so hard!

My man grew red and pale, And gave me money, and bade me go To my own place, Kinsale.

And sometimes I am sure she knows When, openin’ wide His door,

God lights the stars, His candles, And looks upon the poor.

So now, ye little childer, Ye won’t fling stones at me; But gather with your shinin’ looks And pity Moll Magee.

One blind hound only lies apart On the sun-smitten grass;

He holds deep commune with his heart: The moments pass and pass;

The blind hound with a mournful din Lifts slow his wintry head; The servants bear the body in; The hounds wail for the dead.

The friends that have it I do wrong When ever I remake a song, Should know what issue is at stake:

It is myself that I remake.

Accursed who brings to light of day The writings I have cast away! But blessed he that stirs them not And lets the kind worm take the lot!

The friends that have it I do wrong When ever I remake a song, Should know what issue is at stake: It is myself that I remake.

Accursed who brings to light of day The writings I have cast away!

But blessed he that stirs them not And lets the kind worm take the lot!

“The Man that I praise,” Cries out the empty well, “Lives all his days Where a hand on the bell Can call the milch-cows To the comfortable door of his house.

Who but an idiot would praise Dry stones in a well?

”

The host is riding from Knocknarea And over the grave of Clooth-na-Bare; Caolte tossing his burning hair And Niamh calling Away, come away:

Empty your heart of its mortal dream.

The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round, Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound, Our breasts are heaving, our eyes are agleam, Our arms are waving, our lips are apart;

And if any gaze on our rushing band, We come between him and the deed of his hand,

We come between him and the hope of his heart.

The host is rushing ’twixt night and day, And where is there hope or deed as fair? Caolte tossing his burning hair, And Niamh calling Away, come away.

The host is rushing ’twixt night and day, And where is there hope or deed as fair? Caolte tossing his burning hair, And Niamh calling Away, come away.

O sweet everlasting Voices, be still;

Go to the guards of the heavenly fold And bid them wander obeying your will Flame under flame, till Time be no more;

O sweet everlasting Voices, be still; Go to the guards of the heavenly fold And bid them wander obeying your will Flame under flame, till Time be no more;

Have you not heard that our hearts are old,

That you call in birds, in wind on the hill, In shaken boughs, in tide on the shore? O sweet everlasting Voices, be still.

Have you not heard that our hearts are old, That you call in birds, in wind on the hill, In shaken boughs, in tide on the shore? O sweet everlasting Voices, be still.

Time drops in decay, Like a candle burnt out,

And the mountains and woods Have their day, have their day; What one in the rout Of the fire-born moods Has fallen away?

Time drops in decay, Like a candle burnt out, And the mountains and woods Have their day, have their day; What one in the rout Of the fire-born moods Has fallen away?

All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,

The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart, The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould, Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.

… broken, all things worn out and old, The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart, The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould, Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.

The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told;

I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart, With the earth and the sky and the water, remade, like a casket of gold For my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.

He heard while he sang and dreamed A piper piping away,

And never was piping so sad, And never was piping so gay.

And he saw young men and young girls Who danced on a level place And Bridget his bride among them, With a sad and a gay face.

But Bridget drew him by the sleeve, Away from the merry bands, To old men playing at cards With a twinkling of ancient hands.

The bread and the wine had a doom,

For these were the host of the air; He sat and played in a dream Of her long dim hair.

Come, heart, where hill is heaped upon hill: For there the mystical brotherhood Of sun and moon and hollow and wood And river and stream work out their will;

And God stands winding His lonely horn,

And time and the world are ever in flight; And love is less kind than the grey twilight And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn.

And God stands winding His lonely horn, And time and the world are ever in flight;

And love is less kind than the grey twilight And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn.

I went out to the hazel wood, Because a fire was in my head, And cut and peeled a hazel wand, And hooked a berry to a thread;

And God stands winding His lonely horn, And time and the world are ever in flight; And love is less kind than the grey twilight And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn.

I went out to the hazel wood, Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand, And hooked a berry to a thread; And when white moths were on the wing, And moth-like stars were flickering out, I dropped the berry in a stream And caught a little silver trout.

Though I am old with wandering Through hollow lands and hilly lands, I will find out where she has gone, And kiss her lips and take her hands; And walk among long dappled grass, And pluck till time and times are done

The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun.

I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow; And then I must scrub and bake and sweep Till stars are beginning to blink and peep;

And walk among long dappled grass, And pluck till time and times are done The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun.

I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow;

And then I must scrub and bake and sweep Till stars are beginning to blink and peep;

And the young lie long and dream in their bed Of the matching of ribbons for bosom and head, And their day goes over in idleness, And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress:

While I must work because I am old, And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold.

O what to me the little room That was brimmed up with prayer and rest; He bade me out into the gloom, And my breast lies upon his breast.

Pale brows, still hands and dim hair, I had a beautiful friend And dreamed that the old despair Would end in love in the end:

She looked in my heart one day And saw your image was there;

She has gone weeping away.

The North unfolds above them clinging, creeping night, The East her hidden joy before the morning break, The West weeps in pale dew and sighs passing away, The South is pouring down roses of crimson fire:

O vanity of Sleep, Hope, Dream, endless Desire,

The Horses of Disaster plunge in the heavy clay:

Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast, Drowning love’s lonely hour in deep twilight of rest, And hiding their tossing manes and their tumultuous feet.

O curlew, cry no more in the air,

Or only to the waters in the West; Because your crying brings to my mind Passion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hair That was shaken out over my breast: There is enough evil in the crying of wind.

O curlew, cry no more in the air, Or only to the waters in the West; Because your crying brings to my mind Passion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hair That was shaken out over my breast:

There is enough evil in the crying of wind.

When my arms wrap you round I press My heart upon the loveliness That has long faded from the world; The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled In shadowy pools, when armies fled;

… sigh from kiss to kiss I hear white Beauty sighing, too, For hours when all must fade like dew, All but the flames, and deep on deep, Throne over throne where in half sleep, Their swords upon their iron knees, Brood her high lonely mysteries.

I bring you with reverent hands The books of my numberless dreams;

White woman that passion has worn As the tide wears the dove-grey sands, And with heart more old than the horn That is brimmed from the pale fire of time: White woman with numberless dreams I bring you my passionate rhyme.

White woman that passion has worn As the tide wears the dove-grey sands, And with heart more old than the horn That is brimmed from the pale fire of time: White woman with numberless dreams I bring you my passionate rhyme.

Fasten your hair with a golden pin, And bind up every wandering tress;

I bade my heart build these poor rhymes: It worked at them, day out, day in, Building a sorrowful loveliness Out of the battles of old times.

You need but lift a pearl-pale hand, And bind up your long hair and sigh; And all men’s hearts must burn and beat; And candle-like foam on the dim sand, And stars climbing the dew-dropping sky, Live but to light your passing feet.

Be you still, be you still, trembling heart; Remember the wisdom out of the old days:

Him who trembles before the flame and the flood, And the winds that blow through the starry ways, Let the starry winds and the flame and the flood Cover over and hide, for he has no part With the lonely, majestical multitude.

They set up a noise like crickets, A chattering wise and sweet,

And her hair was a folded flower And the quiet of love in her feet.

The dews drop slowly and dreams gather: unknown spears Suddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes, And then the clash of fallen horsemen and the cries Of unknown perishing armies beat about my ears.

And still murmur and long: O Piteous Hearts, changing till change be dead In a tumultuous song”: And cover the pale blossoms of your breast With your dim heavy hair, And trouble with a sigh for all things longing for rest The odorous twilight there.

I dreamed that I stood in a valley, and amid sighs,

For happy lovers passed two by two where I stood; And I dreamed my lost love came stealthily out of the wood With her cloud-pale eyelids falling on dream-dimmed eyes:

I cried in my dream, O women, bid the young men lay Their heads on your knees, and drown their eyes with your hair, Or remembering hers they will find no other face fair Till all the valleys of the world have been withered away.

O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes,

The poets labouring all their days To build a perfect beauty in rhyme Are overthrown by a woman’s gaze And by the unlabouring brood of the skies:

Until the axle break That keeps the stars in their round, And hands hurl in the deep The banners of East and West, And the girdle of light is unbound, Your breast will not lie by the breast Of your beloved in sleep.

Half close your eyelids, loosen your hair, And dream about the great and their pride;

They have spoken against you everywhere, But weigh this song with the great and their pride; I made it out of a mouthful of air, Their children’s children shall say they have lied.

Half close your eyelids, loosen your hair, And dream about the great and their pride; They have spoken against you everywhere, But weigh this song with the great and their pride;

I made it out of a mouthful of air,

Their children’s children shall say they have lied.

Half close your eyelids, loosen your hair, And dream about the great and their pride; They have spoken against you everywhere, But weigh this song with the great and their pride; I made it out of a mouthful of air,

Their children’s children shall say they have lied.

Cumhal called out, bending his head, Till Dathi came and stood, With a blink in his eyes at the cave mouth, Between the wind and the wood.

“My eyes are blinking,” Dathi said, “With the secrets of God half blind,

But I can see where the wind goes And follow the way of the wind;

“And blessedness goes where the wind goes, And when it is gone we are dead; I see the blessedest soul in the world And he nods a drunken head.

“

And blessedness goes where the wind goes,

And when it is gone we are dead; I see the blessedest soul in the world And he nods a drunken head.

“O blessedness comes in the night and the day And whither the wise heart knows;

And one has seen in the redness of wine The Incorruptible Rose,

“That drowsily drops faint leaves on him And the sweetness of desire, While time and the world are ebbing away In twilights of dew and of fire.”

“That drowsily drops faint leaves on him And the sweetness of desire, While time and the world are ebbing away In twilights of dew and of fire.”

Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose,

Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre, Or in the wine vat, dwell beyond the stir And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep Among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep Men have named beauty.

I, too, await The hour of thy great wind of love and hate.

When shall the stars be blown about the sky, Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die?

Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows, Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose?

Till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and him Who met Fand walking among flaming dew By a grey shore where the wind never blew,

And lost the world and Emer for a kiss;

And him who drove the gods out of their liss, And till a hundred morns had flowered red, Feasted and wept the barrows of his dead;

When shall the stars be blown about the sky, Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die? Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows, Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose?

Where has Maid Quiet gone to, Nodding her russet hood?

The winds that awakened the stars Are blowing through my blood. O how could I be so calm When she rose up to depart? Now words that called up the lightning Are hurtling through my heart.

Where has Maid Quiet gone to, Nodding her russet hood?

The winds that awakened the stars Are blowing through my blood.

O how could I be so calm When she rose up to depart? Now words that called up the lightning Are hurtling through my heart.

Dim Powers of drowsy thought, let her no longer be Like the pale cup of the sea, When winds have gathered and sun and moon burned dim Above its cloudy rim; But let a gentle silence wrought with music flow Whither her footsteps go.

Were you but lying cold and dead,

And lights were paling out of the West, You would come hither, and bend your head, And I would lay my head on your breast; And you would murmur tender words, Forgiving me, because you were dead:

O would, beloved, that you lay Under the dock-leaves in the ground, While lights were paling one by one.

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

I have drunk ale from the Country of the Young And weep because I know all things now: I have been a hazel tree and they hung The Pilot Star and the Crooked Plough Among my leaves in times out of mind:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

I have drunk ale from the Country of the Young And weep because I know all things now:

I have been a hazel tree and they hung The Pilot Star and the Crooked Plough Among my leaves in times out of mind: I became a rush that horses tread:

O beast of the wilderness, bird of the air, Must I endure your amorous cries?

When I play on my fiddle in Dooney, Folk dance like a wave of the sea;

My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet, My brother in Mocharabuiee.

I passed my brother and cousin: They read in their books of prayer;

I read in my book of songs I bought at the Sligo fair.

When we come at the end of time, To Peter sitting in state, He will smile on the three old spirits, But call me first through the gate;

When we come at the end of time, To Peter sitting in state,

He will smile on the three old spirits, But call me first through the gate;

For the good are always the merry, Save by an evil chance, And the merry love the fiddle And the merry love to dance:

When we come at the end of time, To Peter sitting in state, He will smile on the three old spirits, But call me first through the gate;

For the good are always the merry,

Save by an evil chance, And the merry love the fiddle And the merry love to dance:

Though now in her old age, in her young age She had been beautiful in that old way That’s all but gone; for the proud heart is gone, And the fool heart of the counting-house fears all But soft beauty and indolent desire.

She could have called over the rim of the world Whatever woman’s lover had hit her fancy,

And yet had been great bodied and great limbed, Fashioned to be the mother of strong children;

And with glad voice Maeve answered him, “What king Of the far wandering shadows has come to me? As in the old days when they would come and go About my threshold to counsel and to help.” The parted lips replied, “I seek your help,

For I am Aengus, and I am crossed in love.

” “How may a mortal whose life gutters out Help them that wander with hand clasping hand, Their haughty images that cannot wither, For all their beauty’s like a hollow dream, Mirrored in streams that neither hail nor rain Nor the cold North has troubled?”

Then Maeve: “O Aengus, Master of all lovers, A thousand years ago you held high talk With the first kings of many-pillared Cruachan. O when will you grow weary?” They had vanished; But out of the dark air over her head there came

A murmur of soft words and meeting lips.

Argument. Baile and Aillinn were lovers, but Aengus, the Master of Love, wishing them to be happy in his own land among the dead, told to each a story of the other’s death, so that their hearts were broken and they died.

And when I’ve heard how they grew old and died, Or fell into unhappiness, I’ve said: “

She will grow old and die, and she has wept!

” And when I’d write it out anew, the words, Half crazy with the thought, She too has wept! Outrun the measure.

And that mild woman of the south, Aillinn, who was King Lugaid’s heir. Their love was never drowned in care Of this or that thing, nor grew cold Because their bodies had grown old.

Being forbid to marry on earth, They blossomed to immortal mirth.

About the time when Christ was born, When the long wars for the White Horn And the Brown Bull had not yet come, Young Baile Honey-Mouth, whom some Called rather Baile Little-Land, Rode out of Emain with a band Of harpers and young men;

No common love is to our mind, And our poor Kate or Nan is less Than any whose unhappiness Awoke the harp-strings long ago. Yet they that know all things but know

That all life had to give us is A child’s laughter, a woman’s kiss.

Who was it put so great a scorn In the grey reeds that night and morn Are trodden and broken by the herds, And in the light bodies of birds That north wind tumbles to and fro And pinches among hail and snow?

… undying things, for they Wander where earth withers away, Though nothing troubles the great streams But light from the pale stars, and gleams From the holy orchards, where there is none But fruit that is of precious stone, Or apples of the sun and moon.

What were our praise to them? They eat Quiet’s wild heart, like daily meat;

Who when night thickens are afloat On dappled skins in a glass boat, Far out under a windless sky;

I have heard the pigeons of the Seven Woods Make their faint thunder, and the garden bees Hum in the lime tree flowers; and put away

The unavailing outcries and the old bitterness That empty the heart.

I have forgot awhile Tara uprooted, and new commonness Upon the throne and crying about the streets And hanging its paper flowers from post to post, Because it is alone of all things happy.

I am contented for I know that Quiet Wanders laughing and eating her wild heart Among pigeons and bees, while that Great Archer, Who but awaits His hour to shoot, still hangs A cloudy quiver over Parc-na-Lee.

I thought of your beauty, and this arrow, Made out of a wild thought, is in my marrow.

There’s no man may look upon her, no man; As when newly grown to be a woman, Tall and noble but with face and bosom Delicate in colour as apple blossom.

There’s no man may look upon her, no man; As when newly grown to be a woman, Tall and noble but with face and bosom Delicate in colour as apple blossom.

This beauty’s kinder, yet for a reason I could weep that the old is out of season.

One that is ever kind said yesterday: “Your well-beloved’s hair has threads of grey, And little shadows come about her eyes; Time can but make it easier to be wise Though now it seem impossible, and so Patience is all that you have need of.”

“Your well-beloved’s hair has threads of grey, And little shadows come about her eyes; Time can but make it easier to be wise Though now it seem impossible, and so Patience is all that you have need of.” No,

I have not a crumb of comfort, not a grain,

Time can but make her beauty over again: Because of that great nobleness of hers The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs Burns but more clearly. O she had not these ways, When all the wild summer was in her gaze. O heart!

Time can but make it easier to be wise Though now it seem impossible, and so Patience is all that you have need of.” No, I have not a crumb of comfort, not a grain,

Time can but make her beauty over again:

Because of that great nobleness of hers The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs Burns but more clearly. O she had not these ways, When all the wild summer was in her gaze. O heart! O heart!

Because of that great nobleness of hers The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs Burns but more clearly. O she had not these ways, When all the wild summer was in her gaze.

O heart! O heart! if she’d but turn her head, You’d know the folly of being comforted.

O thought, fly to her when the end of day Awakens an old memory, and say, “Your strength, that is so lofty and fierce and kind, It might call up a new age, calling to mind The queens that were imagined long ago, Is but …

Never give all the heart, for love Will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seem Certain, and they never dream That it fades out from kiss to kiss;

For everything that’s lovely is But a brief dreamy kind delight.

O never give the heart outright, For they, for all smooth lips can say, Have given their hearts up to the play. And who could play it well enough If deaf and dumb and blind with love?

Never give all the heart, for love Will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seem Certain, and they never dream That it fades out from kiss to kiss; For everything that’s lovely is But a brief dreamy kind delight.

O never give the heart outright,

For they, for all smooth lips can say, Have given their hearts up to the play. And who could play it well enough If deaf and dumb and blind with love?

O never give the heart outright, For they, for all smooth lips can say, Have given their hearts up to the play. And who could play it well enough If deaf and dumb and blind with love?

He that made this knows all the cost, For he gave all his heart and lost.

I cried when the moon was murmuring to the birds: “Let peewit call and curlew cry where they will, I long for your merry and tender and pitiful words, For the roads are unending, and there is no place to my mind.”

I know where a dim moon drifts, where the Danaan kind Wind and unwind their dances when the light grows cool On the island lawns, their feet where the pale foam gleams.

No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind; The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams.

I know of the sleepy country, where swans fly round Coupled with golden chains, and sing as they fly.

I said: “

It’s certain there is no fine thing Since Adam’s fall but needs much labouring.

There have been lovers who thought love should be So much compounded of high courtesy That they would sigh and quote with learned looks Precedents out of beautiful old books; Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.”

I heard the old, old men say, “Everything alters, And one by one we drop away.” They had hands like claws, and their knees Were twisted like the old thorn trees By the waters. I heard the old, old men say, “

All that’s beautiful drifts away

Like the waters.”

I heard the old, old men say, “

Everything alters, And one by one we drop away.

” They had hands like claws, and their knees Were twisted like the old thorn trees By the waters. I heard the old, old men say, “All that’s beautiful drifts away Like the waters.”

… Of Forgael and Dectora and the empty waters Moved round me in the voices and the fires, And more I may not write of, for they that cleave The waters of sleep can make a chattering tongue Heavy like stone, their wisdom being half silence.

How shall I name you, immortal, mild, proud shadows?

I only know that all we know comes from you, And that you come from Eden on flying feet.

Do our wood And winds and ponds cover more quiet woods, More shining winds, more star-glimmering ponds?

Is Eden out of time and out of space?

And do you gather about us when pale light Shining on water and fallen among leaves, And winds blowing from flowers, and whirr of feathers And the green quiet, have uplifted the heart?

Dim Pairc-na-tarav, where enchanted eyes Have seen immortal, mild, proud shadows walk; Dim Inchy wood, that hides badger and fox And marten-cat, and borders that old wood Wise Biddy Early called the wicked wood:

Seven odours, seven murmurs, seven woods.

I had not eyes like those enchanted eyes, Yet dreamed that beings happier than men Moved round me in the shadows, and at night My dreams were cloven by voices and by fires;

When Midher’s wife had changed her to a fly, He made a harp with druid apple wood That she among her winds might know he wept;

And from that hour he has watched over none But faithful lovers.

I swayed upon the gaudy stern The butt end of a steering oar, And everywhere that I could turn A crowd upon a shore.

Edain came out of Midher’s hill, and lay Beside young Aengus in his tower of glass,

Where time is drowned in odour-laden winds

And druid moons, and murmuring of boughs, And sleepy boughs, and boughs where apples made Of opal and ruby and pale chrysolite Awake unsleeping fires;

Whereon I wrote and wrought, And now, being grey, I dream that I have brought To such a pitch my thought That coming time can say, “

He shadowed in a glass What thing her body was.

”

That had she done so who can say What would have shaken from the sieve?

I might have thrown poor words away And been content to live.

Why should I blame her that she filled my days With misery, or that she would of late Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways, Or hurled the little streets upon the great, Had they but courage equal to desire?

What could have made her peaceful with a mind That nobleness made simple as a fire, With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind That is not natural in an age like this, Being high and solitary and most stern?

Why, what could she have done being what she is?

Was there another Troy for her to burn?

Why, what could she have done being what she is?

Was there another Troy for her to burn?

Some may have blamed you that you took away The verses that could move them on the day When, the ears being deafened, the sight of the eyes blind With lightning you went from me, and I could find Nothing to make a song about …

And while we’re in our laughing, weeping fit, Hurl helmets, crowns, and swords into the pit. But, dear, cling close to me; since you were gone,

My barren thoughts have chilled me to the bone.

“Would it were anything but merely voice!” The No King cried who after that was King, Because he had not heard of anything That balanced with a word is more than noise;

“Were not all her life but storm, Would not painters paint a form Of such noble lines,” I said, “Such a delicate high head, All that sternness amid charm, All that sweetness amid strength?”

Ah, but peace that comes at length, Came when Time had touched her form.

O heart, be at peace, because Nor knave nor dolt can break What’s not for their applause, Being for a woman’s sake.

O heart, be at peace, because Nor knave nor dolt can break What’s not for their applause, Being for a woman’s sake. Enough if the work has seemed, So did she your strength renew,

A dream that a lion had dreamed Till the wilderness cried aloud,

A secret between you two, Between the proud and the proud.

What, still you would have their praise! But here’s a haughtier text, The labyrinth of her days That her own strangeness perplexed; And how what her dreaming gave Earned slander, ingratitude, From self-same dolt and knave; Aye, and worse wrong than these.

Yet she, singing upon her road, Half lion, half child, is at peace.

The fascination of what’s difficult Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent Spontaneous joy and natural content Out of my heart.

My curse on plays That have to be set up in fifty ways, On the day’s war with every knave and dolt, Theatre business, management of men. I swear before the dawn comes round again I’ll find the stable and pull out the bolt.

Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye;

That’s all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die. I lift the glass to my mouth, I look at you, and I sigh.

Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That’s all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die. I lift the glass to my mouth, I look at you, and I sigh.

Though leaves are many, the root is one;

Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun; Now I may wither into the truth.

Though leaves are many, the root is one; Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;

Now I may wither into the truth.

Where, where but here have Pride and Truth, That long to give themselves for wage, To shake their wicked sides at youth Restraining reckless middle-age.

You say, as I have often given tongue In praise of what another’s said or sung, ’Twere politic to do the like by these;

But was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

“Put off that mask of burning gold With emerald eyes.” “O no, my dear, you make so bold To find if hearts be wild and wise, And yet not cold.”

“

Put off that mask of burning gold With emerald eyes.

” “O no, my dear, you make so bold To find if hearts be wild and wise, And yet not cold.”

“

I would but find what’s there to find, Love or deceit.

” “It was the mask engaged your mind, And after set your heart to beat, Not what’s behind.”

“But lest you are my enemy, I must enquire.” “O no, my dear, let all that be,

What matter, so there is but fire In you, in me?

”

You’ve dandled them and fed them from the book And know them to the bone; impart to us— We’ll keep the secret—a new trick to please.

Is there a bridle for this Proteus That turns and changes like his draughty seas?

Or is there none, most popular of men, But when they mock us that we mock again?

impart to us— We’ll keep the secret—a new trick to please. Is there a bridle for this Proteus That turns and changes like his draughty seas? Or is there none, most popular of men, But when they mock us that we mock again?

These are the clouds about the fallen sun,

The majesty that shuts his burning eye: The weak lay hand on what the strong has done, Till that be tumbled that was lifted high And discord follow upon unison, And all things at one common level lie.

These are the clouds about the fallen sun, The majesty that shuts his burning eye:

The weak lay hand on what the strong has done,

Till that be tumbled that was lifted high And discord follow upon unison, And all things at one common level lie.

There where the course is,

Delight makes all of the one mind,

The riders upon the galloping horses, The crowd that closes in behind: We, too, had good attendance once, Hearers and hearteners of the work; Aye, horsemen for companions, Before the merchant and the clerk Breathed on the world with timid breath. Sing on:

We, too, had good attendance once, Hearers and hearteners of the work; Aye, horsemen for companions, Before the merchant and the clerk Breathed on the world with timid breath. Sing on: sometime, and at some new moon,

We’ll learn that sleeping is not death,

Hearing the whole earth change its tune, Its flesh being wild, and it again Crying aloud as the race course is, And we find hearteners among men That ride upon horses.

Sickness brought me this Thought, in that scale of his: Why should I be dismayed Though flame had burned the whole World, as it were a coal, Now I have seen it weighed Against a soul?

All things can tempt me from this craft of verse:

One time it was a woman’s face, or worse— The seeming needs of my fool-driven land; Now nothing but comes readier to the hand Than this accustomed toil.

Wherefore I threw a penny To find out if I might love. “Go and love, go and love, young man, If the lady be young and fair.” Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny, I am looped in the loops of her hair.

Oh, love is the crooked thing,

There is nobody wise enough To find out all that is in it, For he would be thinking of love Till the stars had run away, And the shadows eaten the moon. Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny, One cannot begin it too soon.

You merchant skipper that leaped overboard After a ragged hat in Biscay Bay, You most of all, silent and fierce old man Because you were the spectacle that stirred My fancy, and set my boyish lips to say “

Only the wasteful virtues earn the sun

”; Pardon that for a barren passion’s sake, Although I have come close on forty-nine I have no child, I have nothing but a book, Nothing but that to prove your blood and mine.

Pardon that for a barren passion’s sake, Although I have come close on forty-nine

I have no child, I have nothing but a book,

Nothing but that to prove your blood and mine.

Thereon She cast herself upon the ground And rent her clothes and made her moan: “Why are they faithless when their might Is from the holy shades that rove The grey rock and the windy light?

Why should the faithfullest heart most love The bitter sweetness of false faces?

Why must the lasting love what passes, Why are the gods by men betrayed!”

And there had been no sound of living thing Before him or behind, but that far-off On the horizon edge bellowed the herds.

Knowing that silence brings no good to kings,

And mocks returning victory, he passed Between the pillars with a beating heart And saw where in the midst of the great hall Pale-faced, alone upon a bench, Edain Sat upright with a sword before her feet.

Her hands on either side had gripped the bench, Her eyes were cold and steady, her lips tight.

Some passion had made her stone.

Hearing a foot She started and then knew whose foot it was; But when he thought to take her in his arms She motioned him afar, and rose and spoke:

What need you, being come to sense, But fumble in a greasy till And add the halfpence to the pence And prayer to shivering prayer, until You have dried the marrow from the bone;

For men were born to pray and save:

Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

Was it for this the wild geese spread The grey wing upon every tide; For this that all that blood was shed, For this Edward Fitzgerald died, And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone, All that delirium of the brave;

Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

Yet could we turn the years again, And call those exiles as they were In all their loneliness and pain, You’d cry “some woman’s yellow hair Has maddened every mother’s son”:

Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

Was it for this the wild geese spread The grey wing upon every tide;

For this that all that blood was shed, For this Edward Fitzgerald died, And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone, All that delirium of the brave; Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

Was it for this the wild geese spread The grey wing upon every tide; For this that all that blood was shed, For this Edward Fitzgerald died, And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone,

All that delirium of the brave;

Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

Go, unquiet wanderer, And gather the Glasnevin coverlet About your head till the dust stops your ear, The time for you to taste of that salt breath And listen at the corners has not come;

You had enough of sorrow before death⁠— Away, away! You are safer in the tomb.

We have cried in our despair That men desert, For some trivial affair Or noisy, insolent sport, Beauty that we have won From bitterest hours;

King Guari walked amid his court The palace-yard and river-side And there to three old beggars said: “You that have wandered far and wide Can ravel out what’s in my head.

Do men who least desire get most, Or get the most who most desire?

” A beggar said: “They get the most Whom man or devil cannot tire, And what could make their muscles taut Unless desire had made them so.”

“Though to my feathers in the wet I’ve stood as I were made of stone And seen the rubbish run about, It’s certain there are trout somewhere And maybe I shall take a trout If but I do not seem to care.”

Three old hermits took the air By a cold and desolate sea,

First was muttering a prayer, Second rummaged for a flea; On a windy stone, the third, Giddy with his hundredth year, Sang unnoticed like a bird.

“Though the Door of Death is near And what waits behind the door, Three times in a single day I, though upright on the shore, Fall asleep when I should pray.” So the first but now the second, “

We’re but given what we have earned When all thoughts and deeds are reckoned,

So it’s plain to be discerned That the shades of holy men, Who have failed being weak of will, Pass the Door of Birth again, And are plagued by crowds, until They’ve the passion to escape.”

But the second mocked his moan: “They are not changed to anything, Having loved God once, but maybe, To a poet or a king Or a witty lovely lady.” While he’d rummaged rags and hair, Caught and cracked his flea, the third,

Giddy with his hundredth year Sang unnoticed like a bird.

“Time to put off the world and go somewhere And find my health again in the sea air,” Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck, “And make my soul before my pate is bare.”

“

Time to put off the world and go somewhere

And find my health again in the sea air,” Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck, “And make my soul before my pate is bare.”

“Time to put off the world and go somewhere And find my health again in the sea air,” Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck, “

And make my soul before my pate is bare.

”

“

Nor should she be too rich, because the rich Are driven by wealth as beggars by the itch,

” Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck, “And cannot have a humorous happy speech.”

Poor men have grown to be rich men, And rich men grown to be poor again, And I am running to Paradise; And many a darling wit’s grown dull That tossed a bare heel when at school, Now it has filled an old sock full:

And there the king is but as the beggar.

The wind is old and still at play While I must hurry upon my way, For I am running to Paradise; Yet never have I lit on a friend To take my fancy like the wind That nobody can buy or bind:

And many a darling wit’s grown dull That tossed a bare heel when at school, Now it has filled an old sock full: And there the king is but as the beggar.

The wind is old and still at play

While I must hurry upon my way, For I am running to Paradise; Yet never have I lit on a friend To take my fancy like the wind That nobody can buy or bind: And there the king is but as the beggar.

… spring Or that the wind would shift a point And do not know that you would bring, If time were suppler in the joint, Neither the spring nor the south wind But the hour when you shall pass away And leave no smoking wick behind,

For all life longs for the Last Day

And there’s no man but cocks his ear To know when Michael’s trumpet cries That flesh and bone may disappear, And souls as if they were but sighs, And there be nothing but God left;

… stone on stone, And then, grown weary, prayed and cursed And heaped up stone on stone again, And prayed and cursed and cursed and fled From Maeve and all that juggling plain, Nor gave God thanks till overhead The clouds were brightening with the dawn.

Hope that you may understand!

What can books of men that wive In a dragon-guarded land, Paintings of the dolphin-drawn Sea-nymphs in their pearly wagons Do, but awake a hope to live That had gone With the dragons?

The wind-beaten, stone-grey, And desolate Three-rock Would nourish his whim. Live he or die Amid wet rocks and heather, His ghost will be gay Adding feather to feather For the pride of his eye.

Pour wine and dance if Manhood still have pride,

Bring roses if the rose be yet in bloom; The cataract smokes upon the mountain side, Our Father Rosicross is in his tomb.

Pull down the blinds, bring fiddle and clarionet That there be no foot silent in the room Nor mouth from kissing, nor from wine unwet;

Our Father Rosicross is in his tomb.

In vain, in vain; the cataract still cries The everlasting taper lights the gloom; All wisdom shut into his onyx eyes Our Father Rosicross sleeps in his tomb.

And tumble out your hair That the salt drops have wet; Being young you have not known The fool’s triumph, nor yet Love lost as soon as won, Nor the best labourer dead And all the sheaves to bind.

What need have you to dread The monstrous crying of wind?

Has no one said those daring Kind eyes should be more learn’d? Or warned you how despairing The moths are when they are burned, I could have warned you, but you are young, So we speak a different tongue.

O you will take whatever’s offered And dream that all the world’s a friend, Suffer as your mother suffered, Be as broken in the end.

But I am old and you are young, And I speak a barbarous tongue.

The moments passed as at a play, I had the wisdom love brings forth;

We sat as silent as a stone, We knew, though she’d not said a word,

That even the best of love must die,

And had been savagely undone Were it not that love upon the cry Of a most ridiculous little bird Tore from the clouds his marvellous moon.

… as a stone, We knew, though she’d not said a word, That even the best of love must die, And had been savagely undone Were it not that love upon the cry Of a most ridiculous little bird Tore from the clouds his marvellous moon.

Although crowds gathered once if she but showed her face,

And even old men’s eyes grew dim, this hand alone, Like some last courtier at a gypsy camping place, Babbling of fallen majesty, records what’s gone.

The lineaments, a heart that laughter has made sweet, These, these remain, but I record what’s gone. A crowd Will gather, and not know it walks the very street

Whereon a thing once walked that seemed a burning cloud.

Now must I these three praise— Three women that have wrought What joy is in my days; One that no passing thought, Nor those unpassing cares No, not in these fifteen Many times troubled years, Could ever come between Mind and delighted mind;

And one because her hand Had strength that could unbind What none can understand, What none can have and thrive, Youth’s dreamy load, till she

So changed me that I live Labouring in ecstasy.

And what of her that took All till my youth was gone With scarce a pitying look? How should I praise that one?

When day begins to break I count my good and bad, Being wakeful for her sake, Remembering what she had, What eagle look still shows, While up from my heart’s root So great a sweetness flows I shake from head to foot.

Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting Heaven

That seemed as though ice burned and was but the more ice, And thereupon imagination and heart were driven So wild that every casual thought of that and this Vanished, and left but memories, that should be out of season With the hot blood of …

Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting Heaven

That seemed as though ice burned and was but the more ice,

And thereupon imagination and heart were driven So wild that every casual thought of that and this Vanished, and left but memories, that should be out of season With the hot blood of youth, of love crossed long ago;

Nor the tame will, nor timid brain, Nor heavy knitting of the brow Bred that fierce tooth and cleanly limb And threw him up to laugh on the bough;

No government appointed him.

Now as at all times I can see in the mind’s eye, In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones, And all their helms of silver …

Nor the tame will, nor timid brain, Nor heavy knitting of the brow Bred that fierce tooth and cleanly limb And threw him up to laugh on the bough; No government appointed him.

Now as at all times I can see in the mind’s eye,

In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones, And all their helms of silver hovering side by side, And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to …

Now as at all times I can see in the mind’s eye, In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky

With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,

And all their helms of silver hovering side by side, And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more, Being by Calvary’s turbulence unsatisfied, The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.

Hearing him groan and stretch The doll-maker’s wife is aware Her husband has heard the wretch, And crouched by the arm of his chair, She murmurs into his ear, Head upon shoulder leant: “

My dear, my dear, oh dear, It was an accident.

”

I made my song a coat Covered with embroideries Out of old mythologies From heel to throat; But the fools caught it, Wore it in the world’s eyes As though they’d wrought it.

Song, let them take it For there’s more enterprise In walking naked.

While I, from that reed-throated whisperer Who comes at need, although not now as once A clear articulation in the air But inwardly, surmise companions Beyond the fling of the dull ass’s hoof, —Ben Jonson’s phrase—and find when June is come At Kyle-na-no under that …

… is come At Kyle-na-no under that ancient roof A sterner conscience and a friendlier home, I can forgive even that wrong of wrongs, Those undreamt accidents that have made me —Seeing that Fame has perished this long while Being but a part of ancient ceremony—

Notorious, till all my priceless things Are but a post the passing dogs defile.

This book is, in part, a reprint of The Wild Swans at Coole, printed a year ago on my sister’s hand-press at Dundrum, Co. Dublin.

I have the fancy that I read the name John Aherne among those of men prosecuted for making a disturbance at the first production of “The Play Boy,” which may account for his animosity to myself.

The trees are in their autumn beauty, The woodland paths are dry,

Under the October twilight the water Mirrors a still sky; Upon the brimming water among the stones Are nine and fifty swans.

The nineteenth Autumn has come upon me Since I first made my count; I saw, before I had well finished, All suddenly mount And scatter wheeling in great broken rings Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures, And now my heart is sore.

All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight, The first time on this shore, The bell-beat of their wings above my head, Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover, They paddle in the cold, Companionable streams or climb the air;

Their hearts have not grown old; Passion or conquest, wander where they will, Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water Mysterious, beautiful; Among what rushes will they build, By what lake’s edge or pool Delight men’s eyes, when I awake some day To find they have flown away?

Discoverers of forgotten truth Or mere companions of my youth,

All, all are in my thoughts to-night, being dead.

Always we’d have the new friend meet the old And we are hurt if either friend seem cold, And there is salt to lengthen out the smart In the affections of our heart, And quarrels are blown up upon that head;

But not a friend that I would bring This night can set us quarrelling, For all that come into my mind are dead.

Lionel Johnson comes the first to mind, That loved his learning better than mankind,

Though courteous to the worst; much falling he Brooded upon sanctity Till all his Greek and Latin learning seemed A long blast upon the horn that brought A little nearer to his thought A measureless consummation that he dreamed.

What other could so well have counselled us In all lovely intricacies of a house As he that practised or that understood All work in metal or in wood, In moulded plaster or in carven stone?

Soldier, scholar, horseman, he, And all he did done perfectly As though he had but that one trade alone.

Some burn damp fagots, others may consume The entire combustible world in one small room As though dried straw, and if we turn about The bare chimney is gone black out Because the work had finished in that flare.

Soldier, scholar, horseman, he, As ’twere all life’s epitome.

What made us dream that he could comb grey hair?

I had thought, seeing how bitter is that wind That shakes the shutter, to have brought to mind All those that manhood tried, or childhood loved Or boyish intellect approved, With some appropriate commentary on each; Until imagination brought A fitter welcome;

Until imagination brought A fitter welcome; but a thought Of that late death took all my heart for speech.

I know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above;

Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love; My country is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before.

Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love; My country is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public man, nor angry crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public man, nor angry crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds; I balanced all, brought all to mind,

The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death.

I am worn out with dreams; A weather-worn, marble triton Among the streams;

I know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above;

Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love;

My country is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before.

I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death.

I am worn out with dreams; A weather-worn, marble triton Among the streams;

And all day long I look Upon this lady’s beauty As though I had found in book A pictured beauty, Pleased to have filled the eyes Or the discerning ears, Delighted to be but wise, For men improve with the years;

And yet and yet Is this my dream, or the truth?

O would that we had met When I had my burning youth;

But I grow old among dreams, A weather-worn, marble triton Among the streams.

Would I could cast a sail on the water Where many a king has gone And many a king’s daughter, And alight at the comely trees and the lawn, The playing upon pipes and the dancing,

And learn that the best thing is To change my loves while dancing And pay but a kiss for a kiss.

I would find by the edge of that water The collar-bone of a hare Worn thin by the lapping of water, And pierce it through with a gimlet and stare At the old bitter world where they marry in churches, And laugh over the untroubled …

Sang Solomon to Sheba, And kissed her dusky face, “All day long from mid-day We have talked in the one place, All day long from shadowless noon

We have gone round and round In the narrow theme of love Like an old horse in a pound.

”

Sang Solomon to Sheba, And kissed her Arab eyes, “There’s not a man or woman Born under the skies Dare match in learning with us two, And all day long we have found

There’s not a thing but love can make The world a narrow pound.

”

… wick of youth being burned and the oil spent— From beauty that is cast out of a mould In bronze, or that in dazzling marble appears, Appears, and when we have gone is gone again, Being more indifferent to our solitude Than ’twere an apparition.

O heart, we are old, The living beauty is for younger men, We cannot pay its tribute of wild tears.

I thought no more was needed Youth to prolong Than dumb-bell and foil To keep the body young. Oh, who could have foretold That the heart grows old?

Though I have many words, What woman’s satisfied, I am no longer faint Because at her side?

Oh, who could have foretold That the heart grows old?

I have not lost desire But the heart that I had; I thought ’twould burn my body Laid on the death-bed. But who could have foretold That the heart grows old?

Though I have many words, What woman’s satisfied, I am no longer faint Because at her side? Oh, who could have foretold That the heart grows old?

I have not lost desire But the heart that I had;

I thought ’twould burn my body Laid on the death-bed. But who could have foretold That the heart grows old?

Dear fellow-artist, why so free With every sort of company, With every Jack and Jill? Choose your companions from the best;

Who draws a bucket with the rest Soon topples down the hill.

You may, that mirror for a school, Be passionate, not bountiful As common beauties may, Who were not born to keep in trim With old Ezekiel’s cherubim But those of Beaujolet.

You may, that mirror for a school, Be passionate, not bountiful As common beauties may, Who were not born to keep in trim With old Ezekiel’s cherubim But those of Beaujolet.

I know what wages beauty gives, How hard a life her servant lives,

Yet praise the winters gone; There is not a fool can call me friend, And I may dine at journey’s end With Landor and with Donne.

I know what wages beauty gives, How hard a life her servant lives, Yet praise the winters gone;

There is not a fool can call me friend, And I may dine at journey’s end With Landor and with Donne.

My dear, my dear, I know More than another What makes your heart beat so;

Not even your own mother Can know it as I know, Who broke my heart for her When the wild thought, That she denies And has forgot, Set all her blood astir And glittered in her eyes.

Bald heads forgetful of their sins, Old, learned, respectable bald heads Edit and annotate the lines That young men, tossing on their beds, Rhymed out in love’s despair To flatter beauty’s ignorant ear.

They’ll cough in the ink to the world’s end; Wear out the carpet with their shoes Earning respect; have no strange friend; If they have sinned nobody knows. Lord, what would they say Should their Catullus walk that way?

Bald heads forgetful of their sins, Old, learned, respectable bald heads Edit and annotate the lines That young men, tossing on their beds, Rhymed out in love’s despair To flatter beauty’s ignorant ear.

They’ll cough in the ink to the world’s end;

Wear out the carpet with their shoes Earning respect; have no strange friend; If they have sinned nobody knows. Lord, what would they say Should their Catullus walk that way?

They’ll cough in the ink to the world’s end; Wear out the carpet with their shoes Earning respect; have no strange friend; If they have sinned nobody knows.

Lord, what would they say Should their Catullus walk that way?

“Though logic choppers rule the town, And every man and maid and boy Has marked a distant object down, An aimless joy is a pure joy,” Or so did Tom O’Roughley say That saw the surges running by, “And wisdom is a butterfly And not …

“Though logic choppers rule the town, And every man and maid and boy Has marked a distant object down,

An aimless joy is a pure joy,

” Or so did Tom O’Roughley say That saw the surges running by, “And wisdom is a butterfly And not a gloomy bird of prey.

“Though logic choppers rule the town, And every man and maid and boy Has marked a distant object down, An aimless joy is a pure joy,” Or so did Tom O’Roughley say That saw the surges running by, “

And wisdom is a butterfly And not a gloomy bird of prey.

“If little planned is little sinned But little need the grave distress. What’s dying but a second wind? How but in zig-zag wantonness Could trumpeter Michael be so brave?”

“If little planned is little sinned But little need the grave distress. What’s dying but a second wind? How but in zig-zag wantonness Could trumpeter Michael be so brave?” Or something of that sort he said, “

And if my dearest friend were dead I’d dance a measure on his grave.

”

“If little planned is little sinned But little need the grave distress.

What’s dying but a second wind?

How but in zig-zag wantonness Could trumpeter Michael be so brave?” Or something of that sort he said, “And if my dearest friend were dead I’d dance a measure on his grave.”

… when he speaks her name, Remembering kindness done, and how can I That found when I had neither goat nor grazing New welcome and old wisdom at her fire Till winter blasts were gone, but speak of her Even before his children and his wife.

She goes about her house erect and calm Between the pantry and the linen chest,

Or else at meadow or at grazing overlooks Her labouring men, as though her darling lived, But for her grandson now;

Sing your song, I too have rhymed my reveries, but youth Is hot to show whatever it has found, And till that’s done can neither work nor wait.

Old goatherds and old goats, if in all else Youth can excel them in accomplishment, Are learned in waiting.

You cannot but have seen That he alone had gathered up no gear, Set carpenters to work on no wide table, On no long bench nor lofty milking shed As others will, when first they take possession, But left the house as in his father’s …

And now that he is gone

There’s nothing of him left but half a score Of sorrowful, austere, sweet, lofty pipe tunes.

You have put the thought in rhyme.

and we Had scarcely accustomed our ears To his speech at the break of day, Had scarcely accustomed our eyes To his shape at the rinsing pool Among the evening shadows, When he vanished from ears and eyes.

I had wished a dear thing on that day I heard him first, but man is a fool.

”

Knowledge he shall unwind Through victories of the mind, Till, clambering at the cradle side, He dreams himself his mother’s pride,

All knowledge lost in trance Of sweeter ignorance.

”

To know the mountain and the valley have grieved May be a quiet thought to wife and mother, And children when they spring up shoulder high.

When have I last looked on The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies Of the dark leopards of the moon?

All the wild witches, those most noble ladies, For all their broom-sticks and their tears, Their angry tears, are gone. The holy centaurs of the hills are vanished; And I have nothing but harsh sun;

When have I last looked on The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies Of the dark leopards of the moon? All the wild witches, those most noble ladies, For all their broom-sticks and their tears, Their angry tears, are gone.

The holy centaurs of the hills are vanished;

And I have nothing but harsh sun; Heroic mother moon has vanished, And now that I have come to fifty years I must endure the timid sun.

All the wild witches, those most noble ladies, For all their broom-sticks and their tears, Their angry tears, are gone. The holy centaurs of the hills are vanished; And I have nothing but harsh sun; Heroic mother moon has vanished,

And now that I have come to fifty years I must endure the timid sun.

I would be ignorant as the dawn That has looked down On that old queen measuring a town With the pin of a brooch, Or on the withered men that saw From their pedantic Babylon The careless planets in their courses, The stars fade out …

The holy centaurs of the hills are vanished; And I have nothing but harsh sun; Heroic mother moon has vanished, And now that I have come to fifty years I must endure the timid sun.

I would be ignorant as the dawn

That has looked down On that old queen measuring a town With the pin of a brooch, Or on the withered men that saw From their pedantic Babylon The careless planets in their courses, The stars fade out where the moon comes, And took their …

Though pedantry denies

It’s plain the Bible means That Solomon grew wise While talking with his queens.

Yet never could, although They say he counted grass, Count all the praises due When Sheba was his lass, When she the iron wrought, or When from the smithy fire It shuddered in the water:

All day I’d looked in the face What I had hoped ’twould be To write for my own race And the reality;

The living men that I hate, The dead man that I loved,

The craven man in his seat, The insolent unreproved, And no knave brought to book Who has won a drunken cheer, The witty man and his joke Aimed at the commonest ear, The clever man who cries The catch-cries of the clown, The beating down …

The living men that I hate, The dead man that I loved, The craven man in his seat, The insolent unreproved, And no knave brought to book Who has won a drunken cheer, The witty man and his joke Aimed at the commonest ear,

The clever man who cries The catch-cries of the clown,

The beating down of the wise And great Art beaten down.

… since Suddenly I began, In scorn of this audience Imagining a man, And his sun-freckled face, And grey Connemara cloth, Climbing up to a place Where stone is dark under froth, And the down turn of his wrist When the flies drop in the stream;

A man who does not exist, A man who is but a dream;

And cried, “Before I am old I shall have written him one Poem maybe as cold And passionate as the dawn.”

A man who does not exist, A man who is but a dream; And cried, “

Before I am old I shall have written him one Poem maybe as cold And passionate as the dawn.

”

“What tumbling cloud did you cleave, Yellow-eyed hawk of the mind, Last evening? that I, who had sat Dumbfounded before a knave, Should give to my friend A pretence of wit.”

One had a lovely face, And two or three had charm, But charm and face were in vain Because the mountain grass Cannot but keep the form Where the mountain hare has lain.

She is foremost of those that I would hear praised.

If there be rags enough he will know her name And be well pleased remembering it, for in the old days,

Though she had young men’s praise and old men’s blame, Among the poor both old and young gave her praise.

“What have I earned for all that work,” I said, “For all that I have done at my own charge?

… phoenix answered in reproof, “The drunkards, pilferers of public funds, All the dishonest crowd I had driven away, When my luck changed and they dared meet my face, Crawled from obscurity, and set upon me Those I had served and some that I had fed;

Yet never have I, now nor any time, Complained of the people.

”

“What have I earned for all that work,” I said, “For all that I have done at my own charge? The daily spite of this unmannerly town, Where who has served the most is most defamed,

The reputation of his lifetime lost Between the night and morning.

I might have lived, And you know well how great the longing has been, Where every day my footfall should have lit In the green shadow of Ferrara wall;

“What have I earned for all that work,” I said, “For all that I have done at my own charge?

The daily spite of this unmannerly town, Where who has served the most is most defamed,

The reputation of his lifetime lost Between the night and morning. I might have lived, And you know well how great the longing has been, Where every day my footfall should have lit In the green shadow of Ferrara wall;

All I could reply Was: “

You, that have not lived in thought but deed, Can have the purity of a natural force,

But I, whose virtues are the definitions Of the analytic mind, can neither close The eye of the mind nor keep my tongue from speech.”

If head and limb have beauty and the instep’s high and light They can spread out what sail they please for all I have to say, Be but the breakers of men’s hearts or engines of delight:

I knew a phoenix in my youth so let them have their day.

There’ll be that crowd, that barbarous crowd, through all the centuries, And who can say but some young belle may walk and talk men wild Who is my beauty’s equal, though that my heart denies, But not the exact likeness, the simplicity of a child, …

She might, so noble from head To great shapely knees The long flowing line, Have walked to the altar Through the holy images At Pallas Athene’s side, Or been fit spoil for a centaur Drunk with the unmixed wine.

There is grey in your hair. Young men no longer suddenly catch their breath When you are passing;

But maybe some old gaffer mutters a blessing Because it was your prayer Recovered him upon the bed of death.

For your sole sake—that all heart’s ache have known, And given to others all heart’s ache, From meagre girlhood’s putting on Burdensome beauty—for your sole sake Heaven has put away the stroke of her doom,

So great her portion in that peace you make By merely walking in a room.

Your beauty can but leave among us Vague memories, nothing but memories.

A young man when the old men are done talking Will say to an old man, “Tell me of that lady The poet stubborn with his passion sang us When age might well have chilled his blood.”

Vague memories, nothing but memories, But in the grave all, all, shall be renewed.

The certainty that I shall see that lady Leaning or standing or walking In the first loveliness of womanhood, And with the fervour of my youthful eyes, Has set me muttering like a fool.

The certainty that I shall see that lady Leaning or standing or walking In the first loveliness of womanhood, And with the fervour of my youthful eyes, Has set me muttering like a fool.

You are more beautiful than any one And yet your body had a flaw:

Your small hands were not beautiful, And I am afraid that you will run And paddle to the wrist In that mysterious, always brimming lake Where those that have obeyed the holy law Paddle and are perfect;

leave unchanged The hands that I have kissed For old sakes’ sake.

The last stroke of midnight dies.

All day in the one chair From dream to dream and rhyme to rhyme I have ranged In rambling talk with an image of air: Vague memories, nothing but memories.

The last stroke of midnight dies. All day in the one chair From dream to dream and rhyme to rhyme I have ranged In rambling talk with an image of air: Vague memories, nothing but memories.

Others because you did not keep That deep-sworn vow have been friends of mine;

Yet always when I look death in the face, When I clamber to the heights of sleep, Or when I grow excited with wine, Suddenly I meet your face.

Others because you did not keep That deep-sworn vow have been friends of mine;

Yet always when I look death in the face, When I clamber to the heights of sleep, Or when I grow excited with wine, Suddenly I meet your face.

This night has been so strange that it seemed As if the hair stood up on my head. From going-down of the sun I have dreamed That women laughing, or timid or wild, In rustle of lace or silken stuff, Climbed up my creaking stair.

Others because you did not keep That deep-sworn vow have been friends of mine; Yet always when I look death in the face, When I clamber to the heights of sleep, Or when I grow excited with wine, Suddenly I meet your face.

This night has been so strange that it seemed As if the hair stood up on my head.

From going-down of the sun I have dreamed That women laughing, or timid or wild, In rustle of lace or silken stuff, Climbed up my creaking stair. They had read All I had rhymed of that monstrous thing Returned and yet unrequited love.

They had read All I had rhymed of that monstrous thing Returned and yet unrequited love. They stood in the door and stood between My great wood lectern and the fire Till I could hear their hearts beating:

One is a harlot, and one a child That never looked upon man with desire, And one it may be a queen.

Hands, do what you’re bid; Bring the balloon of the mind That bellies and drags in the wind Into its narrow shed.

Hands, do what you’re bid; Bring the balloon of the mind That bellies and drags in the wind Into its narrow shed.

Come play with me; Why should you run Through the shaking tree As though I’d a gun To strike you dead?

When all I would do Is to scratch your head And let you go.

Come play with me; Why should you run Through the shaking tree As though I’d a gun To strike you dead? When all I would do Is to scratch your head And let you go.

I think it better that in times like these A poet keep his mouth shut, for in truth We have no gift to set a statesman right;

He has had enough of meddling who can please A young girl in the indolence of her youth, Or an old man upon a winter’s night.

… Beauty lies A new modelled doll, or drawing, With a friend’s or an enemy’s Features, or maybe showing Her features when a tress Of dull red hair was flowing Over some silken dress Cut in the Turkish fashion, Or it may be like a boy’s.

We have given the world our passion, We have naught for death but toys.

Because to-day is some religious festival They had a priest say Mass, and even the Japanese, Heel up and weight on toe, must face the wall —Pedant in passion, learned in old courtesies, Vehement and witty she had seemed—;

… with Grania’s shade All but the perils of the woodland flight forgot That made her Dermuid dear, and some old cardinal Pacing with half-closed eyelids in a sunny spot Who had murmured of Giorgione at his latest breath— Aye and Achilles, Timor, Babar, Barhaim all

Who have lived in joy and laughed into the face of Death.

Pardon great enemy, Without an angry thought We’ve carried in our tree, And here and there have bought Till all the boughs are gay, And she may look from the bed On pretty things that may Please a fantastic head.

By the help of an image I call to my own opposite, summon all That I have handled least, least looked upon.

And I would find myself and not an image.

That is our modern hope and by its light We have lit upon the gentle, sensitive mind And lost the old nonchalance of the hand;

I think he fashioned from his opposite An image that might have been a stony face, Staring upon a bedouin’s horse-hair roof From doored and windowed cliff, or half upturned Among the coarse grass and the camel dung.

He set his chisel to the hardest stone.

Being mocked by Guido for his lecherous life, Derided and deriding, driven out To climb that stair and eat that bitter bread, He found the unpersuadable justice, he found The most exalted lady loved by a man.

No not sing, For those that love the world serve it in action, Grow rich, popular and full of influence, And should they paint or write still it is action:

The struggle of the fly in marmalade.

The rhetorician would deceive his neighbours, The sentimentalist himself; while art Is but a vision of reality. What portion in the world can the artist have Who has awakened from the common dream But dissipation and despair?

No not sing, For those that love the world serve it in action, Grow rich, popular and full of influence, And should they paint or write still it is action: The struggle of the fly in marmalade.

The rhetorician would deceive his neighbours, The sentimentalist himself; while art Is but a vision of reality.

What portion in the world can the artist have Who has awakened from the common dream But dissipation and despair?

The struggle of the fly in marmalade. The rhetorician would deceive his neighbours, The sentimentalist himself; while art Is but a vision of reality.

What portion in the world can the artist have Who has awakened from the common dream But dissipation and despair?

And yet No one denies to Keats love of the world; Remember his deliberate happiness.

And yet No one denies to Keats love of the world; Remember his deliberate happiness.

His art is happy but who knows his mind?

I see a schoolboy when I think of him With face and nose pressed to a sweet-shop window, For certainly he sank into his grave His senses and his heart unsatisfied, And made—being poor, ailing and ignorant, Shut out from all the luxury of the …

Why should you leave the lamp Burning alone beside an open book, And trace these characters upon the sands?

A style is found by sedentary toil And by the imitation of great masters.

Because I seek an image not a book. Those men that in their writings are most wise Own nothing but their blind, stupefied hearts.

Why should you leave the lamp Burning alone beside an open book, And trace these characters upon the sands? A style is found by sedentary toil And by the imitation of great masters.

Because I seek an image not a book.

Those men that in their writings are most wise Own nothing but their blind, stupefied hearts.

Because I seek an image not a book.

Those men that in their writings are most wise Own nothing but their blind, stupefied hearts.

I call to the mysterious one who yet Shall walk the wet sands by the edge of the stream And look most like me, being indeed my double, And prove of all imaginable things The most unlike, being my anti-self, And standing by these characters …

and should some limb of the devil Destroy the view by cutting down an ash That shades the road, or setting up a cottage Planned in a government office, shorten his life, Manacle his soul upon the Red Sea bottom.

An old man cocked his ear upon a bridge;

He and his friend, their faces to the South, Had trod the uneven road. Their boots were soiled, Their Connemara cloth worn out of shape; They had kept a steady pace as though their beds, Despite a dwindling and late risen moon, Were distant.

chosen this place to live in Because, it may be, of the candle light From the far tower where Milton’s platonist Sat late, or Shelley’s visionary prince: The lonely light that Samuel Palmer engraved, An image of mysterious wisdom won by toil;

And now he seeks in book or manuscript What he shall never find.

Why should not you Who know it all ring at his door, and speak Just truth enough to show that his whole life Will scarcely find for him a broken crust Of all those truths that are your daily bread;

He wrote of me in that extravagant style He had learnt from Pater, and to round his tale

Said I was dead; and dead I choose to be.

Sing me the changes of the moon once more; True song, though speech: “mine author sung it me.”

Twenty-and-eight the phases of the moon, The full and the moon’s dark and all the crescents, Twenty-and-eight, and yet but six-and-twenty The cradles that a man must needs be rocked in:

For there’s no human life at the full or the dark.

From the first crescent to the half, the dream But summons to adventure and the man Is always happy like a bird or a beast;

that body and that soul Too perfect at the full to lie in a cradle, Too lonely for the traffic of the world: Body and soul cast out and cast away Beyond the visible world.

All dreams of the soul End in a beautiful man’s or woman’s body.

Have you not always known it?

Before the full It sought itself and afterwards the world.

Because you are forgotten, half out of life, And never wrote a book your thought is clear.

Reformer, merchant, statesman, learned man, Dutiful husband, honest wife by turn, Cradle upon cradle, and all in flight and all Deformed because there is no deformity But saves us from a dream.

But the escape; the song’s not finished yet.

Hunchback and saint and fool are the last crescents.

The burning bow that once could shoot an arrow Out of the up and down, the wagon wheel Of beauty’s cruelty and wisdom’s chatter— Out of that raving tide—is drawn betwixt Deformity of body and of mind.

I’d stand and mutter there until he caught “Hunchback and saint and fool,” and that they came Under the three last crescents of the moon, And then I’d stagger out.

He’d crack his wits Day after day, yet never find the meaning.

And then he laughed to think that what seemed hard Should be so simple—a bat rose from the hazels And circled round him with its squeaky cry, The light in the tower window was put out.

And then he laughed to think that what seemed hard Should be so simple—a bat rose from the hazels And circled round him with its squeaky cry, The light in the tower window was put out.

The cat went here and there And the moon spun round like a top,

And the nearest kin of the moon The creeping cat looked up. Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon, For wander and wail as he would The pure cold light in the sky Troubled his animal blood. Minnaloushe runs in the grass Lifting his delicate feet.

Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon, For wander and wail as he would The pure cold light in the sky Troubled his animal blood. Minnaloushe runs in the grass Lifting his delicate feet.

Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?

When two close kindred meet What better than call a dance, Maybe the moon may learn, Tired of that courtly fashion, A new dance turn. Minnaloushe creeps through the grass From moonlit place to place, The sacred moon overhead Has taken a new phase.

Minnaloushe creeps through the grass From moonlit place to place, The sacred moon overhead Has taken a new phase. Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils Will pass from change to change, And that from round to crescent, From crescent to round they range?

Minnaloushe creeps through the grass Alone, important and wise,

And lifts to the changing moon His changing eyes.

Stand up and lift your hand and bless A man that finds great bitterness In thinking of his lost renown.

A Roman Caesar is held down Under this hump.

God tries each man According to a different plan. I shall not cease to bless because I lay about me with the taws That night and morning I may thrash Greek Alexander from my flesh, Augustus Caesar, and after these That great rogue Alcibiades.

Stand up and lift your hand and bless A man that finds great bitterness In thinking of his lost renown. A Roman Caesar is held down Under this hump.

God tries each man According to a different plan.

I shall not cease to bless because I lay about me with the taws That night and morning I may thrash Greek Alexander from my flesh, Augustus Caesar, and after these That great rogue Alcibiades.

A speckled cat and a tame hare Eat at my hearthstone And sleep there;

And both look up to me alone For learning and defence As I look up to Providence.

I start out of my sleep to think Some day I may forget Their food and drink; Or, the house door left unshut, The hare may run till it’s found The horn’s sweet note and the tooth of the hound.

Had I but awakened from sleep And called her name she had heard, It may be, and had not stirred, That now, it may be, has found The horn’s sweet note and the tooth of the hound.

This great purple butterfly, In the prison of my hands, Has a learning in his eye Not a poor fool understands.

Once he lived a schoolmaster With a stark, denying look, A string of scholars went in fear Of his great birch and his great book.

This great purple butterfly, In the prison of my hands, Has a learning in his eye Not a poor fool understands.

Once he lived a schoolmaster With a stark, denying look,

A string of scholars went in fear Of his great birch and his great book.

Under blank eyes and fingers never still The particular is pounded till it is man,

When had I my own will? Oh, not since life began.

Constrained, arraigned, baffled, bent and unbent By these wire-jointed jaws and limbs of wood, Themselves obedient, Knowing not evil and good;

That other’s moonlit eyeballs never moved, Being fixed on all things loved, all things unloved,

Yet little peace he had For those that love are sad.

Oh, little did they care who danced between, And little she by whom her dance was seen So that she danced. No thought, Body perfection brought,

… I owe to his friend John Aherne, may be published before, or at any rate but soon after this little book, which, like all hand-printed books will take a long time for the setting up and printing off and for the drying of the pages.

Opinion is not worth a rush;

In this altar-piece the knight, Who grips his long spear so to push That dragon through the fading light, Loved the lady; and it’s plain The half-dead dragon was her thought, That every morning rose again And dug its claws and shrieked and fought.

May I not put myself to college?

Go pluck Athena by the hair;

For what mere book can grant a knowledge With an impassioned gravity Appropriate to that beating breast, That vigorous thigh, that dreaming eye? And may the devil take the rest.

I have heard said There is great danger in the body.

Did God in portioning wine and bread Give man His thought or His mere body?

My wretched dragon is perplexed.

And that all beautiful women may Live in uncomposite blessedness, And lead us to the like—if they Will banish every thought, unless The lineaments that please their view When the long looking-glass is full, Even from the foot-sole think it too.

They say such different things at school.

And thus declared that Arab lady: “Last night, where under the wild moon On grassy mattress I had laid me, Within my arms great Solomon, I suddenly cried out in a strange tongue Not his, not mine.”

He that crowed out eternity Thought to have crowed it in again.

For though love has a spider’s eye To find out some appropriate pain,

Aye, though all passion’s in the glance, For every nerve: and tests a lover With cruelties of Choice and Chance; And when at last that murder’s over Maybe the bride-bed brings despair For each an imagined image brings And finds a real image there;

and tests a lover With cruelties of Choice and Chance; And when at last that murder’s over Maybe the bride-bed brings despair For each an imagined image brings And finds a real image there;

Yet the world ends when these two things, Though several, are a single light, When oil and wick are burned in one;

Therefore a blessed moon last night Gave Sheba to her Solomon.”

“The night has fallen; not a sound In the forbidden sacred grove Unless a petal hit the ground, Nor any human sight within it But the crushed grass where we have lain;

And the moon is wilder every minute. Oh, Solomon! let us try again.

”

“The night has fallen; not a sound In the forbidden sacred grove Unless a petal hit the ground, Nor any human sight within it But the crushed grass where we have lain; And the moon is wilder every minute. Oh, Solomon! let us try again.”

Never until this night have I been stirred.

The elaborate star-light has thrown reflections On the dark stream, Till all the eddies gleam; And thereupon there comes that scream From terrified, invisible beast or bird: Image of poignant recollection.

Now she has thrown her arms above her head; Whether she threw them up to flout me, Or but to find, Now that no fingers bind, That her hair streams upon the wind,

I do not know, that know I am afraid Of the hovering thing night brought me.

Do not because this day I have grown saturnine Imagine that lost love, inseparable from my thought Because I have no other youth, can make me pine; For how should I forget the wisdom that you brought, The comfort that you made?

You heard that labouring man who had served my people. He said Upon the open road, near to the Sligo quay— No, no, not said, but cried it out—“You have come again And surely after twenty years it was time to come.”

I am thinking of a child’s vow sworn in vain Never to leave that valley his fathers called their home.

I have met them at close of day Coming with vivid faces From counter or desk among grey Eighteenth-century houses.

… words, Or have lingered awhile and said Polite meaningless words, And thought before I had done Of a mocking tale or a gibe To please a companion Around the fire at the club, Being certain that they and I But lived where motley is worn:

All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.

That woman’s days were spent In ignorant good will, Her nights in argument Until her voice grew shrill. What voice more sweet than hers When young and beautiful, She rode to harriers? This man had kept a school And rode our winged horse;

He had done most bitter wrong To some who are near my heart, Yet I number him in the song; He, too, has resigned his part In the casual comedy; He, too, has been changed in his turn, Transformed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone Through summer and winter seem Enchanted to a stone To trouble the living stream.

The horse that comes from the road, The rider, the birds that range From cloud to tumbling cloud, Minute by minute they change; A shadow of cloud on the stream Changes minute by minute;

A shadow of cloud on the stream Changes minute by minute; A horse-hoof slides on the brim, And a horse plashes within it Where long-legged moor-hens dive, And hens to moor-cocks call.

Minute by minute they live: The stone’s in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice Can make a stone of the heart. O when may it suffice? That is heaven’s part, our part To murmur name upon name, As a mother names her child When sleep at last has come On limbs that had run wild.

A shadow of cloud on the stream Changes minute by minute; A horse-hoof slides on the brim, And a horse plashes within it Where long-legged moor-hens dive, And hens to moor-cocks call. Minute by minute they live: The stone’s in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice Can make a stone of the heart.

O when may it suffice? That is heaven’s part, our part To murmur name upon name, As a mother names her child When sleep at last has come On limbs that had run wild. What is it but nightfall? No, no, not night but death;

What is it but nightfall? No, no, not night but death; Was it needless death after all? For England may keep faith For all that is done and said.

We know their dream; enough To know they dreamed and are dead;

And what if excess of love Bewildered them till they died? I write it out in a verse— MacDonagh and MacBride And Connolly and Pearse Now and in time to be, Wherever green is worn, Are changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.

What is it but nightfall? No, no, not night but death; Was it needless death after all? For England may keep faith For all that is done and said. We know their dream; enough To know they dreamed and are dead;

And what if excess of love Bewildered them till they died?

I write it out in a verse— MacDonagh and MacBride And Connolly and Pearse Now and in time to be, Wherever green is worn, Are changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.

And what if excess of love Bewildered them till they died? I write it out in a verse— MacDonagh and MacBride And Connolly and Pearse Now and in time to be, Wherever green is worn, Are changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.

O but we talked at large before The sixteen men were shot,

But who can talk of give and take, What should be and what not? While those dead men are loitering there To stir the boiling pot.

“But where can we draw water,” Said Pearse to Connolly, “When all the wells are parched away? O plain as plain can be

There’s nothing but our own red blood Can make a right Rose Tree.

”

Did she in touching that lone wing Recall the years before her mind Became a bitter, an abstract thing, Her thought some popular enmity:

Blind and leader of the blind Drinking the foul ditch where they lie?

When long ago I saw her ride Under Ben Bulben to the meet, The beauty of her country-side With all youth’s lonely wildness stirred, She seemed to have grown clean and sweet Like any rock-bred, sea-borne bird:

Sea-borne, or balanced on the air When first it sprang out of the nest Upon some lofty rock to stare Upon the cloudy canopy, While under its storm-beaten breast Cried out the hollows of the sea.

They must to keep their certainty accuse All that are different of a base intent;

Pull down established honour; hawk for news Whatever their loose fantasy invent And murmur it with bated breath, as though The abounding gutter had been Helicon Or calumny a song.

I would have touched it like a child But knew my finger could but have touched Cold stone and water. I grew wild Even accusing heaven because It had set down among its laws:

Nothing that we love over-much Is ponderable to our touch.

I dreamed towards break of day, The cold blown spray in my nostril. But she that beside me lay Had watched in bitterer sleep The marvellous stag of Arthur, That lofty white stag, leap From mountain steep to steep.

O what a sweetness strayed Through barren Thebaid, Or by the Mareotic sea When that exultant Anthony And twice a thousand more Starved upon the shore And withered to a bag of bones:

What had the Caesars but their thrones?

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

O what a sweetness strayed Through barren Thebaid, Or by the Mareotic sea When that exultant Anthony And twice a thousand more Starved upon the shore And withered to a bag of bones: What had the Caesars but their thrones?

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight:

Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again;

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Once more the storm is howling and half hid Under this cradle-hood and coverlid My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle But Gregory’s wood and one bare hill Whereby the haystack and roof-levelling wind, Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;

The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Once more the storm is howling and half hid Under this cradle-hood and coverlid My child sleeps on.

There is no obstacle But Gregory’s wood and one bare hill Whereby the haystack and roof-levelling wind, Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed; And for an hour I have walked and prayed Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.

Imagining in excited reverie That the future years had come, Dancing to a frenzied drum, Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.

May she be granted beauty and yet not Beauty to make a stranger’s eye distraught,

Or hers before a looking-glass, for such, Being made beautiful overmuch, Consider beauty a sufficient end, Lose natural kindness and maybe The heart-revealing intimacy That chooses right and never find a friend.

… be granted beauty and yet not Beauty to make a stranger’s eye distraught, Or hers before a looking-glass, for such, Being made beautiful overmuch, Consider beauty a sufficient end, Lose natural kindness and maybe The heart-revealing intimacy That chooses right and never find a friend.

Helen being chosen found life flat and dull And later had much trouble from a fool,

While that great Queen, that rose out of the spray, Being fatherless could have her way Yet chose a bandy-legged smith for man. It’s certain that fine women eat A crazy salad with their meat Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone.

Helen being chosen found life flat and dull And later had much trouble from a fool, While that great Queen, that rose out of the spray, Being fatherless could have her way Yet chose a bandy-legged smith for man.

It’s certain that fine women eat A crazy salad with their meat Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone.

In courtesy I’d have her chiefly learned; Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned By those that are not entirely beautiful;

In courtesy I’d have her chiefly learned;

Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned By those that are not entirely beautiful;

Yet many, that have played the fool For beauty’s very self, has charm made wise, And many a poor man that has roved, Loved and thought himself beloved, From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.

May she become a flourishing hidden tree That all her thoughts may like the linnet be, And have no business but dispensing round Their magnanimities of sound, Nor but in merriment begin a chase, Nor but in merriment a quarrel.

Oh, may she live like some green laurel Rooted in one dear perpetual place.

My mind, because the minds that I have loved, The sort of beauty that I have approved, Prosper but little, has dried up of late, Yet knows that to be choked with hate May well be of all evil chances chief.

My mind, because the minds that I have loved, The sort of beauty that I have approved, Prosper but little, has dried up of late,

Yet knows that to be choked with hate May well be of all evil chances chief.

If there’s no hatred in a mind Assault and battery of the wind Can never tear the linnet from the leaf.

If there’s no hatred in a mind Assault and battery of the wind Can never tear the linnet from the leaf.

An intellectual hatred is the worst, So let her think opinions are accursed.

Have I not seen the loveliest woman born Out of the mouth of Plenty’s horn, Because of her opinionated mind Barter that horn and every good By quiet natures understood For an old bellows full of angry wind?

Considering that, all hatred driven hence, The soul recovers radical innocence And learns at last that it is self-delighting, Self-appeasing, self-affrighting.

And that its own sweet will is heaven’s will;

She can, though every face should scowl And every windy quarter howl Or every bellows burst, be happy still.

And may her bride-groom bring her to a house Where all’s accustomed, ceremonious; For arrogance and hatred are the wares Peddled in the thoroughfares.

How but in custom and in ceremony Are innocence and beauty born?

Ceremony’s a name for the rich horn, And custom for the spreading laurel tree.

And may her bride-groom bring her to a house Where all’s accustomed, ceremonious;

For arrogance and hatred are the wares Peddled in the thoroughfares.

How but in custom and in ceremony Are innocence and beauty born? Ceremony’s a name for the rich horn, And custom for the spreading laurel tree.

I, the poet William Yeats, With old mill boards and sea-green slates, And smithy work from the Gort forge, Restored this tower for my wife George;

And may these characters remain When all is ruin once again.

That is no country for old men. The young In one another’s arms, birds in the trees, —Those dying generations—at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish flesh or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten born and dies.

I, the poet William Yeats, With old mill boards and sea-green slates, And smithy work from the Gort forge, Restored this tower for my wife George; And may these characters remain When all is ruin once again.

That is no country for old men.

The young In one another’s arms, birds in the trees, —Those dying generations—at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish flesh or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten born and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unaging intellect.

That is no country for old men. The young In one another’s arms, birds in the trees, —Those dying generations—at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish flesh or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten born and dies.

Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unaging intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence;

The young In one another’s arms, birds in the trees, —Those dying generations—at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish flesh or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten born and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unaging intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,

A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence;

An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence;

And therefore I have sailed the seas and come To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God’s holy fire As in the gold mosaic of a wall, Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, And be the singing masters of my soul. Consume my heart away;

What shall I do with this absurdity— O heart, O troubled heart—this caricature,

Decrepit age that has been tied to me As to a dog’s tail?

Never had I more Excited, passionate, fantastical Imagination, nor an ear and eye That more expected the impossible— No, not in boyhood when with rod and fly, Or the humbler worm, I climbed Ben Bulben’s back And had the livelong summer day to spend.

Beyond that ridge lived Mrs. French, and once When every silver candlestick or sconce Lit up the dark mahogany and the wine, A serving man that could divine That most respected lady’s every wish,

Ran and with the garden shears Clipped an insolent farmer’s ears And brought them in a little covered dish.

Some few remembered still when I was young A peasant girl commended by a song, Who’d lived somewhere upon that rocky place, And praised the colour of her face, And had the greater joy in praising her, Remembering that, if walked she there, Farmers jostled …

But they mistook the brightness of the moon For the prosaic light of day— Music had driven their wits astray— And one was drowned in the great bog of Cloone.

Strange, but the man who made the song was blind,

Yet, now I have considered it, I find That nothing strange; the tragedy began With Homer that was a blind man, And Helen has all living hearts betrayed.

Strange, but the man who made the song was blind, Yet, now I have considered it, I find That nothing strange; the tragedy began With Homer that was a blind man,

And Helen has all living hearts betrayed.

O may the moon and sunlight seem One inextricable beam, For if I triumph I must make men mad.

Strange, but the man who made the song was blind, Yet, now I have considered it, I find That nothing strange; the tragedy began With Homer that was a blind man, And Helen has all living hearts betrayed.

O may the moon and sunlight seem One inextricable beam, For if I triumph I must make men mad.

And I myself created Hanrahan And drove him drunk or sober through the dawn From somewhere in the neighbouring cottages. Caught by an old man’s juggleries He stumbled, tumbled, fumbled to and fro And had but broken knees for hire And horrible splendour of desire;

… out of that deep considering mind All that you have discovered in the grave, For it is certain that you have Reckoned up every unforeknown, unseeing Plunge, lured by a softening eye, Or by a touch or a sigh, Into the labyrinth of another’s being;

Does the imagination dwell the most Upon a woman won or woman lost?

If on the lost, admit you turned aside From a great labyrinth out of pride, Cowardice, some silly over-subtle thought Or anything called conscience once; And that if memory recur, the sun’s Under eclipse and the day blotted out.

If on the lost, admit you turned aside From a great labyrinth out of pride, Cowardice, some silly over-subtle thought Or anything called conscience once; And that if memory recur, the sun’s Under eclipse and the day blotted out.

It is time that I wrote my will;

I choose upstanding men, That climb the streams until The fountain leap, and at dawn Drop their cast at the side Of dripping stone;

Some violent bitter man, some powerful man Called architect and artist in, that they, Bitter and violent men, might rear in stone The sweetness that all longed for night and day, The gentleness none there had ever known;

But when the master’s buried mice can play,

And maybe the great-grandson of that house, For all its bronze and marble, ’s but a mouse.

What if the glory of escutcheoned doors, And buildings that a haughtier age designed, The pacing to and fro on polished floors Amid great chambers and long galleries, lined With famous portraits of our ancestors;

What if those things the greatest of mankind, Consider most to magnify, or to bless, But take our greatness with our bitterness!

An ancient bridge, and a more ancient tower, A farmhouse that is sheltered by its wall, An acre of stony ground, Where the symbolic rose can break in flower, Old ragged elms, old thorns innumerable, The sound of the rain or sound Of every wind …

The stilted water-hen Crossing stream again Scared by the splashing of a dozen cows;

A winding stair, a chamber arched with stone, A grey stone fireplace with an open hearth, A candle and written page.

“Il Penseroso”’s Platonist toiled on In some like chamber, shadowing forth How the daemonic rage Imagined everything. Benighted travellers From markets and from fairs Have seen his midnight candle glimmering.

A bit of an embroidered dress Covers its wooden sheath. Chaucer had not drawn breath When it was forged. In Sato’s house, Curved like new moon, moon luminous It lay five hundred years.

Yet if no change appears No moon; only an aching heart Conceives a changeless work of art.

Our learned men have urged That when and where ’twas forged A marvellous accomplishment, In painting or in pottery, went From father unto son And through the centuries ran And seemed unchanging like the sword.

And what if my descendants lose the flower Through natural declension of the soul, Through too much business with the passing hour, Through too much play, or marriage with a fool?

May this laborious stair and this stark tower Become a roofless ruin that the owl May build in the cracked masonry and cry Her desolation to the desolate sky.

The Primum Mobile that fashioned us Has made the very owls in circles move;

And I, that count myself most prosperous, Seeing that love and friendship are enough, For an old neighbour’s friendship chose the house And decked and altered it for a girl’s love, And know whatever flourish and decline These stones remain their monument and mine.

An affable Irregular, A heavily built Falstaffan man, Comes cracking jokes of civil war As though to die by gunshot were The finest play under the sun.

A brown Lieutenant and his men, Half dressed in national uniform, Stand at my door, and I complain Of the foul weather, hail and rain, A pear tree broken by the storm.

We had fed the heart on fantasies, The heart’s grown brutal from the fare, More substance in our enmities Than in our love; oh, honey-bees

Come build in the empty house of the stare.

I climb to the tower top and lean upon broken stone, A mist that is like blown snow is sweeping over all, Valley, river, and elms, under the light of a moon That seems unlike itself, that seems unchangeable, A glittering sword out of the …

The bees build in the crevices Of loosening masonry, and there The mother birds bring grubs and flies. My wall is loosening; honey-bees Come build in the empty house of the stare.

We are closed in, and the key is turned On our uncertainty;

somewhere A man is killed, or a house burned, Yet no clear fact to be discerned: Come build in the empty house of the stare.

A barricade of stone or of wood; Some fourteen days of civil war; Last night they trundled down the road That dead young soldier in his blood: Come build in the empty house of the stare.

We had fed the heart on fantasies, The heart’s grown brutal from the fare,

More substance in our enmities Than in our love; oh, honey-bees Come build in the empty house of the stare.

We had fed the heart on fantasies, The heart’s grown brutal from the fare,

More substance in our enmities Than in our love;

oh, honey-bees Come build in the empty house of the stare.

No prophecies, Remembered out of Babylonian almanacs, Have closed the ladies’ eyes, their minds are but a pool Where even longing drowns under its own excess;

Nothing but stillness can remain when hearts are full Of their own sweetness, bodies of their loveliness.

The cloud-pale unicorns, the eyes of aquamarine, The quivering half-closed eyelids, the rags of cloud or of lace, Or eyes that rage has brightened, arms it has made lean, Give place to an indifferent multitude, give place To brazen hawks.

The abstract joy, The half read wisdom of daemonic images, Suffice the ageing man as once the growing boy.

Many ingenious lovely things are gone That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude,

Protected from the circle of the moon That pitches common things about. There stood Amid the ornamental bronze and stone An ancient image made of olive wood— And gone are Phidias’ famous ivories And all the golden grasshoppers and bees.

A law indifferent to blame or praise, To bribe or threat; habits that made old wrong Melt down, as it were wax in the sun’s rays; Public opinion ripening for so long We thought it would outlive all future days.

O what fine thought we had because we thought That the worst rogues and rascals had died out.

All teeth were drawn, all ancient tricks unlearned, And a great army but a showy thing; What matter that no cannon had been turned Into a ploughshare;

But is there any comfort to be found?

Man is in love and loves what vanishes, What more is there to say?

That country round None dared admit, if such a thought were his, Incendiary or bigot could be found To burn that stump on the Acropolis, Or break in bits the famous ivories Or traffic in the grasshoppers or bees?

So the platonic year Whirls out new right and wrong, Whirls in the old instead;

All men are dancers and their tread Goes to the barbarous clangour of gong.

Some moralist or mythological poet Compares the solitary soul to a swan; I am satisfied with that, Satisfied if a troubled mirror show it Before that brief gleam of its life be gone, An image of its state;

So the platonic year Whirls out new right and wrong, Whirls in the old instead; All men are dancers and their tread Goes to the barbarous clangour of gong.

Some moralist or mythological poet Compares the solitary soul to a swan;

I am satisfied with that, Satisfied if a troubled mirror show it Before that brief gleam of its life be gone, An image of its state;

Some platonist affirms that in the station Where we should cast off body and trade The ancient habit sticks, And that if our works could But vanish with our breath That were a lucky death,

For triumph can but mar our solitude.

The swan has leaped into the desolate heaven: That image can bring wildness, bring a rage To end all things, to end What my laborious life imagined, even The half imagined, the half written page;

Some platonist affirms that in the station Where we should cast off body and trade The ancient habit sticks, And that if our works could But vanish with our breath That were a lucky death, For triumph can but mar our solitude.

The swan has leaped into the desolate heaven:

That image can bring wildness, bring a rage To end all things, to end What my laborious life imagined, even The half imagined, the half written page;

O but we dreamed to mend Whatever mischief seemed To afflict mankind, but now That winds of winter blow Learn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed.

We, who seven years ago Talked of honour and of truth, Shriek with pleasure if we show The weasel’s twist, the weasel’s tooth.

Come let us mock at the great That had such burdens on the mind And toiled so hard and late To leave some monument behind, Nor thought of the levelling wind.

We, who seven years ago Talked of honour and of truth, Shriek with pleasure if we show The weasel’s twist, the weasel’s tooth.

Come let us mock at the great That had such burdens on the mind And toiled so hard and late To leave some monument behind, Nor thought of the levelling wind.

Come let us mock at the wise; With all those calendars whereon They fixed old aching eyes, They never saw how seasons run, And now but gape at the sun.

Mock mockers after that That would not lift a hand maybe To help good, wise or great To bar that foul storm out, for we Traffic in mockery.

Violence upon the roads: violence of horses;

Some few have handsome riders, are garlanded On delicate sensitive ear or tossing mane, But wearied running round and round in their courses All break and vanish, and evil gathers head:

But now wind drops, dust settles; thereupon There lurches past, his great eyes without thought Under the shadow of stupid straw-pale locks, That insolent fiend Robert Artisson To whom the love-lorn Lady Kyteler brought Bronzed peacock feathers, red combs of her cocks.

Through winter-time we call on spring, And through the spring on summer call,

And when abounding hedges ring Declare that winter’s best of all; And after that there’s nothing good Because the spring-time has not come— Nor know that what disturbs our blood Is but its longing for the tomb.

Through winter-time we call on spring, And through the spring on summer call, And when abounding hedges ring Declare that winter’s best of all; And after that there’s nothing good Because the spring-time has not come—

Nor know that what disturbs our blood Is but its longing for the tomb.

Much did I rage when young, Being by the world oppressed, But now with flattering tongue It speeds the parting guest.

And after that there’s nothing good Because the spring-time has not come— Nor know that what disturbs our blood Is but its longing for the tomb.

Much did I rage when young, Being by the world oppressed, But now with flattering tongue It speeds the parting guest.

If you, that have grown old, were the first dead, Neither catalpa tree nor scented lime Should hear my living feet, nor would I tread Where we wrought that shall break the teeth of time.

If you, that have grown old, were the first dead, Neither catalpa tree nor scented lime Should hear my living feet, nor would I tread Where we wrought that shall break the teeth of time.

Let the new faces play what tricks they will In the old rooms; night can outbalance day,

Our shadows rove the garden gravel still, The living seem more shadowy than they.

Let the new faces play what tricks they will In the old rooms; night can outbalance day, Our shadows rove the garden gravel still,

The living seem more shadowy than they.

Bid a strong ghost stand at the head That my Michael may sleep sound, Nor cry, nor turn in the bed Till his morning meal come round;

A shudder in the loins engenders there The broken wall, the burning roof and tower And Agamemnon dead. Being so caught up, So mastered by the brute blood of the air,

Did she put on his knowledge with his power Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

Your hooves have stamped at the black margin of the wood, Even where horrible green parrots call and swing. My works are all stamped down into the sultry mud. I knew that horse play, knew it for a murderous thing.

but now I bring full flavoured wine out of a barrel found Where seven Ephesian topers slept and never knew When Alexander’s empire passed, they slept so sound. Stretch out your limbs and sleep a long Saturnian sleep;

I have loved you better than my soul for all my words,

And there is none so fit to keep a watch and keep Unwearied eyes upon those horrible green birds.

I walk through the long schoolroom questioning, A kind old nun in a white hood replies; The children learn to cipher and to sing, To study reading-books and history, To cut and sew, be neat in everything In the best modern way—the children’s eyes

In momentary wonder stare upon A sixty year old smiling public man.

I dream of a Ledaean body, bent Above a sinking fire, a tale that she Told of a harsh reproof, or trivial event That changed some childish day to tragedy— Told, and it seemed that our two natures blent Into a sphere from youthful sympathy, …

Her present image floats in to the mind— Did quattrocento finger fashion it Hollow of cheek as though it drank the wind And took a mass of shadows for its meat? And I though never of Ledaean kind Had pretty plumage once—enough of that,

Better to smile on all that smile, and show There is a comfortable kind of old scarecrow.

What youthful mother, a shape upon her lap Honey of generation had betrayed, And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape As recollection or the drug decide, Would think her son, did she but see that shape With sixty or more winters on its head, …

… must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape As recollection or the drug decide, Would think her son, did she but see that shape With sixty or more winters on its head, A compensation for the pang of his birth, Or the uncertainty of his setting forth?

Plato thought nature but a spume that plays Upon a ghostly paradigm of things;

Solider Aristotle played the taws Upon the bottom of a king of kings; World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras Fingered upon a fiddle stick or strings What a star sang and careless Muses heard: Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.

Plato thought nature but a spume that plays Upon a ghostly paradigm of things; Solider Aristotle played the taws Upon the bottom of a king of kings; World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras Fingered upon a fiddle stick or strings What a star sang and careless Muses heard:

Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.

Both nuns and mothers worship images, But those the candles light are not as those That animate a mother’s reveries, But keep a marble or a bronze repose.

Solider Aristotle played the taws Upon the bottom of a king of kings; World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras Fingered upon a fiddle stick or strings What a star sang and careless Muses heard: Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.

Both nuns and mothers worship images,

But those the candles light are not as those That animate a mother’s reveries, But keep a marble or a bronze repose.

And yet they too break hearts—O Presences That passion, piety or affection knows, And that all heavenly glory symbolise—

O self-born mockers of man’s enterprise;

Labour is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul, Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?

And yet they too break hearts—O Presences That passion, piety or affection knows, And that all heavenly glory symbolise— O self-born mockers of man’s enterprise;

Labour is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul,

Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?

Labour is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul, Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.

O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?

O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance?

Labour is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul, Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?

O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance?

Come praise Colonus’ horses and come praise The wine dark of the wood’s intricacies, The nightingale that deafens daylight there, If daylight ever visit where, Unvisited by tempest or by sun, Immortal ladies tread the ground Dizzy with harmonious sound, Semele’s lad a gay companion.

O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance?

Come praise Colonus’ horses and come praise The wine dark of the wood’s intricacies,

The nightingale that deafens daylight there, If daylight ever visit where, Unvisited by tempest or by sun, Immortal ladies tread the ground Dizzy with harmonious sound, Semele’s lad a gay companion.

Who comes into this country, and has come Where golden crocus and narcissus bloom, Where the Great Mother, mourning for her daughter And beauty-drunken by the water Glittering among grey-leaved olive trees, Has plucked a flower and sung her loss;

Who finds abounding Cephisus Has found the loveliest spectacle there is.

Because this country has a pious mind And so remembers that when all mankind But trod the road, or paddled by the shore, Poseidon gave it bit and oar, Every Colonus lad or lass discourses Of that oar and of that bit;

Summer and winter, day and night, Of horses and horses of the sea, white horses.

I rage at my own image in the glass,

That’s so unlike myself that when you praise it It is as though you praised another, or even Mocked me with praise of my mere opposite;

And when I wake towards morn I dread myself For the heart cries that what deception wins Cruelty must keep; therefore be warned and go If you have seen that image and not the woman.

I have raged at my own strength because you have loved it.

If you are no more strength than I am beauty I had better find a convent and turn nun; A nun at least has all men’s reverence And needs no cruelty.

If you are no more strength than I am beauty I had better find a convent and turn nun;

A nun at least has all men’s reverence And needs no cruelty.

I have heard one say That men have reverence for their holiness And not themselves.

Say on and say

That only God has loved us for ourselves, But what care I that long for a man’s love?

The Fool by the Roadside

When cradle and spool are past And I mere shade at last Coagulate of stuff Transparent like the wind, I think that I may find A faithful love, a faithful love.

A strange thing surely that my heart when love had come unsought Upon the Norman upland or in that poplar shade, Should find no burden but itself and yet should be worn out.

It could not bear that burden and therefore it went mad.

A strange thing surely that my heart when love had come unsought Upon the Norman upland or in that poplar shade, Should find no burden but itself and yet should be worn out. It could not bear that burden and therefore it went mad.

The south wind brought it longing, and the east wind despair, The west wind made it pitiful, and the north wind afraid.

It feared to give its love a hurt with all the tempest there; It feared the hurt that she could give and therefore it went mad.

I can exchange opinion with any neighbouring mind, I have as healthy flesh and blood as any rhymer’s had, But oh my Heart could bear no more when the upland caught the wind;

I ran, I ran, from my love’s side because my Heart went mad.

The Heart behind its rib laughed out, “You have called me mad,” it said. “Because I made you turn away and run from that young child; How could she mate with fifty years that was so wildly bred?

The Heart behind its rib laughed out, “You have called me mad,” it said. “Because I made you turn away and run from that young child; How could she mate with fifty years that was so wildly bred?

Let the cage bird and the cage bird mate and the wild bird mate in the wild.

”

But since I laid a hand thereon And found a heart of stone I have attempted many things And not a thing is done,

For every hand is lunatic That travels on the moon.

She smiled and that transfigured me And left me but a lout, Maundering here, and maundering there, Emptier of thought Than heavenly circuit of its stars When the moon sails out.

But since I laid a hand thereon And found a heart of stone I have attempted many things And not a thing is done, For every hand is lunatic That travels on the moon.

She smiled and that transfigured me And left me but a lout,

Maundering here, and maundering there, Emptier of thought Than heavenly circuit of its stars When the moon sails out.

So like a bit of stone I lie Under a broken tree.

I could recover if I shrieked My heart’s agony To passing bird, but I am dumb From human dignity.

A mermaid found a swimming lad, Picked him for her own, Pressed her body to his body, Laughed; and plunging down Forgot in cruel happiness That even lovers drown.

So like a bit of stone I lie Under a broken tree. I could recover if I shrieked My heart’s agony To passing bird, but I am dumb From human dignity.

A mermaid found a swimming lad, Picked him for her own,

Pressed her body to his body, Laughed; and plunging down Forgot in cruel happiness That even lovers drown.

A mermaid found a swimming lad, Picked him for her own, Pressed her body to his body, Laughed; and plunging down

Forgot in cruel happiness That even lovers drown.

I have pointed out the yelling pack, The hare leap to the wood, And when I pass a compliment Rejoice as lover should At the drooping of an eye At the mantling of the blood.

The first of all the tribe lay there And did such pleasure take— She who had brought great Hector down And put all Troy to wreck— That she cried into this ear Strike me if I shriek.

Laughter not time destroyed my voice And put that crack in it,

And when the moon’s pot-bellied I get a laughing fit, For that old Madge comes down the lane A stone upon her breast, And a cloak wrapped about the stone, And she can get no rest With singing hush and hush-a-bye;

And Peter that had great affairs And was a pushing man Shrieks, “I am King of the Peacocks,” And perches on a stone; And then I laugh till tears run down And the heart thumps at my side,

Remembering that her shriek was love And that he shrieks from pride.

We sat under an old thorn-tree And talked away the night, Told all that had been said or done Since first we saw the light, And when we talked of growing up Knew that we’d halved a soul And fell the one in t’other’s arms …

We sat under an old thorn-tree And talked away the night, Told all that had been said or done Since first we saw the light,

And when we talked of growing up Knew that we’d halved a soul And fell the one in t’other’s arms That we might make it whole;

Then Peter had a murdering look For it seemed that he and she Had spoken of their childish days Under that very tree.

Then Peter had a murdering look For it seemed that he and she Had spoken of their childish days Under that very tree.

O what a bursting out there was, And what a blossoming, When we had all the summer time And she had all the spring.

I have old women’s secrets now That had those of the young; Madge tells me what I dared not think When my blood was strong, And what had drowned a lover once Sounds like an old song.

O what a bursting out there was, And what a blossoming, When we had all the summer time And she had all the spring.

I have old women’s secrets now That had those of the young;

Madge tells me what I dared not think When my blood was strong, And what had drowned a lover once Sounds like an old song.

I have old women’s secrets now That had those of the young; Madge tells me what I dared not think When my blood was strong,

And what had drowned a lover once Sounds like an old song.

Though Margery is stricken dumb If thrown in Madge’s way, We three make up a solitude; For none alive to-day Can know the stories that we know Or say the things we say:

Though Margery is stricken dumb If thrown in Madge’s way,

We three make up a solitude;

For none alive to-day Can know the stories that we know Or say the things we say:

Were I but there and none to hear I’d have a peacock cry For that is natural to a man That lives in memory,

Being all alone I’d nurse a stone And sing it lullaby.

They hold their public meetings where Our most renowned patriots stand, One among the birds of the air, A stumpier on either hand; And all the popular statesmen say That purity built up the state And after kept it from decay;

And all the popular statesmen say That purity built up the state And after kept it from decay; Admonish us to cling to that And let all base ambition be, For intellect would make us proud And pride bring in impurity:

The three old rascals laugh aloud.

Endure what life God gives and ask no longer span; Cease to remember the delights of youth, travel-wearied aged man; Delight becomes death-longing if all longing else be vain.

Admonish us to cling to that And let all base ambition be, For intellect would make us proud And pride bring in impurity: The three old rascals laugh aloud.

Endure what life God gives and ask no longer span;

Cease to remember the delights of youth, travel-wearied aged man; Delight becomes death-longing if all longing else be vain.

Endure what life God gives and ask no longer span; Cease to remember the delights of youth, travel-wearied aged man;

Delight becomes death-longing if all longing else be vain.

Even from that delight memory treasures so, Death, despair, division of families, all entanglements of mankind grow, As that old wandering beggar and these God-hated children know.

In the long echoing street the laughing dancers throng, The bride is carried to the bridegroom’s chamber through torchlight and tumultuous song;

I celebrate the silent kiss that ends short life or long.

Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say; Never to have drawn the breath of life, never to have looked into the eye of day; The second best’s a gay goodnight and quickly turn away.

In the long echoing street the laughing dancers throng, The bride is carried to the bridegroom’s chamber through torchlight and tumultuous song; I celebrate the silent kiss that ends short life or long.

Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say;

Never to have drawn the breath of life, never to have looked into the eye of day; The second best’s a gay goodnight and quickly turn away.

Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say; Never to have drawn the breath of life, never to have looked into the eye of day;

The second best’s a gay goodnight and quickly turn away.

Kusta ben Luka is my name, I write To Abd al-Rabban; fellow roysterer once, Now the good Caliph’s learned Treasurer, And for no ear but his.

“What matter if our souls Are nearer to the surface of the body Than souls that start no game and turn no rhyme!

The soul’s own youth and not the body’s youth Shows through our lineaments.

My candle’s bright, My lantern is too loyal not to show That it was made in your great father’s reign.”

You think that love has seasons, and you think That if the spring bear off what the spring gave The heart need suffer no defeat; but I Who have accepted the Byzantine faith, That seems unnatural to Arabian minds,

Think when I choose a bride I choose for ever;

And if her eye should not grow bright for mine Or brighten only for some younger eye, My heart could never turn from daily ruin, Nor find a remedy.”

It seems enough that I am there; and yet Old fellow student, whose most patient ear Heard all the anxiety of my passionate youth,

It seems I must buy knowledge with my peace.

What if she lose her ignorance and so Dream that I love her only for the voice, That every gift and every word of praise Is but a payment for that midnight voice That is to age what milk is to a child!

All those abstractions that you fancied were From the great treatise of Parmenides; All, all those gyres and cubes and midnight things Are but a new expression of her body Drunk with the bitter sweetness of her youth. And now my utmost mystery is out.

A woman’s beauty is a storm-tossed banner;

Under it wisdom stands, and I alone— Of all Arabia’s lovers I alone— Nor dazzled by the embroidery, nor lost In the confusion of its night-dark folds, Can hear the armed man speak.

A woman’s beauty is a storm-tossed banner; Under it wisdom stands, and I alone— Of all Arabia’s lovers I alone— Nor dazzled by the embroidery, nor lost In the confusion of its night-dark folds, Can hear the armed man speak.

Midnight has come and the great Christ Church Bell,

And may a lesser bell, sound through the room; And it is All Souls’ Night, And two long glasses brimmed with muscatel Bubble upon the table. A ghost may come;

Midnight has come and the great Christ Church Bell, And may a lesser bell, sound through the room; And it is All Souls’ Night, And two long glasses brimmed with muscatel Bubble upon the table.

A ghost may come; For it is a ghost’s right,

His element is so fine Being sharpened by his death, To drink from the wine-breath While our gross palates drink from the whole wine.

How it is whirled about, Wherever the orbit of the moon can reach, Until it plunge into the sun; And there, free and yet fast Being both Chance and Choice,

Forget its broken toys And sink into its own delight at last.

And I call up MacGregor from the grave, For in my first hard springtime we were friends, Although of late estranged. I thought him half a lunatic, half knave, And told him so, but friendship never ends;

And I call up MacGregor from the grave, For in my first hard springtime we were friends, Although of late estranged.

I thought him half a lunatic, half knave, And told him so, but friendship never ends;

And what if mind seem changed, And it seem changed with the mind, When thoughts rise up unbid On generous things that he did And I grow half contented to be blind.

He had much industry at setting out, Much boisterous courage, before loneliness Had driven him crazed;

For meditations upon unknown thought Make human intercourse grow less and less;

They are neither paid nor praised. But he’d object to the host, The glass because my glass; A ghost-lover he was And may have grown more arrogant being a ghost.

He had much industry at setting out, Much boisterous courage, before loneliness Had driven him crazed; For meditations upon unknown thought Make human intercourse grow less and less; They are neither paid nor praised. But he’d object to the host, The glass because my glass;

A ghost-lover he was And may have grown more arrogant being a ghost.

But names are nothing. What matter who it be, So that his elements have grown so fine The fume of muscatel Can give his sharpened palate ecstasy No living man can drink from the whole wine.

But names are nothing. What matter who it be, So that his elements have grown so fine The fume of muscatel Can give his sharpened palate ecstasy No living man can drink from the whole wine.

I have mummy truths to tell Whereat the living mock,

Though not for sober ear, For maybe all that hear Should laugh and weep an hour upon the clock.