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《Selected Poems of W. B. Yeats》


 When You Are Old

    <strong>When You Are Old</strong>

    When<footer></footer> you are old and grey and full of sleep,

    And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

    And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

    Your eyes had once, and of their s<tt></tt>hadows deep;

    How many loved <cite>99lib?</cite>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 ging face;

    And bending down beside the glowing bars,

    Murmur, a little sadly, how LovAnd paced upon the mountains overhead

    And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

 What Was Lost

    <strong>What Was Lost</strong>

    I SING what was lost and dread what was won,

    I walk in a battle fo<dfn></dfn>ught ain,

    My king a lost king, and los.. soldiers my men;

    Feet to t.99lｉb?he Rising and Se<big>?</big>tting may run,

    They always beat on the same<dfn></dfn> small stone.

 The Two Trees

    BELOVED, gaze in thine ow,

    The holy tree is growing there;

    From joy the holy braart,

    And all the trembling flowers they bear.

    The ging colours oof tender care:

    Beloved, gaze in thine ow.

    Gaze no more iter 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 blaed leaves.

    For ill 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 uing thought;

    Flying, g, to and fro,

    Cruel claw and hungry throat,

    Or else they stand and sniff the wind,

    And shake their ragged wings; alas!

    Thy tender eyes grow all unkind:

    Gaze no more iter glass.

 Towards Break Of Day

    <strong>Towards Break Of Day</strong>></a>

    WAS it the double of my dream

    The woman that by me lay

    Dreamed, or did we halve a dream

    Uhe first cold gleam of <cite>..</cite>day?

    I thought: &quot;There is a waterfall

    Upon Ben Bulben side

    That all my childhood ted dear;

    Were I to travel far and wide

    I could not find a thing so dear.

    My memories had magnified

    So many times child<s></s>ish delight.

    I would have touched it like a child

    But knew my finger could but have touched

    Cold stone and water. I grew wild.

    Even acg 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 m<mark>?9９liｂ?</mark>y nostril.

    But she that beside me lay

    Had watched in bitterer sleep

    The marvellous stag of Arthur,

    That lofty white stag, leap

    From mountain ste<bdi></bdi>ep to steep.

 To The Rose Upon The Rood Of Time

    <strong>To The Rose Upon The Rood Of Time</strong>

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

    e near me, while I sing the a ways:

    Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide;

    The Druid, grey, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed,

    Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin unt?９9lｉb?old;

    And thine own sadness, where of stars, grown old

    In dang silver-sandalled on the sea,

    Sing in their high and lonely melody.

    e near, that no more blinded hy mans fate,

    I find uhe boughs of love and hate,

    In all poor foolish things that live <u>..</u>a day,

    Eternal beauty wandering on her way.

    e n99lｉb.ear, e near, e near - Ah, leave me still

    A little space for the rose-breath to fill!

    Lest I no more bear on things that crave;

    The weak worm hiding down in its small cave,

    The field-mouse running by me in the grass,

    And heavy mo<tt>..t>rtal hopes that toil and pass;

    But seek aloo hear the strahings said

    By God to the bright hearts of those long dead,

    And learn to >藏书网</a>t a tongue men do not know.

    e near; I would, before my time to go,

    Sing of old Eire and the a ways:

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

 To A Young Girl

    <strong>To A Young Girl<samp>藏书网</samp>

    MY dear, my dear></a>, I know

    More than another

    What makes your heart beat s<var></var>o;

    Not even your own mother

    <big>藏书网</big>know it as I know,

    Who broke my heart<q></q> for her

    When the wild thought,

    That she denies

    And has fot,

    Set all her blood astir

    And glittered in her eyes.

 To A Young Beauty

    <strong>To A Youy</strong>

    DEAR fellow-artist, why so free

    Wit９９lｉb?h every sort of pany,

    With every Jad Jill?

    Choose your panions from the best;

    Who draws a bucket with the rest

    Soon topples down the hill.

    You may, that mirror for a school,

    Be pbbr></abbr>assionate, not bountiful

    As oies may,

    Who were not born to keep in trim

    <u></u>With old Ezekiels cherubim

    But those of Beauvarlet.

    I know what wages beauty gives,

    How hard a life her setvant ..lives,

    Yet praise the winters gone:

    There is not a fool  call me friend,

    And I may di journeys end

    With Landor and with Donne.

 The Wisdom Of The King

    <strong>The Wisdom Of The King</strong>

    THE High-Queen of the Island of

    Woods had died in child-birth, and her

    child ut to nurse, with a woman who

    lived in a hut of mud and wicker, within

    the border of the wood. One night the

    woman sat rog the cradle, and p

    over the beauty of the child, and praying

    that the gods might grant him wisdom

    equal to his beauty. There came a knock

    at the door, and she got up, not a little

    w, for the  neighbours were

    in the dun of the High-King a mile away;

    and the night was now late. Who is

    knog? she cried, and a thin voice

    answered, ` Open! for I am a e of the

    grey hawk, and I e from the darkness

    of the great wood. In terror she drew

    back the bolt, and a grey-clad woman, of

    a great age, and of a height more than

    human, came in and stood by the head of

    the cradle. The nurse shrank back against

    the wall, uo take her eyes from the

    woman, for she saw by the gleaming of the

    firelight that the feathers of the grey hawk

    were upon her head instead of hair. But

    the child slept, and the fire danced, for the

    one was too ignorant and the other too full

    of gaiety to know what a dreadful being

    stood there.  Open !  cried another voice,

    ~ for I am a e of the grey hawk, and I

    watch over his ncst in the darkness of the

    great wood. The nurse opehe door

    again, though her fingers could scarce hold

    the bolts for trembling, and anrey

    woman, not less old thaher, and

    with like feathers instead of hair, came in

    and stood by the first. In a little, came a

    third grey woman, and after her a fourth,

    and then another and another and another,

    until the hut was full of their immense

    forms. They stood a long time in

    perfect silend stillness, for they were

    of those whom the dropping of the sand

    has roubled, but at last otered

    in a low thin voice:  Sisters, I knew him

    far away by the redness of his heart under

    his silver skin; and then another spoke:

    Sisters, I knew him because his heart

    fluttered like a bird under a  of silver

    cords; and then aook up the

    word:  Sisters, I knew him because his

    heart sang like a bird that had fotten

    the silver cords. And after that they Bang

    together, those who wearest rog

    the cradle with long wrinkled fingers; and

    their voices were now tender and caressing,

    now like the wind blowing in the

    great wood, and this was their song:

    Out of sight is out of mind:

    Long have man and woman-kind

    Heavy of will and light of mood,

    Taken away our wheaten food,

    Taken away our Altar stone;

    Hail and rain and thunder alone,

    And red hearts we turn to grey,

    Are true till Time gutter away.

    When the song had died out, the e

    who had first spoken, said, ~ Nothing now

    remains but that a drop of our blood be

    mixed into his blood. And she Scratched

    her arm with the sharp point of a spindle,

    which she had made the nurse bring to

    her, a a drop of blood, grey as the

    mist, fall upon the lips of the child; and

    passed out into the darkness. Then the

    others passed out in silene by one;

    and all the while the child had not opened

    his pink eyelids or the firc ceascd to dance,

    for the one was too ignorant, and the other

    too full of gaiety to know how great the

    beings were that had bent over a cradle.

    When the es were gohe nurse

    came to her ce again, and hurried to

    the dun of the High-King, and cried out

    in the midst of the assembly hall that the

    Shee, whether food or evil she knew

    not, had bent over the child that night;

    and the king and his poets and men of law,

    and his hunts men, and his cook, and his

    chief warriors went with her to the hut and

    gathered about the cradle, and were as

    noisy as magpies, and the child sat up and

    looked at them.

    Two years passed over, and the king

    died fighting against the People of the Bag;

    and the poets and the men of law ruled in

    the name of the <var></var>Child, but looked to see

    him bee the master himself before

    long, for no one had seen so wise a

    child, and tales of his endless questions

    about the household of the gods and the

    making of the world went hither and

    thither among the wicl;er houses of the

    poor. I~vcrythillg had be well, but

    for a miracle that began to trouble all

    men; and all women, who, ialked

    of it without ceasing. The feathers of the

    grey hawk had begun to grow in the childs

    hair, and though his  them -

    tinually, it needed but a little while and

    they were more numerous thahis

    had not been a matter of great moment,

    for miracles were a little thing in those

    days, but for an a law of Eri that

    none who had any blemish of body could

    sit upohrone; and as a grey hawk

    was a wild thing of the air which had

    never sat at the board, or listeo the

    songs of the poets in the light of the fire,

    it was not possible to think of one in whose

    hair its feathers grew as other than marred

    and blaste<u>藏书网</u>d; nor could the people separate

    from their admiration of the wisdom that

    grew in him a horror as at one of unhuman

    blood. Yet all were resolved that he

    should reign, for they had suffered much

    from foolish kings and their own disorders,

    and moreover they desired to watch out

    the spectacle of his days; and no one had

    any other fear but that his great wisdom

    might bid him obey the law, and call Eocha

    of the Plain of Towers, who had but a

    ind, tn in his stead.

    When the child was seven years old

    the poets and the men of law were called

    together by the chief poet, and all these

    matters weighed and sidered. The

    child had already seen that those about

    him had hair only, and, though they had

    told him that they too had had feathers

    but had lost them because of a sin -

    mitted by their forefathers, they khat

    he would learruth when he began

    to wander into the try round about.

    After much sideration they decreed a

    new law anding every one upon pain

    of death to mingle by a subtlety of art the

    feathers of the grey hawk into his hair;

    and they sent men with s and slings,

    for as yet the bow was not ied, into

    the tries round about to gather a suf-

    ficy of feathers. They decreed also

    that any who told the truth to the child

    should be flung from a cliff into the sea.

    The years passed, and the child grew

    from childhood into boyhood and from

    boyhood into manhood, and from being

    curious about all things he became busy

    with strange and subtle thoughts which

    came to him in dreams, and with dis-

    tins between things lohe

    same and with the resemblance of things

    long held different. Multitudes came from

    other lands to sec him and to ask his

    sel~ but there were guards set at the

    frontiers~ who pelled all that came,

    to wear the feathers of the grey hawk

    in their hair. While they listeo him

    his words seemed to make all darkness

    light and filled their hearts like music;

    but, alas, when they returo their own

    lands his words seemed far off, and what

    they could remember toe and

    subtle to help thcm to live out their hasty

    days. A number indeed did live differ-

    ently afterwards, but their new life was

    less excellent than the old: some among

    them had long served a good cause, but

    when they heard him praise it and their

    labour, they returo their own lands

    to find what they had loved less lovable

    and their arm lighter itle, for

    he had taught them how little a hair

    divides the false and true; ain,

    who had served no cause, but wrought in

    peace the welfare of their own households,

    when he had expouhe meaning of

    their purpose found their bones softer and

    their will less ready for toil, for he had

    shown them greater purposes; and numbers

    of the young, when they had heard him

    upon all these things, remembered certain

    words that became like a fire in their

    hearts, and made all kindly joys and traffic

    between man and man as nothing, a

    different ways, but all into vague regret.

    When any asked him ing the

    on things of life; disputes about the

    mear of a territory, or about the straying

    of cattle, or about the palty of blood;

    he would turn to those  him for

    advice; but this was held to be from

    courtesy, for none khat these matters

    were hidden from him, by thoughts and

    dreams that filled his mind like the

    marg and ter-marg of armies.

    Far less could any know that his heart

    wandered lost amid throngs of<cite></cite> overing

    thoughts and dreams, shuddering at its

    own ing solitude.

    among those who came to look at him

    and to listen to him was the daughter of a

    little king who lived a great way off; and

    when he saw her he loved, for shc was

    beautiful~ with a strange and pale beauty

    uhe women of his land; but Dana,

    the great mother, had decreed her a heart

    that was b<bdo></bdo>ut as the heart of others, and

    when she sidered the mystery of the

    hawk feathers she was troubled with a

    great horror. He called her to him when

    the assembly was over and told her of

    her beauty, and praised her simply and

    frankly as though she were a fablc of the

    bards; and he asked her humbly to give

    him her love, for he was only subtle in his

    dreams. Overwhelmed with his greatness,

    she half sented, a half refused,

    for she loo marry some warrior who

    could carry her over a mountain in his

    arms. Day by day the king gave her

    gifts; cups with ears of gold and find-

    rinny wrought by the craftsmen of distant

    lands; cloth from over sea, which, though

    woven with curious figures, seemed to her

    less beautiful than the bright cloth woven

    in the Island of Woods; and still she was

    ever between a smile and a frowween

    yielding and withholding. He laid down

    his wisdom at her feet, and told how the

    heroes when they die return to the world

    and begin their labour anew; how the

    kind and mirthful Children of Dana drove

    out the huge and gloomy and misshapen

    People from uhe Sea; and how the

    great Moods arc alonc immortal, and the;

    creators of mortal things; and how every

    Mood is a being that wcars, to mortal eyes,

    the shape of Fair-brows, who dwells, as a

    salmon, in the floods; or of the Dagda,

    whose cauldron is never empty; or of Lir,

    whose children wail upoers; or

    of Angus, whose kisses were ged into

    birds; or of Len, the goldsmith, from

    whose furnace break rainbows and fiery

    dew; or of some other of the children of

    ~)ana: and still she half refused, and still

    he hoped, for he could not believe that a

    beauty so much like wisdom could hide a

    o.

    ~ There was a tall young man in the

    dun who had yellow hair, and was skilled

    iling and iraining of horses;

    and one day when the king walked in

    the orchard, which was between the foss

    and the forest, he heard his voice among

    the salley bushes which hid the waters

    of the foss. ~ My blossom, it said,  I

    hate them for making you weave these

    dingy feathers into your beautiful hair, and

    all that the bird of prey upohrone

    may sleep easy o nights; and then the

    low, musical voice he loved answered:

    My hair is not beautiful like yours; and

    now that I have plucked away the feathers

    I will put my hands through it, thus, and

    thus, and thus; for it casts no shadow of

    terror and darkness upon my heart. Then

    the king remembered many things that

    he had fotten without uanding

    them, doubtful words of his poets and his

    men of law, doubts that he had reasoned

    away, his own tinual solitude; and he

    called the lovers to him in a trembling

    voice. They came from among the salley

    bushes and threw themselves at his feet

    and prayed for pardon, aooped

    dolucked the feathers out of the

    hair of the woman and then turned away

    towards the dun without a word. He

    strode into the hall of assembly, and

    having gathered his poets and his men

    of law about him, stood upon the dais

    and spoke in a loud, clear voice:  Men

    of law, why did you make me sin against

    the laws of Eri ? Men of verse, why did

    you make me sin against the sccrecy

    of wisdom, for law was made by man

    for the welfare of man, but wisdom the

    gods have made, and no man shall live by

    its light, for it and the hail and the rain

    and the thunder follow a way that is deadly

    to mortal things. Men of law and men of

    verse, live acc to your kind, and call

    Eocha of the Plain of Towers tn

    over you, for I set out to find my kindred.

    He then came down among them, and

    drew out of the hair of first one and then

    ahe feathers of the grey hawk,

    and, having scattered them over the rushes

    upon the floor, passed out, and none dared

    to follow him, for his eyes gleamed like

    the eyes of the birds of prey; and no man

    saw him again or heard his voice. Some

    believed that he found his eternal abode

    among the demons, and some that he dwelt

    heh with the dark and dreadful god-

    desses, who sit all night about the pools

    in the forest watg the stellations

    rising aing in those desolate

    mirrors.

 The Wild Swans At Coole

    The Wild Swans At Coole

    <strong>The Wild Swans At Coole</strong><mark></mark>

    THE trees are in their autumy,

    The woodland paths are dry,

    Uhe October twilight the water

    Mirrors a still sky;

    Upon the brimming water among the stones

    Are nine-and-fifty Swans.

    The eenth autumn has e upon me

    Since I first made my t;

    I saw, before I had well finished,

    All suddenly mount

    And scatter wheeling i broken rings

    Upon their clamorou<mark></mark>s wings.

    I hav<bdo>藏书网</bdo>e looked upon those brilliant creatures,

    And now my heart is so>?</a>re.

    Alls ged 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

    panioreams or climb the air;

    Their hearts have not grown old;

    Passion or quest, wander where they will,

    Attend upoill.

    But now they drift oill water,

    Mysterious, beautiful;

    Among what rushes will they build,

    By what lakes edge or pool

    Delight mens eyes when I awake some day

    To find they have flown away?

 The Wheel

    <strong>The Wheel</strong>

    THROUGH ?99lｉｂ?er-time we call on spring,

    And through the spring on summer call,

    And when abounding h<bdo>99ｌｉb.</bdo>edges ring

    Declare that winters best of all;

    藏书网And after that there s nothing good

    Because the spring-time has not e -

    Nor know that what disturbs our blood

    Is but its lon<mark></mark>ging for the tomb.

 The Two Trees

    <strong>The Two Trees</strong>

    BELOVED, gaze in thine ow,

    The holy tree is growing there;

    From joy the holy braart,

    And all the trembling flowers they bear.

    The ging colours of its fruit

    Have dowered the stars with metry light;

    The surety of its hidden root

    Has planted quiet in the night;

    The shaking of its leafy head

    Has given the waves their melody,

    And made my lips and music wed,

    Murmuring a wizard song for thee.

    There the Joves a circle go,

    The flaming circle of our days,

    Gyring, spiring to and fro

    In those great ignorant leafy ways;

    Remembering all that shaken hair

    And how the winged sandals dart,

    Thin<bdi>藏书网</bdi>e eyes grow full of tender care:

    Beloved, gaze in thine ow.

    Gaze no more iter 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 blaed leaves.

    For ill things turn to barrenness

    In the dim glass the demons hold,

    The glass of outer we?9９ｌｉb.ariness,

    Made when God slept in times of old.

    There, through the broken branches, go

    The ravens of uing thought;

    Flying, g, to and fro,

    Cruel claw and hungry throat,

    Or else they stand and s<samp>.９9lｉｂ.</samp>niff the wind,

    And shake their ragged wings; alas!

    Thy tender eyes grow all unkind:

    Gaze no more iter glass>.9９liｂ.</a>.

 The Tower

    <strong>The Tower</strong>

    I

    WHAT shall I do with this absurdity -

    O heart, O troubled heart - this caricature,

    Decrepit age that has beeo me

    As to a dogs 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 Bulbens back

    And had the livelong summer day to spend.

    It seems that I must bid the Muse go pack,

    Choose Plato and Plotin<mark>.</mark>us for a friend

    Until imagination, ear and eye,

    be tent with argument and deal

    In abstract things; or be derided by

    A sort of battered kettle at the heel.

    II

    I pace upotlements and stare

    On the foundations of a house, or where

    Tree, like a sooty finger, starts from the earth;

    And send imagination forth

    Uhe days deing beam, and call

    Images and memories

    From ruin or from arees,

    For I would ask a question of them all.

    Beyond that ridge lived Mrs. French, and once

    When every silver dlestick or sce

    Lit up the dark mahogany and the wine.

    A serving-man, that could divine

    That most respected ladys every wish,

    Ran and with the garden shears

    Clipped an i farmers e<big></big>ars

    And brought them in a little covered dish.

    Some few remembered still when I was young

    A peasant girl c<mark>藏书网</mark>ommended by a Song,

    Whod lived somewhe<dfn>藏书网</dfn>re 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 at the fair

    So great a glory did the song fer.

    Aain men, being maddened by those rhymes,

    Or else by toasting her a score of times,

    Rose from the table and declared it right

    To test their fancy by their sight;

    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 e.

    Strange, but the man who made the song was blind;

    Yet, now I have sidered it, I find

    That nothing strahe tragedy began

    With Homer that was a blind man,

    And Helen has all livis betrayed.

    O may the moon and sunlight seem

    One iricable 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 neighb cottages.

    Caught by an old mans juggleries

    He stumbled, tumbled, fumbled to and fro

    And had but broken knees for hire

    And horrible splendour of desire;

    I thought it all out twenty years ago:

    Good fellows shuffled cards in an old bawn;

    And when that a ruffians turn was on

    He so bewitched the cards under his thumb

    That all but the one card became

    A pack of hounds and not a pack of cards,

    And that he ged into a hare.

    Hanrahan rose in frenzy there

    And followed up those baying creatures towards -

    O towards I have fotten what - enough!

    I must recall a man that her love

    Nor musior an enemys clipped ear

    Could, he was so harried, cheer;

    A figure that has grown so fabulous

    Theres not a neighbour left to say

    When he finished his dogs day:

    An a bankrupt master of this house.

    Before that ruin came, for turies,

    Rough men-at-arms, cross-gartered to the knees

    Or shod in iron, climbed the narrow stairs,

    Aai-arms there were

    Whose images, in the Great Memory stored,

    e with loud cry and panting breast

    To break upon a sleepers rest

    While their great wooden dice beat on the board.

    As I would question all, e all who ;

    e old, ous. half-mounted man;

    And briys blind rambling celebrant;

    The red man the juggler sent

    Through God-forsaken meadows; Mrs. French,

    Gifted with so fine an ear;

    The man drowned in a bogs mire,

    When mog Muses chose the try wench.

    Did all old men and women, rid poor,

    Who trod upon these rocks or passed this door,

    Whether in public or i rage

    As I do now against old age?

    But I have found an answer in those eyes

    That are impatient to be gone;

    Go therefore; but leave Hanrahan,

    For I need all his mighty memories.

    Old lecher with a love on every wind,

    Bring up out of that deep sidering mind

    All that you have discovered in the grave,

    For it is certain that you have

    Reed up every unforeknown, unseeing

    plunge, lured by a softening eye,

    Or by a touch or a sigh,

    Into the labyrinth of anothers being;

    Does the imaginatiohe 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 sce;

    And that if memory recur, the suns

    Under eclipse and the day blotted out.

    III

    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; I declare

    They shall i my pride,

    The pride of people that were

    Bouher to Cause nor to State.

    her to slaves that were spat on,

    Nor to the tyrants that spat,

    The people of Burke and of Grattan

    That gave, though free to refuse -

    pride, like that of the morn,

    When the headlong light is loose,

    Or that of the fabulous horn,

    Or that of the sudden shower

    When all streams are dry,

    Or that of the hour

    When the swan must fix his eye

    Upon a fading gleam,

    Float out upon a long

    Last reach of glittering stream

    And there sing his last song.

    And I declare my faith:

    I mock plotinus thought

    And cry in platos teeth,

    Death and life were not

    Till man made up the whole,

    Made lock, stod barrel

    Out of his bitter soul,

    Aye, sun and moon and star, all,

    And further add to that

    That, being dead, we rise,

    Dream and so create

    Translunar paradise.

    I have prepared my peace

    With learalian things

    And the proud stones of Greece,

    Poets imaginings

    And memories of love,

    Memories of the words of women,

    All those things whereof

    Man makes a superhuman,

    Mirror-resembling dream.

    As at the loophole there

    The daws chatter and scream,

    And drop twigs layer upon layer.

    When they have mounted up,

    The mother bird will rest

    On their hollow top,

    And so warm her wild .

    I leave both faith and pride

    To young upstanding men

    Climbing the mountain-side,

    That under bursting dawn

    They may drop a fly;

    Being of that metal made

    Till it was broken by

    This sedentary trade.

    Now shall I make my soul,

    pelling it to study

    In a learned school

    Till the wreck of body,

    Slow decay of blood,

    Testy delirium

    Or dull decrepitude,

    Or what worse evil e -

    The death of friends, or death

    Of every brilliant eye

    That made a cat the breath - .

    Seem but the clouds of the sky

    When the horizon fades;

    Or a birds sleepy cry

    Among the deepening shades.

 The Three Beggars

    <strong>The Three Beggars</strong>

    &quot;Though to my feathers i,

    I have stood here from break of day.

    I have not found a thing to eat,

    For only rubbish es my way.

    Am I to live on lebeen-lone?

    Muttered the old e of Gort.

    &quot;For all my pains on lebeen-lone?

    King Guaire walked am<s>藏书网</s>id his court

    The palace-yard and river-side

    And there to three old beggars said,

    &quot;Yo藏书网u that have wandered far and wide

    ravel out whats in my head.

    Do men who least desire get most,

    et the most who most desire?

    A beggar said, &quot;They get the most

    Whom man or devil ot tire,

    And what could make their muscles taut

    Unless desire had made them so?

    But Guaire laughed with secret thought,

    &quot;If that be true as it seems true,

    One of you three i.９９lｉｂ?s a rich man,

    For he shall have a thousand pounds

    Who is first asleep, if but he

    Sleep before the third noon sounds.&quot;

    <u></u>And thereon, merry as a bird

    With his old thoughts, King Guaire went

    From river-side and palace-yard

    Ahem to their argument.

    &quot;And if I win, one beggar said,

    Though I am old I shall persuade

    A pretty girl to share my bed;

    The sed: &quot;I shall learn a trade;

    The third: &quot;Ill hurry to the course

    Among the entlemen,

    And lay it all upon a horse;

    The sed: &quot;I have thought again:

    A farmer has more dignity.

    Oo anhed and cried:

    The exorbitant dreams of beggary.

    That idleness <tt></tt>had boro pride,

    Sang through their teeth from noon to noon;

    And when the sd twilight brought

    The frenzy of the beggars moon

    None closed his blood-shot eyes but sought

    To keep his fellows from their sleep;

    All shouted till their anger grew

    And they were whirling in a heap.

    They mauled and bit the whole night through;

    They mauled and bit till the day shone;

    They mauled and bit through all that day

    And till anht had gone,

    Or if they made a moments stay

    They sat upon their heels to rail,,

    And when old Guaire came and stood

    Before the three to end this tale,

    They were ingling lid blood

    &quot;Times up, he cried, and all the three

    With blood-shot eyes upon him stared.

    &quot;Times up, he eried, and all the three

    Fell down upon the dust and snored.

    `Maybe I shall be lucky yet,

    Now they are silent, said the e.

    `Though to my feathers i

    Ive stood as I were made of stone

    Ahe rubbish run about,

    Its certain there are trout somewhere

    And maybe I shall take a trout

    but I do not seem to care.

 The Stolen Child

    <strong>The Stolen Child</strong>

    WHERE dips the rocky highland

    Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,

    There lies a leafy island

    Where flapping herons wake

    The drowsy water ..s;

    There weve hid our faery vats,

    Full of berrys

    And of reddest stolen cherries.

    e away, O human child!

    To the waters and the wild

    With a faery, hand in hand,

    For the worlds more full of weeping than you  uand.

    Where the wave of moonlight glosses

    The dim gray sands with light,

    Far off by furthest Rosses

    We foot it all the night,

    Weaving olden dances

    Mingling hands and mingli..ng glances

    Till the moon has taken flight;

    To and fro we leap

    And chase the frothy bubbles,

    While the world is full of troubles

    And anxious in its sleep.

    e away, O human child!

    To the <cite></cite>waters and the wild

    With a faery, hand in hand,

    For the worlds more full of weeping than you  uand.

    Where the wandering water gushes

    From the hills above Glen-Car,

    In pools among the rushes

    That scare could bathe a star,

    We seek for slumbering trout

    And whispering in their ears

    Give them u dreams;

    Leaning softly out

    From ferns that drop their tears

    Over the young streams.

    e away, O human child!

    To the waters and the wild

    With a faery, hand in hand,

    For the worlds more full of weeping than you  uand.

    Away with us hes going,

    The solemn-eyed:

    Hell hear no more the lowing

    Of the calves on the warm hillside

    Or the kettle on the hob

    Sing peato his<mark>藏书网</mark> breast,

    Or see the brown mice bob

    Round and round the oatmeal chest.

    For he es, the human child,

    To the waters and the wild

    With a faery, hand in hand,

    For the worlds more full of weeping than he  uand.

 The Song of the Happy Shepherd

    <strong>The Song of the Happy Shepherd</strong><u>?99lｉｂ.</u>

    THE woods of Arcady are dead,

    And over is their antique joy;

    Of old the world on dreaming fed;

    Grey Truth is now her paioy;

    Yet still she turns her restless head:

    But O, sick children of the world,

    Of all the many ging things

    In dreary dang past us whirled,

    To the <q>?</q>cracked tuhat os sings,

    Words alone are certain good.

    Where are now the warring kings,

    Word be-mockers? - By the Rood,

    Where are now the watring kings?

    An idle word is now their glory,

    By the stammering schoolboy said,

    Reading some entaory:

    The kings of the old time are dead;

    The wanderih herself may be

    Only a sudden flaming word,

    In ging space a moment heard,

    Troubling the endless reverie.

    Then nowise worship dusty deeds,

    Nor seek, for this is also sooth,

    To hunger fiercely after truth,

    Lest all thy toiling only breeds

    New dreams, new dreams; there is no truth

    Saving in thine ow. Seek, then,

    No learning fro<samp>.９9ｌiｂ?</samp>m the starry men,

    Who follow with the optic glass

    The whirling ways of stars that pass -

    Seek, then, for this is also sooth,

    No word of theirs - the cold star-bane

    Has cloven aheir hearts in twain,

    And dead is all their human truth.

    Go gat<s></s>her by the humming sea

    Some twisted, echo-harb shell.

    And to its lips thy story tell,

    And they thy forters will be.

    Rew in melodious guile

    Thy fretful words a little while,

    Till they shall singing fade in ruth

    And die a pearly brotherhood;

    For words alone are certain good:

    Sing, then, for this <u></u>is also sooth.

    I must be gohere is a grave

    Where daffodil and lily wave,

    And I would please the hapless faun,

    Buried uhe sleepy ground,

    With mirthful songs before the dawn.

    His shouting days with mirth were ed;

    And still I dream he treads the lawn,

    Walking ghostly in the dew,

    Pierced by my glad singing through,

    My songs of old earths dreamy youth:

    But ah! she dreams not now; dream thou!

    For fair are poppies on the brow:

    Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.

 The Shadowy Waters

    <strong>The Shadowy Waters</strong>

    A Dramati

    The deck of an a ship. At the right of the stage is the mast,

    with a large square sail hiding a great deal of the sky and sea

    on that side. The tiller is at the left of the stage; it is a long oar

    ing through an opening in the bulwark. The deck rises in a

    series of steps hehind the tiller, and the stern of the ship curves

    overhead. When the play opens there are four persons upon the

    deck. Aibric stands by the tiller. Fael sleeps upon the raised

    portion of the deck towards the front of the stage. Two Sailors

    are standio the mast, on which a harp is hanging.

    First Sailor. Has he not led us into these waste seas

    For long enough?

    Sed Sailor. Aye, long and long enough.

    First Sailor. We have not e upon a shore or ship

    These dozen weeks.

    Sd Sailor. And I had thought to make

    A good round Sum upon this cruise, and turn -

    For I am getting on in life - to something

    That has less ups and downs than robbery.

    First Sailor. I am so tired of being bachelor

    I could give all my heart to that Red Moll

    That had but the one eye.

    Sed Sailor. o bewitt

    Transform these rascal billows into women

    That I may drown myself?

    First Sailor. Better steer home,

    Whether he will or no; aer still

    To take him while he sleeps and carry him

    And drop him from the gunnel.

    Sed Sailor. I dare not do it.

    Weret not that there is magi his harp,

    I would be of your mind; but when he plays it

    Strange creatures flutter up before ones eyes,

    Or cry about ones ears.

    First Sailor. Nothing to fear.

    Sed Sailor. Do you remember when we sank that

    galley

    At the full moon?

    First Sailor. He played all through the night.

    Sed Sailor. Until the moon had set; and when I looked

    Where the dead drifted, I could see a bird

    Like a grey gull upon the breast of each.

    While I was looking they rose hurriedly,

    And after cirg with strange cries awhile

    Fleard; and many a time sihen

    Ive heard a rustling overhead in the wind.

    First Sailor. I saw them on that night as well as you.

    But when I had eaten and drunk myself asleep

    My ce came again.

    Sed Sailor. But thats not all.

    The ht, while he laying it,

    A beautiful young man and girl came up

    In a white breaking wave; they had the look

    Of those that are alive for ever and ever.

    First Sailor. I saw them, too, one night. Fael was

    playing,

    And they were listening ther&amp; beyond the sail.

    He could not see them, but I held out my hands

    To grasp the woman.

    Sed Sailor. You have dared to touch her?

    First Sailor. O she was but a shadow, and slipped from

    me.

    Sed Sailor. But were you not afraid?

    First Sailor. Why should I fear?

    Sed Sailor. &quot;Twas Aengus and Edain, the wandering

    lovers,

    To whom all lovers pray.

    First Sailor. But what of that?

    A shadow does not carry sword or spear.

    Sed Sailor. My mother told me that there is not one

    Of the Ever-living half so dangerous

    As that wild Aengus. Long before her day

    He carried Edain off from a kings house,

    And hid her among fruits of jewel-stone

    And in a tower of glass, and from that day

    Has hated every man thats not in love,

    And has been dangerous to him.

    First Sailor. I have heard

    He does not hate seafarers as he hates

    Peaceable men that shut the wind away,

    Ao the one weary marriage-bed.

    Sed Sailor. I think that he has Fael in his ,

    And drags him through the sea,

    First Sailor Well,  or none,

    Id drown him while we have the ce to do it.

    Sed Sailor. Its certain Id sleep easier o nights

    If he were dead; but who will be our captain,

    Judge of the stars, and find a course for us?

    First Sailor. Ive thought of that. We must have Aibric

    with us,

    For he  judge the stars as well as Fael.

    [Going towards Aibric.]

    Bee our captain, Aibric. I am resolved

    To make an end of Fael while he sleeps.

    Theres not a man but will be glad of it

    When it is over, nor oo grumble at us.

    Aibric. You have taken pay and made your bargain for it.

    First Sailor. What good is there in this hard way of

    living,

    Unless we drain more flagons in a year

    And kiss more lips than lasting peaceable men

    In their long lives? Will you be of our troop

    And take the captains share of everything

    And bring us into populous seas again?

    Aibric. Be of your troop! Aibric be one of you

    And Fael iher scale! kill Fael,

    And he my master from my childhood up!

    If you will draw that sword out of its scabbard

    Ill give my answer.

    First Sailor. You have awakened him.

    [To Sed Sailor.]

    Wed better go, for we have lost this ce.

    [They go out.]

    Fael. Have the birds passed us? I could hear your

    voice,

    But there were others.

    Aibric. I have seen nothing pass.

    Fael. Youre certain of it? I never wake from sleep

    But that I am afraid they may have passed,

    For theyre my only pilots. If I lost them

    Straying too far into the north or south,

    Id never e upon the happiness

    That has been promised me. I have not seen them

    These many days; ahere must be many

    Dying at every moment in the world,

    And flying towards their peace.

    Aibric. Put by these thoughts,

    And listen to me for a while. The sailors

    Are plotting for your death.

    Fael. Have I not given

    More riches than they ever hoped to find?

    And now they will not follow, while I seek

    The only riches that have hit my fancy.

    Aibric. What riches  you find in this waste sea

    Where no ship sails, where nothing thats alive

    Has ever e but those man-headed birds.,

    Knowing it for the worlds end?

    Fael. Where the world ends

    The mind is made unging, for it finds

    Miracle, ecstasy, the impossible hope,

    The flagstone under all, the fire of fires,

    The roots of the world.

    Aibric. Shadows before now

    Have driven travellers mad for their own sport.

    Fael. Do you, too, doubt me? Have you joiheir

    plot?

    Aibrio, no, do not say that. You knht well

    That I will never lift a hand against you.

    Fael. Why should you be more faithful than the rest,

    Being as doubtful?

    Aibric. I have called you master

    Too many years to lift a hand against you.

    Fael. Maybe it is but natural to doubt me.

    Youve never known, Id lay a wager on it,

    A melancholy that a cup of wine,

    A lucky battle, or a womans kiss

    Could not amend.

    Aibric. I have good spirits enough.

    Fael. If you will give me all your mind awhile -

    All, all, the very bottom of the bowl -

    Ill show you that I am made differently,

    That nothing  amend it but these waters,

    Where I am rid of life - the events of the world -

    What do you call it? - that old promise-breaker,

    The ing fortueller that es whispering,

    &quot;You will have all you have wished for when you have

    earned

    Land for your children or money in a pot.-

    And when we have it we are no happier,

    Because of that old draught uhe door,

    Or creaky shoes. And at the end of all

    How are we better off than Seaghan the fool,

    That never did a hands turn? Aibric! Aibric!

    We have fallen in the dreams the Ever-living

    Breathe on the burnished mirror of the world

    And then smooth out with ivory hands and sigh,

    And find their laughter sweeter to the taste

    For that brief sighing.

    Aibric. If you had loved some woman -

    Fael. You say that also? You have heard the voices,

    For that is what they say - all, all the shadows -

    Aengus and Edain, those passionate wanderers,

    And all the others; but it must be love

    As they have known it. Now the secrets out;

    For it is love that I am seeking for,

    But of a beautiful, unheard-of kind

    That is not in the world.

    Aibrid yet the world

    Has beautiful women to please every man.

    Fael. But he that gets their love after the fashion

    &quot;Loves in brief longing and deceiving hope

    And bodily tenderness, and finds that even

    The bed of love, that in the imagination

    Had seemed to be the giver of all peace,

    Is no more than a wine-cup iasting,

    And as soon finished.

    Aibric. All that ever loved

    Have loved that way - there is no other way.

    Fael. Yet never have two lovers kissed but they

    believed there was some other near at hand,

    And almost wept because they could not find it.

    Aibric. When they have twenty years; in middle life

    They take a kiss for what a kiss is worth,

    Ahe dream go by.

    Fael. Its not a dream,

    But the reality that makes our passion

    As a lamp shadow - no - no lamp, the sun.

    What the worlds million lips are thirsting for

    Must be substantial somewhere.

    Aibric. I have heard the Druids

    Mutter such things as they awake from trance.

    It may be that the Ever-living know it -

    No mortal .

    Fael. Yes; if they give us help.

    Aibric. They are besotting you as they besot

    The crazy herdsman that will tell his fellows

    That he has been all night upon the hills,

    Riding to hurley, or itle-host

    With the Ever-living.

    Fael. What if he speak the truth,

    And for a dozen hours have been a part

    Of that more powerful life?

    Aibric, His wife knows better.

    Has she not seen him lying like a log,

    Or fumbling in a dream about the house?

    And if she hear him mutter of wild riders,

    She knows that it was but the cart-horse coughing

    That set him to the fancy.

    Fael. All would be well

    Could we but give us wholly to the dreams,

    A into their world that to the sense

    Is shadow, and not linger wretchedly

    Among substantial things; for it is dreams

    That lift us to the flowing, ging world

    That the heart longs for. What is love itself,

    Even though it be the lightest of light love,

    But dreams that hurry from beyond the world

    To make low laughter more tha and drink,

    Though it but set us sighing? Fellow-wanderer,

    Could we but mix ourselves into a dream,

    Not in its image on the mirror!

    Aibric. While

    Were in the body thats impossible.

    Fael. A I ot think theyre leading me

    To death; for they that promised to me love

    As those that  outlive the moon have known it,

    Had the worlds total life gathered up, it seemed,

    Into their shining limbs - Ive had great teachers.

    Aengus and Edain ran up out of the wave -

    Youd never doubt that it was life they promised

    Had you looked on them face to face as I did,

    With so red lips, and running on such feet,

    And having such wide-open, shining eyes.

    Aibric. Its certain they are leading you to death.

    the dead, or those that never lived,

    know that ecstasy. Fael! Fael!

    They have made you follow the man-headed birds,

    And you have told me that their journey lies

    Towards the try of the dead.

    Fael. What matter

    If I am going to my death? - for there,

    Or somewhere, I shall find the love they have

    promised.

    That much is certain. I shall find a woman.

    One of the Ever-living, as I think -

    One of the Laughing People - and she and I

    Shall light upon a pla the worlds core,

    Where passion grows to be a geless thing,

    Like charmed apples made of chrysoprase,

    Or chrysoberyl, or beryl, or chrysclite;

    And there, in juggleries of sight and sense,

    Bee one movement, energy, delight,

    Until the overburthened moon is dead.

    [A number of Sailors entcr hurriedly.]

    First Sailor. Look there! there in the mist! a ship of spice!

    And we are almost on her!

    Sed Sailor. We had not known

    But for the ambergris and sandalwood.

    First Sailor. NO; but opoponax and amon.

    Fael [taking the tiller from Aibric]. The Ever-living have

    kept my bargain for me,

    And paid you on the nail.

    Aibric. Take up that rope

    To make her fast while lundering her.

    First Sailor. There is a king and queen upon her deck,

    And where there is one woman therell be others.

    Aibric. Speak lower, or theyll hear.

    First Sailor. They ot hear;

    They are too busy with each other. Look!

    He has stooped down and kissed her on the lips.

    Sed Sailor. When she finds out we have better men

    aboard

    She may not be too sorry in the end.

    First Sailor. She will be like a wild cat; for these queens

    Care more about the kegs of silver and gold

    And the high fame that e to them in marriage,

    Than a strong body and a ready hand.

    Sed Sailor. Theres nobody is natural but a robber,

    And that is why the world totters about

    Upon its bandy legs.

    Aibric. Run at them now,

    And overpower the crew while yet asleep!

    [The Sailo out.]

    &lt;1[Voices and thc clashing of swords are heard from the

    other ship, which ot be seen because of the sail.]

    A Voice. Armed men have e upon us! O I am slain!

    Another Voice. Wake all below!

    Another Voice. Why have you brok<bdo></bdo>en our sleep?

    First Voice. Armed men have e upon us! O I am

    slain!

    Fael [who has remai the tiller]. There! there they

    e! Gull, ga, or diver,

    But with a mans head, or a fair womans,

    They hover over the masthead awhile

    To wait their Fiends; but when their friends have

    e

    Theyll fly upon that secret way of theirs.

    One - and one - a couple - five together;

    And I will hear them talking in a minute.

    Yes, voices! but I do not catch the words.

    Now I  hear. Theres one of them that says,

    &quot;How light we are, now we are ged to birds!

    Another answers, &quot;Maybe we shall find

    Our hearts desire now that we are so light.

    And then one asks another how he died,

    And says, &quot;A sword-blade pierced me in my sleep.-

    And now they all wheel suddenly and fly

    To the other side, and higher in the air.

    And now a laggard with a womans head

    dGmes g, &quot;I have run upon the sword.

    I have fled to my beloved in the air,

    In the waste of the high air, that we may wander

    Among the windy meadows of the dawn.

    But why are they still waiting? why are they

    Cirg and cirg over the masthead?

    ower that is more mighty than desire

    To hurry to their hidden happiness

    Withholds them now? Have the Ever-living Ones

    A meaning in that cirg overhead?

    But whats the meaning? [He cries out.] Why do you

    lihere?

    Why linger? Run to your desire,

    Are you not happy winged bodies now?

    [His voice sinks again.]

    Being too busy in the air and the high air,

    They ot hear my voice; but whats the meaning?

    &lt;1[The Sailors have returned. Dectora is with them.]

    Fael [turning and seeing her].&gt;1 Why are you standing

    with your eyes upon me?

    You are not the worlds core. O no, no, no!

    That ot be the meaning of the birds.

    You are not its core. My teeth are in the world,

    But have not bitte.

    Dectora. I am a queen,

    And ask for satisfa upon these

    Who have slain my husband and laid hands upon me.

    [Breaking loose from the Sailors who are holding her.]

    Let go my hands!

    Fael. Why do you cast a shadow?

    Where do you e from? Whht you to this

    place?

    They would not send me ohat casts a shadow.

    Dectora. Would that the storm that overthrew my ships,

    And drowhe treasures of nine quered nations,

    And blew me hither to my lasting sorrow,

    Had drowned me also. But, bei alive,

    I ask a fitting punishment for all

    That raised their hands against him.

    Fael. There are some

    That weigh and measure all in these waste seas -

    They that have all the wisdom thats in life,

    And all that prophesying images

    Made of dim gold rave out i tombs;

    They have it that the plans of kings and queens

    But laughter and tears - laughter, laughter, and tears;

    That every man should carry his own soul

    Upon his shoulders.

    Dectora. Youve nothing but wild words,

    And I would know if you will give me vengeance.

    Fael. When she finds out I will not let her go -

    When she knows that.

    Dectora. What is it that you are muttering -

    That youll not let me go? I am a queen.

    Fael. Although you are more beautiful than any,

    I almost long that it were possible;

    But if I were to put you on that ship,

    With sailors that were sworn to do your will,

    And you had spread a sail for home, a wind

    Would rise of a sudden, or a wave so huge

    It had washed among the stars and put them out,

    Ahe bulwark of your ship on mine,

    Until you stood before me on the deck -

    As now.

    Dectora. Does wandering in these desolate seas

    And listening to the cry of wind and wave

    Bring madness?

    Fael. Queen, I am not mad.

    Dectora. Yet say

    That unimagiorms of wind and wave

    Would rise against me.

    Fael. No, I am not mad -

    If it be not that hearing messages

    From lasting watchers, that outlive the moon,

    At the most quiet midnight is to be stri.

    Dectora. And did those watchers bid you take me

    captive?

    Fael. Both you and I are taken i.

    It was their hands that plucked the winds awake

    And blew you hither; and their mouths have

    promised

    I shall have love in their immortal fashion;

    And for this end they gave me my old harp

    That is more mighty than the sun and moon,

    Or than the shivering casti of the stars,

    That none might take you from me.

    &lt;1Dectora [first trembling back from the mast where the harp is,

    and then laughing].&gt;1 For a moment

    Your raving of a message and a harp

    More mighty thaars half troubled me,

    But all thats raving. Who is there  pel

    The daughter and the granddaughter of kings

    To be his bedfellow?

    Fael. Until your lips

    Have called me their beloved, Ill not kiss them.

    Dectora. My husband and miy king died at my feet,

    A you talk of love.

    Fael. The movement of time

    Is shaken in these seas, and what one does

    One moment has no might upon the moment

    That follows after.

    Dectora. I uand you now.

    You have a Druid craft of wicked sound

    Wrung from the cold women of the sea -

    A magic that  call a demon up,

    Until my body give you kiss for kiss.

    Fael. Your soul shall give the kiss.

    Dectora. I am not afraid,

    While theres a rope to run into a noose

    Or wave to drown. But I have doh words,

    And I would have you look into my face

    And know that it is fearless.

    Fael. Do what you will,

    For her I nor you  break a mesh

    Of the great goldehat is about us.

    Dectora. Theres nothing in the world thats worth a

    fear.

    &lt;1[She passes Fael and stands for a moment looking into

    his face.]&gt;1

    I have good reason for that thought.

    [She runs suddenly on to the raiscd part of the poop.]

    And now

    I  put fear away as a queen should.

    &lt;1[She mounts on to the hulwark and turns towards

    Fael.]&gt;1

    Fool, fool! Although you have looked into my face

    You do not see my purpose. I shall have gone

    Before a hand  touch me.

    Fael [folding his arms]. My hands are still;

    The Ever-living hold us. Do what you will,

    You ot leap out of the golde.

    First Sailor. o drown, for, if you will pardon

    us

    And measure out a course and bring us home,

    Well put this man to death.

    Dectora. I promise it.

    First Sailor. There is o take his side.

    Aibric. I am on his side,

    Ill strike a blow for him to give him time

    To cast his dreams away.

    &lt;1[Aibric goes in front of Fael with drawn sword. For-

    gael takes the harp.]&gt;1

    First Sailor. No otherll do it.

    &lt;1[The Sailors throw Aibri one side. He falls and lies

    upon the deck. They lift their swords to strike Fael,&gt;1

    &lt;1who is about to play the harp. The stage begins to

    darken. The Sailors hesitate in fear.]

    Sed Sailt;1 He has put a sudden darkness over the

    moon.

    Dectora. Nine swords with handles of rhinoceros horn

    To him that strikes him first!

    First Sailor. I will strike him first.

    &lt;1[He goes close up<mark></mark> tael with his sword lifted.]

    [Shrinking back.] He has caught the crest moon out

    of the sky,

    And carries it between us.

    Sed Sailor. Holy fire

    To burn us to the marrow if we strike.

    Dectora. Ill give a golden galley full of fruit,

    That has the heady<mark>藏书网</mark> flavour of new wine,

    To him that wounds him to the death.

    First Sailor. Ill do it.

    For all his spells will vanish when he dies,

    Having their life in him.

    Sed Sailor. Though it be the moon

    That he is holding up between us there,

    I will strike at him.

    The Others. And I! And I! And I!

    [Fael plays the harp.]

    First Sailor [falling into a dream suddenly. But you were

    saying there is somebody

    Upon that other ship we are to wake.

    You did not know what brought him to his end,

    But it was sudden.

    Sed Sailor. You are in the right;

    I had fotten that we must go wake him.

    Dectora. He has flung a Druid spell upon the air,

    A you dreaming.

    Sed Sailor. How  we have a wake

    When we have her brown nor yellow ale?

    First Sailor. I saw a flagon of brown ale aboard her.

    Third Sailor. How  we raise the keen that do not

    know

    What o call him by?

    First Sailor. e to his ship.

    His name will e into our thoughts in a minute.

    I know that he died a thousand years ago,

    And has not yet been waked.

    Sed Sailor [beginning to keen]. Ohone! O! O! O!

    The yew-bough has been broken into two,

    And all the birds are scattered.

    All the Sailors. O! O! O! O!

    [They go out keening.]

    Dectora. Protect me now, gods that my people swear by.

    &lt;1[Aibric has risen from the deck where he had fallen. He

    has begun looking for his sword as if in a dream.]&gt;1

    Aibric. Where is my sword that fell out of my hand

    When I first heard the news? Ah, there it is!

    &lt;1[He goes dreamily towards the sword, but Dectora runs at

    it and takes it up before he  reach it.]&gt;1

    Aibric [sleepily]. Queen, give it me.

    Dectora. No, I have need of it.

    Aibric. Why do you need a sword? But you may keep it.

    Now that hes dead I have no need of it,

    For everything is gone.

    A Sailor [calling from the other ship]. e hither, Aibric,

    And tell me who it is that we are waking.

    Aibric [half to Dectora, half to himself]. What name had

    that dead king? Arthur of Britain?

    No, no - not Arthur. I remember now.

    It was golden-armed Iollan, and he died

    Brokeed, having lost his queen

    Through wicked spells. That is not all the tale,

    For he was killed. O! O! O! O! O! O!

    Folden-armed Iollan has been killed.

    &lt;1[He goes out.]

    [While he has been speaking, and through part of what

    follows, one hears the wailing of the Sailors from the

    other ship. Dectora stands with the sword lifted in

    front of Fael.]&gt;1

    Dectora. I will end all yi the instant.

    &lt;1[Her voice hees dreamy, and she lowers the sword

    slowly, and finally lets it fall. She spreads out her hair.

    She takes off her  and lays it upon the deck.]&gt;1

    This sword is to lie beside him in the grave.

    It was in all his battles. I will spread my hair,

    And wring my hands, and wail him bitterly,

    For I have heard that he roud and laughing,

    Blue-eyed, and a quick runner on bare feet,

    And that he died a thousand years ago.

    O; O! O! O!

    [Fael ges the tune.]

    But no, that is not it.

    They killed him at my feet. O! O! O! O!

    Folden-armed Iollan that I loved-

    But what is it that made me say I loved him?

    It was that harper put it in my thoughts,

    But it is true. Why did they run upon him,

    Ahe golde with their swords?

    Fael. Do you not know me, lady? I am he

    That you are weeping for.

    Dectora. No, for he is dcad.

    O! O! O! O! folden-armed Iollan.

    Fael. It was so given out, but I will prove

    That the grave-diggers in a dreamy frenzy

    Have buried nothing but my golden arms.

    Listen to that low-laughing string of the moon

    And you will recollect my fad voice,

    For you have listeo me playing it

    These thousand years.

    &lt;1[He starts up, listening to the birds. The harp slips from

    his hands, and remains leaning against the bulwarks

    behind him.]&gt;1

    What are the birds at there?

    Why are they all a-flutter of a sudden?

    What are you calling out above the mast?

    If railing and reproad mockery

    Because I have awakened her to love

    By magic strings, Ill make this ao it:

    Being driven on by voices and by dreams

    That were clear messages from the Ever-living,

    I have dht. What could I but obey?

    A you make a clamour of reproach.

    Dcctora [laughing]. Why, its a wonder out of reing

    That I should keen him from the full of the moon

    To the horn, and he be hale ay.

    Fael. How have I wronged her now that she is merry?

    But no, no, no! your cry is not against me.

    You know the sels of the Ever-living,

    And all that tossing of your wings is joy,

    And all that murmurings but a marriage-song;

    But if it be reproach, I ahis:

    There is not one among you that made love

    by any other means. You call it passion,

    sideration, generosity;

    But it was all deceit, and flattery

    To win a woman in her owe,

    For love is war, and there is hatred in it;

    And if you say that she came willingly -

    Dectora. Why do you turn away and hide your face,

    That I would look upon for ever?

    Fael. My grief!

    Dectora. Have I not loved you for a thousand years?

    Fael. I never have been golden-armed Iollan.

    Vectora. I do not uand. I know your face

    Better than my own hands.

    Fael. I have deceived you

    Out of all reing.

    Tectora. Is it not tme

    That you were born a thousand years ago,

    In islands where the children of Aengus wind

    In happy dances under a windy moon,

    And that youll brihere?

    Fael. I have deceived you;

    I have deceived you utterly.

    Dectora. How  that be?

    Is it that though your eyes are full of love

    Some other woman has a claim on you,

    And Ive but half!

    Fael. O no!

    Dectora. And if there is,

    If there be half a hundred more, what matter?

    Ill never give ahought to it;

    No, no, nor half a thought; but do not speak.

    Women are hard and proud and stubbored,

    Their heads being turned with praise and flattery;

    And that is why their lovers are afraid

    To tell them a plain story.

    Fael. Thats not the story;

    But I have done so great a wrong against you,

    There is no measure that it would not burst.

    I will fess it all.

    Dectora. What do I care,

    Now that my body has begun to dream,

    And you have grown to be a burning sod

    In the imagination and intellect?

    If something thats most fabulous were true -

    If you had taken me by magic spells,

    And killed a lover or husband at my feet -

    I would not let you speak, for I would know

    That it was yesterday and not to-day

    I loved him; I would cover up my ears,

    As I am doing noause.] Why do you weep?

    Fael. I weep because Ive nothing for your eyes

    But desolate waters and a battered ship.

    Dectora. O why do you not lift your eyes to mine?

    Fael. I weep - I weep because bare nights above,

    And not a roof of ivory and gold.

    Dectora. I would grow jealous of the ivory roof,

    And strike the golden pillars with my hands.

    I would that there was nothing in the world

    But my beloved - that night and day had perished,

    And all that is and all that is to be,

    All that is not the meeting of our lips.

    Fael. You turn away. Why do you turn away?

    Am I to fear the waves, or is the moon

    My enemy?

    Dectora. I looked upon the moon,

    Longing to knead and pull it into shape

    That I might lay it on your head as a .

    But now it is your thoughts that wander away,

    For you are looking at the sea. Do you not know

    How great a wrong it is to let ohought

    Wander a moment when one is in love?

    &lt;1[He has moved away. She follows him. He is looking out

    over the sea, shading his eyes.]&gt;1

    Why are you looking at the sea?

    Fael. Look there!

    Dectora. What is there but a troop of ash-grey birds

    That fly into the west?

    Fael. But listen, listen!

    Dectora. What is there but the g of the birds?

    Fael. If youll but listen closely to that g

    Youll hear them calling out to one another

    With human voices

    Dectora. O, I  hear them now.

    What are they? Unto what try do they fly?

    Fael. To unimaginable happiness.

    They have been cirg over our heads in the air,

    But now that they have taken to the road

    We have to follow, for they are our pilots;

    And though theyre but the colour of grey ash,

    Theyre g out, could you but hear their words,

    &quot;There is a try at the end of the world

    Where no childs born but to outlive the moon.

    &lt;1[The Sailors  with Aibric. They are i

    excitement.]&gt;1

    First Sailor. The hold is full of treasure.

    Sed Sailor. Full to the hatches.

    First Sailor. Treasure on treasure.

    Third Sailor. Boxes of precious spice.

    First Sailor. Ivory images with amethyst eyes.

    Third Sailor. Dragons with eyes of ruby.

    First Sailor. The whole ship

    Flashes as if it were a  of herrings.

    Third Sailor. Lets home; Id give some rubies to a

    woman.

    Sed Sailor. Theres somebody Id give the amethyst

    eyes to.

    Aibric [sileng thcm with agesture]. We would return to

    our own try, Fael,

    For we have found a treasure thats so great

    Imagination ot re it.

    And having lit upon this woman there,

    What more have you to look for on the seas?

    Fael. I ot - I am going on to the end.

    As for this woman, I think she is ing with me.

    Aibric. The Ever-living have made you mad; but no,

    It was this woman in her womans vengeance

    That drove you to it, and I fool enough

    To fancy t?.shed bring you home again.

    Twas you that egged him to it, for you know

    That he is being driven to his death.

    Dectora. That is not true, for he has promised me

    An unimaginable happiness.

    Aibrid if that happiness be more than dreams,

    More than the froth, the feather, the dust-whirl,

    The crazy nothing that I think it is,

    It shall be in the try of the dead,

    If there be such a try.

    Dectora. No, not there,

    But in some island where the life of the world

    Leaps upward, as if all the streams o the world

    Had run into one fountain.

    Aibric. Speak to him.

    He knows that he is taking you to death;

    Speak - he will not deny it.

    Dectora. Is that true?

    Fael. I do not know for certain, but I know.

    That I have the best of pilots.

    Aibric. Shadows, illusions,

    That the Shape-gers, the Ever-laughing Ones,

    The Immortal Mockers have cast into his mind,

    Or called before his eyes.

    Dectora. O carry me

    To some sure try, some familiar place.

    Have we not everything that life  give

    In having one another?

    Fael. How could I rest

    If I refused the messengers and pilots

    With all those sights and all that g out?

    Dectora. But I will cover up your eyes and ear?,

    That you may never hear the cry of the birds,

    Or look upon them.

    Fael. Were they but lowlier

    Id do your will, but they are too high - too high.

    Dectora. Being too high, their heady prophecies

    But harry us with hopes that e to nothing,

    Because we are not proud, imperishable,

    Alone and winged.

    Fael. Our love shall be like theirs

    When ut their geless image on.

    Dectora. I am a woman, I die at every breath.

    Aibric. Let the birds scatter, for the tree is broken,

    And theres no help in words. [To the Sailors.]

    To the other ship,

    And I will follow you and cut the rope

    When I have said farewell to this man here,

    For her I nor any living man

    Will look upon his face again.

    [The Sailo out.]

    Fael [to Dectora], Go with him,

    For he will shelter you and bring you home.

    Aibric [taking Faels hand]. Ill do it for his sake.

    Dectora. No. Take this sword

    And cut the rope, fo on with Fael.

    Aibric [half falling into the keen]. The yew-bough has been

    broken into two,

    And all the birds are scattered - O! O! O!

    Farewell! farewell! [He goes out.]

    Dectora. The sword is in the rope -

    The ropes in two - it falls into the sea,

    It whirls into the foam. O a worm,

    Dragon that loved the world and held us to it,

    You are broken, you are broken. The world drifts

    away,

    And I am left aloh my beloved,

    Who ot put me from his sight for ever.

    We are alone for ever, and I laugh,

    Fael, because you ot put me from you.

    The mist has covered the heavens, and you and I

    Shall be alone for ever. We two - this  -

    I half remember. It has been in my dreams.

    Bend lower, O king, that I may  you with it.

    O flower of the branch, 0 bird among the leaves,

    O silver fish that my two hands have taken

    Out of the running stream,  star

    Trembling in the blue heavens like a white fawn

    Upon the misty border of the wood,

    Bend lower, that I may cover you with my hair,

    For we will gaze upon this world no longer.

    Fael [gatherioras hair about him]. Beloved, hav-

    ing dragged the  about us,

    And knitted mesh to mesh, we grow immortal;

    And that old harp awakens of itself

    To cry aloud to the grey birds, and dreams,

    That have had dreams for father, live in us.

 The Seven Sages

    <strong>The Seven Sages</strong>

    The<dfn>99liｂ?</dfn> First. My great-grandfather spoke to Edmund Burke

    In Grattans house.

    The Sed. My great-grandfather shared

    A pot-house bench with Oliver Goldsmith once.

    The Third. My great-grandfathers father talked of music,

    Drank tar-water with the Bishop of e.

    The Fourth. But mine saw Stella once.

    The Fifth. Whence came our thought?

    The Sixth. From freat minds that hated Whiggery.

    The Fifth. Burke was a Whig.

    The Sixth. Whether they knew or no<bdi>藏书网</bdi>t,

    Goldsmith and Burke, Swift and the Bishop of >..</a>e

    All h<dfn></dfn>ated Whiggery; but what is Whiggery?

    A levelling, rancorous, rational sort of mind

    That never looked out of the eye of a saint

    Or out of drunkards eye.

    The Seventh. Alls Whiggery now,

    But we old men are massed against the world.

    The First. Ameri ies, Ireland, Frand India

    Harried, and Burkes great melody against it.

    The Sed. ９9ｌｉｂ?Oliver Goldsmith sang what he had seen,

    Roads full of beggars, cattle in the fields,

    But never saw the trefoil stained with blood,

    The avengihose fields raised up against it.

    The Fourth. The tomb of Swift wears it away.

    The Third. A voice

    Soft as the rustle of a reed from e

    That gathers volume; now a thunder-clap.

    The Sixtb. What schooling had these four?

    The Seventh. They walked the roads

    Mimig what they heard, as children mimic;

    They uood that wisdom es of beggary.

 The Secret Rose

    <strong>The Secret Rose</strong>

    FAR-OFF, most secre<tt>９9ｌｉb.t>t, and inviolate Rose,

    Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those

    Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre,

    Or in the wi, dwell beyond the stir

    And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep

    Among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep

    Men have named beauty. Thy great leaves enfold

    The a beards, the helms of ruby and gold

    Of the ed Magi; and the king whose eyes

    Saw the pierced Hands and Rood of elder rise

    In Druid vapour and make the torches dim;

    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 moms had flowered red

    Feasted, ahe barrows of his dead;

    And t<samp></samp>he proud dreaming king who flung the

    And sorrow away, and calling bard and

    Dwelt among wiained wanderers in deep woods:

    And him who sold tillage, and house, and goods,

    And sought through lands and islands numberless years,

    Until he found, with laughter and with tears,

    A woman of so shining loveliness

    That men threshed  at midnight by a tress,

    A little stolen tress. 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 e, thy great wind blows,

    Far-obbr></abbr>ff, most secret, and inviolate Rose?

 The Second Coming

    <strong>The Sed ing</strong>

    TURNING and turning in <cite>藏书网</cite>the widening gyre

    The fal ot hear the faler;

    Things fall apart; the tre ot hold;

    Mere anarchy is l<u></u>oosed upon the world,

    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

    The ceremony of innoce is drowned;

    The best lack all vi, while the worst

    Are full of passioensity.

    Surely some revelation is at hand;

    Surely the Sed ing is at hand.

    The Sed ing! Hardly are those words out

    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

    Troubl<cite>９9lｉｂ.</cite>es 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 indigna birds.

    The darkness drops again; but now I know

    That twenty turies of st<tt>9９lib?t>ony sleep

    Were vexed to nightmare by a rog cradle,

    And what rough beast, its hour e round at last,

    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

 The Rose Tree

    <strong>The Rose Tree</strong>

    O WORDS are lightly spoken,

    Said Pearse to olly,

    Maybe a breath of politic words

    Has withered our Rose Tree;

    Or maybe but a.. wind that blows

    Aark></mark> the bitter sea.

    &quot;It o be but watered,

    James olly replied,

    &quot;To make the green e out again

    And spread on<u>.</u> every side,

    And shake the blossom from the bud

    To be the gardens pride.

    &quot;But where  we draw water,

    Said Pearse to olly,

    &quot;When all the wells are parc?９９lｉｂ?hed away?

    O plain as plain  be

    Theres nothing but our own red blood

    make a right Rose Tree.

 The Old Age Of Queen Maeve

    <strong>The Old Age Of Queen Maeve</strong><big>9９ｌｉb?</big>

    A certai in outlandish clothes

    Gathered a crowd in some Byzantine lane,

    Talked1 of his try and its people, sang

    To some stringed instrument here had seen,

    A wall behind his back, over his head

    A latticed window. His glance went up at time

    As though one listehere, and his voice sank

    Or let its meaning mix into the strings.

    MAEVE the great queen ag to and fro,

    Between the walls covered with beaten bronze,

    In her high house at Crua; the loh,

    Flickering with ash and hazel, but half showed

    Where the tired horse-boys lay upon the rushes,

    Or on the benches underh the walls,

    In fortable sleep; all living slept

    But that great queen, who more than half the night

    Had paced from door to fire and fire to door.

    Though now in her old age, in her young age

    She had beeiful in that old way

    Thats all but gone; for the proud heart is gone,

    And the fool heart of the ting-house fears all

    But Soft beauty and i desire.

    She could have called over the rim of the world

    Whatever womans lover had hit her fancy,

    A had bee-bodied and great-limbed,

    Fashioo be the mother of strong children;

    And shed had lucky eyes and high heart,

    And wisdom that caught fire like the dried flax,

    At need, and made her beautiful and fierce,

    Sudden and laughing.

    O u heart,

    Why do you praise another, praising her,

    As if there were no tale but your own tale

    Worth knitting to a measure of sweet sound?

    Have I<samp>９９lｉb?</samp> not bid you tell of that great queen

    Who has been buried some two thousand years?

    When night was at its deepest, a wild goose

    Cried from the porters lodge, and with long clamour

    Shook the ale-horns and shields upon their hooks;

    But the horse-boys slept on, as though some power

    Had filled the house with Druid heaviness;

    And w who of the many-ging Sidhe

    Had e as in the old times to sel her,

    Maeve walked, yet with slow footfall, being old,

    To that small chamber by the ate.

    The porter slept, although he sat upright

    With still and stony limbs and open eyes.

    Maeve waited, and when that ear-pierg noise

    Broke from his parted lips and broke again,

    She laid a hand o<u>..</u>her of his shoulders,

    And shook him wide awake, and bid him say

    Who of the wandering many-ging ones

    Had troubled his sleep. But all he had to say

    Was that, the air being heavy and the dogs

    More still than they had been food month,

    He had fallen asleep, and, though he had dreamed

    nothing,

    He could remember when he had had fine dreams.

    It was before the time of the great war

    Over the White-Horned Bull and the Brown Bull.

    She turned away; he turned again to sleep

    That no god troubled now, and, w

    What matters were afoot among the Sidhe,

    Maeve walked through that great hall, and with a sigh

    Lifted the curtain of her sleeping-room,

    Remembering that she too had seemed divine

    To many thousand eyes, and to her own

    Ohat the geions had long waited

    That work too difficult for mortal hands

    Might be aplished, Bung the curtain up

    She saw her husband Ailell sleeping there,

    And thought of days when hed had a straight body,

    And of that famous Fergus, Nessas husband,

    Who had been the lover of her middle life.

    Suddenly Ailell spoke out of his sleep,

    And not with his own voice or a mans voice,

    But with the burning, live, unshaken voice

    Of those that, it may be, ever age.

    He said, &quot;High Queen of Crua and Magh Ai,

    A king of the Great Plain would speak with you.

    And with glad voice Maeve answered him, &quot;What king

    Of the far-wandering shadows has e to me,

    As in the old days when they would e and go

    About my threshold to sel and to help?

    The parted lips replied, &quot;I seek your help,

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

    &quot;How may a mortal whose life gutters out

    Help them that wander with hand clasping hand,

    Their haughty images that ot wither,

    For all their beautys like a hollow dream,

    Mirrored in streams that her hail nor rain

    Nor the cold North has troubled?

    He replied,

    &quot;I am from those rivers and I bid you call

    The children of the Maines out of sleep,

    Ahem digging under Buals hill.

    We shadows, while they uproot his earthy housc,

    Will overthrow his shadows and carry off

    Caer, his blue-eyed daughter that I love.

    I helped your fathers when they built these walls,

    And I would have your help in my great need,

    Queen of high Crua.

    &quot;I obey your will

    With speedy feet and a most thankful heart:

    For you have been, O Aengus of the birds,

    iver of good sel and good luck.

    And with a groan, as if the mortal breath

    Could but awaken sadly upon lips

    That happier breath had moved, her husband turned

    Face downward, tossing in a troubled sleep;

    But Maeve, and not with a slow feeble foot,

    Came to the threshold of the painted house

    Where her grandchildre, and cried aloud,

    Until the pillared dark began to stir

    With shouting and the g of unhooked arms.

    She told them of the many-ging ones;

    And all that night, and all through the  day

    To middle night, they dug into the hill.

    At middle night great cats with silver claws,

    Bodies of shadow and blind eyes like pearls,

    Came up out of the hole, and red-eared hounds

    With long white bodies came out of the air

    Suddenly, and ran at them and harried them.

    The Maines&quot; children dropped their spades, and stood

    With quaking joints and terror-stri faces,

    Till Maeve called out, &quot;These are but en.

    The Maines children have not dropped their spades

    Because Earth, crazy for its broken power,

    Casts up a Show and the winds a

    With holy shadows. Her high heart was glad,

    And when the uproar ran along the grass

    She followed with light footfall in the midst,

    Till it died out where an old thorood.

    Friend of these many years, you too had stood

    With equal ce in that whirling rout;

    For you, although youve not her wanderi,

    Have all that greatness, and not hers alone,

    For there is no high story about queens

    In any a book but tells of you;

    And when Ive heard how they grew old and died,

    Or fell into unhappiness, Ive said,

    &quot;She will grow ol<s></s>d and die, and she has wept!

    And when Id write it out ahe words,

    Half crazy with the thought, She too has wept!

    Outrun the measure.

    Id tell of that great queen

    Who stood amid a silence by the thorn

    Until two lovers came out of the air

    With bodies made out of soft fire. The one,

    About whose face birds wagged their fiery wings,

    Said, &quot;Aengus and his sweetheart give their thanks

    To Maeve and to Maeves household, owing all

    In owing them the bride-bed that gives peace.

    Then Maeve: &quot;O Aengus, Master of all lovers,

    A thousand years ago you held high ralk

    With the first kings of many-pillared Crua.

    O when will you grow weary?

    They had vanished,

    But our of the dark air over her head there came

    A murmur of soft words aing lips.

 The Moods

<strong>The Moods</strong>

    TIME drops in decay,

    Like a dle 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?

 The Mask

    <strong>The Mask</strong>

    &quot;PUT off that mask of burning gold

    With emerald eyes.&quot;

    &quot;O no, my dear, you make so bold

    To find if hearts be wild and wise,

    A not cold.&quot;

    &quot;I would but find <q></q>whats there to find,

    Love or deceit.&quot;

    &quot;It was the mask engaged your mind,

    And after set your hear<dfn>９9lib.</dfn>t to beat,

    Not whats behind.&quot;

    &quot;But lest you are my enemy,

    I must enquire.&quot;

    &quot;O no, my dear, let all that be;

    What matter, so there is but fire

    In you, in me?&quot;

 The Lover Tells Of The Rose In His Heart

    <strong>The Lover Tells Of The Rose In His Heart</strong>

    ALL things unely and broken, all things worn out and old,

    The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a<cite>?.</cite> 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 wr></a>ong too great to be told;

    I huo build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart,

    With the earth an..he sky and the water, re-made, like a casket of gold

    For my dreams of your im<s></s>age that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.

 The Lake Isle Of Innisfree

    <strong>The Lake Isle Of Innisfree</strong>..

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

    And a small  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 peaes dropping slow,

    Dropping from the veils of the mourn<tt></tt>ing to where the cricket sings;

    There midnights all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

    And evening full of the lis wings.

    I will arise and go now, for always night and day

    <u></u>I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

    W<u></u>hile I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

    I hear it in>.99ｌｉb?</a> the deep hearts core.

 The Hosting Of The Sidhe

    <strong>The Hosting Of The Sidhe</strong>

    The host is riding f<bdi>9９lib?</bdi>rom Knoarea

    And over the grave of Clooth-na-Bare;

    Caoilte tossing his burning hair,

    And Niamh calling Away, e away:

    Empty your heart of its mortal dream.

    The win<samp></samp>ds 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 rus<samp>?</samp>hing band,

    We e between him and the d<s></s>eed of his hand,

    We e 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?

    Caoilte tossing his burning hair,

    And Niamh calling Away, e away.

 The Host Of The Air

    <strong>The Host Of The Air</strong>

    ODRISCOLL drove with a song

    The wild dud the drake

    From the tall and the tufted reeds

    Of the drear Hart Lake.

    And he saw how the reeds grew dark

    At the ing of night-tide,

    And dreamed of the long dim hair

    et his bride.

    He heard while he sang and dreamed

    A piper piping away,

    And never iping so sad,

    And never iping 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.

    The dancers crowded about him

    And many a sweet thin<q>.９９ｌiｂ.</q>g said,

    And a young man brought him red wine

    And a young girl white bread.

    But Bridget drew him by the sleeve

    Away from the merry bands,

    To old men 9９lib?playing at cards

    With a twinkling of a hands.

    The bread藏书网 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.

    He played with the merry old men<bdi></bdi>

    And thought not of evil ce,

    Until one bore Bridget his bride

    Away from the merry dance.

    He bore her away in his atms,

    The handsomest young man there,

    And his ned his breast and his arms

    Were drowned in her long dim hair.

    ODriscoll scattered the cards

    And out of his dream awok<big></big>e:

    Old men and young men and young girls

    Were gone like a drifting smoke;

    But he heard high up in the air

    A piper piping away,

    And never iping so sad,

    And never iping so gay.

 The Harp of Aengus

    <strong>The Harp of Aengus</strong>

    Edain９９lib? came out of Midhirs hill, and lay

    Beside young Aengus in his tower of glass,

    Where time is d<dfn>藏书网</dfn>rowned in odour-laden winds

    And Druid moons, and murmuring of boughs,

    And sleepy boughs, and boughs<samp>藏书网</samp> where apples made

    Of opal and ruhy and pale chrysolite

    Awake unsleeping fires; and wove seven strings,

    Sweet with all music, out of his long hair,

    Because her hands had been made wild by love.

    When Midhirs wife had ged 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..

 The Fish

    <strong>The Fish</strong><dfn>９９lib?</dfn>

    ALTHOUGH you hide in the ebb and flow

    Of the pale tide when the moon has set,

    The people of ing days will know

    About the casti<var></var>ng out of my ,

    And how you have leaped times out of mind

    Over the little silver cords,

    A<bdi></bdi>nd think that you were hard and unkind,

    And blame yo?u with many bitter words.

 The Everlasting Voices

    <strong>The Everlasting Voices</strong>

    O SWEET everlasting Voices, be still;

    Go to the guards of t>.</a>he heavenly fold

    And bid them wander obeying your w>?</a>ill,

    Flame under flame, til<dfn>..</dfn>l Time be no more;

    Have you no<bdi>.９９lｉｂ.</bdi>t heard that our hearts are old,

    That you call in birds, in wind on the hill,

    In shaken boughs, in tide on the shorbbr>.９９lib?</abbr>e?

    O sweet everlasting Voices, be still.

 The Dolls

    <strong>The Dolls</strong>

    A DOLL in the doll-makers house

    Looks at the cradle and balls:

    That is an insult to us.

    But the oldest of all the do<mark>.</mark>lls

    Who had seen, bei for show,></a>

    Geions of his sort,

    Out-screams the whole shelf: Although

    Theres not a man ９9lｉｂ. report

    Evil of this place,

    The man and the woman bring

    Hither to our disgrace,

    A noisy and filthy thin<u>?</u>g.

    Hearing him groan and stretch

    The doll-maker1s 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 <mark>..</mark>an act.

 The Crucifixion Of The Outcast

    <strong>The Crucifixion Of The Outcast</strong>

    A MAN, with thin brown hair and a pale

    face, half ran, half walked, along the road

    that wound from the south to the Town

    of the Shelly River. Many called him Cum-

    Hal, the son of ad many called

    him the Swift, Wild Horse; and he was

    a glee man, and he wore a short parti-

    coloured doublet, and had pointed shoes,

    and a bulging wallet. Also he was of the

    blood of the Ernaans, and his birth-place

    was the ~ield of Gold; but his eating and

    sleeping places were the four provinces of

    Eri, and his abiding place was not upon

    the ridge of the earth. His eyes strayed

    from the Abbey tower of the White Friars

    and the town battlements to a row of

    crosses which stood out against the sky

    upon a hill a little to the eastward of the

    town, and he ched his fist, and shook

    it at the crosses. He khey were

    y, for the birds were fluttering

    36

    about them; ahought how, as like

    as not, just suabond as

    himself was hanged on one of them; and

    he muttered;  If it were hanging or bow-

    stringing, or stoning or beheading, it would

    be bad enough. But to have the birds

    peg your eyes and the wolves eating

    your feet ! I would that the red wind

    of the Druids had withered in his cradle

    the soldier of Dathi, whht the

    tree of death out of barbarous lands, or

    that the lightning, when it smote Dathi

    at the foot of the mountain, had smitten

    him also, or that his grave had been dug

    by the green-haired and green-toothed

    merrows deep at the roots of the deep

    sea.

    While he spoke, he shivered from head

    to foot, and the sweat came out upon

    his face, and he knew not why, for

    he had looked upon many crosses. He

    passed over two hills and uhe battle-

    ment Ed gate, and then round by a left-

    27

    was studded with great nails, and whenhe k it, he roused the lay brother

    who was the porter, and of him he asked

    a pla the guest-house. Then the lay

    brother took a glowing turf on a shovel,

    ahe way to a big and naked out-

    house strewn with very dirty rushes; and

    t lighted a rush-dle fixed between two

    of the stones of the wall, ahe glow-

    ing turf upon the hearth and gave him

    two unlighted sods and a wisp of straw,

    and showed him a bla hanging from a

    nail, and a shelf with a loaf of bread and

    a jug of water, and a tub in a far

    er. Then the lay brother left him

    a back to his place by the door.

    And Cumhal the son of ac began

    to blow upon the glowing turf, that he

    might light the two sods and the wisp

    of straw; but his blowing profited him

    nothing, for the sods and the straw were

    damp. So he took off his pointed shoes,

    and drew the tub out of the er with

    the thought of washing the dust of the

    highway from his feet; but the water was

    so dirty that he could not see the bottom

    He was very hungry, for he had en

    all that day; so he did not waste much

    anger upoub, but took up the black

    Ioaf, and bit into it, and then spat out the

    bite, for the bread was hard and mouldy.

    Still he did not give way to his wrath, for

    he had not druhese many hours;

    having a hope of heath beer or wi his

    days end, he had left the brooks untasted,

    to make his supper the more delightful.

    Now he put the jug to his lips, but he

    flung it from him straight way, for the

    water was bitter and ill-smelling. Then

    he gave the jug a kick, so that it broke

    against the opposite wall, aook

    down the blao  it about him for

    the night. But no sooner did he touch it

    than it was alive with skipping fleas. At

    this, beside himself with anger, he rushed

    to the door of the guest-house, but the lay

    brother, being well aced to such

    outcries, had locked it oside; so

    Cumhal emptied the tub and began to

    beat the door with it, till the lay brother

    e to the door, and asked what ailed

    him, and why he woke him out of sleep.

    What ails me ! shouted Cumhal,  are

    not the sods as wet as the sands of

    the Three Headlands ? and are not the

    fleas in the bla as many as the waves

    of the sea and as lively ? and is not the

    bread as hard as the heart of a lay brother

    who has fotten God ? and is not the

    water in the j<bdi>.</bdi>ug as bitter and as ill-smelling

    as his soul ? and is not the foot-water the

    colour that shall be upon him when he has

    been charred in the Undying Fires ?  The

    lay brother saw that the lock was fast, and

    went back to his niche, for he was too

    sleepy to talk with fort. And Cum-

    Hal went oing at the door, and

    presently he heard the lay brothers foot

    once more, and cried out at him, ~ O

    cowardly and tyrannous race of friars, per-

    secutors of the bard and the glee man, haters

    of life and joy ! O race that does not draw

    the sword ahe truth ! O race

    that melts the bones of the people with

    cowardid with deceit !

    Gleeman, said the lay brother,  I also

    make rhymes; I make many while I sit

    in my niche by the door, and I sorrow to

    hear the bards railing upon the friars.

    Brother, I would sleep, and therefore I

    make known to you that it is the head of

    the monastery, racious Coarb, who

    orders all things ing the lodging of

    travellers.

    You may sleep, said Cumhal, ~ I will

    sing a bards curse on the Coarb. And

    he set the tub upside down uh~

    window, and stood upon it, and began to

    sing in a very loud voice. The singing

    awoke the Coarb, so that he sat up in bed

    and blew a silver whistle until the lay

    brother came to him.  I ot get a

    wink of sleep with that noise, said the

    Coarb.  What is happening ?

    It is a glee man, said the lay brother,

    who plains of the sods, of the bread,

    of the water in the jug, of the foot-water,

    and of the bla. And now he is singing

    a bards curse upon you, O brother Coarb,

    and upon your father and your mother,

    and yrandfather and yrand-

    mother, and upon all your relations.

    Is he cursing in rhyme ?

    He is cursing in rhyme, and with

    two assonances in every line of his

    curse.

    The Coarb pulled his night-cap off and

    crumpled it in his hands, and the circular

    brown patch of hair in the middle of his

    bald head looked like an island in the

    midst of a pond, for in aught they

    had not yet abahe aon sure

    for the style then ing into use.  If we

    do not somewhat, he said,  he will teach

    his curses to the children ireet, and

    the girls spinning at the doors, and to the

    robbers on the mountain of Gulben.

    Shall I go then, said the other, and

    give him dry sods, a fresh loaf,  water

    in a jug,  foot-water, and a new

    bla, and make him swear by the

    blessed St. Benign us, and by the sun and

    moon, that no bond be lag, not to tell

    his rhymes to the children ireet,

    and the girls spinning at the doors, and

    the robbers on the mountain of Gulben ?

    her our blessed Patron nor the sun

    and the moon would avail at all, said the

    Coarb: for to-morrow or the  day

    the mood to curse would e upon him,

    or a pride in those rhymes would move

    him, and he would teach his lio the

    children, and the girls, and the robbers.

    Or else he would tell another of his craft

    how he fared in the guest-house, and he

    in his turn would begin. to curse, and my

    name would wither. For learn there is no

    steadfastness of purpose upon the roads,

    but only under roofs, aween four

    walls. Therefore I bid you go and awaken

    Brother Kevin, Brother Dove, Brother

    Little Wolf, Brother Bald Patrick, Brother

    Bald Brandon, Brother James and Brother

    Peter. And they shall take the man, and

    43

    bind him with ropes, and dip him in the

    river that he may cease to sing. And in

    the m, lest this but make him curse

    the louder, we will crucify him.

    The crosses are all full, said the lay

    brother.

    Then we must make another cross. If

    we do not make an end of him another

    will, for who  eat and sleep in peace

    while men like<bdo></bdo> him are going about the

    world ? Ill should we stand before blessed

    St. Benign us, and sour would be his face

    when he es to judge us at the Last

    Day, were we to spare an enemy of his

    when we had him under our thumb !

    Brother, the bards and the glee men are

    an evil race, ever cursing and ever stirring

    up the people, and immoral and im-

    moderate in all things, ahen in

    their hearts, always longing after the Son

    of Lir, and Angus, and Bridget, and the

    Dagda, and Dana the Mother, and all the

    false gods of the old days; always making

    poems in praise of those kings and queens

    44

    of the demons, Finvaragh of the Hill in

    the Plain, and Red Aodh of the Hill of

    the Shee, and a of the Wave, and

    Eiveen of the Grey Rock, and him they

    call Don of the Vats of the Sea; and

    railing against God and Christ and the

    blessed Saints. While he eaking

    he crossed himself, and when he had

    finished he drew the nightcap over his

    ears, to shut out the noise, and closed

    his eyes, and posed himself to

    sleep.

    The lay brother found Brother Kevin,

    Brother Dove, Brother Little Wolf, Brother

    Bald Patrick, Brother Bald Brandon,

    Brother James and Brother Peter sitting

    up in bed, and he made them get up.

    Then they bound Cumhal, and they

    dragged him to the river, and they dipped

    him in it at the place which was afterwards

    called Buckleys Ford.

    Gleeman, said the lay brother, as they

    led him back to the guest-house,  why do

    you ever use the wit which God has given

    45

    you to make blasphemous and immoral tales

    and verses ? For such is the way of your

    craft. I have, indeed, many such tales and

    verses well nigh by rote, and so I know

    that I speak true ! And why do you praise

    with rhyme those demons, Finvaragh, Red

    Aodh, a, Eiveen and Don? 1, too,

    am a man of great wit and learning, but

    I ever glo.rify racious Coarb, and

    Benignus our Patron, and the princes of

    the province. My soul is det and

    orderly, but yours is like the wind among

    the salley gardens. I said what I could for

    you, being also a man of many thoughts,

    but who could help such a one as you ?

    My soul, friend, answered the glee man,

    is indeed like the wind, and it blows me

    to and fro, and up and down, a lid puts

    many things into my mind and out of my

    mind, and therefore am I called the Swift,

    Wild Horse. And he spoke no more

    that night, for his teeth were chattering

    with the cold.

    The Coarb and the friars came to him

    46

    in the m, and bade him get ready to

    be crucified, and led him out of the guest-

    house. And while he still stood upon the

    step a flock of great grass-barnacles passed

    high above him with king cries. He

    lifted his arms to them and said, ~ O great

    grass-bararry a little, and may hap

    my soul will travel with you to the waste

    places of the shore and to the ungovern- 1

    able sea !  At the gate a crowd of beggars

    gathered about them, being e there to

    beg from any traveller or pilgrim who

    might have spent the night in the guest-

    house. The Coarb and the friars led

    the glee man to a pla the woods at

    some distance, where many straight young

    trees were growing, and they made him

    cut one down and fashion it to the right

    length, while the beggars stood round them

    in a ring, talking aiculating. The

    Coarb then bade him cut off another and

    shorter piece of wood, and nail it upon

    the first. So there was his cross for him;

    and they put it upon his shoulder, for

    47

    his crucifixion was to be oop of the

    hill where the others were. A half-mile

    on the way he asked them to stop and

    see him juggle for them: for he knew,

    he said, all the tricks of Angus the

    Subtle-Hearted. The old friars were for

    pressing on, but the young friars would

    see him: so he did many wonders for

    them, even to the drawing of live frogs out

    of his ears. But after a while they turned

    on him, and said his tricks were dull and

    a shade unholy, ahe cross on his

    shoulders again. Another half-mile on the

    way, and he asked them to stop and hear

    him jest for them, for he knew, he said, all

    the jests of  the Bald, upon whose

    back a sheeps wool grew. And the young

    friars, when they had heard his merry tales,

    again bade him take up his cross, for it

    i ll became them to listen to such follies.

    Another half-mile on the way, he asked

    them to stop and hear him sing the story

    of White-Breasted Deirdre, and how she

    endured many sorrows, and how the sons

    of Usna died to serve her. And the young

    friars were mad to hear him, but when he

    had ehey grew angry, a him

    for waking fotten longings in their

    hearts. So they set the cross upon his

    back, and hurried him to the hill.

    When he was e to the top, they took

    the cross from him, and began to dig a hole

    to stand it in, while the beggars gathered

    round, and talked among themselves. ~ I

    ask a favour before I d<var></var>ie, says Cum Hal.

    We will grant you no more delays, says

    the Coarb.

    I ask no more delays, for I have drawn

    the sword, and told the ?9９ｌｉｂ?ruth, and lived my

    vision, and am tent.

    Would you then fess ?

    By sun and moon, not l; I ask but to

    6e let eat the food I carry in my wallet.

    I carry food in my wallet whenever I go

    upon a journey, but I do not taste of it

    unless I am well-nigh starved. I have

    en now these two days.

    You may eat, then, says the Coarb,

    ùIq E

    auro help the friars dig the

    hole.

    The glee man took a loaf and some strips

    of cold fried ba out of his wallet and laid

    them upon the ground.  I will give a tithe

    to the poor, says he, a a tenth

    part from the loaf and the ba.  Who

    among you is the poorest ? And there-

    upon was a great clam our, for the beggars

    began the history of their sorrows and their

    poverty, and their yellow faces swayed like

    the Shelly ~iver when the floods have filled

    it with water from the bogs.

    He listened for a little, and, says he,

    I am myself the poorest, for I have

    travel led the bare road, and by the glitter-ing footsteps of the sea; and the tattered

    doublet of particoloured cloth upon my

    bad the torn pointed shoes upon my

    feet have ever irked me, because of the

    towered city full of noble raiment *hich

    was in my heart. And I have been the more

    alone upon the roads and by the sea, be-

    cause I heard in my heart the rustling of

    the rose-bordered dress of her who is more

    subtle than Angus, the Subtle-Hearted,

    and more full of the beauty of laughter than

    the Bald, and more full of the wisdom

    of tears than White-Breasted Deirdre, and

    more lovely than a bursting dawn to them

    that are lost in the darkness. Therefore, I l

    award the tithe to myself; but yet, because

    I am doh all things, I give it unto you.

    So he flung the bread and the strips of

    baong the beggars, and they fought

    with many cries until the last scrap was

    eaten. But meanwhile the friars he

    glee man to his cross, a upright in

    the hole, and shovel led the earth in at the

    foot, and trampled it level and hard. So

    then they went away, but the beggars stared

    on, sitting round the cross. But when the

    sun was sinking, they also got up to go, for

    the air was getting chilly. And as soon as

    they had gone a little way, the wolves, who

    had been showing themselves on the edge

    of a neighb coppice, came nearer,

    and the birds wheeled closer and closer.

    5 1

    Stay, outcasts, yet a little while, the cruci-

    fied one called in a weak voice to the beg-

    gars, ahe beasts and the birds

    from me. But the beggars were angry

    because he had called them outcasts, so

    they threw stones and mud at him, and

    went their w;~y. Then the wolves gathered

    at the foot of the cross, and the birds flew

    lower and lower. And presently the birds

    lighted all at once upon his head and arms

    and shoulders, and began to peck at him,

    and the wolves began to eat his feet.  Out-

    casts, he moaned,  have you also turned

    against the outcast ?

 The Black Tower

    <strong>The Black Tower</strong>

    SAY that the men of the old black tower,

    Though they but feed as the goatherd feeds,

    Their money spent, their wine gone sour,

    Laothing that a soldier needs,

    That all are oath-bound men:

    Those banners e not in.

    There iomb stand the dead upright,

    But winds e up from the shore:

    They ></a>shake when the winds roar,

    Old bones upon the mountain shake.

    Those banners e to bribe or threaten,

    Or whisper that a mans a fool

    Who, when his ht kings fotten,

    Cares what kis up his rule.

    If he die></a>d long ago

    Why do you dread us so?

    There iomb drops the faint moonlight,

    But wind es up from the shore:

    They shake when the winds ro>藏书网</a>ar,

    Old bones upon the mountain shake.

    The towers old cook that must climb and clamber

    Catg small birds in the dew of the morn

    When we hale meretched in slumber

    Swears that he hears the kings gr<dfn></df horn.

    But hes a lying hound:

    Stand we on guard oath-bound!

    There iomb the dark grows blacker,

    But wind es up from藏书网 the shore:

    They shake when the winds roar,

    Old bones upon the mountain shake.

 The Arrow

    <strong>The Arrow</strong>

    I THOUGHT of your beauty, and this arrow,

    Made out of a wild thought, is in my marro<bdi></bdi>w.

    Theres no m.an may look upon her, no man,

    As when newly grown <big></big>to be a woman,

    Tall and  with face a<samp>.</samp>nd bosom

    Delicate in colour as apple blossom.

    This beautys kinder, yet for abbr></abbr> reason

    I could weep that the old is out of season.

 Swifts Epitaph

<strong>Swifts Epitaph</strong>

    SWIFT has sailed into his rest;

    Savage indignation there

    ot lacerate his breast.

    Imitate him if you dare,

    World-besotted traveller; he

    Served human liberty.

 Sailing to Byzantium

    <strong>Sailing to Byzantium</strong>

    THAT is no try for old men. The young

    In one anothers arms, birds irees

    - Those dying geions - at t<big></big>heir song,

    The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,

    Fish, flesh, or fowl, end all summer long

    Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.

    Caught in that sensual mus<mark></mark>ic all

    Mos of unageing 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<var></var> mortal dress,

    Nor is there singing school but studying

    Mos of its own magnifice;

    And therefore I have sailed the seas and e

    To the holy city of Byzantium.

    O ></a>sages standing in Gods holy fire

    As in the gold mosaic of a wall,

    e from the holy fire, perne in<bdo>..</bdo> a gyre,

    Ahe singing-masters of my soul.

    e my heart away; sick with desire

    And fasteo a dying animal

    It knows not what it is; and gather me

    Into the artifice of eternity.

    O of nature I shall ake

    My bodily form from any natural thing,

    But such a form as Gre goldsmiths make

    Of hammered gold and gold enamelling

    To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;

    Or set upon a golden bough to sing

    To lords and ladies of Byzantium

    Of what is past, or passing, or to e.

 O Do Not Love Too Long

    <strong>O Do Not Love Too Long</strong><u>?</u>

    SWEETHEART, do not love too long:

    I loved long藏书网 and long,

    And grew to be out of fashion

    Like an old song.

    All through the years of our<u>?</u> youth

    her could have known

    Their own thought from the others,

    We <bdi>..</bdi>were so much at one.

    But<bdo></bdo> O, in a minute she ged -

    O do not love too long,

    Or you will grow out of fashion

    Like an old song.

 No Second Troy

    <strong>No Sed Troy</strong><cite></cite>

    WHY should I blame her that she filled my days

    With misery, or that she would of late

    <cite></cite>Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,

    Or hurled the little streets upon the great.

    Had they but ce 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,

    Be?.ing high and solitary and most stern?

    Why, what could she have done, being what she bbr>９９ｌiｂ?</abbr>is?

    Was there anoth<var></var>er Troy for her to burn?

 Leda And The Swan

    <strong>Leda And The Swan</strong>

    A sudden blow: t９９ｌｉｂ?he great wings beating still

    Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed

    By his dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,

    He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

    How  those terrified vague fingers push

    The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?

    How  anybody,?９９ｌiｂ. laid in that white rush,

    But feel the<u>.９９lｉb?</u> strange heart beating where it lies?

    A shudder in the loins, engehere

    The brok<cite>..</cite>en 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 hisbbr>藏书网</abbr> power

    Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

 Lapis Lazuli

    <strong>Lapis Lazuli</strong><bdi>.9９lｉｂ?</bdi>

    I HAVE heard that hysterical women say

    They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow.

    Of poets that are always gay,

    For everybody knows or else should know

    That if nothing drastic is done

    Aeroplane and Zeppelin will e out.

    Pitch like King Billy bomb-balls in

    Until the town lie beaten flat.

    All perform their tragic play,

    There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,

    Thats Ophelia, that Cordelia;

    Yet they, should the last se be there,

    The great stage curtain about to drop,

    If worthy their promi part in the play,

    Do not break up their lio weep.

    They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;

    Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.

    All men have aimed at, found and lost;

    Black out; Heaven blazing into the head:

    Tragedy wrought to its uttermost.

    Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages,

    And all the drop-ses drop at once

    Upon a huhousand stages,

    It ot grow by an inch or an ounce.

    On their owhey came, or On shipboard,

    Camel-back; horse-back, ass-back, mule-back,

    Old civilisations put to the sw></a>ord.

    Then they and their wisdom went to rack:

    No handiwork of<tt></tt> Callimachus,

    Who handled marble as if it were bronze,

    Made draperies that seemed to rise

    When sea-wind swept the er, stands;

    His long lamp-ey shaped like the stem

    Of a slender palm, stood but a day;

    All things fall and are built again,

    And those that build them again are gay.

    Two amen, behind them a third,

    Are carved in lapis lazuli,

    Over them flies a long-legged bird,

    A symbol of loy;

    The third, doubtless ></a>a serving-man,

    Carries a musical instmment.

    Every discoloration of the stone,

    Every actal crack or dent,

    Seems a water-course or an avalanche,

    Or lofty slope where it still snows

    Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch

    Sweetens the little half-way house

    Those amen climb towards, and I

    Delight to imagihem seated there;

    There, on the mountain and the sky,

    On all the tragic se they stare.

    One asks for mournful melodies;

    Aplished fingers begin to play.

    Their eyes mid many wriheir eyes,

    Their a, glittering eyes, are gay.

 King And No King

    <strong>King And No King</strong>

    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;

    Yet Old Romance being kind, let him prevail

    Somewhere.. or somehow that I have fot,

    Though hed but on - Whereas we that had thought

    To have lit upon as  and sweet a tale

    Have beeed by that pledge you gave

    In momentary anger long ago;

    And I that have not your faith, how sha<bdo></bdo>ll I know

    That in the blinding light beyond the grave

    Well find so good a thing as that we have lost?

    The hourly kindness, the days on speec<bdi></bdi>h.

    The habitual tent of each with each

    Meher soul nor body has been crossed.

 In the Seven Woods

    <strong>In the Seven Woods</strong>?

    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 empt..he heart. I have fot awhile

    Tara uprooted, and new onness

    Upohrone and g about the streets

    And hanging its paper flowers from post to post,

    Because it is alone of all things happy.

    I am tented, for I know that Quiet

    Wanders laughing aing her w>.</a>ild heart

    Among pigeons and bees, while that Great Archer,

    Who but awaits H<q></q>is hour to shoot, still hangs

    A cloudy quiver over Paira-lee.

 Her Praise

    <strong>Her Praise</strong>

    SHE is foremost of those that I would hear praised.

    I have gone about the house, gone up and down

    As a man does who has published a new book,

    Or a young girl dressed out in her new gown,

    And though I have turhe talk by hook or crook

    Until her praise should be the uppermost theme,

    A oke of some ale she had read,

    A man fusedly in <var></var>a half dream

    As though some <u></u>other name ran in his head.

    She is foremost of t?hose that I would hear praised.

    I will talk no more of books or the long war

    But walk by the dry thorn until I have found

    Some beggar sheltering from the wind, and there

    bbr>９9liｂ.</abbr>Mahe talk until her name e round.

    If there be rags enough he will know her name

    And be well pleased remembering it, for in the <cite></cite>old days,

    Though she had young mens praise and old mens blame,

    Among the poor both old and young gave her praise.

 He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven

    <strong>He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven</strong>９９lｉｂ?

    HAD I the heav<u>藏书网</u>ens embroidered cloths,

    Enwrought with golden and silver light,

    The blue and the dim and the dark clothsbbr></abbr>

    Of night and light and the half-light,

    I would spread the cloths under your feet:

    But I, being poor, have <s>藏书网</s>only my dreams;

    I have spread my dreams under your feet;

    Tread soft<q>..</q>ly because you tread on my dreams.

 Easter, 1916

    <stroer, 1916</strong>

    I HAVE met them at close of day

    ing with vivid faces

    From ter or desk among grey

    Eighteenth-tury houses.

    I have passed with a nod of the head

    Or polite meaningless words,

    Or have lingered awhile and said

    Polite meaningless words,

    And thought before I had done

    Of a mog tale ibe

    To please a panion

    Around the fire at the club,

    Beiain that they and I

    But lived where motley is worn:

    All ged, ged utterly:

    A terrible beauty is born.

    That womans days were spent

    In ignorant>..</a> good-will,

    Her nights in argument

    Until her voice grew shrill.

    What voice more sweet than hers

    When, young aiful,

    She rode to harriers?

    This man had kept a school

    And rode our winged horse;

    This other his helper and friend

    Was ing into his force;

    He might have won fame in the end,

    So sensitive his nature seemed,

    S and sweet his thought.

    This other man I had dreamed

    A drunken, vainglorious lout.

    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 edy;

    He, too, has been ged in his turn,

    Transformed utterly:

    A terrib<var></var>le beauty is born.

    Hearts with one purpose alone

    Through summer and winter seem

    Ented to a stone

    To trouble the living stream.

    The horse that es from the road.

    The rider, the birds that range

    From cloud to tumbling cloud,

    Minute by mihey ge;

    A shadow of cloud oream

    ges minute by minute;

    A horse-hoof slides on the brim,

    And a horse plashes within it;

    The long-legged moor-hens dive,

    Ao moor-cocks call;

    Minute by mihey live:

    The stones in the midst of all.

    Too long a sacrifice

    make a stone of the heart.

    O when may it suffice?

    That is Heavens part, our part

    To murmur name upon name,

    As a mother names her child

    When sleep at last has e

    On limbs that had run wild.

    What is.９9ｌｉb. but nightfall?

    No, no, not night but death;

    Was it needless death after all?

    Fland 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 -

    Maagh and MacBride

    And olly and Pearse

    Now and in time to be,

    Wherever green is worn,

    Are ged, ged utterly:

    A terrible beauty is born.

 Broken Dreams

    <strong>Broken Dreams</strong>

    THERE is grey i?n your hair.

    Young men no longer suddenly catch their breat<samp>?９９ｌｉｂ.</samp>h

    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 hearts ache have known,

    And given to others all hearts ache,

    From meagre gir<var>藏书网</var>lhoods putting on

    Burdensome beauty - for your sole sake

    Heaven has put away the stroke of her doom,

    So great her portion in that peaake

    By merely walking in a room.

    Your beauty  but leave among us

    Vague memories, nothing but memories.

    A young mahe old men are doalking

    Will say to an old man, &quot;Tell me of that lady

    The poet stubborn witbbr></abbr>h 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.

    You are more beautiful than any one,

    A 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 What have obeyed the holy law

    paddle and are perfect. Leave unged

    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.

 Baile And Aillinn

    <strong>Baile And Aillinn</strong>

    ARGUMENT. Baile and Aillinn were lovers, but Aengus, the

    Master of Love, wishing them to he happy in his own land

    among the dead, told to each a story of the others death, so

    that their hearts were broken and they died.

    I HARDLY hear the curlew cry,

    Nor thegrey rush when the wind is high,

    Before my thoughts begin to run

    On the heir of Uladh, Buans son,

    Baile, who had the honey mouth;

    And that mild woman of the south,

    Aillinn, who was King Lugaidhs heir.

    Their love was never drowned in care

    Of this or that thing, nrew cold

    Because their hodies had grown old.

    Being forbid to marry oh,

    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 e,

    Young Baile Honey Mouth, whom some

    Called rather Baile Little-Land,

    Rode out of Emain with a band

    Of harpers and young men; and they

    Imagined, as they struck the way

    To many-pastured Muirthemne,

    That all things fell out happily,

    And there, for all that fools had said,

    Baile and Aillinn would be wed.

    They found an old man running there:

    He had ragged long grass-coloured hair;

    He had khat stuck out of his hose;

    He had puddle-water in his shoes;

    He had half a cloak to keep him dry,

    Although he had a squirrels eye.

    &lt;1O wandering hirds and rushy beds,

    You put such folly in our heads

    With all this g in the wind,

    No on 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 thin<mark></mark>gs hut know

    That all this life  give us is

    A childs laughter, a womans kiss.

    Who was it put so great a s

    In thegrey reeds that night and morn

    Are trodden and broken hy the herds,

    And in the light bodies of birds

    The north wind tumbles to and fro

    And pinches among hail and snow?&gt;1

    That runner said: &quot;I am from the south;

    I run to Baile Honey-Mouth,

    To tell him how the girl Aillinn

    Rode from the try of her kin,

    And old and young men rode with her:

    For all that try had been astir

    If anybody half as fair

    Had chosen a husband anywhere

    But where it could see her every day.

    When they had ridden a little way

    An old man caught the horses head

    With: &quot;&quot;You must home again, and wed

    With somebody in your own land.

    A young man cried and kissed her hand,

    &quot;&quot;O lady, wed with one of us;

    And when no face grew piteous

    For ale thing she spake,

    She fell and died of the heart-break.

    Because a lovers heart s worn out,

    Being tumbled and blown about

    By its own blind imagining,

    And will believe that anything

    That is bad enough to be true, is true,

    Bailes heart was broken in two;

    And he, being laid upon green boughs,

    Was carried to the goodly house

    Where the Hound of Uladh sat before

    The brazen pillars of his door,

    His face bowed low to weep the end

    Of the harpers daughter and her friend

    For athough years had passed away

    He always wept them on that day,

    For on that day they had beerayed;

    And now that Honey-Mouth is laid

    Under a  of sleepy stone

    Before his eyes, he has tears for none,

    Although he is carrying stone, but two

    For whom the s but<u>99ｌib?</u> heaped anew.

    &lt;1We hold, because our memory is

    Sofull of that thing and of this,

    That out of sight is out of mind.

    But the grey rush uhe wind

    And the grey bird with crooked bill

    rave suemories that they still

    Remember Deirdre and her man;

    And when we walk with Kate or Nan

    About the windy water-side,

    Our hearts  Fear the voices chide.

    How could we be so soon tent,

    Who know the way that Naoise went?

    And they have news of Deirdres eyes,

    Who being lovely was so wise -

    Ah! wise, my heart knows well how wise.&gt;1

    Now had that old gaunt crafty one,

    Gathering his cloak about him, mn

    Where Aill<samp>..</samp>inn rode with waiting-maids,

    Who amid leafy lights and shades

    Dreamed of the hands that would unlace

    Their bodices in some dim place

    When they had e to the matriage-bed,

    And harpers, pag with high head

    As though their music were enough

    To make the savage heart of love

    Grow gehout sorrowing,

    Imagining and p

    Heaven knows what calamity;

    &quot;Anothers hurried off, cried he,

    &quot;From heat and cold and wind and wave;

    They have heaped the stones above his grave

    In Muirthemne, and over it

    In geless Ogham letters writ -

    Baile, that was of Rurys seed.

    But the gods long ago decreed

    No waiting-maid should ever spread

    Baile and Aillinns marriage-bed,

    For they should clip and clip again

    Where wild bees hive on the Great Plain.

    Therefore it is but little news

    That put this hurry in my shoes.

    Then seeing that he scarce had spoke

    Before her love-wor had broke.

    He ran and laughed until he came

    To that high hill the herdsmen name

    The Hill Seat of Laighen, because

    Some god or king had made the laws

    That held the land together there,

    In old times among the clouds of the air.

    That old man climbed; the day grew dim;

    Two swans came flying up to him,

    Linked by a gold  each to each,

    And with low murmuring laughing speech

    Alighted on the windy grass.

    They knew him: his ch<var>９9lｉb?</var>anged body was

    Tall, proud and ruddy, and light wings

    Were h over the harp-strings

    That Edain, Midhirs wife, had wove

    In the hid place, being crazed by love.

    What shall I call them? fish that swim,

    Scale rubbing scale where light is dim

    By a broad water-lily leaf;

    Or mi the one wheaten sheaf

    Fotten at the threshing-place;

    Or birds lost in the one clear space

    Of m light in a dim sky;

    Or, it may be, the eyelids of one eye,

    Or the door-pillars of one house,

    Or two sweet blossoming apple-boughs

    That have one shadow on the ground;

    Or the tws that made one sound

    Where that wise harpers finger ran.

    For this young girl and this young man

    Have happiness without an end,

    Because they have made so good a friend.

    They know all wonders, for they pass

    The tates of Gorias,

    And Findrias and Falias,

    And long-fotten Murias,

    Among the giant kings whose hoard,

    Cauldron and spear and stone and sword,

    Was robbed before earth gave the wheat;

    Wandering from broken street to street

    They e where some huge watcher is,

    And tremble with their love and kiss.

    They know 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

    Quiets wild heart, like daily meat;

    Who when night this are afloat

    On dappled skins in a glass boat,

    Far out under a windless sky;

    While over them birds of Aengus fly,

    And over the tiller and the prow,

    And waving white wings to and fro

    Awaken wanderings of light air

    To stir their coverlet and their hair.

    And poets found, old writers say,

    A yew tree where his body lay;

    But a wild apple hid the grass

    With its sweet blossom where hers was,

    And being in good heart, because

    A better time had e again

    After the deaths of many men,

    And that long fighting at the ford,

    They wrote on tablets of thin board,

    Made of the apple and the yew,

    All the love stories that they knew.

    &lt;1Let rush and hird cry out their fill

    Of the harpers daughter if they will,

    Beloved, I am not afraid of her.

    She is not wiser nor lovelier,

    And you are more high of heart than she,

    For all her wanderings over-sea;

    But Id have bird and rush fet

    Those other two; for never yet

    Has lover lived, but loo wive

    Like them that are no more alive.

 Against Unworthy Praise

    <strong>Against Unworthy Praise</strong><tt></tt>

    O HEART, be at peace, because

    Nor knave nor dolt  break

    Whats not for their applause,

    Being for a womans sake.

    Enough if the work has seemed,

    So did she your strength renew,

    A dream?９９ｌｉｂ?hat a lion had dreamed

    Till the wilderness cried aloud,

    A secret between you two,

    Between the proud and the proud.

    What, still you wo?9９ｌｉb.uld 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></a> dolt and knave;

    Aye, and worse wrong than these.

    Yet she, singing upon her road,

    Half lion, half child, is at peace.

 Aedh Wishes For The Clothes Of Heaven

    <strong>Aedh Wishes For The Clothes Of Heaven</strong>

    Had I the heavens em<bdi></bdi>broidered cloths,

    Enwrought with golden and silver light,

    The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

    Of night and light and<s>藏书网</s> the half light,

    I <dfn>?99ｌｉb.</dfn>would spread the cloths under your feet:

    But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

    I have spread m?y dreams under your feet;

    Tread softly because you tread on my dre..ams.

 A Prayer For My Daughter

    <strong>A Prayer For My Daughter</strong>

    Once more the storm is howling, and half hid

    Uhis cradle-hood and coverlid

    My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle

    But Gregorys wood and one bare hill

    Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind９9ｌiｂ?,

    Bred olantic,  be stayed;

    And for<bdo>?</bdo> an hour I have walked and prayed

    Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.

    I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour

    And heard the sea-wind scream upoower,

    And uhe arches of the bridge, and scream

    In the elms above the flooded stream;

    Imagining ied reverie

    That the future years had e,

    Dang to a frenzied drum,

    Out of the murderous innoce of the sea.

    May she be granted beauty a not

    Beauty to make a strangers eye distraught,

    Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,

    Being made beautiful overmuch,

    sider beauty a suffit end,

    Lose natural kindness and maybe

    The heart-revealing intimacy

    That chooses right, and never find a friend.

    Helen being chosen found<bdi>藏书网</bdi> 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-leggèd smith for man.

    Its cer?９9lib?ain that fine wome

    A crazy salad with their meat

    Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone.

    In courtesy Id have her chiefly learned;

    Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned

    By those that are irely beautiful;

    Yet many, that have played the fool

    For beautys very self, has charm made wise,

    And many a poor man that has roved,

    Loved and thought himself beloved,

    From a glad kindness ot take his eyes.

    May she bee a flourishing hidden tree

    That all her thoughts may like the li 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.

    O 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 we<cite>９9liｂ.</cite>ll be of all evil ces chief.

    If theres no hatred in a mind

    Assault and battery of the wind

    ever tear the li 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 Plentys horn,

    Because of her opinionated mind

    Barter that horn and every good

    By quiet natures uood

    For an old bellows full of angry wind?

    sidering that, all hatred driven hence,

    The soul recovers radical innoce

    And learns at last that it is self-delighting,

    Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,

    And that its ow will is Heavens will;

    She , though every face should scowl

    And every windy quarter howl

    Or every bellows burst, be happy still.

    And may her bridegro her to a house

    Where alls aced, ceremonious;

    Fand hatred are the wares

    Peddled ihhfares.

    How but in  and in ceremony

    Are innod beauty born?

    Ceremonys a name for the rich horn,

    And  for the spreading laurel tree.天涯在线书库《www.tianyabook.com》