Public-domain ebook
by W. B. Yeats
Language: en872 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: Poetry·Mythology, Legends & Folklore·British Literature
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #49608.
The opening · free to read
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 thing 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 playing at cards With a twinkling of ancient hands.
The bread and the wine had a doom, For these were the host of the air; He sat and played in a dream Of her long dim hair.
He played with the merry old men And thought not of evil chance, Until one bore Bridget his bride Away from the merry dance.
He bore her away in his arms, The handsomest young man there, And his neck and his breast and his arms Were drowned in her long dim hair.
O’Driscoll scattered the cards And out of his dream awoke: 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 was piping so sad, And never was piping so gay.
ALTHOUGH you hide in the ebb and flow Of the pale tide when the moon has set, The people of coming days will know About the casting out of my net, And how you have leaped times out of mind Over the little silver cords, And think that you were hard and unkind, And blame you with many bitter words.
THE Danaan children laugh, in cradles of wrought gold, And clap their hands together, and half close their eyes, For they will ride the North when the ger-eagle flies, With heavy whitening wings, and a heart fallen cold: I kiss my wailing child and press it to my breast, And hear the narrow graves calling my child and me. Desolate winds that cry over the wandering sea; Desolate winds that hover in the flaming West; Desolate winds that beat the doors of Heaven, and beat The doors of Hell and blow there many a whimpering ghost; O heart the winds have shaken; the unappeasable host Is comelier than candles at Mother Mary’s feet.
OUT-WORN heart, in a time out-worn, Come clear of the nets of wrong and right; Laugh, heart, again in the gray twilight, Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn.
Your mother Eire is always young, Dew ever shining and twilight gray; Though hope fall from you and love decay, Burning in fires of a slanderous tongue.
Come, heart, where hill is heaped upon hill For there the mystical brotherhood Of sun and moon and hollow and wood And river and stream work out their will;
And God stands winding His lonely horn, And time and the world are ever in flight; And love is less kind than the gray twilight And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn.
I WENT out to the hazel wood, Because a fire was in my head, And cut and peeled a hazel wand, And hooked a berry to a thread; And when white moths were on the wing, And moth-like stars were flickering out, I dropped the berry in a stream And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor I went to blow the fire a-flame, But something rustled on the floor, And someone called me by my name: It had become a glimmering girl With apple blossom in her hair Who called me by my name and ran And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering Through hollow lands and hilly lands, I will find out where she has gone, And kiss her lips and take her hands; And walk among long dappled grass, And pluck till time and times are done The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun.
O WHAT to me the little room That was brimmed up with prayer and rest; He bade me out into the gloom, And my breast lies upon his breast.
O what to me my mother’s care, The house where I was safe and warm; The shadowy blossom of my hair Will hide us from the bitter storm.
O hiding hair and dewy eyes, I am no more with life and death, My heart upon his warm heart lies, My breath is mixed into his breath.
PALE brows, still hands and dim hair, I had a beautiful friend And dreamed that the old despair Would end in love in the end: She looked in my heart one day And saw your image was there; She has gone weeping away.
HE MOURNS FOR THE CHANGE THAT HAS COME UPON HIM AND HIS BELOVED AND LONGS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD
DO you not hear me calling, white deer with no horns! I have been changed to a hound with one red ear; I have been in the Path of Stones and the Wood of Thorns, For somebody hid hatred and hope and desire and fear Under my feet that they follow you night and day. A man with a hazel wand came without sound; He changed me suddenly; I was looking another way; And now my calling is but the calling of a hound; And Time and Birth and Change are hurrying by. I would that the Boar without bristles had come from the West And had rooted the sun and moon and stars out of the sky And lay in the darkness, grunting, and turning to his rest.
I HEAR the Shadowy Horses, their long manes a-shake, Their hoofs heavy with tumult, their eyes glimmering white; The North unfolds above them clinging, creeping night, The East her hidden joy before the morning break, The West weeps in pale dew and sighs passing away, The South is pouring down roses of crimson fire: O vanity of Sleep, Hope, Dream, endless Desire, The Horses of Disaster plunge in the heavy clay: Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast, Drowning love’s lonely hour in deep twilight of rest, And hiding their tossing manes and their tumultuous feet.
O, CURLEW, cry no more in the air, Or only to the waters in the West; Because your crying brings to my mind Passion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hair That was shaken out over my breast: There is enough evil in the crying of wind.
WHEN my arms wrap you round I press My heart upon the loveliness That has long faded from the world; The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled In shadowy pools, when armies fled; The love-tales wrought with silken thread By dreaming ladies upon cloth That has made fat the murderous moth; The roses that of old time were Woven by ladies in their hair, The dew-cold lilies ladies bore Through many a sacred corridor Where such gray clouds of incense rose That only the gods’ eyes did not close: For that pale breast and lingering hand Come from a more dream-heavy land, A more dream-heavy hour than this; And when you sigh from kiss to kiss I hear white Beauty sighing, too, For hours when all must fade like dew, All but the flames, and deep on deep, Throne over throne where in half sleep, Their swords upon their iron knees, Brood her high lonely mysteries.
I BRING you with reverent hands The books of my numberless dreams; White woman that passion has worn As the tide wears the dove-gray sands, And with heart more old than the horn That is brimmed from the pale fire of time: White woman with numberless dreams I bring you my passionate rhyme.
FASTEN your hair with a golden pin, And bind up every wandering tress; I bade my heart build these poor rhymes: It worked at them, day out, day in, Building a sorrowful loveliness Out of the battles of old times.
You need but lift a pearl-pale hand, And bind up your long hair and sigh; And all men’s hearts must burn and beat; And candle-like foam on the dim sand, And stars climbing the dew-dropping sky, Live but to light your passing feet.
BE you still, be you still, trembling heart; Remember the wisdom out of the old days: Him who trembles before the flame and the flood, And the winds that blow through the starry ways, Let the starry winds and the flame and the flood Cover over and hide, for he has no part With the proud, majestical multitude.
THE jester walked in the garden: The garden had fallen still; He bade his soul rise upward And stand on her window-sill.
It rose in a straight blue garment, When owls began to call: It had grown wise-tongued by thinking Of a quiet and light footfall;
But the young queen would not listen; She rose in her pale night gown; She drew in the heavy casement And pushed the latches down.
He bade his heart go to her, When the owls called out no more; In a red and quivering garment It sang to her through the door.
It had grown sweet-tongued by dreaming, Of a flutter of flower-like hair; But she took up her fan from the table And waved it off on the air.
‘I have cap and bells,’ he pondered, ‘I will send them to her and die’; And when the morning whitened He left them where she went by.
She laid them upon her bosom, Under a cloud of her hair, And her red lips sang them a love-song: Till stars grew out of the air.
She opened her door and her window, And the heart and the soul came through, To her right hand came the red one, To her left hand came the blue.
They set up a noise like crickets, A chattering wise and sweet, And her hair was a folded flower And the quiet of love in her feet.
THE dews drop slowly and dreams gather: unknown spears Suddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes, And then the clash of fallen horsemen and the cries Of unknown perishing armies beat about my ears. We who still labour by the cromlec on the shore, The grey cairn on the hill, when day sinks drowned in dew, Being weary of the world’s empires, bow down to you, Master of the still stars and of the flaming door.
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