"PR 5100 FRAGILE DOES NO" CIRCULATE CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY PR 5900.F2°2""' """"'"' '■"•™^^ Later poems, A 3 1924 012 971 341 C- DATE DUE ■^^^■■i fTi lU h|^ '"fffifh' ffFyiiiifaiiit^j,^ TiAV ' irmi FRAGILE PAPER Please handle this book with care, as the paper is brittle. tTkUHO I PNINTCOINU.ft.A. LATER POEMS MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY . CALCUTTA • MADRAS MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON ■ CHICAGO DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO LATER POEMS BY W. B. YEATS MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1926 ;- COPYRIGHT First Edition Ntnfetnber 1922 Reprinted December 1922, January 1924 March 1926 \ ; \ PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN ^^\ e-i^ PREFACE This book contains all poetry not in dramatic form that I have written between my seven- and-twentieth year and the year 1921. I have included one long poem in dramatic form, of which a much shortened version, intended for stage representation, is in my book of plays. I have left out nearly all the long notes which seemed necessary before the work of various writers, but especially of my friend Lady Gregory, had made the circumstantial origins of my verse, in ancient legend or in the legends of the country side, familiar to readers of poetry, Thoor Ballylee, May 1922. Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924012971341 CONTENTS THE WIND AMONG THE REEDS (1899)- The Hosting of the Sidhe The Everlasting Voices . . . The Moods ..... The Lover tells of the Rose in his Heart The Host of the Air The Fisherman . . . o A Cradle Song ..... Into the Twilight .... The Song of Wandering Aencus The Song of the Old Mother The Heart of the Woman The Lover mourns for the Loss of Love He mourns for the change that has COME upon Him and his Beloved and longs for the End of the World He bids his Beloved be at Peace . He reproves the Curlew He remembers forgotten Beauty A Poet to his Beloved . He gives his Beloved certain Rhymes To HIS Heart, bidding it have no Fear 3 4 S 6 y 7 9 10 f' 11 • 12/ 14 " 15 v' 16 17 19 ZO 21 22 23 24 r viii CONTENTS THE WIND AMONG THE REEDS {contd>i page ■J The Cap and Bells. .... 25 The Valley of the Black. Pig . . 27 The Lover asks Forgiveness because of HIS MANY Moods ..... 28 He tells of a Valley full of Lovers . 30 He tells of the Perfect Beauty . . 31 He hears the Cry of the Sedge . . 32 He thinks of Those who have spoken Evil of his Beloved . . . .33 The Blessed ...... 3+ * The Secret Rose . . . . .36 Maid Quiet ...... 38 The Travail of Passion .... 39 The Lover pleads with his Friend for Old Friends ...... 40 A Lover speaks to the Hearers of his Songs in coming Days .... 41 The Poet pleads with the Elemental Powers ....... 42 ^ He wishes his Beloved were Dead . . 44 He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven . 45 I, He thinks of his past Greatness when A Part of the Constellations of Heaven 46 The Fiddler of Dooney .... 47 THE OLD AGE OF QUEEN MAEVE (1903) 49 BAILE AND AILLINN (1903) ... 59 IN THE SEVEN WOODS (1904)— In the Seven Woods . . . .71 The Arrow ...... 72 CONTENTS ix IN THE SEVEN WOODS {conid.)— The Folly of being comforted . Old Memory ..... Never give all the Heart . , The Withering of the Boughs , Adam's Curse Red Hanrahan's Song about Ireland The Old Men admiring Themselves in THE Water ..... Under the Moon .... The Ragged Wood .... O do not love too long . The Players ask for a Blessing on th Psalteries and on Themselves The Happy Townland 73 74 75 76 78 80 82 83 85 86 87 89 THE SHADOWY WATERS (1906)— Introductory Rhymes .... 95 The Shadowy Waters .... 99 FROM THE GREEN HELMET AND OTHER POEMS (1912)— " His Dream A Woman Homer sung The Consolation . . No Second Troy ., . Reconciliation . . . ' King and no King . , Peace .... Against unworthy Praise The Fascination of what's difficult A Drinking Song 1+9 150 151 152 . 153 154 155 156 "FICULT 157 • 158 CONTENTS FROM THE GREEN HELMET AND OTHER POEMS {contd.)— ' The Coming of Wisdom with Time On hearing that the Students of our New University have joined the Agitation against Immoral Literature To a Poet The Mask V Upon a House shaken by the Land Agitation At the Abbey Theatre , These are the Clouds At Galway Races . A Friend's Illness . All Things can tempt Me The Young Man's Song . '59 1 60 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 RESPONSIBILITIES (1914)— Introductory Rhymes . The Grey Rock V The Two Kings To a Wealthy Man September 19 13 To A Friend whose Work h. Nothing Paudeen .... To A Shade . . . When Helen lived . On Those that hated " The THE Western World," 1907 The Three Beggars The Three Hermits a • 173 177 • 182 • 195 AS COME TO 197 . 198 199 201 Playboy OF 202 - 203 . , 206 CONTENTS XI RESPONSIBILITIES {contd.)— PAGB Beggar to Beggar cried . . 208 Running to Paradise 210 The Hour before Dawn . , 212 The Player Queen .... 217 The Realists . „ . . . 218 I. The Witch .... 219 II. The Peacock .... 220 The Mountain Tomb 221 I. To A Child dancing in the Wind 222 II. Two Years later 223 A Memory of Youth 224 Fallen Majesty .... 225 Friends ...... 226 The Cold Heaven .... 228 That the Night come . 229 An Appointment .... 230 I. The Magi 231 II. The Dolls 232 A Coat 233 Closing Rhymes .... 234 THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE (1919)— The Wild Swans at Coole In Memory of Major Robert Gregory An Irish Airman foresees his Death Men improve with the Years . The Collar-bone of a Hare . Under the Round Tower Solomon to Sheba The Living Beauty . A Song ..... 237 V 239 245 246 247 248 250 251 252 Xll CONTENTS THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE (contd.) PAGE To A Young Beauty . . . .253 To A Young Girl . . 254 The Scholars . . • , 255 Tom O'Roughley 256 The Sad Shepherd . 257 Lines written in Dejection 265 The Dawn 266 On Woman 267 The Fisherman 269 The Hawk 271 Memory .... 272 Her Praise 273 The People • 275 His Phoenix . 277 A Thought from Propertius . 280 Broken Dreams . 281 A Deep-sworn Vow . 283 Presences .... . 284 The Balloon of the Mind . 285 To A Squirrel at Kyle-na-Gno . 286 On being asked for a War Poem . 287 In Memory of Alfred Pollexfen 288 Upon a Dying Lady . 290 Ego Dominus Tuus 295 A Prayer on going into my House 300 The Phases of the Moon . 301 The Cat and the Moon 310 The Saint and the Hunchback 312 Two Songs of a Fool 313 Another Song of a Fool 315 The Double Vision of Michae L Roi BARTE > 316 CONTENTS xui MICHAEL ROBARTES AND THE DANCER (I92I) PAGE Michael Robartes and the Dancer . .323 Solomon and the Witch . . . . 327 >^ An Image from a Past Life . . , 329 Under Saturn . . . , . -332 Easter, 1916 ...... 334*^ Sixteen Dead Men . , . . • 337^' The Rose Tree 338 On a Political Prisoner. . . . 339 »/" The Leaders of the Crowd . . . 341 ■'' Towards Break of Day .... 342 Demon and Beast ..... 344 The Second Coming . . ■ . 346 k A Prayer for my Daughter . . . 348 iT A Meditation in Time of War . . 352 To BE carved on a Stone at Ballylee . 353 NOTES ....... 355 k THE WIND AMONG THE REEDS (1899) THE HOSTING OF THE SIDHE The host is riding from Knocknarea And over the grave of Clooth-na bare ; Caolte tossing his burning hair And Niamh calHng Away, come away : Empty your heart of its mortal dream. The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round. Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound. Our breasts are heaving, our eyes are a-gleam. Our arms are waving, our lips are apart ; And if any gaze on our rushing band, We come between him and the deed of his hand. We come between him and the hope of his heart. The host is rushing 'twixt night and day, And where is there hope or deed as fair ? Caolte tossing his burning hair, And Niamh calling Away, come away. THE EVERLASTING VOICES O SWEET everlasting Voices, be still ; Go to the guards of the heavenly fold And bid them wander obeying your will Flame under flame, till Time be no more ; Have you not heard that our hearts are old. That you call in birds, in wind on the hill, In shaken boughs, in tide on the shore? O sweet everlasting Voices, be still. THE MOODS Time drops in decay, Like a candle burnt out, And the mountains and woods Have their day, have their day ; What one in the rout Of the fire-born moods Has fallen away? THE LOVER TELLS OF THE ROSE IN HIS HEART All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old, The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart. The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould. Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart. The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told ; I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart. With the earth and the sky and the water, remade, like a casket of gold For my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart. THE HOST OF THE AIR O'Driscoll drove with a song The wild duck and the drake From the tall and the tufted reeds Of the drear Hart Lake. And he saw how the reeds grew dark At the coming of night tide, And dreamed of the long dim hair Of Bridget his bride. He heard while he sang and dreamed A piper piping away, And never was piping so sad, And never was piping so gay. And he saw young men and young girls Who danced on a level place And Bridget his bride among them, With a sad and a gay face. 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. THE HOST OF THE AIR 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. THE FISHERMAN 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. J A CRADLE SONG 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 Maiy's feet. INTO THE TWILIGHT Out-worn heart, in a time out-worn, Come clear of the nets of wrong and right ; Laugh, heart, again in the grey twihght. Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn. Your mother Eire is always young, Dew ever shining and twilight grey ; 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 grey twilight, And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn. II / THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS 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 some one 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. WANDERING AENGUS 13 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. / THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS 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 some one 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. 12 WANDERING AENGUS 13 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. THE SONG OF THE OLD MOTHER I RISE in the dawn, and I kneel and blow Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow ; And then I must scrub and bake and sweep Till stars are beginning to blink and peep ; And the young lie long and dream in their bed Of the matching of ribbons for bosom and head, And their day goes over in idleness, And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress : While I must work because I am old, And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold. »4 THE HEART OF THE WOMAN 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. hiding hair and dewy eyes, 1 am no more with life and death, My heart upon his warm heart lies, My breath is mixed into his breath. 15 THE LOVER MOURNS FOR THE LOSS OF LOVE 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. s6 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 hurry- ing by. 17 1 8 MOURNING AND LONGING 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 turn- ing to his rest. HE BIDS HIS BELOVED BE AT PEACE I HEAR the Shadowy Horses, their long manes a-shake, Their hoofs heavy with tumuh, their eyes gHmmering white ; The North unfolds above them clinging^ creeping night, The East her hidden joy before the morn- ing 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. 19 A POET TO HIS BELOVED I BRING you with reverent hands The books of my numberless dreams ; White woman that passion has worn As the tide wears the dove-grey sands, And with heart more old than the horn That is brimmed from the pale fire of time ; White woman with numberless dreams I bring you my passionate rhyme. HE GIVES HIS BELOVED CERTAIN RHYMES 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. 23 TO HIS HEART, BIDDING IT HAVE NO FEAR 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 fart With the lonely^ majestical multitude. 84 THE CAP AND BELLS 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. 25 26 THE CAP AND BELLS " 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 VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 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. ar THE LOVER ASKS FORGIVENESS BECAUSE OF HIS MANY MOODS If this importunate heart trouble your peace With words Ughter than air, Or hopes that in mere hoping flicker and cease ; Crumple the rose in your hair ; And cover your lips with odorous twilight and say, " O Hearts of wind-blown flame 1 O Winds, elder than changing of night and day, That murmuring and longing came, From marble cities loud with tabors of old In dove-grey faery lands ; From battle banners, fold upon purple fold, Queens wrought with glimmering hands ; That saw young Niamh hover with love-lorn face Above the wandering tide ; And lingered in the hidden desolate place. Where the last Phoenix died And wrapped the flames above his holy head ; And still murmur and long : 28 ASKING FORGIVENESS 29 O Piteous Hearts, changing till change be dead In a tumultuous song " : And cover the pale blossoms of your breast With your dim heavy hair, And trouble with a sigh for all things longing for rest The odorous twilight there. HE TELLS OF A VALLEY FULL OF LOVERS I DREAMED that I stood in a valley, and amid sighs, For happy lovers passed two by two where I stood ; And I dreamed my lost love came stealthily out of the wood With her cloud-pale eyelids falling on dream- dimmed eyes : I cried in my dream, O women, bid the young men lay Their heads on your knees, and drown their eyes with your hair. Or remembering hers they will find no other face fair Till all the valleys of the world have been withered away. v> HE TELLS OF THE PERFECT BEAUTY O CLOUD-PALE eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes, The poets labouring all their days To build a perfect beauty in rhynie Are overthrown by a woman's gaze And by the unlabouring brood of the skies : And therefore my heart will bow, when dew Is dropping sleep, until God burn time. Before the unlabouring stars and you. 31 HE HEARS THE CRY OF THE SEDGE I WANDER by the edge Of this desolate lake Where wind cries in the sedge: Until the axle break That keeps the stars in their round. And hands hurl in the deep The banners of East and West, And the girdle of light is unbound. Tour breast will not lie by the breast Of your beloved in sleep. Sa HE THINKS OF THOSE WHO HAVE SPOKEN EVIL OF HIS BELOVED Half close your eyelids, loosen your hair, And dream about the great and their pride ; They have spoken against you everywhere. But weigh this song with the great and their pride ; I made it out of a mouthful of air, Their children's children shall say they have lied. 33 THE BLESSED CuMHAL called out, bending his head, Till Dathi came and stood, With a blink in his eyes at the cave mouth. Between the wind and the wood. And Cumhal said, bending his knees, " I have come by the windy way To gather the half of your blessedness And learn to pray when you pray. " I can bring you salmon out of the streams And heron out of the skies." But Dathi folded his hands and smiled With the secrets of God in his eyes. And Cumhal saw like a drifting smoke All manner of blessed souls, Women and children, young men with books, And old men with croziers and stoles. " Praise God and God's mother," Dathi said, " For God and God's mother have sent The blessedest souls that walk in the world To fill your heart with content." 34 THE BLESSED 35 " And which is the blessedest," Cumhal said, " Where all are comely and good ? Is it these that with golden thuribles Are singing about the wood ? " " My eyes are blinking," Dathi said, " With the secrets of God half blind. But I can see where the wind goes And follow the way of the wind ; " And blessedness goes where the wind goes. And when it is gone we are dead ; I see the blessedest soul in the world And he nods a drunken head. " O blessedness comes in the night and the day And whither the wise heart knows ; And one has seen in the redness of wine The Incorruptible Rose, " That drowsily drops faint leaves on him And the sweetness of desire, While time and the world are ebbing away In twilights of dew and of fire." THE SECRET ROSE Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose, Enfold me in my hour of hours ; where those Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre, Or in the wine vat, dwell beyond the stir And tumult of defeated dreams ; and deep Among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep Men have named beauty. Thy great leaves enfold The ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold Of the crowned 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 morns had flowered red. Feasted and wept the barrows of his dead ; And the proud dreaming king who flung the crown 36 THE SECRET ROSE 37 And sorrow away, and calling bard and clown Dwelt among wine-stained 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 corn 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 come, thy great wind blows. Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose ? MAID QUIET Where has Maid Quiet gone to, Nodding her russet hood ? The winds that awakened the stars Are blowing through my blood. O how could I be so calm When she rose up to depart ? Now words that called up the lightning Are hurtling through my heart. 38 THE TRAVAIL OF PASSION When the flaming lute-thronged angelic door is wide ; When an immortal passion breathes in mortal clay ; Our hearts endure the scourge, the plaited thorns, the way Crowded with bitter faces, the wounds in palm and side, The vinegar-heavy sponge, the flowers by Kedron stream ; We will bend down and loosen our hair over you, That it may drop faint perfume, and be heavy with dew. Lilies of death-pale hope, roses of passionate dream. 30 THE LOVER PLEADS WITH HIS FRIEND FOR OLD FRIENDS Though you are in your shining days, Voices among the crowd And new friends busy with your praise, Be not unkind or proud, But think about old friends the most : Time's bitter flood will rise, Your beauty perish and be lost For all eyes but these eyes. 40 A LOVER SPEAKS TO THE HEARERS OF HIS SONGS IN COMING DAYS O, WOMEN, kneeling by your altar rails long hence, When songs I wove for my beloved hide the prayer. And smoke from this dead heart drifts through the violet air And covers away the smoke of myrrh and frankincense ; Bend down and pray for all that sin I wove in song, Till the Attorney for Lost Souls cry her sweet cry, And call to my beloved and me : " No longer fly Amid the hovering, piteous, penitential throng." THE POET PLEADS WITH THE ELEMENTAL POWERS The Powers whose name and shape no living creature knows Have pulled the Immortal Rose ; And though the Seven Lights bowed in their dance and wept, The Polar Dragon slept, His heavy rings uncoiled from glimmering deep to deep : When will he wake from sleep ? Great Powers of falling wave and wind and windy fire. With your harmonious choir Encircle her I love and sing her into peace, That my old care may cease ; Unfold your flaming wings and cover out of sight The nets of day and night. 42 THE ELEMENTAL POWERS 43 Dim Powers of drowsy thought, let her no longer be Like the pale cup of the sea, When winds have gathered and sun and moon burned dim Above its cloudy rim ; But let a gentle silence wrought with music flow Whither her footsteps go. HE WISHES HIS BELOVED WERE DEAD Were you but lying cold and dead, And lights were paling out of the West, You would come hither, and bend your head, And I would lay my head on your breast ; And you would murmur tender words. Forgiving me, because you were dead : Nor would you rise and hasten away. Though you have the will of the wild birds, But know your hair was bound and wound About the stars and moon and sun : O would, beloved, that you lay Under the dock-leaves in the ground, While lights were paling one by one. 44 HE WISHES FOR THE CLOTHS OF HEAVEN Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet : But I, being poor, have only my dreams ; I have spread my dreams under your feet ; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. 45 y HE THINKS OF HIS PAST GREATNESS WHEN A PART OF THE CONSTEL- LATIONS OF HEAVEN I HAVE drunk ale from the Country of the Young And weep because I know all things now : I have been a hazel tree and they hung The Pilot Star and the Crooked Plough Among my leaves in times out of mind : I became a rush that horses tread : I became a man, a hater of the wind, Knowing one, out of all things, alone, that his head Would not lie on the breast or his lips on the hair Of the woman that he loves, until he dies. O beast of the wilderness, bird of the air, Must I endure your amorous cries ? 46 THE FIDDLER OF DOONEY When I play on my fiddle in Dooney, Folk dance like a wave of the sea ; My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet, My brother in Mocharabuiee. I passed my brother and cousin : They read in their books of prayer ; I read in my book of songs I bought at the Sligo fair. When we come at the end of time, To Peter sitting in state. He will smile on the three old spirits, But call me first through the gate ; For the good are always the merry, Save by an evil chance. And the merry love the fiddle And the merry love to dance : And when the folk there spy me, They will all come up to me, With " Here is the fiddler of Dooney 1 " And dance like a wave of the sea. 47 THE OLD AGE OF QUEEN MAEVE (1903) 49 THE OLD AGE OF QUEEN MAEVE Maeve the great queen was pacing to and fro, Between the walls covered with beaten bronze, In her high house at Cruachan ; the long hearth, Flickering with ash and hazel, but half showed Where the tired horse-boys lay upon the rushes, Or on the benches underneath the walls. In comfortable 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 been beautiful in that old way That's all but gone ; for the proud heart is gone. And the fool heart of the counting-house fears all But soft beauty and indolent desire. 51 52 OLD AGE OF QUEEN MAEVE She could have called over the rim of the world Whatever woman's lover had hit her fancy, And yet had been great bodied and great limbed, Fashioned to be the mother of strong children ; And she'd had lucky eyes and a. high heart, And wisdom that caught fire like the dried flax, At need, and made her beautiful and fierce, Sudden and laughing. O unquiet 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 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 porter's 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 wondering who of the many-changing Sidhe Had come as in the old times to counsel her, OLD AGE OF QUEEN MAEVE 53 Maeve walked, yet with slow footfall, being old, To that small chamber by the outer gate. The porter slept, although he sat upright With still and stony limbs and open eyes. Maeve waited, and when that ear-piercing noise Broke from his parted lips and broke again. She laid a hand on either of his shoulders. And shook him wide awake, and bid him say Who of the wandering many-changing 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 for a good 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, wondering 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 54 OLD AGE OF QUEEN MAEVE To many thousand eyes, and to her own One that the generations had long waited That work too difficult for mortal hands Might be accomplished. Bunching the cur- tain up She saw her husband Ailell sleeping there, And thought of days when he'd had a straight body, And of that famous Fergus, Nessa's 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 man's voice, But with the burning, live, unshaken voice. Of those that it may be can never age. He said, " High Queen of Cruachan and Magh Ai, A king of the Great Plain would speak with you." And with glad voice Maeve answered him, " What king Of the far wandering shadows has come to me .'' As in the old days when they would come and go About my threshold to counsel and to help." The parted lips replied, " I seek your help, For I am Aengus, and I am crossed in love." " How may a mortal whose life gutters out Help them that wander with hand clasping hand. OLD AGE OF QUEEN MAEVE 55 Their haughty images that cannot wither, For all their beauty's like a hollow dream, Mirrored in streams that neither hail nor rain Nor the cold North has troubled ? " He replied : " I am from those rivers and I bid you call The children of the Maines out of sleep. And set them digging under Bual's hill. We shadows, while they uproot his earthy house. 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 Cruachan." " I obey your will With speedy feet and a most thankful heart : For you have been, O Aengus of the birds. Our giver of good counsel 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 grandchildren slept, and cried aloud. Until the pillared dark began to stir S6 OLD AGE OF QUEEN MAEVE With shouting and the clang of unhooked arms. She told them of the many-changing ones ; And all that night, and all through the next 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' children dropped their spades, and stood With quaking joints and terror-strucken faces, Till Maeve called out : " These are but common men. The Maines' children have not dropped their spades, Because Earth, crazy for its broken power, Casts up a show and the winds answer it 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 thorn tree stood. Friend of these many years, you too had stood With equal courage in that whirling rout ; OLD AGE OF QUEEN MAEVE 57 For you, although you've not her wandering heart, Have all that greatness, and not hers alone, For there is no high story about queens In any ancient book but tells of you ; And when I've heard how they grew old and died. Or fell into unhappiness, I've said : " She will grow old and die, and she has wept ! " And when I'd write it out anew, the words. Half crazy with the thought. She too has wept ! Outrun the measure. I'd 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 : " Aengus and his sweetheart give their thanks To Maeve and to Maeve's household, owing all In owing them the bride-bed that gives peace." Then Maeve : " O Aengus, Master of all lovers, A thousand years ago you held high talk With the first kings of many - pillared Cruachan. 58 OLD AGE OF QUEEN MAEVE O when will you grow weary ? " They had vanished ; But out of the dark air over her head there came A murmur of soft words and meeting lips. BAILE AND AILLINN (1903) 59 BAILE AND AILLINN Argument. Baile and Aillinn were lovers, but Aengus, the Master of Love, wishing them to be happy in his own land among the dead, told to each a story of the other's death, so that their hearts were broken and they died. / HARDLY hear the curlew cry. Nor the grey rush when the wind is high, Before my thoughts begin to run On the heir of Ulad, Buan's son, Baile, who had the honey mouth ; And that mild woman of the south, Aillinn, who was King Lugaid's heir. Their love was never drowned in care Of this or that thing, nor grew cold Because their bodies had grown old. Being forbid to marry on earth. They blossomed to immortal mirth. About the time when Christ was born, When the long wars for the White Horn And the Brown Bull had not yet come, Young Baile Honey-Mouth, whom some Called rather Baile Little-Land, Rode out of Emain with a band Of harpers and young men ; and they Imagined, as they struck the way 6i 62 BAILE AND AILLINN 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 knees that 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 squirrel's eye. wandering birds and rushy beds. Ton put such folly in our heads With all this crying in the wind ; No common love is to our mind. And our -poor Kate or Nan is less Than any whose unhappiness Awoke the harp-strings long ago. Yet they that know all things but know That all life had to give us is A child's laughter, a woman's kiss. Who was it put so great a scorn In the grey reeds that night and morn Are trodden and broken by the herds. And in the light bodies of birds That north wind tumbles to and fro And pinches among hail and snow ? That runner said : " I am from the south ; 1 run to Baile Honey-Mouth, BAILE AND AILLINN $2, To tell him how the girl Aillinn Rode from the country of her kin, And old and young men rode with her : For all that country 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 horse's head With : ' You must home again, and wed With somebody in your own land.' A young man cried and kissed her hand, * O lady, wed with one of us ' ; And when no face grew piteous For any gentle thing she spake, She fell and died of the heart-break." Because a lover's 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, Baile's heart was broken in two ; And he being laid upon green boughs. Was carried to the goodly house Where the Hound of Ulad sat before The brazen pillars of his door. His face bowed low to weep the end Of the harper's daughter and her friend. For although years had passed away He always wept them on that day. 64 BAILE AND AILLINN For on that day they had been betrayed ; And now that Honey-Mouth is laid Under a cairn of sleepy stone Before his eyes, he has tears for none, Although he is carrying stone, but two For whom the cairn's but heaped anew. We hold because our memory is So full of that thing and of this That out of sight is out of mind. But the grey rush under the wind And the grey bird with crooked bill Have such long memories, that they still Remember Deirdre and her man ; And when we walk with Kate or Nan About the windy water side. Our hearts can hear the voices chide. How could we be so soon content, Who know the way that Naoise went ? And they have news of Deirdre" s eyes. Who being lovely was so wise — Ah ! wise, my heart knows well how wise. Now had that old gaunt crafty one. Gathering his cloak about him, run Where Aillinn 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 come to the marriage bed ; And harpers, pacing with high head BAILE AND AILLINN 65 As though their music were enough To make the savage heart of love Grow gentle without sorrowing, Imagining and pondering Heaven knows what calamity ; "Another's hurried off," cried he, " From heat and cold and wind and wave ; They have heaped the stones above his grave In Muirthemne, and over it In changeless Ogham letters writ — Baik, that was of Rury's seed. But the gods long ago decreed No waiting maid should ever spread Baile and Aillinn's 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-worn heart had broke. He ran and laughed until he came To that high hill the herdsmen name The Hill Seat of Leighin, 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, 66 BAILE AND AILLINN Linked by a gold chain each to each, And with low murmuring laughing speech Alighted on the windy grass. They knew him : his changed body was Tall, proud and ruddy, and light wings Were hovering over the harp-strings That Etain, Midhir's 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 mice in the one wheaten sheaf Forgotten at the threshing place ; Or birds lost in the one clear space Of morning 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 two strings that made one sound Where that wise harper's 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 towery gates of Gorias, And Findrias and Falias, And long-forgotten Murias, Among the giant kings whose hoard. BAILE AND AILLINN 67 Cauldron and spear and stone and sword, Was robbed before earth gave the wheat ; Wandering from broken street to street They come 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 Quiet's wild heart, like daily meat ; Who when night thickens are afloat On dappled skins in a glass boat. Far out under a windless sky ; 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 girass With its sweet blossom where hers was ; And being in good heart, because A better time had come again 68 BAILE AND AILLINN After the deaths of many men, And that long fighting at the iFord, They wrote on tablets of thin board, Made of the apple and the yew, All the love stories that they knew. Let rush and bird cry out their fill Of the harper's 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 I'd have bird and rush forget Those other two ; for never yet Has lover lived, but longed to wive hike them that are no more alive. IN THE SEVEN WOODS (1904) 69 IN THE SEVEN WOODS 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 bitter- ness That empty the heart. I have forgot awhile Tara uprooted, and new commonness Upon the throne and crying about the streets And hanging its paper flowers from post to post, Because it is alone of all things happy. I am contented for I know that Quiet Wanders laughing and eating her wild heart Among pigeons and bees, while that Great Archer, Who but awaits His hour to shoot, still hangs A cloudy quiver over Parc-na-Lee. August 1902. 71 THE ARROW I THOUGHT of your beauty, and this arrow, Made out of a wild thought, is in my marrow. There's no man may look upon her, no man j As when newly grown to be a woman, Tall and noble but with face and bosom Delicate in colour as apple blossom. This beauty's kinder, yet for a reason I could weep that the old is out of season. 7« y THE FOLLY OF BEING COMFORTED One that is ever kind said yesterday : " Your well-beloved's hair has threads of grey, And little shadows come about her eyes ; Time can but make it easier to be wise Though now it seem impossible, and so Patience is all that you have need of." No, I have not a crumb of comfort, not a grain, Time can but make her beauty over again : Because of that great nobleness of hers The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs Burns but more clearly. O she had not these ways. When all the wild summer was in her gaze. O heart ! O heart 1 if she'd but turn her head. You'd know the folly of being comforted. 73 OLD MEMORY O THOUGHT, fly to her when the end of day Awakens an old memory, and say, " Your strength, that is so lofty and fierce and kind, It might call up a new age, calling to mind The queens that were imagined long ago, Is but half yours : he kneaded in the dough Through the long years of youth, and who would have thought It all, and more than it all, would come to naught. And that dear words meant nothing ? " But enough. For when we have blamed the wind we can blame love ; Or, if there needs be more, be nothing said That would be harsh for children that have strayed. 74 NEVER GIVE ALL THE HEART Never give all the heart, for love Will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seem Certain, and they never dream That it fades out from kiss to kiss ; For everything that's lovely is But a brief dreamy kind delight. O never give the heart outright, For they, for all smooth lips can say. Have given their hearts up to the play. And who could play it well enough If deaf and dumb and blind with love ? He that made this knows all the cost. For he gave all his heart and lost. 73 THE WITHERING OF THE BOUGHS I CRIED when the moon was murmuring to the birds : " Let peewit call and curlew cry where they will, I long for your merry and tender and pitiful words, For the roads are unending, and there is no place to my mind." The honey-pale moon lay low on the sleepy hill. And I fell asleep upon lonely Echtge of streams. No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind ; The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams. I know of the leafy paths that the witches take. Who come with their crowns of pearl and their spindles of wool, And their secret smile, out of the depths of the lake ; 76 WITHERING OF THE BOUGHS 77 I know where a dim moon drifts, where the Danaan kind Wind and unwind their dances when the light grows cool On the island lawns, their feet where the pale foam gleams. No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind ; The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams. I know of the sleepy country, where swans fly round Coupled with golden chains, and sing as they fly. A king and a queen are wandering there, and the sound Has made them so happy and hopeless, so deaf and so blind With wisdom, they wander till all the years have gone by ; I know, and the curlew and peewit on Echtge of streams. No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind ; The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams. ADAM'S CURSE We sat together at one summer's end, That beautiful mild woman, your close friend. And you and I, and talked of poetry. ' I said : " A line will take us hours maybe ; ' Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought. Our stitching and unstitching has been naught. Better go down upon your marrow bones And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather ; For to articulate sweet sounds together Is to work harder than all these, and yet Be thought an idler by the noisy set Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen The martyrs call the world." And thereupon That beautiful mild woman for whose sake There's many a one shall find out all heart- ache 78 ADAM'S CURSE 79 On finding that her voice is sweet and low Replied : " To be born woman is to know, Although they do not talk of it at school — That we must labour to be beautiful." I said : " It's certain there is no fine thing Since Adam's fall but needs much labouring. There have been lovers who thought love should be So much compounded of high courtesy That they would sigh and quote with learned looks Precedents out of beautiful old books ; Yet now it seems an idle trade enough." We sat grown quiet at the name of love ; We saw the last embers of daylight die, And in the trembling blue-green of the sky A moon, worn as if it had been a shell Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell About the stars and broke in days and years. I had a thought for no one's but your ears ; That you were beautiful, and that I strove To love you in the old high way of love ; That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown As weary hearted as that hollow moon. RED HANRAHAN'S SONG ABOUT IRELAND The old brown thorn trees break in two high over Cummen Strand. Under a bitter black wind that blows from the left hand ; Our courage breaks like an old tree in a black wind and dies, But we have hidden in our hearts the flame out of the eyes Of Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan. The wind has bundled up the clouds high over Knocknarea, And thrown the thunder on the stones for all that Maeve can say. Angers that are like noisy clouds have set our hearts abeat ; But we have all bent low and low and kissed the quiet feet Of Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan. 80 RED HANRAHAN'S SONG 8i The yellow pool has overflowed high up on Clooth-na-Bare, For the wet winds are blowing out of the clinging air ; Like heavy flooded waters our bodies and our blood ; But purer than a tall candle before the Holy Rood Is Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan. THE OLD MEN ADMIRING THEMSELVES IN THE WATER I HEARD the old, old men say, " Everything alters. And one by one we drop away." They had hands like claws, and their knees Were twisted like the old thorn trees By the waters. I heard the old, old men say, " All that's beautiful drifts away Like the waters." 82 UNDER THE MOON I HAVE no happiness in dreaming of Bryce- linde, Nor Avalon the grass-green hollow, nor Joyous Isle, Where one found Lancelot crazed and hid him for a while ; Nor Ulad, when Naoise had thrown a sail upon the wind ; Nor lands that seem too dim to be burdens on the heart : Land-under- Wave, where out of the moon's light and the sun's Seven old sisters wind the threads of the long-lived ones, Land-of-the-Tower, where Aengus has thrown the gates apart. And Wood-of- Wonders, where one kills an ox at dawn. To find it when night falls laid on a golden bier. Therein are many queens like Branwen and Guinivere ; And Niamh and Laban and Fand, who could change to an otter or fawn, 83 84 UNDER THE MOON And the wood-woman, whose lover was changed to a blue-eyed hawk ; And whether I go in my dreams by wood- land, or dun, or shore, Or on the unpeopled waves with kings to pull at the oar, I hear the harp-string praise them, or hear their mournful talk. Because of something told under the famished horn Of the hunter's moon, that hung between the night and the day. To dream of women whose beauty was folded in dismay, Even in an old story, is a burden not to be borne. THE RAGGED WOOD O HURRY where by water among the trees, The delicate stepping stag and his lady sigh When they have but looked upon their images, Would none had ever loved but you and I ! Or have you heard that sliding silver-shoed. Pale silver-proud queen-woman of the sky, When the sun looked out of his golden hood : O that none ever loved but you and I ! hurry to the ragged wood, for there 1 will drive all those lovers out and cry — O my share of the world, O yellow hair, No one has ever loved but you and 1 1 85 O DO NOT LOVE TOO LONG Sweetheart, do not love too long : I loved long and long, And grew to be out of fashion Like an old. song. All through the years of our youth Neither could have known Their own thought from the other's, We were so much at one. But, O in a minute she changed — O do not love too long. Or you will grow out of fashion Like an old song. 86 THE PLAYERS ASK FOR A BLESSING ON THE PSALTERIES AND ON THEMSELVES Three voices together : Hurry to bless the hands that play, The mouths that speak, the notes and strings, O masters of the glittering town 1 O ! lay the shrilly trumpet down, Though drunken with the flags that sway Over the ramparts and the towers. And with the waving of your wings. First voice : Maybe they linger by the way. One gathers up his purple gown ; One leans and mutters by the wall — He dreads the weight of mortal hours. Second voice : O no, O no I they hurry down Like plovers that have heard the call. 87 88 THE PLAYERS ASK A BLESSING Third voice : O kinsmen of the Three in One, O kinsmen bless the hands that play. The notes they waken shall live on When all this heavy history's done ; Our hands, our hands must ebb away. Three voices together : The proud and careless notes live on But bless our hands that ebb away. THE HAPPY TOWNLAND There's many a strong farmer Whose heart would break in two, If he could see the townland That we are riding to ; Boughs have their fruit and blossom At all times of the year ; Rivers are running over With red beer and brown beer. An old man plays the bagpipes In a golden and silver wood ; Queens, their eyes blue like the ice, Are dancing in a crowd. The little fox he murmured, •' O what of the world's bane ? " The sun was laughing sweetly, The moon plucked at my rein ; But the little red fox murmured, " O do not pluck at his rein. He is riding to the townland That is the world's bane." When their hearts are so high That they would come to blows, 89 90 THE HAPPY TOWNLAND They unhook their heavy swords From golden and silver boughs ; But all that are killed in battle Awaken to life again. It is lucky that their story Is not known among men, For O, the strong farmers That would let the spade lie, Their hearts would be like a cup That somebody had drunk dry. The little fox he murmured, " O what of the world's bane ? " The sun was laughing sweetly, The moon plucked at my rein ; But the little red fox murmured, " O do not pluck at his rein, He is riding to the townland That is the world's bane." Michael will unhook his trumpet From a bough overhead. And blow a little noise When the supper has been spread. Gabriel will come from the water With a fish tail, and talk Of wonders that have happened On wet roads where men walk. And lift up an old horn Of hammered silver, and drink THE HAPPY TOWNLAND 91 Till he has fallen asleep Upon the starry brink. The little fox he murmured, " O what of the world's bane ? " The sun was laughing sweetly, The moon plucked at my rein ; But the little red fox murmured, " O do not pluck at his rein. He is riding to the townland That is the world's bane." THE SHADOWY WATERS (1906) 93 TO LADY GREGORY 94 / WALKED among the seven woods of Cook, Shan-walla, where a willow-bordered pond Gathers the wild duck from the winter dawn; Shady Kyle-dortha ; sunnier Kyle-na-gno, Where many hundred squirrels are as happy As though they had been hidden by green boughs. Where old age cannot find them ; Pairc-na-lea, Where hazel and ash and privet blind the paths ; Dim Pairc-na-carraig, where the wild bees fling Their sudden fragrances on the green air; Dim Pairc-na-tarav, where enchanted eyes Have seen immortal, mild, proud shadows walk ; Dim Inchy wood, that hides badger and fox And marten-cat, and borders that old wood Wise Biddy Early called the wicked wood : Seven odours, seven murmurs, seven woods. I had not eyes like those enchanted eyes. Yet dreamed that beings happier than men Moved round me in the shadows, and at night My dreams were cloven by voices and by fires; And the images I have woven in this story Of Forgael and Dectora and the empty waters Moved round me in the voices and the fires. And more I may not write of, for they that cleave The waters of sleep can make a chattering tongue 95 Heavy like stone, their wisdom being half silence. How shall I name you, immortal, mild, proud shadows F I only know that all we know comes from you, And that you come from Eden on flying feet. Is Eden far away, or do you hide From human thought, as hares and mice and .coneys That run before the reaping-hook and lie In the last ridge of the barley ? Do our woods \ And winds and ponds cover more quiet woods. More shining winds, more star-glimmering ponds ? Is Eden out of time and out of space ? And do you gather about us when pale light Shining on water and fallen among leaves. And winds blowing from flowers, and whirr of feathers And the green quiet, have uplifted the heart ? I have made this poem for you, that men may read it Before they read of Forgael and Dectora, As men in the old times, before the harps began. Poured out wine for the high invisible ones. September 1900. 96 THE HARP OF AENGUS Edain came out of Midher's hill, and lay Beside young Aengus in his tower of glass. Where time is drowned in odour-laden winds And druid moons, and murmuring of boughs. And sleepy boughs, and boughs where apples made Of opal and ruby and pale chrysolite Awake unsleepingfires ; and wove seven strings. Sweet with all music, out of his long hair. Because her hands had been made wild by love. When Midher's wife had changed her to a fly. He made a harp with druid apple wood That she among her winds might know he wept ; And from that hour he has watched over none But faithful lovers. 97 H PERSONS IN THE PLjr FORGAEL AlBRIC Sailors Dectora 9» THE SHADOWY WATERS The deck of an ancient 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 coming through an opening in the bulwark. The deck rises in a series of steps behind 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. Forgael sleeps upon the raised portion of the deck towards the front of the stage. Two Sailors are standing near to the mast, on which a harp is hanging. First Sailor Has he not led us into these waste seas For long enough ? Second Sailor Aye, long and long enough. First Sailor We have not come upon a shore or ship These dozen weeks. 99 loo THE SHADOWY WATERS Second 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. Second Sailor Can no bewitchment Transform these rascal billows into women That I may drown myself ? First Sailor Better steer home, Whether he will or no ; and better still To take him while he sleeps and carry him And drop him from the gunnel. Second Sailor I dare not do it. Were't not that there is magic in his harp, THE SHADOWY WATERS loi I would be of your mind ; but when he plays it Strange creatures flutter up before one's eyes, Or cry about one's ears. First Sailor Nothing to fear. Second Sailor Do you remember when we sank that galley At the full moon ? First Sailor He played all through the night. Second 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 circling with strange cries awhile Flew westward ; and many a time since then I've 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 courage came again. I02 THE SHADOWY WATERS Second Sailor But that's not all. The other night, while he was playing 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. Forgael was playing, And they were listening there beyond the sail. He could not see them, but I held out my hands To grasp the woman. Second Sailor You have dared to touch her ? First Sailor O, she was but a shadow, and slipped from me. Second Sailor But were you not afraid ? First Sailor Why should I fear ? THE SHADOWY WATERS 103 Second Sailor '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. Second 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 king's house, And hid her among fruits of jewel-stone And in a tower of glass, and from that day Has hated every man that's 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, And keep to the one weary marriage-bed. Second Sailor I think that he has Forgael in his net. And drags him through the sea. I04 THE SHADOWY WATERS First Sailor Well, net or none, I'd drown him while we have the chance to do it. Second Sailor It's certain I'd 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 I've thought of that. We must have Aibric with us. For he can judge the stars as well as Forgael. [Going towards Aibric. Become our captain, Aibric. I am resolved To make an end of Forgael while he sleeps. There's not a man but will be glad of it When it is over, nor one to 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 THE SHADOWY WATERS 105 And kiss more lips than lasting peaceable men In their long lives ? Will you be of our troop And take the captain's share of everything And bring us into populous seas again ? AlBRIC Be of your troop ! Aibric be one of you And Forgael in the other scale I kill Forgael, And he my master from my childhood up I If you will draw that sword out of its scabbard I'll give my answer. First Sailor You have awaked him. \_To Second Sailor. We'd better go, for we have lost this chance. [They go out. Forgael Have the birds passed us ? I could hear your voice. But there were others. AlBRlC I have seen nothing pass. io6 THE SHADOWY WATERS FORGAEL You're certain of it ? I never wake from sleep But that I am afraid they may have passed, For they're my only pilots. If I lost them Straying too far into the north or south, I'd never come upon the happiness That has been promised me. I have not seen them These many days ; and yet there must be many Dying at every moment in the world, And flying towards their peace. AlBRIC Put by these thoughts, And listen to me for awhile. The sailors Are plotting for your death. FoRGAEL 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. AlBRIC What riches can you find in this waste sea Where no ship sails, where nothing that's alive THE SHADOWY WATERS 107 Has ever come but those man-headed birds, Knowing it for the world's end ? FOROAEL Where the world ends The mind is made unchanging, for it finds Miracle, ecstasy, the impossible hope, The flagstone under all, the fire of fires, The roots of the world. AlBRIC Who knows that shadows May not have driven you mad for their own sport ? FORGAEL Do you, too, doubt me ? Have you joined their plot ? AlBRIC No, no, do not say that. You know right well That I will never lift a hand against you. FoROAEL Why should you be more faithful than the rest, Being as doubtful ? io8 THE SHADOWY WATERS AlBRIC I have called you master Too many years to lift a hand against you. FoRGAEL Maybe it is but natural to doubt me. You've never known, I'd lay a wager on it, A melancholy that a cup of wine, A lucky battle, or a woman's kiss Could not amend. AlBRIC I have good spirits enough. FoRGAEL If you will give me all your mind awhile — All, all, the very bottom of the bowl — I'll show you that I am made differently. That nothing can 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 cozening fortune-teller that comes whispering, " You will have all you have wished for when you have earned Land for your children or money in a pot." THE SHADOWY WATERS 109 And when we have it we are no happier, Because of that old draught under the door, Or creaky shoes. And at the end of all How are we better off than Seaghan the fool, That never did a hand's 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 — FORGAEL You say that also ? You have heard the voices, For that is what they say — all, all the shadows — Aengus and Edain, those passionate wan- derers, ; And all the others ; but it must be love As they have known it. Now the secret's out ; For it is love that I am seeking for, no THE SHADOWY WATERS But of a beautiful, unheard-of kind That is not in the world. AlBRIC And yet the world Has beautiful women to please every man. FORGAEL But he that gets their love after the fashion 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 in the tasting. And as soon finished. AlBRIC All that ever loved Have loved that way — there is no other way. FoRGAEL 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. AlBRIC When they have twenty years ; in middle life They take a kiss for what a kiss is worth. And let the dream go by. THE SHADOWY WATERS iii FoRGAEL It's not a dream, But the reality that makes our passion As a lamp shadow — no — no lamp, the sun. What the world's million lips are thirsting for, , Must be substantial somewhere. AlBRIC I have heard the Druids Mutter such things as they awake from trance. It may be that the Ever-living know it — No mortal can. FoRGAEL Yes ; if they give us help. AlBRIC 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 in the battle-host With the Ever-living. FoRGAEL What if he speak the truth, And for a dozen hours have been a part Of that more powerful life ? 112 THE SHADOWY WATERS AlBRIC 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. FORGAEL All would be well Could we but give us wholly to the dreams. And get 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, changing 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 than meat 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 ! AlBRIC, While We're in the body that's impossible. THE SHADOWY WATERS 113 FoRGAEL And yet I cannot think they're leading me To death ; for they that promised to me love As those that can outlive the moon have known it, Had the world's total life gathered up, it seemed, Into their shining limbs — I've had great teachers. Aengus and Edain ran up out of the wave — ■ You'd 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. AlBRIC It's certain they are leading you to death. None but the dead, or those that never lived. Can know that ecstasy. Forgael ! Forgael ! They have made you follow the man-headed birds. And you have told me that their journey lies Towards the country of the dead. Forgael What matter If I am going to my death, for there, Or somewhere, I shall find the love they have promised. 114 THE SHADOWY WATERS 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 place in the world's core, Where passion grows to be a changeless thing. Like charmed apples made of chrysoprase, Or chrysoberyl, or beryl, or chrysolite ; And there, in juggleries of sight and sense. Become one movement, energy, delight. Until the overburthened moon is dead. 1^/4 number of Sailors enter hurriedly. 1 First Sailor Look there ! there in the mist ! a ship of spice ! And we are almost on her 1 Second Sailor We had not known But for the ambergris and sandalwood. First Sailor No ; but opoponax and cinnamon. Forgael [Taking the tiller from Aibric] The Ever-living have kept my bargain for me, And paid you on the nail. THE SHADOWY WATERS 115 AlBRIC Take up that rope To make her fast while we are plundering her. First Sailor There is a king and queen upon her deck, And where there is one woman there'll be others. AlBRIC Speak lower, or they'll hear. First Sailor They cannot hear ; They are too busy with each other. Look ! He has stooped down and kissed her on the Hps. Second 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 come to them in marriage, Than a strong body and a ready hand. ii6 THE SHADOWY WATERS Second Sailor There's nobody is natural but a robber, And that is why the world totters about Upon its bandy legs. AlBRIC Run at them now, And overpower the crew while yet asleep ! [The Sailors go out. \Voices and the clashing of swords are heard from the other ship, which cannot be seen because of the sail. A Voice Armed men have come upon us ! O, I am slain I Another Voice Wake all below ! Another Voice Why have you broken our sleep ? First Voice Armed men have come upon us ! O, I am slain ! THE SHADOWY WATERS 117 FoRGAEL [JFho has remained at the tiller] There ! there they come ! Gull, gannet, or diver, But with a man's head, or a fair woman's, They hover over the masthead awhile To wait their friends ; but when their friends have come They'll 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 can hear. There's one of them that says : " How light we are, now we are changed to birds ! " Another answers : " Maybe we shall find Our heart's desire now that we are so light." And then one asks another how he died. And says : "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 woman's head Comes crying, " 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 ii8 THE SHADOWY WATERS Circling and circling over the masthead ? What power that is more mighty than desire To hurry to their hidden happiness Withholds them now ? Have the Ever- living Ones A meaning in that cifcling overhead ? But what's the meaning ? [He cries out.] Why do you linger there ? Why do you not run to your desire, Now that you have happy winged bodies ? [His voice sinks again. Being too busy in the air and the high air, They cannot hear my voice ; but what's the meaning ? [The Sailors have returned. Dec- TORA is with them. FORGAEL [Turning and seeing her] Why are you standing with your eyes upon me ? You are not the world's core. O no, no, no ! That cannot be the meaning of the birds. You are not its core. My teeth are in the world, But have not bitten yet. Dectora I am a queen. And ask for satisfaction upon these THE SHADOWY WATERS 119 Who have slain my husband and laid hands upon me. [Breaking loose from the Sailors who are holding her. Let go my hands ! FORGAEL Why do you cast a shadow ? Where do you come from ? Who brought you to this place ? They would not send me one that casts a shadow. Dectora Would that the storm that overthrew my ships, And drowned the treasures of nine conquered nations, And blew me hither to my lasting sorrow, Had drowned me also. But, being yet alive, I ask a fitting punishment for all That raised their hands against him. Forgael There are some That weigh and measure all in these waste seas — They that have all the wisdom that's in life, And all that prophesying images Made of dim gold rave out in secret tombs ; I20 THE SHADOWY WATERS They have it that the plans of kings and queens Are dust on the moth's wing ; that nothing matters But laughter and tears — laughter, laughter, and tears ; That every man should carry his own soul Upon his shoulders. Dectora You've nothing but wild words, And I would know if you will give me vengeance. FoRGAEL When she finds out I will not let her go — When she knows that. Dectora What is it that you are muttering — That you'll not let me go ? I am a queen. Forgael 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, THE SHADOWY WATERS 121 It had washed among the stars and put them out, And beat the 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 ? FORGAEL Queen, I am not mad. Dectora And yet you say the water and the wind Would rise against me. FoRGAEL 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 stricken. Dectora And did those watchers bid you take me captive .'' FoRGAEL Both you and I are taken in the net. It was their hands that plucked the winds awake 122 THE SHADOWY WATERS 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 casting-net of the stars, That none might take you from me. Dectora [First tremhling back from the mast where the harp is, and then laughing] For a moment Your raving of a message and a harp More mighty than the stars half troubled me, But all that's raving. Who is there can compel The daughter and the granddaughter of kings To be his bedfellow ? FoRGAEL Until your lips Have called me their beloved, I'll not kiss them. Dectora My husband and my king died at my feet, And yet you talk of love. THE SHADOWY WATERS 123 FoRGAEL 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 understand you now. You have a Druid craft of wicked sound Wrung from the cold women of the sea — A magic that can call a demon up, Until my body give you kiss for kiss. FoRGAEL Your soul shall give the kiss. Dectora I am not afraid, While there's a rope to run into a noose Or wave to drown. But I have done with words. And I would have you look into my face And know that it is fearless. FoRGAEL Do what you will, For neither I nor you can break a mesh Of the great golden net that is about us. 124 THE SHADOWY WATERS Dectora There's nothing in the world that's worth a fear. [6"^!? passes Forgael and stands for a moment looking into his face. I have good reason for that thought. \_She runs suddenly on to the raised fart of the poop. And now I can put fear away as a queen should. \She mounts on to the bulwark and turns towards Forgael. Fool, fool ! Although you have looked into my face You do not see my purpose. I shall have gone Before a hand can touch me. Forgael [Folding his arms'] My hands are still ; The Ever-living hold us. Do what you will, You cannot leap out of the golden net. First Sailor No need to drown, for, if you will pardon us And measure out a course and bring us home, We'll put this man to death. THE SHADOWY WATERS 125 Dectora I promise it. First Sailor There is none to take his side. AlBRIC I am on his side. I'll strike a blow for him to give him time To cast his dreams away. [AiBRic goes in front of Forgael with drawn sword. Forgael takes the harp. First Sailor No other '11 do it. \The Sailors throw Aibric on one side. He falls and lies upon the deck. They lift their swords to strike Forgael, who is about to play the harp. The stage begins to darken. The Sailors hesitate in fear. Second Sailor He has put a sudden darkness over the moon. Dectora Nine swords with handles of rhinoceros horn To him that strikes him first 1 126 THE SHADOWY WATERS First Sailor I will strike him first. '[He goes dose up to Forgael with his sword lifted. [Shrinking back.'] He has caught the cres- cent moon out of the sky, And carries it between us. Second Sailor Holy fire To burn us to the marrow if we strike. Dectora I'll give a golden galley full of fruit, That has the heady flavour of new wine, To him that wounds him to the death. First Sailor I'll do it. For all his spells will vanish when he dies, Having their life in him. Second Sailor Though it be the moon That he is holding up between us there, I will strike at him. The Others And I 1 And I ! And I i [Forgael plays the harp. THE SHADOWY WATERS 127 First Sailor \F ailing 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. Second Sailor You are in the right ; I had forgotten that we must go wake him. Dectora He has flung a Druid spell upon the air, And set you dreaming. Second Sailor How can we have a wake When we have neither brown nor yellow ale.? First Sailor I saw a flagon of brown ale aboard her. Third Sailor How can we raise the keen that do not know What name to call him by } 128 THE SHADOWY WATERS First Sailor Come to his ship. His name will come into our thoughts in a minute. I know that he died a thousand years ago, And has not yet been waked. Second 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. [AiBRic has risen from the deck where he had fallen. He has begun looking for his sword as if in a dream. AlBRIC Where is my sword that fell out of my hand When I first heard the news ? Ah, there it is ! \He goes dreamily towards the sword, but Dectora runs at it and takes it up before he can reach it. THE SHADOWY WATERS 129 AiBRic [sleepily] Queen, give it me. Dectora No, I have need of it. AlBRIC Why do you need a sword ? But you may keep it, Now that he's dead I have no need of it, For everything is gone. A Sailor [Calling from the other ship] Come 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 lollan, and he died Broken-hearted, having lost his queen Through wicked spells. That is not all the tale. For he was killed. OlOiOIOIOIO! K I30 THE SHADOWY WATERS For golden-armed loUan has been killed. [He goes out. \_PFhile he has been speaking, and through fart of what follows, one hears the wailing of the Sailors from the other ship. Dectora stands with the sword lifted in front of FORGAEL. Dectora I will end all your magic on the instant. \Her voice becomes dreamy, and she lowers the sword slowly, and finally lets it fall. She spreads out her hair. She takes off her crown and lays it upon the deck. 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 was proud and laughing, Blue-eyed, and a quick runner on bare feet, And that he died a thousand years ago. O! O! O! [FoRGAEL changes the tune. But no, that is not it. I knew him well, and while I heard him laughing They killed him at my feet. O ! O ! O ! 1 THE SHADOWY WATERS 131 For golden-armed lollan 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, And beat the golden helmet with their swords .'' FORGAEL Do you not know me, lady .'' I am he That you are weeping for. Dectora No, for he is dead. O ! O ! O ! for golden-armed lollan. FoRGAEL 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 face and voice, For you have listened to me playing it These thousand years. \He starts up, listening to the birds. The harp slips from his hands, and remains leaning against the bulwarks behind him. What are the birds at there.'' 132 THE SHADOWY WATERS Why are they all a-flutter of a sudden ? What are you calling out above the mast ? If railing and reproach and mockery Because I have awakened her to love My magic strings, I'll make this answer to it: Being driven on by voices and by dreams That were clear messages from the Ever- living, I have done right. What could I but obey ? And yet you make a clamour of reproach. Dectora [laughing] Why, it's a wonder out of reckoning That I should keen him from the full of the moon To the horn, and he be hale and hearty. FORGAEL How have I wronged her now that she is merry ? But no, no, no ! your cry is not against me. You know the councils of the Ever-living, And all that tossing of your wings is joy. And all that murmuring's but a marriage song ; But if it be reproach, I answer this : There is not one among you that made love By any other means. You call it passion, THE SHADOWY WATERS 133 Consideration, generosity ; But it was all deceit, and flattery To win a woman in her own despite, 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 ? FORGAEL My grief. Dectora Have I not loved you for a thousand years ? Forgael I never have been golden-armed lollan. Dectora I do not understand. I know your face Better than my own hands. Forgael I have deceived you Out of all reckoning. 134 THE SHADOWY WATERS Dectora Is it not true 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 you'll bring me there ? FORGAEL I have deceived you ; I have deceived you utterly. Dectora How can that be ? Is it that though your eyes are full of love Some other woman has a claim on you. And I've but half? FoRGAEL Oh, no 1 Dectora And if there is. If there be half a hundred more, what matter ? I'll never give another thought to it ; No, no, nor half a thought ; but do not speak. Women are hard and proud and stubborn- hearted, THE SHADOWY WATERS 135 Their heads being turned with praise and flattery ; And that is why their lovers are afraid To tell them a plain story. FORGAEL That's not the story ; But I have done so great a wrong against you, There is no measure that it would not burst. I will confess 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 that's 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 now. [^ pause.] Why do you weep .'' FoRGAEL I weep because I've nothing for your eyes But desolate waters and a battered ship. 136 THE SHADOWY WATERS Dectora O, why do you not lift your eyes to mine ? FoRGAEL I weep — I weep because bare night's 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. FoRGAEL 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 crown. But now it is your thoughts that wander away. For you are looking at the sea. Do you not know THE SHADOWY WATERS 137 How great a wrong it is to let one's thought Wander a moment when one is in love ? [He has moved away. She follows him. He is looking out over the sea, shading his eyes.'j Why are you looking at the sea ? FORGAEL Look there ! Dectora What is there but a troop of ash-grey birds That fly into the west ? FoRGAEL But listen, listen ! Dectora What is there but the crying of the birds ? FoRGAEL If you'll but listen closely to that crying You'll hear them calling out to one another With human voices. Dectora O, I can hear them now. What are they ? Unto what country do they fly .•* 138 THE SHADOWY WATERS FoRGAEL To unimaginable happiness. They have been cirding 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 they're but the colour of grey ash, They're crying out, could you but hear their words, " There is a country at the end of the world Where no child's born but to outlive the moon." \The Sailors come in with Aibric. They are in great excitement. First Sailor The hold is full of treasure. Second Sailor Full to the hatches. First Sailor Treasure on treasure. Third Sailor Boxes of precious spice. THE SHADOWY WATERS 139 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 net of herrings. Third Sailor Let's home ; I'd give some rubies to a woman. Second Sailor There's somebody I'd give the amethyst eyes to. AlBRIC \_Silencing them with a gesture] We would return to our own country, Forgael, For we have found a treasure that's so great Imagination cannot reckon it. I40 THE SHADOWY WATERS And having lit upon this woman there, What more have you to look for on the seas ? FORGAEL I cannot — I am going on to the end. As for this woman, I think she is coming with me. AlBRIC The Ever-living have made you mad ; but no, It was this woman in her woman's vengeance That drove you to it, and I fool enough To fancy that she'd 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. AlBRIC And 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 country of the dead, If there be such a country. THE SHADOWY WATERS 141 Dectora No, not there, But in some island where the Hfe of the world Leaps upward, as if all the streams o' the world Had run into one fountain. AlBRIC Speak to him. He knows that he is taking you to death ; Speak — he will not deny it. Dectora Is that true ? FORGAEL I do not know for certain, but I know \ That I have the best of pilots. AlBRIC Shadows, illusions. That the Shape-changers, the Ever-laughing Ones, The Immortal Mockers have cast into his mind, Or called before his eyes. 142 THE SHADOWY WATERS Dectora O carry me To some sure country, some familiar place. Have we not everything that life can give In having one another ? FORGAEL How could I rest If I refused the messengers and pilots With all those sights and all that crying out ? Dectora But I will cover up your eyes and ears, That you may never hear the cry of the birds, Or look upon them. FoRGAEL Were they but lowlier I'd do your will, but they are too high — too high. Decto RA Being too high, their heady prophecies But harry us with hopes that come to nothing, Because we are not proud, imperishable, Alone and winged. THE SHADOWY WATERS 143 FORGAEL Our love shall be like theirs When we have put their changeless image on. Dectora I am a woman, I die at every breath. AlBRIC Let the birds scatter for the tree is broken, And there's 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 neither I nor any living man Will look upon his face again. [The Sailors go out. FoRGAEL [to Dectora] Go with him. For he will shelter you and bring you home. AlBRIC [Taking Forgael's hand] I'll do it for his sake. 144 THE SHADOWY WATERS Dectora No. Take this sword And cut the rope, for I go on with Forgael. AlBRIC [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 rope's in two — it falls into the sea, It whirls into the foam. O ancient 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 alone with my beloved, Who cannot put me from his sight for ever. We are alone for ever, and I laugh, Forgael, because you cannot put me from you. The mist has covered the heavens, and you and I Shall be alone for ever. We two — this crown — I half remember. It has been in my dreams. THE SHADOWY WATERS 145 Bend lower, O king, that I may crown you with it. O flower of the branch, O bird among the leaves, O silver fish that my two hands have taken Out of the running stream, O morning star. Trembling in the blue heavens like a white fewn 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. FORGAEL [Gathering Dectora's hair about html Beloved, having dragged the net 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. FROM THE GREEN HELMET AND OTHER POEMS (1912) 147 fe = HIS DREAM I SWAYED upon the gaudy stern The butt end of a steering oar, And saw wherever I could turn A crowd upon a shore. And though I would have hushed the crowd, There was no mother's son but said, " What is the figure in a shroud Upon a gaudy bed ? " And after running at the brim Cried out upon that thing beneath, — It had such dignity of limb — By the sweet name of Death. Though I'd my finger on my lip. What could I but take up the song ? And running crowd and gaudy ship Cried out the whole night long, Crying amid the glittering sea, Naming it with ecstatic breath. Because it had such dignity By the sweet name of Death. 149 A WOMAN HOMER SUNG If any man drew near When I was young, I thought, " He holds her dear," And shook with hate and fear. But oh, 'twas bitter wrong If he could pass her by With an indifferent eye. Whereon I wrote and wrought, And now, being grey, I dream that I have brought To such a pitch my thought That coming time can say, " He shadowed in a glass What thing her body was." For she had fiery blood When I was young. And trod so sweetly proud As 'twere upon a cloud, A woman Homer sung. That life and letters seem But an heroic dream. 150 THE CONSOLATION I HAD this thought awhile ago, " My dariing cannot understand What I have done, or what would do In this blind bitter land." And I grew weary of the sun Until my thoughts cleared up again. Remembering that the best I have done Was done to make it plain ; That every year I have cried, "At length My darling understands it all. Because I have come into my strength. And words obey my call " ; That had she done so who can say What would have shaken from the sieve ? I might have thrown poor words away And been content to live. 151 NO SECOND TROY Why should I blame her that she filled my days With misery, or that she would of late Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways, Or hurled the little streets upon the great, Had they but courage equal to desire ? What could have made her peaceful with a mind That nobleness made simple as a fire, With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind That is not natural in an age like this. Being high and solitary and most stern ? Why, what could she have done being what she is ? Was there another Troy for her to burn ? 152 RECONCILIATION Some may have blamed you that you took away The verses that could move them on the day When, the ears being deafened, the sight of the eyes blind With lightning you went from me, and I could find Nothing to make a song about but kings. Helmets, and swords, and half-forgotten things That were like memories of you — but now We'll out, for the world lives as long ago ; And while we're in our laughing, weeping fit. Hurl helmets, crowns, and swords into the But, dear, clmg close to me ; since you were gone, My barren thoughts have chilled me to the bone. 153 KING AND NO KING " 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 forgot, Though he'd but cannon — Whereas we that had thought To have lit upon as clean and sweet a tale Have been defeated by that pledge you gave In momentary anger long ago ; And I that have not your faith, how shall I know That in the blinding light beyond the grave We'll find so good a thing as that we have lost ? The hourly kindness, the day's common speech, The habitual content of each with each When neither soul nor body has been crossed. 154 PEACE Ah, that Time could touch a form That could show what Homer's age Bred to be a hero's wage. " Were not all her life but storm, Would not painters paint a form Of such noble lines," I said, " Such a delicate high head, All that sternness amid charm, All that sweetness amid strength ? " Ah, but peace that comes at length, Came when Time had touched her form. 155 AGAINST UNWORTHY PRAISE O HEART, be at peace, because Nor knave nor dolt can break What's not for their applause, Being for a woman's sake. Enough if the work has seemed. So did she your strength renew, A dream that a lion had dreamed Till the wilderness cried aloud, A secret between you two. Between the proud and the proud. What, still you would have their praise 1 But here's a haughtier text, The labyrinth of her days That her own strangeness perplexed ; And how what her dreaming gave Earned slander, ingratitude, From self-same dolt and knave ; Aye, and worse wrong than these. Yet she, singing upon her road, Half lion, half child, is at peace. 156 THE FASCINATION OF WHAT'S DIFFICULT The fascination of what's difficult Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent Spontaneous joy and natural content Out of my heart. There's something ails our colt That must, as if it had not holy blood. Nor on Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud, Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt As though it dragged road metal. My curse on plays That have to be set up in fifty ways. On the day's war with every knave and dolt. Theatre business, management of men. I swear before the dawn comes round again I'll find the stable and pull out the bolt. 157 A DRINKING SONG Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye ; That's all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die. I lift the glass to my mouth, I look at youj and I sigh. 158 y THE COMING OF WISDOM WITH TIME Though leaves are many, the root is one ; Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun ; Now I may wither into the truth. 159 ON HEARING THAT THE STUDENTS OF OUR NEW UNIVERSITY HAVE JOINED THE AGITATION AGAINST IMMORAL LITERATURE Where, where but here have Pride and Truth, That long to give themselves for wage, To shake their wicked sides at youth Restraining reckless middle-age. l6o TO A POET, WHO WOULD HAVE ME PRAISE CERTAIN BAD POETS, IMITATORS OF HIS AND MINE You say, as I have often given tongue In praise of what another's said or sung, 'Twere politic to do the Uke by these ; But was there ever dog that praised his fleas ? I6l M THE MASK " Put off that mask of burning gold With emerald eyes." " O no, my dear, you make so bold To find if hearts be wild and wise. And yet not cold." " I would but find what's there to find. Love or deceit." " It was the mask engaged your mind. And after set your heart to beat, Not what's behind." " But lest you are my enemy, I must enquire." " O no, my dear, let all that be, What matter, so there is but fire In you, in me .'' " 162 UPON A HOUSE SHAKEN BY THE LAND AGITATION How should the world be luckier if this house, Where passion and precision have been one Time out of mind, became too ruinous To breed the lidless eye that loves the sun ? And the sweet laughing eagle thoughts that grow Where wings have memory of wings, and all That comes of the best knit to the best ? Although Mean roof-trees were the sturdier for its fall. How should their luck run high enough to reach The gifts that govern men, and after these To gradual Time's last gift, a written speech Wrought of high laughter, loveliness and ease ? 163 AT THE ABBEY THEATRE {Imitated from Ronsard) Dear Craoibhin Aoibhin, look into our case. When we are high and airy hundreds say That if we hold that flight they'll leave the place, While those same hundreds mock another day Because we have made our art of common things, So bitterly, you'd dream they longed to look All their lives through into some drift of wings. You've dandled them and fed them from the book And know them to the bone ; impart to us — We'll keep the secret — a new trick to please. Is there a bridle for this Proteus That turns and changes like his draughty seas } Or is there none, most popular of men, But when they mock us that we mock again .' 164 THESE ARE THE CLOUDS These are the clouds about the tallen sun, The majesty that shuts his bvirning eye : The weak lay hand on what the strong has done. Till that be tumbled that was lifted high And discord follow upon unison, And all things at one common level lie. And therefore, friend, if your great race were run And these thing-s came, so much the more thereby Have you made greatness your companion, Although it be for children that you sigh : These are the clouds about the fallen sun, The majesty that shuts his burning eye. 1*5 AT GALWAY RACES There where the course is, DeHght makes all of the one mind, The riders upon the galloping horses, The crowd that closes in behind : We, too, had good attendance once. Hearers and hearteners of the work ; Aye, horsemen for companions, Before the merchant and the clerk Breathed on the world with timid breath. Sing on : sometime, and at some new moon, We'll learn that sleeping is not death. Hearing the whole earth change its tune. Its flesh being wild, and it again Crying aloud as the racecourse is. And we find hearteners among men That ride upon horses. r66 A FRIEND'S ILLNESS Sickness brought me this Thought, in that scale of his : Why should I be dismayed Though flame had burned the whole World, as it were a coal. Now I have seen it weighed Against a soul ? 167 ALL THINGS CAN TEMPT ME All things can tempt me from this craft of verse : One time it was a woman's face, or worse — The seeming needs of my fool-driven land ; Now nothing but comes readier to the hand Than this accustomed toil. When I was young, I had not given a penny for a song Did not the poet sing it with such airs That one believed he had a sword upstairs ; Yet would be now, could I but have my wish, Colder and dumber and deafer than a fish. i68 THE YOUNG MAN'S SONG I WHISPERED, " I am too young." And then, " I am old enough " ; Wherefore I threw a penny To find out if I might love. " Go and love, go and love, young man, If the lady be young and fair." Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny, I am looped in the loops of her hair. Oh, love is the crooked thing, There is nobody wise enough To find out all that is in it. For he would be thinking of love Till the stars had run away. And the shadows eaten the moon. Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny, One cannot begin it too soon. 169 RESPONSIBILITIES (1914) 171 " In dreams begins responsibility." Old Play. " How am I fallen from myself^ for a longtime now I have not seen the Prince of Chang in my dreams r Khoung-fou-tseu. 173 Pardon, old fathers, if you still remain Somewhere in ear-shot for the story's end. Old Dublin merchant '^'^ free of ten and four " Or trading out of Galway into Spain ; And country scholar, Robert Emmef s friend, A hundred-year-old memory to the -poor ; Traders or soldiers who have left me blood That has not passed through any huxter's loin. Pardon, and you that did not weigh the cost. Old Butlers when you took to horse and stood Beside the brackish waters of the Boyne Till your bad master blenched and all was lost ; Tou merchant skipper that leaped overboard After a ragged hat in Biscay Bay, You most of all, silent and fierce old man Because you were the spectacle that stirred My fancy, and set my boyish lips to say " Only the wasteful virtues earn the sun " ; Pardon that for a barren passion's sake. Although I have come close on forty-nine I have no child, I have nothing but a book. Nothing but that to prove your blood and mine, 'January 1914. "5 THE GREY ROCK Poets with whom I learned my trade^ Companions of the Cheshire Cheese^ Here's an old story Fve re-made. Imagining 'twould better please Tour ears than stories now in fashion. Though you may think I waste my breath Pretending that there can be -passion That has more life in it than death. And though at bottling of your wine Old wholesome Goban had no say ; The moral's yours because it's mine. When cups went round at close of day — Is not that how good stories run ? — The gods were sitting at the board In their great house at Slievenamon. They sang a drowsy song, or snored, For all were full of wine and meat. The smoky torches made a glare On metal Goban 'd hammered at, On old deep silver rolling there Or on some still unemptied cup That he, when frenzy stirred his thewes. Had hammered out on mountain top 177 N 178 THE GREY ROCK To hold the sacred stuff he brews That only gods may buy of him. Now from that juice that made them wise All those had lifted up the dim Imaginations of their eyes, For one that was like woman made Before their sleepy eyelids ran And trembling with her passion said, " Come out and dig for a dead man, Who's burrowing somewhere in the ground, And mock him to his face and then Hollo him on with horse and hound, For he is the worst of all dead men." We should he dazed and terror struck^ If we but saw in dreams that room. Those wine-drenched eyes, and curse our luck That emptied all our days to come. I knew a woman none could -please. Because she dreamed when hut a child Of men and women made like these ; And after, when her hlood ran wild. Had ravelled her own story out. And said, " In two or in three years I need must marry some poor lout," And having said it burst in tears. Since, tavern comrades, you have died. Maybe your images have stood. Mere hone and muscle thrown aside. THE GREY ROCK 179 Before that roomful or as good. Tou had to face your ends when young — 'Twas wine or women, or some curse — But never made a poorer song That you might have a heavier purse. Nor gave loud service to a cause That you might have a troop of friends. Tou kept the M-uses" sterner laws. And unrepenting faced your ends. And therefore earned the right — and yet Dowson and Johnson most I praise — To troop with those the world' s forgot. And copy their proud steady gaze. " The Danish troop was driven out Between the dawn and dusk," she said ; " Although the event was long in doubt. Although the King of Ireland's dead And half the kings, before sundown All was accomplished. " When this day Murrough, the King of Ireland's son, Foot after foot was giving way. He and his best troops back to back Had perished there, but the Danes ran, Stricken with panic from the attack. The shouting of an unseen man ; And being thankful Murrough found, Led by a footsole dipped in blood That had made prints upon the ground. i8o THE GREY ROCK Where by old thorn trees that man stood ; And though when he gazed here and there, He had but gazed on thorn trees, spoke, ' Who is the friend that seems but air And yet could give so fine a stroke ? ' Thereon a young man met his eye, Who said, ' Because she held me in Her love, and would not have me die, Rock-nurtured Aoife took a pin. And pushing it into my shirt. Promised that for a pin's sake. No man should see to do me hurt ; But there it's gone ; I will not take The fortune that had been my shame Seeing, King's son, what wounds you have.' 'Twas roundly spoke, but when night came He had betrayed me to his grave. For he and the King's son were dead. I'd promised him two hundred years. And when for all I'd done or said — And these immortal eyes shed tears — He claimed his country's need was most, I'd saved his life, yet for the sake Of a new friend he has turned a ghost. What does he care if my heart break ? I call for spade and horse and hound That we may harry him." Thereon She cast herself upon the ground And rent her clothes and made her moan : " Why are they faithless when their might Is from the holy shades that rove . THE GREY ROCK i8i The grey rock and the windy hght ? Why should the faithfullest heart most love The bitter sweetness of false faces ? Why must the lasting love what passes, Why are the gods by men betrayed 1 " But thereon every god stood up With a slow smile and without sound, And stretching forth his arm and cup To where she moaned upon the ground, Suddenly drenched her to the skin ; And she with Goban's wine adrip, No more remembering what had been, Stared at the gods with laughing lip. I have kept my faith, though faith was tried. To that rock-born, rock-wandering foot. And the world's altered since you died. And I am in no good refute With the loud host before the sea. That think sword strokes were better meant Than lover s music — let that be. So that the wandering foot's content. THE TWO KINGS King Eochaid came at sundown to a wood Westward of Tara. Hurrying to his queen He had out-ridden his war-wasted men That with empounded cattle trod the mire , And where beech trees had mixed a pale green light With the ground-ivy's blue, he saw a stag Whiter than curds, its eyes the tint of the sea. Because it stood upon his path and seemed More hands in height than any stag in the world He sat with tightened rein and loosened mouth Upon his trembling horse, then drove the spur ; But the stag stooped and ran at him, and passed. Rending the horse's flank. King Eochaid reeled Then drew his sword to hold its levelled point Against the stag. When horn and steel were met l82 THE TWO KINGS 183 The horn resounded as though it had been silver, A sweet, miraculous, terrifying sound. Horn locked in sword, they tugged and struggled there As though a stag and unicorn were met In Africa on Mountain of the Moon, Until at last the double horns, drawn back- ward. Butted below the single and so pierced The entrails of the horse. Dropping his sword King Eochaid seized the horns in his strong hands And stared into the sea-green eye, and so Hither and thither to and fro they trod Till all the place was beaten into mire. The strong thigh and the agile thigh were met. The hands that gathered up the might of the world. And hoof and horn that had sucked in their speed Amid the elaborate wilderness of the air. Through bush they plunged and over ivied root. And where the stone struck fire, while in the leaves A squirrel whinnied and a bird screamed out ; But when at last he forced those sinewy flanks 1 84 THE TWO KINGS Against a beech bole, he threw down the beast A'nd knelt above it with drawn knife. On the instant It vanished like a shadow, and a cry So mournful that it seemed the cry of one Who had lost some unimaginable treasure Wandered between the blue and the green leaf And climbed into the air, crumbling away, Till all had seemed a shadow or a vision But for the trodden mire, the pool of blood, The disembowelled horse. King Eochaid ran, Toward peopled Tara, nor stood to draw his breath Until he came before the painted wall. The posts of polished yew, circled with bronze. Of the great door ; but though the hanging lamps Showed their faint light through the un- shuttered windows, Nor door, nor mouth, nor slipper made a noise. Nor on the ancient beaten paths, that wound From well-side or from plough-land, was there noise ; Nor had there been the noise of living thing Before him or behind, but that far-off On the horizon edge bellowed the herds. THE TWO KINGS 185 Knowing that silence brings no good to kings, And mocks returning victory, he passed Between the pillars with a beating heart And saw where in the midst of the great hall Pale-faced, alone upon a bench, Edain Sat upright with a sword before her feet. Her hands on either side had gripped the bench. Her eyes were cold and steady, her lips tight. Some passion had made her stone. Hearing a foot She started and then knew whose foot it was ; But when he thought to take her in his arms She motioned him afar, and rose and spoke : " I have sent among the fields or to the woods The fighting men and servants of this house, For I would have your judgment upon one Who is self-accused. If she be innocent She would not look in any known man's face Till judgment has been given, and if guilty. Will never look again on known man's face." And at these words he paled, as she had paled. Knowing that he should find upon her lips The meaning of that monstrous day. Then she : " You brought me where your brother Ardan sat 1 86 THE TWO KINGS Always in his one seat, and bid me care him Through that strange illness that had fixed him there, And should he die to heap his burial mound And carve his name in Ogham." Eochaid said, " He lives ? " " He lives and is a healthy man." " While I have him and you it matters little What man you have lost, what evil you have found." " I bid them make his bed under this roof And carried him his food with my own hands. And so the weeks passed by. But when I said ' What is this trouble ? ' he would answer nothing, Though always at my words his trouble grew ; And I but asked the more, till he cried out. Weary of many questions : * There are things That make the heart akin to the dumb stone.' Then I replied : ' Although you hide a secret, Hopeless and dear, or terrible to think on, Speak it, that I may send through the wide world For medicine.' Thereon he cried aloud : THE TWO KINGS 187 ' Day after day you question me, and I, Because there is such a storm amid my thoughts I shall be carried in the gust, command. Forbid, beseech and waste my breath.' Then I, ' Although the thing that you have hid were evil, The speaking of it could be no great wrong. And evil must it be, if done 'twere worse Than mound and stone that keep all virtue in. And loosen on us dreams that waste our life. Shadows and shows that can but turn the brain.' But finding him still silent I stooped down And whispering that none but he should hear. Said : ' If a woman has put this on you, My men, whether it please her or displease. And though they have to cross the Loughlan waters And take her in the middle of armed men. Shall make her look upon her handiwork, That she may quench the rick she has fired ; and though She may have worn silk clothes, or worn a crown. She'll not be proud, knowing within her heart 1 88 THE TWO KINGS That our sufBcient portion of the world Is that we give, although it be brief giving, Happiness to children and to men.' Then he, driven by his thought beyond his thought. And speaking what he would not though he would, Sighed : ' You, even you yourself, could work the cure I ' And at those words I rose and I went out And for nine days he had food from other hands. And for nine days my mind went whirling round The one disastrous zodiac, muttering That the immedicable mound's beyond Our questioning, beyond our pity even. But when nine days had gone I stood again Before his chair and bending down my head Told him, that when Orion rose, and all The women of his household were asleep. To go — for hope would give his limbs the power — To an old empty woodman's house that's hidden Close to a clump of beech trees in the wood Westward of Tara, there to await a friend That could, as he had told her, work his cure And would be no harsh friend. When night had deepened, THE TWO KINGS 189 I groped my way through boughs, and over roots, Till oak and hazel ceased and beech began, And found the house, a sputtering torch within, And stretched out sleeping on a pile of skins Ardan, and though I called to him and tried To shake him out of sleep, I could not rouse him. I waited till the night was on the turn. Then fearing that some labourer, on his way To plough or pasture-land, might see me there. Went out. Among the ivy-covered rocks. As on the blue light of a sword, a man Who had unnatural majesty, and eyes Like the eyes of some great kite scouring the woods, Stood on my path. Trembling from head to foot I gazed at him like grouse upon a kite ; But with a voice that had unnatural music, ' A weary wooing and a long,' he said, ' Speaking of love through other lips and looking Under the eyelids of another, for it was my craft That put a passion in the sleeper there, And when I had got my will and drawn you here. I90 THE TWO KINGS Where I may speak to you alone, my craft Sucked up the passion out of him again And left mere sleep. He'll wake when the sun wakes, Push out his vigorous limbs and rub his eyes, And wonder what has ailed him these twelve months.' I cowered back upon the wall in terror, But that sweet - sounding voice ran on : ' Woman, I was your husband when you rode the air, Danced in the whirling foam and in the dust, In days you have not kept in memory. Being betrayed into a cradle, and I come That I may claim you as my wife again.' I was no longer terrified, his voice Had half awakened some old memory. Yet answered him : * I am King Eochaid's wife And with him have found every happiness Women can find.' With a most masterful voice. That made the body seem as it were a string Under a bow, he cried : * What happiness Can lovers have that know their happiness Must end at the dumb stone .'' But where we build Our sudden palaces in the still air Pleasure itself can bring no weariness, THE TWO KINGS 191 Nor can time waste the cheek, nor is there foot That has grown weary of the whirling dance, Nor an unlaughing mouth, but mine that mourns. Among those mouths that sing their sweet- hearts' praise, Your empty bed.' ' How should I love,' I answered, ' Were it not that when the dawn has lit my bed And shown my husband sleeping there, I have sighed, " Your strength and nobleness will pass away." Or how should love be worth its pains were it not That when he has fallen asleep within my arms, Being wearied out, I love in man the child ? What can they know of love that do not know She builds her nest upon a narrow ledge Above a windy precipice ? ' Then he : ' Seeing that when you come to the death- bed You must return, whether you would or no. This human life blotted from memory. Why must I live some thirty, forty years, Alone with all this useless happiness ? ' Thereon he seized me in his arms, but I 192 THE TWO KINGS Thrust him away with both my hands and cried, ' Never will I believe there is any change Can blot out of my memory this life Sweetened by death, but if I could believe That were a double hunger in my lips For what is doubly brief.' And now the shape, My hands were pressed to, vanished sud- denly. I staggered, but a beech tree stayed my fall, And clinging to it I could hear the cocks Crow upon Tara." King Eochaid bowed his head And thanked her for her kindness to his brother. For that she promised, and for that refused. Thereon the bellowing of the empounded herds Rose round the walls, and through the bronze-ringed door Jostled and shouted those war-wasted men. And in the midst King Eochaid's brother stood. And bade all welcome, being ignorant. TO A WEALTHY MAN WHO PROMISED A SECOND SUBSCRIPTION TO THE DUBLIN MUNICIPAL GALLERY IF IT WERE PROVED THE PEOPLE WANTED PICTURES You gave but will not give again Until enough of Paudeen's pence By Biddy's halfpennies have lain To be " some sort of evidence," Before you'll put your guineas down, That things it were a pride to give Are what the blind and ignorant town Imagines best to make it thrive. What cared Duke Ercole, that bid His mummers to the market place. What th' onion-sellers thought or did So that his Plautus set the pace For the Italian comedies ? And Guidobaldo, when he made That grammar school of courtesies Where wit and beauty learned their trade Upon Urbino's windy hill, Had sent no runners to and fro That he might learn the shepherds' will. 193 o 194 TO A WEALTHY MAN And when they drove out Cosimo, Indifferent how the rancour ran, He gave the hours they had set free To Michelozzo's latest plan For the San Marco Library, Whence turbulent Italy should draw Delight in Art whose end is peace. In logic and in natural law By sucking at the dugs of Greece. Your open hand but shows our loss, For he knew better how to live. Let Paudeens play at pitch and toss. Look up in the sun's eye and give What the exultant heart calls good That some new day may breed the best Because you gave, not what they would But the right twigs for an eagle's nest ! December 1912. SEPTEMBER 1913 What need you, being come to sense, But fumble in a greasy till And add the halfpence to the pence And prayer to shivering prayer, until You have dried the marrow from the bone ; For men were born to pray and save : Romantic Ireland's dead and gone. It's with O'Leary in the grave. Yet they were of a different kind The names that stilled your childish play, They have gone about the world like wind. But little time had they to pray For whom the hangman's rope was spun, And what, God help us, could they save : Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in the grave. Was it for this the wild geese spread The grey wing upon every tide ; For this that all that blood was shed. For this Edward Fitzgerald died. And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone, All that delirium of the brave ; 195 196 SEPTEMBER 1913 Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in the grave. Yet could we turn the years again, And call those exiles as they were In all their loneliness and pain, You'd cry " Some woman's yellow hair Has maddened every mother's son " : They weighed so lightly what they gave, But let them be, they're dead and gone, They're with O'Leary in the grave. / TO A FRIEND WHOSE WORK HAS COME TO NOTHING Now all the truth is out, Be secret and take defeat From any brazen throat, For how can you compete, Being honour bred, with one Who, were it proved he lies, Were neither shamed in his own Nor in his neighbours' eyes ? \ Bred to a harder thing I Than Triumph, turn away And like a laughing string Whereon mad fingers play Amid a place of stone. Be secret and exult, Because of all things known That is most difficult. /fi-'ti, *l'l!.. k, 197 PAUDEEN Indignant at the fumbling wits, the obscure spite Of our old Paudeen in his shop, I stumbled blind Among the stones and thorn trees, under morning light ; Until a curlew cried and in the luminous wind A curlew answered ; and suddenly there- upon I thought That on the lonely height where all are in God's eye, There cannot be, confusion of our sound . forgot, A single soul that lacks a sweet crystalline cry. 198 TO A SHADE If you have revisited the town, thin Shade, Whether to look upon your monument (I wonder if the builder has been paid) Or happier thoughted when the day is spent ■ To drink of that salt breath out of the sea When grey gulls flit about instead of men, j And the gaunt houses put on majesty : Let these content you and be gone again ; For they are at their old tricks yet. A man Of your own passionate serving kind who had brought In his full hands what, had they only known, Had given their children's children loftier thought, Sweeter emotion, working in their veins Like gentle blood, has been driven from the place. And insult heaped upon him for his pains And for his open-handedness, disgrace ; Your enemy, an old foul mouth, had set The pack upon him. Go, unquiet wanderer. And gather the Glasnevin coverlet 199 200 TO A SHADE About your head till the dust stops your ear, The time for you to taste of that salt breath And listen at the corners has not come ; You had enough of sorrow before death — Away, away ! You are safer in the tomb. September 29, 1913. WHEN HELEN LIVED We have cried in our despair That men desert, For some trivial affair Or noisy, insolent, sport, Beauty that we have won From bitterest hours ; Yet we, had we walked within Those topless towers Where Helen walked with her boy, Had given but as the rest Of the men and women of Troy, A word and a jest. ON THOSE THAT HATED " THE PLAY- BOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD," 1907 Once, when midnight smote the air, Eunuchs ran through Hell and met On every crowded street to stare Upon great Juan riding by : Even like these to rail and sweat Staring upon his sinewy thigh. 202 THE THREE BEGGARS " Though to my feathers in the wet, I have stood here from break of day, I have not found a thing to eat For only rubbish comes my way. Am I to live on lebe en-lone ? " Muttered the old crane of Gort. " For all my pains on lebeen-lone" King Guari walked amid his court The palace-yard and river-side And there to three old beggars said : " You that have wandered far and wide Can ravel out what's in my head. Do men who least desire get most, Or get the most who most desire ? " A beggar said : " They get the most Whom man or devil cannot tire, And what could make their muscles taut Unless desire had made them so." But Guari laughed with secret thought, " If that be true as it seems true. One of you three is a rich man, For he shall have a thousand pounds Who is first asleep, if but he can 203 204 THE THREE BEGGARS Sleep before the third noon sounds." And thereon merry as a bird. With his old thoughts King Guari went From river-side and palace-yard And left them to their argument. " And if I win," one beggar said, " Though I am old I shall persuade A pretty girl to share my bed " ; The second : " I shall learn a trade " ; The third : "I'll hurry to the course Among the other gentlemen. And lay it all upon a horse " ; The second : " I have thought again : A farmer has more dignity." One to another sighed and cried : The exorbitant dreams of beggary. That idleness had borne to pride, Sang through their teeth from noon to noon ; And when the second 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 another night had gone. Or if they made a moment's stay THE THREE BEGGARS 205 They sat upon their heels to rail, And when old Guari came and stood Before the three to end this tale, They were commingling lice and blood. " Time's up," he cried, and all the three With blood-shot eyes upon him stared. " Time's up," he cried, and all the three Fell down upon the dust and snored. " Maybe I shall be lucky yet^ Now they are silent" said the crane. " Though to my feathers in the wet Pve stood as I were made of stone And seen the rubbish run about, Ifs certain there are trout somewhere And maybe I shall take a trout If but I do not seem to care" BEGGAR TO BEGGAR CRIED "Time to put off the world and go some- where And find my health again in the sea air," Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck, " And make my soul before my pate is bare." " And get a comfortable wife and house To rid me of the devil in my shoes," Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck, " And the worse devil that is between my thighs." " And though I'd marry with a comely lass. She need not be too comely — let it pass," Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck, " But there's a devil in a looking-glass." " Nor should she be too rich, because the rich Are driven by wealth as beggars by the itch," Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck, " And cannot have a humorous happy speech." 208 BEGGAR TO BEGGAR CRIED 209 " And there I'll grow respected at my ease, And hear amid the garden's nightly peace," Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck, " The wind-blown clamour of the barnacle- geese." RUNNING TO PARADISE As I came over Windy Gap They threw a halfpenny into my cap, For I am running to Paradise ; And all that I need do is to wish And somebody puts his hand in the dish To throw me a bit of salted fish : And there the king is but as the beggar. My brother Mourteen is worn out With skelping his big brawling lout, And I am running to Paradise ; A poor life do what he can. And though he keep a dog and a gun, A serving maid and a serving man : And there the king is but as the beggar. Poor men have grown to be rich men. And rich men grown to be poor again, And I am running to Paradise ; And many a darling wit's grown dull That tossed a bare heel when at school. Now it has filled an old sock full : And there the king is but as the beggar. RUNNING TO PARADISE 211 The wind is old and still at play While I must hurry upon my way, For I am running to Paradise ; Yet never have I lit on a friend To take my fancy like the wind That nobody can buy or bind : And there the king is but as the beggar. THE HOUR BEFORE DAWN A CURSING rogue with a merry face, A bundle of rags upon a crutch, Stumbled upon that windy place Called Croghan, and it was as much As the one sturdy leg could do To keep him upright while he cursed. He had counted, where long years ago Queen Maeve's nine Maines had been nursed, A pair of lapwings, one old sheep And not a house to the plain's edge. When close to his right hand a heap Of grey stones and a rocky ledge Reminded him that he could make, If he but shifted a few stones, A shelter till the daylight broke. But while he fumbled with the stones They toppled over ; " Were it not I have a lucky wooden shin I had been hurt " ; and toppling brought Before his eyes, where stones had been, A dark deep hollow in the rock. He gave a gasp and thought to have fled, THE HOUR BEFORE DAWN 213 Being certain it was no right rock Because an ancient history said Hell Mouth lay open near that place, And yet stood still, because inside A great lad with a beery face Had tucked himself away beside A ladle and a tub of beer, And snored, no phantom by his look. So with a laugh at his own fear He crawled into that pleasant nook. " Night grows uneasy near the dawn Till even I sleep light ; but who Has tired of his own company .■' What one of Maeve's nine brawling sons Sick of his grave has wakened me ? But let him keep his grave for once That I may find the sleep I have lost." " What care I if you sleep or wake But I'll have no man call me ghost." " Say what you please, but from daybreak I'll sleep another century." " And I will talk before I sleep And drink before I talk." And he Had dipped the wooden ladle deep Into the sleeper's tub of beer Had not the sleeper started up. 214 THE HOUR BEFORE DAWN " Before you have dipped it in the beer I dragged from Goban's mountain-top I'll have assurance that you are able To value beer ; no half-legged fool Shall dip his nose into my ladle Merely for stumbling on this hole In the bad hour before the dawn." " Why, beer is only beer." " But say ' I'll sleep until the winter's gone, Or maybe to Midsummer Day,' And drink, and you will sleep that length." "I'd like to sleep till winter's gone Or till the sun is in his strength. This blast has chilled me to the bone." " I had no better plan at first. I thought to wait for that or this ; Maybe the weather was a-cursed Or I had no woman there to kiss ; So slept for half a year or so ; But year by year I found that less Gave me such pleasure I'd forgo Even a half hour's nothingness, And when at one year's end I found I had not waked a single minute, I chose this burrow under ground. I'll sleep away all Time within it : My sleep were now nine centuries THE HOUR BEFORE DAWN 215 But for those mornings when I find The lapwing at their fooUsh cries And the sheep bleating at the wind As when I also played the fool." The beggar in a rage began Upon his hunkers in the hole, " It's plain that you are no right man To mock at everything I love As if it were not worth the doing, I'd have a merry life enough If a good Easter wind were blowing, And though the winter wind is bad I should not be too down in the mouth For anything you did or said If but this wind were in the south." " You cry aloud, O would 'twere spring Or that the wind would shift a point, And do not know that you would bring. If time were suppler in the joint, Neither the spring nor the south wind But the hour when you shall pass away And leave no smoking wick behind. For all life longs for the Last Day And there's no man but cocks his ear To know when Michael's trumpet cries That flesh and bone may disappear, • And souls as if they were but sighs. And there be nothing but God left ; But I alone being blessed keep 2i6 THE HOUR BEFORE DAWN Like some old rabbit to my cleft And wait Him in a drunken sleep." He dipped his ladle in the tub And drank and yawned and stretched him out. The other shouted, " You would rob My life of every pleasant thought And every comfortable thing And so take that and that." Thereon He gave him a great pummelling, But might have pummelled at a stone For all the sleeper knew or cared ; And after heaped up stone on stone, And then, grown weary, prayed and cursed And heaped up stone on stone again. And prayed and cursed and cursed and fled From Maeve and all that juggling plain. Nor gave God thanks till overhead The clouds were brightening with the dawn. A SONG FROM THE PLAYER QUEEN My mother dandled me and sang, " How young it is, how young 1 " And made a golden cradle That on a willow swung. " He went away," my mother sang, " When I was brought to bed," And all the while her needle pulled The gold and silver thread. She pulled the thread and bit the thread And made a golden gown. And wept because she had dreamt that I Was born to wear a crown. " When she was got," my mother sang, " I heard a sea-mew cry. And saw a flake of the yellow foam That dropped upon my thigh." How therefore could she help but braid The gold into my hair. And dream that I should carry The golden top of care ? 217 THE REALISTS Hope that you may understand I What can books of men that wive In a dragon-guarded land, Paintings of the dolphin-drawn Sea-nymphs in their pearly waggons Do, but awake a hope to live That had gone With the dragons ? 218 THE WITCH Toil and grow rich, What's that but to lie With a foul witch And after, drained dry, To be brought To the chamber where Lies one long sought With despair. 219 II THE PEACOCK What's riches to him That has made a great peacock With the pride of his eye ? The wind-beaten, stone-grey, And desolate Three-rock Would nourish his whim. Live he or die Amid wet rocks and heather, His ghost will be gay Adding feather to feather For the pride of his eye. 220 THE MOUNTAIN TOMB Pour wine and dance if Manhood still have pride. Bring roses if the rose be yet in bloom ; The cataract smokes upon the mountain side, Our Father Rosicross is in his tomb. Pull down the blinds, bring fiddle and clarionet That there be no foot silent in the room Nor mouth from kissing, nor from wine unwet ; Our Father Rosicross is in his tomb. In vain, in vain ; the cataract still cries The everlasting taper lights the gloom ; All wisdom shut into his onyx eyes Our Father Rosicross sleeps in his tomb. I TO A CHILD DANCING IN THE WIND Dance there upon the shore ; What need have you to care For wind or water's roar ? And tumble out your hair That the salt drops have wet ; Being young you have not known The fool's triumph, nor yet Love lost as soon as won, I Nor the best labourer dead (And all the sheaves to bind. What need have you to dread The monstrous crying of wind ? 323 II TWO YEARS LATER Has no one said those daring Kind eyes should be more learn'd ? Or warned you how despairing The moths are when they are burned, I could have warned you, but you are young, So we speak a different tongue. O you will take whatever's offered And dream that all the world's a friend, Suffer as your mother suffered. Be as broken in the end. But I am old and you are young. And I speak a barbarous tongue. 223 A MEMORY OF YOUTH The moments passed as at a play, I had the wisdom love brings forth ; I had my share of mother wit And yet for all that I could say, And though I had her praise for it, A cloud blown from the cut-throat north Suddenly hid love's moon away. Believing every word I said I praised her body and her mind Till pride had made her eyes grow bright, And pleasure made her cheeks grow red. And vanity her footfall light, Yet we, for all that praise, could find Nothing but darkness overhead. We sat as silent as a stone. We knew, though she'd not said a word, That even the best of love must die, And had been savagely undone Were it not that love upon the cry Of a most ridiculous little bird Tore from the clouds his marvellous moon. 224 FALLEN MAJESTY Although crowds gathered once if she but showed her face, And even old men's eyes grew dim, this hand alone, Like some last courtier at a gypsy camping place Babbling of fallen majesty, records what's gone. The lineaments, a heart that laughter has made sweet, These, these remain, but I record what's gone. A crowd Will gather, and not know it walks the very street Whereon a thing once walked that seemed a burning cloud. 225 FRIENDS Now must I these three praise- Three women that have wrought What joy is in my days ; One that no passing thought, Nor those unpassing cares, No, not in these fifteen Many times troubled years, Could ever come between Mind and delighted mind; And one because her hand Had strength that could unbind What none can understand, What none can have and thrive, Youth's dreamy load, till she So changed me that I live Labouring in ecstasy. And what of her that took All till my youth was gone With scarce a pitying look ? How should I praise that one ? When day begins to break I count my good and bad, Being wakeful for her sake, 226 FRIENDS 227 Remembering what she had, What eagle look still shows, While up from my heart's root So great a sweetness flows I shake from head to foot. J THE COLD HEAVEN Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting | Heaven ' That seemed as though ice burned and was but the more ice, And thereupon imagination and heart were driven So wild that every casual thought of that and this Vanished, and left but memories, that should be out of season With the hot blood of youth, of love crossed long ago ; And I took all the blame out of all sense and reason. Until I cried and trembled and rocked to and fro. Riddled with light. Ah ! when the ghost begins to quicken, Confusion of the death-bed over, is it sent Out naked on the roads, as the books say, and stricken By the injustice of the skies for punishment ? 228 J THAT THE NIGHT COME She lived in storm and strife, Her soul had such desire For what proud death may bring That it could not endure The common good of life, But lived as 'twere a king That packed his marriage day With banneret and pennon, Trumpet and kettledrum. And the outrageous cannon, To bundle time away That the night come. 229 AN APPOINTMENT Being out of heart with government I took a broken root to fling Where the proud, wayward squirrel went, Taking delight that he could spring ; And he, with that low whinnying sound That is like laughter, sprang again And so to the other tree at a bound. Nor the tame will, nor timid brain, Nor heavy knitting of the brow Bred that fierce tooth and cleanly limb And threw him up to laugh on the bough; No government appointed him. 230 I THE MAGI Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye, In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale un- satisfied ones Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones. And all their helms of silver hovering side by side. And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more. Being by Calvary's turbulence unsatisfied, The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor. 231 II THE DOLLS A DOLL in the doll-maker's house Looks at the cradle and bawls : " That is an insult to us." But the oldest of all the dolls Who had seen, being kept for show, Generations of his sort, Out-screams the whole shelf: "Although There's not a man can report Evil of this place, The man and the woman bring Hither to our disgrace, A noisy and filthy thing." Hearing him groan and stretch The doll-maker's wife is aware Her husband has heard the wretch, And crouched by the arm of his chair. She murmurs into his ear. Head upon shoulder leant : " My dear, my dear, oh dear. It was an accident," 232 A COAT I MADE my song a coat Covered with embroideries Out of old mythologies From heel to throat ; But the fools caught it, Wore it in the world's eyes As though they'd wrought it. Song, let them take it ? For there's more enterprise In walking naked. 233 While I, from that reed-throated whisperer Who comes at need, although not now as once A clear articulation in the air But inwardly, surmise companions Beyond the fling of the dull ass's hoof, — Ben Jonson's phrase — and find when June is come At Kyle-na-no under that ancient roof A sterner conscience and a friendlier home, I can forgive even that wrong of wrongs, Those undreamt accidents that have made me — Seeing that Fame has perished this long while Being but a part of ancient ceremony — Notorious, till all my priceless things Are but a post the passing dogs defile. 234 THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE (1919) 235 THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE The trees are in their autumn beauty, The woodland paths are dry, Under the October twilight the water Mirrors a still sky ; Upon the brimming water among the stones Are nine and fifty swans. The nineteenth Autumn has come upon me Since I first made my count ; I saw, before I had well finished, All suddenly mount And scatter wheeling in great broken rings Upon their clamorous wings. I have looked upon those brilliant creatures. And now my heart is sore. All's changed since I, hearing at twilight, ,The first time on this shore, * The bell-beat of their wings above my head. Trod with a lighter tread. Unwearied still, lover by lover, They paddle in the cold. Companionable streams or climb the air ; 237 238 THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE Their hearts have not grown old ; Passion or conquest, wander where they will, Attend upon them still. But now they drift on the still water Mysterious, beautiful ; Among what rushes will they build, By what lake's edge or pool Delight men's eyes when I awake some day To find they have flown away ? IN MEMORY OF MAJOR ROBERT GREGORY Now that we're almost settled in our house I'll name the friends that cannot sup with us Beside a fire of turf in th' ancient tower, And having talked to some late hour Climb up the narrow winding stair to bed : Discoverers of forgotten truth Or mere companions of my youth, All, all are in my thoughts to-night being dead. Always we'd have the new friend meet the old And we are hurt if either friend seem cold, And there is salt to lengthen out the smart In the affections of our heart. And quarrels are blown up upon that head ; But not a friend that I would bring This night can set us quarrelling, For all that come into my mind are dead. 239 240 MAJOR ROBERT GREGORY 3 Lionel Johnson comes the first to mind, That loved his learning better than mankind, Though courteous to the worst ; much falling he Brooded upon sanctity Till all his Greek and Latin learning seemed A long blast upon the horn that brought A little nearer to his thought A measureless consummation that he dreamed, 4 And that enquiring man John Synge comes next That dying chose the living world for text And never could have rested in the tomb But that, long travelling, he had come Towards nightfall upon certain set apart In a most desolate stony place. Towards nightfall upon a race Passionate and simple like his heart. 5 And then I think of old George Pollexfen, In muscular youth well known to Mayo men MAJOR ROBERT GREGORY 241 For horsemanship at meets or at race- courses, That could have shown how purebred horses And sohd men, for all their passion, live But as the outrageous stars incline By opposition, square and trine ; Having grown sluggish and contemplative. They were my close companions many a year, A portion of my mind and life, as it were. And now their breathless faces seem to look Out of some old picture-book ; I am accustomed to their lack of breath, But not that my dear friend's dear son, Our Sidney and our perfect man. Could share in that discourtesy of death. 7 For all things the delighted eye now sees Were loved by him ; the old storm-broken trees That cast their shadows upon road and bridge ; The tower set on the stream's edge ; The ford where drinking cattle make a stir Nightly, and startled by that sound 242 MAJOR ROBERT GREGORY The water-hen must change her ground ; He might have been your heartiest welcomer. 8 When with the Galway foxhounds he would ride From Castle Taylor to the Roxborough side Or Esserkelly plain, few kept his pace ; At Mooneen he had leaped a place So perilous that half the astonished meet Had shut their eyes, and where was it He rode a race without a bit ? And yet his mind outran the horses' feet. We dreamed that a great painter had been born To cold Clare rock and Galway rock and thorn, To that stern colour and that delicate line That are our secret discipline Wherein the gazing heart doubles her might. Soldier, scholar, horseman, he. And yet he had the intensity To have published all to be a world's delight. MAJOR ROBERT GREGORY 243 10 What other could so well have counselled us In all lovely intricacies of a house As he that practised or that understood All work in metal or in wood, In moulded plaster or in carven stone ? Soldier, scholar, horseman, he. And all he did done perfectly As though he had but that one trade alone. II Some burn damp fagots, others may consume The entire combustible world in one small room As though dried straw, and if we turn about The bare chimney is gone black out Because the work had finished in that flare. Soldier, scholar, horseman, he, As 'twere all life's epitome. What made us dream that he could comb grey hair ? 12 I had thought, seeing how bitter is that wind That shakes the shutter, to have brought to mind 244 MAJOR ROBERT GREGORY All those that manhood tried, or childhood loved Or boyish intellect approved, With some appropriate commentary on each ; Until imagination brought A fitter welcome ; but a thought Of that late death took all my heart for speech. AN IRISH AIRMAN FORESEES ^ HIS DEATH I KNOW that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among' the clouds above ; Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love ; My country is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan's poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public men, nor cheering crowds, j A lonely impulse of delight t Drove to this tumult in the clouds ; I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of bi^eath the years behind In balance with this life, this death. 245 MEN IMPROVE WITH THE YEARS I AM worn out with dreams ; A weather-worn, marble triton Among the streams ; And all day long I look Upon this lady's beauty As though I had found in book A pictured beauty, Pleased to have filled the eyes Or the discerning ears, Delighted to be but wise, ' For men improve with the years ; And yet and yet Is this my dream, or the truth? O would that we had met When I had my burning youth ; But I grow old among dreams, A weather-worn, marble triton Among the streams. 246 THE COLLAR-BONE OF A HARE Would I could cast a sail on the water Where many a king has gone And many a king's daughter, And alight at the comely trees and the lawn. The playing upon pipes and the dancing, And learn that the best thing is To change my loves while dancing And pay but a kiss for a kiss. I would find by the edge of that water The collar-bone of a hare Worn thin by the lapping of water, And pierce it through with a gimlet and stare At the old bitter world where they marry in churches. And laugh over the untroubled water At all who marry in churches. Through the white thin bone of a hare. 247 UNDER THE ROUND TOWER " Although I'd lie lapped up in linen A deal I'd sweat and little earn If I should live as live the neighbours," Cried the beggar, Billy Byrne ; " Stretch bones till the daylight come On great-grandfather's battered tomb." Upon a grey old battered tombstone In Glendalough beside the stream, Where the O 'Byrnes and Byrnes are buried, He stretched his bones and fell in a dream Of sun and moon that a good hour Bellowed and pranced in the round tower ; Of golden king and silver lady. Bellowing up and bellowing round. Till toes mastered a sweet measure, Mouth mastered a sweet sound. Prancing round and prancing up Until they pranced upon the top. That golden king and that wild lady Sang till stars began to fade. Hands gripped in hands, toes close together, 248 UNDER THE ROUND TOWER 249 Hair spread on the wind they made ; That lady and that golden king Could like a brace of blackbirds sing, " It's certain that my luck is broken," That rambling jailbird Billy said ; " Before nightfall I'll pick a pocket And snug it in a feather-bed, I cannot find the peace of home On great-grandfather's battered tomb." SOLOMON TO SHEBA Sang Solomon to Shebaj And kissed her dusky face, " All day long from mid-day We have talked in the one place, All day long from shadowless noon We have gone round and round In the narrow theme of love Like an old horse in a pound." To Solomon sang Sheba, Planted on his knees, "If you had broached a matter That might the learned please. You had before the sun had thrown Our shadows on the ground Discovered that my thoughts, not it, Are but a narrow pound." Sang Solomon to Sheba, And kissed her Arab eyes, " There's not a man or woman Born under the skies Dare match in learning with us two. And all day long we have found There's not a thing but love can make The world a narrow pound." 25° THE LIVING BEAUTY I'll say and maybe dream I have drawn content — Seeing that time has frozen up the blood, The wick of youth being burned and the oil spent — From beauty that is cast out of a mould In bronze, or that in dazzling marble appears, Appears, and when we have gone is gone again, Being more indifferent to our solitude Than 'twere an apparition. O heart, we are old. The living beauty is for younger men. We cannot pay its tribute of wild tears. 251 / A SONG I THOUGHT no more was needed Youth to prolong Than dumb-bell and foil To keep the body young. Oh, who could have foretold That the heart grows old ? Though I have many words, What woman's satisfied, I am no longer faint , Because at her side ? Oh, who could have foretold That the heart grows old ? I have not lost desire ; But the heart that I had ; I thought 'twould burn my body Laid on the death-bed, For who could have foretold That the heart grows old ? 252 TO A YOUNG BEAUTY Dear fellow-artist, why so free With every sort of company, With every Jack and Jill ? Choose your companions from the best ; Who draws a bucket with the rest Soon topples down the hill. You may, that mirror for a school. Be passionate, not bountiful As common beauties may, Who were not born to keep in trim With old Ezekiel's cherubim But those of Beauvarlet. I know what wages beauty gives, How hard a life her servant lives, Yet praise the winters gone : There is not a fool can call me friend, And I may dine at journey's end With Landor and with Donne. 253 TO A YOUNG GIRL My dear, my dear, I know More than another What makes your heart beat so ; Not even your own mother Can know it as I know, Who broke my heart for her When the wild thought, That she denies And has forgot. Set all her blood astir And glittered in her eyes. 2S4 THE SCHOLARS Bald heads forgetful of their sins, Old, learned, respectable bald heads Edit and annotate the lines That young men, tossing on their beds. Rhymed out in love's despair To flatter beauty's ignorant ear. They'll cough in the ink to the world's end ; Wear out the carpet with their shoes Earning respect ; have no strange friend ; If they have sinned nobody knows. Lord, what would they say Should their Catullus walk that way ? 255 TOM O'ROUGHLEY " Though logic choppers rule the town, And every man and maid and boy Has marked a distant object down, An aimless joy is a pure joy," Or so did Tom O'Roughley say That saw the surges running by, " And wisdom is a butterfly And not a gloomy bird of prey. " If little planned is little sinned But little need the grave distress. What's dying but a second wind ? How but in zig-zag wantonness Could trumpeter Michael be so brave ? " Or something of that sort he said, " And if my dearest friend were dead I'd dance a measure on his grave." 456 THE SAD SHEPHERD Shepherd That cry's from the first cuckoo of the year. I wished before it ceased. Goatherd Nor bird nor beast Could make me wish for anything this day, Being old, but that the old alone might die, And that would be against God's Providence. Let the young wish. But what has brought you here .'' Never until this moment have we met Where my goats browse on the scarce grass or leap From stone to stone. Shepherd I am looking for strayed sheep ; Something has troubled me and in my trouble I let them stray. I thought of rhyme alone, 257 s 258 THE SAD SHEPHERD For rhyme can beat a measure out of trouble And make the daylight sweet once more; but when I had driven every rhyme into its place The sheep had gone from theirs. Goatherd I know right well What turned so good a shepherd from his charge. Shepherd He that was best in every country sport And every country craft, and of us all Most courteous to slow age and hasty youth. Is dead. Goatherd The boy that brings my griddle cake Brought the bare news. Shepherd He had thrown the crook away And died in the great war beyond the sea. THE SAD SHEPHERD 259 Goatherd He had often played his pipes among my hills, And when he played it was their loneliness, The exultation of their stone, that cried Under his fingers. Shepherd I had it from his mother, And his own flock was browsing at the door. Goatherd How does she bear her grief? There is not a shepherd But grows more gentle when he speaks her name, Remembering kindness done, and how can I, That found when I had neither goat nor grazing New welcome and old wisdom at her fire Till winter blasts were gone, but speak of her Even before his children and his wife. Shepherd She goes about her house erect and calm Between the pantry and the linen chest, 26o THE SAD SHEPHERD Or else at meadow or at grazing overlooks Her labouring men, as though her darling lived, But for her grandson now ; there is no change But such as I have seen upon her face Watching our shepherd sports at harvest- time When her son's turn was over. Goatherd Sing your song, I too have rhymed my reveries, but youth Is hot to show whatever it has found, And till that's done can neither work nor wait. Old goatherds and old goats, if in all else Youth can excel them in accomplishment. Are learned in waiting. Shepherd You cannot but have seen That he alone had gathered up no gear. Set carpenters to work on no wide table, On no long bench nor lofty milking shed As others will, when first they take possession. But left the house as in his father's time As though he knew himself, as it were, a cuckoo, THE SAD SHEPHERD 261 No settled man. And now that he is gone There's nothing of him left but half a score Of sorrowful, austere, sweet, lofty pipe tunes. Goatherd You have put the thought in rhyme. Shepherd I worked all day, And when 'twas done so little had I done That maybe " I am sorry " in plain prose Had sounded better to your mountain fancy. [He sings. " Like the speckled bird that steers Thousands of leagues oversea. And runs for a while or a while half-flies Upon his yellow legs through our meadows. He stayed for a while ; and we Had scarcely accustomed our ears To his speech at the break of day, Had scarcely accustomed our eyes To his shape at the rinsing pool Among the evening shadows, When he vanished from ears and eyes. I had wished a dear thing on that day I heard him first, but man is a fool." 262 THE SAD SHEPHERD Goatherd You sing as always of the natural life, And I that made like music in my youth Hearing it now have sighed for that young man And certain lost companions of my own. Shepherd They say that on your barren mountain ridge You have measured out the road that the soul treads When it has vanished from our natural eyes ; That you have talked with apparitions. Goatherd Indeed My daily thoughts since the first stupor of youth Have found the path my goats' feet cannot find. Shepherd Sing, for it may be that your thoughts have plucked Some medicable herb to make our grief Less bitter. THE SAD SHEPHERD 263 Goatherd They have brought me from that ridge Seed pods and flowers that are not all wild poppy. \_Sings. " He grows younger every second That were all his birthdays reckoned Much too solemn seemed ; Because of what he had dreamed, Or the ambitions that he served, Much too solemn and reserved. Jaunting, journeying To his own dayspring, He unpacks the loaded pern Of all 'twas pain or joy to learn, Of all that he had made. The outrageous war shall fade ; At some old winding whitethorn root He'll practise on the shepherd's flute, Or on the close-cropped grass Court his shepherd lass, Or run where lads reform our daytime Till that is their long shouting playtime •, Knowledge he shall unwind Through victories of the mind, Till, clambering at the cradle side, He dreams himself his mother's pride, All knowledge lost in trance Of sweeter ignorance." 264 THE SAD SHEPHERD Shepherd When I have shut these ewes and this old ram Into the fold, we'll to the woods and there Cut out our rhymes on strips of new-torn bark But put no name and leave them at her door. To know the mountain and the valley have grieved May be a quiet thought to wife and mother, And children when they spring up shoulder high. LINES WRITTEN IN DEJECTION When have I last looked on The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies Of the dark leopards of the moon ? All the wild witches those most noble ladies. For all their broom-sticks and their tears, Their angry tears, are gone. The holy centaurs of the hills are vanished ; I have nothing but the embittered sun ; Banished heroic mother moon and vanished, And now that I have come to fifty years I must endure the timid sun. 265 THE DAWN I WOULD be ignorant as the dawn That has looked down On that old queen measuring a town With the pin of a brooch, Or on the withered men that saw From their pedantic Babylon The careless planets in their courses, The stars fade out where the moon comes. And took their tablets and did sums ; I would be ignorant as the dawn That merely stood, rocking the glittering coach Above the cloudy shoulders of the horses ; I would be — for no knowledge is worth a straw — Ignorant and wanton as the dawn. 266 ON WOMAN May God be praised for woman That gives up all her mind, A man may find in no man A friendship of her kind That covers all he has brought As with her flesh and bone, Nor quarrels with a thought Because it is not her own. Though pedantry denies It's plain the Bible means That Solomon grew wise While talking with his queens Yet never could, although They say he counted grass, Count all the praises due When Sheba was his lass, When she the iron wrought, or When from the smithy fire It shuddered in the water : Harshness of their desire That made them stretch and yawn, Pleasure that comes with sleep, Shudder that made them one. 267 268 ON WOMAN What else He give or keep God grant me — no not here, For I am not so bold To hope a thing so dear Now I am growing old, But when if the tale's true The Pestle of the moon That pounds up all anew Brings me to birth again — To find what once I had And know what once I have known. Until I am driven mad, Sleep driven from my bed, By tenderness and care. Pity, an aching head. Gnashing of teeth, despair ; And all because of some one Perverse creature of chance. And live like Solomon That Sheba led a dance. THE FISHERMAN Although I can see him still The freckled man who goes To a grey place on a hill In grey Connemara clothes At dawn to cast his flies, It's long since I began To call up to the eyes This wise and simple man. All day I'd looked in the face What I had hoped 'twould be To write for my own race And the reality ; The living men that I hate, The dead man that I loved. The craven man in his seat, The insolent unreproved And no knave brought to book Who has won a drunken cheer, The witty man and his joke Aimed at the commonest ear, The clever man who cries The catch-cries of the clown, The beating down of the wise And great Art beaten down. 269 270 THE FISHERMAN Maybe a twelvemonth since Suddenly I began, In scorn of this audience Imagining a man, And his sun-freckled face. And grey Connemara cloth, Climbing up to a place Where stone is dark under froth, And the down turn of his wrist When the flies drop in the stream ; A man who does not exist, A man who is but a dream ; And cried, " Before I am old I shall have written him one Poem maybe as cold And passionate as the dawn." THE HAWK " Call down the hawk from the air; Let him be hooded or caged Till the yellow eye has grown mild, For larder and spit are bare. The old cook enraged. The scullion gone wUd." " I will not be clapped in a hood. Nor a cage, nor alight upon wrist, Now I have learnt to be proud Hovering over the wood In the broken mist Or tumbling cloud." " What tumbUng cloud did you cleave, Yellow-eyed hawk of the mind. Last evening ? that I, who had sat Dumfounded before a knave, Should give to my friend A pretence of wit." 271 MEMORY One had a lovely face, And two or three had charm, But charm and face were in vain '• Because the mountain grass Cannot but keep the form Where the mountain hare has lain. 272 HER PRAISE 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 pubHshed a new book Or a young girl dressed out in her new gown, And though I have turned the talk by hook or crook Until her praise should be the uppermost theme, A woman spoke of some new tale she had read, A man confusedly in a half dream As though some other name ran in his head. She is foremost of those 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 Manage the talk until her name come round. 273 T 274 HER PRAISE If there be rags enough he will know her name And be well pleased remembering it, for in the old days, Though she had young men's praise and old men's blame. Among the poor both old and young gave her praise. THE PEOPLE " What have I earned for all that work," I said, " For all that I have done at my own charge ? The daily spite of this unmannerly town. Where who has served the most is most defamed, The reputation of his lifetime lost Between the night and morning. I might have lived. And you know well how great the longing has been. Where every day my footfall should have Ut In the green shadow of Ferrara wall ; Or climbed among the images of the past — The unperturbed and courtly images — Evening and morning, the steep street of Urbino To where the duchess and her people talked The stately midnight through until they stood In their great window looking at the dawn ; I might have had no friend that could not mix Gaurtesy and passion into one Uke those 278 HIS PHOENIX And there's a player in the States who gathers up her cloak And flings herself out of the room when Juliet would be bride With all a woman's passion, a child's im- perious way, And there are — but no matter if there are scores beside : I knew a phoenix in my youth so let them have their day. There's Margaret and Marjorie and Dorothy and Nan, A Daphne and a Mary who live in privacy ; One's had her fill of lovers, another's had but one. Another boasts, " I pick and choose and have but two or three." If head and limb have beauty and the instep's high and light They can spread out what sail they please for all I have to say, Be but the breakers of men's hearts or engines of delight : I knew a phoenix in my youth so let them have their day. There'll be that crowd, that barbarous crowd, through all the centuries. And who can say but some young belle may walk and talk men wild (; HIS PHOENIX 279 Who is my beauty's eqiial, though that my heart denies. But not the exact likeness, the simplicity of a child, And that proud look as though she had gazed into the burning sun. And all the shapely body no tittle gone astray. I mourn for that most lonely thing ; and yet God's will be done, I knew a phoenix in my youth so let them have their day. A THOUGHT FROM PROPERTIUS She might, so noble from head To great shapely knees The long flowing line, Have walked to the altar Through the holy images At Pallas Athene's side, Or been fit spoil for a centaur Drunk with the unmixed wine. 280 BROKEN DREAMS There is grey in your hair. Young men no longer suddenly catch their breath When you are passing ; But maybe some old gaffer mutters a blessing Because it was your prayer Recovered him upon the bed of death. For your sole sake — that all heart's ache have known, And given to others all heart's ache, From meagre girlhood's putting on Burdensome beauty — for your sole sake Heaven has put away the stroke of her doom, So great her portion in that peace you make By merely walking in a room. Your beauty can but leave among us Vague memories, nothing but memories. A young man when the old men are done talking Will say to an old man, " Tell me of that lady 281 282 BROKEN DREAMS The poet stubborn with his passion sang us When age might well have chilled his blood." Vague memories, nothing but memories, But in the grave all, all, shall be renewed. The certainty that I shall see that lady Leaning or standing or walking In the first loveliness of womanhood, And with the fervour of my youthful eyes, Has set me muttering like a fool. You are more beautiful than any one And yet your body had a flaw : Your small hands were not beautiful, And I am afraid that you will run And paddle to the wrist In that mysterious, always brimming lake Where those that have obeyed the holy law Paddle and are perfect ; leave unchanged The hands that I have kissed For old sakes' sake. The last stroke of midnight dies. All day in the one chair From dream to dream and rhyme to rhyme I have ranged In rambling talk with an image of air : Vague memories, nothing but memories. A DEEP-SWORN VOW Others because you did not keep That deep-sworn vow have been friends of mine ; Yet always when I look death in the face. When I clamber to the heights of sleep. Or when I grow excited with wine, Suddenly I meet your face. 283 TO A SQUIRREL AT KYLE-NA-GNO Come play with me ; Why should you run Through the shaking tree As though I'd a gun To strike you dead ? When all I would do Is to scratch your' head And let you go. 286 ON BEING ASKED FOR A WAR POEM I THINK it better that in times like these A poet's mouth be silent, for in truth We have no gift to set a statesman right; He has had enough of meddling who can please A young girl in the indolence of her youth, Or an old man upon a winter's night. iSf UPON A DYING LADY HER COURTESY With the old kindness, the old distinguished grace She lies, her lovely piteous head amid dull red hair Propped upon pillows, rouge on the pallor of her face. She would not have us sad because she is lying there. And when she meets our gaze her eyes are laughter-lit, Her speech a wicked tale that we may vie with her Matching our broken-hearted wit against her wit, Thinking of saints and of Petronius Arbiter. II CERTAIN ARTISTS BRING HER DOLLS AND DRAWINGS Bring where our Beauty lies A new modelled doll, or drawing, 290 UPON A DYING LADY 291 With a friend's or an enemy's Features, or maybe showing Her features when a tress Of dull red hair was flowing Over some silken dress Cut in the Turkish fashion, Or it may be like a boy's. We have given the world our passion, We have naught for death but toys. Ill SHE TURNS THE DOLLs' FACES TO THE WALL Because to-day is some religious festival They had a priest say Mass, and even the Japanese, Heel up and weight on toe, must face the wall — Pedant in passion, learned in old cour- tesies, Vehement and witty she had seemed — ; the Venetian lady Who had seemed to glide to some intrigue in her red shoes. Her domino, her panniered skirt copied from Longhi ; The meditative critic ; all are on their toes. 292 UPON A DYING LADY Even our Beauty with her Turkish trousers on. Because the priest must have like every dog his day Or keep us all awake with baying at the moon, We and our dolls being but the world were best away. IV THE END OF DAY She is playing like a child And penance is the play, Fantastical and wild Because the end of day Shows her that some one soon Will come from the house, and say- Though play is but half-done — " Come in and leave the play." — HER RACE She has not grown uncivil As narrow natures would And called the pleasures evil Happier days thought good ; UPON A DYING LADY 293 She knows herself a woman No red and white of a face, Or rank, raised from a common Unreckonable race ; And how should her heart fail her Or sickness break her will With her dead brother's valour For an example still. VI HER COURAGE When her soul flies to the predestined dancing-place (I have no speech but symbol, the pagan speech I made Amid the dreams of youth) let her come face to face, Amid that first astonishment, with Crania's shade All but the terrors of the woodland flight forgot That made her Dermuid dear, and some old cardinal Pacing with half-closed eyelids in a sunny spot Who had murmured of Giorgione at his latest breath — 296 EGO DOMINUS TUUS Ille That is our modern hope and by its light We have lit upon the gentle, sensitive mind And lost the old nonchalance of the hand ; Whether we have chosen chisel, pen or brush We are but critics, or but half create Timid, entangled, empty and abashed Lacking the countenance of our friends. Hic And yet The chief imagination of Christendom Dante Alighieri so utterly found himself That he has made that hollow face of his More plain to the mind's eye than any face But that of Christ. Ille And did he find himself Or was the hunger that had made it hollow A hunger for the apple on the bough Most out of reach ? and is that spectral image The man that Lapo and that Guido knew ? I think he fashioned from his opposite An image that might have been a stony face, Staring upon a bedouin's horse-hair roof EGO DOMINUS TUUS 297 From doored and windowed cliff, or half upturned Among the coarse grass and the camel dung. He set his chisel to the hardest stone, i Being mocked by Guido for his lecherous ; life ■ Derided and deriding, driven out To climb that stair and eat that bitter bread, IHe found the unpersuadable justice, he found I The most exalted lady loved by a man. Hic Yet surely there are men who have made their art Out of no tragic war, lovers of life. Impulsive men that look for happiness And sing when they have found it. Ille No not sing, For those that love the world serve it in action, Grow rich, popular and full of influence. And should they paint or write still it is action : The struggle of the fly in marmalade. The rhetorician would deceive his neigh- bours, 298 EGO DOMINUS TUUS The sentimentalist himself ; while art Is but a vision of reality. What portion in the world can the artist have Who has awakened from the common dream But dissipation and despair ? Hic And yet No one denies to Keats love of the world ; Remember his deliberate happiness. Ille His art is happy but who knows his mind ? I see a schoolboy when I think of him With face and nose pressed to a sweet-shop window, For certainly he sank into his grave His senses and his heart unsatisfied, And made — being poor, ailing and ignorant, Shut out from all the luxury of the world. The coarse-bred son of a livery stable- keeper — Luxuriant song. Hic Why should you leave the lamp Burning alone beside an open book, EGO DOMINUS TUUS 299 And trace these characters upon the sands ? A style is found by sedentary toil And by the imitation of great masters. Ille Because I seek an image not a book. Those men that in their writings are most wise Own nothing but their blind, stupefied hearts. I call to the mysterious one who yet Shall walk the wet sands by the edge of the stream And look most like me, being indeed my double. And prove of all imaginable things The most unlike, being my anti-self, And standing by these characters disclose All that I seek ; and whisper it as though He were afraid the birds, who cry aloud Their momentary cries before it is dawn. Would carry it away to blasphemous men. A PRAYER ON GOING INTO MY HOUSE God grant a blessing on this tower and cottage And on my heirs, if all remain unspoiled, No table, or chair or stool not simple enough For shepherd lads in Galilee ; and grant That I myself for portions of the year May handle nothing and set eyes on nothing But what the great and passionate have used Throughout so many varying centuries We take it for the norm ; yet should I dream Sinbad the sailor's brought a painted chest, Or image, from beyond the Loadstone Mountain, That dream is a norm ; and should some limb of the devil Destroy the view by cutting down an ash That shades the road, or setting up a cottage Planned in a government office, shorten his life, Manacle his soul upon the Red Sea bottom. 300 THE PHASES OF THE MOON An old man cocked his ear upon a bridge ; He and kis friend, their faces to the South, Had trod the uneven road. Their hoots were soiled. Their Connemara cloth worn out of shape ; They had kept a steady pace as though their beds. Despite a dwindling and late risen moon. Were distant still. An old man cocked his ear. Aherne What made that sound ? ROBARTES A rat or water-hen Splashed, or an otter sHd into the stream. We are on the bridge ; that shadow is the tower, And the Hght proves that he is reading still. He has found, after the manner of his kind, Mere images ; chosen this place to live in Because, it may be, of the candle light 301 302 PHASES OF THE MOON From the far tower where Milton's platonist Sat late, or Shelley's visionary prince : The lonely light that Samuel Palmer en- graved, An image of mysterious wisdom won by toil ; And now he seeks in book or manuscript What he shall never find. Aherne Why should not you Who know it all ring at his door, and speak Just truth enough to show that his whole life Will scarcely find for him a broken crust Of all those truths that are your daily bread ; And when you have spoken take the roads again ? RoBARTES He wrote of me in that extravagant style He had learnt from Pater, and to round his tale Said I was dead ; and dead I choose to be. Aherne Sing me the changes of the moon once more ; True song, though speech: "mine author sung it me." PHASES OF THE MOON 303 RoBARTES Twenty-and-eight the phases of the moon, The full and the moon's dark and all the crescents, Twenty-and-eight, and yet but six-and- twenty The cradles that a man must needs be rocked in : For there's no human life at the full or the dark. From the first crescent to the half, the dream But summons to adventure and the man Is always happy like a bird or a beast ; But while the moon is rounding towards the full He follows whatever whim's most difficult Among whims not impossible, and though scarred, As with the cat-o '-nine-tails of the mind, His body moulded from within his body Grows comelier. Eleven pass, and then Athenae takes Achilles by the hair. Hector is in the dust, Nietzsche is born, Because the heroes' crescent is the twelfth. And yet, twice born, twice buried, grow he must, Before the full moon, helpless as a worm. The thirteenth moon but sets the soul at war 304 PHASES OF THE MOON In its own being, and when that war's begun There is no muscle in the arm ; and after Under the frenzy of the fourteenth moon The soul begins to tremble into stillness, To die into the labyrinth of itself I Aherne Sing out the song ; sing to the end, and sing The strange reward of all that discipline. ROBARTES All thought becomes an image and the soul Becomes a body : that body and that soul Too perfect at the full to lie in a cradle. Too lonely for the traffic of the world : Body and soul cast out and cast away Beyond the visible world. Aherne All dreams of the soul End in a beautiful man's or woman's body. RoBARTES Have you not always known it ? PHASES OF THE MOON 305 Aherne The song will have it That those that we have loved got their long fingers From death, and wounds, or on Sinai's top, Or from some bloody whip in their own hands. They ran from cradle to cradle till at last Their beauty dropped out of the loneliness Of body and soul. RoBARTES The lovers' heart knows that. Aherne It must be that the terror in their eyes Is memory or foreknowledge of the hour When all is fed with light and heaven is bare. RoBARTES When the moon's full those creatures of the full Are met on the waste hills by country men Who shudder and hurry by : body and soul Estranged amid the strangeness of them- selves, 3o6 PHASES OF THE MOON Caught up in contemplation, the mind's eye Fixed upon images that once were thought, For separate, perfect, and immovable Images can break the solitude Of lovely, satisfied, indifferent eyes. And thereupon with aged, high-pitched voice Aherne laughed, thinking of the man within. His sleepless candle and laborious pen. RoBARTES And after that the crumbling of the moon. The soul remembering its loneliness Shudders in many cradles ; all is changed. It would be the world's servant, and as it serves, Choosing whatever task's most difficult Among tasks not impossible, it takes Upon the body and upon the soul The coarseness of the drudge. Aherne Before the full It sought itself and afterwards the world. RoBARTES Because you are forgotten, half out of life. And never wrote a book your thought is clear. PHASES OF THE MOON 307 Reformer, merchant, statesman, learned man. Dutiful husband, honest wife by turn. Cradle upon cradle, and all in flight and all Deformed because there is no deformity ' But saves us from a dream. Aherne And what of those That the last servile crescent has set free ? ROBARTES Because all dark, like those that are all light, They are cast beyond the verge, and in a cloud. Crying to one another like the bats ; And having no desire they cannot tell What's good or bad, or what it is to triumph At the perfection of one's own obedience ; And yet they speak what's blown into the mind ; Deformed beyond deformity, unformed, Insipid as the dough before it is baked. They change their bodies at a word. Aherne And then ? 3o8 PHASES OF THE MOON RoBARTES When all the dough has been so kneaded up That it can take what form cook Nature fancy The first thin crescent is wheeled round once more. Aherne But the escape ; the song's not finished yet. RoBARTES Hunchback and saint and fool are the last crescents. The burning bow that once could shoot an arrow Out of the up and down, the wagon wheel Of beauty's cruelty and wisdom's chatter — Out of that raving tide — is drawn betwixt Deformity of body and of mind. Aherne Were not our beds far off I'd ring the bell, Stand under the rough roof-timbers of the hall Beside the castle door, where all is stark Austerity, a place set out for wisdom That he will never find ; I'd play a part ; PHASES OF THE MOON 309 He would never know me after all these years But take me for some drunken country man ; I'd stand and mutter there until he caught " Hunchback and saint and fool," and that they came Under the three last crescents of the moon, And then I'd stagger out. He'd crack his wits Day after day, yet never find the meaning. And then he laughed to think that what seemed hard Should be so simple — a bat rose from the hazels And circled round him with its squeaky cry. The light in the tower window was put out. THE CAT AND THE MOON The cat went here and there And the moon spun round like a top, And the nearest kin of the moon The creeping cat looked up. Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon, For wander and wail as he would The pure cold light in the sky Troubled his animal blood. Minnaloushe runs in the grass Lifting his delicate feet. Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance .'' When two close kindred meet What better than call a dance, Maybe the moon may learn. Tired of that courtly fashion, A new dance turn. Minnaloushe creeps through the grass From moonlit place to place, The sacred moon overhead Has taken a new phase. Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils Will pass from change to change. And that from round to crescent, 310 THE CAT AND THE MOON 311 From crescent to round they range ? Minnaloushe creeps through the grass Alone, important and wise, And Hfts to the changing moon His changing eyes. THE SAINT AND THE HUNCHBACK Hunchback Stand up and lift your hand and bless A man that finds great bitterness In thinking of his lost renown. A Roman Caesar is held down Under this hump. Saint God tries each man According to a different plan. I shall not cease to bless because I lay about me with the taws That night and morning I may thrash Greek Alexander from my flesh, Augustus Caesar, and after these That great rogue Alcibiades. Hunchback To all that in your flesh have stood And blessed, I give my gratitude. Honoured by all in their degrees. But most to Alcibiades. 312 TWO SONGS OF A FOOL A SPECKLED cat and a tame hare Eat at my hearthstone And sleep there ; And both look up to me alone For learning and defence As I look up to Providence. I start out of my sleep to think Some day I may forget Their food and drink ; Or, the house door left unshut, The hare may run till it's found The horn's sweet note and the tooth of the hound. I bear a burden that might well try Men that do all by rule, And what can I That am a wandering witted fool But pray to God that He ease My great respoJisibilities. 313 314 TWO SONGS OF A FOOL II I slept on my three-legged stool by the fire, The speckled cat slept on my knee ; We never thought to enquire Where the brown hare might be, And whether the door were shut. Who knows how she drank the wind Stretched up on two legs from the mat. Before she had settled her mind To drum with her heel and to leap : Had I but awakened from sleep And called her name she had heard, It may be, and had not stirred. That now, it may be, has found The horn's sweet note and the tooth of the hound. ANOTHER SONG OF A FOOL This great purple butterfly, In the prison of my hands, Has a learning in his eye Not a poor fool understands. Once he lived a schoolmaster With a stark, denying look, A string of scholars went in fear Of his great birch and his great book. Like the clangour of a bell, Sweet and harsh, harsh and sweet, That is how he learnt so well To take the roses for his meat. 315 THE DOUBLE VISION OF MICHAEL ROBARTES On the grey rock of Cashel the mind's eye Has called up the cold spirits that are born When the old moon is vanished from the sky And the new still hides her horn. Under blank eyes and fingers never still The particular is pounded till it is man, When had I my own will ? Oh, not since life began. Constrained, arraigned, baffled, bent and unbent By these wire-jointed jaws and limbs of wood. Themselves obedient. Knowing not evil and good ; Obedient to some hidden magical breath. They do not even feel, so abstract are they, 316 MICHAEL ROBARTES 317 So dead beyond our death, Triumph that we obey. II On the grey rock of Cashel I suddenly saw A Sphinx with woman breast and lion paw, A Buddha, hand at rest. Hand lifted up that blest ; And right between these two a girl at play That it maybe had danced her life away, For now being dead it seemed That she of dancing dreamed. Although I saw it all in the mind's eye There can be nothing solider till I die ; I saw by the moon's light Now at its fifteenth night. One lashed her tail ; her eyes lit by the moon Gazed upon all things known, all things unknown, In triumph of intellect With motionless head erect. That other's moonlit eyeballs never moved. Being fixed on all things loved, all things unloved. Yet little peace he had For those that love are sad. 3i8 MICHAEL ROBARTES Oh, little did they care who danced between, And little she by whom her dance was seen So she had outdanced thought. Body perfection brought, For what but eye and ear silence the mind With the minute particulars of mankind ? Mind moved yet seemed to stop As 'twere a spinning-top. In contemplation had those three so wrought Upon a moment, and so stretched it out That they, time overthrown, Were dead yet flesh and bone. Ill I knew that I had seen, had seen at last That girl my unremembering nights hold fast Or else my dreams that fly, If I should rub an eye, And yet in flying fling into my meat A crazy juice that makes the pulses beat As though I had been undone By Homer's Paragon Who never gave the burning town a thought ; To such a pitch of folly I am brought. MICHAEL ROBARTES 319 Being caught between the pull Of the dark moon and the full, The commonness of thought and images That have the frenzy of our western seas, Thereon I made my moan, And after kissed a stone, And after that arranged it in a song Seeing that I, ignorant for so long, Had been rewarded thus In Cormac's ruined house. it MICHAEL ROBARTES AND THE DANCER (1921) 321 MICHAEL ROBARTES AND THE DANCER He Opinion is not worth a rush ; In this altar-piece the knight, Who grips his long spear so to push That dragon through the fading light, Loved the lady ; and it's plain The half-dead dragon was her thought. That every morning rose again And dug its claws and shrieked and fought, Could the impossible come to pass She would have time to turn her eyes, Her lover thought, upon the glass And on the instant would grow wise. She You mean they argued. He Put it so ; But bear in mind your lover's wage 323 324 MICHAEL ROBARTES Is what your looking-glass can show, And that he will turn green with rage At all that is not pictured there. She May I not put myself to college ? He Go pluck Athena by the hair ; For what mere book can grant a knowledge With an impassioned gravity Appropriate to that beating breast, That vigorous thigh, that dreaming eye ? And may the devil take the rest. She And must no beautiful woman be Learned like a man ? He Paul Veronese And all his sacred company Imagined bodies all their days By the lagoon you love so much, For proud, soft, ceremonious proof That all must come to sight and touch ; While Michael Angelo's Sistine roof MICHAEL ROBARTES 325 His " Morning " and his " Night " disclose How sinew that has been pulled tight, Or it may be loosened in repose, Can rule by supernatural right Yet be but sinew. She I have heard said There is great danger in the body. He Did God in portioning wine and bread Give man His thought or His mere body ? She My wretched dragon is perplexed. He I have principles to prove me right. It follows from this Latin text That blest souls are not composite. And that all beautiful women may Live in uncomposite blessedness, And lead us to the like — if they Will banish every thought, unless The lineaments that please their view 326 MICHAEL ROBARTES When the long looking-glass is full, Even from the foot-sole think it too. She They say such different things at school. SOLOMON AND THE WITCH And thus declared that Arab lady: " Last night, where under the wild moon On grassy mattress I had laid me, Within my arms great Solomon, I suddenly cried out in a strange tongue Not his, not mine." Who understood Whatever has been said, sighed, sung, Howled, miau-d, barked, brayed, belled, yelled, cried, crowed. Thereon replied : " A cockerel Crew from a blossoming apple bough Three hundred years before the Fall, And never crew again till now. And would not now but that he thought, Chance being at one with Choice at last. All that the brigand apple brought And this foul world were dead at last. He that crowed out eternity Thought to have crowed it in again. For though love has a spider's eye To find out some appropriate pain — Aye, though all passion's in the glance — For every nerve, and tests a lover 327 328 SOLOMON AND THE WITCH With cruelties of Choice and Chance; And when at last that murder's over Maybe the bride-bed brings despair For each an imagined image brings And finds a real image there ; [ Yet the world ends when these two things, ' Though several, are a single light, When oil and wick are burned in one ; Therefore a blessed moon last night Gave Sheba to her Solomon." " Yet the world stays " : " If that be so, Your cockerel found us in the wrong Although he thought it worth a crow. Maybe an image is too strong Or maybe is not strong enough." " The night has fallen ; not a sound In the forbidden sacred grove Unless a petal hit the ground. Nor any human sight within it But the crushed grass where we have lain ; And the moon is wilder every minute. ; Oh, Solomon 1 let us try again." AN IMAGE FROM A PAST LIFE He Never until this night have I been stirred. The elaborate star-light throws a reflection On the dark stream, Till all the eddies gleam ; And thereupon there comes that scream From terrified, invisible beast or bird : Image of poignant recollection. She An image of my heart that is smitten through Out of all likelihood, or reason, And when at last. Youth's bitterness being past, I had thought that all my days were cast Amid most lovely places ; smitten as though It had not learned its lesson. He Why have you laid your hands upon my eyes .'' What can have suddenly alarmed you 329 330 IMAGE FROM A PAST LIFE Whereon 'twere best My eyes should never rest ? What is there but the slowly fading west, The river imaging the flashing skies, All that to this moment charmed you ? She A sweetheart from another life floats there As though she had been forced to linger From vague distress Or arrogant loveliness, Merely to loosen out a tress Among the starry eddies of her hair Upon the paleness of a finger. He But why should you grow suddenly afraid And start — I at your shoulder — Imagining That any night could bring An image up, or anything Even to eyes that beauty had driven mad, But images to make me fonder. She Now she has thrown her arms above her head ; Whether she threw them up to flout me, IMAGE FROM A PAST LIFE 331 Or but to find, Now that no fingers bind, That her hair streams upon the wind, I do not know, that know I am afraid Of the hovering thing night brought me. UNDER SATURN Do not because this day I have grown saturnine Imagine that lost love, inseparable from my thought Because I have no other youth, can make me pine ; For how should I forget the wisdom that you brought. The comfort that you made? Although my wits have gone On a fantastic ride, my horse's flanks are spurred By childish memories of an old cross Pollexfen, And of a Middleton, whose name you never heard. And of a red-haired Yeats whose looks, although he died Before my time, seem like a vivid memory. You heard that labouring man who had served my people. He said Upon the open road, near to the Sligo quay — No, no, not said, but cried it out — " You have come again 332 UNDER SATURN 333 And surely after twenty years it was time to come." I am thinking of a child's vow sworn in vain Never to leave that valley his fathers called their home. No'vember 1919. EASTER, 1 91 6 I HAVE met them at close of day Coming with vivid faces From counter or desk among grey Eighteenth-century houses. I have passed with a nod of the head Or poHte meaningless words, Or have lingered awhile and said Polite meaningless words. And thought before I had done Of a mocking tale or a gibe To please a companion Around the fire at the club, Being certain that they and I But lived where motley is worn: All changed, changed utterly: , A terrible beauty is born. That woman's days were spent In ignorant good will, Her nights in argument Until her voice grew shrill. What voice more sweet than hers When young and beautiful. She rode to harriers ? 334 EASTER, 1916 225 This man had kept a school And rode our winged horse ; This other his helper and friend Was coming into his force ; He might have won fame in the end, So sensitive his nature seemed, So daring and sweet his thought. This other man I had dreamed A drunken, vain-glorious 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 comedy ; He, too, has been changed in his turn, Transformed utterly: A terrible beauty is born. Hearts with one purpose alone Through summer and winter seem Enchanted to a stone To trouble the living stream. The horse that comes from the road, The rider, the birds that range From cloud to tumbling cloud. Minute by minute they change ; A shadow of cloud on the stream Changes minute by minute ; A horse-hoof slides on the brim, And a horse plashes within it Where long-legged moor-hens dive, 23^ EASTER, 1916 And hens to moor-cocks call. Minute by minute they live : The stone's in the midst of all. Too long a sacrifice Can make a stone of the heart. when may it suffice ? That is heaven's part, our part To murmur name upon name. As a mother names her child When sleep at last has come On limbs that had run wild. What is it but nightfall ? No, no, not night but death ; Was it needless death after all ? For England may keep faith For all that is done and said. We know their dream ; enough To know they dreamed and are dead ; And what if excess of love Bewildered them till they died ? 1 write it out in a verse — MacDonagh and MacBride And Connolly and Pearse Now and in time to be. Wherever green is worn. Are changed, changed utterly : A terrible beauty is born. September 25, 1916. / SIXTEEN DEAD MEN O BUT we talked at large before The sixteen men were shot, But who can talk of give and take, What should be and what not ? While those dead men are loitering there To stir the boiling pot. You say that we should still the land , Till Germany's overcome ; But who is there to argue that Now Pearse is deaf and dumb ? And is their logic to outweigh MacDonagh's bony thumb ? How could you dream they'd listen That have an ear alone For those new comrades they have found Lord Edward and Wolfe Tone, Or meddle with our give and take That converse bone to bone. 337 THE ROSE TREE " O WORDS are lightly spoken," Said Pearse to Connolly, " Maybe a breath of politic words Has withered our Rose Tree ; Or maybe but a wind that blows Across the bitter sea." " It needs to be but watered " James Connolly replied, " To make the green come out again And spread on every side, And shake the blossom from the bud To be the garden's pride." " But where can we draw water " Said Pearse to Connolly, " When all the wells are parched away ? O plain as plain can be There's nothing but our own red blood Can make a right Rose Tree." 338 / ON A POLITICAL PRISONER She that but little patience knew, From childhood on, had now so much A grey gull lost its fear and flew Down to her cell and there alit, And there endured her fingers' touch And from her fingers ate its bit. Did she in touching that lone wing Recall the years before her mind Became a bitter, an abstract thing. Her thought some popular enmity : Blind and leader of the blind Drinking the foul ditch where they lie ? When long ago I saw her ride Under Ben Bulben to the meet, The beauty of her country-side With all youth's lonely wildness stirred, She seemed to have grown clean and sweet Like any rock-bred, sea-borne bird ; ; Sea-borne, or balanced on the air J When first it sprang out of the nest 339 340 ON A POLITICAL PRISONER Upon some lofty rock to stare Upon the cloudy canopy, While under its storm-beaten breast Cried out the hollows of the sea. THE LEADERS OF THE CROWD They must to keep their certainty accuse All that are different of a base intent ; Pull down established honour ; hawk for news Whatever their loose phantasy invent And murmur it with bated breath, as though The abounding gutter had been Helicon Or calumny a song. How can they know Truth flourishes where the student's lamp has shone, And there alone, that have no solitude ? So the crowd come they care not what may come. They have loud music, hope every day renewed And heartier loves ; that lamp is from the tomb. i 341 TOWARDS BREAK OF DAY Was it the double of my dream The woman that by me lay Dreamed, or did we halve a dream Under the first cold gleam of day ? I thought : " There is a waterfall Upon Ben Bulben side, That all my childhood counted dear ; Were I to travel far and wide I could not find a thing so dear." My memories had magnified So many times childish 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 accusing heaven because It had set down among its laws : Nothing that we love over-much Is ponderable to our touch. I dreamed towards break of day, The cold blown spray in my nostril. 342 TOWARDS BREAK OF DAY 343 But she that beside me lay Had watched in bitterer sleep The marvellous stag of Arthur, That lofty white stag, leap From mountain steep to steep. DEMON AND BEAST For certain minutes at the least That crafty demon and that loud beast That plague me day and night Ran out of my sight ; Though I had long pernned in the gyre, Between my hatred and desire, I saw my freedom won And all laugh in the sun. The glittering eyes in a death's head Of old Luke Wadding's portrait said Welcome, and the Ormonds all Nodded upon the wall. And even Strafford smiled as though It made him happier to know I understood his plan. Now that the loud beast ran There was no portrait in the Gallery But beckoned to sweet company, For all men's thoughts grew clear Being dear as mine are dear. But soon a tear-drop started up For aimless joy had made me stop 344 DEMON AND BEAST 345 Beside the little lake To watch a white gull take A bit of bread thrown up into the air ; Now gyring down and pernning there He splashed where an absurd Portly green-pated bird Shook off the water from his back ; Being no more demoniac A stupid happy creature Could rouse my whole nature. Yet I am certain as can be That every natural victory Belongs to beast or demon, That never yet had freeman Right mastery of natural things, And that mere growing old, that brings Chilled blood, this sweetness brought ; Yet have no dearer thought Than that I may find out a way To make it linger half a day. O what a sweetness strayed Through barren Thebaid, Or by the Mareotic sea When that exultant Anthony And twice a thousand more Starved upon the shore And withered to a bag of bones : What had the Caesars but their thrones i" THE SECOND COMING Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer ; Things fall apart ; the centre cannot hold ; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood -dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned ; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand ; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming ! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight : somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. 346 THE SECOND COMING 347 The darkness drops again ; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last. Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born ? A PRAYER FOR MY DAUGHTER Once more the storm is howling and half hid Under this cradle-hood and coverlid My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle But Gregory's wood and one bare hill Whereby the haystack and roof - levelling wind. Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed ; And for an hour I have walked and prayed Because of the great gloom that is in my mind. I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower, And under the arches of the bridge, and scream In the elms above the flooded stream ; Imagining in excited reverie That the future years had come, Dancing to a frenzied drum, Out of the niurderous innocence of the sea. 348 PRAYER FOR MY DAUGHTER 349 May she be granted beauty and yet not Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught, Or hers before a looking-glass, for such, Being made beautiful overmuch, Consider beauty a sufficient end, Lose natural kindness and maybe The heart-revealing intimacy That chooses right and never find a friend. Helen being chosen found life flat and dull And later had much trouble from a fool. While that great Queen, that rose out of the spray. Being fatherless could have her way Yet chose a bandy-legged smith for man. It's certain that fine women eat A crazy salad with their meat Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone. In courtesy I'd have her chiefly learned ; I Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are • earned By those that are not entirely beautiful ; Yet many, that have played the fool For beauty's very self, has charm made wise, And many a poor man that has roved. Loved and thought himself beloved. From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes. May she become a flourishing hidden tree That all her thoughts may like the linnet be, 350 PRAYER FOR MY DAUGHTER And have no business but dispensing round Their magnanimities of sound, Nor but in merriment begin a chase, Nor but in merriment a quarrel. j Oh, may she live like some green laurel I Rooted in one dear perpetual place. My mind, because the minds that I have loved, The sort of beauty that I have approved, Prosper but little, has dried up of late. Yet knows that to be choked with hate May well be of all evil chances chief. If there's no hatred in a mind Assault and battery of the wind Can never tear the linnet from the leaf. An intellectual hatred is the worst. So let her think opinions are accursed. Have I not seen the loveliest woman born Out of the mouth of Plenty's horn, Because of her opinionated mind Barter that horn and every good By quiet natures understood For an old bellows full of angry wind ? Considering that, all hatred driven hence, The soul recovers radical innocence And learns at last that it is self-delighting, I Self-appeasing, self-afFrighting, I And that its own sweet will is heaven's will; PRAYER FOR MY DAUGHTER 351 She can, though every face should scowl And every windy quarter howl Or every bellows burst, be happy still. And may her bride-groom bring her to a house Where all's accustomed, ceremonious ; For arrogance and hatred are the wares Peddled in the thoroughfares. ' How but in custom arid in ceremony . Are innocence and beauty born ? Ceremony's a name for the rich horn. And custom for the spreading laurel tree. June 1 91 9. A MEDITATION IN TIME OF WAR For one throb of the Artery, While on that old grey stone I sat Under the old wind-broken tree, I knew that One is animate Mankind inanimate phantasy. 352 TO BE CARVED ON A STONE AT THOOR BALLYLEE I, THE poet William Yeats, With old mill boards and sea-green slates, And smithy work from the Gort forge. Restored this tower for my wife George ; And may these characters remain When all is ruin once again. 353 2 A NOTES The Hosting of the Sidhe (p. 3). — ^The gods of ancient Ireland, the Tuatha De Danaan, or the Tribes of the goddess Danu, or the Sidhe, from Aes Sidhe, or Sluagh Sidhe, the people of the Faery Hills, as these words are usually explained, still ride the country as of old. Sidhe is also Gaelic for wind, and certainly the Sidhe have much to do with the wind. They journey in whirling wind, the winds that were called the dance of the daughters of Herodias in the Middle Ages, Herodias doubtless taking the place of some old goddess. When the country people see the leaves whirling on the road they bless themselves, because they believe the Sidhe to be passing by. Knocknarea is in Sligo, and the country people say that Maeve, stiU a great queen of the western Sidhe, is buried in the caim of stones upon it. I have written of Clooth-na-Bare in The Celtic Twilight. She " went aU over the world, seeking a lake deep enough to drown her faery life, of which she had grown weary, leaping from hill to hiU, and setting up a caim of stones wherever her feet lighted, untU, at last, she found the deepest water in the world in little Lough la, on the top of the bird mount- ain, in Sligo." I forget, now, where I heard this story, but it may have been from a priest at Collooney. Clooth- na-Bare would mean the old woman of Bare, but is evidently a corruption of Cailleac Bare, the old woman of Bare, who, under the names Bare, and Berah, and Beri, and Verah, and Dera, and Dhira, appears in the legends of many places. — 1 899-1 906. 355 356 NOTES The Host of the Air (p. 7). — This poem is founded on an old Gaelic ballad that was sung and translated for me by a woman at Ballisodare in County Sligo ; but in the ballad the husband found the keeners keening his wife when he got to his house. — 1 899. He mourns for the Change that has come upon Him and His Beloved, and longs for the End of the World (p. 17). — My deer and hound are properly related to the deer and hound that flicker in and out of the various tellings of the Arthurian legends, leading diiFerent knights upon adventures, and to the hounds and to the hornless deer at the beginning of, I think, all tellings of Usheen's journey to the country of the young. The hound is certainly related to the Hounds of Annwoyn or of Hades, who are white, and have red ears, and were heard, and are, perhaps, still heard by Welsh peasants, following some flying thing in the night winds ; and is probably related to the hounds that Irish country people believe will awake and seize the souls of the dead if you lament them too loudly or too soon. An old woman told a friend and myself that she saw what she thought were white birds, flying over an enchanted place, but found, when she got near, that they had dogs' heads ; and I do not doubt that my hound and these dog-headed birds are of the same family. I got my hound and deer out of a last century Gaelic poem about Oisin's journey to the country of the young. After the hunting of the hornless deer, that leads him to the seashore, and while he is riding over the sea with Niamh, he sees amid the waters — ^I have not the Gaelic poem by me, and describe it from memory — a young man following a girl who has a golden apple, and afterwards a hound with one red ear following a deer with no horns. This hound and this deer seem plain images of the desire of man " which is for the woman," and " the desire of the woman which is for the desire of the man," and of all desires that are as these. I have read them in this way in The Wanderings of NOTES 357 TJsheen or Oisin, and have made my lover sigh because he has seen in their faces " the immortal desire of im- mortals." The man in my poem who has a hazel wand may have been Aengus, Master of Love ; and I have made the boar without bristles come out of the West, because the place of sunset was in Ireland, as in other countries, a place of symbolic darkness and death. — 1899. The Cap and Bells (p. 25). — I dreamed this story exactly as I have written it, and dreamed another long dream after it, trying to make out its meaning, and whether I was to write it in prose or verse. The first dream was more a vision than a dream, for it was beautiful and coherent, and gave me the sense of illumination and exaltation that one gets from visions, while the second dream was confused and meaningless. The poem has always meant a great deal to me, though, as is the way with symbolic poems, it has not always meant quite the same thing. Blake would have said, " the authors \ are in eternity," and I am quite sure they can only be j questioned in dreams. — 1 899. | The Valley of the Black Pig (p. 27). — All over Ireland there are prophecies of the coming rout of the enemies of Ireland, in a certain Valley of the Black Pig, and these prophecies are, no doubt, now, as they were in the Fenian days, a political force. I have heard of one man who would not give any money to the Land League, because the Battle could not be until the close of the century ; but, as a rule, periods of trouble bring prophecies of its near coming. A few years before my time, an old man who lived at Lisadill, in Sligo, used to fall down in a fit and rave out descriptions of the Battle ; and a man in Sligo has told me that it will be so great a battle that the horses shall go up to their fetlocks in blood, and that their girths, when it is over, will rot from their bellies for lack of a hand to unbuckle them. If 358 NOTES one reads Rhys' Celtic Heathendom by the light of Frazer's Golden Bough, and puts together what one finds there about the boar that killed Diarmuid, and other old Celtic boars and sows, one sees that the battle is mythological, and that the Pig it is named from must be a type of cold and winter doing battle with the summer, or of death battling with life. — 1 899-1 906. The Secret Rose (p. 36). — I find that I have un- intentionally changed the old story of Conchubar's death. He did not see the Crucifixion in a vision but was told of it. He had been struck by a ball made out of the dried brains of an enemy and hurled out of a sling ; and this ball had been left in his head and his head had been mended, the Book of Leinster says, with thread of gold because his hair was like gold. Keeling, a writer of the time of Elizabeth, says, " In that state did he remain seven years, until the Friday on which Christ was crucified, accordmg to some historians ; and when he saw the unusual changes of the creation and the eclipse of the sun and the moon at its fuU, he asked of Bucrach, a Leinster Druid, who was along with him, what was it that brought that unusual change upon the planets of Heaven and Earth. ' Jesus Christ, the Son of God,' said the Druid, ' who is now being crucified by the Jews.' ' That is a pity,' said Conchubar ; ' were I m his presence I would kiU those who were putting him to death.' And with that he brought out his sword, and rushed at a woody grove which was convenient to him, and began to cut and fell it ; and what he said was, that if he were among the Jews, that was the usage he would give them, and from the excessiveness of his fury which seized upon him, the ball started out of his head, and some of the brain came after it, and in that way he died. The wood of Lanshraigh, in Feara Rois, is the name by which that shrubby wood is called." I have imagined Cuchulain meeting Fand " walkmg among flaming dew," because, I think, of something in Mr. Standish O'Grady's books. NOTES 359 I have founded the man " who drove the gods out of their liss," or fort, upon something I have read about Caolte after the battle of Gabra, when almost all his companions were killed, driving the gods out of their liss, either at Osraighe, now Ossory, or at Eas Ruaidh, now Asseroe, a waterfall at Ballysharmon, where Ilbreac, one of the children of the goddess Danu, had a liss. But maybe I only read it in Mr. Standish O'Grady, who has a fine imagination, for I find no such story in Lady Gregory's book. I have founded " the proud dreaming king " upon Fergus, the son of Roigh, but when I wrote my poem here, and in the song in my early book, " Who will drive with Fergus now," I only knew him in Mr. Standish O'Grady, and my imagination dealt more freely with what I did know than I would approve of to-day. I have founded him " who sold tillage, and house, and goods," upon something in " The Red Pony," a folk tale in Mr. Larminie's West Irish Folk Tales. A young man " saw a light before him on the high road. When he came as far, there was an open box on the road, and a light coming up out of it. He took up the box. There was a lock of hair in it. Presently he had to go to become the servant of a king for his living. There were eleven boys. When they were going out into the stable at ten o'clock, each of them took a light but he. He took no candle at all with him. Each of them went into his own stable. When he went into his stable he opened the box. He left it in a hole in the wall. The light was great. It was twice as much as in the other stables." The king hears of it, and makes him show him the box. The king says, " You must go and brmg me the woman to whom the hair belongs." In the end, the young man, and not the king, marries the woman. — 1 899-1906. Tie Shadowy Waters (p. 99). — I published in 1902 a version of " The Shadowy Waters," which, as I had no stage experience whatever, was unsuitable for stage 36o NOTES ' representation, though it had some little success when played during my absence in America in 1904, with very unrealistic scenery before a very small audience of cul- tivated people. On my return I rewrote the play in its present form, but found it still too profuse in speech for stage representation. In 1906 I made a stage version, which was played in Dublin in that year and is now in my volume of plays. The present version must be considered as a poem only. — 1922. Prefatory Poem (p. 175). — " Free of the ten and four " is an error I cannot now correct, without more rewriting than I have a mind for. Some merchant in Villon, I forget the reference, was " free of the ten and four." Irish merchants, vyho were Freemen of the cily of Dublin, vi'ere, unless memory deceives me again, for I am writing away from books, " free of the ten and sii." — 1914. Poems beginning with that " To a Wealthy Man " and ending with that "To a Shade" (pp. 193-199). — In the thirty years or so during which I have been reading Irish newspapers, three public controversies have stirred my imagination. The first was the Pamell controversy. There were reasons to justify a man's joining either party, but there were none to justify, on one side or on the other, lying accusations forgetful of past service, a \ frenzy of detraction. And another was the dispute over ;'_ " The Playboy." There may have been reasons for ; opposing as for supporting that violent, laughing thing, though I can see the one side only, but there cannot have been any for the lies, for the unscrupulous rhetoric ; spread against it in Ireland, and from Ireland to America. The third prepared for the Corporation's refusal of a building for Sir Hugh Lane's famous collection of pictures. ... [Note. — I leave out two long paragraphs which have been published in earlier editions of these poems. There NOTES 361 is no need now to defend Sir Hugh Lane's pictures against Dublia newspapers. The trustees of the London National Gallery, through his leaving a codicQ to his will un- witnessed, have claimed the pictures for London, and propose to buUd a wing to the Tate Gallery to contain them. Some that were hostUe are now contrite, and doing what they can, or letting others do unhindered what they can, to persuade Parliament to such action as may restore the collection to Ireland. — ^Jan. 1917.] These controversies, political, literary, and artistic, have showed that neither religion nor politics can of itself create minds with enough receptivity to become wise, or just and generous enough to make a nation. Other cities have been as stupid — Samuel Butler laughs at shocked Montreal for hiding the Discobolus in a cellar — but Dublin is the capital of a nation, and an ancient race has nowhere else to look for an education. Goethe in Wilhelm Meister describes a saintly and naturally gracious woman, who getting into a quarrel over some trumpery detail of religious observance, grows — she and all her litde religious community — angry and vindictive. In Ireland I am constandy reminded of that fable of the futility of all disciplme that is not of the whole being. Religious Ireland — and the pious Pro- testants of my childhood were signal examples — thinks of divme things as a round of duties separated from life and not as an element that may be discovered in aU circumstance and emotion, while political Ireland sees < the good citizen but as a man who holds to certain ; opinions and not as a man of good wUl. Against all this ! we have but a few educated men and the remnants of an old traditional culture among the poor. Both were stronger forty years ago, before the rise of our new middle class which showed as its first public event, during the nine years of the Pamellite split, how base at moments of excitement are minds without culture. — 1914. 362 NOTES Lady Gregory in her Life of Sir Hugh Lane assumes that the poem which begins " Now all the truth is out " (p. 197), was addressed to him. It was not; it was addressed to herself. — 1922. The Dolls (p. 232). — ^The fable for this poem came into my head while I was giving some lectures in Dublin. I had noticed once again how all thought among us is frozen into " something other than human life." After I had made the poem, I looked up one day into the blue of the sky, and suddenly imagined, as if lost in the blue of the sky, stiff figures in procession. I remembered that they were the habitual image suggested by blue sky, and looking for a second fable called them " The Magi " (p. 231), complementary forms of those enraged dolls. — 1 914. " Unpack the Loaded Pern " (p. 263). — When I was a child at Sligo I could see above my grandfather's trees a little column of smoke from " the pern mill," and was told that " pern " was another name for the spool, as I was accustomed to call it, on which thread was wound. One could not see the chimney for the trees, and the smoke looked as if it came from the mountain, and one day a foreign sea-captain asked me if that was a burning mountain. — 1919. The Phases of the Moon (p. 301), The Double Vision of Michael Robartes (p. 316), Michael Robartes and the Dancer (p. 323). — Years ago I wrote three stories in which occurs the names of Michael Robartes and Owen Aheme. I now consider that I used the actual names of two friends, and that one of these friends, Michael Robartes, has but lately returned from Mesopotamia where he has partly found and partly thought out much philosophy. I consider that John Aheme is either the original of Owen Aheme or some near relation of the man that was, and that both he and Robartes, to whose NOTES 363 namesake I had attributed a turbulent life and death, have quarrelled with me. They take their place in a phantasmagoria in which I endeavour to explain my philosophy of life and death, and till that philosophy has found some detailed exposition in prose certain passages in the poems named above may seem obscure. To some extent I wrote them as a text for exposition. — 1922. A Note on the Setting of these Poems to Music. — A musician who would give me pleasure should not repeat a line, or put more than one note to one syllable. I am a ' poet not a musician, and dislike to have my words distorted or their animation destroyed, even though the musician claims to have expressed their meaning in a different medium. — 1922. W. B. Y. THE END Printed in Creat Britain iy R. & R. Clakk, Limited, Edinlnrgh. THE COLLECTED WORKS OF W. B. YEATS Attractively bound in Green Cloth, with Cover Design by CHARLES RiCKETT. Crown 8w. los. 6d. net each. LATER POEMS. PLAYS IN PROSE AND VERSE. PLAYS AND CONTROVERSIES. ESSAYS. EARLY POEMS AND STORIES. LONDON : MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.