Poems

FATHER HARTSince you have come into this barony,I will instruct you in our blessed faith;And being so keen witted you'll soon learn.

(To the others.)

We must be tender to all budding things,Our Maker let no thought of CalvaryTrouble the morning stars in their first song.

(Puts crucifix in inner room.)

THE CHILDHere is level ground for dancing; I will dance.

(Sings.)

"The wind blows out of the gates of the day,The wind blows over the lonely of heart,And the lonely of heart is withered away."

(She dances.)

MARY (to SHAWN)Just now when she came near I thought I heardOther small steps beating upon the floor,And a faint music blowing in the wind,Invisible pipes giving her feet the tune.SHAWNI heard no steps but hers.MARYI hear them now,The unholy powers are dancing in the house.MAURTEENCome over here, and if you promise meNot to talk wickedly of holy thingsI will give you something.THE CHILDBring it me, old father.MAURTEENHere are some ribbons that I bought in the townFor my son's wife – but she will let me give themTo tie up that wild hair the winds have tumbled.THE CHILDCome, tell me, do you love me?MAURTEENYes, I love you.THE CHILDAh, but you love this fireside. Do you love me?FATHER HARTWhen the Almighty puts so great a shareOf His own ageless youth into a creature,To look is but to love.THE CHILDBut you love Him?BRIDGETShe is blaspheming.THE CHILDAnd do you love me too?MARYI do not know.THE CHILDYou love that young man there,Yet I could make you ride upon the winds,Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,And dance upon the mountains like a flame.MARYQueen of Angels and kind saints defend us!Some dreadful thing will happen. A while agoShe took away the blessed quicken wood.FATHER HARTYou fear because of her unmeasured prattle;She knows no better. Child, how old are you?THE CHILDWhen winter sleep is abroad my hair grows thin,My feet unsteady. When the leaves awakenMy mother carries me in her golden arms;I'll soon put on my womanhood and marryThe spirits of wood and water, but who can tellWhen I was born for the first time? I thinkI am much older than the eagle cockThat blinks and blinks on Ballygawley Hill,And he is the oldest thing under the moon.FATHER HARTO she is of the faery people.THE CHILDOne called,I sent my messengers for milk and fire,She called again and after that I came.

(All except SHAWN and MARY BRUIN gather behind the priest for protection.)

SHAWN (rising)Though you have made all these obedient,You have not charmed my sight and won from meA wish or gift to make you powerful;I'll turn you from the house.FATHER HARTNo, I will face her.THE CHILDBecause you took away the crucifixI am so mighty that there's none can pass,Unless I will it, where my feet have dancedOr where I've whirled my finger-tops.

(SHAWN tries to approach her and cannot.)

MAURTEENLook, look!There something stops him – look how he moves his handsAs though he rubbed them on a wall of glass!FATHER HARTI will confront this mighty spirit alone;Be not afraid, the Father is with us,The Holy Martyrs and the Innocents,The adoring Magi in their coats of mail,And He who died and rose on the third day,And all the nine angelic hierarchies.

(The CHILD kneels upon the settle beside Mary and puts her arms about her.)

Cry, daughter, to the Angels and the Saints.THE CHILDYou shall go with me, newly-married bride,And gaze upon a merrier multitude.White-armed Nuala, Aengus of the Birds,Feacra of the hurtling foam, and himWho is the ruler of the Western Host,Finvarra, and their Land of Heart's Desire,Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood,But joy is wisdom, Time an endless song.I kiss you and the world begins to fade.SHAWNAwake out of that trance – and cover upYour eyes and ears.FATHER HARTShe must both look and listen,For only the soul's choice can save her now.Come over to me, daughter; stand beside me;Think of this house and of your duties in it.THE CHILDStay and come with me, newly-married bride,For if you hear him you grow like the rest;Bear children, cook, and bend above the churn,And wrangle over butter, fowl, and eggs,Until at last, grown old and bitter of tongue,You're crouching there and shivering at the grave.FATHER HARTDaughter, I point you out the way to Heaven.THE CHILDBut I can lead you, newly-married bride,Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise,Where nobody gets old and godly and grave,Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue,And where kind tongues bring no captivity;For we are but obedient to the thoughtsThat drift into the mind at a wink of the eye.FATHER HARTBy the dear Name of the One crucified,I bid you, Mary Bruin, come to me.THE CHILDI keep you in the name of your own heart.FATHER HARTIt is because I put away the crucifixThat I am nothing, and my power is nothing.I'll bring it here again.MAURTEEN (clinging to him)No.BRIDGETDo not leave us.FATHER HARTO, let me go before it is too late;It is my sin alone that brought it all.

(Singing outside.)

THE CHILDI hear them sing, "Come, newly-married bride,Come, to the woods and waters and pale lights."MARYI will go with you.FATHER HARTShe is lost, alas!THE CHILD (standing by the door)But clinging mortal hope must fall from you,For we who ride the winds, run on the waves,And dance upon the mountains are more lightThan dewdrops on the banner of the dawn.MARYO, take me with you.SHAWNBeloved, I will keep you.I've more than words, I have these arms to hold you,Nor all the faery host, do what they please,Shall ever make me loosen you from these arms.MARYDear face! Dear voice!THE CHILDCome, newly-married bride.MARYI always loved her world – and yet – and yet —THE CHILDWhite bird, white bird, come with me, little bird.MARYShe calls me!THE CHILDCome with me, little bird.

(Distant dancing figures appear in the wood.)

MARYI can hear songs and dancing.SHAWNStay with me.MARYI think that I would stay – and yet – and yet —THE CHILDCome, little bird, with crest of gold.MARY (very softly)And yet —THE CHILDCome, little bird with silver feet!

(MARY BRUIN dies, and the CHILD goes.)

SHAWNShe is dead!BRIDGETCome from that image; body and soul are gone.You have thrown your arms about a drift of leaves,Or bole of an ash-tree changed into her image.FATHER HARTThus do the spirits of evil snatch their prey,Almost out of the very hand of God;And day by day their power is more and more,And men and women leave old paths, for prideComes knocking with thin knuckles on the heart.

(Outside there are dancing figures, and it may be a white bird, and many voices singing:)

"The wind blows out of the gates of the day,The wind blows over the lonely of heart,And the lonely of heart is withered away;While the faeries dance in a place apart,Shaking their milk-white feet in a ring,Tossing their milk-white arms in the air;For they hear the wind laugh and murmur and singOf a land where even the old are fair,And even the wise are merry of tongue;But I heard a reed of Coolaney say —'When the wind has laughed and murmured and sung,The lonely of heart is withered away.'"

CROSSWAYS

"The stars are threshed, and the souls are threshed from their husks."

William Blake.To A.E

THE SONG OF THE HAPPY SHEPHERD

The woods of Arcady are dead,And over is their antique joy;Of old the world on dreaming fed;Gray Truth is now her painted toy;Yet still she turns her restless head:But O, sick children of the world,Of all the many changing thingsIn dreary dancing past us whirled,To the cracked tune that Chronos sings,Words alone are certain good.Where are now the warring kings,Word be-mockers? – By the RoodWhere are now the warring kings?An idle word is now their glory,By the stammering schoolboy said,Reading some entangled story:The kings of the old time are fledThe wandering earth herself may beOnly a sudden flaming word,In clanging space a moment heard,Troubling the endless reverie.Then nowise worship dusty deeds,Nor seek; for this is also sooth;To hunger fiercely after truth,Lest all thy toiling only breedsNew dreams, new dreams; there is no truthSaving in thine own heart. Seek, then,No learning from the starry men,Who follow with the optic glassThe whirling ways of stars that pass —Seek, then, for this is also sooth,No word of theirs – the cold star-baneHas cloven and rent their hearts in twain,And dead is all their human truth.Go gather by the humming-seaSome twisted, echo-harbouring shell,And to its lips thy story tell,And they thy comforters will be,Rewarding in melodious guile,Thy fretful words a little while,Till they shall singing fade in ruth,And die a pearly brotherhood;For words alone are certain good:Sing, then, for this is also sooth.I must be gone: there is a graveWhere daffodil and lily wave,And I would please the hapless faun,Buried under the sleepy ground,With mirthful songs before the dawn.His shouting days with mirth were crowned;And still I dream he treads the lawn,Walking ghostly in the dew,Pierced by my glad singing through,My songs of old earth's dreamy youth:But ah! she dreams not now; dream thou!For fair are poppies on the brow:Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.

THE SAD SHEPHERD

There was a man whom Sorrow named his friend,And he, of his high comrade Sorrow dreaming,Went walking with slow steps along the gleamingAnd humming sands, where windy surges wend:And he called loudly to the stars to bendFrom their pale thrones and comfort him, but theyAmong themselves laugh on and sing alway:And then the man whom Sorrow named his friendCried out, Dim sea, hear my most piteous story!The sea swept on and cried her old cry still,Rolling along in dreams from hill to hill;He fled the persecution of her gloryAnd, in a far-off, gentle valley stopping,Cried all his story to the dewdrops glistening,But naught they heard, for they are always listening,The dewdrops, for the sound of their own dropping.And then the man whom Sorrow named his friend,Sought once again the shore, and found a shell,And thought, I will my heavy story tellTill my own words, re-echoing, shall sendTheir sadness through a hollow, pearly heart;And my own tale again for me shall sing,And my own whispering words be comforting,And lo! my ancient burden may depart.Then he sang softly nigh the pearly rim;But the sad dweller by the sea-ways loneChanged all he sang to inarticulate moanAmong her wildering whirls, forgetting him.

THE CLOAK, THE BOAT, AND THE SHOES

"What do you make so fair and bright?""I make the cloak of Sorrow:"O, lovely to see in all men's sight"Shall be the cloak of Sorrow,"In all men's sight.""What do you build with sails for flight?""I build a boat for Sorrow,"O, swift on the seas all day and night"Saileth the rover Sorrow,"All day and night.""What do you weave with wool so white?"I weave the shoes of Sorrow,"Soundless shall be the footfall light"In all men's ears of Sorrow,"Sudden and light."

ANASHUYA AND VIJAYA

A little Indian temple in the Golden Age. Around it a garden; around that the forest. ANASHUYA, the young priestess, kneeling within the temple.

ANASHUYASend peace on all the lands and flickering corn. —O, may tranquillity walk by his elbowWhen wandering in the forest, if he loveNo other. – Hear, and may the indolent flocksBe plentiful. – And if he love another,May panthers end him. – Hear, and load our kingWith wisdom hour by hour. – May we two stand,When we are dead, beyond the setting suns,A little from the other shades apart,With mingling hair, and play upon one lute.VIJAYA [entering and throwing a lily at her]Hail! hail, my Anashuya.ANASHUYANo: be still.I, priestess of this temple, offer upPrayers for the land.VIJAYAI will wait here, Amrita.ANASHUYABy mighty Brahma's ever rustling robe,Who is Amrita? Sorrow of all sorrows!Another fills your mind.VIJAYAMy mother's name.ANASHUYA [sings, coming out of the temple]A sad, sad thought went by me slowly:Sigh, O you little stars! O, sigh and shake your blue apparel!The sad, sad thought has gone from me now wholly:Sing, O you little stars! O, sing and raise your rapturous carolTo mighty Brahma, he who made you many as the sands,And laid you on the gates of evening with his quiet hands.

[Sits down on the steps of the temple.]

Vijaya, I have brought my evening rice;The sun has laid his chin on the gray wood,Weary, with all his poppies gathered round him.VIJAYAThe hour when Kama, full of sleepy laughter,Rises, and showers abroad his fragrant arrows,Piercing the twilight with their murmuring barbs.ANASHUYASee how the sacred old flamingoes come,Painting with shadow all the marble steps:Aged and wise, they seek their wonted perchesWithin the temple, devious walking, madeTo wander by their melancholy minds.Yon tall one eyes my supper; swiftly chase himFar, far away. I named him after you.He is a famous fisher; hour by hourHe ruffles with his bill the minnowed streams.Ah! there he snaps my rice. I told you so.Now cuff him off. He's off! A kiss for you,Because you saved my rice. Have you no thanks?VIJAYA [sings]Sing you of her, O first few stars,Whom Brahma, touching with his finger, praises, for you holdThe van of wandering quiet; ere you be too calm and old,Sing, turning in your cars,Sing, till you raise your hands and sigh, and from your car heads peer,With all your whirling hair, and drop many an azure tear.ANASHUYAWhat know the pilots of the stars of tears?VIJAYATheir faces are all worn, and in their eyesFlashes the fire of sadness, for they seeThe icicles that famish all the north,Where men lie frozen in the glimmering snow;And in the flaming forests cower the lionAnd lioness, with all their whimpering cubs;And, ever pacing on the verge of things,The phantom, Beauty, in a mist of tears;While we alone have round us woven woods,And feel the softness of each other's hand,Amrita, while —ANASHUYA [going away from him]Ah me, you love another,

[Bursting into tears.]

And may some dreadful ill befall her quick!VIJAYAI loved another; now I love no other.Among the mouldering of ancient woodsYou live, and on the village border she,With her old father the blind wood-cutter;I saw her standing in her door but now.ANASHUYAVijaya, swear to love her never more,VIJAYAAy, ay.ANASHUYASwear by the parents of the gods,Dread oath, who dwell on sacred Himalay,On the far Golden Peak; enormous shapes,Who still were old when the great sea was youngOn their vast faces mystery and dreams;Their hair along the mountains rolled and filledFrom year to year by the unnumbered nestsOf aweless birds, and round their stirless feetThe joyous flocks of deer and antelope,Who never hear the unforgiving hound.Swear!VIJAYABy the parents of the gods, I swear.ANASHUYA [sings]I have forgiven, O new star!Maybe you have not heard of us, you have come forth so newly,You hunter of the fields afar!Ah, you will know my loved one by his hunter's arrows truly,Shoot on him shafts of quietness, that he may ever keepAn inner laughter, and may kiss his hands to me in sleep.Farewell, Vijaya. Nay, no word, no word;I, priestess of this temple, offer upPrayers for the land.

[VIJAYA goes.]

O Brahma, guard in sleepThe merry lambs and the complacent kine,The flies below the leaves, and the young miceIn the tree roots, and all the sacred flocksOf red flamingo; and my love, Vijaya;And may no restless fay with fidget fingerTrouble his sleeping: give him dreams of me.

THE INDIAN UPON GOD

I passed along the water's edge below the humid trees,My spirit rocked in evening light, the rushes round my knees,My spirit rocked in sleep and sighs; and saw the moorfowl paceAll dripping on a grassy slope, and saw them cease to chaseEach other round in circles, and heard the eldest speak:Who holds the world between His bill and made us strong or weakIs an undying moorfowl, and He lives beyond the sky.The rains are from His dripping wing, the moonbeams from His eye.I passed a little further on and heard a lotus talk:Who made the world and ruleth it, He hangeth on a stalk,For I am in His image made, and all this tinkling tideIs but a sliding drop of rain between His petals wide.A little way within the gloom a roebuck raised his eyesBrimful of starlight, and he said: The Stamper of the Skies,He is a gentle roebuck; for how else, I pray, could HeConceive a thing so sad and soft, a gentle thing like me?I passed a little further on and heard a peacock say:Who made the grass and made the worms and made my feathers gay,He is a monstrous peacock, and He waveth all the nightHis languid tail above us, lit with myriad spots of light.

THE INDIAN TO HIS LOVE

The island dreams under the dawnAnd great boughs drop tranquillity;The peahens dance on a smooth lawn,A parrot sways upon a tree,Raging at his own image in the enamelled sea.Here we will moor our lonely shipAnd wander ever with woven hands,Murmuring softly lip to lip,Along the grass, along the sands,Murmuring how far away are the unquiet lands:How we alone of mortals areHid under quiet bows apart,While our love grows an Indian star,A meteor of the burning heart,One with the tide that gleams, the wings that gleam and dart,The heavy boughs, the burnished doveThat moans and sighs a hundred days:How when we die our shades will rove,When eve has hushed the feathered ways,With vapoury footsole among the water's drowsy blaze.

THE FALLING OF THE LEAVES

Autumn is over the long leaves that love us,And over the mice in the barley sheaves;Yellow the leaves of the rowan above us,And yellow the wet wild-strawberry leaves.The hour of the waning of love has beset us,And weary and worn are our sad souls now;Let us part, ere the season of passion forget us,With a kiss and a tear on thy drooping brow.

EPHEMERA

"Your eyes that once were never weary of mine"Are bowed in sorrow under pendulous lids,"Because our love is waning."And then she:"Although our love is waning, let us stand"By the lone border of the lake once more,"Together in that hour of gentleness"When the poor tired child, Passion, falls asleep:"How far away the stars seem, and how far"Is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!"Pensive they paced along the faded leaves,While slowly he whose hand held hers replied:"Passion has often worn our wandering hearts."The woods were round them, and the yellow leavesFell like faint meteors in the gloom, and onceA rabbit old and lame limped down the path;Autumn was over him: and now they stoodOn the lone border of the lake once more:Turning, he saw that she had thrust dead leavesGathered in silence, dewy as her eyes,In bosom and hair."Ah, do not mourn," he said,"That we are tired, for other loves await us;"Hate on and love through unrepining hours."Before us lies eternity; our souls"Are love, and a continual farewell."

THE MADNESS OF KING GOLL

I sat on cushioned otter skin:My word was law from Ith to Emen,And shook at Invar AmarginThe hearts of the world-troubling seamen.And drove tumult and war awayFrom girl and boy and man and beast;The fields grew fatter day by day,The wild fowl of the air increased;And every ancient Ollave said,While he bent down his fading head,"He drives away the Northern cold."They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.I sat and mused and drank sweet wine;A herdsman came from inland valleys,Crying, the pirates drove his swineTo fill their dark-beaked hollow galleys.I called my battle-breaking men,And my loud brazen battle-carsFrom rolling vale and rivery glen,And under the blinking of the starsFell on the pirates by the deep,And hurled them in the gulph of sleep:These hands won many a torque of gold.They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.But slowly, as I shouting slewAnd trampled in the bubbling mire,In my most secret spirit grewA whirling and a wandering fire:I stood: keen stars above me shone,Around me shone keen eyes of men:I laughed aloud and hurried onBy rocky shore and rushy fen;I laughed because birds fluttered by,And starlight gleamed, and clouds flew high,And rushes waved and waters rolled.They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.And now I wander in the woodsWhen summer gluts the golden bees,Or in autumnal solitudesArise the leopard-coloured trees;Or when along the wintry strandsThe cormorants shiver on their rocks;I wander on, and wave my hands,And sing, and shake my heavy locks.The gray wolf knows me; by one earI lead along the woodland deer;The hares run by me growing bold.They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.I came upon a little town,That slumbered in the harvest moon,And passed a-tiptoe up and down,Murmuring, to a fitful tune,How I have followed, night and day,A tramping of tremendous feet,And saw where this old tympan lay,Deserted on a doorway seat,And bore it to the woods with me;Of some unhuman miseryOur married voiced wildly trolled.They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.I sang how, when day's toil is done,Orchil shakes out her long dark hairThat hides away the dying sunAnd sheds faint odours through the air:When my hand passed from wire to wireIt quenched, with sound like falling dew,The whirling and the wandering fire;But lift a mournful ulalu,For the kind wires are torn and still,And I must wander wood and hillThrough summer's heat and winter's cold.They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.

THE STOLEN CHILD

Where dips the rocky highlandOf Sleuth Wood in the lake,There lies a leafy islandWhere flapping herons wakeThe drowsy water rats;There we've hid our faery vats,Full of berries,And of reddest stolen cherries.Come away, O human child!To the waters and the wildWith a faery, hand in hand,For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.Where the wave of moonlight glossesThe dim gray sands with light,Far off by furthest RossesWe foot it all the night,Weaving olden dances,Mingling hands and mingling glancesTill the moon has taken flight;To and fro we leapAnd chase the frothy bubbles,While the world is full of troublesAnd is anxious in its sleep.Come away, O human child!To the waters and the wildWith a faery, hand in hand,For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.Where the wandering water gushesFrom the hills above Glen-Car,In pools among the rushesThat scarce could bathe a star,We seek for slumbering troutAnd whispering in their earsGive them unquiet dreams;Leaning softly outFrom ferns that drop their tearsOver the young streams,Come away, O human child!To the waters and the wildWith a faery, hand in hand,For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.Away with us he's going,The solemn-eyed:He'll hear no more the lowingOf the calves on the warm hillsideOr the kettle on the hobSing peace into his breast,Or see the brown mice bobRound and round the oatmeal-chest.For he comes, the human child,To the waters and the wildWith a faery, hand in hand,From a world more full of weeping than he can understand.

TO AN ISLE IN THE WATER

Shy one, shy one,Shy one of my heart,She moves in the firelightPensively apart.She carries in the dishes,And lays them in a row.To an isle in the waterWith her would I go.She carries in the candles,And lights the curtained room,Shy in the doorwayAnd shy in the gloom;And shy as a rabbit,Helpful and shy.To an isle in the waterWith her would I fly.

DOWN BY THE SALLEY GARDENS

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.In a field by the river my love and I did stand,And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

THE MEDITATION OF THE OLD FISHERMAN

You waves, though you dance by my feet like children at play,Though you glow and you glance, though you purr and you dart;In the Junes that were warmer than these are, the waves were more gay,When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.The herring are not in the tides as they were of old;My sorrow! for many a creak gave the creel in the cartThat carried the take to Sligo town to be sold,When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.And ah, you proud maiden, you are not so fair when his oarIs heard on the water, as they were, the proud and apart,Who paced in the eve by the nets on the pebbly shore,When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.