The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats. Volume 1 of 8. Poems Lyrical and Narrative

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 boughs 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,Dropping a vapoury footsole on the tide’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 mineAre bowed in sorrow under their trembling lids,Because our love is waning.’And then she:‘Although our love is waning, let us standBy the lone border of the lake once more,Together in that hour of gentlenessWhen the poor tired child, Passion, falls asleep:How far away the stars seem, and how farIs 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 soulsAre 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 grey 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 voices 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 trout,And 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 hillside;Or 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 candlesAnd 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.

THE BALLAD OF FATHER O’HART

Good Father John O’HartIn penal days rode outTo a shoneen who had free landsAnd his own snipe and trout.In trust took he John’s lands;Sleiveens were all his race;And he gave them as dowers to his daughters,And they married beyond their place.But Father John went up,And Father John went down;And he wore small holes in his shoes,And he wore large holes in his gown.All loved him, only the shoneen,Whom the devils have by the hair,From the wives, and the cats, and the children,To the birds in the white of the air.The birds, for he opened their cagesAs he went up and down;And he said with a smile, ‘Have peace now’;And he went his way with a frown.But if when any one diedCame keeners hoarser than rooks,He bade them give over their keening;For he was a man of books.And these were the works of John,When weeping score by score,People came into Coloony;For he’d died at ninety-four.There was no human keening;The birds from KnocknareaAnd the world round KnocknasheeCame keening in that day.The young birds and old birdsCame flying, heavy and sad;Keening in from Tiraragh,Keening from Ballinafad;Keening from Inishmurray,Nor stayed for bite or sup;This way were all reprovedWho dig old customs up.

THE BALLAD OF MOLL MAGEE

Come round me, little childer;There, don’t fling stones at meBecause I mutter as I go;But pity Moll Magee.My man was a poor fisherWith shore lines in the say;My work was saltin’ herringsThe whole of the long day.And sometimes from the saltin’ shed,I scarce could drag my feetUnder the blessed moonlight,Along the pebbly street.I’d always been but weakly,And my baby was just born;A neighbour minded her by day,I minded her till morn.I lay upon my baby;Ye little childer dear,I looked on my cold babyWhen the morn grew frosty and clear.A weary woman sleeps so hard!My man grew red and pale,And gave me money, and bade me goTo my own place, Kinsale.He drove me out and shut the door,And gave his curse to me;I went away in silence,No neighbour could I see.The windows and the doors were shut,One star shone faint and green;The little straws were turnin’ roundAcross the bare boreen.I went away in silence:Beyond old Martin’s byreI saw a kindly neighbourBlowin’ her mornin’ fire.She drew from me my story —My money’s all used up,And still, with pityin’, scornin’ eye,She gives me bite and sup.She says my man will surely come,And fetch me home agin;But always, as I’m movin’ round,Without doors or within,Pilin’ the wood or pilin’ the turf,Or goin’ to the well,I’m thinkin’ of my babyAnd keenin’ to mysel’.And sometimes I am sure she knowsWhen, openin’ wide His door,God lights the stars, His candles,And looks upon the poor.So now, ye little childer,Ye won’t fling stones at me;But gather with your shinin’ looksAnd pity Moll Magee.

THE BALLAD OF THE FOXHUNTER

‘Now lay me in a cushioned chairAnd carry me, you four,With cushions here and cushions there,To see the world once more.‘And some one from the stables bringMy Dermot dear and brown,And lead him gently in a ring,And gently up and down.‘Now leave the chair upon the grass:Bring hound and huntsman here,And I on this strange road will pass,Filled full of ancient cheer.’His eyelids droop, his head falls low,His old eyes cloud with dreams;The sun upon all things that growPours round in sleepy streams.Brown Dermot treads upon the lawn,And to the armchair goes,And now the old man’s dreams are gone,He smooths the long brown nose.And now moves many a pleasant tongueUpon his wasted hands,For leading aged hounds and youngThe huntsman near him stands.‘My huntsman, Rody, blow the horn,And make the hills reply.’The huntsman loosens on the mornA gay and wandering cry.A fire is in the old man’s eyes,His fingers move and sway,And when the wandering music diesThey hear him feebly say,‘My huntsman, Rody, blow the horn,And make the hills reply.’‘I cannot blow upon my horn,I can but weep and sigh.’The servants round his cushioned placeAre with new sorrow wrung;And hounds are gazing on his face,Both aged hounds and young.One blind hound only lies apartOn the sun-smitten grass;He holds deep commune with his heart:The moments pass and pass;The blind hound with a mournful dinLifts slow his wintry head;The servants bear the body in;The hounds wail for the dead.

THE BALLAD OF FATHER GILLIGAN

The old priest Peter GilliganWas weary night and day;For half his flock were in their beds,Or under green sods lay.Once, while he nodded on a chair,At the moth-hour of eve,Another poor man sent for him,And he began to grieve.‘I have no rest, nor joy, nor peace,For people die and die’;And after cried he, ‘God forgive!My body spake, not I!’He knelt, and leaning on the chairHe prayed and fell asleep;And the moth-hour went from the fields,And stars began to peep.They slowly into millions grew,And leaves shook in the wind;And God covered the world with shade,And whispered to mankind.Upon the time of sparrow chirpWhen the moths came once more,The old priest Peter GilliganStood upright on the floor.‘Mavrone, mavrone! the man has died,While I slept on the chair’;He roused his horse out of its sleep,And rode with little care.He rode now as he never rode,By rocky lane and fen;The sick man’s wife opened the door:‘Father! you come again!’‘And is the poor man dead?’ he cried.‘He died an hour ago.’The old priest Peter GilliganIn grief swayed to and fro.‘When you were gone, he turned and diedAs merry as a bird.’The old priest Peter GilliganHe knelt him at that word.‘He who hath made the night of starsFor souls, who tire and bleed,Sent one of His great angels downTo help me in my need.‘He who is wrapped in purple robes,With planets in His care,Had pity on the least of thingsAsleep upon a chair.’

THE LAMENTATION OF THE OLD PENSIONER

I had a chair at every hearth,When no one turned to see,With ‘Look at that old fellow there,And who may he be?’And therefore do I wander now,And the fret lies on me.The road-side trees keep murmuring:Ah, wherefore murmur ye,As in the old days long gone by,Green oak and poplar tree?The well-known faces are all goneAnd the fret lies on me.

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 Moharabuiee.I passed my brother and cousin:They read in their books of prayer;I read in my book of songsI 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 fiddleAnd 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!’And dance like a wave of the sea.

THE DEDICATION TO A BOOK OF STORIES SELECTED FROM THE IRISH NOVELISTS

There was a green branch hung with many a bellWhen her own people ruled in wave-worn Eire;And from its murmuring greenness, calm of faery,A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell.It charmed away the merchant from his guile,And turned the farmer’s memory from his cattle,And hushed in sleep the roaring ranks of battle,For all who heard it dreamed a little while.Ah, Exiles, wandering over many seas,Spinning at all times Eire’s good to-morrow!Ah, worldwide Nation, always growing Sorrow!I also bear a bell branch full of ease.I tore it from green boughs winds tossed and hurled,Green boughs of tossing always, weary, weary!I tore it from the green boughs of old Eire,The willow of the many-sorrowed world.Ah, Exiles, wandering over many lands!My bell branch murmurs: the gay bells bring laughter,Leaping to shake a cobweb from the rafter;The sad bells bow the forehead on the hands.A honeyed ringing: under the new skiesThey bring you memories of old village faces;Cabins gone now, old well-sides, old dear places;And men who loved the cause that never dies.

EARLY POEMS

II

THE ROSE

‘Sero te amavi, Pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova! Sero te amavi.’

S. Augustine.

To Lionel Johnson

EARLY POEMS: THE ROSE

TO THE ROSE UPON THE ROOD OF TIME

Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways:Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide;The Druid, gray, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed,Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold;And thine own sadness, whereof stars, grown oldIn dancing silver-sandalled on the sea,Sing in their high and lonely melody.Come near, that no more blinded by man’s fate,I find under the boughs of love and hate,In all poor foolish things that live a day,Eternal beauty wandering on her way.Come near, come near, come near – Ah, leave me stillA little space for the rose-breath to fill!Lest I no more hear common things that crave;The weak worm hiding down in its small cave,The field mouse running by me in the grass,And heavy mortal hopes that toil and pass;But seek alone to hear the strange things saidBy God to the bright hearts of those long dead,And learn to chaunt a tongue men do not know.Come near; I would, before my time to go,Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways:Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.

FERGUS AND THE DRUID

FERGUSThe whole day have I followed in the rocks,And you have changed and flowed from shape to shape.First as a raven on whose ancient wingsScarcely a feather lingered, then you seemedA weasel moving on from stone to stone,And now at last you wear a human shape,A thin gray man half lost in gathering night.DRUIDWhat would you, king of the proud Red Branch kings?FERGUSThis would I say, most wise of living souls:Young subtle Conchubar sat close by meWhen I gave judgment, and his words were wise,And what to me was burden without endTo him seemed easy, so I laid the crownUpon his head to cast away my care.DRUIDWhat would you, king of the proud Red Branch kings?FERGUSI feast amid my people on the hill,And pace the woods, and drive my chariot wheelsIn the white border of the murmuring sea;And still I feel the crown upon my head.DRUIDWhat would you, king of the proud Red Branch kings?FERGUSI’d put away the foolish might of a king,But learn the dreaming wisdom that is yours.DRUIDLook on my thin gray hair and hollow cheeks,And on these hands that may not lift the sword,This body trembling like a wind-blown reed.No maiden loves me, no man seeks my help,Because I be not of the things I dream.FERGUSA wild and foolish labourer is a king,To do and do and do, and never dream.DRUIDTake, if you must, this little bag of dreams;Unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round.FERGUSI see my life go dripping like a streamFrom change to change; I have been many things,A green drop in the surge, a gleam of lightUpon a sword, a fir-tree on a hill,An old slave grinding at a heavy quern,A king sitting upon a chair of gold,And all these things were wonderful and great;But now I have grown nothing, being all,And the whole world weighs down upon my heart:Ah! Druid, Druid, how great webs of sorrowLay hidden in the small slate-coloured thing!

THE DEATH OF CUCHULAIN

A man came slowly from the setting sun,To Forgail’s daughter, Emer, in her dun,And found her dyeing cloth with subtle care,And said, casting aside his draggled hair:‘I am Aleel, the swineherd, whom you bidGo dwell upon the sea cliffs, vapour-hid;But now my years of watching are no more.’Then Emer cast the web upon the floor,And stretching out her arms, red with the dye,Parted her lips with a loud sudden cry.Looking on her, Aleel, the swineherd, said:‘Not any god alive, nor mortal dead,Has slain so mighty armies, so great kings,Nor won the gold that now Cuchulain brings.’‘Why do you tremble thus from feet to crown?’Aleel, the swineherd, wept and cast him downUpon the web-heaped floor, and thus his word:‘With him is one sweet-throated like a bird,And lovelier than the moon upon the sea;He made for her an army cease to be.’‘Who bade you tell these things?’ and then she criedTo those about, ‘Beat him with thongs of hideAnd drive him from the door.’ And thus it was;And where her son, Finmole, on the smooth grassWas driving cattle, came she with swift feet,And called out to him, ‘Son, it is not meetThat you stay idling here with flocks and herds.’‘I have long waited, mother, for those words;But wherefore now?’‘There is a man to die;You have the heaviest arm under the sky.’‘My father dwells among the sea-worn bands,And breaks the ridge of battle with his hands.’‘Nay, you are taller than Cuchulain, son.’‘He is the mightiest man in ship or dun.’‘Nay, he is old and sad with many wars,And weary of the crash of battle cars.’‘I only ask what way my journey lies,For God, who made you bitter, made you wise.’‘The Red Branch kings a tireless banquet keep,Where the sun falls into the Western deep.Go there, and dwell on the green forest rim;But tell alone your name and house to himWhose blade compels, and bid them send you oneWho has a like vow from their triple dun.’Between the lavish shelter of a woodAnd the gray tide, the Red Branch multitudeFeasted, and with them old Cuchulain dwelt,And his young dear one close beside him knelt,And gazed upon the wisdom of his eyes,More mournful than the depth of starry skies,And pondered on the wonder of his days;And all around the harp-string told his praise,And Conchubar, the Red Branch king of kings,With his own fingers touched the brazen strings.At last Cuchulain spake, ‘A young man straysDriving the deer along the woody ways.I often hear him singing to and fro;I often hear the sweet sound of his bow,Seek out what man he is.’One went and came.‘He bade me let all know he gives his nameAt the sword point, and bade me bring him oneWho had a like vow from our triple dun.’‘I only of the Red Branch hosted now,’Cuchulain cried, ‘have made and keep that vow.’After short fighting in the leafy shade,He spake to the young man, ‘Is there no maidWho loves you, no white arms to wrap you round,Or do you long for the dim sleepy ground,That you come here to meet this ancient sword?’‘The dooms of men are in God’s hidden hoard.’‘Your head a while seemed like a woman’s headThat I loved once.’Again the fighting sped,But now the war rage in Cuchulain woke,And through the other’s shield his long blade broke,And pierced him.‘Speak before your breath is done.’‘I am Finmole, mighty Cuchulain’s son.’‘I put you from your pain. I can no more.’While day its burden on to evening bore,With head bowed on his knees Cuchulain stayed;Then Conchubar sent that sweet-throated maid,And she, to win him, his gray hair caressed;In vain her arms, in vain her soft white breast.Then Conchubar, the subtlest of all men,Ranking his Druids round him ten by ten,Spake thus, ‘Cuchulain will dwell there and broodFor three days more in dreadful quietude,And then arise, and raving slay us all.Go, cast on him delusions magical,That he may fight the waves of the loud sea.’And ten by ten under a quicken tree,The Druids chaunted, swaying in their handsTall wands of alder and white quicken wands.In three days’ time, Cuchulain with a moanStood up, and came to the long sands alone:For four days warred he with the bitter tide;And the waves flowed above him, and he died.