The Wind Among the Reeds

William Butler Yeats

The Wind Among the Reeds

THE HOSTING OF THE SIDHE

The host is riding from KnocknareaAnd over the grave of Clooth-na-bare;Caolte tossing his burning hairAnd Niamh calling 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 foldAnd bid them wander obeying your willFlame 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 woodsHave their day, have their day;What one in the routOf the fire-born moods,Has fallen away?

AEDH 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 goldFor 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 reedsOf the drear Hart Lake.And he saw how the reeds grew darkAt the coming of night tide,And dreamed of the long dim hairOf Bridget his bride.He heard while he sang and dreamedA piper piping away,And never was piping so sad,And never was piping so gay.And he saw young men and young girlsWho danced on a level placeAnd 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 wineAnd a young girl white bread.But Bridget drew him by the sleeve,Away from the merry bands,To old men playing at cardsWith 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 dreamOf her long dim hair.He played with the merry old menAnd thought not of evil chance,Until one bore Bridget his brideAway from the merry dance.He bore her away in his arms,The handsomest young man there,And his neck and his breast and his armsWere drowned in her long dim hair.O'Driscoll scattered the cardsAnd out of his dream awoke:Old men and young men and young girlsWere gone like a drifting smoke;But he heard high up in the airA piper piping away,And never was piping so sad,And never was piping so gay.

BREASAL THE FISHERMAN

Although you hide in the ebb and flowOf the pale tide when the moon has set,The people of coming days will knowAbout the casting out of my net,And how you have leaped times out of mindOver the little silver cords,And think that you were hard and unkind,And blame you with many bitter words.

A CRADLE SONG

The Danann 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 beatThe doors of Hell and blow there many a whimpering ghost;O heart the winds have shaken; the unappeasable hostIs comelier than candles before Maurya'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 gray twilight,Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn.Your mother Eire is always young,Dew ever shining and twilight gray;Though hope fall from you and love decay,Burning in fires of a slanderous tongue.Come, heart, where hill is heaped upon hill:For there the mystical brotherhoodOf sun and moon and hollow and woodAnd river and stream work out their will;And God stands winding His lonely horn,And time and the world are ever in flight;And love is less kind than the gray twilight,And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn.

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 streamAnd caught a little silver trout.When I had laid it on the floorI went to blow the fire a-flame,But something rustled on the floor,And someone called me by my name:It had become a glimmering girlWith apple blossom in her hairWho called me by my name and ranAnd faded through the brightening air.Though I am old with wanderingThrough 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 blowTill the seed of the fire flicker and glow;And then I must scrub and bake and sweepTill stars are beginning to blink and peep;And the young lie long and dream in their bedOf 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.

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 HEART OF THE WOMAN

O what to me the little roomThat 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 hairWill hide us from the bitter storm.O hiding hair and dewy eyes,I am no more with life and death,My heart upon his warm heart lies,My breath is mixed into his breath.

AEDH LAMENTS THE LOSS OF LOVE

Pale brows, still hands and dim hair,I had a beautiful friendAnd dreamed that the old despairWould end in love in the end:She looked in my heart one dayAnd saw your image was there;She has gone weeping away.

MONGAN LAMENTS THE CHANGE THAT HAS COME UPON HIM AND HIS BELOVED

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 fearUnder my feet that they follow you night and day.A man with a hazel wand came without sound;He changed me suddenly; I was looking another way;And now my calling is but the calling of a hound;And Time and Birth and Change are hurrying by.I would that the boar without bristles had come from the WestAnd had rooted the sun and moon and stars out of the skyAnd lay in the darkness, grunting, and turning to his rest.

MICHAEL ROBARTES BIDS HIS BELOVED BE AT PEACE

I hear the Shadowy Horses, their long manes a-shake,Their hoofs heavy with tumult, their eyes glimmering white;The North unfolds above them clinging, creeping night,The East her hidden joy before the morning break,The West weeps in pale dew and sighs passing away,The South is pouring down roses of crimson fire:O vanity of Sleep, Hope, Dream, endless Desire,The Horses of Disaster plunge in the heavy clay:Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beatOver 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.

HANRAHAN REPROVES THE CURLEW

O, curlew, cry no more in the air,Or only to the waters in the West;Because your crying brings to my mindPassion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hairThat was shaken out over my breast:There is enough evil in the crying of wind.

MICHAEL ROBARTES REMEMBERS FORGOTTEN BEAUTY

When my arms wrap you round I pressMy heart upon the lovelinessThat has long faded from the world;The jewelled crowns that kings have hurledIn shadowy pools, when armies fled;The love-tales wove with silken threadBy dreaming ladies upon clothThat has made fat the murderous moth;The roses that of old time wereWoven by ladies in their hair,The dew-cold lilies ladies boreThrough many a sacred corridorWhere such gray clouds of incense roseThat only the gods' eyes did not close:For that pale breast and lingering handCome from a more dream-heavy land,A more dream-heavy hour than this;And when you sigh from kiss to kissI hear white Beauty sighing, too,For hours when all must fade like dewBut flame on flame, deep under deep,Throne over throne, where in half sleepTheir swords upon their iron kneesBrood her high lonely mysteries.

A POET TO HIS BELOVED

I bring you with reverent handsThe books of my numberless dreams;White woman that passion has wornAs the tide wears the dove-gray sands,And with heart more old than the hornThat is brimmed from the pale fire of time:White woman with numberless dreamsI bring you my passionate rhyme.

AEDH 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 lovelinessOut 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.

TO MY 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 floodCover over and hide, for he has no partWith the proud, majestical multitude.

THE CAP AND BELLS

The jester walked in the garden:The garden had fallen still;He bade his soul rise upwardAnd stand on her window-sill.It rose in a straight blue garment,When owls began to call:It had grown wise-tongued by thinkingOf a quiet and light footfall;But the young queen would not listen;She rose in her pale night gown;She drew in the heavy casementAnd pushed the latches down.He bade his heart go to her,When the owls called out no more;In a red and quivering garmentIt 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 tableAnd waved it off on the air.'I have cap and bells,' he pondered,'I will send them to her and die;'And when the morning whitenedHe 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 flowerAnd the quiet of love in her feet.

THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG

The dews drop slowly and dreams gather: unknown spearsSuddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes,And then the clash of fallen horsemen and the criesOf 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 youMaster of the still stars and of the flaming door.

MICHAEL ROBARTES ASKS FORGIVENESS BECAUSE OF HIS MANY MOODS

If this importunate heart trouble your peaceWith words lighter 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!'O Winds, elder than changing of night and day,'That murmuring and longing came,'From marble cities loud with tabors of old'In dove-gray 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 Phœnix died'And wrapped the flames above his holy head;'And still murmur and long:'O Piteous Hearts, changing till change be dead'In a tumultuous song:'And cover the pale blossoms of your breastWith your dim heavy hair,And trouble with a sigh for all things longing for restThe odorous twilight there.

AEDH 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 woodWith 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.'

AEDH TELLS OF THE PERFECT BEAUTY

O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyesThe poets labouring all their daysTo build a perfect beauty in rhymeAre overthrown by a woman's gazeAnd by the unlabouring brood of the skies:And therefore my heart will bow, when dewIs dropping sleep, until God burn time,Before the unlabouring stars and you.

AEDH HEARS THE CRY OF THE SEDGE

I wander by the edgeOf this desolate lakeWhere wind cries in the sedgeUntil the axle breakThat keeps the stars in their roundAnd hands hurl in the deepThe banners of East and WestAnd the girdle of light is unbound,Your breast will not lie by the breastOf your beloved in sleep.

AEDH 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.

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 smiledWith the secrets of God in his eyes.And Cumhal saw like a drifting smokeAll 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.''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 thoseWho sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre,Or in the wine vat, dwell beyond the stirAnd tumult of defeated dreams; and deepAmong pale eyelids, heavy with the sleepMen have named beauty. Thy great leaves enfoldThe ancient beards, the helms of ruby and goldOf the crowned Magi; and the king whose eyesSaw the Pierced Hands and Rood of elder riseIn druid vapour and make the torches dim;Till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and himWho met Fand walking among flaming dewBy a gray 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 crownAnd sorrow away, and calling bard and clownDwelt 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, awaitThe 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?

HANRAHAN LAMENTS BECAUSE OF HIS WANDERINGS

O where is our Mother of PeaceNodding her purple hood?For the winds that awakened the starsAre blowing through my blood.I would that the death-pale deerHad come through the mountain side,And trampled the mountain away,And drunk up the murmuring tide;For the winds that awakened the starsAre blowing through my blood,And our Mother of Peace has forgot meUnder her purple hood.

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 wayCrowded with bitter faces, the wounds in palm and side,The hyssop-heavy sponge, the flowers by Kidron 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.

THE POET PLEADS WITH HIS FRIEND FOR OLD FRIENDS

Though you are in your shining days,Voices among the crowdAnd 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 lostFor all eyes but these eyes.

HANRAHAN SPEAKS TO THE LOVERS OF HIS SONGS IN COMING DAYS

O, colleens, 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 airAnd covers away the smoke of myrrh and frankincense;Bend down and pray for the great sin I wove in song,Till Maurya of the wounded heart cry a sweet cry,And call to my beloved and me: 'No longer fly'Amid the hovering, piteous, penitential throng.'

AEDH PLEADS WITH THE ELEMENTAL POWERS

The Powers whose name and shape no living creature knowsHave 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 choirEncircle her I love and sing her into peace,That my old care may cease;Unfold your flaming wings and cover out of sightThe nets of day and night.Dim Powers of drowsy thought, let her no longer beLike the pale cup of the sea,When winds have gathered and sun and moon burned dimAbove its cloudy rim;But let a gentle silence wrought with music flowWhither her footsteps go.

AEDH 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 woundAbout the stars and moon and sun:O would beloved that you layUnder the dock-leaves in the ground,While lights were paling one by one.

AEDH 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 clothsOf 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.

MONGAN THINKS OF HIS PAST GREATNESS

I have drunk ale from the Country of the YoungAnd weep because I know all things now:I have been a hazel tree and they hungThe Pilot Star and the Crooked PloughAmong 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 headWould not lie on the breast or his lips on the hairOf the woman that he loves, until he dies;Although the rushes and the fowl of the airCry of his love with their pitiful cries.

NOTES

The Hosting of the Sidhe

The powerful and wealthy called the gods of ancient Ireland the Tuatha De Danaan, or the Tribes of the goddess Danu, but the poor called them, and still sometimes call them, the Sidhe, from Aes Sidhe or Sluagh Sidhe, the people of the Faery Hills, as these words are usually explained. Sidhe is also Gaelic for wind, and certainly the Sidhe have much to do with the wind. They journey in whirling winds, 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. They are almost always said to wear no covering upon their heads, and to let their hair stream out; and the great among them, for they have great and simple, go much upon horseback. If any one becomes too much interested in them, and sees them over much, he loses all interest in ordinary things. I shall write a great deal elsewhere about such enchanted persons, and can give but an example or two now.

A woman near Gort, in Galway, says: 'There is a boy, now, of the Cloran's; but I wouldn't for the world let them think I spoke of him; it's two years since he came from America, and since that time he never went to Mass, or to church, or to fairs, or to market, or to stand on the cross roads, or to hurling, or to nothing. And if any one comes into the house, it's into the room he'll slip, not to see them; and as to work, he has the garden dug to bits, and the whole place smeared with cow dung; and such a crop as was never seen; and the alders all plaited till they look grand. One day he went as far as the chapel; but as soon as he got to the door he turned straight round again, as if he hadn't power to pass it. I wonder he wouldn't get the priest to read a Mass for him, or something; but the crop he has is grand, and you may know well he has some to help him.' One hears many stories of the kind; and a man whose son is believed to go out riding among them at night tells me that he is careless about everything, and lies in bed until it is late in the day. A doctor believes this boy to be mad. Those that are at times 'away,' as it is called, know all things, but are afraid to speak. A countryman at Kiltartan says, 'There was one of the Lydons – John – was away for seven years, lying in his bed, but brought away at nights, and he knew everything; and one, Kearney, up in the mountains, a cousin of his own, lost two hoggets, and came and told him, and he knew the very spot where they were, and told him, and he got them back again. But they were vexed at that, and took away the power, so that he never knew anything again, no more than another.' This wisdom is the wisdom of the fools of the Celtic stories, that was above all the wisdom of the wise. Lomna, the fool of Fiann, had so great wisdom that his head, cut from his body, was still able to sing and prophesy; and a writer in the 'Encyclopædia Britannica' writes that Tristram, in the oldest form of the tale of Tristram and Iseult, drank wisdom, and madness the shadow of wisdom, and not love, out of the magic cup.