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CONTENTS
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
PREFACE
PART ONE
Lyrical
Crossways (1889)
1 The Song of the Happy Shepherd
2 The Sad Shepherd
3 The Cloak, the Boat, and the Shoes
4 Anashuya and Vijaya
5 The Indian upon God
6 The Indian to his Love
7 The Falling of the Leaves
8 Ephemera
9 The Madness of King Goll
10 The Stolen Child
11 To an Isle in the Water
12 Down by the Salley Gardens
13 The Meditation of the Old Fisherman
14 The Ballad of Father O'Hart
15 The Ballad of Moll Magee
16 The Ballad of the Foxhunter
The Rose (1893)
17 To the Rose upon the Rood of Time
18 Fergus and the Druid
19 Cuchulain's Fight with the Sea
20 The Rose of the World
21 The Rose of Peace
22 The Rose of Battle
23 A Faery Song
24 The Lake Isle of Innisfree
25 A Cradle Song
26 The Pity of Love
27 The Sorrow of Love
28 When You are Old
29 The White Birds
30 A Dream of Death
31 The Countess Cathleen in Paradise
32 Who goes with Fergus?
33 The Man who dreamed of Faeryland
34 The Dedication to a Book of Stories selected from the Irish Novelists
35 The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner
36 The Ballad of Father Gilligan
37 The Two Trees
38 To Some I have Talked with by the Fire
39 To Ireland in the Coming Times
The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)
40 The Hosting of the Sidhe
41 The Everlasting Voices
42 The Moods
43 The Lover tells of the Rose in his Heart
44 The Host of the Air
45 The Fish
46 The Unappeasable Host
47 Into the Twilight
48 The Song of Wandering Aengus
49 The Song of the Old Mother
50 The Heart of the Woman
51 The Lover mourns for the Loss of Love
52 He mourns for the Change that has come upon Him and his Beloved, and longs for the End of the World
53 He bids his Beloved be at Peace
54 He reproves the Curlew
55 He remembers forgotten Beauty
56 A Poet to his Beloved
57 He gives his Beloved certain Rhymes
58 To his Heart, bidding it have no Fear
59 The Cap and Bells
60 The Valley of the Black Pig
61 The Lover asks Forgiveness because of his Many Moods
62 He tells of a Valley full of Lovers
63 He tells of the Perfect Beauty
64 He hears the Cry of the Sedge
65 He thinks of Those who have spoken Evil of his Beloved
66 The Blessed
67 The Secret Rose
68 Maid Quiet
69 The Travail of Passion
70 The Lover pleads with his Friend for Old Friends
71 The Lover speaks to the Hearers of his Songs in Coming Days
72 The Poet pleads with the Elemental Powers
73 He wishes his Beloved were Dead
74 He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
75 He thinks of his Past Greatness when a Part of the Constellations of Heaven
76 The Fiddler of Dooney
In the Seven Woods (1904)
77 In the Seven Woods
78 The Arrow
79 The Folly of being Comforted
80 Old Memory
81 Never give all the Heart
82 The Withering of the Boughs
83 Adam's Curse
84 Red Hanrahan's Song about Ireland
85 The Old Men admiring Themselves in the Water
86 Under the Moon
87 The Ragged Wood
88 O do not Love Too Long
89 The Players ask for a Blessing on the Psalteries and on Themselves
90 The Happy Townland
The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910)
91 His Dream
92 A Woman Homer sung
93 Words
94 No Second Troy
95 Reconciliation
96 King and no King
97 Peace
98 Against Unworthy Praise
99 The Fascination of What's Difficult
100 A Drinking Song
101 The Coming of Wisdom with Time
102 On hearing that the Students of our New University have joined the Agitation against Immoral Literature
103 To a Poet, who would have me Praise certain Bad Poets, Imitators of His and Mine
104 The Mask
105 Upon a House shaken by the Land Agitation
106 At the Abbey Theatre
107 These are the Clouds
108 At Galway Races
109 A Friend's Illness
110 All Things can tempt Me
111 Brown Penny
Responsibilities (1914)
112 Introductory Rhymes
113 The Grey Rock
114 To a Wealthy Man who promised a second Subscription to the Dublin Municipal Gallery if it were proved the People wanted Pictures
115 September 1913
116 To a Friend whose Work has come to Nothing
117 Paudeen
118 To a Shade
119 When Helen lived
120 On Those that hated 'The Playboy of the Western World,' 1907
121 The Three Beggars
122 The Three Hermits
123 Beggar to Beggar cried
124 Running to Paradise
125 The Hour before Dawn
126 A Song from 'The Player Queen'
127 The Realists
128 I. The Witch
129 II. The Peacock
130 The Mountain Tomb
131 I. To a Child dancing in the Wind
132 II. Two Years Later
133 A Memory of Youth
134 Fallen Majesty
135 Friends
136 The Cold Heaven
137 That the Night come
138 An Appointment
139 The Magi
140 The Dolls
141 A Coat
142 Closing Rhyme
The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)
143 The Wild Swans at Coole
144 In Memory of Major Robert Gregory
145 An Irish Airman foresees his Death
146 Men improve with the Years
147 The Collar-bone of a Hare
148 Under the Round Tower
149 Solomon to Sheba
150 The Living Beauty
151 A Song
152 To a Young Beauty
153 To a Young Girl
154 The Scholars
155 Tom O'Roughley
156 Shepherd and Goatherd
157 Lines written in Dejection
158 The Dawn
159 On Woman
160 The Fisherman
161 The Hawk
162 Memory
163 Her Praise
164 The People
165 His Phoenix
166 A Thought from Propertius
167 Broken Dreams
168 A Deep-sworn Vow
169 Presences
170 The Balloon of the Mind
171 To a Squirrel at Kyle-na-no
172 On being asked for a War Poem
173 In Memory of Alfred Pollexfen Upon a Dying Lady:
174 I. Her Courtesy
175 II. Certain Artists bring her Dolls and Drawings
176 III. She turns the Dolls' Faces to the Wall
177 IV. The End of Day
178 V. Her Race
179 VI. Her Courage
180 VII. Her Friends bring her a Christmas Tree
181 Ego Dominus Tuus
182 A Prayer on going into my House
183 The Phases of the Moon
184 The Cat and the Moon
185 The Saint and the Hunchback
186 Two Songs of a Fool
187 Another Song of a Fool
188 The Double Vision of Michael Robartes
Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921)
189 Michael Robartes and the Dancer
190 Solomon and the Witch
191 An Image from a Past Life
192 Under Saturn
193 Easter, 1916
194 Sixteen Dead Men
195 The Rose Tree
196 On a Political Prisoner
197 The Leaders of the Crowd
198 Towards Break of Day
199 Demon and Beast
200 The Second Coming
201 A Prayer for my Daughter
202 A Meditation in Time of War
203 To be carved on a Stone at Thoor Ballylee
The Tower (1928)
204 Sailing to Byzantium
205 The Tower
Meditations in Time of Civil War:
A Man Young and Old:
The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)
240 In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markievicz
241 Death
242 A Dialogue of Self and Soul
243 Blood and the Moon
244 Oil and Blood
245 Veronica's Napkin
246 Symbols
247 Spilt Milk
248 The Nineteenth Century and After
249 Statistics
250 Three Movements
251 The Seven Sages
252 The Crazed Moon
253 Coole Park, 1929
254 Coole and Ballylee, 1931
255 For Anne Gregory
256 Swift's Epitaph
257 At Algeciras - a Meditation upon Death
258 The Choice
259 Mohini Chatterjee
260 Byzantium
261 The Mother of God
262 Vacillation
263 Quarrel in Old Age
264 The Results of Thought
265 Gratitude to the Unknown Instructors
266 Remorse for Intemperate Speech
267 Stream and Sun at Glendalough
Words for Music Perhaps:
A Woman Young and Old:
[Parnell's Funeral and Other Poems (1935)]
304 Parnell's Funeral
305 Alternative Song for the Severed Head in 'The King of the Great Clock Tower'
306 Two Songs Rewritten for the Tune's Sake
307 A Prayer for Old Age
308 Church and State
Supernatural Songs:
New Poems (1938)
321 The Gyres
322 Lapis Lazuli
323 Imitated from the Japanese
324 Sweet Dancer
325 The Three Bushes
326 The Lady's First Song
327 The Lady's Second Song
328 The Lady's Third Song
329 The Lover's Song
330 The Chambermaid's First Song
331 The Chambermaid's Second Song
332 An Acre of Grass
333 What Then?
334 Beautiful Lofty Things
335 A Crazed Girl
336 To Dorothy Wellesley
337 The Curse of Cromwell
338 Roger Casement
339 The Ghost of Roger Casement
340 The O'Rahilly
341 Come Gather Round Me Parnellites
342 The Wild Old Wicked Man
343 The Great Day
344 Parnell
345 What Was Lost
346 The Spur
347 A Drunken Man's Praise of Sobriety
348 The Pilgrim
349 Colonel Martin
350 A Model for the Laureate
351 The Old Stone Cross
352 The Spirit Medium
353 Those Images
354 The Municipal Gallery Re-visited
355 Are You Content
[Last Poems (1938-1939)]
356 Under Ben Bulben
357 Three Songs to the One Burden
358 The Black Tower
359 Cuchulain Comforted
360 Three Marching Songs
361 In Tara's Halls
362 The Statues
363 News for the Delphic Oracle
364 Long-legged Fly
365 A Bronze Head
366 A Stick of Incense
367 Hound Voice
368 John Kinsella's Lament for Mrs. Mary Moore
369 High Talk
370 The Apparitions
371 A Nativity
372 Man and the Echo
373 The Circus Animals' Desertion
374 Politics
Narrative and Dramatic
375 The Wanderings of Oisin (1889)
376 The Old Age of Queen Maeve (1903)
377 Baile and Aillinn (1903)
The Shadowy Waters (1906):
Appendix A: Yeats's Notes in The Collected Poems (1933)
Notes to Appendix A
Appendix B: Music from New Poems (1938)
Notes to Appendix B
Explanatory Notes
Index to Titles
Index to First Lines
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Crossways
1 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;
Grey 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 things
In 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 Rood
Where 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 dead;
The wandering earth herself may be
Only 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 breeds
New dreams, new dreams; there is no truth
Saving in thine own heart. Seek, then,
No learning from the starry men,
Who follow with the optic glass
The whirling ways of stars that pass --
Seek, then, for this is also sooth,
No word of theirs -- the cold star-bane
Has cloven and rent their hearts in twain,
And dead is all their human truth.
Go gather by the humming sea
Some 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 grave
Where 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.
2 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 gleaming
And humming sands, where windy surges wend:
And he called loudly to the stars to bend
From their pale thrones and comfort him, but they
Among themselves laugh on and sing alway:
And then the man whom Sorrow named his friend
Cried 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 glory
And, 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 tell
Till my own words, re-echoing, shall send
Their 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 lone
Changed all he sang to inarticulate moan
Among her wildering whirls, forgetting him.
3 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.'
4 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.
Anashuya.Send peace on all the lands and flickering corn. --
O, may tranquillity walk by his elbow
When wandering in the forest, if he love
No other. -- Hear, and may the indolent flocks
Be plentiful. -- And if he love another,
May panthers end him. -- Hear, and load our king
With 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.
Anashuya.No: be still.
I, priestess of this temple, offer up
Prayers for the land.
Vijaya.I will wait here, Amrita.
Anashuya.By mighty Brahma's ever-rustling robe,
Who is Amrita? Sorrow of all sorrows!
Another fills your mind.
Vijaya.My 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 carol
To 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 grey wood,
Weary, with all his poppies gathered round him.
Vijaya.The hour when Kama, full of sleepy laughter,
Rises, and showers abroad his fragrant arrows,
Piercing the twilight with their murmuring barbs.
Anashuya.See how the sacred old flamingoes come,
Painting with shadow all the marble steps:
Aged and wise, they seek their wonted perches
Within the temple, devious walking, made
To wander by their melancholy minds.
Yon tall one eyes my supper; chase him away,
Far, far away. I named him after you.
He is a famous fisher; hour by hour
He 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 hold
The 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.
Anashuya.What know the pilots of the stars of tears?
Vijaya.Their faces are all worn, and in their eyes
Flashes the fire of sadness, for they see
The icicles that famish all the North,
Where men lie frozen in the glimmering snow;
And in the flaming forests cower the lion
And 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 sudden dreadful ill befall her!
Vijaya.I loved another; now I love no other.
Among the mouldering of ancient woods
You live, and on the village border she,
With her old father the blind wood-cutter;
I saw her standing in her door but now.
Anashuya.Vijaya, swear to love her never more.
Vijaya.Ay, ay.
Anashuya.Swear 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 young;
On their vast faces mystery and dreams;
Their hair along the mountains rolled and filled
From year to year by the unnumbered nests
Of aweless birds, and round their stirless feet
The joyous flocks of deer and antelope,
Who never hear the unforgiving hound.
Swear!
Vijaya.By 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 keep
A lonely laughter, and may kiss his hands to me in sleep.
Farewell, Vijaya. Nay, no word, no word;
I, priestess of this temple, offer up
Prayers for the land.
[Vijaya goes.]
O Brahma, guard in sleep
The merry lambs and the complacent kine,
The flies below the leaves, and the young mice
In the tree roots, and all the sacred flocks
Of red flamingoes; and my love, Vijaya;
And may no restless fay with fidget finger
Trouble his sleeping: give him dreams of me.
5 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 pace
All dripping on a grassy slope, and saw them cease to chase
Each other round in circles, and heard the eldest speak:
Who holds the worm between His bill and made us strong or weak
Is 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 worm and ruleth it, He hangeth on a stalk,
For I am in His image made, and all this tinkling tide
Is but a sliding drop of rain between His petals wide.
A little way within the gloom a roebuck raised his eyes
Brimful of starlight, and he said:The Stamper of the Skies,
He is a gentle roebuck; for how else, I pray, could He
Conceive 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 night
His languid tail above us, lit with myriad spots of light.
6 The Indian to his Love
The island dreams under the dawn
And 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 ship
And 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 are
Hid 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 dove
That moans and sighs a hundred days:
How when we die our shades will rove,
When eve has hushed the feathered ways,
With vapoury footsole by the water's drowsy blaze.
7 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.
8 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 leaves
Fell like faint meteors in the gloom, and once
A rabbit old and lame limped down the path;
Autumn was over him: and now they stood
On the lone border of the lake once more:
Turning, he saw that she had thrust dead leaves
Gathered 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.'
9 The Madness of King Goll
I sat on cushioned otter-skin:
My word was law from Ith to Emain,
And shook at Invar Amargin
The hearts of the world-troubling seamen,
And drove tumult and war away
From 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 swine
To fill their dark-beaked hollow galleys.
I called my battle-breaking men
And my loud brazen battle-cars
From rolling vale and rivery glen;
And under the blinking of the stars
Fell 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 slew
And trampled in the bubbling mire,
In my most secret spirit grew
A whirling and a wandering fire:
I stood: keen stars above me shone,
Around me shone keen eyes of men:
I laughed aloud and hurried on
By 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 aflutter round me, the beech leaves old.
And now I wander in the woods
When summer gluts the golden bees,
Or in autumnal solitudes
Arise the leopard-coloured trees;
Or when along the wintry strands
The 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 ear
I 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 inhuman misery
Our 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 hair
That hides away the dying sun
And sheds faint odours through the air:
When my hand passed from wire to wire
It 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 hill
Through summer's heat and winter's cold.
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.
10 The Stolen Child
Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The 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 wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances,
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With 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 lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal-chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
From a world more full of weeping than he can understand.
11 To an Isle in the Water
Shy one, shy one,
Shy one of my heart,
She moves in the firelight
Pensively apart.
She carries in the dishes,
And lays them in a row.
To an isle in the water
With her would I go.
She carries in the candles,
And lights the curtained room,
Shy in the doorway
And shy in the gloom;
And shy as a rabbit,
Helpful and shy.
To an isle in the water
With her would I fly.
12 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.
13 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 cart
That 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 oar
Is 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.
14 The Ballad of Father O'Hart
Good Father John O'Hart
In penal days rode out
To a shoneen who had free lands
And 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 cages
As 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 anyone died
Came 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 Knocknarea
And the world round Knocknashee
Came keening in that day.
The young birds and old birds
Came flying, heavy and sad;
Keening in from Tiraragh,
Keening from Ballinafad;
Keening from Inishmurray,
Nor stayed for bite or sup;
This way were all reproved
Who dig old customs up.
15 The Ballad of Moll Magee
Come round me, little childer;
There, don't fling stones at me
Because I mutter as I go;
But pity Moll Magee.
My man was a poor fisher
With shore lines in the say;
My work was saltin' herrings
The whole of the long day.
And sometimes from the saltin' shed
I scarce could drag my feet,
Under 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 baby
When 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 go
To 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' round
Across the bare boreen.
I went away in silence:
Beyond old Martin's byre
I saw a kindly neighbour
Blowin' 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 baby
And keenin' to mysel'.
And sometimes I am sure she knows
When, 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' looks
And pity Moll Magee.
16 The Ballad of the Foxhunter
'Lay me in a cushioned chair;
Carry me, ye four,
With cushions here and cushions there,
To see the world once more.
'To stable and to kennel go;
Bring what is there to bring;
Lead my Lollard to and fro,
Or gently in a ring.
'Put the chair upon the grass:
Bring Rody and his hounds,
That I may contented pass
From these earthly bounds.'
His eyelids droop, his head falls low,
His old eyes cloud with dreams;
The sun upon all things that grow
Falls in sleepy streams.
Brown Lollard 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 tongue
Upon his wasted hands,
For leading aged hounds and young
The huntsman near him stands.
'Huntsman Rody, blow the horn,
Make the hills reply.'
The huntsman loosens on the morn
A gay wandering cry.
Fire is in the old man's eyes,
His fingers move and sway,
And when the wandering music dies
They hear him feebly say,
'Huntsman Rody, blow the horn,
Make the hills reply.'
'I cannot blow upon my horn,
I can but weep and sigh.'
Servants round his cushioned place
Are with new sorrow wrung;
Hounds are gazing on his face,
Aged hounds and young.
One blind hound only lies apart
On the sun-smitten grass;
He holds deep commune with his heart:
The moments pass and pass;
The blind hound with a mournful din
Lifts slow his wintry head;
The servants bear the body in;
The hounds wail for the dead.
Poems Copyright by Anne Yeats Revisions and additional poems copyright © 1983, 1989 by Anne Yeats Editorial matter and compilation copyright © 1983, 1989 by Macmillan Publishing Company
Excerpted from The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats by W. B. Yeats
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
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