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Delphi Complete Poetry and Plays of W. B. Yeats (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)

Page 4

by W. B. Yeats


  Much wondering to see upon all hands, of wattles and woodwork made,

  Your bell-mounted churches, and guardless the sacred cairn and the rath,

  And a small and a feeble populace stooping with mattock and spade.

  Or weeding or ploughing with faces a-shining with much-toil wet;

  While in this place and that place, with bodies unglorious, their chieftains stood,

  Awaiting in patience the straw-death, croziered one, caught in your net:

  Went the laughter of scorn from my mouth like the roaring of wind in a wood.

  And because I went by them so huge and so speedy with eyes so bright,

  Came after the hard gaze of youth, or an old man lifted his head:

  And I rode and I rode, and I cried out, “The Fenians hunt wolves in the night,

  So sleep thee by daytime.” A voice cried, “The Fenians a long time are dead.”

  A whitebeard stood hushed on the pathway, the flesh of his face as dried grass,

  And in folds round his eyes and his mouth, he sad as a child without milk;

  And the dreams of the islands were gone, and I knew how men sorrow and pass,

  And their hound, and their horse, and their love, and their eyes that glimmer like silk.

  And wrapping my face in my hair, I murmured, “In old age they ceased”;

  And my tears were larger than berries, and I murmured, “Where white clouds lie spread

  “On Crevroe or broad Knockfefin, with many of old they feast

  “On the floors of the gods.” He cried, “No, the gods a long time are dead.”

  And lonely and longing for Niam, I shivered and turned me about,

  The heart in me longing to leap like a grasshopper into her heart;

  I turned and rode to the westward, and followed the sea’s old shout

  Till I saw where Maive lies sleeping till starlight and midnight part.

  And there at the foot of the mountain, two carried a sack full of sand,

  They bore it with staggering and sweating, but fell with their burden at length:

  Leaning down from the gem-studded saddle, I flung it five yards with my hand,

  With a sob for men waxing so weakly, a sob for the Fenian’s old strength.

  The rest you have heard of, O croziered one; how, when divided the girth,

  I fell on the path, and the horse went away like a summer fly;

  And my years three hundred fell on me, and I rose, and walked on the earth,

  A creeping old man, full of sleep, with the spittle on his beard never dry.

  How the men of the sand-sack showed me a church with its belfry in air;

  Sorry place, where for swing of the war-axe in my dim eyes the crozier gleams;

  What place have Caolte and Conan, and Bran, Sgeolan, Lomair?

  Speak, you too are old with your memories, an old man surrounded with dreams.

  S. PATRIC

  Where the flesh of the footsole clingeth on the burning stones is their place;

  Where the demons whip them with wires on the burning stones of wide hell,

  Watching the blessed ones move far off, and the smile on God’s face,

  Between them a gateway of brass, and the howl of the angels who fell.

  USHEEN

  Put the staff in my hands; for I go to the Fenians, O cleric, to chaunt

  The war-songs that roused them of old; they will rise, making clouds with their breath

  Innumerable, singing, exultant; the clay underneath them shall pant,

  And demons be broken in pieces, and trampled beneath them in death.

  And demons afraid in their darkness; deep horror of eyes and of wings,

  Afraid their ears on the earth laid, shall listen and rise up and weep;

  Hearing the shaking of shields and the quiver of stretched bowstrings,

  Hearing hell loud with a murmur, as shouting and mocking we sweep.

  We will tear out the flaming stones, and batter the gateway of brass

  And enter, and none sayeth “No” when there enters the strongly armed guest;

  Make clean as a broom cleans, and march on as oxen move over young grass;

  Then feast, making converse of wars, and of old wounds, and turn to our rest.

  S. PATRIC

  On the flaming stones, without refuge, the limbs of the Fenians are tost;

  None war on the masters of Hell, who could break up the world in their rage;

  But kneel and wear out the flags and pray for your soul that is lost

  Through the demon love of its youth and its godless and passionate age.

  USHEEN

  Ah, me! to be shaken with coughing and broken with old age and pain,

  Without laughter, a show unto children, alone with remembrance and fear;

  All emptied of purple hours as a beggar’s cloak in the rain,

  As a hay-cock out on the flood, or a wolf sucked under a weir.

  It were sad to gaze on the blessed and no man I loved of old there;

  I throw down the chain of small stones! when life in my body has ceased,

  I will go to Caolte, and Conan, and Bran, Sgeolan, Lomair,

  And dwell in the house of the Fenians, be they in flames or at feast.

  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 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 fled

  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 i
s 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 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.

  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.

  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 gray 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; swiftly chase him

  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 dreadful ill befall her quick!

  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

  An inner laughter, and may kiss his hands to me in sleep.

  Far
ewell, 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 flamingo; and my love, Vijaya;

  And may no restless fay with fidget finger

  Trouble 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 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 world 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 world 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?

 

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