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

by W. B. Yeats

  Nor gave loud service to a cause

  That you might have a troop of friends.

  You kept the Muses’ sterner laws,

  And unrepenting faced your ends,

  And therefore earned the right — and yet

  Dowson and Johnson most I praise —

  To troop with those the world’s forgot,

  And copy their proud steady gaze.

  ‘The Danish troop was driven out

  Between the dawn and dusk,’ she said;

  ‘Although the event was long in doubt,

  Although the King of Ireland’s dead

  And half the kings, before sundown

  All was accomplished.’

  ‘When this day

  Murrough, the King of Ireland’s son,

  Foot after foot was giving way,

  He and his best troops back to back

  Had perished there, but the Danes ran,

  Stricken with panic from the attack,

  The shouting of an unseen man;

  And being thankful Murrough found,

  Led by a footsole dipped in blood

  That had made prints upon the ground,

  Where by old thorn trees that man stood;

  And though when he gazed here and there,

  He had but gazed on thorn trees, spoke,

  “Who is the friend that seems but air

  And yet could give so fine a stroke?”

  Thereon a young man met his eye,

  Who said, “Because she held me in

  Her love, and would not have me die,

  Rock-nurtured Aoife took a pin,

  And pushing it into my shirt,

  Promised that for a pin’s sake,

  No man should see to do me hurt;

  But there it’s gone; I will not take

  The fortune that had been my shame

  Seeing, King’s son, what wounds you have.”

  ‘Twas roundly spoke, but when night came

  He had betrayed me to his grave,

  For he and the King’s son were dead.

  I’d promised him two hundred years,

  And when for all I’d done or said —

  And these immortal eyes shed tears —

  He claimed his country’s need was most,

  I’d save his life, yet for the sake

  Of a new friend he has turned a ghost.

  What does he care if my heart break?

  I call for spade and horse and hound

  That we may harry him.’ Thereon

  She cast herself upon the ground

  And rent her clothes and made her moan:

  ‘Why are they faithless when their might

  Is from the holy shades that rove

  The grey rock and the windy light?

  Why should the faithfullest heart most love

  The bitter sweetness of false faces?

  Why must the lasting love what passes,

  Why are the gods by men betrayed!’

  But thereon every god stood up

  With a slow smile and without sound,

  And stretching forth his arm and cup

  To where she moaned upon the ground,

  Suddenly drenched her to the skin;

  And she with Goban’s wine adrip,

  No more remembering what had been,

  Stared at the gods with laughing lip.

  I have kept my faith, though faith was tried,

  To that rock-born, rock-wandering foot,

  And the world’s altered since you died,

  And I am in no good repute

  With the loud host before the sea,

  That think sword strokes were better meant

  Than lover’s music — let that be,

  So that the wandering foot’s content.

  THE TWO KINGS

  King Eochaid came at sundown to a wood

  Westward of Tara. Hurrying to his queen

  He had out-ridden his war-wasted men

  That with empounded cattle trod the mire;

  And where beech trees had mixed a pale green light

  With the ground-ivy’s blue, he saw a stag

  Whiter than curds, its eyes the tint of the sea.

  Because it stood upon his path and seemed

  More hands in height than any stag in the world

  He sat with tightened rein and loosened mouth

  Upon his trembling horse, then drove the spur;

  But the stag stooped and ran at him, and passed,

  Rending the horse’s flank. King Eochaid reeled

  Then drew his sword to hold its levelled point

  Against the stag. When horn and steel were met

  The horn resounded as though it had been silver,

  A sweet, miraculous, terrifying sound.

  Horn locked in sword, they tugged and struggled there

  As though a stag and unicorn were met

  In Africa on Mountain of the Moon,

  Until at last the double horns, drawn backward,

  Butted below the single and so pierced

  The entrails of the horse. Dropping his sword

  King Eochaid seized the horns in his strong hands

  And stared into the sea-green eye, and so

  Hither and thither to and fro they trod

  Till all the place was beaten into mire.

  The strong thigh and the agile thigh were met,

  The hands that gathered up the might of the world,

  And hoof and horn that had sucked in their speed

  Amid the elaborate wilderness of the air.

  Through bush they plunged and over ivied root,

  And where the stone struck fire, while in the leaves

  A squirrel whinnied and a bird screamed out;

  But when at last he forced those sinewy flanks

  Against a beech bole, he threw down the beast

  And knelt above it with drawn knife. On the instant

  It vanished like a shadow, and a cry

  So mournful that it seemed the cry of one

  Who had lost some unimaginable treasure

  Wandered between the blue and the green leaf

  And climbed into the air, crumbling away,

  Till all had seemed a shadow or a vision

  But for the trodden mire, the pool of blood,

  The disembowelled horse.

  King Eochaid ran,

  Toward peopled Tara, nor stood to draw his breath

  Until he came before the painted wall,

  The posts of polished yew, circled with bronze,

  Of the great door; but though the hanging lamps

  Showed their faint light through the unshuttered windows,

  Nor door, nor mouth, nor slipper made a noise,

  Nor on the ancient beaten paths, that wound

  From well-side or from plough-land, was there noise;

  And there had been no sound of living thing

  Before him or behind, but that far-off

  On the horizon edge bellowed the herds.

  Knowing that silence brings no good to kings,

  And mocks returning victory, he passed

  Between the pillars with a beating heart

  And saw where in the midst of the great hall

  Pale-faced, alone upon a bench, Edain

  Sat upright with a sword before her feet.

  Her hands on either side had gripped the bench,

  Her eyes were cold and steady, her lips tight.

  Some passion had made her stone. Hearing a foot

  She started and then knew whose foot it was;

  But when he thought to take her in his arms

  She motioned him afar, and rose and spoke:

  ‘I have sent among the fields or to the woods

  The fighting men and servants of this house,

  For I would have your judgment upon one

  Who is self-accused. If she be innocent

  She would not look in any known man’s face

  Till judgment has been giv
en, and if guilty,

  Will never look again on known man’s face.’

  And at these words he paled, as she had paled,

  Knowing that he should find upon her lips

  The meaning of that monstrous day.

  Then she:

  ‘You brought me where your brother Ardan sat

  Always in his one seat, and bid me care him

  Through that strange illness that had fixed him there,

  And should he die to heap his burial mound

  And carve his name in Ogham.’ Eochaid said,

  ‘He lives?’ ‘He lives and is a healthy man.’

  ‘While I have him and you it matters little

  What man you have lost, what evil you have found.’

  ‘I bid them make his bed under this roof

  And carried him his food with my own hands,

  And so the weeks passed by. But when I said

  “What is this trouble?” he would answer nothing,

  Though always at my words his trouble grew;

  And I but asked the more, till he cried out,

  Weary of many questions: “There are things

  That make the heart akin to the dumb stone.”

  Then I replied: “Although you hide a secret,

  Hopeless and dear, or terrible to think on,

  Speak it, that I may send through the wide world

  For medicine.” Thereon he cried aloud:

  “Day after day you question me, and I,

  Because there is such a storm amid my thoughts

  I shall be carried in the gust, command,

  Forbid, beseech and waste my breath.” Then I,

  “Although the thing that you have hid were evil,

  The speaking of it could be no great wrong,

  And evil must it be, if done ‘twere worse

  Than mound and stone that keep all virtue in,

  And loosen on us dreams that waste our life,

  Shadows and shows that can but turn the brain.”

  But finding him still silent I stooped down

  And whispering that none but he should hear,

  Said: “If a woman has put this on you,

  My men, whether it please her or displease,

  And though they have to cross the Loughlan waters

  And take her in the middle of armed men,

  Shall make her look upon her handiwork,

  That she may quench the rick she has fired; and though

  She may have worn silk clothes, or worn a crown,

  She’ll not be proud, knowing within her heart

  That our sufficient portion of the world

  Is that we give, although it be brief giving,

  Happiness to children and to men.”

  Then he, driven by his thought beyond his thought,

  And speaking what he would not though he would,

  Sighed: “You, even you yourself, could work the cure!”

  And at those words I rose and I went out

  And for nine days he had food from other hands,

  And for nine days my mind went whirling round

  The one disastrous zodiac, muttering

  That the immedicable mound’s beyond

  Our questioning, beyond our pity even.

  But when nine days had gone I stood again

  Before his chair and bending down my head

  Told him, that when Orion rose, and all

  The women of his household were asleep,

  To go — for hope would give his limbs the power —

  To an old empty woodman’s house that’s hidden

  Close to a clump of beech trees in the wood

  Westward of Tara, there to await a friend

  That could, as he had told her, work his cure

  And would be no harsh friend.

  When night had deepened,

  I groped my way through boughs, and over roots,

  Till oak and hazel ceased and beech began,

  And found the house, a sputtering torch within,

  And stretched out sleeping on a pile of skins

  Ardan, and though I called to him and tried

  To shake him out of sleep, I could not rouse him.

  I waited till the night was on the turn,

  Then fearing that some labourer, on his way

  To plough or pasture-land, might see me there,

  Went out.

  Among the ivy-covered rocks,

  As on the blue light of a sword, a man

  Who had unnatural majesty, and eyes

  Like the eyes of some great kite scouring the woods,

  Stood on my path. Trembling from head to foot

  I gazed at him like grouse upon a kite;

  But with a voice that had unnatural music,

  “A weary wooing and a long,” he said,

  “Speaking of love through other lips and looking

  Under the eyelids of another, for it was my craft

  That put a passion in the sleeper there,

  And when I had got my will and drawn you here,

  Where I may speak to you alone, my craft

  Sucked up the passion out of him again

  And left mere sleep. He’ll wake when the sun wakes,

  Push out his vigorous limbs and rub his eyes,

  And wonder what has ailed him these twelve months.”

  I cowered back upon the wall in terror,

  But that sweet-sounding voice ran on: “Woman,

  I was your husband when you rode the air,

  Danced in the whirling foam and in the dust,

  In days you have not kept in memory,

  Being betrayed into a cradle, and I come

  That I may claim you as my wife again.”

  I was no longer terrified, his voice

  Had half awakened some old memory,

  Yet answered him: “I am King Eochaid’s wife

  And with him have found every happiness

  Women can find.” With a most masterful voice,

  That made the body seem as it were a string

  Under a bow, he cried: “What happiness

  Can lovers have that know their happiness

  Must end at the dumb stone? But where we build

  Our sudden palaces in the still air

  Pleasure itself can bring no weariness,

  Nor can time waste the cheek, nor is there foot

  That has grown weary of the whirling dance,

  Nor an unlaughing mouth, but mine that mourns,

  Among those mouths that sing their sweethearts’ praise,

  Your empty bed.” “How should I love,” I answered,

  “Were it not that when the dawn has lit my bed

  And shown my husband sleeping there, I have sighed,

  ‘Your strength and nobleness will pass away.’

  Or how should love be worth its pains were it not

  That when he has fallen asleep within my arms,

  Being wearied out, I love in man the child?

  What can they know of love that do not know

  She builds her nest upon a narrow ledge

  Above a windy precipice?” Then he:

  “Seeing that when you come to the death-bed

  You must return, whether you would or no,

  This human life blotted from memory,

  Why must I live some thirty, forty years,

  Alone with all this useless happiness?”

  Thereon he seized me in his arms, but I

  Thrust him away with both my hands and cried,

  “Never will I believe there is any change

  Can blot out of my memory this life

  Sweetened by death, but if I could believe

  That were a double hunger in my lips

  For what is doubly brief.”

  And now the shape,

  My hands were pressed to, vanished suddenly.

  I staggered, but a beech tree stayed my fall,

  And clinging to it I could hear the cocks

  Cro
w upon Tara.’

  King Eochaid bowed his head

  And thanked her for her kindness to his brother,

  For that she promised, and for that refused.

  Thereon the bellowing of the empounded herds

  Rose round the walls, and through the bronze-ringed door

  Jostled and shouted those war-wasted men,

  And in the midst King Eochaid’s brother stood.

  He’d heard that din on the horizon’s edge

  And ridden towards it, being ignorant.

  TO A WEALTHY MAN WHO PROMISED A SECOND SUBSCRIPTION TO THE DUBLIN MUNICIPAL GALLERY IF IT WERE PROVED THE PEOPLE WANTED PICTURES

  You gave but will not give again

  Until enough of Paudeen’s pence

  By Biddy’s halfpennies have lain

  To be ‘some sort of evidence,’

  Before you’ll put your guineas down,

  That things it were a pride to give

  Are what the blind and ignorant town

  Imagines best to make it thrive.

  What cared Duke Ercole, that bid

  His mummers to the market place,

  What th’ onion-sellers thought or did

  So that his Plautus set the pace

  For the Italian comedies?

  And Guidobaldo, when he made

  That grammar school of courtesies

  Where wit and beauty learned their trade

  Upon Urbino’s windy hill,

  Had sent no runners to and fro

  That he might learn the shepherds’ will.

  And when they drove out Cosimo,

  Indifferent how the rancour ran,

  He gave the hours they had set free

  To Michelozzo’s latest plan

  For the San Marco Library,

  Whence turbulent Italy should draw

  Delight in Art whose end is peace,

  In logic and in natural law

  By sucking at the dugs of Greece.

  Your open hand but shows our loss,

  For he knew better how to live.

  Let Paudeens play at pitch and toss,

  Look up in the sun’s eye and give

  What the exultant heart calls good

  That some new day may breed the best

  Because you gave, not what they would

  But the right twigs for an eagle’s nest!

  December 1912.

  SEPTEMBER 1913

  What need you, being come to sense,

  But fumble in a greasy till

  And add the halfpence to the pence

  And prayer to shivering prayer, until

  You have dried the marrow from the bone;

  For men were born to pray and save:

  Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,

  It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

  Yet they were of a different kind

  The names that stilled your childish play,