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

Page 43

by W. B. Yeats


  “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.

  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 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?

  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.

  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 bows 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 among the water’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 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.”

  THE MADNESS OF KING GOLL

  I sat on cushioned otter skin:

  My word was law from Ith to Emen,

  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 a-flutter 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 gray 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 unhuman misery

  Our married voiced 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.

  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 gray 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.

  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.

  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.

 

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