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

by W. B. Yeats

  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.

  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.

  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 any one 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.

  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.

  THE BALLAD OF THE FOXHUNTER

  “Now lay me in a cushioned chair

  “And carry me, you four,

  “With cushions here and cushions there,

  “To see the world once more.

  “And some one from the stables bring

  “My Dermot dear and brown,

  “And lead him gently in a ring,

  “And gently up and down.

  “Now leave the chair upon the grass:

  “Bring hound and huntsman here,

  “And I on this strange road will pass,

  “Filled full of ancient cheer.”

  His eyelids droop, his head falls low,

  His old eyes cloud with dreams;

  The sun upon all things that grow

  Pours round in sleepy streams.

  Brown Dermot 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.

  “My huntsman, Rody, blow the horn,

  “And make the hills reply.”

  The huntsman loosens on the morn

  A gay and wandering cry.

  A fire is in the old man’s eyes,

  His fingers move and sway,

  And when the wandering music dies

  They hear him feebly say,

  “My huntsman, Rody, blow the horn,

  “And make the hills reply.”

  “I cannot blow upon my horn,

  “I can but weep and sigh.”

  The servants round his cushioned place

  Are with new sorrow wrung;

  And hounds are gazing on his face,

  Both 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.

  THE WANDERINGS OF USHEEN

  “Give me the world if Thou wilt, but grant me an asylum for my affections.”

  Tulka.

  To

  EDWIN J. ELLIS

  BOOK I

  S. P
ATRIC

  You who are bent, and bald, and blind,

  With a heavy heart and a wandering mind,

  Have known three centuries, poets sing,

  Of dalliance with a demon thing.

  USHEEN

  Sad to remember, sick with years,

  The swift innumerable spears,

  The horsemen with their floating hair,

  And bowls of barley, honey, and wine,

  And feet of maidens dancing in tune,

  And the white body that lay by mine;

  But the tale, though words be lighter than air,

  Must live to be old like the wandering moon.

  Caolte, and Conan, and Finn were there,

  When we followed a deer with our baying hounds,

  With Bran, Sgeolan, and Lomair,

  And passing the Firbolgs’ burial mounds,

  Came to the cairn-heaped grassy hill

  Where passionate Maive is stony still;

  And found on the dove-gray edge of the sea

  A pearl-pale, high-born lady, who rode

  On a horse with bridle of findrinny;

  And like a sunset were her lips,

  A stormy sunset on doomed ships;

  A citron colour gloomed in her hair,

  But down to her feet white vesture flowed,

  And with the glimmering crimson glowed

  Of many a figured embroidery;

  And it was bound with a pearl-pale shell

  That wavered like the summer streams,

  As her soft bosom rose and fell.

  S. PATRIC

  You are still wrecked among heathen dreams.

  USHEEN

  “Why do you wind no horn?” she said.

  “And every hero droop his head?

  “The hornless deer is not more sad

  “That many a peaceful moment had,

  “More sleek than any granary mouse,

  “In his own leafy forest house

  “Among the waving fields of fern:

  “The hunting of heroes should be glad.”

  “O pleasant woman,” answered Finn,

  “We think on Oscar’s pencilled urn,

  “And on the heroes lying slain,

  On Gavra’s raven-covered plain;

  “But where are your noble kith and kin,

  “And from what country do you ride?”

  “My father and my mother are

  “Aengus and Adene, my own name

  “Niam, and my country far

  “Beyond the tumbling of this tide.”

  “What dream came with you that you came

  “Through bitter tide on foam wet feet?

  “Did your companion wander away

  “From where the birds of Aengus wing?”

  She said, with laughter tender and sweet:

  “I have not yet, war-weary king,

  “Been spoken of with any one;

  “Yet now I choose, for these four feet

  “Ran through the foam and ran to this

  “That I might have your son to kiss.”

  “Were there no better than my son

  “That you through all that foam should run?”

  “I loved no man, though kings besought

  “Love, till the Danaan poets brought

  “Rhyme, that rhymed to Usheen’s name,

  “And now I am dizzy with the thought

  “Of all that wisdom and the fame

  “Of battles broken by his hands,

  “Of stories builded by his words

  “That are like coloured Asian birds

  “At evening in their rainless lands.”

  O Patric, by your brazen bell,

  There was no limb of mine but fell

  Into a desperate gulph of love!

  “You only will I wed,” I cried,

  “And I will make a thousand songs,

  “And set your name all names above.

  “And captives bound with leathern thongs

  “Shall kneel and praise you, one by one,

  “At evening in my western dun.”

  “O Usheen, mount by me and ride

  “To shores by the wash of the tremulous tide,

  “Where men have heaped no burial mounds,

  “And the days pass by like a wayward tune,

  “Where broken faith has never been known,

  “And the blushes of first love never have flown;

  “And there I will give you a hundred hounds;

  “No mightier creatures bay at the moon;

  “And a hundred robes of murmuring silk,

  “And a hundred calves and a hundred sheep

  “Whose long wool whiter than sea froth flows,

  “And a hundred spears and a hundred bows,

  “And oil and wine and honey and milk,

  “And always never-anxious sleep;

  “While a hundred youths, mighty of limb,

  “But knowing nor tumult nor hate nor strife,

  “And a hundred maidens, merry as birds,

  “Who when they dance to a fitful measure

  “Have a speed like the speed of the salmon herds,

  “Shall follow your horn and obey your whim,

  “And you shall know the Danaan leisure:

  “And Niam be with you for a wife.”

  Then she sighed gently, “It grows late,

  “Music and love and sleep await,

  “Where I would be when the white moon climbs

  “The red sun falls, and the world grows dim.”

  And then I mounted and she bound me

  With her triumphing arms around me,

  And whispering to herself enwound me;

  But when the horse had felt my weight,

  He shook himself and neighed three times:

  Caolte, Conan, and Finn came near,

  And wept, and raised their lamenting hands,

  And bid me stay, with many a tear;

  But we rode out from the human lands.

  In what far kingdom do you go,

  Ah, Fenians, with the shield and bow?

  Or are you phantoms white as snow,

  Whose lips had life’s most prosperous glow?

  O you, with whom in sloping valleys,

  Or down the dewy forest alleys,

  I chased at morn the flying deer,

  With whom I hurled the hurrying spear,

  And heard the foemen’s bucklers rattle,

  And broke the heaving ranks of battle!

  And Bran, Sgeolan, and Lomair,

  Where are you with your long rough hair?

  You go not where the red deer feeds,

  Nor tear the foemen from their steeds.

  S. PATRIC

  Boast not, nor mourn with drooping head

  Companions long accurst and dead,

  And hounds for centuries dust and air.

  USHEEN

  We galloped over the glossy sea:

  I know not if days passed or hours,

  And Niam sang continually

  Danaan songs, and their dewy showers

  Of pensive laughter, unhuman sound,

  Lulled weariness, and softly round

  My human sorrow her white arms wound.

  We galloped; now a hornless deer

  Passed by us, chased by a phantom hound

  All pearly white, save one red ear;

  And now a maiden rode like the wind

  With an apple of gold in her tossing hand;

  And a beautiful young man followed behind

  With quenchless gaze and fluttering hair.

  “Were these two born in the Danaan land,

  “Or have they breathed the mortal air?”

  “Vex them no longer,” Niam said,

  And sighing bowed her gentle head,

  And sighing laid the pearly tip

  Of one long finger on my lip.

  But now the moon like a white rose shone

  In the pale west, and the sun’s rim sank,

&nb
sp; And clouds arrayed their rank on rank

  About his fading crimson ball:

  The floor of Emen’s hosting hall

  Was not more level than the sea,

  As full of loving phantasy,

  And with low murmurs we rode on,

  Where many a trumpet-twisted shell

  That in immortal silence sleeps

  Dreaming of her own melting hues,

  Her golds, her ambers, and her blues,

  Pierced with soft light the shallowing deeps.

  But now a wandering land breeze came

  And a far sound of feathery quires;

  It seemed to blow from the dying flame,

  They seemed to sing in the smouldering fires.

  The horse towards the music raced,

  Neighing along the lifeless waste;

  Like sooty fingers, many a tree

  Rose ever out of the warm sea;

  And they were trembling ceaselessly,

  As though they all were beating time,

  Upon the centre of the sun,

  To that low laughing woodland rhyme.

  And, now our wandering hours were done,

  We cantered to the shore, and knew

  The reason of the trembling trees:

  Round every branch the song-birds flew,

  Or clung thereon like swarming bees;

  While round the shore a million stood

  Like drops of frozen rainbow light,

  And pondered in a soft vain mood

  Upon their shadows in the tide,

  And told the purple deeps their pride,

  And murmured snatches of delight;

  And on the shores were many boats

  With bending sterns and bending bows.

  And carven figures on their prows

  Of bitterns, and fish-eating stoats,