Delphi Complete Poetry and Plays of W. B. Yeats (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)
Page 1
W. B. YEATS
(1865–1939)
Contents
The Poetry Collections
THE WANDERINGS OF OISIN AND OTHER POEMS
THE COUNTESS KATHLEEN AND VARIOUS LEGENDS AND LYRICS
THE WIND AMONG THE REEDS
Poems from THE SHADOWY WATERS
TWO NARRATIVE POEMS
IN THE SEVEN WOODS
THE GREEN HELMET AND OTHER POEMS
RESPONSIBILITIES
THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE
MICHAEL ROBARTES AND THE DANCER
THE TOWER
THE WINDING STAIR AND OTHER POEMS
PARNELL’S FUNERAL AND OTHER POEMS
NEW POEMS, 1938
Poems from ON THE BOILER
LAST POEMS
The Poems
LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
The Plays
THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN
THE LAND OF HEART’S DESIRE
DIARMUID AND GRANIA
WHERE THERE IS NOTHING
CATHLEEN NI HOULIHAN
THE HOUR-GLASS
THE POT OF BROTH
THE KING’S THRESHOLD
ON BAILE’S STRAND
DEIRDRE
THE UNICORN FROM THE STARS
THE GREEN HELMET
THE SHADOWY WATERS
THE HOUR-GLASS (VERSE VERSION)
AT THE HAWK’S WELL
THE DREAMING OF THE BONES
THE ONLY JEALOUSY OF EMER
CALVARY
THE PLAYER QUEEN
KING OEDIPUS
OEDIPUS AT COLONUS
THE CAT AND THE MOON
FIGHTING THE WAVES
THE WORDS UPON THE WINDOW-PANE
THE RESURRECTION
THE KING OF THE GREAT CLOCK TOWER
A FULL MOON IN MARCH
THE HERNE’S EGG
PURGATORY
THE DEATH OF CUCHULAIN
The Autobiographies
REVERIES OVER CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
THE TREMBLING OF THE VEIL
DRAMATIS PERSONAE 1896-1902
ESTRANGEMENT EXTRACTS FROM A DIARY KEPT IN 1909
THE DEATH OF SYNGE EXTRACTS FROM A DIARY KEPT IN 1909
THE BOUNTY OF SWEDEN
THE IRISH DRAMATIC MOVEMENT
© Delphi Classics 2012
Version 1
W. B. YEATS
By Delphi Classics, 2012
NOTE
When reading poetry on an eReader, it is advisable to use a small font size, which will allow the lines of poetry to display correctly.
The Poetry Collections
Sandymount, County Dublin — Yeats’ birthplace, 1911
Yeats’ birthplace today
Yeats’ father was an artist and in 1900 he painted this portrait of his son.
Yeats’ parents
THE WANDERINGS OF OISIN AND OTHER POEMS
Yeats’ first poetry collection was published in 1889, with poems dating as far back as the mid-1880s. The title piece, which is Yeats’ longest narrative poem, concerns characters from the Fenian Cycle of Irish mythology, revealing how Yeats was influenced by Sir Samuel Ferguson and the Pre-Raphaelite poets of the time. The poem took two years to complete and was one of the few works from this period that the poet did not disown in his maturity. Oisin represents one of Yeats’ most important themes: the preference of a life of contemplation over a life of action. Following the publication of The Wanderings Of Oisin, Yeats never again attempted a long poem.
In the narrative, the fairy princess Niamh falls in love with Oisin's poetry and begs him to join her in the immortal islands. For a hundred years he lives as one of the Sidhe, while hunting, dancing and feasting. At the end of this time he finds a spear washed up on the shore, which evokes sad feelings as he remembers his previous life, heralding the beginning of his wanderings.
The poetry collection also contains short poems, which are meditations on the themes of love and mystical subjects, and they were later collected under the title Crossways.
The first edition
CONTENTS
THE WANDERINGS OF USHEEN
THE SONG OF THE HAPPY SHEPHERD
THE SAD SHEPHERD
THE CLOAK, THE BOAT, AND THE SHOES
ANASHUYA AND VIJAYA
THE INDIAN UPON GOD
THE INDIAN TO HIS LOVE
THE FALLING OF THE LEAVES
EPHEMERA
THE MADNESS OF KING GOLL
THE STOLEN CHILD
TO AN ISLE IN THE WATER
DOWN BY THE SALLEY GARDENS
THE MEDITATION OF THE OLD FISHERMAN
THE BALLAD OF FATHER O’HART
THE BALLAD OF MOLL MAGEE
THE BALLAD OF THE FOXHUNTER
Yeats, in the year when his first poetry collection was published
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. PATRIC
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
&nb
sp; “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,
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,
And swans with their exultant throats:
And where the wood and waters meet
We tied the horse in a leafy clump,
And Niam blew three merry notes
Out of a little silver trump;
And then an answering whispering flew
Over the bare and woody land,
A whisper of impetuous feet,
And ever nearer, nearer grew;
And from the woods rushed out a band
Of men and maidens, hand in hand,
And singing, singing altogether;
Their brows
were white as fragrant milk,
Their cloaks made out of yellow silk,
And trimmed with many a crimson feather:
And when they saw the cloak I wore
Was dim with mire of a mortal shore,
They fingered it and gazed on me
And laughed like murmurs of the sea;
But Niam with a swift distress
Bid them away and hold their peace;
And when they heard her voice they ran
And knelt them, every maid and man
And kissed, as they would never cease,
Her pearl-pale hand and the hem of her dress.
She bade them bring us to the hall
Where Aengus dreams, from sun to sun,
A Druid dream of the end of days
When the stars are to wane and the world be done.
They led us by long and shadowy ways
Where drops of dew in myriads fall,
And tangled creepers every hour
Blossom in some new crimson flower,
And once a sudden laughter sprang
From all their lips, and once they sang
Together, while the dark woods rang,
And made in all their distant parts,
With boom of bees in honey marts,
A rumour of delighted hearts.
And once a maiden by my side
Gave me a harp, and bid me sing,
And touch the laughing silver string;
But when I sang of human joy
A sorrow wrapped each merry face,
And, Patric! by your beard, they wept,
Until one came, a tearful boy;
“A sadder creature never stept
“Than this strange human bard,” he cried;
And caught the silver harp away,
And, weeping over the white strings, hurled
It down in a leaf-hid, hollow place
That kept dim waters from the sky;
And each one said, with a long, long sigh,