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

by W. B. Yeats

  CONTENTS

  THE HOSTING OF THE SIDHE

  THE EVERLASTING VOICES

  THE MOODS

  AEDH TELLS OF THE ROSE IN HIS HEART

  THE HOST OF THE AIR

  BREASAL THE FISHERMAN

  A CRADLE SONG

  INTO THE TWILIGHT

  THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS

  THE SONG OF THE OLD MOTHER

  THE FIDDLER OF DOONEY

  THE HEART OF THE WOMAN

  AEDH LAMENTS THE LOSS OF LOVE

  MONGAN LAMENTS THE CHANGE THAT HAS COME UPON HIM AND HIS BELOVED

  MICHAEL ROBARTES BIDS HIS BELOVED BE AT PEACE

  HANRAHAN REPROVES THE CURLEW

  MICHAEL ROBARTES REMEMBERS FORGOTTEN BEAUTY

  A POET TO HIS BELOVED

  AEDH GIVES HIS BELOVED CERTAIN RHYMES

  TO MY HEART, BIDDING IT HAVE NO FEAR

  THE CAP AND BELLS

  THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG

  MICHAEL ROBARTES ASKS FORGIVENESS BECAUSE OF HIS MANY MOODS

  AEDH TELLS OF A VALLEY FULL OF LOVERS

  AEDH TELLS OF THE PERFECT BEAUTY

  AEDH HEARS THE CRY OF THE SEDGE

  AEDH THINKS OF THOSE WHO HAVE SPOKEN EVIL OF HIS BELOVED

  THE BLESSED

  THE SECRET ROSE

  HANRAHAN LAMENTS BECAUSE OF HIS WANDERINGS

  THE TRAVAIL OF PASSION

  THE POET PLEADS WITH HIS FRIEND FOR OLD FRIENDS

  HANRAHAN SPEAKS TO THE LOVERS OF HIS SONGS IN COMING DAYS

  AEDH PLEADS WITH THE ELEMENTAL POWERS

  AEDH WISHES HIS BELOVED WERE DEAD

  AEDH WISHES FOR THE CLOTHS OF HEAVEN

  MONGAN THINKS OF HIS PAST GREATNESS

  The first edition

  THE HOSTING OF THE SIDHE

  The host is riding from Knocknarea

  And over the grave of Clooth-na-bare;

  Caolte tossing his burning hair

  And Niamh calling Away, come away:

  Empty your heart of its mortal dream.

  The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round,

  Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound,

  Our breasts are heaving, our eyes are a-gleam,

  Our arms are waving, our lips are apart;

  And if any gaze on our rushing band,

  We come between him and the deed of his hand,

  We come between him and the hope of his heart.

  The host is rushing ‘twixt night and day,

  And where is there hope or deed as fair?

  Caolte tossing his burning hair,

  And Niamh calling Away, come away.

  THE EVERLASTING VOICES

  O sweet everlasting Voices be still;

  Go to the guards of the heavenly fold

  And bid them wander obeying your will

  Flame under flame, till Time be no more;

  Have you not heard that our hearts are old,

  That you call in birds, in wind on the hill,

  In shaken boughs, in tide on the shore?

  O sweet everlasting Voices be still.

  THE MOODS

  Time drops in decay,

  Like a candle burnt out,

  And the mountains and woods

  Have their day, have their day;

  What one in the rout

  Of the fire-born moods,

  Has fallen away?

  AEDH TELLS OF THE ROSE IN HIS HEART

  All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,

  The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart,

  The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould,

  Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.

  The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told;

  I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart,

  With the earth and the sky and the water, remade, like a casket of gold

  For my dreams of your image that blossoms

  a rose in the deeps of my heart.

  THE HOST OF THE AIR

  O’Driscoll drove with a song,

  The wild duck and the drake,

  From the tall and the tufted reeds

  Of the drear Hart Lake.

  And he saw how the reeds grew dark

  At the coming of night tide,

  And dreamed of the long dim hair

  Of Bridget his bride.

  He heard while he sang and dreamed

  A piper piping away,

  And never was piping so sad,

  And never was piping so gay.

  And he saw young men and young girls

  Who danced on a level place

  And Bridget his bride among them,

  With a sad and a gay face.

  The dancers crowded about him,

  And many a sweet thing said,

  And a young man brought him red wine

  And a young girl white bread.

  But Bridget drew him by the sleeve,

  Away from the merry bands,

  To old men playing at cards

  With a twinkling of ancient hands.

  The bread and the wine had a doom,

  For these were the host of the air;

  He sat and played in a dream

  Of her long dim hair.

  He played with the merry old men

  And thought not of evil chance,

  Until one bore Bridget his bride

  Away from the merry dance.

  He bore her away in his arms,

  The handsomest young man there,

  And his neck and his breast and his arms

  Were drowned in her long dim hair.

  O’Driscoll scattered the cards

  And out of his dream awoke:

  Old men and young men and young girls

  Were gone like a drifting smoke;

  But he heard high up in the air

  A piper piping away,

  And never was piping so sad,

  And never was piping so gay.

  BREASAL THE FISHERMAN

  Although you hide in the ebb and flow

  Of the pale tide when the moon has set,

  The people of coming days will know

  About the casting out of my net,

  And how you have leaped times out of mind

  Over the little silver cords,

  And think that you were hard and unkind,

  And blame you with many bitter words.

  A CRADLE SONG

  The Danann children laugh, in cradles of wrought gold,

  And clap their hands together, and half close their eyes,

  For they will ride the North when the ger-eagle flies,

  With heavy whitening wings, and a heart fallen cold:

  I kiss my wailing child and press it to my breast,

  And hear the narrow graves calling my child and me.

  Desolate winds that cry over the wandering sea;

  Desolate winds that hover in the flaming West;

  Desolate winds that beat the doors of Heaven, and beat

  The doors of Hell and blow there many a whimpering ghost;

  O heart the winds have shaken; the unappeasable host

  Is comelier than candles before Maurya’s feet.

  INTO THE TWILIGHT

  Out-worn heart, in a time out-worn,

  Come clear of the nets of wrong and right;

  Laugh heart again in the gray twilight,

  Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn.

  Your mother Eire is always young,

  Dew ever shining and twilight gray;

  Though hope fall from you and love decay,

  Burning in fires of a slanderous tongue.

  Come, heart, where hill is heaped upon hill:

  For there the mystical brotherhood

  Of sun and moon and hollow and wood

  And river and stream work out their will;

  And God stands winding His lonely horn,

  And time and the world
are ever in flight;

  And love is less kind than the gray twilight,

  And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn.

  THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS

  I went out to the hazel wood,

  Because a fire was in my head,

  And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

  And hooked a berry to a thread;

  And when white moths were on the wing,

  And moth-like stars were flickering out,

  I dropped the berry in a stream

  And caught a little silver trout.

  When I had laid it on the floor

  I went to blow the fire a-flame,

  But something rustled on the floor,

  And someone called me by my name:

  It had become a glimmering girl

  With apple blossom in her hair

  Who called me by my name and ran

  And faded through the brightening air.

  Though I am old with wandering

  Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

  I will find out where she has gone,

  And kiss her lips and take her hands;

  And walk among long dappled grass,

  And pluck till time and times are done,

  The silver apples of the moon,

  The golden apples of the sun.

  THE SONG OF THE OLD MOTHER

  I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow

  Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow;

  And then I must scrub and bake and sweep

  Till stars are beginning to blink and peep;

  And the young lie long and dream in their bed

  Of the matching of ribbons for bosom and head,

  And their day goes over in idleness,

  And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress:

  While I must work because I am old,

  And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold.

  THE FIDDLER OF DOONEY

  When I play on my fiddle in Dooney,

  Folk dance like a wave of the sea;

  My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet,

  My brother in Moharabuiee.

  I passed my brother and cousin:

  They read in their books of prayer;

  I read in my book of songs

  I bought at the Sligo fair.

  When we come at the end of time,

  To Peter sitting in state,

  He will smile on the three old spirits,

  But call me first through the gate;

  For the good are always the merry,

  Save by an evil chance,

  And the merry love the fiddle

  And the merry love to dance:

  And when the folk there spy me,

  They will all come up to me,

  With ‘Here is the fiddler of Dooney!’

  And dance like a wave of the sea.

  THE HEART OF THE WOMAN

  O what to me the little room

  That was brimmed up with prayer and rest;

  He bade me out into the gloom,

  And my breast lies upon his breast.

  O what to me my mother’s care,

  The house where I was safe and warm;

  The shadowy blossom of my hair

  Will hide us from the bitter storm.

  O hiding hair and dewy eyes,

  I am no more with life and death,

  My heart upon his warm heart lies,

  My breath is mixed into his breath.

  AEDH LAMENTS THE LOSS OF LOVE

  Pale brows, still hands and dim hair,

  I had a beautiful friend

  And dreamed that the old despair

  Would end in love in the end:

  She looked in my heart one day

  And saw your image was there;

  She has gone weeping away.

  MONGAN LAMENTS THE CHANGE THAT HAS COME UPON HIM AND HIS BELOVED

  Do you not hear me calling, white deer with no horns!

  I have been changed to a hound with one red ear;

  I have been in the Path of Stones and the Wood of Thorns,

  For somebody hid hatred and hope and desire and fear

  Under my feet that they follow you night and day.

  A man with a hazel wand came without sound;

  He changed me suddenly; I was looking another way;

  And now my calling is but the calling of a hound;

  And Time and Birth and Change are hurrying by.

  I would that the boar without bristles had come from the West

  And had rooted the sun and moon and stars out of the sky

  And lay in the darkness, grunting, and turning to his rest.

  MICHAEL ROBARTES BIDS HIS BELOVED BE AT PEACE

  I hear the Shadowy Horses, their long manes a-shake,

  Their hoofs heavy with tumult, their eyes glimmering white;

  The North unfolds above them clinging, creeping night,

  The East her hidden joy before the morning break,

  The West weeps in pale dew and sighs passing away,

  The South is pouring down roses of crimson fire:

  O vanity of Sleep, Hope, Dream, endless Desire,

  The Horses of Disaster plunge in the heavy clay:

  Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat

  Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast,

  Drowning love’s lonely hour in deep twilight of rest,

  And hiding their tossing manes and their tumultuous feet.

  HANRAHAN REPROVES THE CURLEW

  O, curlew, cry no more in the air,

  Or only to the waters in the West;

  Because your crying brings to my mind

  Passion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hair

  That was shaken out over my breast:

  There is enough evil in the crying of wind.

  MICHAEL ROBARTES REMEMBERS FORGOTTEN BEAUTY

  When my arms wrap you round I press

  My heart upon the loveliness

  That has long faded from the world;

  The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled

  In shadowy pools, when armies fled;

  The love-tales wove with silken thread

  By dreaming ladies upon cloth

  That has made fat the murderous moth;

  The roses that of old time were

  Woven by ladies in their hair,

  The dew-cold lilies ladies bore

  Through many a sacred corridor

  Where such gray clouds of incense rose

  That only the gods’ eyes did not close:

  For that pale breast and lingering hand

  Come from a more dream-heavy land,

  A more dream-heavy hour than this;

  And when you sigh from kiss to kiss

  I hear white Beauty sighing, too,

  For hours when all must fade like dew

  But flame on flame, deep under deep,

  Throne over throne, where in half sleep

  Their swords upon their iron knees

  Brood her high lonely mysteries.

  A POET TO HIS BELOVED

  I bring you with reverent hands

  The books of my numberless dreams;

  White woman that passion has worn

  As the tide wears the dove-gray sands,

  And with heart more old than the horn

  That is brimmed from the pale fire of time:

  White woman with numberless dreams

  I bring you my passionate rhyme.

  AEDH GIVES HIS BELOVED CERTAIN RHYMES

  Fasten your hair with a golden pin,

  And bind up every wandering tress;

  I bade my heart build these poor rhymes:

  It worked at them, day out, day in,

  Building a sorrowful loveliness

  Out of the battles of old times.

  You need but lift a pearl-pale hand,

  And bind up your long hair and sigh;

  And all men’s hearts must burn and beat;

  And candle-like f
oam on the dim sand,

  And stars climbing the dew-dropping sky,

  Live but to light your passing feet.

  TO MY HEART, BIDDING IT HAVE NO FEAR

  Be you still, be you still, trembling heart;

  Remember the wisdom out of the old days:

  Him who trembles before the flame and the flood,

  And the winds that blow through the starry ways,

  Let the starry winds and the flame and the flood

  Cover over and hide, for he has no part

  With the proud, majestical multitude.

  THE CAP AND BELLS

  The jester walked in the garden:

  The garden had fallen still;

  He bade his soul rise upward

  And stand on her window-sill.

  It rose in a straight blue garment,

  When owls began to call:

  It had grown wise-tongued by thinking

  Of a quiet and light footfall;

  But the young queen would not listen;

  She rose in her pale night gown;

  She drew in the heavy casement

  And pushed the latches down.

  He bade his heart go to her,

  When the owls called out no more;

  In a red and quivering garment

  It sang to her through the door.

  It had grown sweet-tongued by dreaming,

  Of a flutter of flower-like hair;

  But she took up her fan from the table

  And waved it off on the air.

  ‘I have cap and bells,’ he pondered,

  ‘I will send them to her and die;’

  And when the morning whitened

  He left them where she went by.