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

by W. B. Yeats

  She laid them upon her bosom,

  Under a cloud of her hair,

  And her red lips sang them a love song:

  Till stars grew out of the air.

  She opened her door and her window,

  And the heart and the soul came through,

  To her right hand came the red one,

  To her left hand came the blue.

  They set up a noise like crickets,

  A chattering wise and sweet,

  And her hair was a folded flower

  And the quiet of love in her feet.

  THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG

  The dews drop slowly and dreams gather: unknown spears

  Suddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes,

  And then the clash of fallen horsemen and the cries

  Of unknown perishing armies beat about my ears.

  We who still labour by the cromlec on the shore,

  The grey cairn on the hill, when day sinks drowned in dew,

  Being weary of the world’s empires, bow down to you

  Master of the still stars and of the flaming door.

  MICHAEL ROBARTES ASKS FORGIVENESS BECAUSE OF HIS MANY MOODS

  If this importunate heart trouble your peace

  With words lighter than air,

  Or hopes that in mere hoping flicker and cease;

  Crumple the rose in your hair;

  And cover your lips with odorous twilight and say,

  ‘O Hearts of wind-blown flame!

  ‘O Winds, elder than changing of night and day,

  ‘That murmuring and longing came,

  ‘From marble cities loud with tabors of old

  ‘In dove-gray faery lands;

  ‘From battle banners fold upon purple fold,

  ‘Queens wrought with glimmering hands;

  ‘That saw young Niamh hover with love-lorn face

  ‘Above the wandering tide;

  ‘And lingered in the hidden desolate place,

  ‘Where the last Phoenix died

  ‘And wrapped the flames above his holy head;

  ‘And still murmur and long:

  ‘O Piteous Hearts, changing till change be dead

  ‘In a tumultuous song:’

  And cover the pale blossoms of your breast

  With your dim heavy hair,

  And trouble with a sigh for all things longing for rest

  The odorous twilight there.

  AEDH TELLS OF A VALLEY FULL OF LOVERS

  I dreamed that I stood in a valley, and amid sighs,

  For happy lovers passed two by two where I stood;

  And I dreamed my lost love came stealthily out of the wood

  With her cloud-pale eyelids falling on dream-dimmed eyes:

  I cried in my dream ‘O women bid the young men lay

  ‘Their heads on your knees, and drown their eyes with your hair,

  ‘Or remembering hers they will find no other face fair

  ‘Till all the valleys of the world have been withered away.’

  AEDH TELLS OF THE PERFECT BEAUTY

  O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes

  The poets labouring all their days

  To build a perfect beauty in rhyme

  Are overthrown by a woman’s gaze

  And by the unlabouring brood of the skies:

  And therefore my heart will bow, when dew

  Is dropping sleep, until God burn time,

  Before the unlabouring stars and you.

  AEDH HEARS THE CRY OF THE SEDGE

  I wander by the edge

  Of this desolate lake

  Where wind cries in the sedge

  Until the axle break

  That keeps the stars in their round

  And hands hurl in the deep

  The banners of East and West

  And the girdle of light is unbound,

  Your breast will not lie by the breast

  Of your beloved in sleep.

  AEDH THINKS OF THOSE WHO HAVE SPOKEN EVIL OF HIS BELOVED

  Half close your eyelids, loosen your hair,

  And dream about the great and their pride;

  They have spoken against you everywhere,

  But weigh this song with the great and their pride;

  I made it out of a mouthful of air,

  Their children’s children shall say they have lied.

  THE BLESSED

  Cumhal called out, bending his head,

  Till Dathi came and stood,

  With a blink in his eyes at the cave mouth,

  Between the wind and the wood.

  And Cumhal said, bending his knees,

  ‘I have come by the windy way

  ‘To gather the half of your blessedness

  ‘And learn to pray when you pray.

  ‘I can bring you salmon out of the streams

  ‘And heron out of the skies.’

  But Dathi folded his hands and smiled

  With the secrets of God in his eyes.

  And Cumhal saw like a drifting smoke

  All manner of blessed souls,

  Women and children, young men with books,

  And old men with croziers and stoles.

  ‘Praise God and God’s mother,’ Dathi said,

  ‘For God and God’s mother have sent

  ‘The blessedest souls that walk in the world

  ‘To fill your heart with content.’

  ‘And which is the blessedest,’ Cumhal said,

  ‘Where all are comely and good?

  ‘Is it these that with golden thuribles

  ‘Are singing about the wood?’

  ‘My eyes are blinking,’ Dathi said,

  ‘With the secrets of God half blind,

  ‘But I can see where the wind goes

  ‘And follow the way of the wind;

  ‘And blessedness goes where the wind goes,

  ‘And when it is gone we are dead;

  ‘I see the blessedest soul in the world

  ‘And he nods a drunken head.

  ‘O blessedness comes in the night and the day

  ‘And whither the wise heart knows;

  ‘And one has seen in the redness of wine

  ‘The Incorruptible Rose,

  ‘That drowsily drops faint leaves on him

  ‘And the sweetness of desire,

  ‘While time and the world are ebbing away

  ‘In twilights of dew and of fire.’

  THE SECRET ROSE

  Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose,

  Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those

  Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre,

  Or in the wine vat, dwell beyond the stir

  And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep

  Among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep

  Men have named beauty. Thy great leaves enfold

  The ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold

  Of the crowned Magi; and the king whose eyes

  Saw the Pierced Hands and Rood of elder rise

  In druid vapour and make the torches dim;

  Till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and him

  Who met Fand walking among flaming dew

  By a gray shore where the wind never blew,

  And lost the world and Emer for a kiss;

  And him who drove the gods out of their liss,

  And till a hundred morns had flowered red,

  Feasted and wept the barrows of his dead;

  And the proud dreaming king who flung the crown

  And sorrow away, and calling bard and clown

  Dwelt among wine-stained wanderers in deep woods;

  And him who sold tillage, and house, and goods,

  And sought through lands and islands numberless years,

  Until he found with laughter and with tears,

  A woman, of so shining loveliness,

  That men threshed corn at midnight by a tress,

  A little stolen tress. I, too, await

  The hour of thy great win
d of love and hate.

  When shall the stars be blown about the sky,

  Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die?

  Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows,

  Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose?

  HANRAHAN LAMENTS BECAUSE OF HIS WANDERINGS

  O where is our Mother of Peace

  Nodding her purple hood?

  For the winds that awakened the stars

  Are blowing through my blood.

  I would that the death-pale deer

  Had come through the mountain side,

  And trampled the mountain away,

  And drunk up the murmuring tide;

  For the winds that awakened the stars

  Are blowing through my blood,

  And our Mother of Peace has forgot me

  Under her purple hood.

  THE TRAVAIL OF PASSION

  When the flaming lute-thronged angelic door is wide;

  When an immortal passion breathes in mortal clay;

  Our hearts endure the scourge, the plaited thorns, the way

  Crowded with bitter faces, the wounds in palm and side,

  The hyssop-heavy sponge, the flowers by Kidron stream:

  We will bend down and loosen our hair over you,

  That it may drop faint perfume, and be heavy with dew,

  Lilies of death-pale hope, roses of passionate dream.

  THE POET PLEADS WITH HIS FRIEND FOR OLD FRIENDS

  Though you are in your shining days,

  Voices among the crowd

  And new friends busy with your praise,

  Be not unkind or proud,

  But think about old friends the most:

  Time’s bitter flood will rise,

  Your beauty perish and be lost

  For all eyes but these eyes.

  HANRAHAN SPEAKS TO THE LOVERS OF HIS SONGS IN COMING DAYS

  O, colleens, kneeling by your altar rails long hence,

  When songs I wove for my beloved hide the prayer,

  And smoke from this dead heart drifts through the violet air

  And covers away the smoke of myrrh and frankincense;

  Bend down and pray for the great sin I wove in song,

  Till Maurya of the wounded heart cry a sweet cry,

  And call to my beloved and me: ‘No longer fly

  ‘Amid the hovering, piteous, penitential throng.’

  AEDH PLEADS WITH THE ELEMENTAL POWERS

  The Powers whose name and shape no living creature knows

  Have pulled the Immortal Rose;

  And though the Seven Lights bowed in their dance and wept,

  The Polar Dragon slept,

  His heavy rings uncoiled from glimmering deep to deep:

  When will he wake from sleep?

  Great Powers of falling wave and wind and windy fire,

  With your harmonious choir

  Encircle her I love and sing her into peace,

  That my old care may cease;

  Unfold your flaming wings and cover out of sight

  The nets of day and night.

  Dim Powers of drowsy thought, let her no longer be

  Like the pale cup of the sea,

  When winds have gathered and sun and moon burned dim

  Above its cloudy rim;

  But let a gentle silence wrought with music flow

  Whither her footsteps go.

  AEDH WISHES HIS BELOVED WERE DEAD

  Were you but lying cold and dead,

  And lights were paling out of the West,

  You would come hither, and bend your head,

  And I would lay my head on your breast;

  And you would murmur tender words,

  Forgiving me, because you were dead:

  Nor would you rise and hasten away,

  Though you have the will of the wild birds,

  But know your hair was bound and wound

  About the stars and moon and sun:

  O would beloved that you lay

  Under the dock-leaves in the ground,

  While lights were paling one by one.

  AEDH WISHES FOR THE CLOTHS OF HEAVEN

  Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,

  Enwrought with golden and silver light,

  The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

  Of night and light and the half light,

  I would spread the cloths under your feet:

  But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

  I have spread my dreams under your feet;

  Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

  MONGAN THINKS OF HIS PAST GREATNESS

  I have drunk ale from the Country of the Young

  And weep because I know all things now:

  I have been a hazel tree and they hung

  The Pilot Star and the Crooked Plough

  Among my leaves in times out of mind:

  I became a rush that horses tread:

  I became a man, a hater of the wind,

  Knowing one, out of all things, alone, that his head

  Would not lie on the breast or his lips on the hair

  Of the woman that he loves, until he dies;

  Although the rushes and the fowl of the air

  Cry of his love with their pitiful cries.

  Poems from THE SHADOWY WATERS

  CONTENTS

  TO LADY GREGORY

  THE HARP OF AENGUS

  Please note: The Shadowy Waters is placed in the plays section of the eBook.

  TO LADY GREGORY

  I walked among the seven woods of Coole:

  Shan-walla, where a willow-hordered pond

  Gathers the wild duck from the winter dawn;

  Shady Kyle-dortha; sunnier Kyle-na-no,

  Where many hundred squirrels are as happy

  As though they had been hidden hy green houghs

  Where old age cannot find them; Paire-na-lee,

  Where hazel and ash and privet hlind the paths:

  Dim Pairc-na-carraig, where the wild bees fling

  Their sudden fragrances on the green air;

  Dim Pairc-na-tarav, where enchanted eyes

  Have seen immortal, mild, proud shadows walk;

  Dim Inchy wood, that hides badger and fox

  And marten-cat, and borders that old wood

  Wise Buddy Early called the wicked wood:

  Seven odours, seven murmurs, seven woods.

  I had not eyes like those enchanted eyes,

  Yet dreamed that beings happier than men

  Moved round me in the shadows, and at night

  My dreams were clown hy voices and by fires;

  And the images I have woven in this story

  Of Forgael and Dectora and the empty waters

  Moved round me in the voices and the fires,

  And more I may not write of, for they that cleave

  The waters of sleep can make a chattering tongue

  Heavy like stone, their wisdom being half silence.

  How shall I name you, immortal, mild, proud shadows?

  I only know that all we know comes from you,

  And that you come from Eden on flying feet.

  Is Eden far away, or do you hide

  From human thought, as hares and mice and coneys

  That run before the reaping-hook and lie

  In the last ridge of the barley? Do our woods

  And winds and ponds cover more quiet woods,

  More shining winds, more star-glimmering ponds?

  Is Eden out of time and out of space?

  And do you gather about us when pale light

  Shining on water and fallen among leaves,

  And winds blowing from flowers, and whirr of feathers

  And the green quiet, have uplifted the heart?

  I have made this poem for you, that men may read it

  Before they read of Forgael and Dectora,

  As men in the old times, before the harps began,

  Poured out wine for the high invis
ible ones.

  THE HARP OF AENGUS

  Edain came out of Midhir’s hill, and lay

  Beside young Aengus in his tower of glass,

  Where time is drowned in odour-laden winds

  And Druid moons, and murmuring of boughs,

  And sleepy boughs, and boughs where apples made

  Of opal and ruhy and pale chrysolite

  Awake unsleeping fires; and wove seven strings,

  Sweet with all music, out of his long hair,

  Because her hands had been made wild by love.

  When Midhir’s wife had changed her to a fly,

  He made a harp with Druid apple-wood

  That she among her winds might know he wept;

  And from that hour he has watched over none

  But faithful lovers.

  TWO NARRATIVE POEMS

  CONTENTS

  THE OLD AGE OF QUEEN MAEVE

  BAILE AND AILLINN

  THE OLD AGE OF QUEEN MAEVE

  A certain poet in outlandish clothes

  Gathered a crowd in some Byzantine lane,

  Talked1 of his country and its people, sang

  To some stringed instrument none there had seen,

  A wall behind his back, over his head

  A latticed window. His glance went up at time

  As though one listened there, and his voice sank

  Or let its meaning mix into the strings.

  MAEVE the great queen was pacing to and fro,

  Between the walls covered with beaten bronze,

  In her high house at Cruachan; the long hearth,

  Flickering with ash and hazel, but half showed

  Where the tired horse-boys lay upon the rushes,

  Or on the benches underneath the walls,

  In comfortable sleep; all living slept