William Yeats - Poems

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,

"O saddest harp in all the world,

"Sleep there till the moon and the stars die!"

And now still sad we came to where

A beautiful young man dreamed within

A house of wattles, clay, and skin;

One hand upheld his beardless chin,

And one a sceptre flashing out

Wild flames of red and gold and blue,

Like to a merry wandering rout

Of dancers leaping in the air;

And men and maidens knelt them there

And showed their eyes with teardrops dim,

And with low murmurs prayed to him,

And kissed the sceptre with red lips,

And touched it with their finger-tips.

He held that flashing sceptre up.

"Joy drowns the twilight in the dew,

"And fills with stars night's purple cup,

"And wakes the sluggard seeds of corn,

"And stirs the young kid's budding horn.

"And makes the infant ferns unwrap,

"And for the peewit paints his cap,

"And rolls along the unwieldy sun,

"And makes the little planets run:

"And if joy were not on the earth,

"There were an end of change and birth,

"And earth and heaven and hell would die,

"And in some gloomy barrow lie

"Folded like a frozen fly;

"Then mock at Death and Time with glances

"And wavering arms and wandering dances.

"Men's hearts of old were drops of flame

"That from the saffron morning came,

"Or drops of silver joy that fell

"Out of the moon's pale twisted shell;

"But now hearts cry that hearts are slaves,

"And toss and turn in narrow caves;

"But here there is nor law nor rule,

"Nor have hands held a weary tool;

"And here there is nor Change nor Death,

"But only kind and merry breath,

"For joy is God and God is joy."

With one long glance on maid and boy

And the pale blossom of the moon,

He fell into a Druid swoon.

And in a wild and sudden dance

We mocked at Time and Fate and Chance

And swept out of the wattled hall

And came to where the dewdrops fall

Among the foamdrops of the sea,

And there we hushed the revelry;

And, gathering on our brows a frown,

Bent all our swaying bodies down,

And to the waves that glimmer by

That sloping green De Danaan sod

Sang "God is joy and joy is God.

"And things that have grown sad are wicked,

"And things that fear the dawn of the morrow

"Or the gray wandering osprey Sorrow."

We danced to where in the winding thicket

The damask roses, bloom on bloom,

Like crimson meteors hang in the gloom,

And bending over them softly said,

Bending over them in the dance,

With a swift and friendly glance

From dewy eyes: "Upon the dead

"Fall the leaves of other roses,

"On the dead dim earth encloses:

"But never, never on our graves,

"Heaped beside the glimmering waves,

"Shall fall the leaves of damask roses.

"For neither Death nor Change comes near us,

"And all listless hours fear us,

"And we fear no dawning morrow,

"Nor the gray wandering osprey Sorrow."

The dance wound through the windless woods;

The ever-summered solitudes;

Until the tossing arms grew still

Upon the woody central hill;

And, gathered in a panting band,

We flung on high each waving hand,

And sang unto the starry broods:

In our raised eyes there flashed a glow

Of milky brightness to and fro

As thus our song arose: "You stars,

"Across your wandering ruby cars

"Shake the loose reins: you slaves of God

"He rules you with an iron rod,

"He holds you with an iron bond,

"Each one woven to the other,

"Each one woven to his brother

"Like bubbles in a frozen pond;

"But we in a lonely land abide

"Unchainable as the dim tide,

"With hearts that know nor law nor rule,

"And hands that hold no wearisome tool

"Folded in love that fears no morrow,

"Nor the gray wandering osprey Sorrow."

O Patric! for a hundred years

I chased upon that woody shore

The deer, the badger, and the boar.

O Patric! for a hundred years

At evening on the glimmering sands,

Beside the piled-up hunting spears,

These now outworn and withered hands

Wrestled among the island bands.

O Patric! for a hundred years

We went a-fishing in long boats

With bending sterns and bending bows,

And carven figures on their prows

Of bitterns and fish-eating stoats.

O Patric! for a hundred years

The gentle Niam was my wife;

But now two things devour my life;

The things that most of all I hate;

Fasting and prayers.

S. PATRIC

Tell on.

USHEEN

Yes, yes,

For these were ancient Usheen's fate

Loosed long ago from heaven's gate,

For his last days to lie in wait.

When one day by the tide I stood,

I found in that forgetfulness

Of dreamy foam a staff of wood

From some dead warrior's broken lance:

I turned it in my hands; the stains

Of war were on it, and I wept,

Remembering how the Fenians stept

Along the blood-bedabbled plains,

Equal to good or grievous chance:

Thereon young Niam softly came

And caught my hands, but spake no word

Save only many times my name,

In murmurs, like a frighted bird.

We passed by woods, and lawns of clover,

And found the horse and bridled him,

For we knew well the old was over.

I heard one say "His eyes grow dim

"With all the ancient sorrow of men";

And wrapped in dreams rode out again

With hoofs of the pale findrinny

Over the glimmering purple sea:

Under the golden evening light.

The immortals moved among the fountains

By rivers and the woods' old night;

Some danced like shadows on the mountains,

Some wandered ever hand in hand,

Or sat in dreams on the pale strand;

Each forehead like an obscure star