William Butler Yeats

“When one gets quiet, then something wakes up inside one, something happy and quiet like the stars.”

“It takes more courage to examine the dark corners of your own soul than it does for a soldier to fight on a battlefield”

“When I think of life as struggle with the Daimon who would ever set us to the hardest work among those not impossible, I understand why there is a deep enmity between a man and his destiny, and why a man loves nothing but his destiny.”

“And what if excess of loveBewildered them till they died?”

“Romantic Ireland's dead and goneIt's with O' Leary in the grave(September 1913)”

“Too long a sacrificeCan make a stone of the heart.Oh, when may it suffice?”

“Now as to magic. It is surely absurd to hold me “weak” or otherwise because I choose to persist in a study which I decided deliberately four or five years ago to make, next to my poetry, the most important pursuit of my life…If I had not made magic my constant study I could not have written a single word of my Blake book [The Works of William Blake, with Edwin Ellis, 1893], nor would The Countess Kathleen [stage play, 1892] have ever come to exist. The mystical life is the center of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write.”

“One that is ever kind said yesterday:'Your well-beloved's hair has threads of grey,And little shadows come about her eyes;Time can but make it easier to be wiseThough now it seems impossible, and soAll that you need is patience.'Heart cries, 'No,I have not a crumb of comfort, not a grain.Time can but make her beauty over again:Because of that great nobleness of hersThe fire that stirs about her, when she stirs,Burns but more clearly. O she had not these waysWhen all the wild Summer was in her gaze.' Heart! O heart! if she'd but turn her head,You'd know the folly of being comforted!”

“But he heard high up in the airA piper piping away,And never was piping so sad,And never was piping so gay.”

“Tread softly because you tread on my dreams”

“They must go out of the theatre with the strength they live by strengthened from looking upon some passion that could, whatever its chosen way of life, strike down an enemy, fill a long stocking with money or move a girl's heart.”

“What's the use of held note or a held lineThat cannot be assailed for reassurance?”

“Chance and Destiny have between them woven two-thirds of all history, and of the history of Ireland wellnigh the whole. The literature of a nation, on the other hand, is spun out of its heart. If you would know Ireland - body and soul - you must read its poems and stories. They came into existence to please nobody but the people of Ireland. Government did not make them on the one hand, nor bad seasons on the other. They are Ireland talking to herself.”

“Fairies in Ireland are sometimes as big as we are, sometimes bigger, and sometimes, as I have been told, about three feet high.”

“I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping...I hear it in the deep heart's core.”

“Man can embody the truth but he cannot know it.”

“Gdy klęska stanie przed tobą,Wysłuchaj prawdy w milczeniu,Bo jakze równać ze sobąCzłowieka, w którego sumieniuPojawić się nie możeNajmniejsze wstydu znamię,Gdy ty, wychowany w honorze,Potrafisz dowieść, że kłamie?W trudniejszym ćwiczony męstwie,Na Triumf spojrzyj ze wzgardą,I bądź jak struna, w szaleństwieZmuszana do śmiechu przez bardaWewnątrz budowli z kamienia,Bowiem najtrudniej na świecieZwyciężać pośród milczeniaI cieszyć się z tego w sekrecie.”

“Twe oczy, którym nigdy nie dość było moich,Pochyliły się w smutku za powiek zasłoną,Bo nasza miłość pierzchnie."Wtedy ona rzecze:"Choć to prawda, że nasza miłość pierzchnie, stańmyJeszcze raz na samotnym wybrzeżu jeziora,Obok siebie, w godzinie wielkiej łagodności,Kiedy znużone dziecko, Namiętność, zasypia,Jak dalekie są gwiazdy. Pierwszy pocałunekJak daleki. I jakże stare moje serce!"Zamyśleni kroczyli przez uwiędłe liście,A potem on, trzymając jej rękę w swej dłoni,Powiedział z wolna: "Pomyśl, te serca wędrowne,Nasze serca, Namiętność nieraz utrudziła."Lasy były dokoła. I pożółkłe liścieJak blade meteory przez półmrok spadały.Stary, kulawy królik kuśtykal po ścieżce.Jesień była nad nimi. I oto stanęliJeszcze raz na samotnym wybrzeżu jeziora.Obróciwszy się, ujrzał, jak umarłe liście -Wilgotne jak jej oczy - w milczeniu zebrane,Rozrzuciła na piersiach i włosach swych."Nie płacz,żeśmy znużeni. Inne miłości spotkamy.Wciąż nienawiść i miłość, bez kresu i żalu.Przed nami leży wieczność cała. Nasze duszeMiłością są i nieustannym pożegnaniem.”

“ITo nie jest kraj dla starych ludzi. Między drzewaMłodzi idą w uścisku, ptak leci w zieleni,Generacje śmiertelne, a każda z nich śpiewa,Skoki łososi, w morzach ławice makreli,Całe lato wysławiać będą chóry ziemiWszystko, co jest poczęte, rodzi się, umiera.Nikt nie dba, tą zmysłową muzyką objętyO intelekt i trwałe jego monumenty.IINędzną rzeczą jest człowiek na starość, nie więcejNiż łachmanem wiszącym na kiju, i chyba,Że dusza pieśni składać umie, klaśnie w ręce,A od cielesnych zniszczeń pieśni jej przybywa.Tej wiedzy w żadnej szkole śpiewu nie nabędzie,W pomnikach własnej chwały tylko ją odkrywa.Dlatego ja morzami żeglując przybyłemDo świętego miasta Bizancjum.IIIO mędrcy gorejący w świętym boskim ogniuJak na mozaice u ścian pełnych złota,Wyjdźcie z płomienia, co żarem was oblókł,Nauczcie, jak mam śpiewać, podyktujcie słowa.Przepalcie moje serce. Chore jest, pożąda,I kiedy zwierzę z nim spętane kona,Serce nic nie pojmuje. Zabierzcie mnie z wamiW wieczność, którą kunsztownie zmyśliliście sami. IVA kiedy za natury krainą już będę,Nigdy formy z natury wziętej nie przybiorę.Jak u greckich złotników, tak formę wyprzędęWplatających w emalię liść i złotą korę,Ażeby senny cesarz budził się ze dworem,Albo tę, jaką w złotej wykuli gęstwinie,Żeby śpiewała panom i damom BizancjumO tym, co już minęło, czy mija, czy minie.”

“Że będzie sławny, o tym wiedziano już w szkole:Dla współuczniów był więcej niż zwykłym kolegą;Więc cel sobie wytyczył i wytężał wolę,Młodzieńcze lata spędził w znoju i mozole;"Co z tego? - duch Platona zaśpiewał. - Co z tego?"Książki, które napisał, znikały spod lady,Po iluś latach zdobył bez trudu większegoDość pieniędzy, by co dzień móc jadać obiady,I przyjaciół w potrzebie nie skąpiących rady;"Co z tego? - duch Platona zaśpiewał. - Co z tego?"Spełnił mu się nareszcie każdy sen szczęśliwy -Miał żonę, córkę, syna, dom i ptaków świergotW ogródku, gdzie mógł sadzić kapustę i śliwy,Wokół siebie - poetów orszak hałaśliwy;"Co z tego? - duch Platona zaśpiewał. - Co z tego?""Spełniłem swe zadanie - pomyślał na starość. -Zgodnie z dziecinnym planem całe życie zbiegło;Choć głupcy się wściekali, wykazałem stałośćI w czymś tam osiągnąłem przecież doskonałość";Ale duch jeszcze głośniej zaśpiewał: "Co z tego?”

“Children play at being great and wonderful people, at the ambitions they will put away for one reason or another before they grow into ordinary men and women. Mankind as a whole had a like dream once; everybody and nobody built up the dream bit by bit, and the ancient story-tellers are there to make us remember what mankind would have been like, had not fear and the failing will and the laws of nature tripped up its heels. The Fianna and their like are themselves so full of power, and they are set in a world so fluctuating and dream-like, that nothing can hold them from being all that the heart desires."from a preface toGods and Fighting Menby Lady Augusta Gregory”

“I call on those that call me son,Grandson, or great-grandson,On uncles, aunts, great-uncles or great-aunts,To judge what I have done.Have I, that put it into words,Spoilt what old loins have sent?”

“Literature is, to my mind, the great teaching power of the world, the ultimate creator of all values, and it is this, not only in the sacred books whose power everybody acknowledges, but by every movement of imagination in song or story or drama that height of intensity and sincerity has made literature at all. Literature must take the responsibility of its power, and keep all its freedom: it must be like the spirit and like the wind that blows where it listeth; it must claim its right to pierce through every crevice of human nature, and to descrive the relation of the soul and the heart to the facts of life and of law, and to describe that relation as it is, not as we would have it be...”

“I hate journalists. There is nothing in them but tittering jeering emptiness.They have all made what Dante calls the Great Refusal. The shallowest people on the ridge of the earth.”

“THE ROSE OF THE WORLDWHO dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?For these red lips, with all their mournful pride,Mournful that no new wonder may betide,Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam,And Usna’s children died.We and the labouring world are passing by:Amid men’s souls, that waver and give placeLike the pale waters in their wintry race,Under the passing stars, foam of the sky,Lives on this lonely face.Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode:Before you were, or any hearts to beat,Weary and kind one lingered by His seat;He made the world to be a grassy roadBefore her wandering feet.”

“CUCHULAIN’S FIGHT WITH THE SEAA MAN came slowly from the setting sun,To Emer, raddling raiment in her dun,And said, ‘I am that swineherd whom you bidGo watch the road between the wood and tide,But now I have no need to watch it more.’Then Emer cast the web upon the floor,And raising arms all raddled with the dye,Parted her lips with a loud sudden cry.That swineherd stared upon her face and said,‘No man alive, no man among the dead,Has won the gold his cars of battle bring.’‘But if your master comes home triumphingWhy must you blench and shake from foot to crown?’Thereon he shook the more and cast him downUpon the web-heaped floor, and cried his word:‘With him is one sweet-throated like a bird.’‘You dare me to my face,’ and thereuponShe smote with raddled fist, and where her sonHerded the cattle came with stumbling feet,And cried with angry voice, ’It is not meetTo idle life away, a common herd.’‘I have long waited, mother, for that word:But wherefore now?’‘There is a man to die;You have the heaviest arm under the sky.’‘Whether under its daylight or its starsMy father stands amid his battle-cars.’‘But you have grown to be the taller man.’‘Yet somewhere under starlight or the sunMy father stands.’‘Aged, worn out with warsOn foot, on horseback or in battle-cars.’‘I only ask what way my journey lies,For He who made you bitter made you wise.’‘The Red Branch camp in a great companyBetween wood’s rim and the horses of the sea.Go there, and light a camp-fire at wood’s rim;But tell your name and lineage to himWhose blade compels, and wait till they have foundSome feasting man that the same oath has bound.’Among those feasting men Cuchulain dwelt,And his young sweetheart close beside him knelt,Stared on the mournful wonder of his eyes,Even as Spring upon the ancient skies,And pondered on the glory of his days;And all around the harp-string told his praise,And Conchubar, the Red Branch king of kings,With his own fingers touched the brazen strings.At last Cuchulain spake, ‘Some man has madeHis evening fire amid the leafy shade.I have often heard him singing to and fro,I have often heard the sweet sound of his bow.Seek out what man he is.’One went and came.‘He bade me let all know he gives his nameAt the sword-point, and waits till we have foundSome feasting man that the same oath has bound.’Cuchulain cried, ‘I am the only manOf all this host so bound from childhood on.After short fighting in the leafy shade,He spake to the young man, ’Is there no maidWho loves you, no white arms to wrap you round,Or do you long for the dim sleepy ground,That you have come and dared me to my face?’‘The dooms of men are in God’s hidden place,’‘Your head a while seemed like a woman’s headThat I loved once.’Again the fighting sped,But now the war-rage in Cuchulain woke,And through that new blade’s guard the old blade broke,And pierced him.‘Speak before your breath is done.’‘Cuchulain I, mighty Cuchulain’s son.’‘I put you from your pain. I can no more.’While day its burden on to evening bore,With head bowed on his knees Cuchulain stayed;Then Conchubar sent that sweet-throated maid,And she, to win him, his grey hair caressed;In vain her arms, in vain her soft white breast.Then Conchubar, the subtlest of all men,Ranking his Druids round him ten by ten,Spake thus: ‘Cuchulain will dwell there and broodFor three days more in dreadful quietude,And then arise, and raving slay us all.Chaunt in his ear delusions magical,That he may fight the horses of the sea.’The Druids took them to their mystery,And chaunted for three days.Cuchulain stirred,Stared on the horses of the sea, and heardThe cars of battle and his own name cried;And fought with the invulnerable tide.”

“THE ROSETOTHE ROSE UPON THE ROOD OF TIMERed Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways:Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide;The Druid, grey, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed,Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold;And thine own sadness, where of stars, grown oldIn dancing silver-sandalled on the sea,Sing in their high and lonely melody.Come near, that no more blinded by man’s fate,I find under the boughs of love and hate,In all poor foolish things that live a day,Eternal beauty wandering on her way.Come near, come near, come near — Ah, leave me stillA little space for the rose-breath to fill!Lest I no more bear common things that crave;The weak worm hiding down in its small cave,The field-mouse running by me in the grass,And heavy mortal hopes that toil and pass;But seek alone to hear the strange things saidBy God to the bright hearts of those long dead,And learn to chaunt a tongue men do not know.Come near; I would, before my time to go,Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways:Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.A king is but a foolish labourerWho wastes his blood to be another’s dream.”

“It is a hard service they take that help me. Many that are red-cheeked now will be pale-cheeked; many that have been free to walk the hills and the bogs and the rushes will be sent to walk hard streets in far countries; many a good plan will be broken; many that have gathered money will not stay to spend it; many a child will be born, and there will be no father at its christening to give it a name. They that had red cheeks will have pale cheeks for my sake; and for all that, they will think they are well paid.”

“TO HIS HEART, BIIDING IT HAVE NO FEARBe 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 floodCover over and hide, for he has no partWith the lonely, majestical multitude.THE CAP AND THE BELLSThe jester walked in the garden:The garden had fallen still;He bade his soul rise upwardAnd stand on her window-sill.It rose in a straight blue garment,When owls began to call:It had grown wise-tongued by thinkingOf a quiet and light footfall;But the young queen would not listen;She rose in her pale night-gown;She drew in the heavy casementAnd pushed the latches down.He bade his heart go to her,When the owls called out no more;In a red and quivering garmentIt sang to her through the door.It had grown sweet-tongued by dreamingOf a flutter of flower-like hair;But she took up her fan from the tableAnd 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 whitenedHe left them where she went by.She laid them upon her bosom,Under a cloud of her hair,And her red lips sang them a love-songTill 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 flowerAnd the quiet of love in her feet.”

“THE STOLEN CHILDWhere dips the rocky highlandOf Sleuth Wood in the lake,There lies a leafy islandWhere flapping herons wakeThe drowsy water rats;There we've hid our faery vats,Full of berrysAnd of reddest stolen cherries.Come away, O human child!To the waters and the wildWith a faery, hand in hand,For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.Where the wave of moonlight glossesThe dim gray sands with light,Far off by furthest RossesWe foot it all the night,Weaving olden dancesMingling hands and mingling glancesTill the moon has taken flight;To and fro we leapAnd chase the frothy bubbles,While the world is full of troublesAnd anxious in its sleep.Come away, O human child!To the waters and the wildWith a faery, hand in hand,For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.Where the wandering water gushesFrom the hills above Glen-Car,In pools among the rushesThat scarce could bathe a star,We seek for slumbering troutAnd whispering in their earsGive them unquiet dreams;Leaning softly outFrom ferns that drop their tearsOver the young streams.Come away, O human child!To the waters and the wildWith a faery, hand in hand,For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.Away with us he's going,The solemn-eyed:He'll hear no more the lowingOf the calves on the warm hillsideOr the kettle on the hobSing peace into his breast,Or see the brown mice bobRound and round the oatmeal chest.For he comes, the human child,To the waters and the wildWith a faery, hand in hand,For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.”

“... WHEN ONE LOOKS INTO THE DARKNESS THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING THERE...Far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose,Enfold me in my hour of hours; where thoseWho sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre,Or in the wine-vat, dwell beyond the stirAnd tumult of defeated dreams; and deepAmong pale eyelids, heavy with the sleepMen have named beauty. Thy great leaves enfoldThe ancient beards, the helms of ruby and goldOf the crowned Magi; and the king whose eyesSaw the pierced Hands and Rood of elder riseIn Druid vapour and make the torches dim;Till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and himWho met Fand walking among flaming dewBy a grey 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 redFeasted, and wept the barrows of his dead;And the proud dreaming king who flung the crownAnd sorrow away, and calling bard and clownDwelt 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 lovelinessThat men threshed corn at midnight by a tress,A little stolen tress. I, too, awaitThe hour of thy great wind 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? Out of sight is out of mind:Long have man and woman-kind,Heavy of will and light of mood,Taken away our wheaten food,Taken away our Altar stone;Hail and rain and thunder alone,And red hearts we turn to grey,Are true till time gutter away.... the common people are always ready to blame the beautiful.”

“God spreads the heavens above us like great wingsAnd gives a little round of deeds and days,And then come the wrecked angels and set snares,And bait them with light hopes and heavy dreams,Until the heart is puffed with pride and goesHalf shuddering and half joyous from God's peace;And it was some wrecked angel, blind with tears,Who flattered Edane's heart with merry words.Come, faeries, take me out of this dull house!Let me have all the freedom I have lost;Work when I will and idle when I will!Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,For I would ride with you upon the wind,Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,And dance upon the mountains like a flame. I would take the worldAnd break it into pieces in my handsTo see you smile watching it crumble away. Once a fly dancing in a beam of the sun,Or the light wind blowing out of the dawn,Could fill your heart with dreams none other knew,But now the indissoluble sacramentHas mixed your heart that was most proud and coldWith my warm heart for ever; the sun and moonMust fade and heaven be rolled up like a scrollBut your white spirit still walk by my spirit. When winter sleep is abroad my hair grows thin,My feet unsteady. When the leaves awakenMy mother carries me in her golden arms;I'll soon put on my womanhood and marryThe spirits of wood and water, but who can tellWhen I was born for the first time? The wind blows out of the gates of the day,The wind blows over the lonely of heart,And the lonely of heart is withered away;While the faeries dance in a place apart,Shaking their milk-white feet in a ring,Tossing their milk-white arms in the air;For they hear the wind laugh and murmur and singOf a land where even the old are fair,And even the wise are merry of tongue;But I heard a reed of Coolaney say--When the wind has laughed and murmured and sung,The lonely of heart is withered away.”

“I saw nothing and heard nothing; near dead I am with a fright I got and with the hardship of the goal.Once men fought with their desires and their fears, with all that they call their sins, unhelped, and their souls became hard and strong. When we have brought back the clean earth and destroyed the law and the church, all life will become like a flame of fire, like a burning eye... Oh, how to find words, for it all... all that is not life will pass away!No man can be alive, and what is paradise but fullness of life, if whatever he sets his hand to in the daylight cannot carry him from exaltation to exaltation, and if he does not rise into the frenzy of contemplation in the night silence. Events that are not begotten in joy are misbegotten and darken the world, and nothing is begotten in joy if the joy of a thousand years has not been crushed into a moment.The soul of man is of the imperishable substance of the stars!The day you go to heaven that you may never come back again alive out of it! But it is not yourself will never hear the saints hammering at their music! It is you will be moving through the ages chains upon you, and you in the form of a dog or a monster! I tell you, that one will go through purgatory as quick as lightning through a thorn bush.It is very queer the world itself is, whatever shape was put upon it at the first!”

“An intellectual hatred is the worst.”

“Her TriumphI did the dragon's will until you cameBecause I had fancied love a casualImprovisation, or a settled gameThat followed if I let the kerchief fall:Those deeds were best that gave the minute wingsAnd heavenly music if they gave it wit;And then you stood among the dragon-rings.I mocked, being crazy, but you mastered itAnd broke the chain and set my ankles free,Saint George or else a pagan Perseus;And now we stare astonished at the sea,And a miraculous strange bird shrieks at us.”

“All empty souls tend toward extreme opinions.”

“Come near, that no more blinded by man's fate,I find under the boughs of love and hate,In all poor foolish things that live a day,Eternal beauty wandering on her way.”

“Weaving olden dances; mingling hands and mingling glances.”

“We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet.”

“When I had laid it on the floorI 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 girlWith apple blossoms in her hairWho called me by my name and ranAnd faded through the brightening air. . . .”

“Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet; She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet. She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree; But I, being young and foolish, with her did 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 Song Of The Happy ShepherdThe woods of Arcady are dead,And over is their antique joy;Of old the world on dreaming fed;Grey Truth is now her painted toy;Yet still she turns her restless head:But O, sick children of the world,Of all the many changing thingsIn dreary dancing past us whirled,To the cracked tune that Chronos sings,Words alone are certain good.Where are now the warring kings,Word be-mockers?—By the Rood,Where are now the watring kings?An idle word is now their glory,By the stammering schoolboy said,Reading some entangled story:The kings of the old time are dead;The wandering earth herself may beOnly a sudden flaming word,In clanging space a moment heard,Troubling the endless reverie.Then nowise worship dusty deeds,Nor seek, for this is also sooth,To hunger fiercely after truth,Lest all thy toiling only breedsNew dreams, new dreams; there is no truthSaving in thine own heart. Seek, then,No learning from the starry men,Who follow with the optic glassThe whirling ways of stars that pass—Seek, then, for this is also sooth,No word of theirs—the cold star-baneHas cloven and rent their hearts in twain,And dead is all their human truth.Go gather by the humming seaSome twisted, echo-harbouring shell.And to its lips thy story tell,And they thy comforters will be.Rewording in melodious guileThy fretful words a little while,Till they shall singing fade in ruthAnd die a pearly brotherhood;For words alone are certain good:Sing, then, for this is also sooth.I must be gone: there is a graveWhere daffodil and lily wave,And I would please the hapless faun,Buried under the sleepy ground,With mirthful songs before the dawn.His shouting days with mirth were crowned;And still I dream he treads the lawn,Walking ghostly in the dew,Pierced by my glad singing through,My songs of old earth’s dreamy youth:But ah! she dreams not now; dream thou!For fair are poppies on the brow:Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.”

“Who Goes With Fergus?Who will go drive with Fergus now,And pierce the deep wood's woven shade,And dance upon the level shore?Young man, lift up your russet brow,And lift your tender eyelids, maid,And brood on hopes and fear no more.And no more turn aside and broodUpon love's bitter mystery;For Fergus rules the brazen cars,And rules the shadows of the wood,And the white breast of the dim seaAnd all dishevelled wandering stars.”

“Edain came out of Midhir's hill, and layBeside young Aengus in his tower of glass,Where time is drowned in odour-laden windsAnd Druid moons, and murmuring of boughs,And sleepy boughs, and boughs where apples madeOf opal and ruhy and pale chrysoliteAwake 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-woodThat she among her winds might know he wept;And from that hour he has watched over noneBut faithful lovers.”

“Where the wave of moonlight glossesThe dim gray sands with light,Far off by furthest RossesWe foot it all the night,Weaving olden dances,Mingling hands and mingling glancesTill the moon has taken flight;To and fro we leapAnd chase the frothy bubbles,While the world is full of troublesAnd is anxious in its sleep. . . .”

“Wine enters through the mouth,Love, the eyes.I raise the glass to my mouth,I look at you,I sigh.”

“THOUGH you are in your shining days,Voices among the crowdAnd 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 lostFor all eyes but these eyes.”

“An Irish Airman foresees his DeathI Know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate Those that I guard I do not love, My country is Kiltartan Cross,My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public man, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds; I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath,A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death.”

“Brown Penny I WHISPERED, 'I am too young,'And then, 'I am old enough';Wherefore I threw a pennyTo find out if I might love.'Go and love, go and love, young man,If the lady be young and fair.'Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,I am looped in the loops of her hair.O love is the crooked thing,There is nobody wise enoughTo find out all that is in it,For he would be thinking of loveTill the stars had run awayAnd the shadows eaten the moon.Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,One cannot begin it too soon.”

“Everything that's lovely isBut a brief, dreamy kind of delight.”