“Accursed who brings to light of day the writings I have cast away. ”

“Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,Enwrought with golden and silver light,The blue and the dim and the dark clothsOf 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.”

“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 bring you with reverent handsThe books of my numberless dreams.”

“The mystical life is at the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write.”

“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.”

“... 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.”