The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats. Volume 1 of 8. Poems Lyrical and Narrative
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The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats. Volume 1 of 8. Poems Lyrical and Narrative
William Butler Yeats
The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 1 (of 8) / Poems Lyrical and Narrative
THE WIND AMONG THE REEDS
THE HOSTING OF THE SIDHE
The host is riding from KnocknareaAnd over the grave of Clooth-na-bare;Caolte tossing his burning hairAnd 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 foldAnd bid them wander obeying your willFlame 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 woodsHave their day, have their day;What one in the routOf the fire-born moodsHas fallen away?THE LOVER 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 goldFor 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 songThe wild duck and the drakeFrom the tall and the tufted reedsOf the drear Hart Lake.And he saw how the reeds grew darkAt the coming of night tide,And dreamed of the long dim hairOf Bridget his bride.He heard while he sang and dreamedA piper piping away,And never was piping so sad,And never was piping so gay.And he saw young men and young girlsWho danced on a level placeAnd 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 wineAnd a young girl white bread.But Bridget drew him by the sleeve,Away from the merry bands,To old men playing at cardsWith 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 dreamOf her long dim hair.He played with the merry old menAnd thought not of evil chance,Until one bore Bridget his brideAway from the merry dance.He bore her away in his arms,The handsomest young man there,And his neck and his breast and his armsWere drowned in her long dim hair.O’Driscoll scattered the cardsAnd out of his dream awoke:Old men and young men and young girlsWere gone like a drifting smoke;But he heard high up in the airA piper piping away,And never was piping so sad,And never was piping so gay.THE FISHERMAN
Although you hide in the ebb and flowOf the pale tide when the moon has set,The people of coming days will knowAbout the casting out of my net,And how you have leaped times out of mindOver the little silver cords,And think that you were hard and unkind,And blame you with many bitter words.A CRADLE SONG
The Danaan 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 beatThe doors of Hell and blow there many a whimpering ghost;O heart the winds have shaken; the unappeasable hostIs comelier than candles at Mother Mary’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 hillFor there the mystical brotherhoodOf sun and moon and hollow and woodAnd 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 twilightAnd 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 streamAnd caught a little silver trout.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 blossom in her hairWho called me by my name and ranAnd faded through the brightening air.Though I am old with wanderingThrough 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 doneThe silver apples of the moon,The golden apples of the sun.THE HEART OF THE WOMAN
O what to me the little roomThat 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 hairWill 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.THE LOVER MOURNS FOR THE LOSS OF LOVE
Pale brows, still hands and dim hair,I had a beautiful friendAnd dreamed that the old despairWould end in love in the end:She looked in my heart one dayAnd saw your image was there;She has gone weeping away.HE MOURNS FOR THE CHANGE THAT HAS COME UPON HIM AND HIS BELOVED AND LONGS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD
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 fearUnder 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 WestAnd had rooted the sun and moon and stars out of the skyAnd lay in the darkness, grunting, and turning to his rest.HE 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 beatOver 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.HE 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 mindPassion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hairThat was shaken out over my breast:There is enough evil in the crying of wind.HE REMEMBERS FORGOTTEN BEAUTY
When my arms wrap you round I pressMy heart upon the lovelinessThat has long faded from the world;The jewelled crowns that kings have hurledIn shadowy pools, when armies fled;The love-tales wrought with silken threadBy dreaming ladies upon clothThat has made fat the murderous moth;The roses that of old time wereWoven by ladies in their hair,The dew-cold lilies ladies boreThrough many a sacred corridorWhere such gray clouds of incense roseThat only the gods’ eyes did not close:For that pale breast and lingering handCome from a more dream-heavy land,A more dream-heavy hour than this;And when you sigh from kiss to kissI hear white Beauty sighing, too,For hours when all must fade like dew,All but the flames, and deep on 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 handsThe books of my numberless dreams;White woman that passion has wornAs the tide wears the dove-gray sands,And with heart more old than the hornThat is brimmed from the pale fire of time:White woman with numberless dreamsI bring you my passionate rhyme.HE 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 lovelinessOut 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 foam 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 floodCover over and hide, for he has no partWith the proud, majestical multitude.THE CAP AND BELLS
The 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 dreaming,Of 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-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 flowerAnd the quiet of love in her feet.THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG
The dews drop slowly and dreams gather: unknown spearsSuddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes,And then the clash of fallen horsemen and the criesOf 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.THE LOVER ASKS FORGIVENESS BECAUSE OF HIS MANY MOODS
If this importunate heart trouble your peaceWith 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 oldIn dove-gray faery lands;From battle banners, fold upon purple fold,Queens wrought with glimmering hands;That saw young Niamh hover with love-lorn faceAbove the wandering tide;And lingered in the hidden desolate place,Where the last Phœnix diedAnd wrapped the flames above his holy head;And still murmur and long:O Piteous Hearts, changing till change be deadIn a tumultuous song’:And cover the pale blossoms of your breastWith your dim heavy hair,And trouble with a sigh for all things longing for restThe odorous twilight there.HE 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 woodWith her cloud-pale eyelids falling on dream-dimmed eyes:I cried in my dream, O women, bid the young men layTheir heads on your knees, and drown their eyes with your hair,Or remembering hers they will find no other face fairTill all the valleys of the world have been withered away.HE TELLS OF THE PERFECT BEAUTY
O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes,The poets labouring all their daysTo build a perfect beauty in rhymeAre overthrown by a woman’s gazeAnd by the unlabouring brood of the skies:And therefore my heart will bow, when dewIs dropping sleep, until God burn time,Before the unlabouring stars and you.HE HEARS THE CRY OF THE SEDGE
I wander by the edgeOf this desolate lakeWhere wind cries in the sedgeUntil the axle breakThat keeps the stars in their round,And hands hurl in the deepThe banners of East and West,And the girdle of light is unbound,Your breast will not lie by the breastOf your beloved in sleep.HE 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 wayTo gather the half of your blessednessAnd learn to pray when you pray.‘I can bring you salmon out of the streamsAnd heron out of the skies.’But Dathi folded his hands and smiledWith the secrets of God in his eyes.And Cumhal saw like a drifting smokeAll 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 sentThe blessedest souls that walk in the worldTo fill your heart with content.’‘And which is the blessedest,’ Cumhal said,‘Where all are comely and good?Is it these that with golden thuriblesAre singing about the wood?’‘My eyes are blinking,’ Dathi said,‘With the secrets of God half blind,But I can see where the wind goesAnd 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 worldAnd he nods a drunken head.‘O blessedness comes in the night and the dayAnd whither the wise heart knows;And one has seen in the redness of wineThe Incorruptible Rose,‘That drowsily drops faint leaves on himAnd the sweetness of desire,While time and the world are ebbing awayIn twilights of dew and of fire.’THE SECRET ROSE
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 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 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 loveliness,That 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?MAID QUIET
Where has Maid Quiet gone to,Nodding her russet hood?The winds that awakened the starsAre blowing through my blood.O how could I be so calmWhen she rose up to depart?Now words that called up the lightningAre hurtling through my heart.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 wayCrowded 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 LOVER PLEADS WITH HIS FRIEND FOR OLD FRIENDS
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.A LOVER SPEAKS TO THE HEARERS OF HIS SONGS IN COMING DAYS
O, women, 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 airAnd covers away the smoke of myrrh and frankincense;Bend down and pray for the great sin I wove in song,Till Mary of the wounded heart cry a sweet cry,And call to my beloved and me: ‘No longer flyAmid the hovering, piteous, penitential throng.’THE POET PLEADS WITH THE ELEMENTAL POWERS
The Powers whose name and shape no living creature knowsHave 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 choirEncircle her I love and sing her into peace,That my old care may cease;Unfold your flaming wings and cover out of sightThe nets of day and night.Dim Powers of drowsy thought, let her no longer beLike the pale cup of the sea,When winds have gathered and sun and moon burned dimAbove its cloudy rim;But let a gentle silence wrought with music flowWhither her footsteps go.HE 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 woundAbout the stars and moon and sun:O would, beloved, that you layUnder the dock-leaves in the ground,While lights were paling one by one.HE 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 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.HE THINKS OF HIS PAST GREATNESS WHEN A PART OF THE CONSTELLATIONS OF HEAVEN
I have drunk ale from the Country of the YoungAnd weep because I know all things now:I have been a hazel tree and they hungThe Pilot Star and the Crooked PloughAmong 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 headWould not lie on the breast or his lips on the hairOf the woman that he loves, until he dies;Although the rushes and the fowl of the airCry of his love with their pitiful cries.THE OLD AGE OF QUEEN MAEVE
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 showedWhere the tired horse-boys lay upon the rushes,Or on the benches underneath the walls,In comfortable sleep; all living sleptBut that great queen, who more than half the nightHad paced from door to fire and fire to door.Though now in her old age, in her young ageShe had been beautiful in that old wayThat’s all but gone; for the proud heart is gone,And the fool heart of the counting-house fears allBut soft beauty and indolent desire.She could have called over the rim of the worldWhatever woman’s lover had hit her fancy,And yet had been great bodied and great limbed,Fashioned to be the mother of strong children;And she’d had lucky eyes and a high heart,And wisdom that caught fire like the dried flax,At need, and made her beautiful and fierce,Sudden and laughing.O unquiet heart,Why do you praise another, praising her,As if there were no tale but your own taleWorth knitting to a measure of sweet sound?Have I not bid you tell of that great queenWho has been buried some two thousand years?When night was at its deepest, a wild gooseCried from the porter’s lodge, and with long clamourShook the ale horns and shields upon their hooks;But the horse-boys slept on, as though some powerHad filled the house with Druid heaviness;And wondering who of the many-changing SidheHad come as in the old times to counsel her,Maeve walked, yet with slow footfall, being old,To that small chamber by the outer gate.The porter slept, although he sat uprightWith still and stony limbs and open eyes.Maeve waited, and when that ear-piercing noiseBroke from his parted lips and broke again,She laid a hand on either of his shoulders,And shook him wide awake, and bid him sayWho of the wandering many-changing onesHad troubled his sleep. But all he had to sayWas that, the air being heavy and the dogsMore still than they had been for a good month,He had fallen asleep, and, though he had dreamed nothing,He could remember when he had had fine dreams.It was before the time of the great warOver the White-Horned Bull, and the Brown Bull.She turned away; he turned again to sleepThat no god troubled now, and, wonderingWhat matters were afoot among the Sidhe,Maeve walked through that great hall, and with a sighLifted the curtain of her sleeping-room,Remembering that she too had seemed divineTo many thousand eyes, and to her ownOne that the generations had long waitedThat work too difficult for mortal handsMight be accomplished. Bunching the curtain upShe saw her husband Ailell sleeping there,And thought of days when he’d had a straight body,And of that famous Fergus, Nessa’s husband,Who had been the lover of her middle life.Suddenly Ailell spoke out of his sleep,And not with his own voice or a man’s voice,But with the burning, live, unshaken voiceOf those that it may be can never age.He said, ‘High Queen of Cruachan and Magh Ai,A king of the Great Plain would speak with you.’And with glad voice Maeve answered him, ‘What kingOf the far wandering shadows has come to me?As in the old days when they would come and goAbout my threshold to counsel and to help.’The parted lips replied, ‘I seek your help,For I am Aengus, and I am crossed in love.’‘How may a mortal whose life gutters outHelp them that wander with hand clasping hand,Their haughty images that cannot witherFor all their beauty’s like a hollow dream,Mirrored in streams that neither hail nor rainNor the cold North has troubled?’He replied:‘I am from those rivers and I bid you callThe children of the Maines out of sleep,And set them digging into Anbual’s hill.We shadows, while they uproot his earthy house,Will overthrow his shadows and carry offCaer, his blue-eyed daughter that I love.I helped your fathers when they built these walls,And I would have your help in my great need,Queen of high Cruachan.’‘I obey your willWith speedy feet and a most thankful heart:For you have been, O Aengus of the birds,Our giver of good counsel and good luck.’And with a groan, as if the mortal breathCould but awaken sadly upon lipsThat happier breath had moved, her husband turnedFace downward, tossing in a troubled sleep;But Maeve, and not with a slow feeble foot,Came to the threshold of the painted house,Where her grandchildren slept, and cried aloud,Until the pillared dark began to stirWith shouting and the clang of unhooked arms.She told them of the many-changing ones;And all that night, and all through the next dayTo middle night, they dug into the hill.At middle night great cats with silver claws,Bodies of shadow and blind eyes like pearls,Came up out of the hole, and red-eared houndsWith long white bodies came out of the airSuddenly, and ran at them and harried them.The Maines’ children dropped their spades, and stoodWith quaking joints and terror-strucken faces,Till Maeve called out: ‘These are but common men.The Maines’ children have not dropped their spades,Because Earth, crazy for its broken power,Casts up a show and the winds answer itWith holy shadows.’ Her high heart was glad,And when the uproar ran along the grassShe followed with light footfall in the midst,Till it died out where an old thorn tree stood.Friend of these many years, you too had stoodWith equal courage in that whirling rout;For you, although you’ve not her wandering heart,Have all that greatness, and not hers alone.For there is no high story about queensIn any ancient book but tells of you;And when I’ve heard how they grew old and died,Or fell into unhappiness, I’ve said:‘She will grow old and die, and she has wept!’And when I’d write it out anew, the words,Half crazy with the thought, She too has wept!Outrun the measure.I’d tell of that great queenWho stood amid a silence by the thornUntil two lovers came out of the airWith bodies made out of soft fire. The one,About whose face birds wagged their fiery wings,Said: ‘Aengus and his sweetheart give their thanksTo Maeve and to Maeve’s household, owing allIn owing them the bride-bed that gives peace.’Then Maeve: ‘O Aengus, Master of all lovers,A thousand years ago you held high talkWith the first kings of many-pillared Cruachan.O when will you grow weary?’They had vanished;But out of the dark air over her head there cameA murmur of soft words and meeting lips.Авторизация