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Overview
With a new Introduction by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex.
W. B. Yeats was Romantic and Modernist, mystical dreamer and leader of the Irish Literary Revival, Nobel prizewinner, dramatist and, above all, poet. He began writing with the intention of putting his 'very self' into his poems. T. S. Eliot, one of many who proclaimed the Irishman's greatness, described him as 'one of those few whose history is the history of their own time, who are part of the consciousness of an age which cannot be understood without them'. For anyone interested in the literature of the late nineteenth century and the twentieth century, Yeats's work is essential.
This volume gathers the full range of his published poetry, from the hauntingly beautiful early lyrics (by which he is still fondly remembered) to the magnificent later poems which put beyond question his status as major poet of modern times. Paradoxical, proud and passionate, Yeats speaks today as eloquently as ever.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781853264542 |
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Publisher: | Wordsworth Editions, Limited |
Publication date: | 09/28/2001 |
Series: | Poetry Library Series |
Edition description: | Revised ed. |
Pages: | 432 |
Sales rank: | 93,293 |
Product dimensions: | 4.98(w) x 7.77(h) x 0.91(d) |
Read an Excerpt
Chapter 1 Crossways 1 The Song of the Happy Shepherd Then nowise worship dusty deeds, I must be gone: there is a grave 2 The Sad Shepherd 3 The Cloak, the Boat, and the Shoes 'I make the cloak of Sorrow: 'What do you build with sails for flight?' 'I build a boat for Sorrow: 'What do you weave with wool so white?' 'I weave the shoes of Sorrow: 4 Anashuya and Vijaya Anashuya. Send peace on all the lands and flickering corn. -- Vijaya [entering and throwing a lily at her]. Hail! hail, my Anashuya. Anashuya. No: be still. Vijaya. I will wait here, Amrita. Anashuya. By mighty Brahma's ever-rustling robe, Vijaya. My mother's name. Anashuya [sings, coming out of the temple]. Vijaya, I have brought my evening rice; Vijaya. The hour when Kama, full of sleepy laughter, Anashuya. See how the sacred old flamingoes come, Vijaya [sings]. Sing you of her, O first few stars, Anashuya. What know the pilots of the stars of tears? Vijaya. Their faces are all worn, and in their eyes Anashuya [going away from him]. Vijaya. I loved another; now I love no other. Anashuya. Vijaya, swear to love her never more. Vijaya. Ay, ay. Anashuya. Swear by the parents of the gods, Vijaya. By the parents of the gods, I swear. Anashuya [sings]. I have forgiven, O new star! Farewell, Vijaya. Nay, no word, no word; [Vijaya goes.] O Brahma, guard in sleep 5 The Indian upon God 6 The Indian to his Love Here we will moor our lonely ship How we alone of mortals are The heavy boughs, the burnished dove 7 The Falling of the Leaves 8 Ephemera And then she: Pensive they paced along the faded leaves, The woods were round them, and the yellow leaves 'Ah, do not mourn,' he said, 9 The Madness of King Goll I sat and mused and drank sweet wine; But slowly, as I shouting slew And now I wander in the woods I came upon a little town I sang how, when day's toil is done, 10 The Stolen Child Where the wave of moonlight glosses Where the wandering water gushes Away with us he's going, 11 To an Isle in the Water She carries in the dishes, She carries in the candles, And shy as a rabbit, 12 Down by the Salley Gardens In a field by the river my love and I did stand, 13 The Meditation of the Old Fisherman The herring are not in the tides as they were of old; And ah, you proud maiden, you are not so fair when his oar 14 The Ballad of Father O'Hart In trust took he John's lands; But Father John went up, All loved him, only the shoneen, The birds, for he opened their cages But if when anyone died And these were the works of John, There was no human keening; The young birds and old birds Keening from Inishmurray, 15 The Ballad of Moll Magee My man was a poor fisher And sometimes from the saltin' shed I'd always been but weakly, I lay upon my baby; A weary woman sleeps so hard! He drove me out and shut the door, The windows and the doors were shut, I went away in silence: She drew from me my story -- She says my man will surely come, Pilin' the wood or pilin' the turf, And sometimes I am sure she knows So now, ye little childer, 16 The Ballad of the Foxhunter 'To stable and to kennel go; 'Put the chair upon the grass: His eyelids droop, his head falls low, Brown Lollard treads upon the lawn, And now moves many a pleasant tongue 'Huntsman Rody, blow the horn, Fire is in the old man's eyes, 'Huntsman Rody, blow the horn, Servants round his cushioned place One blind hound only lies apart The blind hound with a mournful din Poems Copyright by Anne YeatsThe 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 things
In 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 warring 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 be
Only a sudden flaming word,
In clanging space a moment heard,
Troubling the endless reverie.
Nor seek, for this is also sooth,
To hunger fiercely after truth,
Lest all thy toiling only breeds
New dreams, new dreams; there is no truth
Saving in thine own heart. Seek, then,
No learning from the starry men,
Who follow with the optic glass
The whirling ways of stars that pass --
Seek, then, for this is also sooth,
No word of theirs -- the cold star-bane
Has cloven and rent their hearts in twain,
And dead is all their human truth.
Go gather by the humming sea
Some twisted, echo-harbouring shell,
And to its lips thy story tell,
And they thy comforters will be,
Rewarding in melodious guile
Thy fretful words a little while,
Till they shall singing fade in ruth
And die a pearly brotherhood;
For words alone are certain good:
Sing, then, for this is also sooth.
Where 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.There was a man whom Sorrow named his friend,
And he, of his high comrade Sorrow dreaming,
Went walking with slow steps along the gleaming
And humming sands, where windy surges wend:
And he called loudly to the stars to bend
From their pale thrones and comfort him, but they
Among themselves laugh on and sing alway:
And then the man whom Sorrow named his friend
Cried out, Dim sea, hear my most piteous story!
The sea swept on and cried her old cry still,
Rolling along in dreams from hill to hill.
He fled the persecution of her glory
And, in a far-off, gentle valley stopping,
Cried all his story to the dewdrops glistening.
But naught they heard, for they are always listening,
The dewdrops, for the sound of their own dropping.
And then the man whom Sorrow named his friend
Sought once again the shore, and found a shell,
And thought, I will my heavy story tell
Till my own words, re-echoing, shall send
Their sadness through a hollow, pearly heart;
And my own tale again for me shall sing,
And my own whispering words be comforting,
And lo! my ancient burden may depart.
Then he sang softly nigh the pearly rim;
But the sad dweller by the sea-ways lone
Changed all he sang to inarticulate moan
Among her wildering whirls, forgetting him.'What do you make so fair and bright?'
O lovely to see in all men's sight
Shall be the cloak of Sorrow,
In all men's sight.'
O swift on the seas all day and night
Saileth the rover Sorrow,
All day and night.'
Soundless shall be the footfall light
In all men's ears of Sorrow,
Sudden and light.'A little Indian temple in the Golden Age. Around it a garden; around that the forest. Anashuya, the young priestess, kneeling Within the temple.
O, may tranquillity walk by his elbow
When wandering in the forest, if he love
No other. -- Hear, and may the indolent flocks
Be plentiful. -- And if he love another,
May panthers end him. -- Hear, and load our king
With wisdom hour by hour. -- May we two stand,
When we are dead, beyond the setting suns,
A little from the other shades apart,
With mingling hair, and play upon one lute.
I, priestess of this temple, offer up
Prayers for the land.
Who is Amrita? Sorrow of all sorrows!
Another fills your mind.
A sad, sad thought went by me slowly:
Sigh, O you little stars! O sigh and shake your blue apparel!
The sad, sad thought has gone from me now wholly:
Sing, O you little stars! O sing and raise your rapturous carol
To mighty Brahma, he who made you many as the sands,
And laid you on the gates of evening with his quiet hands.
[Sits down on the steps of the temple.]
The sun has laid his chin on the grey wood,
Weary, with all his poppies gathered round him.
Rises, and showers abroad his fragrant arrows,
Piercing the twilight with their murmuring barbs.
Painting with shadow all the marble steps:
Aged and wise, they seek their wonted perches
Within the temple, devious walking, made
To wander by their melancholy minds.
Yon tall one eyes my supper; chase him away,
Far, far away. I named him after you.
He is a famous fisher; hour by hour
He ruffles with his bill the minnowed streams.
Ah! there he snaps my rice. I told you so.
Now cuff him off. He's off! A kiss for you,
Because you saved my rice. Have you no thanks?
Whom Brahma, touching with his finger, praises, for you hold
The van of wandering quiet; ere you be too calm and old,
Sing, turning in your cars,
Sing, till you raise your hands and sigh, and from your car-heads peer,
With all your whirling hair, and drop many an azure tear.
Flashes the fire of sadness, for they see
The icicles that famish all the North,
Where men lie frozen in the glimmering snow;
And in the flaming forests cower the lion
And lioness, with all their whimpering cubs;
And, ever pacing on the verge of things,
The phantom, Beauty, in a mist of tears;
While we alone have round us woven woods,
And feel the softness of each other's hand,
Amrita, while --
Ah me! you love another,
[Bursting into tears.]
And may some sudden dreadful ill befall her!
Among the mouldering of ancient woods
You live, and on the village border she,
With her old father the blind wood-cutter;
I saw her standing in her door but now.
Dread oath, who dwell on sacred Himalay,
On the far Golden Peak; enormous shapes,
Who still were old when the great sea was young;
On their vast faces mystery and dreams;
Their hair along the mountains rolled and filled
From year to year by the unnumbered nests
Of aweless birds, and round their stirless feet
The joyous flocks of deer and antelope,
Who never hear the unforgiving hound.
Swear!
Maybe you have not heard of us, you have come forth so newly,
You hunter of the fields afar!
Ah, you will know my loved one by his hunter's arrows truly,
Shoot on him shafts of quietness, that he may ever keep
A lonely laughter, and may kiss his hands to me in sleep.
I, priestess of this temple, offer up
Prayers for the land.
The merry lambs and the complacent kine,
The flies below the leaves, and the young mice
In the tree roots, and all the sacred flocks
Of red flamingoes; and my love, Vijaya;
And may no restless fay with fidget finger
Trouble his sleeping: give him dreams of me.I passed along the water's edge below the humid trees,
My spirit rocked in evening light, the rushes round my knees,
My spirit rocked in sleep and sighs; and saw the moorfowl pace
All dripping on a grassy slope, and saw them cease to chase
Each other round in circles, and heard the eldest speak:
Who holds the worm between His bill and made us strong or weak
Is an undying moorfowl, and He lives beyond the sky.
The rains are from His dripping wing, the moonbeams from His eye.
I passed a little further on and heard a lotus talk:
Who made the worm and ruleth it, He hangeth on a stalk,
For I am in His image made, and all this tinkling tide
Is but a sliding drop of rain between His petals wide.
A little way within the gloom a roebuck raised his eyes
Brimful of starlight, and he said: The Stamper of the Skies,
He is a gentle roebuck; for how else, I pray, could He
Conceive a thing so sad and soft, a gentle thing like me?
I passed a little further on and heard a peacock say:
Who made the grass and made the worms and made my feathers gay,
He is a monstrous peacock, and He waveth all the night
His languid tail above us, lit with myriad spots of light.The island dreams under the dawn
And great boughs drop tranquillity;
The peahens dance on a smooth lawn,
A parrot sways upon a tree,
Raging at his own image in the enamelled sea.
And wander ever with woven hands,
Murmuring softly lip to lip,
Along the grass, along the sands,
Murmuring how far away are the unquiet lands:
Hid under quiet boughs apart,
While our love grows an Indian star,
A meteor of the burning heart,
One with the tide that gleams, the wings that gleam and dart,
That moans and sighs a hundred days:
How when we die our shades will rove,
When eve has hushed the feathered ways,
With vapoury footsole by the water's drowsy blaze.Autumn is over the long leaves that love us,
And over the mice in the barley sheaves;
Yellow the leaves of the rowan above us,
And yellow the wet wild-strawberry leaves.
The hour of the waning of love has beset us,
And weary and worn are our sad souls now;
Let us part, ere the season of passion forget us,
With a kiss and a tear on thy drooping brow.'Your eyes that once were never weary of mine
Are bowed in sorrow under pendulous lids,
Because our love is waning.'
'Although our love is waning, let us stand
By the lone border of the lake once more,
Together in that hour of gentleness
When the poor tired child, Passion, falls asleep:
How far away the stars seem, and how far
Is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!'
While slowly he whose hand held hers replied:
'Passion has often worn our wandering hearts.'
Fell like faint meteors in the gloom, and once
A rabbit old and lame limped down the path;
Autumn was over him: and now they stood
On the lone border of the lake once more:
Turning, he saw that she had thrust dead leaves
Gathered in silence, dewy as her eyes,
In bosom and hair.
'That we are tired, for other loves await us;
Hate on and love through unrepining hours.
Before us lies eternity; our souls
Are love, and a continual farewell.'I sat on cushioned otter-skin:
My word was law from Ith to Emain,
And shook at Invar Amargin
The hearts of the world-troubling seamen,
And drove tumult and war away
From girl and boy and man and beast;
The fields grew fatter day by day,
The wild fowl of the air increased;
And every ancient Ollave said,
While he bent down his fading head,
'He drives away the Northern cold.'
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.
A herdsman came from inland valleys,
Crying, the pirates drove his swine
To fill their dark-beaked hollow galleys.
I called my battle-breaking men
And my loud brazen battle-cars
From rolling vale and rivery glen;
And under the blinking of the stars
Fell on the pirates by the deep,
And hurled them in the gulph of sleep:
These hands won many a torque of gold.
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.
And trampled in the bubbling mire,
In my most secret spirit grew
A whirling and a wandering fire:
I stood: keen stars above me shone,
Around me shone keen eyes of men:
I laughed aloud and hurried on
By rocky shore and rushy fen;
I laughed because birds fluttered by,
And starlight gleamed, and clouds flew high,
And rushes waved and waters rolled.
They will not hush, the leaves aflutter round me, the beech leaves old.
When summer gluts the golden bees,
Or in autumnal solitudes
Arise the leopard-coloured trees;
Or when along the wintry strands
The cormorants shiver on their rocks;
I wander on, and wave my hands,
And sing, and shake my heavy locks.
The grey wolf knows me; by one ear
I lead along the woodland deer;
The hares run by me growing bold.
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.
That slumbered in the harvest moon,
And passed a-tiptoe up and down,
Murmuring, to a fitful tune,
How I have followed, night and day,
A tramping of tremendous feet,
And saw where this old tympan lay
Deserted on a doorway seat,
And bore it to the woods with me;
Of some inhuman misery
Our married voices wildly trolled.
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.
Orchil shakes out her long dark hair
That hides away the dying sun
And sheds faint odours through the air:
When my hand passed from wire to wire
It quenched, with sound like falling dew,
The whirling and the wandering fire;
But lift a mournful ulalu,
For the kind wires are torn and still,
And I must wander wood and hill
Through summer's heat and winter's cold.
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
The dim grey sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances,
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal-chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
From a world more full of weeping than he can understand.Shy one, shy one,
Shy one of my heart,
She moves in the firelight
Pensively apart.
And lays them in a row.
To an isle in the water
With her would I go.
And lights the curtained room,
Shy in the doorway
And shy in the gloom;
Helpful and shy.
To an isle in the water
With her would I fly.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 would not agree.
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.You waves, though you dance by my feet like children at play,
Though you glow and you glance, though you purr and you dart;
In the Junes that were warmer than these are, the waves were more gay,
When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.
My sorrow! for many a creak gave the creel in the cart
That carried the take to Sligo town to be sold,
When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.
Is heard on the water, as they were, the proud and apart,
Who paced in the eve by the nets on the pebbly shore,
When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.Good Father John O'Hart
In penal days rode out
To a shoneen who had free lands
And his own snipe and trout.
Sleiveens were all his race;
And he gave them as dowers to his daughters,
And they married beyond their place.
And Father John went down;
And he wore small holes in his shoes,
And he wore large holes in his gown.
Whom the devils have by the hair,
From the wives, and the cats, and the children,
To the birds in the white of the air.
As he went up and down;
And he said with a smile, 'Have peace now';
And he went his way with a frown.
Came keeners hoarser than rooks,
He bade them give over their keening;
For he was a man of books.
When, weeping score by score,
People came into Coloony;
For he'd died at ninety-four.
The birds from Knocknarea
And the world round Knocknashee
Came keening in that day.
Came flying, heavy and sad;
Keening in from Tiraragh,
Keening from Ballinafad;
Nor stayed for bite or sup;
This way were all reproved
Who dig old customs up.Come round me, little childer;
There, don't fling stones at me
Because I mutter as I go;
But pity Moll Magee.
With shore lines in the say;
My work was saltin' herrings
The whole of the long day.
I scarce could drag my feet,
Under the blessed moonlight,
Along the pebbly street.
And my baby was just born;
A neighbour minded her by day,
I minded her till morn.
Ye little childer dear,
I looked on my cold baby
When the morn grew frosty and clear.
My man grew red and pale,
And gave me money, and bade me go
To my own place, Kinsale.
And gave his curse to me;
I went away in silence,
No neighbour could I see.
One star shone faint and green,
The little straws were turnin' round
Across the bare boreen.
Beyond old Martin's byre
I saw a kindly neighbour
Blowin' her mornin' fire.
My money's all used up,
And still, with pityin', scornin' eye,
She gives me bite and sup.
And fetch me home agin;
But always, as I'm movin' round,
Without doors or within,
Or goin' to the well,
I'm thinkin' of my baby
And keenin' to mysel'.
When, openin' wide His door,
God lights the stars, His candles,
And looks upon the poor.
Ye won't fling stones at me;
But gather with your shinin' looks
And pity Moll Magee.'Lay me in a cushioned chair;
Carry me, ye four,
With cushions here and cushions there,
To see the world once more.
Bring what is there to bring;
Lead my Lollard to and fro,
Or gently in a ring.
Bring Rody and his hounds,
That I may contented pass
From these earthly bounds.'
His old eyes cloud with dreams;
The sun upon all things that grow
Falls in sleepy streams.
And to the armchair goes,
And now the old man's dreams are gone,
He smooths the long brown nose.
Upon his wasted hands,
For leading aged hounds and young
The huntsman near him stands.
Make the hills reply.'
The huntsman loosens on the morn
A gay wandering cry.
His fingers move and sway,
And when the wandering music dies
They hear him feebly say,
Make the hills reply.'
'I cannot blow upon my horn,
I can but weep and sigh.'
Are with new sorrow wrung;
Hounds are gazing on his face,
Aged hounds and young.
On the sun-smitten grass;
He holds deep commune with his heart:
The moments pass and pass;
Lifts slow his wintry head;
The servants bear the body in;
The hounds wail for the dead.
Revisions and additional poems copyright © 1983, 1989 by Anne Yeats
Editorial matter and compilation copyright © 1983, 1989 by Macmillan Publishing Company