The Wind Among The Reeds

The Hosting of the Sidhe

The host is riding from Knocknarea And over the grave of Clooth-na-Bare; Caoilte tossing his burning hair, And Niamh calling Away, come away: Empty your heart of its mortal dream.

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The Everlasting Voices

O sweet everlasting Voices, be still; Go to the guards of the heavenly fold And bid them wander obeying your will, Flame under flame, till Time be no more… Have you not heard that our hearts are o…

The Moods

Time drops in decay, Like a candle burnt out, And the mountains and the woods Have their day, have their day; What one in the rout

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The Lover Tells of the Rose in His Heart

All things uncomely and broken, all thin… The cry of a child by the roadway, the c… The heavy steps of the ploughman, splash… Are wronging your image that blossoms a… The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong…

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The Host of the Air

O’Driscoll drove with a song The wild duck and the drake From the tall and the tufted reeds Of the drear Hart Lake. And he saw how the reeds grew dark

The Fish

Although you hide in the ebb and flow Of the pale tide when the moon has set, The people of coming days will know About the casting out of my net, And how you have leaped times out of min…

The Unappeasable Host

The Danaan children laugh, in cradles o… And clap their hands together, and half… For they will ride the North when the g… With heavy whitening wings, and a heart… I kiss my wailing child and press it to…

Into the Twilight

Out-Worn heart, in a time out-worn, Come clear of the nets of wrong and righ… Laugh, heart, again in the grey twilight… Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the mor… Your mother Eire is aways young,

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,

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The Song of the Old Mother

I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blo… Till the seed of the fire flicker and gl… And then I must scrub and bake and swee… Till stars are beginning to blink and pe… And the young lie long and dream in thei…

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The Heart of the Woman

O what to me the little room That 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,

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The Lover Mourns for the Loss of Love

Pale brows, still hands and dim hair, I had a beautiful friend And dreamed that the old despair Would end in love in the end: She looked in my heart one day

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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 w… I have been changed to a hound with one… I have been in the Path of Stones and t… For somebody hid hatred and hope and des… Under my feet that they follow you night…

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He Bids His Beloved Be at Peace

I hear the Shadowy Horses, their long m… Their hoofs heavy with tumult, their eye… The North unfolds above them clinging,… The East her hidden joy before the morn… The West weeps in pale dew and sighs pa…

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He Reproves the Curlew

O curlew, cry no more in the air, Or only to the water in the West; Because your crying brings to my mind passion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hair That was shaken out over my breast:

He Remembers Forgotten Beauty

When my arms wrap you round I press My heart upon the loveliness That has long faded from the world; The jewelled crowns that kings have hurl… In shadowy pools, when armies fled;

A Poet to His Beloved

I bring you with reverent hands The books of my numberless dreams, White woman that passion has worn As the tide wears the dove-grey sands, And with heart more old than the horn

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 loveliness

To His Heart, Bidding It Have No Fear

Be you still, be you still, trembling he… Remember the wisdom out of the old days: Him who trembles before the flame and th… And the winds that blow through the star… Let the starry winds and the flame and t…

The Cap and Bells

The jester walked in the garden: The garden had fallen still; He bade his soul rise upward And stand on her window—sill. It rose in a straight blue garment,

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The Valley of the Black Pig

The dews drop slowly and dreams gather;… Suddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened… And then the clash of fallen horsemen an… Of unknown perishing armies beat about m… We who still labour by the cromlech on t…

The Lover Asks Forgiveness Because of His Many Moods

If this importunate heart trouble your p… With words lighter than air, Or hopes that in mere hoping flicker and… Crumple the rose in your hair; And cover your lips with odorous twiligh…

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He Tells of a Valley Full of Lovers

I dreamed that I stood in a valley, and… For happy lovers passed two by two where… And I dreamed my lost love came stealth… With her cloud-pale eyelids falling on d… I cried in my dream, O women, bid the y…

He Tells of the Perfect Beauty

O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes, The poets labouring all their days To build a perfect beauty in rhyme Are overthrown by a woman’s gaze And by the unlabouring brood of the skie…

He Hears the Cry of the Sedge

I wander by the edge Of this desolate lake Where wind cries in the sedge: Until the axle break That keeps the stars in their round,

He Thinks of Those Who Have Spoken Evil of His Beloved

Half close your eyelids, loosen your hai… And dream about the great and their prid… They have spoken against you everywhere, But weigh this song with the great and t… I made it out of a mouthful of air,

The Blessed

Cumhal called out, bending his head, Till Dathi came and stood, With a blink in his eyes, at the cave-mo… Between the wind and the wood. And Cumhal said, bending his knees,

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The Secret Rose

Far-Off, most secret, and inviolate Ros… Enfold me in my hour of hours; where tho… Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre, Or in the wine-vat, dwell beyond the sti… And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep

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Maid Quiet

Where has Maid Quiet gone to, Nodding her russet hood? The winds that awakened the stars Are blowing through my blood. O how could I be so calm

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The Travail of Passion

When the flaming lute-thronged angelic d… When an immortal passion breathes in mor… Our hearts endure the scourge, the plait… Crowded with bitter faces, the wounds in… The vinegar-heavy sponge, the flowers by…

The Lover Pleads With His Friend for Old Friends

Though you are in your shining days, Voices among the crowd And new friends busy with your praise, Be not unkind or proud, But think about old friends the most:

The Lover Speaks to the Hearers of His Songs in Coming Days

O women, kneeling by your altar-rails lo… When songs I wove for my beloved hide t… And smoke from this dead heart drifts th… And covers away the smoke of myrrh and f… Bend down and pray for all that sin I w…

The Poet Pleads With the Elemental Powers

The Powers whose name and shape no livi… Have pulled the Immortal Rose; And though the Seven Lights bowed in th… The Polar Dragon slept, His heavy rings uncoiled from glimmering…

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 hea… And I would lay my head on your breast; And you would murmur tender words,

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 cloths Of night and light and the half—light, I would spread the cloths under your fee…

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He Thinks of His Past Greatness When a Part of the Constellations of Heaven

I have drunk ale from the Country of th… And weep because I know all things now: I have been a hazel-tree, and they hung The Pilot Star and the Crooked Plough Among my leaves in times out of mind:

The Fiddler of Dooney

When I play on my fiddle in Dooney. Folk dance like a wave of the sea; My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet, My brother in Mocharabuiee. I passed my brother and cousin:

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W. B. Yeats