William Butler Yeats Responsibilities, and other poems
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THE HOUR BEFORE DAWN
A one-legged, one-armed, one-eyed man, A bundle of rags upon a crutch, Stumbled on windy Cruachan Cursing the wind. It was as much As the one sturdy leg could do To keep him upright while he cursed. He had counted, where long years ago Queen Maeve's nine Maines had been nursed, A pair of lapwings, one old sheep And not a house to the plain's edge, When close to his right hand a heap Of grey stones and a rocky ledge Reminded him that he could make, If he but shifted a few stones, A shelter till the daylight broke. But while he fumbled with the stones They toppled over; 'Were it not I have a lucky wooden shin I had been hurt'; and toppling brought Before his eyes, where stones had been, A dark deep hole in the rock's face. He gave a gasp and thought to run, Being certain it was no right place But the Hell Mouth at Cruachan That's stuffed with all that's old and bad, And yet stood still, because inside He had seen a red-haired jolly lad In some outlandish coat beside A ladle and a tub of beer, Plainly no phantom by his look. So with a laugh at his own fear He crawled into that pleasant nook. Young Red-head stretched himself to yawn And murmured, 'May God curse the night That's grown uneasy near the dawn So that it seems even I sleep light; And who are you that wakens me? Has one of Maeve's nine brawling sons Grown tired of his own company? But let him keep his grave for once I have to find the sleep I have lost.' And then at last being wide awake, 'I took you for a brawling ghost, Say what you please, but from day-break I'll sleep another century.' The beggar deaf to all but hope Went down upon a hand and knee And took the wooden ladle up And would have dipped it in the beer But the other pushed his hand aside, 'Before you have dipped it in the beer That sacred Goban brewed,' he cried, 'I'd have assurance that you are able To value beer – I will have no fool Dipping his nose into my ladle Because he has stumbled on this hole In the bad hour before the dawn. If you but drink that beer and say I will sleep until the winter's gone, Or maybe, to Midsummer Day You will sleep that length; and at the first I waited so for that or this — Because the weather was a-cursed Or I had no woman there to kiss, And slept for half a year or so; But year by year I found that less Gave me such pleasure I'd forgo Even a half hour's nothingness, And when at one year's end I found I had not waked a single minute, I chose this burrow under ground. I will sleep away all Time within it: My sleep were now nine centuries But for those mornings when I find The lapwing at their foolish cries And the sheep bleating at the wind As when I also played the fool.' The beggar in a rage began Upon his hunkers in the hole, 'It's plain that you are no right man To mock at everything I love As if it were not worth the doing. I'd have a merry life enough If a good Easter wind were blowing, And though the winter wind is bad I should not be too down in the mouth For anything you did or said If but this wind were in the south.' But the other cried, 'You long for spring Or that the wind would shift a point And do not know that you would bring, If time were suppler in the joint, Neither the spring nor the south wind But the hour when you shall pass away And leave no smoking wick behind, For all life longs for the Last Day And there's no man but cocks his ear To know when Michael's trumpet cries That flesh and bone may disappear, And souls as if they were but sighs, And there be nothing but God left; But I alone being blessed keep Like some old rabbit to my cleft And wait Him in a drunken sleep.'
He dipped his ladle in the tub And drank and yawned and stretched him out. The other shouted, 'You would rob My life of every pleasant thought And every comfortable thing And so take that and that.' Thereon He gave him a great pummelling, But might have pummelled at a stone For all the sleeper knew or cared; And after heaped the stones again And cursed and prayed, and prayed and cursed: 'Oh God if he got loose!' And then In fury and in panic fled From the Hell Mouth at Cruachan And gave God thanks that overhead The clouds were brightening with the dawn.
THE PLAYER QUEEN
(Song from an Unfinished Play)
My mother dandled me and sang, 'How young it is, how young!' And made a golden cradle That on a willow swung.
'He went away,' my mother sang, 'When I was brought to bed,' And all the while her needle pulled The gold and silver thread.
She pulled the thread and bit the thread And made a golden gown, And wept because she had dreamt that I Was born to wear a crown.
'When she was got,' my mother sang, 'I heard a sea-mew cry, And saw a flake of the yellow foam That dropped upon my thigh.'
How therefore could she help but braid The gold into my hair, And dream that I should carry The golden top of care?
THE REALISTS
Hope that you may understand! What can books of men that wive In a dragon-guarded land, Paintings of the dolphin-drawn Sea-nymphs in their pearly waggons Do, but awake a hope to live That had gone With the dragons?
I
THE WITCH
Toil, and grow rich, What's that but to lie With a foul witch And after, drained dry, To be brought To the chamber where Lies one long sought With despair.
II
THE PEACOCK
What's riches to him That has made a great peacock With the pride of his eye? The wind-beaten, stone-grey, And desolate Three-rock Would nourish his whim. Live he or die Amid wet rocks and heather, His ghost will be gay Adding feather to feather For the pride of his eye.
THE MOUNTAIN TOMB
Pour wine and dance if Manhood still have pride, Bring roses if the rose be yet in bloom; The cataract smokes upon the mountain side, Our Father Rosicross is in his tomb.
Pull down the blinds, bring fiddle and clarionet That there be no foot silent in the room Nor mouth from kissing, nor from wine unwet; Our Father Rosicross is in his tomb.
In vain, in vain; the cataract still cries The everlasting taper lights the gloom; All wisdom shut into his onyx eyes Our Father Rosicross sleeps in his tomb.
TO A CHILD DANCING IN THE WIND
I
Dance there upon the shore; What need have you to care For wind or water's roar? And tumble out your hair That the salt drops have wet; Being young you have not known The fool's triumph, nor yet Love lost as soon as won, Nor the best labourer dead And all the sheaves to bind. What need have you to dread The monstrous crying of wind?
II
Has no one said those daring Kind eyes should be more learn'd? Or warned you how despairing The moths are when they are burned, I could have warned you, but you are young, So we speak a different tongue.
O you will take whatever's offered And dream that all the world's a friend, Suffer as your mother suffered, Be as broken in the end. But I am old and you are young, And I speak a barbarous tongue.
A MEMORY OF YOUTH
The moments passed as at a play, I had the wisdom love brings forth; I had my share of mother wit And yet for all that I could say, And though I had her praise for it, A cloud blown from the cut-throat north Suddenly hid love's moon away.
Believing every word I said I praised her body and her mind Till pride had made her eyes grow bright, And pleasure made her cheeks grow red, And vanity her footfall light, Yet we, for all that praise, could find Nothing but darkness overhead.
We sat as silent as a stone, We knew, though she'd not said a word, That even the best of love must die, And had been savagely undone Were it not that love upon the cry Of a most ridiculous little bird Tore from the clouds his marvellous moon.
FALLEN MAJESTY
Although crowds gathered once if she but showed her face, And even old men's eyes grew dim, this hand alone, Like some last courtier at a gypsy camping place, Babbling of fallen majesty, records what's gone.
The lineaments, a heart that laughter has made sweet, These, these remain, but I record what's gone. A crowd Will gather, and not know it walks the very street Whereon a thing once walked that seemed a burning cloud.
FRIENDS
Now must I these three praise — Three women that have wrought What joy is in my days; One that no passing thought, Nor those unpassing cares, No, not in these fifteen Many times troubled years, Could ever come between Heart and delighted heart; And one because her hand Had strength that could unbind What none can understand, What none can have and thrive, Youth's dreamy load, till she So changed me that I live Labouring in ecstasy. And what of her that took All till my youth was gone With scarce a pitying look? How should I praise that one? When day begins to break I count my good and bad, Being wakeful for her sake, Remembering what she had, What eagle look still shows, While up from my heart's root So great a sweetness flows I shake from head to foot.
THE COLD HEAVEN
Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting Heaven That seemed as though ice burned and was but the more ice, And thereupon imagination and heart were driven So wild that every casual thought of that and this Vanished, and left but memories, that should be out of season With the hot blood of youth, of love crossed long ago; And I took all the blame out of all sense and reason, Until I cried and trembled and rocked to and fro, Riddled with light. Ah! when the ghost begins to quicken, Confusion of the death-bed over, is it sent Out naked on the roads, as the books say, and stricken By the injustice of the skies for punishment?
THAT THE NIGHT COME
She lived in storm and strife, Her soul had such desire For what proud death may bring That it could not endure The common good of life, But lived as 'twere a king That packed his marriage day With banneret and pennon, Trumpet and kettledrum, And the outrageous cannon, To bundle time away That the night come.
AN APPOINTMENT
Being out of heart with government I took a broken root to fling Where the proud, wayward squirrel went, Taking delight that he could spring; And he, with that low whinnying sound That is like laughter, sprang again And so to the other tree at a bound. Nor the tame will, nor timid brain, Bred that fierce tooth and cleanly limb And threw him up to laugh on the bough; No government appointed him.
I
THE MAGI
Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye, In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones, And all their helms of silver hovering side by side, And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more, Being by Calvary's turbulence unsatisfied, The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.
II
THE DOLLS
A doll in the doll-maker's house Looks at the cradle and balls: 'That is an insult to us.' But the oldest of all the dolls Who had seen, being kept for show, Generations of his sort, Out-screams the whole shelf: 'Although There's not a man can report Evil of this place, The man and the woman bring Hither to our disgrace, A noisy and filthy thing.' Hearing him groan and stretch The doll-maker's wife is aware Her husband has heard the wretch, And crouched by the arm of his chair, She murmurs into his ear, Head upon shoulder leant: 'My dear, my dear, oh dear, It was an accident.'