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diff --git a/16615-8.txt b/16615-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ac69f4b --- /dev/null +++ b/16615-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1410 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of By Still Waters, by George William Russell + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: By Still Waters + Lyrical Poems Old and New + +Author: George William Russell + +Release Date: August 29, 2005 [EBook #16615] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY STILL WATERS *** + + + + +Produced by David Starner, Sankar Viswanathan, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + BY STILL WATERS, LYRICAL + POEMS OLD AND NEW BY A.E. + + + + + + + + + + + + THE DUN EMER PRESS + DUNDRUM + MCMVI + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + + Prelude + A Summer Night + Creation + Dusk + Night + Dawn + Day + Dana + Remembrance + The Hour of the King + The Winds of Angus + Reflections + The Dawn of Darkness + Natural Magic + In the Womb + Forgiveness + A Woman's Voice + Parting + A Prayer + The Heroes + Recall + Blindness + Brotherhood + A New Being + The Man to the Angel + Endurance + The Vesture of the Soul + The Twilight of Earth + The Dream + The Parting of Ways + Song + The Virgin Mother + + +The Manager of the Dun Emer Press has to thank Mr. John Lane for +permission to reprint ten poems from Homeward Songs by the Way and +nine poems from The Earth Breath, also Messrs. Macmillan & Co. for +permission to reprint seven poems from The Divine Vision. + + + + + Oh, be not led away, + Lured by the colour of the sun-rich day. + The gay romance of song + Unto the spirit life doth not belong: + Though far-between the hours + In which the Master of Angelic powers + Lightens the dusk within + The holy of holies, be it thine to win + Rare vistas of white light, + Half parted lips through which the Infinite + Murmurs her ancient story, + Harkening to whom the wandering planets hoary + Waken primeval fires, + With deeper rapture in celestial choirs + Breathe, and with fleeter motion + Wheel in their orbits through the surgeless ocean. + So hearken thou like these, + Intent on her, mounting by slow degrees, + Until thy song's elation + Echoes her multitudinous meditation. + + + + +A SUMMER NIGHT + + + Her mist of primroses within her breast + Twilight hath folded up, and o'er the west, + Seeking remoter valleys long hath gone, + Not yet hath come her sister of the dawn. + Silence and coolness now the earth enfold: + Jewels of glittering green, long mists of gold, + Hazes of nebulous silver veil the height, + And shake in tremors through the shadowy night. + Heard through the stillness, as in whispered words, + The wandering God-guided wings of birds + Ruffle the dark. The little lives that lie + Deep hid in grass join in a long-drawn sigh + More softly still; and unheard through the blue + The falling of innumerable dew, + Lifts with grey fingers all the leaves that lay + Burned in the heat of the consuming day. + The lawns and lakes lie in this night of love, + Admitted to the majesty above. + Earth with the starry company hath part; + The waters hold all heaven within their heart, + And glimmer o'er with wave-lips everywhere + Lifted to meet the angel lips of air. + The many homes of men shine near and far; + Peace-laden as the tender evening star, + The late home-coming folk anticipate + Their rest beyond the passing of the gate, + And tread with sleep-filled hearts on drowsy feet. + Oh, far away and wonderful and sweet + All this, all this. But far too many things + Obscuring, as a cloud of seraph wings + Blinding the seeker for the Lord behind, + I fall away in weariness of mind, + And think how far apart are I and you, + Beloved, from those spirit children who + Felt but one single Being long ago, + Whispering in gentleness and leaning low + Out of its majesty, as child to child. + I think upon it all with heart grown wild. + Hearing no voice, howe'er my spirit broods. + No whisper from the dense infinitudes, + This world of myriad things whose distance awes. + Ah me; how innocent our childhood was! + + + + +CREATION + + + As one by one the veils took flight, + The day withdrew, the stars came up: + The spirit issued dark and bright, + Filling thy beauty like a cup. + + Sacred thy laughter on the air, + Holy thy lightest word that fell, + Proud the innumerable hair + That waved at the enchanter's spell. + + Oh Master of the Beautiful, + Creating us from hour to hour, + Give me this vision to the full + To see in lightest things thy power! + + This vision give, no heaven afar, + No throne, and yet I will rejoice, + Knowing beneath my feet a star, + Thy word in every wandering voice. + + + + +DUSK + + + Dusk wraps the village in its dim caress; + Each chimney's vapour, like a thin grey rod, + Mounting aloft through miles of quietness, + Pillars the skies of God. + + Far up they break or seem to break their line, + Mingling their nebulous crests that bow and nod + Under the light of those fierce stars that shine + Out of the calm of God. + + Only in clouds and dreams I felt those souls + In the abyss, each fire hid in its clod, + From which in clouds and dreams the spirit rolls + Into the vast of God. + + + + +NIGHT + + + Heart-hidden from the outer things I rose; + The spirit woke anew in nightly birth + Unto the vastness where forever glows + The star-soul of the earth. + + There all alone in primal ecstasy, + Within her depths where revels never tire, + The Olden Beauty shines: each thought of me + Is veined through with its fire. + + And all my thoughts are throngs of living souls; + They breathe in me, heart unto heart allied; + Their joy undimmed, though when the morning tolls + The planets may divide. + + + + +DAWN + + + Still as the holy of holies breathes the vast + Within its crystal depths the stars grow dim; + Fire on the altar of the hills at last + Burns on the shadowy rim. + + Moments that holds all moments; white upon + The verge it trembles; then like mists of flowers + Break from the fairy fountain of the dawn + The hues of many hours. + + Thrown downward from that high companionship + Of dreaming inmost heart with inmost heart, + Into the common daily ways I slip, + My fire from theirs apart. + + + + +DAY + + + In day from some titanic past it seems + As if a thread divine of memory runs; + Born ere the Mighty One began his dreams, + Or yet were stars and suns. + + But here an iron will has fixed the bars; + Forgetfulness falls on earth's myriad races: + No image of the proud and morning stars + Looks at us from their faces. + + Yet yearning still to reach to those dim heights, + Each dream remembered is a burning-glass, + Where through to darkness from the Light of Lights + Its rays in splendour pass. + + + + +DANA + + + I am the tender voice calling 'Away,' + Whispering between the beatings of the heart, + And inaccessible in dewy eyes + I dwell, and all unkissed on lovely lips, + Lingering between white breasts inviolate, + And fleeting ever from the passionate touch, + I shine afar, till men may not divine + Whether it is the stars or the beloved + They follow with wrapt spirit. And I weave + My spells at evening, folding with dim caress, + Aerial arms and twilight dropping hair, + The lonely wanderer by wood or shore, + Till, filled with some deep tenderness, he yields, + Feeling in dreams for the dear mother heart + He knew, ere he forsook the starry way, + And clings there, pillowed far above the smoke + And the dim murmur from the duns of men. + I can enchant the trees and rocks, and fill + The dumb brown lips of earth with mystery, + Make them reveal or hide the god. I breathe + A deeper pity than all love, myself + Mother of all, but without hands to heal: + Too vast and vague, they know me not. But yet + I am the heartbreak over fallen things, + The sudden gentleness that stays the blow, + And I am in the kiss that foemen give + Pausing in battle, and in the tears that fall + Over the vanquished foe, and in the highest; + Among the Danaan gods, I am the last + Council of mercy in their hearts where they + Mete justice from a thousand starry thrones. + + + + +REMEMBRANCE + + + There were many burning hours on the heart-sweet tide, + And we passed away from ourselves, forgetting all + The immortal moods that faded, the god who died, + Hastening away to the King on a distant call. + + There were ruby dews were shed when the heart was riven, + And passionate pleading and prayers to the dead we had wronged; + And we passed away unremembering and unforgiven, + Hastening away to the King for the peace we longed. + + Love unremembered and heart-ache we left behind, + We forsook them, unheeding, hastening away in our flight; + We knew the hearts we had wronged of old we would find + When we came to the fold of the King for rest in the night. + + + + +THE HOUR OF THE KING + + + Who would think this quiet breather + From the world had taken flight? + Yet within the form we see there + Wakes the golden King to-night. + + Out upon the face of faces + He looked forth before his sleep: + Now he knows the starry races + Haunters of the ancient deep; + + On the Bird of Diamond Glory + Floats in mystic floods of song: + As he lists Time's triple story + Seems but as a day is long. + + From the mightier Adam falling + To his image dwarfed in clay, + He will at our voices calling + Come to this side of the day. + + When he wakes, the dreamy-hearted, + He will know not whence he came, + And the light from which he parted + Be the seraph's sword of flame, + + And behind it hosts supernal + Guarding the lost paradise, + And the tree of life eternal + From the weeping human eyes. + + + + +THE WINDS OF ANGUS + + + The grey road whereupon we trod became as holy ground: + The eve was all one voice that breathed its message with no sound: + And burning multitudes pour through my heart, too bright, too blind, + Too swift and hurried in their flight to leave their tale behind. + Twin gates unto that living world, dark honey-coloured eyes + The lifting of whose lashes flushed the face with paradise-- + Beloved, there I saw within their ardent rays unfold + The likeness of enraptured birds that flew from deeps of gold + To deeps of gold within my breast to rest or there to be + Transfigured in the light, or find a death to life in me. + So love, a burning multitude, a seraph wind which blows + From out the deep of being to the deep of being goes: + And sun and moon and starry fires and earth and air and sea + Are creatures from the deep let loose who pause in ecstasy, + Or wing their wild and heavenly way until again they find + The ancient deep and fade therein, enraptured, bright and blind. + + + + +REFLECTIONS + + + How shallow is this mere that gleams! + Its depth of blue is from the skies; + And from a distant sun the dreams + And lovely light within your eyes. + + We deem our love so infinite + Because the Lord is everywhere, + And love awakening is made bright + And bathed in that diviner air. + + We go on our enchanted way + And deem our hours immortal hours, + Who are but shadow kings that play + With mirrored majesties and powers. + + + + +THE DAWN OF DARKNESS + + + Come earth's little children pit-pat from their burrows on the hill; + Hangs within the gloom its weary head the shining daffodil. + In the valley underneath us through the fragrance flit along + Over fields and over hedgerows little quivering drops of song. + All adown the pale blue mantle of the mountains far away + Stream the tresses of the twilight flying in the wake of day. + Night comes; soon alone shall fancy follow sadly in her flight + Where the fiery dust of evening, shaken from the feet of light, + Thrusts its monstrous barriers between the pure, the good, the true, + That our weeping eyes may strain for, but shall never after view. + Only yester eve I watched with heart at rest the nebulæ + Looming far within the shadowy shining of the Milky Way; + Finding in the stillness joy and hope for all the sons of men; + Now what silent anguish fills a night more beautiful than then. + For earth's age of pain has come, and all her sister planets weep, + Thinking of her fires of morning passing into dreamless sleep. + In this cycle of great sorrow for the moments that we last + We too shall be linked by weeping to the greatness of her past: + But the coming race shall know not, and the fount of tears shall dry, + And the arid heart of man be arid as the desert sky. + So within my mind the darkness dawned and round me everywhere + Hope departed with the twilight, leaving only dumb despair. + + + + +NATURAL MAGIC + + + We are tired who follow after + Phantasy and truth that flies: + You with only look and laughter + Stain our hearts with richest dyes. + + When you break upon our study + Vanish all our frosty cares; + As the diamond deep grows ruddy, + Filled with morning unawares. + + With the stuff that dreams are made of + But an empty house we build: + Glooms we are ourselves afraid of, + By the ancient starlight chilled. + + All unwise in thought or duty-- + Still our wisdom envies you: + We who lack the living beauty + Half our secret knowledge rue. + + Thought nor fear in you nor dreaming + Veil the light with mist about; + Joy, as through a crystal gleaming, + Flashes from the gay heart out. + + Pain and penitence forsaking, + Hearts like cloisters dim and grey, + By your laughter lured, awaking + Join with you the dance of day. + + + + +IN THE WOMB + + + Still rests the heavy share on the dark soil: + Upon the black mould thick the dew-damp lies: + The horse waits patient: from his lowly toil + The ploughboy to the morning lifts his eyes. + + The unbudding hedgerows dark against day's fires + Glitter with gold-lit crystals: on the rim + Over the unregarding city's spires + The lonely beauty shines alone for him. + + And day by day the dawn or dark enfolds + And feeds with beauty eyes that cannot see + How in her womb the mighty mother moulds + The infant spirit for eternity. + + + + +FORGIVENESS + + + At dusk the window panes grew grey; + The wet world vanished in the gloom; + The dim and silver end of day + Scarce glimmered through the little room. + + And all my sins were told; I said + Such things to her who knew not sin-- + The sharp ache throbbing in my head, + The fever running high within. + + I touched with pain her purity; + Sin's darker sense I could not bring: + My soul was black as night to me: + To her I was a wounded thing. + + I needed love no words could say; + She drew me softly nigh her chair, + My head upon her knees to lay, + With cool hands that caressed my hair. + + She sat with hands as if to bless, + And looked with grave, ethereal eyes; + Ensouled by ancient quietness, + A gentle priestess of the Wise. + + + + +A WOMAN'S VOICE + + + His head within my bosom lay, + But yet his spirit slipped not through: + I only felt the burning clay + That withered for the cooling dew. + + It was but pity when I spoke + And called him to my heart for rest, + And half a mother's love that woke + Feeling his head upon my breast: + + And half the lion's tenderness + To shield her cubs from hurt or death, + Which, when the serried hunters press, + Makes terrible her wounded breath. + + But when the lips I breathed upon + Asked for such love as equals claim + I looked where all the stars were gone + Burned in the day's immortal flame. + + 'Come thou like yon great dawn to me + From darkness vanquished, battles done: + Flame unto flame shall flow and be + Within thy heart and mine as one.' + + + + +PARTING + + + As from our dream we died away + Far off I felt the outer things; + Your wind-blown tresses round me play, + Your bosom's gentle murmurings. + + And far away our faces met + As on the verge of the vast spheres; + And in the night our cheeks were wet, + I could not say with dew or tears. + + As one within the Mother's heart + In that hushed dream upon the height + We lived, and then we rose to part, + Because her ways are infinite. + + + + +A PRAYER + + + O, holy Spirit of the Hazel, hearken now, + Though shining suns and silver moons burn on the bough, + And though the fruit of stars by many myriads gleam, + Yet in the undergrowth below, still in thy dream, + Lighting the labyrinthine maze and monstrous gloom + Are many gem-winged flowers with gay and delicate bloom; + And in the shade, hearken, O Dreamer of the Tree, + One wild rose blossom of thy spirit breathed on me + With lovely and still light, a little sister flower + To those that whitely on the tall moon branches tower, + Lord of the Hazel now, oh hearken while I pray, + This wild rose blossom of thy spirit fades away. + + + + +THE HEROES + + + By many a dream of God and man my thoughts in shining flocks were led: + But as I went through Patrick Street the hopes and prophecies were dead. + The hopes and prophecies were dead: they could not blossom where the feet + Walked amid rottenness, or where the brawling shouters stamped the street. + Where was the beauty that the Lord gave man when first he towered in pride? + But one came by me at whose word the bitter condemnation died. + His brows were crowned with thorns of light: his eyes were bright as one + who sees + The starry palaces shine o'er the sparkle of the heavenly seas. + 'Is it not beautiful?' he cried. Our Faery Land of Hearts' Desire + Is mingled through the mire and mist, yet stainless keeps its lovely fire. + The pearly phantoms with blown hair are dancing where the drunkards reel: + The cloud frail daffodils shine out where filth is splashing from the heel. + O sweet, and sweet, and sweet to hear, the melodies in rivers run: + The rapture of their crowded notes is yet the myriad voice of One. + Those who are lost and fallen here, to-night in sleep shall pass the gate, + And wear the purples of the King, and know them masters of their fate. + Each wrinkled hag shall reassume the plumes and hues of paradise: + Each brawler be enthroned in calm among the Children of the Wise. + Yet in the council with the gods no one will falter to pursue + His lofty purpose, but come forth the cyclic labours to renew; + And take the burden of the world and dim his beauty in a shroud, + And wrestle with the chaos till the anarch to the light be bowed. + We cannot for forgetfulness forego the reverence due to them + Who wear at times they do not guess the sceptre and the diadem. + As bright a crown as this was theirs when first they from the Father sped; + Yet look with deeper eyes and still the ancient beauty is not dead. + He mingled with the multitude. I saw their brows were crowned and bright, + A light around the shadowy heads, a shadow round the head of light. + + + + +RECALL + + + What call may draw thee back again, + Lost dove, what art, what charm may please? + The tender touch, the kiss, are vain, + For thou wert lured away by these. + + Oh, must we use the iron hand, + And mask with hate the holy breath, + With alien voice give love's command, + As they through love the call of death? + + + + +BLINDNESS + + + Our true hearts are forever lonely: + A wistfulness is in our thought: + Our lights are like the dawns which only + Seem bright to us and yet are not. + + Something you see in me I wis not: + Another heart in you I guess: + A stranger's lips--but thine I kiss not, + Erring in all my tenderness. + + I sometimes think a mighty lover + Takes every burning kiss we give: + His lights are those which round us hover: + For him alone our lives we live. + + Ah, sigh for us whose hearts unseeing + Point all their passionate love in vain, + And blinded in the joy of being, + Meet only when pain touches pain. + + + + +BROTHERHOOD + + + Twilight, a blossom grey in shadowy valleys dwells: + Under the radiant dark the deep blue-tinted bells + In quietness reïmage heaven within their blooms, + Sapphire and gold and mystery. What strange perfumes, + Out of what deeps arising, all the flower-bells fling, + Unknowing the enchanted odorous song they sing! + Oh, never was an eve so living yet: the wood + Stirs not but breathes enraptured quietide. + Here in these shades the Ancient knows itself, the Soul, + And out of slumber waking starts unto the goal. + What bright companions nod and go along with it! + Out of the teeming dark what dusky creatures flit, + That through the long leagues of the island night above + Come by me, wandering, whispering, beseeching love; + As in the twilight children gather close and press + Nigh and more nigh with shadowy tenderness, + Feeling they know not what, with noiseless footsteps glide + Seeking familiar lips or hearts to dream beside. + O voices, I would go with you, with you, away, + Facing once more the radiant gateways of the day; + With you, with you, what memories arise, and nigh + Trampling the crowded figures of the dawn go by, + Dread deities, the giant powers that warred on men + Grow tender brothers and gay children once again; + Fades every hate away before the Mother's breast + Where all the exiles of the heart return to rest. + + + + +A NEW BEING + + + I know myself no more, my child, + Since thou art come to me, + Pity so tender and so wild + Hath wrapped my thoughts of thee. + + These thoughts, a fiery gentle rain, + Are from the Mother shed, + Where many a broken heart hath lain + And many a weeping head. + + + + +THE MAN TO THE ANGEL + + + I have wept a million tears: + Pure and proud one, where are thine, + What the gain though all thy years + In unbroken beauty shine? + + All your beauty cannot win + Truth we learn in pain and sighs: + You can never enter in + To the circle of the wise. + + They are but the slaves of light + Who have never known the gloom, + And between the dark and bright + Willed in freedom their own doom. + + Think not in your pureness there, + That our pain but follows sin: + There are fires for those who dare + Seek the throne of might to win. + + Pure one, from your pride refrain: + Dark and lost amid the strife + I am myriad years of pain + Nearer to the fount of life. + + When defiance fierce is thrown + At the God to whom you bow, + Rest the lips of the Unknown + Tenderest upon my brow. + + + + +ENDURANCE + + + He bent above: so still her breath + What air she breathed he could not say, + Whether in worlds of life or death: + So softly ebbed away, away + The life that had been light to him, + So fled her beauty leaving dim + The emptying chambers of his heart + Thrilled only by the pang and smart, + The dull and throbbing agony + That suffers still, yet knows not why. + Love's immortality so blind + Dreams that all things with it conjoined + Must share with it immortal day: + But not of this--but not of this-- + The touch, the eyes, the laugh, the kiss, + Fall from it and it goes its way. + So blind he wept above her clay, + 'I did not think that you could die. + Only some veil would cover you + Our loving eyes could still pierce through; + And see through dusky shadows still + Move as of old your wild sweet will, + Impatient every heart to win + And flash its heavenly radiance in.' + Though all the worlds were sunk in rest + The ruddy star within his breast + Would croon its tale of ancient pain, + Its sorrow that would never wane, + Its memory of the days of yore + Moulded in beauty evermore. + Ah, immortality so blind, + To dream all things with it conjoined + Must follow it from star to star + And share with it immortal years. + The memory, yearning, grief, and tears, + Fall from it and it goes afar. + He walked at night along the sands, + And saw the stars dance overhead, + He had no memory of the dead, + But lifted up exultant hands + To hail the future like a boy, + The myriad paths his feet might press. + Unhaunted by old tenderness + He felt an inner secret joy! + A spirit of unfettered will + Through light and darkness moving still + Within the All to find its own, + To be immortal and alone. + + + + +THE VESTURE OF THE SOUL + + + I pitied one whose tattered dress + Was patched, and stained with dust and rain; + He smiled on me; I could not guess + The viewless spirit's wide domain. + + He said, 'The royal robe I wear + Trails all along the fields of light: + Its silent blue and silver bear + For gems the starry dust of night.' + + 'The breath of joy unceasingly + Waves to and fro its folds starlit, + And far beyond earth's misery + I live and breathe the joy of it.' + + + + +THE TWILIGHT OF EARTH + + + The wonder of the world is o'er: + The magic from the sea is gone: + There is no unimagined shore, + No islet yet to venture on. + The Sacred Hazels' blooms are shed, + The Nuts of Knowledge harvested. + + Oh, what is worth this lore of age + If time shall never bring us back + Our battle with the gods to wage + Reeling along the starry track. + The battle rapture here goes by + In warring upon things that die. + + Let be the tale of him whose love + Was sighed between white Deirdre's breasts, + It will not lift the heart above + The sodden clay on which it rests. + Love once had power the gods to bring + All rapt on its wild wandering. + + We shiver in the falling dew, + And seek a shelter from the storm: + When man these elder brothers knew + He found the mother nature warm, + A hearth fire blazing through it all, + A home without a circling wall. + + We dwindle down beneath the skies, + And from ourselves we pass away: + The paradise of memories + Grows ever fainter day by day. + The shepherd stars have shrunk within, + The world's great night will soon begin. + + Will no one, ere it is too late, + Ere fades the last memorial gleam, + Recall for us our earlier state? + For nothing but so vast a dream + That it would scale the steeps of air + Could rouse us from so vast despair. + + The power is ours to make or mar + Our fate as on the earliest morn, + The Darkness and the Radiance are + Creatures within the spirit born. + Yet, bathed in gloom too long, we might + Forget how we imagined light. + + Not yet are fixed the prison bars: + The hidden light the spirit owns + If blown to flame would dim the stars + And they who rule them from their thrones: + And the proud sceptred spirits thence + Would bow to pay us reverence. + + Oh, while the glory sinks within + Let us not wait on earth behind, + But follow where it flies, and win + The glow again, and we may find + Beyond the Gateways of the Day + Dominion and ancestral sway. + + + + +THE DREAM + + + I did not deem it half so sweet + To feel thy gentle hand, + As in a dream thy soul to greet + Across wide leagues of land, + + Untouched more near to draw to you + Where, amid radiant skies, + Glimmered thy plumes of iris hue, + My Bird of Paradise. + + Let me dream only with my heart, + Love first, and after see: + Know thy diviner counterpart + Before I kneel to thee. + + So in thy motions all expressed + Thy angel I may view: + I shall not on thy beauty rest, + But Beauty's ray in you. + + + + +THE PARTING OF WAYS + + + The skies from black to pearly grey + Had veered without a star or sun; + Only a burning opal ray + Fell on your brow when all was done. + + Aye, after victory, the crown; + Yet through the fight no word of cheer; + And what would win and what go down + No word could help, no light make clear. + + A thousand ages onward led + Their joys and sorrows to that hour; + No wisdom weighed, no word was said, + For only what we were had power. + + There was no tender leaning there + Of brow to brow in loving mood; + For we were rapt apart, and were + In elemental solitude. + + We knew not in redeeming day + Whether our spirits would be found + Floating along the starry way, + Or in the earthly vapours drowned. + + Brought by the sunrise-coloured flame + To earth, uncertain yet, the while + I looked at you, there slowly came, + Noble and sisterly, your smile. + + We bade adieu to love the old; + We heard another lover then, + Whose forms are myriad and untold, + Sigh to us from the hearts of men. + + + + +SONG + + + Dusk its ash-grey blossoms sheds on violet skies, + Over twilight mountains where the heart songs rise, + Rise and fall and fade away from earth to air. + Earth renews the music sweeter. Oh, come there. + Come, acushla, come, as in ancient times + Rings aloud the underland with faery chimes. + Down the unseen ways as strays each tinkling fleece + Winding ever onward to a fold of peace, + So my dreams go straying in a land more fair; + Half I tread the dew-wet grasses, half wander there. + Fade your glimmering eyes in a world grown cold; + Come, acushla, with me to the mountains old. + There the bright ones call us waving to and fro-- + Come, my children, with me to the ancient go. + + + + +THE VIRGIN MOTHER + + + Who is that goddess to whom men should pray + But her from whom their hearts have turned away, + Out of whose virgin being they were born, + Whose mother nature they have named in scorn + Calling its holy substance common clay. + + Yet from this so despised earth was made + The milky whiteness of those queens who swayed + Their generations with a light caress, + And from some image of whose loveliness + The heart built up high heaven when it prayed. + + Lover, your heart, the heart on which it lies, + Your eyes that gaze, and those alluring eyes, + Your lips, the lips they kiss, alike had birth + Within this dark divinity of earth, + Within this mother being you despise. + + Ah, when I think this earth on which we tread + Hath borne these blossoms of the lovely dead, + And made the living heart I love to beat, + I look with sudden awe beneath my feet + As you with erring reverence overhead. + + + + + Here ends By Still Waters, Lyrical Poems Old & New by A.E., + printed upon paper made in Ireland, and published by + Elizabeth C. Yeats at the Dun Emer Press, in the house of + Evelyn Gleeson at Dundrum in the County of Dublin, Ireland, + finished on All Soul's Eve, in the year 1906. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's By Still Waters, by George William Russell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY STILL WATERS *** + +***** This file should be named 16615-8.txt or 16615-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/6/1/16615/ + +Produced by David Starner, Sankar Viswanathan, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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