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diff --git a/32233-8.txt b/32233-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..39cb8aa --- /dev/null +++ b/32233-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1951 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Wind Among the Reeds, by William Butler Yeats + +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: The Wind Among the Reeds + +Author: William Butler Yeats + +Release Date: May 3, 2010 [EBook #32233] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WIND AMONG THE REEDS *** + + + + +Produced by Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + + +The Wind Among the Reeds + + + + +_The_ WIND AMONG +THE REEDS + +_By_ + +WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS + +LONDON · ELKIN MATHEWS +VIGO STREET · W · MDCCCCIII + +FOURTH EDITION. + + + + + PAGE + +THE HOSTING OF THE SIDHE 1 + +THE EVERLASTING VOICES 3 + +THE MOODS 4 + +AEDH TELLS OF THE ROSE IN HIS HEART 5 + +THE HOST OF THE AIR 7 + +BREASAL THE FISHERMAN 10 + +A CRADLE SONG 11 + +INTO THE TWILIGHT 13 + +THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS 15 + +THE SONG OF THE OLD MOTHER 17 + +THE FIDDLER OF DOONEY 18 + +THE HEART OF THE WOMAN 20 + +AEDH LAMENTS THE LOSS OF LOVE 21 + +MONGAN LAMENTS THE CHANGE THAT HAS COME + UPON HIM AND HIS BELOVED 22 + +MICHAEL ROBARTES BIDS HIS BELOVED BE AT + PEACE 24 + +HANRAHAN REPROVES THE CURLEW 26 + +MICHAEL ROBARTES REMEMBERS FORGOTTEN + BEAUTY 27 + +A POET TO HIS BELOVED 29 + +AEDH GIVES HIS BELOVED CERTAIN RHYMES 30 + +TO MY HEART, BIDDING IT HAVE NO FEAR 31 + +THE CAP AND BELLS 32 + +THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 35 + +MICHAEL ROBARTES ASKS FORGIVENESS BECAUSE + OF HIS MANY MOODS 37 + +AEDH TELLS OF A VALLEY FULL OF LOVERS 40 + +AEDH TELLS OF THE PERFECT BEAUTY 42 + +AEDH HEARS THE CRY OF THE SEDGE 43 + +AEDH THINKS OF THOSE WHO HAVE SPOKEN EVIL + OF HIS BELOVED 44 + +THE BLESSED 45 + +THE SECRET ROSE 47 + +HANRAHAN LAMENTS BECAUSE OF HIS WANDERINGS 51 + +THE TRAVAIL OF PASSION 52 + +THE POET PLEADS WITH HIS FRIEND FOR OLD + FRIENDS 54 + +HANRAHAN SPEAKS TO THE LOVERS OF HIS SONGS + IN COMING DAYS 55 + +AEDH PLEADS WITH THE ELEMENTAL POWERS 57 + +AEDH WISHES HIS BELOVED WERE DEAD 59 + +AEDH WISHES FOR THE CLOTHS OF HEAVEN 60 + +MONGAN THINKS OF HIS PAST GREATNESS 61 + +NOTES 65 + + + + +THE HOSTING OF THE SIDHE + + + The host is riding from Knocknarea + And over the grave of Clooth-na-bare; + Caolte tossing his burning hair + And 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 fold + And bid them wander obeying your will + Flame 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 woods + Have their day, have their day; + What one in the rout + Of the fire-born moods, + Has fallen away? + + + + +AEDH 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 gold + For 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 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 + At the coming of night tide, + And dreamed of the long dim hair + Of Bridget his bride. + + He heard while he sang and dreamed + A piper piping away, + And never was piping so sad, + And never was piping so gay. + + And he saw young men and young girls + Who danced on a level place + And 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 wine + And a young girl white bread. + + But Bridget drew him by the sleeve, + Away from the merry bands, + To old men playing at cards + With 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 dream + Of her long dim hair. + + He played with the merry old men + And thought not of evil chance, + Until one bore Bridget his bride + Away from the merry dance. + + He bore her away in his arms, + The handsomest young man there, + And his neck and his breast and his arms + Were drowned in her long dim hair. + + O'Driscoll scattered the cards + And out of his dream awoke: + Old men and young men and young girls + Were gone like a drifting smoke; + + But he heard high up in the air + A piper piping away, + And never was piping so sad, + And never was piping so gay. + + + + +BREASAL THE FISHERMAN + + + 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 mind + Over the little silver cords, + And think that you were hard and unkind, + And blame you with many bitter words. + + + + +A CRADLE SONG + + + The Danann 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 beat + The doors of Hell and blow there many a whimpering ghost; + O heart the winds have shaken; the unappeasable host + Is comelier than candles before Maurya'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 hill: + For there the mystical brotherhood + Of sun and moon and hollow and wood + And 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 twilight, + And 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 stream + And caught a little silver trout. + + When I had laid it on the floor + I 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 girl + With apple blossom in her hair + Who called me by my name and ran + And faded through the brightening air. + + Though I am old with wandering + Through 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 done, + The silver apples of the moon, + The golden apples of the sun. + + + + +THE SONG OF THE OLD MOTHER + + + I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow + Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow; + And then I must scrub and bake and sweep + Till stars are beginning to blink and peep; + And the young lie long and dream in their bed + Of the matching of ribbons for bosom and head, + And their day goes over in idleness, + And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress: + While I must work because I am old, + And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold. + + + + +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 Moharabuiee. + + I passed my brother and cousin: + They read in their books of prayer; + I read in my book of songs + I bought at the Sligo fair. + + When we come at the end of time, + To Peter sitting in state, + He will smile on the three old spirits, + But call me first through the gate; + + For the good are always the merry, + Save by an evil chance, + And the merry love the fiddle + And the merry love to dance: + + And when the folk there spy me, + They will all come up to me, + With 'Here is the fiddler of Dooney!' + And dance like a wave of the sea. + + + + +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, + The house where I was safe and warm; + The shadowy blossom of my hair + Will 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. + + + + +AEDH LAMENTS 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 + And saw your image was there; + She has gone weeping away. + + + + +MONGAN LAMENTS THE CHANGE THAT HAS COME UPON HIM AND HIS BELOVED + + + 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 fear + Under 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 West + And had rooted the sun and moon and stars out of the sky + And lay in the darkness, grunting, and turning to his rest. + + + + +MICHAEL ROBARTES 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 beat + Over 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. + + + + +HANRAHAN 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 mind + Passion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hair + That was shaken out over my breast: + There is enough evil in the crying of wind. + + + + +MICHAEL ROBARTES 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 hurled + In shadowy pools, when armies fled; + The love-tales wove with silken thread + By dreaming ladies upon cloth + That has made fat the murderous moth; + The roses that of old time were + Woven by ladies in their hair, + The dew-cold lilies ladies bore + Through many a sacred corridor + Where such gray clouds of incense rose + That only the gods' eyes did not close: + For that pale breast and lingering hand + Come from a more dream-heavy land, + A more dream-heavy hour than this; + And when you sigh from kiss to kiss + I hear white Beauty sighing, too, + For hours when all must fade like dew + But flame on flame, deep under 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 hands + The books of my numberless dreams; + White woman that passion has worn + As the tide wears the dove-gray sands, + And with heart more old than the horn + That is brimmed from the pale fire of time: + White woman with numberless dreams + I bring you my passionate rhyme. + + + + +AEDH 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 + Out 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 flood + Cover over and hide, for he has no part + With the proud, majestical multitude._ + + + + +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, + When owls began to call: + It had grown wise-tongued by thinking + Of a quiet and light footfall; + + But the young queen would not listen; + She rose in her pale night gown; + She drew in the heavy casement + And pushed the latches down. + + He bade his heart go to her, + When the owls called out no more; + In a red and quivering garment + It 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 table + And 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 whitened + He 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 flower + And the quiet of love in her feet. + + + + +THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG + + + The dews drop slowly and dreams gather: unknown spears + Suddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes, + And then the clash of fallen horsemen and the cries + Of 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. + + + + +MICHAEL ROBARTES ASKS FORGIVENESS BECAUSE OF HIS MANY MOODS + + + If this importunate heart trouble your peace + With 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 old + 'In dove-gray faery lands; + 'From battle banners fold upon purple fold, + 'Queens wrought with glimmering hands; + 'That saw young Niamh hover with love-lorn face + 'Above the wandering tide; + 'And lingered in the hidden desolate place, + 'Where the last Phoenix died + 'And wrapped the flames above his holy head; + 'And still murmur and long: + 'O Piteous Hearts, changing till change be dead + 'In a tumultuous song:' + And cover the pale blossoms of your breast + With your dim heavy hair, + And trouble with a sigh for all things longing for rest + The odorous twilight there. + + + + +AEDH 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 wood + With her cloud-pale eyelids falling on dream-dimmed eyes: + I cried in my dream '_O women bid the young men lay + 'Their heads on your knees, and drown their eyes with your hair, + 'Or remembering hers they will find no other face fair + 'Till all the valleys of the world have been withered away._' + + + + +AEDH 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 skies: + And therefore my heart will bow, when dew + Is dropping sleep, until God burn time, + Before the unlabouring stars and you. + + + + +AEDH 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 + And hands hurl in the deep + The banners of East and West + And the girdle of light is unbound, + Your breast will not lie by the breast + Of your beloved in sleep_. + + + + +AEDH 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 way + 'To gather the half of your blessedness + 'And learn to pray when you pray. + + 'I can bring you salmon out of the streams + 'And heron out of the skies.' + But Dathi folded his hands and smiled + With the secrets of God in his eyes. + + And Cumhal saw like a drifting smoke + All 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 sent + 'The blessedest souls that walk in the world + 'To fill your heart with content.' + + 'And which is the blessedest,' Cumhal said, + 'Where all are comely and good? + 'Is it these that with golden thuribles + 'Are singing about the wood?' + + 'My eyes are blinking,' Dathi said, + 'With the secrets of God half blind, + 'But I can see where the wind goes + 'And 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 world + 'And he nods a drunken head. + + 'O blessedness comes in the night and the day + 'And whither the wise heart knows; + 'And one has seen in the redness of wine + 'The Incorruptible Rose, + + 'That drowsily drops faint leaves on him + 'And the sweetness of desire, + 'While time and the world are ebbing away + 'In twilights of dew and of fire.' + + + + +THE SECRET ROSE + + + Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose, + Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those + Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre, + Or in the wine vat, dwell beyond the stir + And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep + Among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep + Men have named beauty. Thy great leaves enfold + The ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold + Of the crowned Magi; and the king whose eyes + Saw the Pierced Hands and Rood of elder rise + In druid vapour and make the torches dim; + Till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and him + Who met Fand walking among flaming dew + By 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 crown + And sorrow away, and calling bard and clown + Dwelt 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, await + The 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? + + + + +HANRAHAN LAMENTS BECAUSE OF HIS WANDERINGS + + + O where is our Mother of Peace + Nodding her purple hood? + For the winds that awakened the stars + Are blowing through my blood. + I would that the death-pale deer + Had come through the mountain side, + And trampled the mountain away, + And drunk up the murmuring tide; + For the winds that awakened the stars + Are blowing through my blood, + And our Mother of Peace has forgot me + Under her purple hood. + + + + +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 way + Crowded 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 POET 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: + Time's bitter flood will rise, + Your beauty perish and be lost + For all eyes but these eyes. + + + + +HANRAHAN SPEAKS TO THE LOVERS OF HIS SONGS IN COMING DAYS + + + O, colleens, 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 air + And covers away the smoke of myrrh and frankincense; + Bend down and pray for the great sin I wove in song, + Till Maurya of the wounded heart cry a sweet cry, + And call to my beloved and me: 'No longer fly + 'Amid the hovering, piteous, penitential throng.' + + + + +AEDH PLEADS WITH THE ELEMENTAL POWERS + + + The Powers whose name and shape no living creature knows + Have 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 choir + Encircle her I love and sing her into peace, + That my old care may cease; + Unfold your flaming wings and cover out of sight + The nets of day and night. + + Dim Powers of drowsy thought, let her no longer be + Like the pale cup of the sea, + When winds have gathered and sun and moon burned dim + Above its cloudy rim; + But let a gentle silence wrought with music flow + Whither her footsteps go. + + + + +AEDH 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 wound + About the stars and moon and sun: + O would beloved that you lay + Under the dock-leaves in the ground, + While lights were paling one by one. + + + + +AEDH 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 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. + + + + +MONGAN THINKS OF HIS PAST GREATNESS + + + I have drunk ale from the Country of the Young + 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: + 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 head + Would not lie on the breast or his lips on the hair + Of the woman that he loves, until he dies; + Although the rushes and the fowl of the air + Cry of his love with their pitiful cries. + + + + +NOTES + + +THE HOSTING OF THE SIDHE. + +The powerful and wealthy called the gods of ancient Ireland the Tuatha +De Danaan, or the Tribes of the goddess Danu, but the poor called them, +and still sometimes call them, the Sidhe, from Aes Sidhe or Sluagh +Sidhe, the people of the Faery Hills, as these words are usually +explained. Sidhe is also Gaelic for wind, and certainly the Sidhe have +much to do with the wind. They journey in whirling winds, the winds that +were called the dance of the daughters of Herodias in the Middle Ages, +Herodias doubtless taking the place of some old goddess. When the +country people see the leaves whirling on the road they bless +themselves, because they believe the Sidhe to be passing by. They are +almost always said to wear no covering upon their heads, and to let +their hair stream out; and the great among them, for they have great and +simple, go much upon horseback. If any one becomes too much interested +in them, and sees them over much, he loses all interest in ordinary +things. I shall write a great deal elsewhere about such enchanted +persons, and can give but an example or two now. + +A woman near Gort, in Galway, says: 'There is a boy, now, of the +Cloran's; but I wouldn't for the world let them think I spoke of him; +it's two years since he came from America, and since that time he never +went to Mass, or to church, or to fairs, or to market, or to stand on +the cross roads, or to hurling, or to nothing. And if any one comes into +the house, it's into the room he'll slip, not to see them; and as to +work, he has the garden dug to bits, and the whole place smeared with +cow dung; and such a crop as was never seen; and the alders all plaited +till they look grand. One day he went as far as the chapel; but as soon +as he got to the door he turned straight round again, as if he hadn't +power to pass it. I wonder he wouldn't get the priest to read a Mass for +him, or something; but the crop he has is grand, and you may know well +he has some to help him.' One hears many stories of the kind; and a man +whose son is believed to go out riding among them at night tells me that +he is careless about everything, and lies in bed until it is late in the +day. A doctor believes this boy to be mad. Those that are at times +'away,' as it is called, know all things, but are afraid to speak. A +countryman at Kiltartan says, 'There was one of the Lydons--John--was +away for seven years, lying in his bed, but brought away at nights, and +he knew everything; and one, Kearney, up in the mountains, a cousin of +his own, lost two hoggets, and came and told him, and he knew the very +spot where they were, and told him, and he got them back again. But +_they_ were vexed at that, and took away the power, so that he never +knew anything again, no more than another.' This wisdom is the wisdom of +the fools of the Celtic stories, that was above all the wisdom of the +wise. Lomna, the fool of Fiann, had so great wisdom that his head, cut +from his body, was still able to sing and prophesy; and a writer in the +'Encyclopędia Britannica' writes that Tristram, in the oldest form of +the tale of Tristram and Iseult, drank wisdom, and madness the shadow of +wisdom, and not love, out of the magic cup. + +The great of the old times are among the Tribes of Danu, and are kings +and queens among them. Caolte was a companion of Fiann; and years after +his death he appeared to a king in a forest, and was a flaming man, that +he might lead him in the darkness. When the king asked him who he was, +he said, 'I am your candlestick.' I do not remember where I have read +this story, and I have, maybe, half forgotten it. Niam was a beautiful +woman of the Tribes of Danu, that led Oisin to the Country of the Young, +as their country is called; I have written about her in 'The Wandering +of Usheen;' and he came back, at last, to bitterness and weariness. + +Knocknarea is in Sligo, and the country people say that Maeve, still a +great queen of the western Sidhe, is buried in the cairn of stones upon +it. I have written of Clooth-na-Bare in 'The Celtic Twilight.' She 'went +all over the world, seeking a lake deep enough to drown her faery life, +of which she had grown weary, leaping from hill to hill, and setting up +a cairn of stones wherever her feet lighted, until, at last, she found +the deepest water in the world in little Lough Ia, on the top of the +bird mountain, in Sligo.' I forget, now, where I heard this story, but +it may have been from a priest at Collooney. Clooth-na-Bare would mean +the old woman of Bare, but is evidently a corruption of Cailleac Bare, +the old woman Bare, who, under the names Bare, and Berah, and Beri, and +Verah, and Dera, and Dhira, appears in the legends of many places. Mr. +O'Grady found her haunting Lough Liath high up on the top of a mountain +of the Fews, the Slieve Fuadh, or Slieve G-Cullain of old times, under +the name of the Cailleac Buillia. He describes Lough Liath as a desolate +moon-shaped lake, with made wells and sunken passages upon its borders, +and beset by marsh and heather and gray boulders, and closes his +'Flight of the Eagle' with a long rhapsody upon mountain and lake, +because of the heroic tales and beautiful old myths that have hung about +them always. He identifies the Cailleac Buillia with that Meluchra who +persuaded Fionn to go to her amid the waters of Lough Liath, and so +changed him with her enchantments, that, though she had to free him +because of the threats of the Fiana, his hair was ever afterwards as +white as snow. To this day the Tribes of the Goddess Danu that are in +the waters beckon to men, and drown them in the waters; and Bare, or +Dhira, or Meluchra, or whatever name one likes the best, is, doubtless, +the name of a mistress among them. Meluchra was daughter of Cullain; and +Cullain Mr. O'Grady calls, upon I know not what authority, a form of +Lir, the master of waters. The people of the waters have been in all +ages beautiful and changeable and lascivious, or beautiful and wise and +lonely, for water is everywhere the signature of the fruitfulness of the +body and of the fruitfulness of dreams. The white hair of Fionn may be +but another of the troubles of those that come to unearthly wisdom and +earthly trouble, and the threats and violence of the Fiana against her, +a different form of the threats and violence the country people use, to +make the Tribes of Danu give up those that are 'away.' Bare is now often +called an ugly old woman; but Dr. Joyce says that one of her old names +was Aebhin, which means beautiful. Aebhen was the goddess of the tribes +of northern Leinster; and the lover she had made immortal, and who loved +her perfectly, left her, and put on mortality, to fight among them +against the stranger, and died on the strand of Clontarf. + + +'AEDH,' 'HANRAHAN' AND 'MICHAEL ROBARTES' IN THESE POEMS. + +These are personages in 'The Secret Rose;' but, with the exception of +some of Hanrahan's and one of Aedh's poems, the poems are not out of +that book. I have used them in this book more as principles of the mind +than as actual personages. It is probable that only students of the +magical tradition will understand me when I say that 'Michael Robartes' +is fire reflected in water, and that Hanrahan is fire blown by the wind, +and that Aedh, whose name is not merely the Irish form of Hugh, but the +Irish for fire, is fire burning by itself. To put it in a different way, +Hanrahan is the simplicity of an imagination too changeable to gather +permanent possessions, or the adoration of the shepherds; and Michael +Robartes is the pride of the imagination brooding upon the greatness of +its possessions, or the adoration of the Magi; while Aedh is the myrrh +and frankincense that the imagination offers continually before all that +it loves. + + +AEDH PLEADS WITH THE ELEMENTAL POWERS. + +MONGAN THINKS OF HIS PAST GREATNESS. + +AEDH HEARS THE CRY OF THE SEDGE. + +The Rose has been for many centuries a symbol of spiritual love and +supreme beauty. The Count Goblet D'Alviella thinks that it was once a +symbol of the sun,--itself a principal symbol of the divine nature, and +the symbolic heart of things. The lotus was in some Eastern countries +imagined blossoming upon the Tree of Life, as the Flower of Life, and is +thus represented in Assyrian bas-reliefs. Because the Rose, the flower +sacred to the Virgin Mary, and the flower that Apuleius' adventurer ate, +when he was changed out of the ass's shape and received into the +fellowship of Isis, is the western Flower of Life, I have imagined it +growing upon the Tree of Life. I once stood beside a man in Ireland when +he saw it growing there in a vision, that seemed to have rapt him out of +his body. He saw the garden of Eden walled about, and on the top of a +high mountain, as in certain medięval diagrams, and after passing the +Tree of Knowledge, on which grew fruit full of troubled faces, and +through whose branches flowed, he was told, sap that was human souls, he +came to a tall, dark tree, with little bitter fruits, and was shown a +kind of stair or ladder going up through the tree, and told to go up; +and near the top of the tree, a beautiful woman, like the Goddess of +Life associated with the tree in Assyria, gave him a rose that seemed +to have been growing upon the tree. One finds the Rose in the Irish +poets, sometimes as a religious symbol, as in the phrase, 'the Rose of +Friday,' meaning the Rose of austerity, in a Gaelic poem in Dr. Hyde's +'Religious Songs of Connacht;' and, I think, as a symbol of woman's +beauty in the Gaelic song, 'Roseen Dubh;' and a symbol of Ireland in +Mangan's adaptation of 'Roseen Dubh,' 'My Dark Rosaleen,' and in Mr. +Aubrey de Vere's 'The Little Black Rose.' I do not know any evidence to +prove whether this symbol came to Ireland with medięval Christianity, or +whether it has come down from Celtic times. I have read somewhere that a +stone engraved with a Celtic god, who holds what looks like a rose in +one hand, has been found somewhere in England; but I cannot find the +reference, though I certainly made a note of it. If the Rose was really +a symbol of Ireland among the Gaelic poets, and if 'Roseen Dubh' is +really a political poem, as some think, one may feel pretty certain that +the ancient Celts associated the Rose with Eire, or Fotla, or +Banba--goddesses who gave their names to Ireland--or with some principal +god or goddess, for such symbols are not suddenly adopted or invented, +but come out of mythology. + +I have made the Seven Lights, the constellation of the Bear, lament for +the theft of the Rose, and I have made the Dragon, the constellation +Draco, the guardian of the Rose, because these constellations move about +the pole of the heavens, the ancient Tree of Life in many countries, and +are often associated with the Tree of Life in mythology. It is this Tree +of Life that I have put into the 'Song of Mongan' under its common Irish +form of a hazel; and, because it had sometimes the stars for fruit, I +have hung upon it 'the Crooked Plough' and the 'Pilot' star, as +Gaelic-speaking Irishmen sometimes call the Bear and the North star. I +have made it an axle-tree in 'Aedh hears the Cry of the Sedge,' for this +was another ancient way of representing it. + + +THE HOST OF THE AIR. + +Some writers distinguish between the Sluagh Gaoith, the host of the air, +and Sluagh Sidhe, the host of the Sidhe, and describe the host of the +air as of a peculiar malignancy. Dr. Joyce says, 'of all the different +kinds of goblins ... air demons were most dreaded by the people. They +lived among clouds, and mists, and rocks, and hated the human race with +the utmost malignity.' A very old Arann charm, which contains the words +'Send God, by his strength, between us and the host of the Sidhe, +between us and the host of the air,' seems also to distinguish among +them. I am inclined, however, to think that the distinction came in with +Christianity and its belief about the prince of the air, for the host of +the Sidhe, as I have already explained, are closely associated with the +wind. + +They are said to steal brides just after their marriage, and sometimes +in a blast of wind. A man in Galway says, 'At Aughanish there were two +couples came to the shore to be married, and one of the newly married +women was in the boat with the priest, and they going back to the +island; and a sudden blast of wind came, and the priest said some +blessed words that were able to save himself, but the girl was swept.' + +This woman was drowned; but more often the persons who are taken 'get +the touch,' as it is called, and fall into a half dream, and grow +indifferent to all things, for their true life has gone out of the +world, and is among the hills and the forts of the Sidhe. A faery doctor +has told me that his wife 'got the touch' at her marriage because there +was one of them wanted her; and the way he knew for certain was, that +when he took a pitchfork out of the rafters, and told her it was a +broom, she said, 'It is a broom.' She was, the truth is, in the magical +sleep, to which people have given a new name lately, that makes the +imagination so passive that it can be moulded by any voice in any world +into any shape. A mere likeness of some old woman, or even old animal, +some one or some thing the Sidhe have no longer a use for, is believed +to be left instead of the person who is 'away;' this some one or some +thing can, it is thought, be driven away by threats, or by violence +(though I have heard country women say that violence is wrong), which +perhaps awakes the soul out of the magical sleep. The story in the poem +is founded on an old Gaelic ballad that was sung and translated for me +by a woman at Ballisodare in County Sligo; but in the ballad the husband +found the keeners keening his wife when he got to his house. She was +'swept' at once; but the Sidhe are said to value those the most whom +they but cast into a half dream, which may last for years, for they need +the help of a living person in most of the things they do. There are +many stories of people who seem to die and be buried--though the country +people will tell you it is but some one or some thing put in their place +that dies and is buried--and yet are brought back afterwards. These +tales are perhaps memories of true awakenings out of the magical sleep, +moulded by the imagination, under the influence of a mystical doctrine +which it understands too literally, into the shape of some well-known +traditional tale. One does not hear them as one hears the others, from +the persons who are 'away,' or from their wives or husbands; and one old +man, who had often seen the Sidhe, began one of them with 'Maybe it is +all vanity.' + +Here is a tale that a friend of mine heard in the Burren hills, and it +is a type of all:-- + +'There was a girl to be married, and she didn't like the man, and she +cried when the day was coming, and said she wouldn't go along with him. +And the mother said, "Get into the bed, then, and I'll say that you're +sick." And so she did. And when the man came the mother said to him, +"You can't get her, she's sick in the bed." And he looked in and said, +"That's not my wife that's in the bed, it's some old hag." And the +mother began to cry and to roar. And he went out and got two hampers of +turf, and made a fire, that they thought he was going to burn the house +down. And when the fire was kindled, "Come out now," says he, "and we'll +see who you are, when I'll put you on the fire." And when she heard +that, she gave one leap, and was out of the house, and they saw, then, +it was an old hag she was. Well, the man asked the advice of an old +woman, and she bid him go to a faery-bush that was near, and he might +get some word of her. So he went there at night, and saw all sorts of +grand people, and they in carriages or riding on horses, and among them +he could see the girl he came to look for. So he went again to the old +woman, and she said, "If you can get the three bits of blackthorn out of +her hair, you'll get her again." So that night he went again, and that +time he only got hold of a bit of her hair. But the old woman told him +that was no use, and that he was put back now, and it might be twelve +nights before he'd get her. But on the fourth night he got the third bit +of blackthorn, and he took her, and she came away with him. He never +told the mother he had got her; but one day she saw her at a fair, and, +says she, "That's my daughter; I know her by the smile and by the laugh +of her," and she with a shawl about her head. So the husband said, +"You're right there, and hard I worked to get her." She spoke often of +the grand things she saw underground, and how she used to have wine to +drink, and to drive out in a carriage with four horses every night. And +she used to be able to see her husband when he came to look for her, and +she was greatly afraid he'd get a drop of the wine, for then he would +have come underground and never left it again. And she was glad herself +to come to earth again, and not to be left there.' + +The old Gaelic literature is full of the appeals of the Tribes of the +goddess Danu to mortals whom they would bring into their country; but +the song of Midher to the beautiful Etain, the wife of the king who was +called Echaid the ploughman, is the type of all. + +'O beautiful woman, come with me to the marvellous land where one +listens to a sweet music, where one has spring flowers in one's hair, +where the body is like snow from head to foot, where no one is sad or +silent, where teeth are white and eyebrows are black ... cheeks red like +foxglove in flower.... Ireland is beautiful, but not so beautiful as the +Great Plain I call you to. The beer of Ireland is heady, but the beer of +the Great Plain is much more heady. How marvellous is the country I am +speaking of! Youth does not grow old there. Streams with warm flood flow +there; sometimes mead, sometimes wine. Men are charming and without a +blot there, and love is not forbidden there. O woman, when you come into +my powerful country you will wear a crown of gold upon your head. I will +give you the flesh of swine, and you will have beer and milk to drink, O +beautiful woman. O beautiful woman, come with me!' + + +A CRADLE SONG. + +MICHAEL ROBARTES ASKS FORGIVENESS BECAUSE OF HIS MANY MOODS. + +I use the wind as a symbol of vague desires and hopes, not merely +because the Sidhe are in the wind, or because the wind bloweth as it +listeth, but because wind and spirit and vague desire have been +associated everywhere. A highland scholar tells me that his country +people use the wind in their talk and in their proverbs as I use it in +my poem. + + +THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS. + +The Tribes of the goddess Danu can take all shapes, and those that are +in the waters take often the shape of fish. A woman of Burren, in +Galway, says, 'There are more of them in the sea than on the land, and +they sometimes try to come over the side of the boat in the form of +fishes, for they can take their choice shape.' At other times they are +beautiful women; and another Galway woman says, 'Surely those things are +in the sea as well as on land. My father was out fishing one night off +Tyrone. And something came beside the boat that had eyes shining like +candles. And then a wave came in, and a storm rose all in a minute, and +whatever was in the wave, the weight of it had like to sink the boat. +And then they saw that it was a woman in the sea that had the shining +eyes. So my father went to the priest, and he bid him always to take a +drop of holy water and a pinch of salt out in the boat with him, and +nothing could harm him.' + +The poem was suggested to me by a Greek folk song; but the folk belief +of Greece is very like that of Ireland, and I certainly thought, when I +wrote it, of Ireland, and of the spirits that are in Ireland. An old man +who was cutting a quickset hedge near Gort, in Galway, said, only the +other day, 'One time I was cutting timber over in Inchy, and about eight +o'clock one morning, when I got there, I saw a girl picking nuts, with +her hair hanging down over her shoulders; brown hair; and she had a +good, clean face, and she was tall, and nothing on her head, and her +dress no way gaudy, but simple. And when she felt me coming she gathered +herself up, and was gone, as if the earth had swallowed her up. And I +followed her, and looked for her, but I never could see her again from +that day to this, never again.' + +The county Galway people use the word 'clean' in its old sense of fresh +and comely. + + +MICHAEL ROBARTES BIDS HIS BELOVED BE AT PEACE. + +November, the old beginning of winter, or of the victory of the Fomor, +or powers of death, and dismay, and cold, and darkness, is associated by +the Irish people with the horse-shaped Pścas, who are now mischievous +spirits, but were once Fomorian divinities. I think that they may have +some connection with the horses of Mannannan, who reigned over the +country of the dead, where the Fomorian Tethra reigned also; and the +horses of Mannannan, though they could cross the land as easily as the +sea, are constantly associated with the waves. Some neo-platonist, I +forget who, describes the sea as a symbol of the drifting indefinite +bitterness of life, and I believe there is like symbolism intended in +the many Irish voyages to the islands of enchantment, or that there was, +at any rate, in the mythology out of which these stories have been +shaped. I follow much Irish and other mythology, and the magical +tradition, in associating the North with night and sleep, and the East, +the place of sunrise, with hope, and the South, the place of the sun +when at its height, with passion and desire, and the West, the place of +sunset, with fading and dreaming things. + + +MONGAN LAMENTS THE CHANGE THAT HAS COME UPON HIM AND HIS BELOVED. + +HANRAHAN LAMENTS BECAUSE OF HIS WANDERINGS. + +My deer and hound are properly related to the deer and hound that +flicker in and out of the various tellings of the Arthurian legends, +leading different knights upon adventures, and to the hounds and to the +hornless deer at the beginning of, I think, all tellings of Oisin's +journey to the country of the young. The hound is certainly related to +the Hounds of Annwvyn or of Hades, who are white, and have red ears, and +were heard, and are, perhaps, still heard by Welsh peasants following +some flying thing in the night winds; and is probably related to the +hounds that Irish country people believe will awake and seize the souls +of the dead if you lament them too loudly or too soon, and to the hound +the son of Setanta killed, on what was certainly, in the first form of +the tale, a visit to the Celtic Hades. An old woman told a friend and +myself that she saw what she thought were white birds, flying over an +enchanted place, but found, when she got near, that they had dog's +heads; and I do not doubt that my hound and these dog-headed birds are +of the same family. I got my hound and deer out of a last century Gaelic +poem about Oisin's journey to the country of the young. After the +hunting of the hornless deer, that leads him to the seashore, and while +he is riding over the sea with Niam, he sees amid the waters--I have not +the Gaelic poem by me, and describe it from memory--a young man +following a girl who has a golden apple, and afterwards a hound with one +red ear following a deer with no horns. This hound and this deer seem +plain images of the desire of man 'which is for the woman,' and 'the +desire of the woman which is for the desire of the man,' and of all +desires that are as these. I have read them in this way in 'The +Wanderings of Usheen' or Oisin, and have made my lover sigh because he +has seen in their faces 'the immortal desire of immortals.' A solar +mythologist would perhaps say that the girl with the golden apple was +once the winter, or night, carrying the sun away, and the deer without +horns, like the boar without bristles, darkness flying the light. He +would certainly, I think, say that when Cuchullain, whom Professor Rhys +calls a solar hero, hunted the enchanted deer of Slieve Fuadh, because +the battle fury was still on him, he was the sun pursuing clouds, or +cold, or darkness. I have understood them in this sense in 'Hanrahan +laments because of his wandering,' and made Hanrahan long for the day +when they, fragments of ancestral darkness, will overthrow the world. +The desire of the woman, the flying darkness, it is all one! The +image--a cross, a man preaching in the wilderness, a dancing Salome, a +lily in a girl's hand, a flame leaping, a globe with wings, a pale +sunset over still waters--is an eternal act; but our understandings are +temporal and understand but a little at a time. + +The man in my poem who has a hazel wand may have been Aengus, Master of +Love; and I have made the boar without bristles come out of the West, +because the place of sunset was in Ireland, as in other countries, a +place of symbolic darkness and death. + + +THE CAP AND BELLS. + +I dreamed this story exactly as I have written it, and dreamed another +long dream after it, trying to make out its meaning, and whether I was +to write it in prose or verse. The first dream was more a vision than a +dream, for it was beautiful and coherent, and gave me the sense of +illumination and exaltation that one gets from visions, while the second +dream was confused and meaningless. The poem has always meant a great +deal to me, though, as is the way with symbolic poems, it has not always +meant quite the same thing. Blake would have said 'the authors are in +eternity,' and I am quite sure they can only be questioned in dreams. + + +THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG. + +All over Ireland there are prophecies of the coming rout of the enemies +of Ireland, in a certain Valley of the Black Pig, and these prophecies +are, no doubt, now, as they were in the Fenian days, a political force. +I have heard of one man who would not give any money to the Land League, +because the Battle could not be until the close of the century; but, as +a rule, periods of trouble bring prophecies of its near coming. A few +years before my time, an old man who lived at Lisadell, in Sligo, used +to fall down in a fit and rave out descriptions of the Battle; and a man +in Sligo has told me that it will be so great a battle that the horses +shall go up to their fetlocks in blood, and that their girths, when it +is over, will rot from their bellies for lack of a hand to unbuckle +them. The battle is a mythological battle, and the black pig is one with +the bristleless boar, that killed Dearmod, in November, upon the western +end of Ben Bulben; Misroide MacDatha's sow, whose carving brought on so +great a battle; 'the croppy black sow,' and 'the cutty black sow' of +Welsh November rhymes ('Celtic Heathendom,' pages 509-516); the boar +that killed Adonis; the boar that killed Attis; and the pig embodiment +of Typhon ('Golden Bough,' II. pages 26, 31). The pig seems to have been +originally a genius of the corn, and, seemingly because the too great +power of their divinity makes divine things dangerous to mortals, its +flesh was forbidden to many eastern nations; but as the meaning of the +prohibition was forgotten, abhorrence took the place of reverence, pigs +and boars grew into types of evil, and were described as the enemies of +the very gods they once typified ('Golden Bough,' II. 26-31, 56-57). The +Pig would, therefore, become the Black Pig, a type of cold and of winter +that awake in November, the old beginning of winter, to do battle with +the summer, and with the fruit and leaves, and finally, as I suggest; +and as I believe, for the purposes of poetry; of the darkness that will +at last destroy the gods and the world. The country people say there is +no shape for a spirit to take so dangerous as the shape of a pig; and a +Galway blacksmith--and blacksmiths are thought to be especially +protected--says he would be afraid to meet a pig on the road at night; +and another Galway man tells this story: 'There was a man coming the +road from Gort to Garryland one night, and he had a drop taken; and +before him, on the road, he saw a pig walking; and having a drop in, he +gave a shout, and made a kick at it, and bid it get out of that. And by +the time he got home, his arm was swelled from the shoulder to be as big +as a bag, and he couldn't use his hand with the pain of it. And his wife +brought him, after a few days, to a woman that used to do cures at +Rahasane. And on the road all she could do would hardly keep him from +lying down to sleep on the grass. And when they got to the woman she +knew all that happened; and, says she, it's well for you that your wife +didn't let you fall asleep on the grass, for if you had done that but +even for one instant, you'd be a lost man.' + +It is possible that bristles were associated with fertility, as the tail +certainly was, for a pig's tail is stuck into the ground in Courland, +that the corn may grow abundantly, and the tails of pigs, and other +animal embodiments of the corn genius, are dragged over the ground to +make it fertile in different countries. Professor Rhys, who considers +the bristleless boar a symbol of darkness and cold, rather than of +winter and cold, thinks it was without bristles because the darkness is +shorn away by the sun. It may have had different meanings, just as the +scourging of the man-god has had different though not contradictory +meanings in different epochs of the world. + +The Battle should, I believe, be compared with three other battles; a +battle the Sidhe are said to fight when a person is being taken away by +them; a battle they are said to fight in November for the harvest; the +great battle the Tribes of the goddess Danu fought, according to the +Gaelic chroniclers, with the Fomor at Moy Tura, or the Towery Plain. + +I have heard of the battle over the dying both in County Galway and in +the Isles of Arann, an old Arann fisherman having told me that it was +fought over two of his children, and that he found blood in a box he had +for keeping fish, when it was over; and I have written about it, and +given examples elsewhere. A faery doctor, on the borders of Galway and +Clare, explained it as a battle between the friends and enemies of the +dying, the one party trying to take them, the other trying to save them +from being taken. It may once, when the land of the Sidhe was the only +other world, and when every man who died was carried thither, have +always accompanied death. I suggest that the battle between the Tribes +of the goddess Danu, the powers of light, and warmth, and fruitfulness, +and goodness, and the Fomor, the powers of darkness, and cold, and +barrenness, and badness upon the Towery Plain, was the establishment of +the habitable world, the rout of the ancestral darkness; that the battle +among the Sidhe for the harvest is the annual battle of summer and +winter; that the battle among the Sidhe at a man's death is the battle +of life and death; and that the battle of the Black Pig is the battle +between the manifest world and the ancestral darkness at the end of all +things; and that all these battles are one, the battle of all things +with shadowy decay. Once a symbolism has possessed the imagination of +large numbers of men, it becomes, as I believe, an embodiment of +disembodied powers, and repeats itself in dreams and visions, age after +age. + + +THE SECRET ROSE. + +I find that I have unintentionally changed the old story of Conchobar's +death. He did not see the crucifixion in a vision, but was told about +it. He had been struck by a ball, made of the dried brain of a dead +enemy, and hurled out of a sling; and this ball had been left in his +head, and his head had been mended, the Book of Leinster says, with +thread of gold because his hair was like gold. Keating, a writer of the +time of Elizabeth, says, 'In that state did he remain seven years, until +the Friday on which Christ was crucified, according to some historians; +and when he saw the unusual changes of the creation and the eclipse of +the sun and the moon at its full, he asked of Bucrach, a Leinster +Druid, who was along with him, what was it that brought that unusual +change upon the planets of Heaven and Earth. "Jesus Christ, the son of +God," said the Druid, "who is now being crucified by the Jews." "That is +a pity," said Conchobar; "were I in his presence I would kill those who +were putting him to death." And with that he brought out his sword, and +rushed at a woody grove which was convenient to him, and began to cut +and fell it; and what he said was, that if he were among the Jews that +was the usage he would give them, and from the excessiveness of his fury +which seized upon him, the ball started out of his head, and some of the +brain came after it, and in that way he died. The wood of Lanshraigh, in +Feara Rois, is the name by which that shrubby wood is called.' + +I have imagined Cuchullain meeting Fand 'walking among flaming dew.' The +story of their love is one of the most beautiful of our old tales. Two +birds, bound one to another with a chain of gold, came to a lake side +where Cuchullain and the host of Uladh was encamped, and sang so sweetly +that all the host fell into a magic sleep. Presently they took the shape +of two beautiful women, and cast a magical weakness upon Cuchullain, in +which he lay for a year. At the year's end an Aengus, who was probably +Aengus the master of love, one of the greatest of the children of the +goddess Danu, came and sat upon his bedside, and sang how Fand, the wife +of Mannannan, the master of the sea, and of the islands of the dead, +loved him; and that if he would come into the country of the gods, where +there was wine and gold and silver, Fand, and Laban her sister, would +heal him of his magical weakness. Cuchullain went to the country of the +gods, and, after being for a month the lover of Fand, made her a +promise to meet her at a place called 'the Yew at the Strand's End,' and +came back to the earth. Emer, his mortal wife, won his love again, and +Mannannan came to 'the Yew at the Strand's End,' and carried Fand away. +When Cuchullain saw her going, his love for her fell upon him again, and +he went mad, and wandered among the mountains without food or drink, +until he was at last cured by a Druid drink of forgetfulness. + +I have founded the man 'who drove the gods out of their Liss,' or fort, +upon something I have read about Caolte after the battle of Gabra, when +almost all his companions were killed, driving the gods out of their +Liss, either at Osraighe, now Ossory, or at Eas Ruaidh, now Asseroe, a +waterfall at Ballyshannon, where Ilbreac, one of the children of the +goddess Danu, had a Liss. I am writing away from most of my books, and +have not been able to find the passage; but I certainly read it +somewhere. + +I have founded 'the proud dreaming king' upon Fergus, the son of Roigh, +the legendary poet of 'the quest of the bull of Cualge,' as he is in the +ancient story of Deirdre, and in modern poems by Ferguson. He married +Nessa, and Ferguson makes him tell how she took him 'captive in a single +look.' + + 'I am but an empty shade, + Far from life and passion laid; + Yet does sweet remembrance thrill + All my shadowy being still.' + +Presently, because of his great love, he gave up his throne to +Conchobar, her son by another, and lived out his days feasting, and +fighting, and hunting. His promise never to refuse a feast from a +certain comrade, and the mischief that came by his promise, and the +vengeance he took afterwards, are a principal theme of the poets. I +have explained my imagination of him in 'Fergus and the Druid,' and in a +little song in the second act of 'The Countess Kathleen.' + + * * * * * + +I have founded him 'who sold tillage, and house, and goods,' upon +something in 'The Red Pony,' a folk tale in Mr. Larminie's 'West Irish +Folk Tales.' A young man 'saw a light before him on the high road. When +he came as far, there was an open box on the road, and a light coming up +out of it. He took up the box. There was a lock of hair in it. Presently +he had to go to become the servant of a king for his living. There were +eleven boys. When they were going out into the stable at ten o'clock, +each of them took a light but he. He took no candle at all with him. +Each of them went into his own stable. When he went into his stable he +opened the box. He left it in a hole in the wall. The light was great. +It was twice as much as in the other stables.' The king hears of it, and +makes him show him the box. The king says, 'You must go and bring me the +woman to whom the hair belongs.' In the end, the young man, and not the +king, marries the woman. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Wind Among the Reeds, by William Butler Yeats + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WIND AMONG THE REEDS *** + +***** This file should be named 32233-8.txt or 32233-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/2/3/32233/ + +Produced by Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +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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