The Valley of the Black Pig (by W.B. Yeats)

Yeats [by George Charles Beresford, 1911]

The Valley of the Black Pig
by William Butler Yeats
from The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)

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 cromlech 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.
 
 

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The Cap and Bells (by William Butler Yeats)

Yeats [by George Charles Beresford, 1911]

The Cap and Bells
by William Butler Yeats
from The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)

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. 
 

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To His Heart, Bidding It Have No Fear (by W.B. Yeats)

Yeats [by George Charles Beresford, 1911]

To His Heart, Bidding It Have No Fear
by William Butler Yeats
from The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)

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 lonely, majestical multitude. 
 

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He Gives His Beloved Certain Rhymes (by William Butler Yeats)

Yeats [by George Charles Beresford, 1911]

He Gives His Beloved Certain Rhymes
by William Butler Yeats
from The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)

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. 
 

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He Remembers Forgotten Beauty (by William Butler Yeats)

Yeats [by George Charles Beresford, 1911]

He Remembers Forgotten Beauty
by William Butler Yeats
from The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)

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 wrought 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 grey clouds of incense rose
That only God’s 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, and deep on deep,
Throne over throne where in half sleep,
Their swords upon their iron knees,
Brood her high lonely mysteries. 

 

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He Reproves the Curlew (by William Butler Yeats)

Yeats [by George Charles Beresford, 1911]

He Reproves the Curlew
by William Butler Yeats
from The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)

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

 

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He Bids His Beloved Be at Peace (by William Butler Yeats)

Yeats [by George Charles Beresford, 1911]

He Bids His Beloved Be at Peace
by William Butler Yeats
from The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)

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. 

 

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He mourns for the Change that has come (by William Butler Yeats)

Yeats [by George Charles Beresford, 1911]

He mourns for the Change that has come upon Him
and his Beloved, and longs for the End of the World
by William Butler Yeats
from The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)

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. 

 

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The Lover Mourns for the Loss of Love (by William Butler Yeats)

Yeats [by George Charles Beresford, 1911]

The Lover Mourns for the Loss of Love
by William Butler Yeats
from The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)

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. 

 
 

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The Heart of the Woman (by William Butler Yeats)

Yeats [by George Charles Beresford, 1911]

The Heart of the Woman
by William Butler Yeats
from The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)

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. 
 

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