Delphi Complete Poetry and Plays of W. B. Yeats (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series) Read online

  W. B. YEATS

  (1865–1939)

  Contents

  The Poetry Collections

  THE WANDERINGS OF OISIN AND OTHER POEMS

  THE COUNTESS KATHLEEN AND VARIOUS LEGENDS AND LYRICS

  THE WIND AMONG THE REEDS

  Poems from THE SHADOWY WATERS

  TWO NARRATIVE POEMS

  IN THE SEVEN WOODS

  THE GREEN HELMET AND OTHER POEMS

  RESPONSIBILITIES

  THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE

  MICHAEL ROBARTES AND THE DANCER

  THE TOWER

  THE WINDING STAIR AND OTHER POEMS

  PARNELL’S FUNERAL AND OTHER POEMS

  NEW POEMS, 1938

  Poems from ON THE BOILER

  LAST POEMS

  The Poems

  LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

  LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

  The Plays

  THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN

  THE LAND OF HEART’S DESIRE

  DIARMUID AND GRANIA

  WHERE THERE IS NOTHING

  CATHLEEN NI HOULIHAN

  THE HOUR-GLASS

  THE POT OF BROTH

  THE KING’S THRESHOLD

  ON BAILE’S STRAND

  DEIRDRE

  THE UNICORN FROM THE STARS

  THE GREEN HELMET

  THE SHADOWY WATERS

  THE HOUR-GLASS (VERSE VERSION)

  AT THE HAWK’S WELL

  THE DREAMING OF THE BONES

  THE ONLY JEALOUSY OF EMER

  CALVARY

  THE PLAYER QUEEN

  KING OEDIPUS

  OEDIPUS AT COLONUS

  THE CAT AND THE MOON

  FIGHTING THE WAVES

  THE WORDS UPON THE WINDOW-PANE

  THE RESURRECTION

  THE KING OF THE GREAT CLOCK TOWER

  A FULL MOON IN MARCH

  THE HERNE’S EGG

  PURGATORY

  THE DEATH OF CUCHULAIN

  The Autobiographies

  REVERIES OVER CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

  THE TREMBLING OF THE VEIL

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE 1896-1902

  ESTRANGEMENT EXTRACTS FROM A DIARY KEPT IN 1909

  THE DEATH OF SYNGE EXTRACTS FROM A DIARY KEPT IN 1909

  THE BOUNTY OF SWEDEN

  THE IRISH DRAMATIC MOVEMENT

  © Delphi Classics 2012

  Version 1

  W. B. YEATS

  By Delphi Classics, 2012

  NOTE

  When reading poetry on an eReader, it is advisable to use a small font size, which will allow the lines of poetry to display correctly.

  The Poetry Collections

  Sandymount, County Dublin — Yeats’ birthplace, 1911

  Yeats’ birthplace today

  Yeats’ father was an artist and in 1900 he painted this portrait of his son.

  Yeats’ parents

  THE WANDERINGS OF OISIN AND OTHER POEMS

  Yeats’ first poetry collection was published in 1889, with poems dating as far back as the mid-1880s. The title piece, which is Yeats’ longest narrative poem, concerns characters from the Fenian Cycle of Irish mythology, revealing how Yeats was influenced by Sir Samuel Ferguson and the Pre-Raphaelite poets of the time. The poem took two years to complete and was one of the few works from this period that the poet did not disown in his maturity. Oisin represents one of Yeats’ most important themes: the preference of a life of contemplation over a life of action. Following the publication of The Wanderings Of Oisin, Yeats never again attempted a long poem.

  In the narrative, the fairy princess Niamh falls in love with Oisin's poetry and begs him to join her in the immortal islands. For a hundred years he lives as one of the Sidhe, while hunting, dancing and feasting. At the end of this time he finds a spear washed up on the shore, which evokes sad feelings as he remembers his previous life, heralding the beginning of his wanderings.

  The poetry collection also contains short poems, which are meditations on the themes of love and mystical subjects, and they were later collected under the title Crossways.

  The first edition

  CONTENTS

  THE WANDERINGS OF USHEEN

  THE SONG OF THE HAPPY SHEPHERD

  THE SAD SHEPHERD

  THE CLOAK, THE BOAT, AND THE SHOES

  ANASHUYA AND VIJAYA

  THE INDIAN UPON GOD

  THE INDIAN TO HIS LOVE

  THE FALLING OF THE LEAVES

  EPHEMERA

  THE MADNESS OF KING GOLL

  THE STOLEN CHILD

  TO AN ISLE IN THE WATER

  DOWN BY THE SALLEY GARDENS

  THE MEDITATION OF THE OLD FISHERMAN

  THE BALLAD OF FATHER O’HART

  THE BALLAD OF MOLL MAGEE

  THE BALLAD OF THE FOXHUNTER

  Yeats, in the year when his first poetry collection was published

  THE WANDERINGS OF USHEEN

  “Give me the world if Thou wilt, but grant me an asylum for my affections.”

  Tulka.

  To

  EDWIN J. ELLIS

  BOOK I

  S. PATRIC

  You who are bent, and bald, and blind,

  With a heavy heart and a wandering mind,

  Have known three centuries, poets sing,

  Of dalliance with a demon thing.

  USHEEN

  Sad to remember, sick with years,

  The swift innumerable spears,

  The horsemen with their floating hair,

  And bowls of barley, honey, and wine,

  And feet of maidens dancing in tune,

  And the white body that lay by mine;

  But the tale, though words be lighter than air,

  Must live to be old like the wandering moon.

  Caolte, and Conan, and Finn were there,

  When we followed a deer with our baying hounds,

  With Bran, Sgeolan, and Lomair,

  And passing the Firbolgs’ burial mounds,

  Came to the cairn-heaped grassy hill

  Where passionate Maive is stony still;

  And found on the dove-gray edge of the sea

  A pearl-pale, high-born lady, who rode

  On a horse with bridle of findrinny;

  And like a sunset were her lips,

  A stormy sunset on doomed ships;

  A citron colour gloomed in her hair,

  But down to her feet white vesture flowed,

  And with the glimmering crimson glowed

  Of many a figured embroidery;

  And it was bound with a pearl-pale shell

  That wavered like the summer streams,

  As her soft bosom rose and fell.

  S. PATRIC

  You are still wrecked among heathen dreams.

  USHEEN

  “Why do you wind no horn?” she said.

  “And every hero droop his head?

  “The hornless deer is not more sad

  “That many a peaceful moment had,

  “More sleek than any granary mouse,

  “In his own leafy forest house

  “Among the waving fields of fern:

  “The hunting of heroes should be glad.”

  “O pleasant woman,” answered Finn,

  “We think on Oscar’s pencilled urn,

  “And on the heroes lying slain,

  On Gavra’s raven-covered plain;

  “But where are your noble kith and kin,

  “And from what country do you ride?”

  “My father and my mother are

&nb
sp; “Aengus and Adene, my own name

  “Niam, and my country far

  “Beyond the tumbling of this tide.”

  “What dream came with you that you came

  “Through bitter tide on foam wet feet?

  “Did your companion wander away

  “From where the birds of Aengus wing?”

  She said, with laughter tender and sweet:

  “I have not yet, war-weary king,

  “Been spoken of with any one;

  “Yet now I choose, for these four feet

  “Ran through the foam and ran to this

  “That I might have your son to kiss.”

  “Were there no better than my son

  “That you through all that foam should run?”

  “I loved no man, though kings besought

  “Love, till the Danaan poets brought

  “Rhyme, that rhymed to Usheen’s name,

  “And now I am dizzy with the thought

  “Of all that wisdom and the fame

  “Of battles broken by his hands,

  “Of stories builded by his words

  “That are like coloured Asian birds

  “At evening in their rainless lands.”

  O Patric, by your brazen bell,

  There was no limb of mine but fell

  Into a desperate gulph of love!

  “You only will I wed,” I cried,

  “And I will make a thousand songs,

  “And set your name all names above.

  “And captives bound with leathern thongs

  “Shall kneel and praise you, one by one,

  “At evening in my western dun.”

  “O Usheen, mount by me and ride

  “To shores by the wash of the tremulous tide,

  “Where men have heaped no burial mounds,

  “And the days pass by like a wayward tune,

  “Where broken faith has never been known,

  “And the blushes of first love never have flown;

  “And there I will give you a hundred hounds;

  “No mightier creatures bay at the moon;

  “And a hundred robes of murmuring silk,

  “And a hundred calves and a hundred sheep

  “Whose long wool whiter than sea froth flows,

  “And a hundred spears and a hundred bows,

  “And oil and wine and honey and milk,

  “And always never-anxious sleep;

  “While a hundred youths, mighty of limb,

  “But knowing nor tumult nor hate nor strife,

  “And a hundred maidens, merry as birds,

  “Who when they dance to a fitful measure

  “Have a speed like the speed of the salmon herds,

  “Shall follow your horn and obey your whim,

  “And you shall know the Danaan leisure:

  “And Niam be with you for a wife.”

  Then she sighed gently, “It grows late,

  “Music and love and sleep await,

  “Where I would be when the white moon climbs

  “The red sun falls, and the world grows dim.”

  And then I mounted and she bound me

  With her triumphing arms around me,

  And whispering to herself enwound me;

  But when the horse had felt my weight,

  He shook himself and neighed three times:

  Caolte, Conan, and Finn came near,

  And wept, and raised their lamenting hands,

  And bid me stay, with many a tear;

  But we rode out from the human lands.

  In what far kingdom do you go,

  Ah, Fenians, with the shield and bow?

  Or are you phantoms white as snow,

  Whose lips had life’s most prosperous glow?

  O you, with whom in sloping valleys,

  Or down the dewy forest alleys,

  I chased at morn the flying deer,

  With whom I hurled the hurrying spear,

  And heard the foemen’s bucklers rattle,

  And broke the heaving ranks of battle!

  And Bran, Sgeolan, and Lomair,

  Where are you with your long rough hair?

  You go not where the red deer feeds,

  Nor tear the foemen from their steeds.

  S. PATRIC

  Boast not, nor mourn with drooping head

  Companions long accurst and dead,

  And hounds for centuries dust and air.

  USHEEN

  We galloped over the glossy sea:

  I know not if days passed or hours,

  And Niam sang continually

  Danaan songs, and their dewy showers

  Of pensive laughter, unhuman sound,

  Lulled weariness, and softly round

  My human sorrow her white arms wound.

  We galloped; now a hornless deer

  Passed by us, chased by a phantom hound

  All pearly white, save one red ear;

  And now a maiden rode like the wind

  With an apple of gold in her tossing hand;

  And a beautiful young man followed behind

  With quenchless gaze and fluttering hair.

  “Were these two born in the Danaan land,

  “Or have they breathed the mortal air?”

  “Vex them no longer,” Niam said,

  And sighing bowed her gentle head,

  And sighing laid the pearly tip

  Of one long finger on my lip.

  But now the moon like a white rose shone

  In the pale west, and the sun’s rim sank,

  And clouds arrayed their rank on rank

  About his fading crimson ball:

  The floor of Emen’s hosting hall

  Was not more level than the sea,

  As full of loving phantasy,

  And with low murmurs we rode on,

  Where many a trumpet-twisted shell

  That in immortal silence sleeps

  Dreaming of her own melting hues,

  Her golds, her ambers, and her blues,

  Pierced with soft light the shallowing deeps.

  But now a wandering land breeze came

  And a far sound of feathery quires;

  It seemed to blow from the dying flame,

  They seemed to sing in the smouldering fires.

  The horse towards the music raced,

  Neighing along the lifeless waste;

  Like sooty fingers, many a tree

  Rose ever out of the warm sea;

  And they were trembling ceaselessly,

  As though they all were beating time,

  Upon the centre of the sun,

  To that low laughing woodland rhyme.

  And, now our wandering hours were done,

  We cantered to the shore, and knew

  The reason of the trembling trees:

  Round every branch the song-birds flew,

  Or clung thereon like swarming bees;

  While round the shore a million stood

  Like drops of frozen rainbow light,

  And pondered in a soft vain mood

  Upon their shadows in the tide,

  And told the purple deeps their pride,

  And murmured snatches of delight;

  And on the shores were many boats

  With bending sterns and bending bows.

  And carven figures on their prows

  Of bitterns, and fish-eating stoats,

  And swans with their exultant throats:

  And where the wood and waters meet

  We tied the horse in a leafy clump,

  And Niam blew three merry notes

  Out of a little silver trump;

  And then an answering whispering flew

  Over the bare and woody land,

  A whisper of impetuous feet,

  And ever nearer, nearer grew;

  And from the woods rushed out a band

  Of men and maidens, hand in hand,

  And singing, singing altogether;

  Their brows
were white as fragrant milk,

  Their cloaks made out of yellow silk,

  And trimmed with many a crimson feather:

  And when they saw the cloak I wore

  Was dim with mire of a mortal shore,

  They fingered it and gazed on me

  And laughed like murmurs of the sea;

  But Niam with a swift distress

  Bid them away and hold their peace;

  And when they heard her voice they ran

  And knelt them, every maid and man

  And kissed, as they would never cease,

  Her pearl-pale hand and the hem of her dress.

  She bade them bring us to the hall

  Where Aengus dreams, from sun to sun,

  A Druid dream of the end of days

  When the stars are to wane and the world be done.

  They led us by long and shadowy ways

  Where drops of dew in myriads fall,

  And tangled creepers every hour

  Blossom in some new crimson flower,

  And once a sudden laughter sprang

  From all their lips, and once they sang

  Together, while the dark woods rang,

  And made in all their distant parts,

  With boom of bees in honey marts,

  A rumour of delighted hearts.

  And once a maiden by my side

  Gave me a harp, and bid me sing,

  And touch the laughing silver string;

  But when I sang of human joy

  A sorrow wrapped each merry face,

  And, Patric! by your beard, they wept,

  Until one came, a tearful boy;

  “A sadder creature never stept

  “Than this strange human bard,” he cried;

  And caught the silver harp away,

  And, weeping over the white strings, hurled

  It down in a leaf-hid, hollow place

  That kept dim waters from the sky;

  And each one said, with a long, long sigh,