The Complete Works. William Butler Yeats

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,

      ‘O saddest harp in all the world,

      Sleep there till the moon and the stars die!’

      And now still sad we came to where

      A beautiful young man dreamed within

      A house of wattles, clay, and skin;

      One hand upheld his beardless chin,

      And one a sceptre flashing out

      Wild flames of red and gold and blue,

      Like to a merry wandering rout

      Of dancers leaping in the air;

      And men and maidens knelt them there

      And showed their eyes with teardrops dim,

      And with low murmurs prayed to him,

      And kissed the sceptre with red lips,

      And touched it with their finger-tips.

      He held that flashing sceptre up.

      ‘Joy drowns the twilight in the dew,

      And fills with stars night’s purple cup,

      And wakes the sluggard seeds of corn,

      And stirs the young kid’s budding horn,

      And makes the infant ferns unwrap,

      And for the peewit paints his cap,

      And rolls along the unwieldy sun,

      And makes the little planets run:

      And if joy were not on the earth,

      There were an end of change and birth,

      And earth and heaven and hell would die,

      And in some gloomy barrow lie

      Folded like a frozen fly;

      Then mock at Death and Time with glances

      And waving arms and wandering dances.

      ‘Men’s hearts of old were drops of flame

      That from the saffron morning came,

      Or drops of silver joy that fell

      Out of the moon’s pale twisted shell;

      But now hearts cry that hearts are slaves,

      And toss and turn in narrow caves;

      But here there is nor law nor rule,

      Nor have hands held a weary tool;

      And here there is nor Change nor Death,

      But only kind and merry breath,

      For joy is God and God is joy.’

      With one long glance on maid and boy

      And the pale blossom of the moon,

      He fell into a Druid swoon.

      And in a wild and sudden dance

      We mocked at Time and Fate and Chance,

      And swept out of the wattled hall

      And came to where the dewdrops fall

      Among the foamdrops of the sea,

      And there we hushed the revelry;

      And, gathering on our brows a frown,

      Bent all our swaying bodies down,

      And to the waves that glimmer by

      That slooping green De Danaan sod

      Sang, ‘God is joy and joy is God,

      And things that have grown sad are wicked,

      And things that fear the dawn of the morrow,

      Or the gray wandering osprey Sorrow.’

      We danced to where in the winding thicket

      The damask roses, bloom on bloom,

      Like crimson meteors hang in the gloom,

      And bending over them softly said,

      Bending over them in the dance,

      With a swift and friendly glance

      From dewy eyes: ‘Upon the dead

      Fall the leaves of other roses,

      On the dead dim earth encloses:

      But never, never on our graves,

      Heaped beside the glimmering waves,

      Shall fall the leaves of damask roses.

      For neither Death nor Change comes near us,

      And all listless hours fear us,

      And we fear no dawning morrow,

      Nor the gray wandering osprey Sorrow.’

      The dance wound through the windless woods;

      The ever-summered solitudes;

      Until the tossing arms grew still

      Upon the woody central hill;

      And, gathered in a panting band,

      We flung on high each waving hand,

      And sang unto the starry broods:

      In our raised eyes there flashed a glow

      Of milky brightness to and fro

      As thus our song arose: ‘You stars,

      Across your wandering ruby cars

      Shake the loose reins: you slaves of God,

      He rules you with an iron rod,

      He holds you with an iron bond,

      Each one woven to the other,

      Each one woven to his brother

      Like bubbles in a frozen pond;

      But we in a lonely land abide

      Unchainable as the dim tide,

      With hearts that know nor law nor rule,

      And