The Complete Works. William Butler Yeats

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

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      The Danaan 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 at Mother Mary’s feet.

INTO THE TWILIGHT

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      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

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      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 HEART OF THE WOMAN

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      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.

THE LOVER MOURNS FOR THE LOSS OF LOVE

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      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.

HE MOURNS FOR THE CHANGE THAT HAS COME UPON HIM AND HIS BELOVED AND LONGS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD

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      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,