George William Russell

THE MIGHT that shaped itself through storm and stress In chaos, here is lulled in breathing sweet; Under the long brown ridge in gentleness Its fierce old pulses beat. Quiet and sad we go

HERE where the loves of others close The vision of my heart begins. The wisdom that within us grows Is absolution for our sins. We took forbidden fruit and ate Far in the garden

WHO is that goddess to whom men should pray, But her from whom their hearts have turned away, Out of whose virgin being they were born, Whose mother nature they have named with scorn

THIS is the hero-heart of the enchanted isle, Whom now the twilight children tenderly enfold, Pat with their pearly palms and crown with elfin gold, While in the mountain’s breast his brothers watch and

EVEN as a bird sprays many-coloured fires, The plumes of paradise, the dying light Rays through the fevered air in misty spires That vanish in the heights. These myriad eyes that look on me

HOW often have I said, “We may not grieve for the immortal dead.” And now, poor blenchèd heart, Thy ruddy hues all tremulous depart. Why be with fate at strife Because one passes on

BEARDED with dewy grass the mountains thrust Their blackness high into the still grey light, Deepening to blue: far up the glimmering height In silver transience shines the starry dust. Silent the sheep about

HIS head within my bosom lay, But yet his spirit slipped not through: I only felt the burning clay That withered for the cooling dew. It was but pity when I spoke And called

I AM the tender voice calling “Away,” Whispering between the beatings of the heart, And inaccessible in dewy eyes I dwell, and all unkissed on lovely lips, Lingering between white breasts inviolate, And fleeting

I SAID my pleasure shall not move; It is not fixed in things apart: Seeking not love-but yet to love- I put my trust in mine own heart. I knew the fountain of the

OH, the sudden wings arising from the ploughed fields brown Showered aloft in spray of song the wild-bird twitter floats O’er the unseen fount awhile, and then comes dropping down Nigh the cool brown

I WILL not follow you, my bird, I will not follow you. I would not breathe a word, my bird, To bring thee here anew. I love the free in thee, my bird, The

I COULD praise you once with beautiful words ere you came And entered my life with love in a wind of flame. I could lure with a song from afar my bird to its

WELL, when all is said and done Best within my narrow way, May some angel of the sun Muse memorial o’er my clay: “Here was beauty all betrayed From the freedom of her state;

WHILE the earth is dark and grey How I laugh within. I know In my breast what ardours gay From the morning overflow. Though the cheek be white and wet In my heart no

BY many a dream of God and man my thoughts in shining flocks were led: But as I went through Patrick Street the hopes and prophecies were dead. The hopes and prophecies were dead:

THE TWINKLING mists of green and gold Afloat in the abyss of air, From out the window high and old We watched together there. The monstrous fabric of the town Lay black below; the

MOTHER, with whom our lives should be, Not hatred keeps our lives apart: Charmed by some lesser glow in thee, Our hearts beat not within thy heart. Beauty, the face, the touch, the eyes,

THE BLUE dusk ran between the streets: my love was winged within my mind, It left to-day and yesterday and thrice a thousand years behind. To-day was past and dead for me, for from

I WOULD I could weave in The colour, the wonder, The song I conceive in My heart while I ponder, And show how it came like The magi of old Whose chant was a

HER mist of primroses within her breast Twilight hath folded up, and o’er the west, Seeking remoter valleys long hath gone, Not yet hath come her sister of the dawn. Silence and coolness now

I HAVE wept a million tears: Pure and proud one, where are thine, What the gain though all thy years In unbroken beauty shine? All your beauty cannot win Truth we learn in pain

THE LIGHTS shone down the street In the long blue close of day: A boy’s heart beat sweet, sweet, As it flowered in its dreamy clay. Beyond the dazzling throng And above the towers

THOSE delicate wanderers, The wind, the star, the cloud, Ever before mine eyes, As to an altar bowed, Light and dew-laden airs Offer in sacrifice. The offerings arise: Hazes of rainbow light, Pure crystal,

LIGHTEST of dancers, with no thought Thy glimmering feet beat on my heart, Gayest of singers, with no care Waking to beauty the still air, More than the labours of our art, More than

I WOULD not have the love of lips and eyes, The ancient ways of love: But in my heart I built a Paradise, A nest there for the dove. I felt the wings of

WE are desert leagues apart; Time is misty ages now Since the warmth of heart to heart Chased the shadows from my brow. Oh, I am so old, meseems I am next of kin

THE WHILE my mad brain whirled around She only looked with eyes elate Immortal love at me. I found How deep the glance of love can wound, How cruel pity is to hate. I

I BEGIN through the grass once again to be bound to the Lord; I can see, through a face that has faded, the face full of rest Of the earth, of the mother, my

THE GREY road whereupon we trod became as holy ground: The eve was all one voice that breathed its message with no sound: And burning multitudes pour through my heart, too bright, too blind,

I THOUGHT, beloved, to have brought to you A gift of quietness and ease and peace, Cooling your brow as with the mystic dew Dropping from twilight trees. Homeward I go not yet; the

WHO gave thee such a ruby flaming heart And such a pure cold spirit? Side by side I know these must eternally abide In intimate war, and each to each impart Life from its

HOW I could see through and through you! So unconscious, tender, kind, More than ever was known to you Of the pure ways of your mind. We who long to rest from strife Labour

AS one by one the veils took flight, The day withdrew, the stars came up. The spirit issued pale and bright Filling thy beauty like a cup. Sacred thy laughter on the air, Holy

WE have left our youth behind: Earth is in its baby years: Void of wisdom cries the wind, And the sunlight knows no tears. When shall twilight feel the awe, All the rapt thought

AT dusk the window panes grew grey; The wet world vanished in the gloom; The dim and silver end of day Scarce glimmered through the little room. And all my sins were told; I

THOUGH your eyes with tears were blind, Pain upon the path you trod: Well we knew, the hosts behind, Voice and shining of a god. For your darkness was our day: Signal fires, your

YOU and I have found the secret way, None can bar our love or say us nay: All the world may stare and never know You and I are twined together so. You and

FAINT grew the yellow buds of light Far flickering beyond the snows, As leaning o’er the shadowy white Morn glimmered like a pale primrose. Within an Indian vale below A child said “OM” with

SHADOWY-PETALLED, like the lotus, loom the mountains with their snows: Through the sapphire Soma rising such a flood of glory throws As when first in yellow splendour Brahma from the Lotus rose. High above

OH, at the eagle’s height To lie i’ the sweet of the sun, While veil after veil takes flight And God and the world are one. Oh, the night on the steep! All that

DARK head by the fireside brooding, Where upon your ears Whirlwinds of the earth intruding Sound in wrath and tears: Tender-hearted, in your lonely Sorrow I would fain Comfort you, and say that only

WHEN the breath of twilight blows to flame the misty skies, All its vaporous sapphire, violet glow and silver gleam With their magic flood me through the gateway of the eyes; I am one

WHO are exiles? As for me Where beneath the diamond dome Lies the light on hill or tree, There my palace is and home. Who are lonely lacking care? Here the winds are living,

WHEN our glowing dreams were dead, Ruined our heroic piles, Something in your dark eyes said: “Think no more of love or smiles.” Something in me still would say, “Though our dreamland palace goes,

WHO would think this quiet breather From the world had taken flight? Yet within the form we see there Wakes the Golden King to-night. Out upon the face of faces He looked forth before

AS from our dream we died away Far off I felt the outer things; Your wind-blown tresses round me play, Your bosom’s gentle murmurings. And far away our faces met As on the verge

THE HERO first thought it To him ’twas a deed: To those who retaught it, A chain on their speed. The fire that we kindled, A beacon by night, When darkness has dwindled Grows

WHERE the Greyhound River windeth through a loneliness so deep, Scarce a wild fowl shakes the quiet that the purple boglands keep, Only God exults in silence over fields no man may reap. Where

WITH the glamour of the Gay How you made our hearts to flame; Gave each life some airy aim: Ever round you seemed to play Sunlight from some inner day. Dazzling as with red

THE SWEETEST song was ever sung May soothe you but a little while: The gayest music ever rung Shall yield you but a fleeting smile. The well I digged you soon shall pass: You

I HEARD them in their sadness say, “The earth rebukes the thought of God; We are but embers wrapped in clay A little nobler than the sod.” But I have touched the lips of

TARRY thou yet, late lingerer in the twilight’s glory: Gay are the hills with song: earth’s faery children leave More dim abodes to roam the primrose-hearted eve, Opening their glimmering lips to breathe some

WHEN the soul sought refuge in the place of rest, Overborne by strife and pain beyond control, From some secret hollow, whisper soft-confessed, Came the legend of the soul. Some bright one of old

ERE I lose myself in the vastness and drowse myself with the peace, While I gaze on the light and the beauty afar from the dim homes of men, May I still feel the

IT’S a lonely road through bogland to the lake at Carrowmore, And a sleeper there lies dreaming where the water laps the shore; Though the moth-wings of the twilight in their purples are unfurled,

WHAT call may draw thee back again, Lost dove, what art, what charm may please? The tender touch, the kiss, are vain, For thou wert lured away by these. Oh, must we use the

YOUR paths were all unknown to us: We were so far away from you: We mixed in thought your spirit thus- With whiteness, stars of gold, and dew. The Mighty Mother nourished you; Her

ALL the morn a spirit gay Breathes within my heart a rhyme, ‘Tis but hide and seek we play In and out the courts of time. Fairy lover, when my feet Through the tangled

A CABIN on the mountain side hid in a grassy nook Where door and windows open wide that friendly stars may look. The rabbit shy can patter in, the winds may enter free, Who

I GO down from the hills half in gladness, and half with a pain I depart, Where the Mother with gentlest breathing made music on lip and in heart; For I know that my

IN day from some titanic past it seems As if a thread divine of memory runs; Born ere the Mighty One began his dreams, Or yet were stars and suns. But here an iron

WHAT miracle was it that made this grey Rathgar Seem holy earth, a leaping-place from star to star? I know I strode along grey streets disconsolate, Seeing nowhere a glimmer of the Glittering Gate,

I PAUSED beside the cabin door and saw the King of Kings at play, Tumbled upon the grass I spied the little heavenly runaway. The mother laughed upon the child made gay by its

THE CHILDREN awoke in their dreaming While earth lay dewy and still: They followed the rill in its gleaming To the heart-light of the hill. Its sounds and sights were forsaking The world as

WE laid him to rest with tenderness; Homeward we turned in the twilight’s gold; We thought in ourselves with dumb distress- All the story of earth is told. A beautiful word at the last

THIS mood hath known all beauty, for it sees O’erwhelmed majesties In these pale forms, and kingly crowns of gold On brows no longer bold, And through the shadowy terrors of their hell The

WE must pass like smoke or live within the spirit’s fire; For we can no more than smoke unto the flame return If our thought has changed to dream, our will unto desire, As

DUSK its ash-grey blossoms sheds on violet skies, Over twilight mountains where the heart songs rise, Rise and fall and fade away from earth to air. Earth renews the music sweeter. Oh, come there.

AS flow the rivers to the sea Adown from rocky hill or plain, A thousand ages toiled for thee And gave thee harvest of their gain; And weary myriads of yore Dug out for

NOW the quietude of earth Nestles deep my heart within; Friendships new and strange have birth Since I left the city’s din. Here the tempest stays its guile, Like a big kind brother plays,

OUR true hearts are forever lonely: A wistfulness is in our thought: Our lights are like the dawns which only Seem bright to us and yet are not. Something you see in me I

HOW came this pigmy rabble spun, After the gods and kings of old, Upon a tapestry begun With threads of silver and of gold? In heaven began the heroic tale What meaner destinies prevail!

PURE at heart we wander now: Comrade on the quest divine, Turn not from the stars your brow That your eyes may rest on mine. Pure at heart we wander now: We have hopes

COULD you not in silence borrow Strength to go from us ungrieving? All these hours of loving sorrow Only make more bitter leaving. You will go forth lonely, thinking Of the pain you leave

WHAT domination of what darkness dies this hour, And through what new, rejoicing, winged, ethereal power O’erthrown, the cells opened, the heart released from fear? Gay twilight and grave twilight pass. The stars appear

THERE’S a cure for sorrow in the well at Ballylee Where the scarlet cressets hang over the trembling pool: And joyful winds are blowing from the Land of Youth to me, And the heart

SEE where the light streams over Connla’s fountain Starward aspire! The sacred sign upon the holy mountain Shines in white fire: Wavering and flaming yonder o’er the snows The diamond light Melts into silver

LIKE winds or waters were her ways: The flowing tides, the airy streams, Are troubled not by any dreams; They know the circle of their days. Like winds or waters were her ways: They

LOVE and pity are pleading with me this hour. What is this voice that stays me forbidding to yield, Offering beauty, love, and immortal power, Æons away in some far-off heavenly field? Though I

WHY does this sudden passion smite me? I stretch my hands, all blind to see: I need the lamp of the world to light me, Lead me and set me free. Something a moment

WITH Thee a moment! Then what dreams have play! Traditions of eternal toil arise, Search for the high, austere and lonely way The Spirit moves in through eternities. Ah, in the soul what memories

WHAT is the love of shadowy lips That know not what they seek or press, From whom the lure for ever slips And fails their phantom tenderness? The mystery and light of eyes That

IN the black pool of the midnight Lu has slung the morning star, And its foam in rippling silver whitens into day afar Falling on the mountain rampart piled with pearl above our glen,

NOW when the spirit in us wakes and broods, Filled with home yearnings, drowsily it flings From its deep heart high dreams and mystic moods, Mixed with the memory of the loved earth things: