Home ⇒ 📌George William Russell ⇒ A Vision of Beauty
A Vision of Beauty
WHERE we sat at dawn together, while the star-rich heavens shifted,
We were weaving dreams in silence, suddenly the veil was lifted.
By a hand of fire awakened, in a moment caught and led
Upward to the heaven of heavens-through the star-mists overhead
Flare and flaunt the monstrous highlands; on the sapphire coast of night
Fall the ghostly froth and fringes of the ocean of the light.
Many coloured shine the vapours: to the moon-eye far away
‘Tis the fairy ring of twilight, mid the spheres of night and day,
Girdling with a rainbow cincture round the planet where we go,
We and it together fleeting, poised upon the pearly glow;
We and it and all together flashing through the starry spaces
In a tempest dream of beauty lighting up the face of faces.
Half our eyes behold the glory; half within the spirit’s glow
Echoes of the noiseless revels and the will of Beauty go.
By a hand of fire uplifted-to
To the mystic heart of beauty and the secret of her thought:
Here of yore the ancient Mother in the fire mists sank to rest,
And she built her dreams about her, rayed from out her burning breast:
Here the wild will woke within her lighting up her flying dreams,
Round and round the planets whirling break in woods and flowers and streams,
And the winds are shaken from them as the leaves from off the rose,
And the feet of earth go dancing in the way that beauty goes,
And the souls of earth are kindled by the incense of her breath
As her light alternate lures them through the gates of birth and death.
O’er the fields of space together following her flying traces,
In a radiant tumult thronging, suns and stars and myriad races
Mount the spirit spires of beauty, reaching onward to the day
When the Shepherd of the Ages draws his misty hordes away
Through the glimmering deeps to silence, and within the awful fold
Life and joy and love forever vanish as a tale is told,
Lost within the Mother’s being. So the vision flamed and fled,
And before the glory fallen every other dream lay dead.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)Related poetry:
- The Fountain of Shadowy Beauty 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 flame like The dawn’s voice of gold; Whose dreams followed near them A murmur of birds, And ear still could hear […]...
- Seeking Beauty Cold winds can never freeze, nor thunder sour The cup of cheer that Beauty draws for me Out of those Azure heavens and this green earth I drink and drink, and thirst the more I see. To see the dewdrops thrill the blades of grass, Makes my whole body shake; for here’s my choice Of […]...
- Beauty XXV And a poet said, “Speak to us of Beauty.” Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide? And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech? The aggrieved and the injured say, “Beauty is kind and gentle. […]...
- The Vision of Love THE TWILIGHT fleeted away in pearl on the stream, And night, like a diamond done, stood still in our dream. Your eyes like burnished stones or as stars were bright With the sudden vision that made us one with the night. We loved in infinite spaces, forgetting here The breasts that were lit with life […]...
- Beauty and Beauty When Beauty and Beauty meet All naked, fair to fair, The earth is crying-sweet, And scattering-bright the air, Eddying, dizzying, closing round, With soft and drunken laughter; Veiling all that may befall After after Where Beauty and Beauty met, Earth’s still a-tremble there, And winds are scented yet, And memory-soft the air, Bosoming, folding glints […]...
- Unity ONE thing in all things have I seen: One thought has haunted earth and air: Clangour and silence both have been Its palace chambers. Everywhere I saw the mystic vision flow And live in men and woods and streams, Until I could no longer know The dream of life from my own dreams. Sometimes it […]...
- She Walks In Beauty She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies. One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless grace Which […]...
- O Beauty, Passing Beauty! O beauty, passing beauty! Sweetest sweet! How can thou let me waste my youth in sighs? I only ask to sit beside thy feet. Thou knowest I dare not look into thine eyes. Might I but kiss thy hand! I dare not fold My arms about thee scarcely dare to speak. And nothing seems to […]...
- He Remembers Forgotten Beauty 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 […]...
- A Call of the Sidhe 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 wondrous story. Hush, not a whisper! Let your heart alone go dreaming. Dream unto dream may pass: deep in the heart […]...
- The Double Vision Of Michael Robartes I On the grey rock of Cashel the mind’s eye Has called up the cold spirits that are born When the old moon is vanished from the sky And the new still hides her horn. Under blank eyes and fingers never still The particular is pounded till it is man. When had I my own […]...
- The Divine Vision 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 love for which they fell, And how desire which cast them in the deep Called God too from His sleep. Oh, […]...
- Beauty Clear and Fair BEAUTY clear and fair, Where the air Rather like a perfume dwells; Where the violet and the rose Their blue veins and blush disclose, And come to honour nothing else: Where to live near And planted there Is to live, and still live new; Where to gain a favour is More than light, perpetual bliss […]...
- A Hymn Of Heavenly Beauty Rapt with the rage of mine own ravish’d thought, Through contemplation of those goodly sights, And glorious images in heaven wrought, Whose wondrous beauty, breathing sweet delights Do kindle love in high-conceited sprights; I fain to tell the things that I behold, But feel my wits to fail, and tongue to fold. Vouchsafe then, O […]...
- BEAUTY I AM as lovely as a dream in stone, And this my heart where each finds death in turn, Inspires the poet with a love as lone As clay eternal and as taciturn. Swan-white of heart, a sphinx no mortal knows, My throne is in the heaven’s azure deep; I hate all movements that disturb […]...
- A New World I WHO had sought afar from earth The faery land to meet, Now find content within its girth And wonder nigh my feet. To-day a nearer love I choose And seek no distant sphere; For aureoled by faery dews The dear brown breasts appear. With rainbow radiance come and go The airy breaths of day; […]...
- The Feast of Age 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 or to sapphire glows, Night beyond night: And from the heaven of heaven descends on earth A dew divine. Come, let […]...
- Divinely Superfluous Beauty The storm-dances of gulls, the barking game of seals, Over and under the ocean… Divinely superfluous beauty Rules the games, presides over destinies, makes trees grow And hills tower, waves fall. The incredible beauty of joy Stars with fire the joining of lips, O let our loves too Be joined, there is not a maiden […]...
- He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because […]...
- Before the Throne of Beauty XXVI One heavy day I ran away from the grim face of society and the dizzying clamor of the city and directed my weary step to the spacious alley. I pursued the beckoning course of the rivulet and the musical sounds of the birds until I reached a lonely spot where the flowing branches of the […]...
- A Hymn In Honour Of Beauty Ah whither, Love, wilt thou now carry me? What wontless fury dost thou now inspire Into my feeble breast, too full of thee? Whilst seeking to aslake thy raging fire, Thou in me kindlest much more great desire, And up aloft above my strength dost raise The wondrous matter of my fire to praise. That […]...
- A Farewell 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 childhood is over: a call comes out of the vast, And the love that I had in the old time, like […]...
- The Young that Died in Beauty If souls should only sheen so bright In heaven as in e’thly light, An’ nothen better wer the cease, How comely still, in sheape an’ feace, Would many reach thik happy pleace, – The hopevul souls that in their prime Ha’ seem’d a-took avore their time, – The young that died in beauty. But when […]...
- A Thing of Beauty (Endymion) A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its lovliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing A flowery band to bind us to the earth, […]...
- Lament for Zenocrate Black is the beauty of the brightest day, The golden belle of heaven’s eternal fire, That danced with glory on the silver waves, Now wants the fuel that inflamed his beams: And all with faintness and for foul disgrace, He binds his temples with a frowning cloud, Ready to darken earth with endless night: Zenocrate […]...
- Juvenilia, An Ode to Natural Beauty There is a power whose inspiration fills Nature’s fair fabric, sun – and star-inwrought, Like airy dew ere any drop distils, Like perfume in the laden flower, like aught Unseen which interfused throughout the whole Becomes its quickening pulse and principle and soul. Now when, the drift of old desire renewing, Warm tides flow northward […]...
- Friends Departed They are all gone into the world of light! And I alone sit ling’ring here; Their very memory is fair and bright, And my sad thoughts doth clear. It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast, Like stars upon some gloomy grove, Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest After the sun’s […]...
- They are all Gone into the World of Light 1 They are all gone into the world of light! 2 And I alone sit ling’ring here; 3 Their very memory is fair and bright, 4 And my sad thoughts doth clear. 5 It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast, 6 Like stars upon some gloomy grove, 7 Or those faint beams in which […]...
- Evening Star ‘Twas noontide of summer, And mid-time of night; And stars, in their orbits, Shone pale, thro’ the light Of the brighter, cold moon, ‘Mid planets her slaves, Herself in the Heavens, Her beam on the waves. I gazed awhile On her cold smile; Too cold – too cold for me- There pass’d, as a shroud, […]...
- Amoretti III: The Sovereign Beauty The sovereign beauty which I do admire, Witness the world how worthy to be praised: The light whereof hath kindled heavenly fire In my frail spirit, by her from baseness raised; That being now with her huge brightness dazed, Base thing I can no more endure to view; But looking still on her, I stand […]...
- In the Train AS we rush, as we rush in the Train, The trees and the houses go wheeling back, But the starry heavens above the plain Come flying on our track. All the beautiful stars of the sky, The silver doves of the forest of Night, Over the dull earth swarm and fly, Companions of our flight. […]...
- Martha “Once…Once upon a time…” Over and over again, Martha would tell us her stories, In the hazel glen. Hers were those clear gray eyes You watch, and the story seems Told by their beautifulness Tranquil as dreams. She’d sit with her two slim hands Clasped round her bended knees; While we on our elbows lolled, […]...
- I died for Beauty but was scarce I died for Beauty but was scarce Adjusted in the Tomb When One who died for Truth, was lain In an adjoining room He questioned softly “Why I failed”? “For Beauty”, I replied “And I for Truth Themself are One We Brethren, are”, He said And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night We talked between […]...
- Defence of Fort M’Henry Tune ANACREON IN HEAVEN O! say can you see, by the dawn’s early light, What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof […]...
- Dream Love I DID not deem it half so sweet To feel thy gentle hand, As in a dream thy soul to greet Across wide leagues of land. Untouched more near to draw to you Where, amid radiant skies, Glimmered thy plumes of iris hue, My Bird of Paradise. Let me dream only with my heart, Love […]...
- Psalm XIX: The Heavens Declare Thy Glory, Lord The heavens declare thy glory, Lord, In every star thy wisdom shines; But when our eyes behold thy word, We read thy name in fairer lines. The rolling sun, the changing light, And night and day, thy power confess; But the blest volume thou hast writ Reveals thy justice and thy grace. Sun, moon, and […]...
- The Light of Stars The night is come, but not too soon; And sinking silently, All silently, the little moon Drops down behind the sky. There is no light in earth or heaven But the cold light of stars; And the first watch of night is given To the red planet Mars. Is it the tender star of love? […]...
- He Tells Of The Perfect Beauty O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes, The poets labouring all their days To build a perfect beauty in rhyme Are overthrown by a woman’s gaze And by the unlabouring brood of the skies: And therefore my heart will bow, when dew Is dropping sleep, until God burn time, Before the unlabouring stars and you....
- Lost Star When the creation was new and all the stars shone in their first Splendor, the gods held their assembly in the sky and sang ‘Oh, the picture of perfection! the joy unalloyed!’ But one cried of a sudden -‘It seems that somewhere there is a break in the chain of light And one of the […]...
- God Scatters Beauty God scatters beauty as he scatters flowers O’er the wide earth, and tells us all are ours. A hundred lights in every temple burn, And at each shrine I bend my knee in turn....