Fergus And The Druid
Fergus. This whole day have I followed in the rocks,
And you have changed and flowed from shape to shape,
First as a raven on whose ancient wings
Scarcely a feather lingered, then you seemed
A weasel moving on from stone to stone,
And now at last you wear a human shape,
A thin grey man half lost in gathering night.
Druid. What would you, king of the proud Red Branch kings?
Fergus. This would I say, most wise of living souls:
Young subtle Conchubar sat close by me
When I gave judgment, and his words were wise,
And what to me was burden without end,
To him seemed easy, so I laid the crown
Upon his head to cast away my sorrow.
Druid. What would you, king of the proud Red Branch kings?
Fergus. A king and proud! and that is my despair.
I feast amid my people on the hill,
And pace the woods, and drive my chariot-wheels
In the white border of the murmuring sea;
And still I feel
Druid. What would you, Fergus?
Fergus. Be no more a king
But learn the dreaming wisdom that is yours.
Druid. Look on my thin grey hair and hollow cheeks
And on these hands that may not lift the sword,
This body trembling like a wind-blown reed.
No woman’s loved me, no man sought my help.
Fergus. A king is but a foolish labourer
Who wastes his blood to be another’s dream.
Druid. Take, if you must, this little bag of dreams;
Unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round.
Fergus. I see my life go drifting like a river
From change to change; I have been many things –
A green drop in the surge, a gleam of light
Upon a sword, a fir-tree on a hill,
An old slave grinding at a heavy quern,
A king sitting upon a chair of gold –
And all these things were wonderful and great;
But now I have grown nothing, knowing all.
Ah! Druid, Druid, how great webs of sorrow
Lay hidden in the small slate-coloured thing!
Related poetry:
- Who Goes With Fergus? Who will go drive with Fergus now, And pierce the deep wood’s woven shade, And dance upon the level shore? Young man, lift up your russet brow, And lift your tender eyelids, maid, And brood on hopes and fear no more. And no more turn aside and brood Upon love’s bitter mystery; For Fergus rules […]...
- To The Rose Upon The Rood Of Time Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days! Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways: Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide; The Druid, grey, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed, Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold; And thine own sadness, where of stars, grown old In dancing silver-sandalled on the sea, Sing in […]...
- Fergus Falling He climbed to the top Of one of those million white pines Set out across the emptying pastures Of the fifties – some program to enrich the rich And rebuke the forefathers Who cleared it all at once with ox and axe – Climbed to the top, probably to get out Of the shadow Not […]...
- Dedication To A Book Of Stories Selected From The Irish Novelists There was a green branch hung with many a bell When her own people ruled this tragic Eire; And from its murmuring greenness, calm of Faery, A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell. It charmed away the merchant from his guile, And turned the farmer’s memory from his cattle, And hushed in sleep the roaring […]...
- The Three Kings Three Kings came riding from far away, Melchior and Gaspar and Baltasar; Three Wise Men out of the East were they, And they travelled by night and they slept by day, For their guide was a beautiful, wonderful star. The star was so beautiful, large, and clear, That all the other stars of the sky […]...
- The Secret Rose Far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose, Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre, Or in the wine-vat, dwell beyond the stir And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep Among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep Men have named beauty. Thy great leaves enfold The ancient beards, […]...
- Imagination A gaunt and hoary slab of stone I found in desert place, And wondered why it lay alone In that abandoned place. Said I: ‘Maybe a Palace stood Where now the lizards crawl, With courts of musky quietude And turrets tall. Maybe where low the vultures wing ‘Mid mosque and minaret, The proud pavilion of […]...
- The Fisherman Although I can see him still. The freckled man who goes To a grey place on a hill In grey Connemara clothes At dawn to cast his flies, It’s long since I began To call up to the eyes This wise and simple man. All day I’d looked in the face What I had hoped […]...
- The King The King beneath the mountains, The King of carven stone, The lord of silver fountains, Shall come into his own! His crown shall be upholden, His harp shall be restrung, His halls shall echo golden, To songs of yore re-sung. The woods shall wave on mountains, And grass beneath the sun; His wealth shall flow […]...
- The Scholars Would I could cast a sad on the water Where many a king has gone And many a king’s daughter, And alight at the comely trees and the lawn, The playing upon pipes and the dancing, And learn that the best thing is To change my loves while dancing And pay but a kiss for […]...
- The Shadowy Waters: The Harp of Aengus Edain came out of Midhir’s hill, and lay Beside young Aengus in his tower of glass, Where time is drowned in odour-laden winds And Druid moons, and murmuring of boughs, And sleepy boughs, and boughs where apples made Of opal and ruhy and pale chrysolite Awake unsleeping fires; and wove seven strings, Sweet with all […]...
- Let Erin Remember the Days of Old Let Erin remember the days of old, Ere her faithless sons betray’d her; When Malachi wore the collar of gold, Which he won from her proud invader, When her kings, with standard of green unfurl’d, Led the Red-Branch Knights to danger! Ere the emerald gem of the western world Was set in the crown of […]...
- Song “Oh! Love,” they said, “is King of Kings, And Triumph is his crown. Earth fades in flame before his wings, And Sun and Moon bow down.” But that, I knew, would never do; And Heaven is all too high. So whenever I meet a Queen, I said, I will not catch her eye. “Oh! Love,” […]...
- Written at Stonehenge Thou noblest monument of Albion’s isle! Whether by Merlin’s aid, from Scythia’s shore, To Amber’s fatal plain Pendragon bore, Huge frame of giant-hands, the mighty pile T’ entomb his Britons slain by Hengist’s guile: Or Druid priests, sprinkled with human gore, Taught ‘mid thy massy maze their mystic lore: Or Danish chiefs, enrich’d with savage […]...
- My Treasures These nuts, that I keep in the back of the nest, Where all my tin soldiers are lying at rest, Were gathered in Autumn by nursie and me In a wood with a well by the side of the sea. This whistle we made (and how clearly it sounds!) By the side of a field […]...
- The Autumn Go, sit upon the lofty hill, And turn your eyes around, Where waving woods and waters wild Do hymn an autumn sound. The summer sun is faint on them The summer flowers depart Sit still as all transform’d to stone, Except your musing heart. How there you sat in summer-time, May yet be in your […]...
- Cuchulan's Fight With The Sea A man came slowly from the setting sun, To Emer, raddling raiment in her dun, And said, ‘I am that swineherd whom you bid Go watch the road between the wood and tide, But now I have no need to watch it more.’ Then Emer cast the web upon the floor, And raising arms all […]...
- To Vernon Lee On Bellosguardo, when the year was young, We wandered, seeking for the daffodil And dark anemone, whose purples fill The peasant’s plot, between the corn-shoots sprung. Over the grey, low wall the olive flung Her deeper greyness ; far off, hill on hill Sloped to the sky, which, pearly-pale and still, Above the large and […]...
- A Poet at Twenty Images leap with him from branch to branch. His eyes Brighten, his head cocks, he pauses under a green bough, Alert. And when I see him I want to hide him somewhere. The other wood is past the hill. But he will enter it, and find the particular maple. He will walk through the door […]...
- Durin The world was young, the mountains green, No stain yet on the Moon was seen, No words were laid on stream or stone, When Durin woke and walked along. He named the nameless hills and delles; He drank from yet untasted wells; He stopped and looked in Mirrormere, And saw a crown of stars appear, […]...
- Tavern I’ll keep a little tavern Below the high hill’s crest, Wherein all grey-eyed people May set them down and rest. There shall be plates a-plenty, And mugs to melt the chill Of all the grey-eyed people Who happen up the hill. There sound will sleep the traveller, And dream his journey’s end, But I will […]...
- Into The Twilight Out-Worn heart, in a time out-worn, Come clear of the nets of wrong and right; Laugh, heart, again in the grey twilight, Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn. Your mother Eire is aways young, Dew ever shining and twilight grey; Though hope fall from you and love decay, Burning in fires of […]...
- Bregalad's Lament O Orofarne, Lassemista, Carnimirie! O rowan fair, upon your hair how white the blossom lay! O rowan mine, I saw you shine upon a summer’s day, Your rind so bright, your leaves so light, your voice so cool and soft! Upon your head how golden-red the crown you bare aloft! O rowan dead, upon your […]...
- Baile And Aillinn ARGUMENT. Baile and Aillinn were lovers, but Aengus, the Master of Love, wishing them to he happy in his own land Among the dead, told to each a story of the other’s death, so That their hearts were broken and they died. I hardly hear the curlew cry, Nor thegrey rush when the wind is […]...
- Savoir Faire CAST a bronze of my head and legs and put them on the king’s street. Set the cast of me here alongside Carl XII, making two Carls for the Swedish people and the utlanders to look at between the palace and the Grand Hotel. The summer sun will shine on both the Carls, and November […]...
- The Earth THEY tell me that the earth is still the same Although the Red Branch now is but a name, That yonder peasant lifting up his eyes Can see the marvel of the morning rise, The wonder Deirdre gazed on when she came. I cannot think the hearts that beat so high Had not a lordlier […]...
- To A Shade If you have revisited the town, thin Shade, Whether to look upon your monument (I wonder if the builder has been paid) Or happier-thoughted when the day is spent To drink of that salt breath out of the sea When grey gulls flit about instead of men, And the gaunt houses put on majesty: Let […]...
- The Christian Honor and happiness unite To make the Christian’s name a praise; How fair the scene, how clear the light, That fills the remnant of His days! A kingly character He bears, No change His priestly office knows; Unfading is the crown He wears, His joys can never reach a close. Adorn’d with glory from on […]...
- A Man Young And Old: VII. The Friends Of His Youth Laughter not time destroyed my voice And put that crack in it, And when the moon’s pot-bellied I get a laughing fit, For that old Madge comes down the lane, A stone upon her breast, And a cloak wrapped about the stone, And she can get no rest With singing hush and hush-a-bye; She that […]...
- Falstaff's Lament Over Prince Hal Become Henry V One that I cherished, Yea, loved as a son – Up early, up late with, My promising one: No use in good nurture, None, lads, none! Here on this settle He wore the true crown, King of good fellows, And Fat Jack was one – Now, Beadle of England In formal array – Best fellow […]...
- The Coronet When for the Thorns with which I long, too long, With many a piercing wound, My Saviours head have crown’d, I seek with Garlands to redress that Wrong: Through every Garden, every Mead, I gather flow’rs (my fruits are only flow’rs) Dismantling all the fragrant Towers That once adorn’d my Shepherdesses head. And now when […]...
- Krishna 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 ecstatic morn, And yet the sages spake of It as of the Ancient and Unborn. I heard the passion breathed amid […]...
- The Old Issue Here is nothing new nor aught unproven,” say the Trumpets, “Many feet have worn it and the road is old indeed. “It is the King the King we schooled aforetime! “ (Trumpets in the marshes-in the eyot at Runnymede!) “Here is neither haste, nor hate, nor anger,” peal the Trumpets, “Pardon for his penitence or […]...
- Psalm 02 Done Aug. 8. 1653. Terzetti. Why do the Gentiles tumult, and the Nations Muse a vain thing, the Kings of th’earth upstand With power, and Princes in their Congregations Lay deep their plots together through each Land, Against the Lord and his Messiah dear. Let us break off; say they, by strength of hand Their […]...
- Colonus' Praise (From Oedipus at Colonus) Chorus. Come praise Colonus’ horses, and come praise The wine-dark of the wood’s intricacies, The nightingale that deafens daylight there, If daylight ever visit where, Unvisited by tempest or by sun, Immortal ladies tread the ground Dizzy with harmonious sound, Semele’s lad a gay companion. And yonder in the gymnasts’ garden […]...
- Monotones Because there is but one truth; Because there is but one banner; Because there is but one light; Because we have with us our youth Once, and one chance and one manner Of service, and then the night; Because we have found not yet Any way for the world to follow Save only that ancient […]...
- What Was Lost I sing what was lost and dread what was won, I walk in a battle fought over again, My king a lost king, and lost soldiers my men; Feet to the Rising and Setting may run, They always beat on the same small stone....
- Woak Hill When sycamore leaves wer a-spreaden Green-ruddy in hedges, Bezide the red doust o’ the ridges, A-dried at Woak Hill; I packed up my goods, all a-sheenen Wi’ long years o’ handlen, On dousty red wheels ov a waggon, To ride at Woak Hill. The brown thatchen ruf o’ the dwellen I then wer a-leaven, Had […]...
- Sestina I have come, alas, to the great circle of shadow, To the short day and to the whitening hills, When the colour is all lost from the grass, Though my desire will not lose its green, So rooted is it in this hardest stone, That speaks and feels as though it were a woman. And […]...
- To Sunnydale There lies the trail to Sunnydale, Amid the lure of laughter. Oh, how can we unhappy be Beneath its leafy rafter! Each perfect hour is like a flower, Each day is like a posy. How can you say the skies are grey? You’re wrong, my friend, they’re rosy. With right good will let’s climb the […]...