Three Marching Songs
I Remember all those renowned generations, They left their bodies to fatten the wolves, They left their homesteads to fatten the foxes, Fled to far countries, or sheltered themselves In cavern, crevice, or hole,
The Cold Heaven
Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting heaven That seemed as though ice burned and was but the more ice, And thereupon imagination and heart were driven So wild that every casual thought of
Those Images
What if I bade you leave The cavern of the mind? There’s better exercise In the sunlight and wind. I never bade you go To Moscow or to Rome. Renounce that drudgery, Call the
The O'Rahilly
Sing of the O’Rahilly, Do not deny his right; Sing a ‘the’ before his name; Allow that he, despite All those learned historians, Established it for good; He wrote out that word himself, He
High Talk
Processions that lack high stilts have nothing that catches the eye. What if my great-granddad had a pair that were twenty foot high, And mine were but fifteen foot, no modern Stalks upon higher,
He Thinks Of Those Who Have Spoken Evil Of His Beloved
Half close your eyelids, loosen your hair, And dream about the great and their pride; They have spoken against you everywhere, But weigh this song with the great and their pride; I made it
The Song Of Wandering Aengus
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
After Long Silence
Speech after long silence; it is right, All other lovers being estranged or dead, Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade, The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night, That we descant and yet again descant Upon
Towards Break Of Day
Was it the double of my dream The woman that by me lay Dreamed, or did we halve a dream Under the first cold gleam of day? I thought: “There is a waterfall Upon
The Wild Old Wicked Man
Because I am mad about women I am mad about the hills,’ Said that wild old wicked man Who travels where God wills. ‘Not to die on the straw at home. Those hands to
A Nativity
What woman hugs her infant there? Another star has shot an ear. What made the drapery glisten so? Not a man but Delacroix. What made the ceiling waterproof? Landor’s tarpaulin on the roof What
The Mask
‘Put off that mask of burning gold With emerald eyes.’ ‘O no, my dear, you make so bold To find if hearts be wild and wise, And yet not cold.’ ‘I would but find
Never Give All The Heart
Never give all the heart, for love Will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seem Certain, and they never dream That it fades out from kiss to kiss; For everything
A Man Young And Old: X. His Wildness
O bid me mount and sail up there Amid the cloudy wrack, For peg and Meg and Paris’ love That had so straight a back, Are gone away, and some that stay Have changed
In The Seven Woods
I have heard the pigeons of the Seven Woods Make their faint thunder, and the garden bees Hum in the lime-tree flowers; and put away The unavailing outcries and the old bitterness That empty