The Wild Swans at Coole

Yeats W. B. William Butler

The Wild Swans at Coole

PREFACE

This book is, in part, a reprint of The Wild Swans at Coole, printed a year ago on my sister's hand-press at Dundrum, Co. Dublin. I have not, however, reprinted a play which may be a part of a book of new plays suggested by the dance plays of Japan, and I have added a number of new poems. Michael Robartes and John Aherne, whose names occur in one or other of these, are characters in some stories I wrote years ago, who have once again become a part of the phantasmagoria through which I can alone express my convictions about the world. I have the fancy that I read the name John Aherne among those of men prosecuted for making a disturbance at the first production of "The Play Boy," which may account for his animosity to myself.

W. B. Y.

Ballylee, Co. Galway,

September 1918.

THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE

The trees are in their autumn beauty,The woodland paths are dry,Under the October twilight the waterMirrors a still sky;Upon the brimming water among the stonesAre nine and fifty swans.The nineteenth Autumn has come upon meSince I first made my count;I saw, before I had well finished,All suddenly mountAnd scatter wheeling in great broken ringsUpon their clamorous wings.I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,And now my heart is sore.All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,The first time on this shore,The bell-beat of their wings above my head,Trod with a lighter tread.Unwearied still, lover by lover,They paddle in the cold,Companionable streams or climb the air;Their hearts have not grown old;Passion or conquest, wander where they will,Attend upon them still.But now they drift on the still waterMysterious, beautiful;Among what rushes will they build,By what lake's edge or poolDelight men's eyes, when I awake some dayTo find they have flown away?

IN MEMORY OF

MAJOR ROBERT GREGORY

1Now that we're almost settled in our houseI'll name the friends that cannot sup with usBeside a fire of turf in the ancient tower,And having talked to some late hourClimb up the narrow winding stair to bed:Discoverers of forgotten truthOr mere companions of my youth,All, all are in my thoughts to-night, being dead.2Always we'd have the new friend meet the old,And we are hurt if either friend seem cold,And there is salt to lengthen out the smartIn the affections of our heart,And quarrels are blown up upon that head;But not a friend that I would bringThis night can set us quarrelling,For all that come into my mind are dead.3Lionel Johnson comes the first to mind,That loved his learning better than mankind,Though courteous to the worst; much falling heBrooded upon sanctityTill all his Greek and Latin learning seemedA long blast upon the horn that broughtA little nearer to his thoughtA measureless consummation that he dreamed.4And that enquiring man John Synge comes next,That dying chose the living world for textAnd never could have rested in the tombBut that, long travelling, he had comeTowards nightfall upon certain set apartIn a most desolate stony place,Towards nightfall upon a racePassionate and simple like his heart.5And then I think of old George Pollexfen,In muscular youth well known to Mayo menFor horsemanship at meets or at race-courses,That could have shown how purebred horsesAnd solid men, for all their passion, liveBut as the outrageous stars inclineBy opposition, square and trine;Having grown sluggish and contemplative.6They were my close companions many a year,A portion of my mind and life, as it were,And now their breathless faces seem to lookOut of some old picture-book;I am accustomed to their lack of breath,But not that my dear friend's dear son,Our Sidney and our perfect man,Could share in that discourtesy of death.7For all things the delighted eye now seesWere loved by him; the old storm-broken treesThat cast their shadows upon road and bridge;The tower set on the stream's edge;The ford where drinking cattle make a stirNightly, and startled by that soundThe water-hen must change her ground;He might have been your heartiest welcomer.8When with the Galway foxhounds he would rideFrom Castle Taylor to the Roxborough sideOr Esserkelly plain, few kept his pace;At Mooneen he had leaped a placeSo perilous that half the astonished meetHad shut their eyes, and where was itHe rode a race without a bit?And yet his mind outran the horses' feet.9We dreamed that a great painter had been bornTo cold Clare rock and Galway rock and thorn,To that stern colour and that delicate lineThat are our secret disciplineWherein the gazing heart doubles her might.Soldier, scholar, horseman, he,And yet he had the intensityTo have published all to be a world's delight.10What other could so well have counselled usIn all lovely intricacies of a houseAs he that practised or that understoodAll work in metal or in wood,In moulded plaster or in carven stone?Soldier, scholar, horseman, he,And all he did done perfectlyAs though he had but that one trade alone.11Some burn damp fagots, others may consumeThe entire combustible world in one small roomAs though dried straw, and if we turn aboutThe bare chimney is gone black outBecause the work had finished in that flare.Soldier, scholar, horseman, he,As 'twere all life's epitome.What made us dream that he could comb grey hair?12I had thought, seeing how bitter is that windThat shakes the shutter, to have brought to mindAll those that manhood tried, or childhood loved,Or boyish intellect approved,With some appropriate commentary on each;Until imagination broughtA fitter welcome; but a thoughtOf that late death took all my heart for speech.

AN IRISH AIRMAN FORESEES

HIS DEATH

I know that I shall meet my fateSomewhere among the clouds above;Those that I fight I do not hateThose that I guard I do not love;My country is Kiltartan Cross,My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,No likely end could bring them lossOr leave them happier than before.Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,Nor public man, nor angry crowds,A lonely impulse of delightDrove to this tumult in the clouds;I balanced all, brought all to mind,The years to come seemed waste of breath,A waste of breath the years behindIn balance with this life, this death.

MEN IMPROVE WITH THE

YEARS

I am worn out with dreams;A weather-worn, marble tritonAmong the streams;And all day long I lookUpon this lady's beautyAs though I had found in bookA pictured beauty,Pleased to have filled the eyesOr the discerning ears,Delighted to be but wise,For men improve with the years;And yet and yetIs this my dream, or the truth?O would that we had metWhen I had my burning youth;But I grow old among dreams,A weather-worn, marble tritonAmong the streams.

THE COLLAR-BONE OF A

HARE

Would I could cast a sail on the waterWhere many a king has goneAnd 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 isTo change my loves while dancingAnd pay but a kiss for a kiss.I would find by the edge of that waterThe collar-bone of a hareWorn thin by the lapping of water,And pierce it through with a gimlet and stareAt the old bitter world where they marry in churches,And laugh over the untroubled waterAt all who marry in churches,Through the white thin bone of a hare.

UNDER THE ROUND TOWER

'Although I'd lie lapped up in linenA deal I'd sweat and little earnIf I should live as live the neighbours,'Cried the beggar, Billy Byrne;'Stretch bones till the daylight comeOn great-grandfather's battered tomb.'Upon a grey old battered tombstoneIn Glendalough beside the stream,Where the O'Byrnes and Byrnes are buried,He stretched his bones and fell in a dreamOf sun and moon that a good hourBellowed and pranced in the round tower;Of golden king and silver lady,Bellowing up and bellowing round,Till toes mastered a sweet measure,Mouth mastered a sweet sound,Prancing round and prancing upUntil they pranced upon the top.That golden king and that wild ladySang till stars began to fade,Hands gripped in hands, toes close together,Hair spread on the wind they made;That lady and that golden kingCould like a brace of blackbirds sing.'It's certain that my luck is broken,'That rambling jailbird Billy said;'Before nightfall I'll pick a pocketAnd snug it in a feather-bed,I cannot find the peace of homeOn great-grandfather's battered tomb.'

SOLOMON TO SHEBA

Sang Solomon to Sheba,And kissed her dusky face,'All day long from mid-dayWe have talked in the one place,All day long from shadowless noonWe have gone round and roundIn the narrow theme of loveLike an old horse in a pound.'To Solomon sang Sheba,Planted on his knees,'If you had broached a matterThat might the learned please,You had before the sun had thrownOur shadows on the groundDiscovered that my thoughts, not it,Are but a narrow pound.'Sang Solomon to Sheba,And kissed her Arab eyes,'There's not a man or womanBorn under the skiesDare match in learning with us two,And all day long we have foundThere's not a thing but love can makeThe world a narrow pound.'

THE LIVING BEAUTY

I'll say and maybe dream I have drawn content —Seeing that time has frozen up the blood,The wick of youth being burned and the oil spent —From beauty that is cast out of a mouldIn bronze, or that in dazzling marble appears,Appears, and when we have gone is gone again,Being more indifferent to our solitudeThan 'twere an apparition. O heart, we are old,The living beauty is for younger men,We cannot pay its tribute of wild tears.

A SONG

I thought no more was neededYouth to prolongThan dumb-bell and foilTo keep the body young.Oh, who could have foretoldThat the heart grows old?Though I have many words,What woman's satisfied,I am no longer faintBecause at her side?Oh, who could have foretoldThat the heart grows old?I have not lost desireBut the heart that I had,I thought 'twould burn my bodyLaid on the death-bed.But who could have foretoldThat the heart grows old?

TO A YOUNG BEAUTY

Dear fellow-artist, why so freeWith every sort of company,With every Jack and Jill?Choose your companions from the best;Who draws a bucket with the restSoon topples down the hill.You may, that mirror for a school,Be passionate, not bountifulAs common beauties may,Who were not born to keep in trimWith old Ezekiel's cherubimBut those of Beaujolet.I know what wages beauty gives,How hard a life her servant lives,Yet praise the winters gone;There is not a fool can call me friend,And I may dine at journey's endWith Landor and with Donne.

TO A YOUNG GIRL

My dear, my dear, I knowMore than anotherWhat makes your heart beat so;Not even your own motherCan know it as I know,Who broke my heart for herWhen the wild thought,That she deniesAnd has forgot,Set all her blood astirAnd glittered in her eyes.

THE SCHOLARS

Bald heads forgetful of their sins,Old, learned, respectable bald headsEdit and annotate the linesThat young men, tossing on their beds,Rhymed out in love's despairTo flatter beauty's ignorant ear.They'll cough in the ink to the world's end;Wear out the carpet with their shoesEarning respect; have no strange friend;If they have sinned nobody knows.Lord, what would they sayShould their Catullus walk that way?

TOM O'ROUGHLEY

'Though logic choppers rule the town,And every man and maid and boyHas marked a distant object down,An aimless joy is a pure joy,'Or so did Tom O'Roughley sayThat saw the surges running by,'And wisdom is a butterflyAnd not a gloomy bird of prey.'If little planned is little sinnedBut little need the grave distress.What's dying but a second wind?How but in zigzag wantonnessCould trumpeter Michael be so brave?'Or something of that sort he said,'And if my dearest friend were deadI'd dance a measure on his grave.'

THE SAD SHEPHERD

ShepherdThat cry's from the first cuckoo of the yearI wished before it ceased.GoatherdNor bird nor beastCould make me wish for anything this day,Being old, but that the old alone might die,And that would be against God's Providence.Let the young wish. But what has brought you here?Never until this moment have we metWhere my goats browse on the scarce grass or leapFrom stone to stone.ShepherdI am looking for strayed sheep;Something has troubled me and in my troubleI let them stray. I thought of rhyme alone,For rhyme can beat a measure out of troubleAnd make the daylight sweet once more; but whenI had driven every rhyme into its placeThe sheep had gone from theirs.GoatherdI know right well

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