George William Russell

“ Only you and I, beloved, moving in the fields of men.
In the dark tarn of my spirit, Love, the Morning Star is lit;
And its halo, ever brightening, lightens into dawn in it.
Love, a pearl-grey dawn in darkness, breathing peace without desire;
But I fain would shun the burning terrors of the mid-day fire.
Through the faint and tender airs of twilight star on star may gaze,
But the eyes of light are blinded in the white flame of the days,
From the heat that melts together oft a rarer essence slips,
And our hearts may still be parted in the meeting of the lips. ”

“ Many a ruined heart my home.
No, there is no comfort, none.
All the dewy tender breath
Idly falls when life is done
On the starless brow of death.
Though the dream of love may tire,
In the ages long agone
There were ruby hearts of fire—
Ah, the daughters of the dawn!
Though I am so feeble now,
I remember when our pride
Could not to the Mighty bow;
We would sweep His stars aside.
Mix thy youth with thoughts like those—
It were but to wither thee,
But to graft the youthful rose
On the old and flowerless tree.
Age is no more near than youth
To the sceptre and the crown. ”

“ And burn in fiery dreams each thought till thrice refined
It may have power to mirror the mighty Master's mind.
My spirit would have beauty to draw thee nigh, my bird.
I seek the lips that spake thee, sung thee, a starry word.
I'd breathe anew that music, and lure thee from afar,
And still thy quivering pinions at peace in thy own star.
THE VISION OF LOVE
The twilight fleeted away in pearl on the stream,
And night, like a diamond dome, 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. ”

“ The heart of many a vanished race
Sighs as I look on them.
The sun rich face of Egypt glows,
The eyes of Eire brood,
With whom the golden Cyprian shows
In lovely sisterhood.
Your tree put forth these phantom flowers
In ages past away:
They had the love in other hours
I give to you to-day.
One light their eyes have, as may shine
One star on many a sea,
They look that tender love on mine
That lights your glance on me.
They fade in you; their lips are fain
To meet the old caress:
And all their love is mine again
As lip to lip we press. ”

“ For a kiss is an immortal thing.
And the throb wherein those old lips met
Is a living music in us yet.
THE WEAVER OF SOULS
Who is this unseen messenger
For ever between me and her,
Who brings love's precious merchandise,
The golden breath, the dew of sighs,
And the wild, gentle thoughts that dwell
Too fragile for the lips to tell,
Each at their birth, to us before
A heaving of the heart is o'er.
Who art thou, unseen messenger?
I think, O Angel of the Lord,
You make our hearts to so accord
That those who hear in after hours
May sigh for love as deep as ours ”

“ Oh light our life in Babylon, but Babylon has taken wings,
While we are in the calm and proud procession of eternal things.
THE SILENCE OF LOVE
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 nest,
But with pinions drooping together silence is best.
In the Land of Beautiful Silence the winds are laid,
And life grows quietly one in the cloudy shade.
I will not waken the passion that sleeps in the heart,
For the winds that blew us together may blow us apart. ”

“ A breath as gentle as a little child,
Through earth transformed, divine,
The Christ-soul of the universe to shine.
AGE AND YOUTH
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 of the sage,
And the lips of wind give law
Drawn from out their lore of age?
When shall earth begin to burn
With such love as thrills my breast?
When shall we together turn
To our long, long home for rest?
Child and father, we grow old
While you laugh and play with flowers ”

“ I feel your gay love lights such love in me afar,
I would not have you near, for eyes and lips might mar
The silence where we meet and star is lost in star.
I think of you in peace though under alien skies:
Though death itself bereft, your love in me would rise
In rainbow ripples borne from your heart in Paradise.
THE WELL OF ALL HEALING
There's a cure for all things 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 of the earth is full. ”

“ Love unremembered and heart-ache we left behind,
We forsook them, unheeding, hastening away in our flight;
We knew the hearts we had wronged of old we would find
When we came to the fold of the King for rest in the night.
DANA
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 ever from the passionate touch,
I shine afar, till men may not divine
Whether it is the stars or the beloved
They follow with rapt spirit. ”

“ The falling of innumerable dew,
Lifts with grey fingers all the leaves that lay
Burned in the heat of the consuming day.
The lawns and lakes lie in this night of love,
Admitted to the majesty above.
Earth with the starry company hath part;
The waters hold all heaven within their heart,
And glimmer o'er with wave-lips everywhere
Lifted to meet the angel lips of air.
The many homes of men shine near and far,
Peace-laden as the tender evening star,
The late home-coming folk anticipate
Their rest beyond the passing of the gate,
And tread with sleep-filled hearts and drowsy feet. ”

“ To the stars returning
Go not empty-handed.
Ah, the snow-frail maiden!
Somehow truth has missed her,
Left the heart unladen
For its burdened sister.
TWILIGHT BY THE CABIN
Dusk, a pearl-grey river, o'er
Hill and vale puts out the day—
What do you wonder at, asthore,
What's away in yonder grey?
Dark the eyes that linger long—
Dream-fed heart, awake, come in,
Warm the hearth and gay the song:
Love with tender words would win.
Fades the eve in dreamy fire,
But the heart of night is lit:
Ancient beauty, old desire,
By the cabin doorway flit. ”

“ Where the stars like dewdrops glistened on the mountain slope of night.
IN CONNEMARA
With eyes all untroubled she laughs as she passes,
Bending beneath the creel with the seaweed brown,
Till evening with pearl-dew dims the shining grasses
And night lit with dreamlight enfolds the sleepy town.
Then she will wander, her heart all a laughter,
Tracking the dream star that lights the purple gloom.
She follows the proud and golden races after,
As high as theirs her spirit, as high will be her doom.
AN IRISH FACE
Not her own sorrow only that hath place
Upon yon gentle face. ”

“ O'er the unseen fount awhile, and then comes dropping down
Nigh the cool brown earth to hush enraptured notes.
Far within a dome of trembling opal throbs the fire,
Mistily its rain of diamond lances shed below
Touches eyes and brows and faces lit with wild desire
For the burning silence whither we would go.
Heart, O heart, once more it is the ancient joy of earth
Breathes in thee and flings the wild wings sunward to the dome
To the light where all the Children of the Fire had birth
Though our hearts and footsteps wander far from home. ”

“ It will not lift the heart above
The sodden clay on which it rests.
Love once had power the gods to bring
All rapt on its wild wandering.
We shiver in the falling dew,
And seek a shelter from the storm:
When man these elder brothers knew
He found the mother nature warm,
A hearth fire blazing through it all,
A home without a circling wall.
We dwindle down beneath the skies,
And from ourselves we pass away:
The paradise of memories
Grows ever fainter day by day.
The shepherd stars have shrunk within,
The world's great night will soon begin. ”

“ What a darkness would I gaze on when the day had passed the west,
If my eyes were dazed and blinded by the whiteness of a breast?
Never through the diamond darkness could I hope to see afar
Where beyond the pearly rampart burned the purer Evening Star.
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 ”

“ When twilight flutters the mountains over,
The faery lights from the earth unfold:
And over the caves enchanted hover
The giant heroes and gods of old.
The bird of æther its flaming pinions
Waves over earth the whole night long:
The stars drop down in their blue dominions
To hymn together their choral song.
The child of earth in his heart grows burning,
Mad for the night and the deep unknown;
His alien flame in a dream returning
Seats itself on the ancient throne. ”

“ A light at the end of the Path of Pain:
But our joy and our love can have no to-morrow,
And to drink is to sink to the earth again.
There is death in the breath when our lips draw nigher,
And we lay waste the plain for a flower to grow ”

“ The heart that had striven to beat in the heart of the Mighty too soon
Shall still of that beating remember some errant and faltering tune.
For thou hast but fallen to gather the last of the secrets of power;
The beauty that breathes in thy spirit shall shape of thy sorrow a flower,
The pale bud of pity shall open the bloom of its tenderest rays,
The heart of whose shining is bright with the light of the Ancient of Days.
THE CROWN
I wore in joy a radiant star ”

“ 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 smile.
Who now of Dana's host may guide these dancing feet?
What bright immortal hides and through a child's light breath
Laughs an immortal joy—Angus of love and death
Returned to make our hearts with dream and music beat?
Or Lugh leaves heavenly wars to free his ancient land ”

“ Where door and windows open wide that friendly stars may look.
The rabbit shy can patter in, the winds may enter free,
Who throng around the mountain throne in living ecstasy.
And when the sun sets dimmed in eve and purple fills the air,
I think the sacred Hazel Tree is dropping berries there
From starry fruitage waved aloft where Connla's Well o'erflows;
For sure the enchanted waters run through every wind that blows. ”

“ Fear not the stillness; for doubt and despair shall cease
With the gentle voices guiding us into peace.
Our dreams will change as they pass through the gates of gold,
And Quiet, the tender shepherd, shall keep the fold. ”

“ Angus, the Celtic Eros. In the bardic stories he is described as a tall, golden-haired youth playing on a harp and surrounded by singing birds. The kisses of these birds created love and also brought death.
Balor, the prince of the dark powers. His eye turned every living thing it rested on into stone. He was killed at the battle of Moytura by Lugh the Sun-god.
Dana, the Hibernian mother of the gods who were named from her Tuatha De Danaan, or the Tribes of the goddess Dana. They are also sometimes called the Sidhe. ”