George William Russell

“ 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
[10] 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.
REST
On me to rest, my bird, my bird:
The swaying branches of my heart
Are blown by every wind toward
The home whereto their wings depart. ”

“ And from the magic tree of life the fruit falls everywhere.
[4]
IMMORTALITY
We must pass like smoke or live within the spirit's fire;
For we can no more than smoke unto the flame return
If our thought has changed to dream, our will unto desire,
As smoke we vanish though the fire may burn.
Lights of infinite pity star the grey dusk of our days:
Surely here is soul: with it we have eternal breath:
In the fire of love we live, or pass by many ways,
By unnumbered ways of dream to death.
THE HERMIT
Now the quietude of earth
Nestles deep my heart within ”

“ With young beauty lit the van.
Gone! the darkness flowed between
All the ancient wars of man.
While I paced the valley's gloom
Where the rabbits pattered near,
Shone a temple and a tomb
With the legend carven clear:
'Time put by a myriad fates
That her day might dawn in glory.
Death made wide a million gates
So to close her tragic story.'
BY THE MARGIN OF THE GREAT DEEP
When the breath of twilight blows to flame the misty skies,
All its vaporous sapphire, violet glow, and silver gleam,
With their magic flood me through the gateway of the eyes;
I am one with the twilight's dream. ”

“ 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 alone
Murmurs the Mighty One his solemn undertone.
Canst thou not see adown the silver cloudland streaming
Rivers of faery light, dewdrop on dewdrop falling,
Starfire of silver flames, lighting the dark beneath? ”

“ To the field labourer whose heart desires
The old folk by the nook, the welcome bright
From the house-wife long parted from at dawn—
So the star villages in God's great depths withdrawn.
Nearer to Thee, not by delusion led,
Though there no house fires burn nor bright eyes gaze,
We rise, but by the symbol charioted,
Through loved things rising up to Love's own ways
By these the soul unto the vast has wings
[20] And sets the seal celestial on all mortal things.
SUNG ON A BY-WAY
What of all the will to do? ”

“ Find thee still the mother-hearted through my night in time:
Find in thee the old enchantment there behind the veil
Where the gods, my brothers, linger. Hail, for ever hail!
[12]
DIVINE VISITATION
The heavens lay hold on us: the starry rays
Fondle with flickering fingers brow and eyes:
A new enchantment lights the ancient skies.
What is it looks between us gaze on gaze?
Does the wild spirit of the endless days
Chase through my heart some lure that ever flies? ”

“ Now when the spirit in us wakes and broods,
Filled with home yearnings, drowsily it flings
From its deep heart high dreams and mystic moods,
Mixed with the memory of the loved earth things;
Clothing the vast with a familiar face;
Reaching its right hand forth to greet the starry race. ”

“ Though the dream of love may tire,
In the ages long agone
There were ruby hearts of fire—
Ah, the daughters of the dawn! ”

“ For beauty called to beauty and there thronged at the enchanter's will
The vanished hours of love that burn within the Ever-living still. ”

“ I am the sunlight in the heart, the silver moonglow in the mind;
My laughter runs and ripples through the wavy tresses of the wind.
I am the fire upon the hills, the dancing flame that leads afar
Each burning-hearted wanderer, and I the dear and homeward star. ”

“ Where the ring of twilight gleams
Round the sanctuary wrought,
Whispers haunt me—in my dreams
We are one yet know it not.
Some for beauty follow long
Flying traces; some there be
Seek thee only for a song:
I to lose myself in thee. ”

“ All the morn a spirit gay
Breathes within my heart a rhyme,
'Tis but hide and seek we play
In and out the courts of Time. ”

“ We are desert leagues apart;
Time is misty ages now
Since the warmth of heart to heart
Chased the shadows from my brow. ”

“ the immortal waters quench the spirit's longing.
Art thou not now, bright one, all sorrow past, in elation,
Made young with joy, grown brother-hearted with the vast,
Whither thy spirit wending flits the dim stars past
Unto the Light of Lights in burning adoration. ”

“ Now the quietude of earth
Nestles deep my heart within;
Friendships new and strange have birth
Since I left the city's din. ”

“ Of the Earth, of the Mother, my heart with her heart in accord:
[31] As I lie mid the cool green tresses that mantle her breast
I begin with the grass once again to be bound to the Lord. ”

“ The blue dusk ran between the streets; my love was winged within my mind;
It left to-day and yesterday and thrice a thousand years behind.
To-day was past and dead for me for from to-day my feet had run
[16] Through thrice a thousand years to walk the ways of ancient Babylon. ”

“ As to her worshippers she came descending from her glowing skies
So Aphrodite I have seen with shining eyes look through your eyes:
One gleam of the ancestral face which lighted up the dawn for me:
[15] One fiery visitation of the love the gods desire in thee! ”

“ Not unremembering we pass our exile from the starry ways:
One timeless hour in time we caught from the long night of endless days. ”

“ Age is no more near than youth
To the sceptre and the crown.
Vain the wisdom, vain the truth;
Do not lay thy rapture down. ”

“ Twilight, a timid fawn, went glimmering by, ”

“ THE NUTS OF KNOWLEDGE 'Sinend daughter of Lodan Lucharglan, son of Lir, out of the Land of Promise went to Connlas' Well which is under the sea, to behold it. That is a well at which are the hazels of wisdom and inspiration that is, the hazels of the science of poetry ”

“ Whatever time thy golden eyelids ope
They travel to a hope;
Not only backward from these low degrees
To starry dynasties,
But, looking far where now the silence owns
And rules from empty thrones,
Thou seest the enchanted halls of heaven burn
For joy at our return. ”

“ Here the ancient mystery
Holds its hands out day by day,
Takes a chair and croons with me
By my cabin built of clay.
When the dusky shadow flits,
By the chimney nook I see
Where the old enchanter sits,
Smiles, and waves, and beckons me. ”

“ He has built his monument
With the winds of time at strife,
Who could have before he went
Written in the book of life.
To the stars from which he came
Empty handed he goes home;
He who might have wrought in flame
Only traced upon the foam.'
[33] ”

“ On the laugh of a child I am borne to the joy of the King. ”