William Butler Yeats

“ Naschina. Your eyes are all a-flash. She is not here.
Enchantress. I'd kill her if she were. Nay, do not fear!
With you I am all gentleness; in truth,
There's little I'd refuse thee, dearest youth.
Naschina. It is my whim! bid some attendant sprite
Of thine cry over wold and water white,
That one shall die, unless one die for her. ”

“ Of yonder lake, from whose green banks alway
The poplars gaze across the waters grey,
And nod to one another, lies a green,
Small island, where the full soft sheen
Of evening and glad silence dwelleth aye,
For there the great Enchantress lives.
Antonio.And there
Groweth the goblin flower of joy, her care,
By many sought, and 'tis a forest tale,
How they who seek are ever doomed to fail.
Some say that all who touch the island lone
Are changed for ever into moon-white stone.
Almintor. That flower I seek.
Antonio.Thou never wilt return.
Almintor. ”

“ Almintor.We two, by that pale fount,
Unmindful of its woes, would twine a wreath
As fair as any that on Ida's mount
Long ere an arrow whizzed or sword left sheath
The shepherd Paris for Oenone made,
Singing of arms and battles some old stave,
As lies dark water in a murmurous glade,
Dreaming the live-long summer in the shade,
Dreaming of flashing flight and of the plumèd wave.
Antonio. Naschina, wherefore are your eyes so bright
With tears?
Naschina. I weary of ye. There is none
Of all on whom Arcadian suns have shone
Sustains his soul in courage or in might. ”

“ Soundless shall be the footfall light
In each man's ears of sorrow,
Sudden and light.
Naschina, disguised as a shepherd-boy, enters with the Enchantress, the beautiful familiar of the Isle. Naschina. What are the voices that in flowery ways
Have clothed their tongues with song of songless days?
Enchantress. They are the flowers' guardian sprights ”

“ Naschina. Those twain are dust. Wake! Light as a bee sips
The faery blossom lies upon thy lips;
Seafarer, wake!
Third Sleeper.Was my sleep long?
Naschina.Long years.
The Sleeper. A rover I, who come from where men's ears
Love storm; and stained with mist the new moons flare.
Doth still the Man whom each stern rover fears,
The austere Arthur, rule from Uther's chair?
Naschina. He is long dead.
Wake! soft as a bee sips
The goblin flower lieth on thy lips. ”

“ Enchantress.Thou shalt know more:
Meeting long hence the phantom herdsman, king
Of the dread woods; along their russet floor
His sleuth-hounds follow every faery thing.
[Turns to go. Naschina tries to prevent her. Before I am too weak, fierce mortal, let me fly,
And crouch in some far stillness of the isle, and die.
[Goes.
Naschina [following] . Will he have happiness? Great sobs her being shake. Voices [sing] . A man has a hope for heaven,
But soulless a faery dies,
As a leaf that is old, and withered, and cold,
When the wintry vapours rise. ”

“ Antonio and Naschina turn to go. Naschina.Tell me, Antonio, might
They get them swords, and both or either fall?
Antonio. No, no; when that shall be, then men may call
Down to their feet the stars that shine alone,
Each one at gaze for aye upon his whirling throne. ”

“ The red squirrel shall rear her young where thou hast dwelt—
Ah, woe is me! I go from sun and shade,
And the joy of the streams where long-limbed herons wade;
And never any more the wide-eyed bands
Of the pied panther-kittens from my hands
Shall feed. I shall not in the evenings hear
Again the woodland laughter, and the clear
Wild cries, grown sweet with lulls and lingerings long.
I fade, and shall not see the mornings wake,
A-fluttering the painted populace of lake
And sedgy stream, and in each babbling brake
And hollow lulling the young winds with song.
I dream!—I cannot die!—No! ”

“ Naschina turns to go. Almintor.Oh stay, Naschina, stay!
Naschina. Here, where men know the gracious woodland joys,
Joy's brother, Fear, dwells ever in each breast—
Joy's brother, Fear, lurks in each leafy way. ”

“ As moths with broken wings, and as we sit
The heavens all star-throbbing are a-lit.
Naschina. But art thou happy?
Enchantress.Let me gaze on thee
At arm's length, thus till dumb eternity
Has rolled away the stars and dried the sea
I could gaze, gaze upon thine eyes' clear grey;
Gaze on till ragged time himself decay.
Ah! you are weeping; here should all grief cease.
Naschina. But art thou happy?
Enchantress.Youth, I am at peace.
Naschina. But art thou happy?
Enchantress.Those grey eyes of thine
Have they ne'er seen the eyes of lynx or kine,
Or aught remote ”

“ Who sits in lonely splendour, mail'd in gold,
And they will war, 'mid wondrous elfin-sights:
Such may I love. The shuddering forest lights
Of green Arcadia do not hide, I trow,
Such men, such hearts. ”

“ Antonio.He lost i' the woods the chief
And only sheep he loved of all the troop.
Colin. More grief is mine. No man shall ever stoop
Beneath the weight of greater grief than I;
I like you, and, in sooth I know not why.
Now, judge, must shepherd Thernot there and I
For this thing fight—we love one maid?
Naschina.Her name?
Colin. Naschina.
Naschina.Oh, I know her well—a lame,
Dull-witted thing, with face red squirrel-brown.
Antonio. A long, brown grasshopper of maids!
Naschina.Peace, sir!
Colin. 'Tis clear that you have seen her not. ”

“ Antonio rushes away, and the scene closes on Colin and Thernot still fighting.
Scene III.
The Island.—Flowers of manifold colour are knee-deep before a gate of brass, above which, in a citron-tinctured sky, glimmer a few stars. At intervals come mournful blasts from the horns among the flowers. First Voice. What do you weave so fair and bright? ”