Title: In The Seven Woods
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Author: William Butler Yeats
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In The Seven Woods
William Butler Yeats
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Table of Contents
In The Seven Woods...........................................................................................................................................1
William Butler Yeats...............................................................................................................................1
In the Seven Woods.................................................................................................................................1
The Arrow ................................................................................................................................................2
The Folly Of Being Comforted ................................................................................................................2
Old Memory .............................................................................................................................................2
Never Give All The Heart ........................................................................................................................3
The Withering Of The Boughs................................................................................................................3
Adam's Curse...........................................................................................................................................4
Red Hanrahan's Song About Ireland ........................................................................................................5
The Old Men Admiring Themselves In The Water .................................................................................6
Under The Moon ......................................................................................................................................6
The Ragged Wood...................................................................................................................................7
O Do Not Love Too Long ........................................................................................................................7
The Players Ask For A Blessing On The Psalteries And On Themselves ..............................................8
The Happy Townland..............................................................................................................................8
In The Seven Woods
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In The Seven Woods
William Butler Yeats
In the Seven Woods
The Arrow
The Folly Of Being Comforted
Old Memory
Never Give All The Heart
The Withering Of The Boughs
Adam's Curse
Red Hanrahan's Song About Ireland
The Old Men Admiring Themselves In The Water
Under The Moon
The Ragged Wood
O Do Not Love Too Long
The Players Ask For A Blessing On The Psalteries And On Themselves
The Happy Townland
In the Seven Woods
I HAVE heard the pigeons of the Seven Woods
Make their faint thunder, and the garden bees
Hum in the limetree flowers; and put away
The unavailing outcries and the old bitterness
That empty the heart. I have forgot awhile
Tara uprooted, and new commonness
Upon the throne and crying about the streets
And hanging its paper flowers from post to post,
Because it is alone of all things happy.
I am contented, for I know that Quiet
Wanders laughing and eating her wild heart
Among pigeons and bees, while that Great Archer,
Who but awaits His hour to shoot, still hangs
A cloudy quiver over Paircnalee.
In The Seven Woods 1
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The Arrow
I THOUGHT of your beauty, and this arrow,
Made out of a wild thought, is in my marrow.
There's no man may look upon her, no man,
As when newly grown to be a woman,
Tall and noble but with face and bosom
Delicate in colour as apple blossom.
This beauty's kinder, yet for a reason
I could weep that the old is out of season.
The Folly Of Being Comforted
ONE that is ever kind said yesterday:
"Your wellbeloved's hair has threads of grey,
And little shadows come about her eyes;
Time can but make it easier to be wise
Though now it seems impossible, and so
All that you need is patience."
Heart cries, "No,
I have not a crumb of comfort, not a grain.
Time can but make her beauty over again:
Because of that great nobleness of hers
The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs,
Burns but more clearly. O she had not these ways
When all the wild Summer was in her gaze."
Heart! O heart! if she'd but turn her head,
You'd know the folly of being comforted.
Old Memory
In The Seven Woods
The Arrow 2
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O THOUGHT, fly to her when the end of day
Awakens an old memory, and say,
"Your strength, that is so lofty and fierce and kind,
It might call up a new age, calling to mind
The queens that were imagined long ago,
Is but half yours: he kneaded in the dough
Through the long years of youth, and who would have thought
It all, and more than it all, would come to naught,
And that dear words meant nothing?" But enough,
For when we have blamed the wind we can blame love;
Or, if there needs be more, be nothing said
That would be harsh for children that have strayed.
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 that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy. Kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.
The Withering Of The Boughs
I CRIED when the moon was mutmuring to the birds:
"Let peewit call and curlew cry where they will,
In The Seven Woods
Never Give All The Heart 3
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I long for your merry and tender and pitiful words,
For the roads are unending, and there is no place to my mind."
The honeypale moon lay low on the sleepy hill,
And I fell asleep upon lonely Echtge of streams.
No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind;
The boughs have withered because I have told them my, dreams.
I know of the leafy paths that the witches take
Who come with their crowns of pearl and their spindles of wool,
And their secret smile, out of the depths of the lake;
I know where a dim moon drifts, where the Danaan kind
Wind and unwind their dances when the light grows cool
On the island lawns, their feet where the pale foam gleams.
No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind;
The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams.
I know of the sleepy country, where swans fly round
Coupled with golden chains, and sing as they fly.
A king and a queen are wandering there, and the sound
Has made them so happy and hopeless, so deaf and so blind
With wisdom, they wander till all the years have gone by;
I know, and the curlew and peewit on Echtge of streams.
No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind;
The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams.
Adam's Curse
WE sat together at one summer's end,
That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,
And you and I, and talked of poetry.
I said, "A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.
Better go down upon your marrowbones
And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones
Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;
For to articulate sweet sounds together
Is to work harder than all these, and yet
Be thought an idler by the noisy set
Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen
The martyrs call the world.'
And thereupon
In The Seven Woods
Adam's Curse 4
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That beautiful mild woman for whose sake
There's many a one shall find out all heartache
On finding that her voice is sweet and low
Replied, "To be born woman is to know
Although they do not talk of it at school
That we must labour to be beautiful.'
I said, "It's certain there is no fine thing
Since Adam's fall but needs much labouring.
There have been lovers who thought love should be
So much compounded of high courtesy
That they would sigh and quote with learned looks
precedents out of beautiful old books;
Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.'
We sat grown quiet at the name of love;
We saw the last embers of daylight die,
And in the trembling bluegreen of the sky
A moon, worn as if it had been a shell
Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell
About the stars and broke in days and years.
I had a thought for no one's but your ears:
That you were beautiful, and that I strove
To love you in the old high way of love;
That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown
As wearyhearted as that hollow moon.
Red Hanrahan's Song About Ireland
THE old brown thorntrees break in two high over Cummen Strand,
Under a bitter black wind that blows from the left hand;
Our courage breaks like an old tree in a black wind and dies,
But we have hidden in our hearts the flame out of the eyes
Of Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan.
The wind has bundled up the clouds high over Knock narea,
And thrown the thunder on the stones for all that Maeve can say.
Angers that are like noisy clouds have set our hearts abeat;
But we have all bent low and low and kissed the quiet feet
Of Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan.
The yellow pool has overflowed high up on CloothnaBare,
In The Seven Woods
Red Hanrahan's Song About Ireland 5
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For the wet winds are blowing out of the clinging air;
Like heavy flooded waters our bodies and our blood;
But purer than a tall candle before the Holy Rood
Is Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan.
The Old Men Admiring Themselves In The Water
I HEARD the old, old men say,
"Everything alters,
And one by one we drop away."
They had hands like claws, and their knees
Were twisted like the old thorntrees
By the waters.
I heard the old, old men say,
"All that's beautiful drifts away
Like the waters."
Under The Moon
I HAVE no happiness in dreaming of Brycelinde,
Nor Avalon the grassgreen hollow, nor Joyous Isle,
Where one found Lancelot crazed and hid him for a while;
Nor Uladh, when Naoise had thrown a sail upon the wind;
Nor lands that seem too dim to be burdens on the heart:
LandunderWave, where out of the moon's light and the sun's
Seven old sisters wind the threads of the longlived ones,
LandoftheTower, where Aengus has thrown the gates apart,
And WoodofWonders, where one kills an ox at dawn,
To find it when night falls laid on a golden bier.
Therein are many queens like Branwen and Guinevere;
And Niamh and Laban and Fand, who could change to an otter or fawn,
And the woodwoman, whose lover was changed to a blueeyed hawk;
And whether I go in my dreams by woodland, or dun, or shore,
Or on the unpeopled waves with kings to pull at the oar,
In The Seven Woods
The Old Men Admiring Themselves In The Water 6
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I hear the harpstring praise them, or hear their mournful talk.
Because of something told under the famished horn
Of the hunter's moon, that hung between the night and the day,
To dream of women whose beauty was folded in dis may,
Even in an old story, is a burden not to be borne.
The Ragged Wood
O HURRY where by water among the trees
The delicatestepping stag and his lady sigh,
When they have but looked upon their images
Would none had ever loved but you and I!
Or have you heard that sliding silvershoed
Pale silverproud queenwoman of the sky,
When the sun looked out of his golden hood?
O that none ever loved but you and I!
O hurty to the ragged wood, for there
I will drive all those lovers out and cry
O my share of the world, O yellow hair!
No one has ever loved but you and I.
O Do Not Love Too Long
SWEETHEART, do not love too long:
I loved long and long,
And grew to be out of fashion
Like an old song.
All through the years of our youth
Neither could have known
Their own thought from the other's,
We were so much at one.
In The Seven Woods
The Ragged Wood 7
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But O, in a minute she changed
O do not love too long,
Or you will grow out of fashion
Like an old song.
The Players Ask For A Blessing On The Psalteries And On Themselves
Three Voices [together]. Hurry to bless the hands that play,
The mouths that speak, the notes and strings,
O masters of the glittering town!
O! lay the shrilly trumpet down,
Though drunken with the flags that sway
Over the ramparts and the towers,
And with the waving of your wings.
First Voice. Maybe they linger by the way.
One gathers up his purple gown;
One leans and mutters by the wall
He dreads the weight of mortal hours.
Second Voice. O no, O no! they hurry down
Like plovers that have heard the call.
Third Voice. O kinsmen of the Three in One,
O kinsmen, bless the hands that play.
The notes they waken shall live on
When all this heavy history's done;
Our hands, our hands must ebb away.
Three Voices [together]. The proud and careless notes live on,
But bless our hands that ebb away.
The Happy Townland
THERE'S many a strong farmer
Whose heart would break in two,
In The Seven Woods
The Players Ask For A Blessing On The Psalteries And On Themselves 8
Page No 11
If he could see the townland
That we are riding to;
Boughs have their fruit and blossom
At all times of the year;
Rivers are running over
With red beer and brown beer.
An old man plays the bagpipes
In a golden and silver wood;
Queens, their eyes blue like the ice,
Are dancing in a crowd.
The little fox he murmured,
"O what of the world's bane?'
The sun was laughing sweetly,
The moon plucked at my rein;
But the little red fox murmured,
"O do not pluck at his rein,
He is riding to the townland
That is the world's bane.'
When their hearts are so high
That they would come to blows,
They unhook rheir heavy swords
From golden and silver boughs;
But all that are killed in battle
Awaken to life again.
It is lucky that their story
Is not known among men,
For O, the strong farmers
That would let the spade lie,
Their hearts would be like a cup
That somebody had drunk dry.
The little fox he murmured,
"O what of the world's bane?'
The sun was laughing sweetly,
The moon plucked at my rcin;
But the little red fox murmured,
"O do not pluck at his rein,
He is riding to the townland
That is the world's bane.'
Michael will unhook his trumpet
From a bough overhead,
And blow a little noise
When the supper has been spread.
Gabriel will come from the water
With a fishtail, and talk
Of wonders that have happened
On wet roads where men walk.
And lift up an old horn
In The Seven Woods
The Players Ask For A Blessing On The Psalteries And On Themselves 9
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Of hammered silver, and drink
Till he has fallen asleep
Upon the starry brink.
The little fox he murmured,
"O what of the world's bane?'
The sun was laughing sweetly,
The moon plucked at my rein;
But the little red fox murmured.
"O do not pluck at his rein,
He is riding to the townland
That is the world's bane.'
In The Seven Woods
The Players Ask For A Blessing On The Psalteries And On Themselves 10
Bookmarks
1. Table of Contents, page = 3
2. In The Seven Woods, page = 4
3. William Butler Yeats, page = 4
4. In the Seven Woods, page = 4
5. The Arrow, page = 5
6. The Folly Of Being Comforted, page = 5
7. Old Memory, page = 5
8. Never Give All The Heart, page = 6
9. The Withering Of The Boughs, page = 6
10. Adam's Curse, page = 7
11. Red Hanrahan's Song About Ireland, page = 8
12. The Old Men Admiring Themselves In The Water, page = 9
13. Under The Moon, page = 9
14. The Ragged Wood, page = 10
15. O Do Not Love Too Long, page = 10
16. The Players Ask For A Blessing On The Psalteries And On Themselves, page = 11
17. The Happy Townland, page = 11