Title:   The Wind Among The Reeds

Subject:  

Author:   William Butler Yeats

Keywords:  

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PDF Version:   1.2



Contents:

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Bookmarks





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The Wind Among The Reeds

William Butler Yeats



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Page No 2


Table of Contents

The Wind Among The Reeds.............................................................................................................................1

William Butler Yeats...............................................................................................................................1

The Hosting Of The Sidhe.......................................................................................................................2

The Everlasting Voices ............................................................................................................................2

The Moods...............................................................................................................................................2

The Lover Tells Of The Rose In His Heart ..............................................................................................3

The Host Of The Air ................................................................................................................................3

The Fish...................................................................................................................................................4

The Unappeasable Host...........................................................................................................................5

Into The Twilight.....................................................................................................................................5

The Song Of Wandering Aengus .............................................................................................................6

The Song Of The Old Mother ..................................................................................................................6

The Heart Of The Woman.......................................................................................................................7

The Lover Mourns For The Loss Of Love ...............................................................................................7

He Mourns For The Change That Has Come Upon Him And His  Beloved, And Longs For The 

End Of The World...................................................................................................................................8

He Bids His Beloved Be At Peace ...........................................................................................................8

He Reproves The Curlew .........................................................................................................................8

He Remembers Forgotten Beauty ............................................................................................................9

A Poet To His Beloved............................................................................................................................9

He Gives His Beloved Certain Rhymes .................................................................................................10

To His Heart, Bidding It Have No Fear .................................................................................................10

The Cap And Bells .................................................................................................................................11

The Valley Of The Black Pig .................................................................................................................12

The Lover Asks Forgiveness Because Of His Many Moods .................................................................12

He Tells Of A Valley Full Of Lovers....................................................................................................13

He Tells Of The Perfect Beauty .............................................................................................................13

He Hears The Cry Of The Sedge...........................................................................................................13

He Thinks Of Those Who Have Spoken Evil Of His Beloved ..............................................................14

The Blessed ............................................................................................................................................14

The Secret Rose.....................................................................................................................................15

Maid Quiet.............................................................................................................................................16

The Travail of Passion...........................................................................................................................16

The Lover Pleads With His Friend For Old Friends ..............................................................................17

The Lover Speaks To The Hearers Of His Songs In Coming Days......................................................17

The Poet Pleads With The Elemental Powers ........................................................................................17

He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead......................................................................................................18

He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven..................................................................................................18

He Thinks Of His Past Greatness When A Part Of The  Constellations Of Heaven .............................19

The Fiddler Of Dooney ..........................................................................................................................19


The Wind Among The Reeds

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Page No 3


The Wind Among The Reeds

William Butler Yeats

The Hosting Of The Sidhe 

The Everlasting Voices 

The Moods 

The Lover Tells Of The Rose In His Heart 

The Host Of The Air 

The Fish 

The Unappeasable Host 

Into The Twilight 

The Song Of Wandering Aengus 

The Song Of The Old Mother 

The Heart Of The Woman 

The Lover Mourns For The Loss Of Love 

He Mourns For The Change That Has Come Upon Him And His Beloved, And Longs For The End Of The

World



He Bids His Beloved Be At Peace 

He Reproves The Curlew 

He Remembers Forgotten Beauty 

A Poet To His Beloved 

He Gives His Beloved Certain Rhymes 

To His Heart, Bidding It Have No Fear 

The Cap And Bells 

The Valley Of The Black Pig 

The Lover Asks Forgiveness Because Of His Many Moods 

He Tells Of A Valley Full Of Lovers 

He Tells Of The Perfect Beauty 

He Hears The Cry Of The Sedge 

He Thinks Of Those Who Have Spoken Evil Of His Beloved 

The Blessed 

The Secret Rose 

Maid Quiet 

The Travail of Passion 

The Lover Pleads With His Friend For Old Friends 

The Lover Speaks To The Hearers Of His Songs In Coming Days 

The Poet Pleads With The Elemental Powers 

He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead 

He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven 

He Thinks Of His Past Greatness When A Part Of The Constellations Of Heaven 

The Fiddler Of Dooney  

The Wind Among The Reeds 1



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Page No 4


The Hosting Of The Sidhe

The host is riding from Knocknarea 

And over the grave of CloothnaBare; 

Caoilte tossing his burning hair, 

And Niamh calling Away, come away: 

Empty your heart of its mortal dream. 

The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round, 

Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound, 

Our breasts are heaving our eyes are agleam, 

Our arms are waving our lips are apart; 

And if any gaze on our rushing band, 

We come between him and the deed of his hand, 

We come between him and the hope of his heart. 

The host is rushing 'twixt night and day, 

And where is there hope or deed as fair? 

Caoilte tossing his burning hair, 

And Niamh calling Away, come away. 

The Everlasting Voices

O SWEET everlasting Voices, be still; 

Go to the guards of the heavenly fold 

And bid them wander obeying your will, 

Flame under flame, till Time be no more; 

Have you not heard that our hearts are old, 

That you call in birds, in wind on the hill, 

In shaken boughs, in tide on the shore? 

O sweet everlasting Voices, be still. 

The Moods

TIME drops in decay, 

Like a candle burnt out, 

And the mountains and woods 

Have their day, have their day; 

What one in the rout 

Of the fireborn moods 


The Wind Among The Reeds

The Hosting Of The Sidhe 2



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Page No 5


Has fallen away? 

The Lover Tells Of The Rose In His Heart

ALL things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old, 

The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart, 

The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould, 

Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart. 

The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told; 

I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart, 

With the earth and the sky and the water, remade, like a casket of gold 

For my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart. 

The Host Of The Air

O'DRISCOLL drove with a song 

The wild duck and the drake 

From the tall and the tufted reeds 

Of the drear Hart Lake. 

And he saw how the reeds grew dark 

At the coming of nighttide, 

And dreamed of the long dim hair 

Of Bridget his bride. 

He heard while he sang and dreamed 

A piper piping away, 

And never was piping so sad, 

And never was piping so gay. 

And he saw young men and young girls 

Who danced on a level place, 

And Bridget his bride among them, 

With a sad and a gay face. 


The Wind Among The Reeds

The Lover Tells Of The Rose In His Heart 3



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Page No 6


The dancers crowded about him 

And many a sweet thing said, 

And a young man brought him red wine 

And a young girl white bread. 

But Bridget drew him by the sleeve 

Away from the merry bands, 

To old men playing at cards 

With a twinkling of ancient hands. 

The bread and the wine had a doom, 

For these were the host of the air; 

He sat and played in a dream 

Of her long dim hair. 

He played with the merry old men 

And thought not of evil chance, 

Until one bore Bridget his bride 

Away from the merry dance. 

He bore her away in his atms, 

The handsomest young man there, 

And his neck and his breast and his arms 

Were drowned in her long dim hair. 

O'Driscoll scattered the cards 

And out of his dream awoke: 

Old men and young men and young girls 

Were gone like a drifting smoke; 

But he heard high up in the air 

A piper piping away, 

And never was piping so sad, 

And never was piping so gay. 

The Fish

ALTHOUGH you hide in the ebb and flow 

Of the pale tide when the moon has set, 

The people of coming days will know 

About the casting out of my net, 

And how you have leaped times out of mind 

Over the little silver cords, 

And think that you were hard and unkind, 

And blame you with many bitter words. 


The Wind Among The Reeds

The Fish 4



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Page No 7


The Unappeasable Host

THE Danaan children laugh, in cradles of wrought gold, 

And clap their hands together, and half close their eyes, 

For they will ride the North when the gereagle flies, 

With heavy whitening wings, and a heart fallen cold: 

I kiss my wailing child and press it to my breast, 

And hear the narrow graves calling my child and me. 

Desolate winds that cry over the wandering sea; 

Desolate winds that hover in the flaming West; 

Desolate winds that beat the doors of Heaven, and beat 

The doors of Hell and blow there many a whimpering ghost; 

O heart the winds have shaken, the unappeasable host 

Is comelier than candles at Mother Mary's feet. 

Into The Twilight

OUTWORN heart, in a time outworn, 

Come clear of the nets of wrong and right; 

Laugh, heart, again in the grey twilight, 

Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn. 

Your mother Eire is aways young, 

Dew ever shining and twilight grey; 

Though hope fall from you and love decay, 

Burning in fires of a slanderous tongue. 

Come, heart, where hill is heaped upon hill: 

For there the mystical brotherhood 

Of sun and moon and hollow and wood 

And river and stream work out their will; 

And God stands winding His lonely horn, 

And time and the world are ever in flight; 

And love is less kind than the grey twilight, 

And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn. 


The Wind Among The Reeds

The Unappeasable Host 5



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Page No 8


The Song Of Wandering Aengus

I WENT out to the hazel wood, 

Because a fire was in my head, 

And cut and peeled a hazel wand, 

And hooked a berry to a thread; 

And when white moths were on the wing, 

And mothlike stars were flickering out, 

I dropped the berry in a stream 

And caught a little silver trout. 

When I had laid it on the floor 

I went to blow the fire aflame, 

But something rustled on the floor, 

And some one called me by my name: 

It had become a glimmering girl 

With apple blossom in her hair 

Who called me by my name and ran 

And faded through the brightening air. 

Though I am old with wandering 

Through hollow lads and hilly lands. 

I will find out where she has gone, 

And kiss her lips and take her hands; 

And walk among long dappled grass, 

And pluck till time and times are done 

The silver apples of the moon, 

The golden apples of the sun. 

The Song Of The Old Mother

I RISE in the dawn, and I kneel and blow 

Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow; 

And then I must scrub and bake and sweep 

Till stars are beginning to blink and peep; 

And the young lie long and dream in their bed 

Of the matching of ribbons for bosom and head, 


The Wind Among The Reeds

The Song Of Wandering Aengus 6



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Page No 9


And their day goes over in idleness, 

And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress: 

While I must work because I am old, 

And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold. 

The Heart Of The Woman

O WHAT to me the little room 

That was brimmed up with prayer and rest; 

He bade me out into the gloom, 

And my breast lies upon his breast. 

O what to me my mother's care, 

The house where I was safe and warm; 

The shadowy blossom of my hair 

Will hide us from the bitter storm. 

O hiding hair and dewy eyes, 

I am no more with life and death, 

My heart upon his warm heart lies, 

My breath is mixed into his breath. 

The Lover Mourns For The Loss Of Love

PALE brows, still hands and dim hair, 

I had a beautiful friend 

And dreamed that the old despair 

Would end in love in the end: 

She looked in my heart one day 

And saw your image was there; 

She has gone weeping away. 


The Wind Among The Reeds

The Heart Of The Woman 7



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Page No 10


He Mourns For The Change That Has Come Upon Him And His Beloved,

And Longs For The End Of The World

DO you not hear me calling, white deer with no horns? 

I have been changed to a hound with one red ear; 

I have been in the Path of Stones and the Wood of Thorns, 

For somebody hid hatred and hope and desire and fear 

Under my feet that they follow you night and day. 

A man with a hazel wand came without sound; 

He changed me suddenly; I was looking another way; 

And now my calling is but the calling of a hound; 

And Time and Birth and Change are hurrying by. 

I would that the Boar without bristles had come from the West 

And had rooted the sun and moon and stars out of the sky 

And lay in the darkness, grunting, and turning to his rest. 

He Bids His Beloved Be At Peace

I HEAR the Shadowy Horses, their long manes ashake, 

Their hoofs heavy with tumult, their eyes glimmering white; 

The North unfolds above them clinging, creeping night, 

The East her hidden joy before the morning break, 

The West weeps in pale dew and sighs passing away, 

The South is pouring down roses of crimson fire: 

O vanity of Sleep, Hope, Dream, endless Desire, 

The Horses of Disaster plunge in the heavy clay: 

Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat 

Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast, 

Drowning love's lonely hour in deep twilight of rest, 

And hiding their tossing manes and their tumultuous feet. 

He Reproves The Curlew

O CURLEW, cry no more in the air, 


The Wind Among The Reeds

He Mourns For The Change That Has Come Upon Him And His  Beloved, And Longs For The End Of The World 8



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Page No 11


Or only to the water in the West; 

Because your crying brings to my mind 

passiondimmed eyes and long heavy hair 

That was shaken out over my breast: 

There is enough evil in the crying of wind. 

He Remembers Forgotten Beauty

WHEN my arms wrap you round I press 

My heart upon the loveliness 

That has long faded from the world; 

The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled 

In shadowy pools, when armies fled; 

The lovetales wrought with silken thread 

By dreaming ladies upon cloth 

That has made fat the murderous moth; 

The roses that of old time were 

Woven by ladies in their hair, 

The dewcold lilies ladies bore 

Through many a sacred corridor 

Where such grey clouds of incense rose 

That only God's eyes did not close: 

For that pale breast and lingering hand 

Come from a more dreamheavy land, 

A more dreamheavy hour than this; 

And when you sigh from kiss to kiss 

I hear white Beauty sighing, too, 

For hours when all must fade like dew. 

But flame on flame, and deep on deep, 

Throne over throne where in half sleep, 

Their swords upon their iron knees, 

Brood her high lonely mysteries. 

A Poet To His Beloved

I BRING you with reverent hands 


The Wind Among The Reeds

He Remembers Forgotten Beauty 9



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Page No 12


The books of my numberless dreams, 

White woman that passion has worn 

As the tide wears the dovegrey sands, 

And with heart more old than the horn 

That is brimmed from the pale fire of time: 

White woman with numberless dreams, 

I bring you my passionate rhyme. 

He Gives His Beloved Certain Rhymes

FASTEN your hair with a golden pin, 

And bind up every wandering tress; 

I bade my heart build these poor rhymes: 

It worked at them, day out, day in, 

Building a sorrowful loveliness 

Out of the battles of old times. 

You need but lift a pearlpale hand, 

And bind up your long hair and sigh; 

And all men's hearts must burn and beat; 

And candlelike foam on the dim sand, 

And stars climbing the dewdropping sky, 

Live but to light your passing feet. 

To His Heart, Bidding It Have No Fear

BE you still, be you still, trembling heart; 

Remember the wisdom out of the old days: 

Him who trembles before the flame and the flood, 

And the winds that blow through the starry ways, 

Let the starry winds and the flame and the flood 

Cover over and hide, for he has no part 

With the lonely, majestical multitude. 


The Wind Among The Reeds

He Gives His Beloved Certain Rhymes 10



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Page No 13


The Cap And Bells

THE jester walked in the garden: 

The garden had fallen still; 

He bade his soul rise upward 

And stand on her windowsill. 

It rose in a straight blue garment, 

When owls began to call: 

It had grown wisetongued by thinking 

Of a quiet and light footfall; 

But the young queen would not listen; 

She rose in her pale nightgown; 

She drew in the heavy casement 

And pushed the latches down. 

He bade his heart go to her, 

When the owls called out no more; 

In a red and quivering garment 

It sang to her through the door. 

It had grown sweettongued by dreaming 

Of a flutter of flowerlike hair; 

But she took up her fan from the table 

And waved it off on the air. 

"I have cap and bells,' he pondered, 

"I will send them to her and die'; 

And when the morning whitened 

He left them where she went by. 

She laid them upon her bosom, 

Under a cloud of her hair, 

And her red lips sang them a lovesong 

Till stars grew out of the air. 

She opened her door and her window, 

And the heart and the soul came through, 

To her right hand came the red one, 

To her left hand came the blue. 

They set up a noise like crickets, 

A chattering wise and sweet, 

And her hair was a folded flower 

And the quiet of love in her feet. 


The Wind Among The Reeds

The Cap And Bells 11



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Page No 14


The Valley Of The Black Pig

THE dews drop slowly and dreams gather: unknown spears 

Suddenly hurtle before my dreamawakened eyes, 

And then the clash of fallen horsemen and the cries 

Of unknown perishing armies beat about my ears. 

We who still labour by the cromlech on the shore, 

The grey caim on the hill, when day sinks drowned in dew, 

Being weary of the world's empires, bow down to you. 

Master of the still stars and of the flaming door. 

The Lover Asks Forgiveness Because Of His Many Moods

IF this importunate heart trouble your peace 

With words lighter than air, 

Or hopes that in mere hoping flicker and cease; 

Crumple the rose in your hair; 

And cover your lips with odorous twilight and say, 

"O Hearts of windblown flame! 

O Winds, older than changing of night and day, 

That murmuring and longing came 

From marble cities loud with tabors of old 

In dovegrey faery lands; 

From battlebanners, fold upon purple fold, 

Queens wrought with glimmering hands; 

That saw young Niamh hover with lovelorn face 

Above the wandering tide; 

And lingered in the hidden desolate place 

Where the last Phoenix died, 

And wrapped the flames above his holy head; 

And still murmur and long: 

O piteous Hearts, changing till change be dead 

In a tumultuous song': 

And cover the pale blossoms of your breast 

With your dim heavy hair, 

And trouble with a sigh for all things longing for rest 

The odorous twilight there. 


The Wind Among The Reeds

The Valley Of The Black Pig 12



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Page No 15


He Tells Of A Valley Full Of Lovers

I DREAMED that I stood in a valley, and amid sighs, 

For happy lovers passed two by two where I stood; 

And I dreamed my lost love came stealthily out of the wood 

With her cloudpale eyelids falling on dreamdimmed eyes: 

I cried in my dream, O women, bid the young men lay 

Their heads on your knees, and drown their eyes with your fair, 

Or remembering hers they will find no other face fair 

Till all the valleys of the world have been withered away. 

He Tells Of The Perfect Beauty

O CLOUDPALE eyelids, dreamdimmed eyes, 

The poets labouring all their days 

To build a perfect beauty in rhyme 

Are overthrown by a woman's gaze 

And by the unlabouring brood of the skies: 

And therefore my heart will bow, when dew 

Is dropping sleep, until God burn time, 

Before the unlabouring stars and you. 

He Hears The Cry Of The Sedge

I WANDER by the edge 

Of this desolate lake 

Where wind cries in the sedge: 

iUntil the axle break 

That keeps the stars in their round, 

And hands hurl in the deep 

The banners of East and West, 

And the girdle of light is unhound, 


The Wind Among The Reeds

He Tells Of A Valley Full Of Lovers 13



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Page No 16


Your breast will not lie by the breast 

Of your beloved in sleep. 

He Thinks Of Those Who Have Spoken Evil Of His Beloved

HALF close your eyelids, loosen your hair, 

And dream about the great and their pride; 

They have spoken against you everywhere, 

But weigh this song with the great and their pride; 

I made it out of a mouthful of air, 

Their children's children shall say they have lied. 

The Blessed

CUMHAL called out, bending his head, 

Till Dathi came and stood, 

With a blink in his eyes, at the cavemouth, 

Between the wind and the wood. 

And Cumhal said, bending his knees, 

"I have come by the windy way 

To gather the half of your blessedness 

And learn to pray when you pray. 

"I can bring you salmon out of the streams 

And heron out of the skies." 

But Dathi folded his hands and smiled 

With the secrets of God in his eyes. 

And Cumhal saw like a drifting smoke 

All manner of blessed souls, 

Women and children, young men with books, 

And old men with croziers and stoles. 

"praise God and God's Mother,' Dathi said, 

"For God and God's Mother have sent


The Wind Among The Reeds

He Thinks Of Those Who Have Spoken Evil Of His Beloved 14



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Page No 17


The blessedest souls that walk in the world 

To fill your heart with content." 

"And which is the blessedest,' Cumhal said, 

"Where all are comely and good? 

Is it these that with golden thuribles 

Are singing about the wood?" 

"My eyes are blinking,' Dathi said, 

"With the secrets of God half blind, 

But I can see where the wind goes 

And follow the way of the wind; 

"And blessedness goes where the wind goes, 

And when it is gone we are dead; 

I see the blessedest soul in the world 

And he nods a drunken head. 

"O blessedness comes in the night and the day 

And whither the wise heart knows; 

And one has seen in the redness of wine 

The Incorruptible Rose, 

"That drowsily drops faint leaves on him 

And the sweetness of desire, 

While time and the world are ebbing away 

In twilights of dew and of fire." 

The Secret Rose

FAROFF, most secret, and inviolate Rose, 

Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those 

Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre, 

Or in the winevat, dwell beyond the stir 

And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep 

Among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep 

Men have named beauty. Thy great leaves enfold 

The ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold 

Of the crowned Magi; and the king whose eyes 

Saw the pierced Hands and Rood of elder rise 

In Druid vapour and make the torches dim; 

Till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and him 

Who met Fand walking among flaming dew 

By a grey shore where the wind never blew, 

And lost the world and Emer for a kiss; 


The Wind Among The Reeds

The Secret Rose 15



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Page No 18


And him who drove the gods out of their liss, 

And till a hundred moms had flowered red 

Feasted, and wept the barrows of his dead; 

And the proud dreaming king who flung the crown 

And sorrow away, and calling bard and clown 

Dwelt among winestained wanderers in deep woods: 

And him who sold tillage, and house, and goods, 

And sought through lands and islands numberless years, 

Until he found, with laughter and with tears, 

A woman of so shining loveliness 

That men threshed corn at midnight by a tress, 

A little stolen tress. I, too, await 

The hour of thy great wind of love and hate. 

When shall the stars be blown about the sky, 

Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die? 

Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows, 

Faroff, most secret, and inviolate Rose? 

Maid Quiet

WHERE has Maid Quiet gone to, 

Nodding her russet hood? 

The winds that awakened the stars 

Are blowing through my blood. 

O how could I be so calm 

When she rose up to depart? 

Now words that called up the lightning 

Are hurtling through my heart. 

The Travail of Passion

WHEN the flaming lutethronged angelic door is wide; 

When an immortal passion breathes in mortal clay; 

Our hearts endure the scourge, the plaited thorns, the way 

Crowded with bitter faces, the wounds in palm and side, 

The vinegarheavy sponge, the flowers by Kedron stream; 


The Wind Among The Reeds

Maid Quiet 16



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Page No 19


We will bend down and loosen our hair over you, 

That it may drop faint perfume, and be heavy with dew, 

Lilies of deathpale hope, roses of passionate dream. 

The Lover Pleads With His Friend For Old Friends

THOUGH you are in your shining days, 

Voices among the crowd 

And new friends busy with your praise, 

Be not unkind or proud, 

But think about old friends the most: 

Time's bitter flood will rise, 

Your beauty perish and be lost 

For all eyes but these eyes. 

The Lover Speaks To The Hearers Of His Songs In Coming Days

O WOMEN, kneeling by your altarrails long hence, 

When songs I wove for my beloved hide the prayer, 

And smoke from this dead heart drifts through the violet air 

And covers away the smoke of myrrh and frankincense; 

Bend down and pray for all that sin I wove in song, 

Till the Attorney for Lost Souls cry her sweet cry, 

And.call to my beloved and me: "No longer fly 

Amid the hovering, piteouS, penitential throng.' 

The Poet Pleads With The Elemental Powers

THE Powers whose name and shape no living creature knows 


The Wind Among The Reeds

The Lover Pleads With His Friend For Old Friends 17



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Page No 20


Have pulled the Immortal Rose; 

And though the Seven Lights bowed in their dance and wept, 

The Polar Dragon slept, 

His heavy rings uncoiled from glimmering deep to deep: 

When will he wake from sleep? 

Great Powers of falling wave and wind and windy fire, 

With your harmonious choir 

Encircle her I love and sing her into peace, 

That my old care may cease; 

Unfold your flaming wings and cover out of sight 

The nets of day and night. 

Dim powers of drowsy thought, let her no longer be 

Like the pale cup of the sea, 

When winds have gathered and sun and moon burned dim 

Above its cloudy rim; 

But let a gentle silence wrought with music flow 

Whither her footsteps go. 

He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead

WERE you but lying cold and dead, 

And lights were paling out of the West, 

You would come hither, and bend your head, 

And I would lay my head on your breast; 

And you would murmur tender words, 

Forgiving me, because you were dead: 

Nor would you rise and hasten away, 

Though you have the will of the wild birds, 

But know your hair was bound and wound 

About the stars and moon and sun: 

O would, beloved, that you lay 

Under the dockleaves in the ground, 

While lights were paling one by one. 

He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven


The Wind Among The Reeds

He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead 18



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Page No 21


HAD I the heavens' embroidered cloths, 

Enwrought with golden and silver light, 

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths 

Of night and light and the halflight, 

I would spread the cloths under your feet: 

But I, being poor, have only my dreams; 

I have spread my dreams under your feet; 

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. 

He Thinks Of His Past Greatness When A Part Of The Constellations Of

Heaven

I HAVE drunk ale from the Country of the Young 

And weep because I know all things now: 

I have been a hazeltree, and they hung 

The Pilot Star and the Crooked Plough 

Among my leaves in times out of mind: 

I became a rush that horses tread: 

I became a man, a hater of the wind, 

Knowing one, out of all things, alone, that his head 

May not lie on the breast nor his lips on thc hair 

Of the woman that he loves, until he dies. 

O beast of the wilderness, bird of the air, 

Must I endure your amorous cries? 

The Fiddler Of Dooney

WHEN I play on my fiddle in Dooney. 

Folk dance like a wave of the sea; 

My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet, 

My brother in Mocharabuiee. 

I passed my brother and cousin: 

They read in their books of prayer; 

I read in my book of songs 

I bought at the Sligo fair. 


The Wind Among The Reeds

He Thinks Of His Past Greatness When A Part Of The  Constellations Of Heaven 19



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Page No 22


When we come at the end of time 

To Peter sitting in state, 

He will smile on the three old spirits, 

But call me first through the gate; 

For the good are always the merry, 

Save by an evil chance, 

And the merry love the fiddle, 

And the merry love to dance: 

And when the folk there spy me, 

They will all come up to me, 

With "Here is the fiddler of Dooney!" 

And dance like a wave of the sea. 


The Wind Among The Reeds

He Thinks Of His Past Greatness When A Part Of The  Constellations Of Heaven 20



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Bookmarks



1. Table of Contents, page = 3

2. The Wind Among The Reeds, page = 4

   3. William Butler Yeats, page = 4

   4. The Hosting Of The Sidhe, page = 5

   5. The Everlasting Voices, page = 5

   6. The Moods, page = 5

   7. The Lover Tells Of The Rose In His Heart, page = 6

   8. The Host Of The Air, page = 6

   9. The Fish, page = 7

   10. The Unappeasable Host, page = 8

   11. Into The Twilight, page = 8

   12. The Song Of Wandering Aengus, page = 9

   13. The Song Of The Old Mother, page = 9

   14. The Heart Of The Woman, page = 10

   15. The Lover Mourns For The Loss Of Love, page = 10

   16. He Mourns For The Change That Has Come Upon Him And His  Beloved, And Longs For The End Of The World, page = 11

   17. He Bids His Beloved Be At Peace, page = 11

   18. He Reproves The Curlew, page = 11

   19. He Remembers Forgotten Beauty, page = 12

   20. A Poet To His Beloved, page = 12

   21. He Gives His Beloved Certain Rhymes, page = 13

   22. To His Heart, Bidding It Have No Fear, page = 13

   23. The Cap And Bells, page = 14

   24. The Valley Of The Black Pig, page = 15

   25. The Lover Asks Forgiveness Because Of His Many Moods, page = 15

   26. He Tells Of A Valley Full Of Lovers, page = 16

   27. He Tells Of The Perfect Beauty, page = 16

   28. He Hears The Cry Of The Sedge, page = 16

   29. He Thinks Of Those Who Have Spoken Evil Of His Beloved, page = 17

   30. The Blessed, page = 17

   31. The Secret Rose, page = 18

   32. Maid Quiet, page = 19

   33. The Travail of Passion, page = 19

   34. The Lover Pleads With His Friend For Old Friends, page = 20

   35. The Lover Speaks To The Hearers Of His Songs In Coming Days, page = 20

   36. The Poet Pleads With The Elemental Powers, page = 20

   37. He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead, page = 21

   38. He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven, page = 21

   39. He Thinks Of His Past Greatness When A Part Of The  Constellations Of Heaven, page = 22

   40. The Fiddler Of Dooney, page = 22