O men from the fields,
Come gently within.
Tread softly, softly
O men coming in!
Mavourneen is going
From me and from you,
Where Mary will fold him
With mantle of blue!

To Meath of the pastures,
From wet hills by the sea,
Through Leitrim and Longford
Go my cattle and me.
I hear in the darkness
Their slipping and breathing.

I name them the bye-ways
They’re to pass without heeding.
Then the wet, winding roads,
Brown bogs with black water;
And my thoughts on white ships
And the King o’ Spain’s daughter.

O! farmer, strong farmer!
You can spend at the fair
But your face you must turn
To your crops and your care.
And soldiers—red soldiers!
You’ve seen many lands;

Mould-coloured like the leaf long fallen from
The autumn branch, he rises now, the Fish.
The cold eyes of the gannets see their rock:
He has No-whither. Who was it marked
Earth from the waters? Who
Divided space into such lines for us,
Giving men To and Fro, not Up and Down?

Two men of art, they say, were with the sons
Of Míl—,—a poet and a harp player,
When Míl—, having taken Ireland, left
The land to his sons’ rule; the poet was
Cir, and fair Cendfind was the harp player.

The sons of Míl— for the kingship fought—
(Blithely, with merry sounds, the old poem says)
Eber and Eremon, the sons of Míl—
And when division of the land was made
They drew a lot for the two men of art.

With Eber who had won the Northern half
The Harper Cendfind went, and with Eremon
The Northerner, Cir the poet stayed;
And so, the old Book of the Conquests says,
The South has music and the North has lore.

Jesus His Mother meets:
She looks on Him and sees
The Saviour in Her Son:
The Angel’s word comes back:
Within her heart she says,

FIRST GIRL
MALLO lero iss im bo nero!
Go where they’re threshing and find me my lover,
Mallo lero iss im bo bairn!

SECOND GIRL
Mallo lero iss im bo nero!
Who shall I bring you? Rody the Rover?
Mallo lero iss im bo baun!

FIRST GIRL
Mallo lero iss im bo nero!
Listen and hear what he’s singing over.
Mallo lero iss im bo baun!

FIRST GIRL
Mallo lero iss im bo nero!
Who weds him might cry with the wandering
     plover!
Mallo lero iss im bo baun!
Mallo lero iss im bo nero!
Where they’re breaking the horses, go find
      me my lover!
Mallo lero iss im bo baun!

SECOND GIRL
Mallo lero iss im bo nero!
Him with the strong hand I will bring from the clover.
Mallo lero iss im bo baun!

FIRST GIRL
Mallo lero iss im bo nero!
I wait till I hear what he’s singing over.
Mallo lero iss im bo baun!

FIRST GIRL
Mallo lero iss im bo nero!
He sings to the girsha in the hazel-wood cover.
Mallo lero iss im bo baun!

Mallo lero iss im bo nero!
Go where they’re shearing and find me my lover.
Mallo lero iss im bo baun!

SECOND GIRL
Mallo lero iss im bo nero!
The newly-come youth is looking straight over!
Mallo lero iss im bo baun!

FIRST GIRL
Mallo lero iss im bo nero!
If you mind what he sings you’ll have silver trover.
Mallo lero iss im bo baun!

Once I went over the ocean,
On a ship that was bound for proud Spain:
Some people were singing and dancing,
But I had a heart full of pain.

I’ll put now a sail on the lake
That’s between my treasure and me,
And I’ll sail over the lake
Till I come to the Joyce country.

She’ll hear my boat on the shingles,
And she’ll hear my step on the land,
And the corncrake deep in the meadow
Will tell her that I’m at hand!

O woman, shapely as the swan,
On your account I shall not die:
The men you’ve slain -- a trivial clan --
Were less than I.

I ask me shall I die for these --
For blossom teeth and scarlet lips --
And shall that delicate swan-shape
Bring me eclipse?

Well-shaped the breasts and smooth the skin,
The cheeks are fair, the tresses free --
And yet I shall not suffer death,
God over me!

Two little creatures
with faces the size of
a pair of pennies
are clasping each other
"Ah do not leave me"
One says to the other
in the high monkey -
cage in the beast shop
there are no people
to gape at them now
for people are loth
peer in the dimness
have they not builded
streets and playhouses
sky sign and bars
to lose the lonlieness
shaking the hearts
of the two little monkeys

FIRST OLD MAN
He threw his crutched stick down: there came
Into his face the anger flame,
And he spoke viciously of one
Who thwarted him—his son’s son.
He turned his head away.—“I hate
Absurdity of language, prate
From growing fellows. We’d not stay
About the house the whole of a day
When we were young,
Keeping no job and giving tongue!
“Not us in troth! We would not come
For bit or sup, but stay from home
If we gave answers, or we’d creep
Back to the house, and in we’d peep
Just like a corncrake.

“My grandson and his comrades take
A piece of coal from you, from me
A log, or sod of turf, maybe;
And in some empty place they’ll light
A fire, and stay there all night,
A wisp of lads! Now understand
The blades of grass under my hand
Would be destroyed by company!
There’s no good company: we go
With what is lowest to the low!
He stays up late, and how can he
Rise early? Sure he lags in bed,
And she is worn to a thread
With calling him—his grandmother.
She’s an old woman, and she must make
Stir when the birds are half awake
In dread he’d lose this job like the other!”

SECOND OLD MAN
“They brought yon fellow over here,
And set him up for an overseer:
Though men from work are turned away
That thick-necked fellow draws full pay—
Three pounds a week…. They let burn down
The timber yard behind the town
Where work was good; though firemen stand
In boots and brasses big and grand
The crow of a cock away from the place.
And with the yard they let burn too
The clock in the tower, the clock I knew
As well as I know the look in my face”

O, to have a little house!
To own the hearth and stool and all!
The heaped up sods against the fire,
The pile of turf against the wall!

To have a clock with weights and chains
And pendulum swinging up and down!
A dresser filled with shining delph,
Speckled and white and blue and brown!

I could be busy all the day
Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor,
And fixing on their shelf again
My white and blue and speckled store!

Amid curled leaves and green,
Globes that have glow and sheen!
Fruit most aerial,
Fruit rose-flushed and pale!

But molded on a stone—
It weights the bodies down
Where their bright flesh corrupts
Sooner than crabb—d fruits.

A gaunt built woman and her son-in-law—
A broad-faced fellow, with such flesh as shows
Nothing but easy nature—and his wife,
The woman’s daughter, who spills all her talk
Out of a wide mouth, but who has eyes as gray
As Connemara, where the mountain-ash
Shows berries red indeed: they enter now—
Our country singers!
“Sing, my good woman, sing us some romance
That has been round your chimney-nooks so long
’Tis nearly native; something blown here
And since made racy—like yon tree, I might say,
Native by influence if not by species,
Shaped by our winds. You understand, I think?”

“I’ll sing the song, sir”
To-night you see my face—
Maybe nevermore you’ll gaze
On the one that for you left his friends and kin;
For by the hard commands
Of the lord that rules these lands
On a ship I’ll be borne from Cruckaunfinn!

Oh, you know your beauty bright
Has made him think delight
More than from any fair one he will gain;
Oh, you know that all his will
Strains and strives around you till
As the hawk upon his hand you are as tame!

Then she to him replied:
I’ll no longer you deny,
And I’ll let you have the pleasure of my charms;
For to-night I’ll be your bride,
And whatever may betide
It’s we will lie in one another’s arms!

Not fingers that e’er felt
Fine things within their hold
Drew needles in and through,
And smoothed out the fold,
And put the hodden patch
Upon the patch of grey
Unseemly is the garb
That’s for my back to-day!

O skinflint woman, Mor,
Who knows that I speak true
I had women once,
A queen’s retinue;
And they were ones who knew
The raiment of a queen;
Their thoughts were on my tire,
Their minds were on my mien!

Light of hand and apt,
And companionable,
Seven score women, Mor,
I had at my call,
Who am to-day begrudged
The blink of candle-light
To put it on, the garb,
That leaves me misbedight.

It was pure indeed,
The air we breathed in, the light we saw,
I and my brother, when we played that day,
Or piped to one another; then there came
Two young lads of an age with one another,
And with us two, and these two played with us,
And went away.

Each had a bearing that was like a prince’s,
Yet they were simple lads and had the kindness
Of our own folk lads simple and unknowing:
Then, afterwards, we went to visit them.

Theirs was a village that was not far off,
But out of reach towards elbow, not towards hand:
And what was there were houses
Houses and some trees
And it was like a place within a fold.

We found the lads,
And found them still as simple and unknowing,
And played with them: we played outside the stall
Where worked the father of the wiser lad
Not brothers were the boys, but cousins’ children.

There was a pit:
We brought back clay and sat beside the stall,
And made birds out of clay; and then my brother
Took up his bird and flung it in the air:
His playmate did as he,
And clay fell down upon the face of clay.

And then I took
The shavings of the board the carpenter
Was working on, and flung them in the air,
And watched them streaming down.

How great a front is thine—
A lake of majesty!
Assyria knew the sign:
The god-incarnate king.

A lake of majesty!
The lion’s drowns in it:
And thy placidity—
A moon within that lake!

In companies or lone
They bend their heads, their hands
They busy with their gear,
Accomplishing the stitch
That turns the stocking-heel,
Or closes up the toe,
These knitters at their doors.

Their talk ’s of nothing else
But what was told before
Sundown and gone sundown,
While goats bleat from the hill,
And men are tramping home,
By knitters at their doorss

Water, I did not seek you,
Water of hollow stone;
I crossed no one’s acre to find you
You were where my geese lie down.

I dip my fingers and sprinkle,
While three times over I say,
’Chance-bound and chance-found water
Can take a numbness away.’

The numbness that leaves me vacant
Of thought and will and deed
Like the moveless clock that I gaze on-
It will go where the ravens breed.

Crystal and silver
The branch that to you I show:
’Tis from a wondrous isle —
Distant seas close it;
Glistening around it
The sea-horses hie them:
Emne of many shapes,
Of many shades, the island.
They who that island near
Mark a stone standing:
From it a music comes,
Unheard-of, enchanting.
They who that music hear
In clear tones answer —
Hosts sing in choruses
To its arising.

A folk that through ages along
Know no decaying,
No death nor sickness, nor
A voice raised in wailing.
Such games they play there —
Coracle on wave-ways
With chariot on land contends —
How swift the race is!

Age-old, and yet
It bears the white blossom,
This tree wherein
Birds’ songs are loud.
Hear! with the hours
The birds change their singing —
But always ’tis gladness —
Welcome their strain!
Look where the yellow-maned
Horses are speeding!
Look where the chariots
Are turning and wheeling!
Silver the chariots
On the plains yonder;
On the plains nigh us
Chariots of bronze!

Sunset and silence! A man: around him earth savage, earth broken;
Beside him two horses — a plough!
Earth savage, earth broken, the brutes, the dawn man there in the sunset,
And the Plough that is twin to the Sword, that is founder of cities!
“Brute-tamer, plough-maker, earth-breaker! Can’st hear? There are ages between us.

Is it praying you are as you stand there alone in the sunset?
“Surely our sky-born gods can be naught to you, earth child and earth master?
Surely your thoughts are of Pan, or of Wotan, or Dana?
“Yet why give thought to the gods? Has Pan led your brutes where they stumble?
Has Dana numbed pain of the child-bed, or Wotan put hands to your plough?

“What matter your foolish reply! O man, standing lone and bowed earthward,
Your task is a day near its close. Give thanks to the night-giving God”

...

Slowly the darkness falls, the broken lands blend with the savage;
The brute-tamer stands by the brutes, a head’s breadth only above them.
A head’s breadth? Ay, but therein is hell’s depth, and the height up to heaven,
And the thrones of the gods and their halls, their chariots, purples, and splendors.

I am sitting here
Since the moon rose in the night,
Kindling a fire,
And striving to keep it alight;
The folk of the house are lying
In slumber deep;
The geese will be gabbling soon:
The whole of the land is asleep.

May I never leave this world
Until my ill-luck is gone;
Till I have cows and sheep,
And the lad that I love for my own;
I would not think it long,
The night I would lie at his breast,
And the daughters of spite, after that,
Might say the thing they liked best.

On and on,
O white brother!
Thunder does not daunt thee!
How thou movest!
By thine impulse
With no wing!

Foul-Feathered and scald-necked,
They sit in evil state;
Raw marks upon their breasts
As on men’s wearing chains.
Impure, though they may plunge
Into the morning’s springs,
And spirit-dulled, though they
Command the heaven’s heights.

I. THE TREES
There is no glory of the sunset here!
Heavy the clouds upon the darkening road,
And heavy, too, the wind upon the trees!
The trees sway, making moan
Continuous, like breaking seas,
Impotent, bare things,

You give at last the very cry of earth!
I walk this darkening road in solemn mood:
Within deep hell came Dante to a wood
Like him I marvel at the crying trees!

III. THE CAPTIVE ARCHER
To-morrow I will bend the bow:
My soul shall have her mark again,
My bosom feel the archer’s strain.
No longer pacing to and fro
With idle hands and listless brain:

As goes the arrow, forth I go.
My soul shall have her mark again,
My bosom feel the archer’s strain.
To-morrow I will bend the bow.

Is what each whip-carrier owns. The Caesar of the cab-rank, I Salute the triumph speeding by.

An age being mathematical, these flowers
Of linear stalks and spheroid blooms were prized
By men with wakened, speculative minds,
And when with mathematics they explored
The Macrocosm, and came at last to
The Vital Spirit of the World, and named it
Invisible Pure Fire, or, say, the Light,
The Tulips were the Light’s receptacles.
The gold, the bronze, the red, the bright-swart
    Tulips!