The Complete Works - William Butler Yeats

Скачать книгу

he may ever keep

      An inner laughter, and may kiss his hands to me in sleep.

      Farewell, Vijaya. Nay, no word, no word;

      I, priestess of this temple, offer up

      Prayers for the land.

      [VIJAYA goes]

      O Brahma, guard in sleep

      The merry lambs and the complacent kine,

      The flies below the leaves, and the young mice

      In the tree roots, and all the sacred flocks

      Of red flamingo; and my love, Vijaya;

      And may no restless fay with fidget finger

      Trouble his sleeping: give him dreams of me.

       Table of Contents

      I passed along the water’s edge below the humid trees,

      My spirit rocked in evening light, the rushes round my knees,

      My spirit rocked in sleep and sighs; and saw the moorfowl pace

      All dripping on a grassy slope, and saw them cease to chase

      Each other round in circles, and heard the eldest speak:

      Who holds the world between His bill and made us strong or weak

      Is an undying moorfowl, and He lives beyond the sky.

      The rains are from His dripping wing, the moonbeams from his eye.

      I passed a little further on and heard a lotus talk:

      Who made the world and ruleth it, He hangeth on a stalk,

      For I am in His image made, and all this tinkling tide

      Is but a sliding drop of rain between His petals wide.

      A little way within the gloom a roebuck raised his eyes

      Brimful of starlight, and he said: The Stamper of the Skies,

      He is a gentle roebuck; for how else, I pray, could He

      Conceive a thing so sad and soft, a gentle thing like me?

      I passed a little further on and heard a peacock say:

      Who made the grass and made the worms and made my feathers gay,

      He is a monstrous peacock, and He waveth all the night

      His languid tail above us, lit with myriad spots of light.

       Table of Contents

      The island dreams under the dawn

      And great boughs drop tranquillity;

      The peahens dance on a smooth lawn,

      A parrot sways upon a tree,

      Raging at his own image in the enamelled sea.

      Here we will moor our lonely ship

      And wander ever with woven hands,

      Murmuring softly lip to lip,

      Along the grass, along the sands,

      Murmuring how far away are the unquiet lands:

      How we alone of mortals are

      Hid under quiet boughs apart,

      While our love grows an Indian star,

      A meteor of the burning heart,

      One with the tide that gleams, the wings that gleam and dart,

      The heavy boughs, the burnished dove

      That moans and sighs a hundred days:

      How when we die our shades will rove,

      When eve has hushed the feathered ways,

      Dropping a vapoury footsole on the tide’s drowsy blaze.

       Table of Contents

      Autumn is over the long leaves that love us,

      And over the mice in the barley sheaves;

      Yellow the leaves of the rowan above us,

      And yellow the wet wild-strawberry leaves.

      The hour of the waning of love has beset us,

      And weary and worn are our sad souls now;

      Let us part, ere the season of passion forget us,

      With a kiss and a tear on thy drooping brow.

       Table of Contents

      ‘Your eyes that once were never weary of mine

      Are bowed in sorrow under their trembling lids,

      Because our love is waning.’

      And then she:

      ‘Although our love is waning, let us stand

      By the lone border of the lake once more,

      Together in that hour of gentleness

      When the poor tired child, Passion, falls asleep:

      How far away the stars seem, and how far

      Is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!’

      Pensive they paced along the faded leaves,

      While slowly he whose hand held hers replied:

      ‘Passion has often worn our wandering hearts.’

      The woods were round them, and the yellow leaves

      Fell like faint meteors in the gloom, and once

      A rabbit old and lame limped down the path;

      Autumn was over him: and now they stood

      On the lone border of the lake once more:

      Turning, he saw that she had thrust dead leaves

      Gathered in silence, dewy as her eyes,

      In bosom and hair.

      ‘Ah, do not mourn,’ he said,

      ‘That we are tired, for other loves await us:

      Hate on and love through unrepining hours;

      Before us lies eternity; our souls

      Are love, and a continual farewell.’

       Table of Contents

      I sat on cushioned otter skin:

      My word was law from Ith to Emen,

      And shook at Invar Amargin

      The hearts of the world-troubling seamen,

      And

Скачать книгу