The Wild Swans at Coole

Published by Good Press, 2019

goodpress@okpublishing.info

EAN 4057664652775

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PREFACE

THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE

IN MEMORY OF MAJOR ROBERT GREGORY

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

AN IRISH AIRMAN FORESEES HIS DEATH

MEN IMPROVE WITH THE YEARS

THE COLLAR-BONE OF A HARE

UNDER THE ROUND TOWER

SOLOMON TO SHEBA

THE LIVING BEAUTY

A SONG

TO A YOUNG BEAUTY

TO A YOUNG GIRL

THE SCHOLARS

TOM O'ROUGHLEY

THE SAD SHEPHERD

LINES WRITTEN IN DEJECTION

THE DAWN

ON WOMAN

THE FISHERMAN

THE HAWK

MEMORY

HER PRAISE

THE PEOPLE

HIS PHOENIX

A THOUGHT FROM PROPERTIUS

BROKEN DREAMS

A DEEP-SWORN VOW

PRESENCES

THE BALLOON OF THE MIND

TO A SQUIRREL AT KYLE-NA-GNO

ON BEING ASKED FOR A WAR POEM

IN MEMORY OF ALFRED POLLEXFEN

UPON A DYING LADY

I

HER COURTESY

II

CERTAIN ARTISTS BRING HER DOLLS AND DRAWINGS

III

SHE TURNS THE DOLLS' FACES TO THE WALL

IV

THE END OF DAY

V

HER RACE

VI

HER COURAGE

VII

HER FRIENDS BRING HER A CHRISTMAS TREE

EGO DOMINUS TUUS

A PRAYER ON GOING INTO MY HOUSE

THE PHASES OF THE MOON

THE CAT AND THE MOON

THE SAINT AND THE HUNCHBACK

TWO SONGS OF A FOOL

I

II

ANOTHER SONG OF A FOOL

THE DOUBLE VISION OF MICHAEL ROBARTES

I

II

III

NOTE

PREFACE

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This book is, in part, a reprint of The Wild Swans at Coole, printed a year ago on my sister's hand-press at Dundrum, Co. Dublin. I have not, however, reprinted a play which may be a part of a book of new plays suggested by the dance plays of Japan, and I have added a number of new poems. Michael Robartes and John Aherne, whose names occur in one or other of these, are characters in some stories I wrote years ago, who have once again become a part of the phantasmagoria through which I can alone express my convictions about the world. I have the fancy that I read the name John Aherne among those of men prosecuted for making a disturbance at the first production of "The Play Boy," which may account for his animosity to myself.

W. B. Y.

Ballylee, Co. Galway,
September 1918.

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THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE

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The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine and fifty swans.

The nineteenth Autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold,
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes, when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

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IN MEMORY OF
MAJOR ROBERT GREGORY

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Now that we're almost settled in our house
I'll name the friends that cannot sup with us
Beside a fire of turf in the ancient tower,
And having talked to some late hour
Climb up the narrow winding stair to bed:
Discoverers of forgotten truth
Or mere companions of my youth,
All, all are in my thoughts to-night, being dead.

2

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Always we'd have the new friend meet the old,
And we are hurt if either friend seem cold,
And there is salt to lengthen out the smart
In the affections of our heart,
And quarrels are blown up upon that head;
But not a friend that I would bring
This night can set us quarrelling,
For all that come into my mind are dead.

3

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Lionel Johnson comes the first to mind,
That loved his learning better than mankind,
Though courteous to the worst; much falling he
Brooded upon sanctity
Till all his Greek and Latin learning seemed
A long blast upon the horn that brought
A little nearer to his thought
A measureless consummation that he dreamed.

4

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And that enquiring man John Synge comes next,
That dying chose the living world for text
And never could have rested in the tomb
But that, long travelling, he had come
Towards nightfall upon certain set apart
In a most desolate stony place,
Towards nightfall upon a race
Passionate and simple like his heart.

5

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And then I think of old George Pollexfen,
In muscular youth well known to Mayo men
For horsemanship at meets or at race-courses,
That could have shown how purebred horses
And solid men, for all their passion, live
But as the outrageous stars incline

Having grown sluggish and contemplative.