The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats. Volume 1 of 8. Poems Lyrical and Narrative. Yeats William Butler

      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 moth-like 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 a-flame,

      But something rustled on the floor,

      And someone 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 lands 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.

      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.

      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.

      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.

      I hear the Shadowy Horses, their long manes a-shake,

      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.

      O, curlew, cry no more in the air,

      Or only to the waters in the West;

      Because your crying brings to my mind

      Passion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hair

      That was shaken out over my breast:

      There is enough evil in the crying of wind.

      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 love-tales 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 dew-cold lilies ladies bore

      Through many a sacred corridor

      Where such gray clouds of incense rose

      That only the gods’ eyes did not close:

      For that pale breast and lingering hand

      Come from a more dream-heavy land,

      A more dream-heavy 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,

      All but the flames, and deep on deep,

      Throne over throne where in half sleep,

      Their swords upon their iron knees,

      Brood her high lonely mysteries.