George William Russell

Tarry thou yet, late lingerer in the twilight's glory: Gay are the hills with song: earth's faery children leave More dim abodes to roam the primrose-hearted eve,

While the earth is dark and grey How I laugh within:    I know In my breast what ardours gay

I know myself no more, my child, Since thou art come to me, Pity so tender and so wild

"Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims within his ken." I who had sought afar from earth

O, holy Spirit of the Hazel, hearken now, Though shining suns and silver moons burn on the bough, And though the fruit of stars by many myriads gleam,

Her mist of primroses within her breast Twilight hath folded up, and o'er the west, Seeking remoter valleys long hath gone,

Where we sat at dawn together, while the star-rich heavens shifted, We were weaving dreams in silence, suddenly the veil was lifted. By a hand of fire awakened, in a moment caught and led

His head within my bosom lay, But yet his spirit slipped not through: I only felt the burning clay

All the morn a spirit gay Breathes within my heart a rhyme, 'Tis but hide and seek we play

Not unremembering we pass our exile from the starry ways: One timeless hour in time we caught from the long night of endless days. With solemn gaiety the stars danced far withdrawn on elfin heights:

The blue dusk ran between the streets; my love was winged within my mind; It left to-day and yesterday and thrice a thousand years behind. To-day was past and dead for me for from to-day my feet had run

Our true hearts are forever lonely: A wistfulness is in our thought: Our lights are like the dawns which only

Twilight, a blossom grey in shadowy valleys dwells: Under the radiant dark the deep blue-tinted bells In quietness re'mage heaven within their blooms,

When the breath of twilight blows to flame the misty skies, All its vaporous sapphire, violet glow, and silver gleam, With their magic flood me through the gateway of the eyes;

Dark head by the fireside brooding, Sad upon your ears Whirlwinds of the earth intruding

As one by one the veils took flight, The day withdrew, the stars came up: The spirit issued dark and bright,

I am the tender voice calling 'Away,' Whispering between the beatings of the heart, And inaccessible in dewy eyes

Still as the holy of holies breathes the vast Within its crystal depths the stars grow dim; Fire on the altar of the hills at last

In day from some titanic past it seems As if a thread divine of memory runs; Born ere the Mighty One began his dreams,

Heart-hidden from the outer things I rose, The spirit woke anew in nightly birth Into the vastness where forever glows

With thee a moment! Then what dreams have play! Traditions of eternal toil arise, Search for the high austere and lonely way

The heavens lay hold on us: the starry rays Fondle with flickering fingers brow and eyes: A new enchantment lights the ancient skies.

"From me spring good and evil." Who gave thee such a ruby flaming heart, And such a pure cold spirit?    Side by side

Dusk wraps the village in its dim caress; Each chimney's vapour, like a thin grey rod, Mounting aloft through miles of quietness,

I heard them in their sadness say, "The earth rebukes the thought of God: We are but embers wrapt in clay

He bent above: so still her breath What air she breathed he could not say, Whether in worlds of life or death:

The Shadow Who art thou, O Glory, In flame from the deep,

At dusk the window panes grew grey; The wet world vanished in the gloom; The dim and silver end of day

--[St. John, i. 1-33] In the mighty Mother's bosom was the Wise With the mystic Father in aeonian night;

Though swift the days flow from her day, No one has left her day unnamed: We know what light broke from her ray

What is the love of shadowy lips That know not what they seek or press, From whom the lure for ever slips

Still rests the heavy share on the dark soil: Upon the black mould thick the dew-damp lies: The horse waits patient: from his lowly toil

Within the iron cities One walked unknown for years, In his heart the pity of pities

Image of beauty, when I gaze on thee, Trembling I waken to a mystery, How through one door we go to life or death

'I am Beauty itself among beautiful things.' Bhagavad-Gita The East was crowned with snow-cold bloom

--After reading the Upanishads Out of the dusky chamber of the brain Flows the imperial will through dream on dream;

We are tired who follow after Phantasy and truth that flies: You with only look and laughter

Heart-hidden from the outer things I rose; The spirit woke anew in nightly birth Unto the vastness where forever glows

Faint grew the yellow buds of light Far flickering beyond the snows, As leaning o'er the shadowy white

Men have made them gods of love, Sun gods, givers of the rain, Deities of hill and grove,

As from our dream we died away Far off I felt the outer things; Your wind-blown tresses round me play,

Oh, be not led away, Lured by the colour of the sun-rich day. The gay romance of song

FOR BRIAN WHEN HE IS GROWN UP THIS HANDFUL OF THE NUTS OF KNOWLEDGE I HAVE GATHERED ON THE SECRET STREAMS. I thought, beloved, to have brought to you A gift of quietness and ease and peace,

What call may draw thee back again, Lost dove, what art, what charm may please? The tender touch, the kiss, are vain,

I begin through the grass once again to be bound to the Lord; I can see, through a face that has faded, the face full of rest Of the Earth, of the Mother, my heart with her heart in accord:

How shallow is this mere that gleams! Its depth of blue is from the skies; And from a distant sun the dreams

There were many burning hours on the heart-sweet tide, And we passed away from ourselves, forgetting all The immortal moods that faded, the god who died,

On me to rest, my bird, my bird: The swaying branches of my heart Are blown by every wind toward

Those delicate wanderers, The wind, the star, the cloud, Ever before mine eyes,

Dusk its ash-grey blossoms sheds on violet skies, Over twilight mountains where the heart songs rise, Rise and fall and fade away from earth to air.

--"His candle shined upon my head, and by his light I walked through darkness."--Job, xxix. 3 On the bird of air blue-breasted

What of all the will to do? It has vanished long ago, For a dream-shaft pierced it through

Now when the spirit in us wakes and broods, Filled with home yearnings, drowsily it flings From its deep heart high dreams and mystic moods,

From the cool and dark-lipped furrows breathes a dim delight Aureoles of joy encircle

A shaft of fire that falls like dew, And melts and maddens all my blood, From out thy spirit flashes through

Their wise little heads with scorning They laid the covers between: "Do they think we stay here till morning?"

Come earth's little children pit-pat from their burrows on the hill; Hangs within the gloom its weary head the shining daffodil. In the valley underneath us through the fragrance flit along

This mood hath known all beauty for it sees O'erwhelmed majesties In these pale forms, and kingly crowns of gold

I did not deem it half so sweet To feel thy gentle hand, As in a dream thy soul to greet

The children awoke in their dreaming While earth lay dewy and still: They followed the rill in its gleaming

From the cool and dark-lipped furrow breathes a dim delight Through the woodland's purple plumage to the diamond night. Aureoles of joy encircle every blade of grass

While our vision, backward cast, Ranged the everliving past, Through a haze of misty things--

I would I could weave in The colour, the wonder, The song I conceive in

They bathed in the fire-flooded fountains; Life girdled them round and about; They slept in the clefts of the mountains:

Its edges foamed with amethyst and rose, Withers once more the old blue flower of day: There where the ether like a diamond glows

We are desert leagues apart; Time is misty ages now Since the warmth of heart to heart

Now the quietude of earth Nestles deep my heart within; Friendships new and strange have birth

By many a dream of God and man my thoughts in shining flocks were led: But as I went through Patrick Street the hopes and prophecies were dead. The hopes and prophecies were dead: they could not blossom where the feet

Who would think this quiet breather From the world had taken flight? Yet within the form we see there

Twilight, a timid fawn, went glimmering by, And night, the dark blue hunter, followed fast: Ceaseless pursuit and flight were in the sky,

"They took Iesous and scourged him."--St. John Age after age the world has wept A joy supreme--I saw the hands

"The mountain was filled with the hosts of the Tuatha de Dannan." --Old Celtic Poem See where the auras from the olden fountain

I have wept a million tears: Pure and proud one, where are thine, What the gain though all thy years

A laughter in the diamond air, a music in the trembling grass; And one by one the words of light as joydrops through my being pass. I am the sunlight in the heart, the silver moonglow in the mind;

In the wet dusk silver-sweet, Down the violet scented ways, As I moved with quiet feet

A cabin on the mountain side hid in a grassy nook Where door and windows open wide that friendly stars may look. The rabbit shy can patter in, the winds may enter free,

'Sinend daughter of Lodan Lucharglan, son of Lir, out of the Land of Promise went to Connlas' Well which is under the sea, to behold it. That is a well at which are the hazels of

Two small sweet lives together From dawn till the dew falls down, They danced over rock and heather

The skies from black to pearly grey Had veered without a star or sun; Only a burning opal ray

'The soul is its own witness and its own refuge' Unto the deep the deep heart goes, It lays its sadness nigh the breast:

"Those who there take refuge nevermore return."--Bhagavad Gita Ere I lose myself in the vastness and drowse myself with the peace, While I gaze on the light and beauty afar from the dim homes of men,

One thing in all things have I seen: One thought has haunted earth and air; Clangour and silence both have been

The wonder of the world is o'er: The magic from the sea is gone: There is no unimagined shore,

I pitied one whose tattered dress Was patched, and stained with dust and rain; He smiled on me; I could not guess

Who is that goddess to whom men should pray But her from whom their hearts have turned away, Out of whose virgin being they were born,

The twilight fleeted away in pearl on the stream, And night, like a diamond dome, stood still in our dream. Your eyes like burnished stones or as stars were bright

They sat with hearts untroubled, The clear sky sparkled above, And an ancient wisdom bubbled

The grey road whereupon we trod became as holy ground: The eve was all one voice that breathed its message with no sound: And burning multitudes pour through my heart, too bright, too blind,

It was the fairy of the place, Moving within a little light, Who touched with dim and shadowy grace

Oh, be not led away. Lured by the colour of the sun-rich day. The gay romances of song

Your paths were all unknown to us: We were so far away from you, We mixed in thought your spirit thus--

O hero of the iron age, Upon thy grave we will not weep, Nor yet consume away in rage

While the yellow constellations shine with pale and tender glory, In the lilac-scented stillness, let us listen to Earth's story. All the flow'rs like moths a-flutter glimmer rich with dusky hues,

We must pass like smoke or live within the spirit's fire; For we can no more than smoke unto the flame return If our thought has changed to dream, our will unto desire,