Critics

"After the spiritual powers, there is no thing in the world more unconquerable than the spirit of nationality. … The spirit of nationality in Ireland will persist even though the mightiest of material powers be its neighbor."

"In ancient shadows and twilights Where childhood had strayed, The world’s great sorrows were born And its heroes were made. In the lost boyhood of Judas Christ was betrayed."

"Let thy young wanderer dream on: Call him not home. A door opens, a breath a voice From the ancient room, Speaks to him now. Be it dark or bright He is knit with his doom."

"We may fight against what is wrong, but if we allow ourselves to hate, that is to insure our spiritual defeat and our likeness to what we hate."

"Seek on earth what you have found in heaven."

"I remember once quarreling with Yeats who was walking around the room with a sword in one hand muttering spells to ward off evil spirits, and I noticed that every time he passed a plate of plums he put down his unoccupied hand and took a plum and I said, "Yeats, you cannot evoke great spirits and eat plums at the same time.""

"When steam first began to pump and wheels go round at so many revolutions per minute, what are called business habits were intended to make the life of man run in harmony with the steam engine, and his movement rival the train in punctuality."

"There are heaps of things I would like to do, but there is no time to do them. The most gorgeous ideas float before the imagination, but time, money, and alas! inspiration to complete them do not arrive, and for any work to be really valuable we must have time to brood and dream a little over it, or else it is bloodless and does not draw forth the God light in those who read. I believe myself, that there is a great deal too much hasty writing in our magazines and pamphlets. No matter how kindly and well disposed we are when we write we cannot get rid of the essential conditions under which really good literature is produced, love for the art of expression in itself; a feeling for the music of sentences, so that they become mantrams, and the thought sings its way into the soul. To get this, one has to spend what seems a disproportionate time in dreaming over and making the art and workmanship as perfect as possible. I could if I wanted, sit down and write steadily and without any soul; but my conscience would hurt me just as much as if I had stolen money or committed some immorality. To do even a ballad as long as The Dream of the Children, takes months of thought, not about the ballad itself, but to absorb the atmosphere, the special current connected with the subject. When this is done the poem shapes itself readily enough; but without the long, previous brooding it would be no good. So you see, from my slow habit of mind and limited time it is all I can do to place monthly, my copy in the hands of my editor when he comes with a pathetic face to me."

"If the Gods would only inspire me a little more vigorously I would write no end, but as it is I have to sweat over my work, such as it is, and often groan that I never have a chance to do it properly."

"I thought, beloved, to have brought to you A gift of quietness and ease and peace, Cooling your brow as with the mystic dew Dropping from twilight trees. Homeward I go not yet; the darkness grows; Not mine the voice to still with peace divine: From the first fount the stream of quiet flows Through other hearts than mine. Yet of my night I give to you the stars, And of my sorrow here the sweetest gains, And out of hell, beyond its iron bars, My scorn of all its pains."

"For sure the enchanted waters pour through every wind that blows. I think when night towers up aloft and shakes the trembling dew How every high and lonely thought that thrills my being through Is but a ruddy berry dropped down through the purple air, And from the magic tree of life the fruit falls everywhere."

"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, As smoke we vanish though the fire may burn."

"In the fire of love we live, or pass by many ways, By unnumbered ways of dream to death."

"Now the quietude of earth Nestles deep my heart within; Friendships new and strange have birth Since I left the city's din."

"Here the ancient mystery Holds its hands out day by day, Takes a chair and croons with me By my cabin built of clay. When the dusky shadow flits, By the chimney nook I see Where the old enchanter sits, Smiles, and waves, and beckons me."

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

"The great deep thrills for through it everywhere The breath of beauty blows."

"I saw how all the trembling ages past, Moulded to her by deep and deeper breath, Neared to the hour when Beauty breathes her last And knows herself in death."

"This mood hath known all beauty for it sees O'erwhelmed majesties In these pale forms, and kingly crowns of gold On brows no longer bold, And through the shadowy terrors of their hell The love for which they fell, And how desire which cast them in the deep Called God too from his sleep."

"Whatever time thy golden eyelids ope They travel to a hope; Not only backward from these low degrees To starry dynasties, But, looking far where now the silence owns And rules from empty thrones, Thou seest the enchanted halls of heaven burn For joy at our return."

"Thy tender kiss hath memory we are kings For all our wanderings. Thy shining eyes already see the after In hidden light and laughter."

"A shaft of fire that falls like dew, And melts and maddens all my blood, From out thy spirit flashes through The burning glass of womanhood."

"I must endure the torturing ray, And, with all beauty, all desire. Ah, time-long must the effort be, And far the way that I must go To bring my spirit unto thee, Behind the glass, within the glow."

"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 Upward to the wondrous vision: through the star-mists overhead Flare and flaunt the monstrous highlands; on the sapphire coast of night Fall the ghostly froth and fringes of the ocean of the light."

"We and it and all together flashing through the starry spaces In a tempest dream of beauty lighting up the place of places. Half our eyes behold the glory: half within the spirit's glow Echoes of the noiseless revels and the will of beauty go. By a hand of fire uplifted—to her star-strewn palace brought, To the mystic heart of beauty and the secret of her thought:"

"Here the wild will woke within her lighting up her flying dreams, Round and round the planets whirling break in woods and flowers and streams, And the winds are shaken from them as the leaves from off the rose, And the feet of earth go dancing in the way that beauty goes, And the souls of earth are kindled by the incense of her breath As her light alternate lures them through the gates of birth and death."

"O'er the fields of space together following her flying traces, In a radiant tumult thronging, suns and stars and myriad races Mount the spirit spires of beauty, reaching onward to the day When the Shepherd of the Ages draws his misty hordes away Through the glimmering deeps to silence, and within the awful fold Life and joy and love forever vanish as a tale is told, Lost within the mother's being. So the vision flamed and fled, And before the glory fallen every other dream lay dead."

"I am the sunlight in the heart, the silver moonglow in the mind; My laughter runs and ripples through the wavy tresses of the wind. I am the fire upon the hills, the dancing flame that leads afar Each burning-hearted wanderer, and I the dear and homeward star."

"They knew me from the dawn of time: if Hermes beats his rainbow wings, If Angus shakes his locks of light, or golden-haired Apollo sings, It matters not the name, the land; my joy in all the gods abides: Even in the cricket in the grass some dimness of me smiles and hides. For joy of me the day star glows, and in delight and wild desire The peacock twilight rays aloft its plumes and blooms of shadowy fire, Where in the vastness too I burn through summer nights and ages long, And with the fiery footed Watchers shake in myriad dance and song."

"Not unremembering we pass our exile from the starry ways: One timeless hour in time we caught from the long night of endless days."

"For beauty called to beauty and there thronged at the enchanter's will The vanished hours of love that burn within the Ever-living still."

"As to her worshippers she came descending from her glowing skies So Aphrodite I have seen with shining eyes look through your eyes: One gleam of the ancestral face which lighted up the dawn for me: One fiery visitation of the love the gods desire in thee!"

"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 Through thrice a thousand years to walk the ways of ancient Babylon."

"The tower of heaven turns darker blue; a starry sparkle now begins; The mystery and magnificence, the myriad beauty and the sins Come back to me."

"Oh real as in dream all this; and then a hand on mine is laid: The wave of phantom time withdraws; and that young Babylonian maid, One drop of beauty left behind from all the flowing of that tide, Is looking with the self-same eyes, and here in Ireland by my side. Oh, light our life in Babylon, but Babylon has taken wings, While we are in the calm and proud procession of eternal things."

"All the morn a spirit gay Breathes within my heart a rhyme, 'Tis but hide and seek we play In and out the courts of Time."

"Where the ring of twilight gleams Round the sanctuary wrought, Whispers haunt me — in my dreams We are one yet know it not. Some for beauty follow long Flying traces; some there be Seek thee only for a song: I to lose myself in thee."

"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, Mixed with the memory of the loved earth things; Clothing the vast with a familiar face; Reaching its right hand forth to greet the starry race."

"Nearer to Thee, not by delusion led, Though there no house fires burn nor bright eyes gaze, We rise, but by the symbol charioted, Through loved things rising up to Love's own ways By these the soul unto the vast has wings And sets the seal celestial on all mortal things."

"What of all the will to do? It has vanished long ago, For a dream-shaft pierced it through From the Unknown Archer's bow."

"Only in the self we grope To the misty end of time: Truth has put an end to hope. What of all the heart to love? Sadder than for will or soul, No light lured it on above; Love has found itself the whole."

"Twilight, a timid fawn, went glimmering by, And night, the dark blue hunter, followed fast: Ceaseless pursuit and flight were in the sky, But the long chase had ceased for us at last."

"The twilight fleeted away in pearl on the stream, And night, like a diamond dome, stood still in our dream."

"We loved in infinite spaces, forgetting here The breasts that were lit with life and the lips so near; Till the wizard willows waved in the wind and drew Me away from the fulness of love and down to you."

"Our love was so vast that it filled the heavens up: But the soft white form I held was an empty cup, When the willows called me back to earth with their sigh, And we moved as shades through the deep that was you and I."

"Hush, not a whisper! Let your heart alone go dreaming. Dream unto dream may pass: deep in the heart alone Murmurs the Mighty One his solemn undertone."

"Canst thou not see adown the silver cloudland streaming Rivers of faery light, dewdrop on dewdrop falling, Starfire of silver flames, lighting the dark beneath? And what enraptured hosts burn on the dusky heath! Come thou away with them, for Heaven to Earth is calling."

"Drink: the immortal waters quench the spirit's longing. Art thou not now, bright one, all sorrow past, in elation, Made young with joy, grown brother-hearted with the vast, Whither thy spirit wending flits the dim stars past Unto the Light of Lights in burning adoration."

"Image of beauty, when I gaze on thee, Trembling I waken to a mystery, How through one door we go to life or death By spirit kindled or the sensual breath."

"The life which passes mourns its wasted hour. And, ah, to think how thin the veil that lies Between the pain of hell and paradise!"