in Poems (Author's Poems)
To A Young Beauty
I know what wages beauty gives,
How hard a life her servant lives,
Yet praise the winters gone:
There is not a fool can call me friend,
And I may dine at journey's end
With Landor and with Donne.
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The Rose
Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!
Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways:
Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide;
The Druid, grey, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed,
Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold.
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Lapis Lazuli
All perform their tragic play,
There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,
That's Ophelia, that Cordelia.
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An Irish Airman Forsees His Death
I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My county is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
a lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
a waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
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A Prayer For My Daughter
Imagining in excited reverie
That the future years had come,
Dancing to a frenzied drum,
Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.
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Sailing To Byzantium
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
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In Memory Of Major Robert Gregory
Some burn damp faggots, others may consume
The entire combustible world in one small room
As though dried straw, and if we turn about
The bare chimney is gone black out
Because the work had finished in that flare.
Soldier, scholar, horseman, he,
As' twere all life's epitome.
What made us dream that he could comb grey hair?
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The Ragged Wood
O hurry where by water among the trees
The delicate-stepping stag and his lady sigh,
When they have but looked upon their images--
Would none had ever loved but you and I!
Or have you heard that sliding silver-shoed
Pale silver-proud queen-woman of the sky,
When the sun looked out of his golden hood? - -
o that none ever loved but you and I!
O hurry to the ragged wood, for there
I will drive all those lovers out and cry—
o my share of the world, o yellow hair!
No one has ever loved but you and I.
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Easter, 1916
O when may it suffice?
That is heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name.
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in Poems (Author's Poems)
The true faith discovered was
When painted panel, statuary.
Glass-mosaic, window-glass,
Amended what was told awry
By some peasant gospeller.
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