Читать книгу The Complete Works - William Butler Yeats - Страница 108

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S. PATRIC.

You who are bent, and bald, and blind,

With a heavy heart and a wandering mind,

Have known three centuries, poets sing,

Of dalliance with a demon thing.

OISIN.

Sad to remember, sick with years,

The swift innumerable spears,

The horsemen with their floating hair,

And bowls of barley, honey, and wine,

And feet of maidens dancing in tune,

And the white body that lay by mine;

But the tale, though words be lighter than air,

Must live to be old like the wandering moon.

Caolte, and Conan, and Finn were there,

When we followed a deer with our baying hounds,

With Bran, Sgeolan, and Lomair,

And passing the Firbolgs’ burial mounds,

Came to the cairn-heaped grassy hill

Where passionate Maeve is stony still;

And found on the dove-gray edge of the sea

A pearl-pale, high-born lady, who rode

On a horse with bridle of findrinny;

And like a sunset were her lips,

A stormy sunset on doomed ships;

A citron colour gloomed in her hair,

But down to her feet white vesture flowed,

And with the glimmering crimson glowed

Of many a figured embroidery;

And it was bound with a pearl-pale shell

That wavered like the summer streams,

As her soft bosom rose and fell.

S. PATRIC.

You are still wrecked among heathen dreams.

OISIN.

‘Why do you wind no horn?’ she said.

‘And every hero droop his head?

The hornless deer is not more sad

That many a peaceful moment had,

More sleek than any granary mouse,

In his own leafy forest house

Among the waving fields of fern:

The hunting of heroes should be glad.’

‘O pleasant maiden,’ answered Finn,

‘We think on Oscar’s pencilled urn,

And on the heroes lying slain,

On Gavra’s raven-covered plain;

But where are your noble kith and kin,

And into what country do you ride?’

‘My father and my mother are

Aengus and Edain, and my name

Is Niamh, and my land where tide

And sleep drown sun and moon and star.’

‘What dream came with you that you came

To this dim shore on foam-wet feet?

Did your companion wander away

From where the birds of Aengus wing?’

She said, with laughter tender and sweet:

‘I have not yet, war-weary king,

Been spoken of with any one;

For love of Oisin foam-wet feet

Have borne me where the tempests blind

Your mortal shores till time is done!’

‘How comes it, princess, that your mind

Among undying people has run

On this young man, Oisin, my son?’

‘I loved no man, though kings besought

And many a man of lofty name,

Until the Danaan poets came,

Bringing me honeyed, wandering thought

Of noble Oisin and his fame,

Of battles broken by his hands,

Of stories builded by his words

That are like coloured Asian birds

At evening in their rainless lands.’

O Patric, by your brazen bell,

There was no limb of mine but fell

Into a desperate gulph of love!

‘You only will I wed,’ I cried,

‘And I will make a thousand songs,

And set your name all names above,

And captives bound with leathern thongs

Shall kneel and praise you, one by one,

At evening in my western dun.’

‘O Oisin, mount by me and ride

To shores by the wash of the tremulous tide,

Where men have heaped no burial mounds,

And the days pass by like a wayward tune,

Where broken faith has never been known,

And the blushes of first love never have flown;

And there I will give you a hundred hounds;

No mightier creatures bay at the moon;

And a hundred robes of murmuring silk,

And a hundred calves and a hundred sheep

Whose long wool whiter than sea froth flows,

And a hundred spears and a hundred bows,

And oil and wine and honey and milk,

And always never-anxious sleep;

While a hundred youths, mighty of limb,

But knowing nor tumult nor hate nor strife,

And a hundred maidens, merry as birds,

Who when they dance to a fitful measure

Have a speed like the speed of the salmon herds,

Shall follow your horn and obey your whim,

And you shall know the Danaan leisure:

And Niamh be with you for a wife.’

Then she sighed gently, ‘It grows late,

Music and love and sleep await,

Where I would be when the white moon climbs,

The red sun falls, and the world grows dim.’

And then I mounted and she bound me

With her triumphing arms around me,

And whispering to herself enwound me;

But when the horse had felt my weight,

He shook himself and neighed three times:

Caolte, Conan, and Finn came near,

And wept, and raised their lamenting hands,

And bid me stay, with many a tear;

But we rode out from the human lands.

In what far kingdom do you go,

Ah, Fenians, with the shield and bow?

Or are you phantoms white as snow,

Whose lips had life’s most prosperous glow?

O you, with whom in sloping valleys,

Or down the dewy forest alleys,

I chased at morn the flying deer,

With whom I hurled the hurrying spear,

And heard the foemen’s bucklers rattle,

And broke the heaving ranks of battle!

And Bran, Sgeolan, and Lomair,

Where are you with your long rough hair?

You go not where the red deer feeds,

Nor tear the foemen from their steeds.

S. PATRIC.

Boast not, nor mourn with drooping head

Companions long accurst and dead,

And hounds for centuries dust and air.

OISIN.

We galloped over the glossy sea:

I know not if days passed or hours,

And Niamh sang continually

Danaan songs, and their dewy showers

Of pensive laughter, unhuman sound,

Lulled weariness, and softly round

My human sorrow her white arms wound.

On! on! and now a hornless deer

Passed by us, chased by a phantom hound

All pearly white, save one red ear;

And now a maiden rode like the wind

With an apple of gold in her tossing hand,

And with quenchless eyes and fluttering hair

A beautiful young man followed behind.

‘Were these two born in the Danaan land,

Or have they breathed the mortal air?’

‘Vex them no longer,’ Niamh said,

And sighing bowed her gentle head,

And sighing laid the pearly tip

Of one long finger on my lip.

But now the moon like a white rose shone

In the pale west, and the sun’s rim sank,

And clouds arrayed their rank on rank

About his fading crimson ball:

The floor of Emen’s hosting hall

Was not more level than the sea,

As full of loving phantasy,

And with low murmurs we rode on,

Where many a trumpet-twisted shell

That in immortal silence sleeps

Dreaming of her own melting hues,

Her golds, her ambers, and her blues,

Pierced with soft light the shallowing deeps.

But now a wandering land breeze came

And a far sound of feathery quires;

It seemed to blow from the dying flame,

They seemed to sing in the smouldering fires.

The horse towards the music raced,

Neighing along the lifeless waste;

Like sooty fingers, many a tree

Rose ever out of the warm sea;

And they were trembling ceaselessly,

As though they all were beating time,

Upon the centre of the sun,

To that low laughing woodland rhyme.

And, now our wandering hours were done,

We cantered to the shore, and knew

The reason of the trembling trees:

Round every branch the song-birds flew,

Or clung thereon like swarming bees;

While round the shore a million stood

Like drops of frozen rainbow light,

And pondered in a soft vain mood,

Upon their shadows in the tide,

And told the purple deeps their pride,

And murmured snatches of delight;

And on the shores were many boats

With bending sterns and bending bows,

And carven figures on their prows

Of bitterns, and fish-eating stoats,

And swans with their exultant throats:

And where the wood and waters meet

We tied the horse in a leafy clump,

And Niamh blew three merry notes

Out of a little silver trump;

And then an answering whisper flew

Over the bare and woody land,

A whisper of impetuous feet,

And ever nearer, nearer grew;

And from the woods rushed out a band

Of men and maidens, hand in hand,

And singing, singing altogether;

Their brows were white as fragrant milk,

Their cloaks made out of yellow silk,

And trimmed with many a crimson feather:

And when they saw the cloak I wore

Was dim with mire of a mortal shore,

They fingered it and gazed on me

And laughed like murmurs of the sea;

But Niamh with a swift distress

Bid them away and hold their peace;

And when they heard her voice they ran

And knelt them, every maid and man,

And kissed, as they would never cease,

Her pearl-pale hand and the hem of her dress.

She bade them bring us to the hall

Where Aengus dreams, from sun to sun,

A Druid dream of the end of days

When the stars are to wane and the world be done.

They led us by long and shadowy ways

Where drops of dew in myriads fall,

And tangled creepers every hour

Blossom in some new crimson flower,

And once a sudden laughter sprang

From all their lips, and once they sang

Together, while the dark woods rang,

And made in all their distant parts,

With boom of bees in honey marts,

A rumour of delighted hearts.

And once a maiden by my side

Gave me a harp, and bid me sing,

And touch the laughing silver string;

But when I sang of human joy

A sorrow wrapped each merry face,

And, Patric! by your beard, they wept,

Until one came, a tearful boy;

‘A sadder creature never stept

Than this strange human bard,’ he cried;

And caught the silver harp away,

And, weeping over the white strings, hurled

It down in a leaf-hid hollow place

That kept dim waters from the sky;

And each one said with a long, long sigh,

‘O saddest harp in all the world,

Sleep there till the moon and the stars die!’

And now still sad we came to where

A beautiful young man dreamed within

A house of wattles, clay, and skin;

One hand upheld his beardless chin,

And one a sceptre flashing out

Wild flames of red and gold and blue,

Like to a merry wandering rout

Of dancers leaping in the air;

And men and maidens knelt them there

And showed their eyes with teardrops dim,

And with low murmurs prayed to him,

And kissed the sceptre with red lips,

And touched it with their finger-tips.

He held that flashing sceptre up.

‘Joy drowns the twilight in the dew,

And fills with stars night’s purple cup,

And wakes the sluggard seeds of corn,

And stirs the young kid’s budding horn,

And makes the infant ferns unwrap,

And for the peewit paints his cap,

And rolls along the unwieldy sun,

And makes the little planets run:

And if joy were not on the earth,

There were an end of change and birth,

And earth and heaven and hell would die,

And in some gloomy barrow lie

Folded like a frozen fly;

Then mock at Death and Time with glances

And waving arms and wandering dances.

‘Men’s hearts of old were drops of flame

That from the saffron morning came,

Or drops of silver joy that fell

Out of the moon’s pale twisted shell;

But now hearts cry that hearts are slaves,

And toss and turn in narrow caves;

But here there is nor law nor rule,

Nor have hands held a weary tool;

And here there is nor Change nor Death,

But only kind and merry breath,

For joy is God and God is joy.’

With one long glance on maid and boy

And the pale blossom of the moon,

He fell into a Druid swoon.

And in a wild and sudden dance

We mocked at Time and Fate and Chance,

And swept out of the wattled hall

And came to where the dewdrops fall

Among the foamdrops of the sea,

And there we hushed the revelry;

And, gathering on our brows a frown,

Bent all our swaying bodies down,

And to the waves that glimmer by

That slooping green De Danaan sod

Sang, ‘God is joy and joy is God,

And things that have grown sad are wicked,

And things that fear the dawn of the morrow,

Or the gray wandering osprey Sorrow.’

We danced to where in the winding thicket

The damask roses, bloom on bloom,

Like crimson meteors hang in the gloom,

And bending over them softly said,

Bending over them in the dance,

With a swift and friendly glance

From dewy eyes: ‘Upon the dead

Fall the leaves of other roses,

On the dead dim earth encloses:

But never, never on our graves,

Heaped beside the glimmering waves,

Shall fall the leaves of damask roses.

For neither Death nor Change comes near us,

And all listless hours fear us,

And we fear no dawning morrow,

Nor the gray wandering osprey Sorrow.’

The dance wound through the windless woods;

The ever-summered solitudes;

Until the tossing arms grew still

Upon the woody central hill;

And, gathered in a panting band,

We flung on high each waving hand,

And sang unto the starry broods:

In our raised eyes there flashed a glow

Of milky brightness to and fro

As thus our song arose: ‘You stars,

Across your wandering ruby cars

Shake the loose reins: you slaves of God,

He rules you with an iron rod,

He holds you with an iron bond,

Each one woven to the other,

Each one woven to his brother

Like bubbles in a frozen pond;

But we in a lonely land abide

Unchainable as the dim tide,

With hearts that know nor law nor rule,

And hands that hold no wearisome tool;

Folded in love that fears no morrow,

Nor the gray wandering osprey Sorrow.’

O Patric! for a hundred years

I chased upon that woody shore

The deer, the badger, and the boar.

O Patric! for a hundred years

At evening on the glimmering sands,

Beside the piled-up hunting spears,

These now outworn and withered hands

Wrestled among the island bands.

O Patric! for a hundred years

We went a-fishing in long boats

With bending sterns and bending bows,

And carven figures on their prows

Of bitterns and fish-eating stoats.

O Patric! for a hundred years

The gentle Niamh was my wife;

But now two things devour my life;

The things that most of all I hate:

Fasting and prayers.

S. PATRIC.

Tell on.

OISIN.

Yes, yes,

For these were ancient Oisin’s fate

Loosed long ago from heaven’s gate,

For his last days to lie in wait.

When one day by the shore I stood,

I drew out of the numberless

White flowers of the foam a staff of wood

From some dead warrior’s broken lance:

I turned it in my hands; the stains

Of war were on it, and I wept,

Remembering how the Fenians stept

Along the blood-bedabbled plains,

Equal to good or grievous chance:

Thereon young Niamh softly came

And caught my hands, but spake no word

Save only many times my name,

In murmurs, like a frighted bird.

We passed by woods, and lawns of clover,

And found the horse and bridled him,

For we knew well the old was over.

I heard one say ‘his eyes grow dim

With all the ancient sorrow of men’;

And wrapped in dreams rode out again

With hoofs of the pale findrinny

Over the glimmering purple sea:

Under the golden evening light.

The immortals moved among the fountains

By rivers and the woods’ old night;

Some danced like shadows on the mountains,

Some wandered ever hand in hand,

Or sat in dreams on the pale strand;

Each forehead like an obscure star

Bent down above each hooked knee:

And sang, and with a dreamy gaze

Watched where the sun in a saffron blaze

Was slumbering half in the sea ways;

And, as they sang, the painted birds

Kept time with their bright wings and feet;

Like drops of honey came their words,

But fainter than a young lamb’s bleat.

‘An old man stirs the fire to a blaze,

In the house of a child, of a friend, of a brother;

He has over-lingered his welcome; the days,

Grown desolate, whisper and sigh to each other;

He hears the storm in the chimney above,

And bends to the fire and shakes with the cold,

While his heart still dreams of battle and love,

And the cry of the hounds on the hills of old.

‘But we are apart in the grassy places,

Where care cannot trouble the least of our days,

Or the softness of youth be gone from our faces,

Or love’s first tenderness die in our gaze.

The hare grows old as she plays in the sun

And gazes around her with eyes of brightness;

Before the swift things that she dreamed of were done

She limps along in an aged whiteness;

A storm of birds in the Asian trees

Like tulips in the air a-winging,

And the gentle waves of the summer seas,

That raise their heads and wander singing,

Must murmur at last “unjust, unjust”;

And “my speed is a weariness,” falters the mouse;

And the kingfisher turns to a ball of dust,

And the roof falls in of his tunnelled house.

But the love-dew dims our eyes till the day

When God shall come from the sea with a sigh

And bid the stars drop down from the sky,

And the moon like a pale rose wither away.’