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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=537301" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Wanderings of Oisin: Book I</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">S. Patrick. You who are bent, and bald, and blind,<br>With a heavy heart and a wandering mind,<br>Have known three centuries, poets sing,<br>Of dalliance with a demon thing.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oisin. Sad to remember, sick with years,<br>The swift innumerable spears,<br>The horsemen with their floating hair,<br>And bowls of barley, honey, and wine,<br>Those merry couples dancing in tune,<br>And the white body that lay by mine;<br>But the tale, though words be lighter than air.<br>Must live to be old like the wandering moon.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Caoilte, and Conan, and Finn were there,<br>When we followed a deer with our baying hounds.<br>With Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,<br>And passing the Firbolgs' burial-motmds,<br>Came to the cairn-heaped grassy hill<br>Where passionate Maeve is stony-still;<br>And found On the dove-grey edge of the sea<br>A pearl-pale, high-born lady, who rode<br>On a horse with bridle of findrinny;<br>And like a sunset were her lips,<br>A stormy sunset on doomed ships;<br>A citron colour gloomed in her hair,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But down to her feet white vesture flowed,<br>And with the glimmering crimson glowed<br>Of many a figured embroidery;<br>And it was bound with a pearl-pale shell<br>That wavered like the summer streams,<br>As her soft bosom rose and fell.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">S. Patrick. You are still wrecked among heathen dreams.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oisin. 'Why do you wind no horn?' she said<br>'And every hero droop his head?<br>The hornless deer is not more sad<br>That many a peaceful moment had,<br>More sleek than any granary mouse,<br>In his own leafy forest house<br>Among the waving fields of fern:<br>The hunting of heroes should be glad.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'O pleasant woman,' answered Finn,<br>'We think on Oscar's pencilled urn,<br>And on the heroes lying slain<br>On Gabhra's raven-covered plain;<br>But where are your noble kith and kin,<br>And from what country do you ride?'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'My father and my mother are<br>Aengus and Edain, my own name<br>Niamh, and my country far<br>Beyond the tumbling of this tide.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'What dream came with you that you came<br>Through bitter tide on foam-wet feet?<br>Did your companion wander away<br>From where the birds of Aengus wing?'<br>Thereon did she look haughty and sweet:<br>'I have not yet, war-weary king,<br>Been spoken of with any man;<br>Yet now I choose, for these four feet<br>Ran through the foam and ran to this<br>That I might have your son to kiss.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Were there no better than my son<br>That you through all that foam should run?'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'I loved no man, though kings besought,<br>Until the Danaan poets brought<br>Rhyme that rhymed upon Oisin's name,<br>And now I am dizzy with the thought<br>Of all that wisdom and the fame<br>Of battles broken by his hands,<br>Of stories builded by his words<br>That are like coloured Asian birds<br>At evening in their rainless lands.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O Patrick, by your brazen bell,<br>There was no limb of mine but fell<br>Into a desperate gulph of love!<br>'You only will I wed,' I cried,<br>'And I will make a thousand songs,<br>And set your name all names above,<br>And captives bound with leathern thongs<br>Shall kneel and praise you, one by one,<br>At evening in my western dun.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'O Oisin, mount by me and ride<br>To shores by the wash of the tremulous tide,<br>Where men have heaped no burial-mounds,<br>And the days pass by like a wayward tune,<br>Where broken faith has never been known<br>And the blushes of first love never have flown;<br>And there I will give you a hundred hounds;<br>No mightier creatures bay at the moon;<br>And a hundred robes of murmuring silk,<br>And a hundred calves and a hundred sheep<br>Whose long wool whiter than sea-froth flows,<br>And a hundred spears and a hundred bows,<br>And oil and wine and honey and milk,<br>And always never-anxious sleep;<br>While a hundred youths, mighty of limb,<br>But knowing nor tumult nor hate nor strife,<br>And a hundred ladies, merry as birds,<br>Who when they dance to a fitful measure<br>Have a speed like the speed of the salmon herds,<br>Shall follow your horn and obey your whim,<br>And you shall know the Danaan leisure;<br>And Niamh be with you for a wife.'<br>Then she sighed gently, 'It grows late.<br>Music and love and sleep await,<br>Where I would be when the white moon climbs,<br>The red sun falls and the world grows dim.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And then I mounted and she bound me<br>With her triumphing arms around me,<br>And whispering to herself enwound me;<br>He shook himself and neighed three times:<br>Caoilte, Conan, and Finn came near,<br>And wept, and raised their lamenting hands,<br>And bid me stay, with many a tear;<br>But we rode out from the human lands.<br>In what far kingdom do you go'<br>Ah Fenians, with the shield and bow?<br>Or are you phantoms white as snow,<br>Whose lips had life's most prosperous glow?<br>O you, with whom in sloping vallcys,<br>Or down the dewy forest alleys,<br>I chased at morn the flying deer,<br>With whom I hurled the hurrying spear,<br>And heard the foemen's bucklers rattle,<br>And broke the heaving ranks of battle!<br>And Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,<br>Where are you with your long rough hair?<br>You go not where the red deer feeds,<br>Nor tear the foemen from their steeds.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">S. Patrick. Boast not, nor mourn with drooping head<br>Companions long accurst and dead,<br>And hounds for centuries dust and air.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oisin. We galloped over the glossy sea:<br>I know not if days passed or hours,<br>And Niamh sang continually<br>Danaan songs, and their dewy showers<br>Of pensive laughter, unhuman sound,<br>Lulled weariness, and softly round<br>My human sorrow her white arms wound.<br>We galloped; now a hornless deer<br>Passed by us, chased by a phantom hound<br>All pearly white, save one red ear;<br>And now a lady rode like the wind<br>With an apple of gold in her tossing hand;<br>And a beautiful young man followed behind<br>With quenchless gaze and fluttering hair.<br>'Were these two born in the Danaan land,<br>Or have they breathed the mortal air?'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Vex them no longer,' Niamh said,<br>And sighing bowed her gentle head,<br>And sighing laid the pearly tip<br>Of one long finger on my lip.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But now the moon like a white rose shone<br>In the pale west, and the sun'S rim sank,<br>And clouds atrayed their rank on rank<br>About his fading crimson ball:<br>The floor of Almhuin's hosting hall<br>Was not more level than the sea,<br>As, full of loving fantasy,<br>And with low murmurs, we rode on,<br>Where many a trumpet-twisted shell<br>That in immortal silence sleeps<br>Dreaming of her own melting hues,<br>Her golds, her ambers, and her blues,<br>Pierced with soft light the shallowing deeps.<br>But now a wandering land breeze came<br>And a far sound of feathery quires;<br>It seemed to blow from the dying flame,<br>They seemed to sing in the smouldering fires.<br>The horse towards the music raced,<br>Neighing along the lifeless waste;<br>Like sooty fingers, many a tree<br>Rose ever out of the warm sea;<br>And they were trembling ceaselessly,<br>As though they all were beating time,<br>Upon the centre of the sun,<br>To that low laughing woodland rhyme.<br>And, now our wandering hours were done,<br>We cantered to the shore, and knew<br>The reason of the trembling trees:<br>Round every branch the song-birds flew,<br>Or clung thereon like swarming bees;<br>While round the shore a million stood<br>Like drops of frozen rainbow light,<br>And pondered in a soft vain mood<br>Upon their shadows in the tide,<br>And told the purple deeps their pride,<br>And murmured snatches of delight;<br>And on the shores were many boats<br>With bending sterns and bending bows,<br>And carven figures on their prows<br>Of bitterns, and fish-eating stoats,<br>And swans with their exultant throats:<br>And where the wood and waters meet<br>We tied the horse in a leafy clump,<br>And Niamh blew three merry notes<br>Out of a little silver trump;<br>And then an answering whispering flew<br>Over the bare and woody land,<br>A whisper of impetuous feet,<br>And ever nearer, nearer grew;<br>And from the woods rushed out a band<br>Of men and ladies, hand in hand,<br>And singing, singing all together;<br>Their brows were white as fragrant milk,<br>Their cloaks made out of yellow silk,<br>And trimmed with many a crimson feather;<br>And when they saw the cloak I wore<br>Was dim with mire of a mortal shore,<br>They fingered it and gazed on me<br>And laughed like murmurs of the sea;<br>But Niamh with a swift distress<br>Bid them away and hold their peace;<br>And when they heard her voice they ran<br>And knelt there, every girl and man,<br>And kissed, as they would never cease,<br>Her pearl-pale hand and the hem of her dress.<br>She bade them bring us to the hall<br>Where Aengus dreams, from sun to sun,<br>A Druid dream of the end of days<br>When the stars are to wane and the world be done.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They led us by long and shadowy ways<br>Where drops of dew in myriads fall,<br>And tangled creepers every hour<br>Blossom in some new crimson flower,<br>And once a sudden laughter sprang<br>From all their lips, and once they sang<br>Together, while the dark woods rang,<br>And made in all their distant parts,<br>With boom of bees in honey-marts,<br>A rumour of delighted hearts.<br>And once a lady by my side<br>Gave me a harp, and bid me sing,<br>And touch the laughing silver string;<br>But when I sang of human joy<br>A sorrow wrapped each merry face,<br>And, patrick! by your beard, they wept,<br>Until one came, a tearful boy;<br>'A sadder creature never stept<br>Than this strange human bard,' he cried;<br>And caught the silver harp away,<br>And, weeping over the white strings, hurled<br>It down in a leaf-hid, hollow place<br>That kept dim waters from the sky;<br>And each one said, with a long, long sigh,<br>'O saddest harp in all the world,<br>Sleep there till the moon and the stars die!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And now, still sad, we came to where<br>A beautiful young man dreamed within<br>A house of wattles, clay, and skin;<br>One hand upheld his beardless chin,<br>And one a sceptre flashing out<br>Wild flames of red and gold and blue,<br>Like to a merry wandering rout<br>Of dancers leaping in the air;<br>And men and ladies knelt them there<br>And showed their eyes with teardrops dim,<br>And with low murmurs prayed to him,<br>And kissed the sceptre with red lips,<br>And touched it with their finger-tips.<br>He held that flashing sceptre up.<br>'Joy drowns the twilight in the dew,<br>And fills with stars night's purple cup,<br>And wakes the sluggard seeds of corn,<br>And stirs the young kid's budding horn,<br>And makes the infant ferns unwrap,<br>And for the peewit paints his cap,<br>And rolls along the unwieldy sun,<br>And makes the little planets run:<br>And if joy were not on the earth,<br>There were an end of change and birth,<br>And Earth and Heaven and Hell would die,<br>And in some gloomy barrow lie<br>Folded like a frozen fly;<br>Then mock at Death and Time with glances<br>And wavering arms and wandering dances.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Men's hearts of old were drops of flame<br>That from the saffron morning came,<br>Or drops of silver joy that fell<br>Out of the moon's pale twisted shell;<br>But now hearts cry that hearts are slaves,<br>And toss and turn in narrow caves;<br>But here there is nor law nor rule,<br>Nor have hands held a weary tool;<br>And here there is nor Change nor Death,<br>But only kind and merry breath,<br>For joy is God and God is joy.'<br>With one long glance for girl and boy<br>And the pale blossom of the moon,<br>He fell into a Druid swoon.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And in a wild and sudden dance<br>We mocked at Time and Fate and Chance<br>And swept out of the wattled hall<br>And came to where the dewdrops fall<br>Among the foamdrops of the sea,<br>And there we hushed the revelry;<br>And, gathering on our brows a frown,<br>Bent all our swaying bodies down,<br>And to the waves that glimmer by<br>That sloping green De Danaan sod<br>Sang, 'God is joy and joy is God,<br>And things that have grown sad are wicked,<br>And things that fear the dawn of the morrow<br>Or the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">We danced to where in the winding thicket<br>The damask roses, bloom on bloom,<br>Like crimson meteors hang in the gloom.<br>And bending over them softly said,<br>Bending over them in the dance,<br>With a swift and friendly glance<br>From dewy eyes: 'Upon the dead<br>Fall the leaves of other roses,<br>On the dead dim earth encloses:<br>But never, never on our graves,<br>Heaped beside the glimmering waves,<br>Shall fall the leaves of damask roses.<br>For neither Death nor Change comes near us,<br>And all listless hours fear us,<br>And we fear no dawning morrow,<br>Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The dance wound through the windless woods;<br>The ever-summered solitudes;<br>Until the tossing arms grew still<br>Upon the woody central hill;<br>And, gathered in a panting band,<br>We flung on high each waving hand,<br>And sang unto the starry broods.<br>In our raised eyes there flashed a glow<br>Of milky brightness to and fro<br>As thus our song arose: 'You stars,<br>Across your wandering ruby cars<br>Shake the loose reins: you slaves of God.<br>He rules you with an iron rod,<br>He holds you with an iron bond,<br>Each one woven to the other,<br>Each one woven to his brother<br>Like bubbles in a frozen pond;<br>But we in a lonely land abide<br>Unchainable as the dim tide,<br>With hearts that know nor law nor rule,<br>And hands that hold no wearisome tool,<br>Folded in love that fears no morrow,<br>Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O Patrick! for a hundred years<br>I chased upon that woody shore<br>The deer, the badger, and the boar.<br>O patrick! for a hundred years<br>At evening on the glimmering sands,<br>Beside the piled-up hunting spears,<br>These now outworn and withered hands<br>Wrestled among the island bands.<br>O patrick! for a hundred years<br>We went a-fishing in long boats<br>With bending sterns and bending bows,<br>And carven figures on their prows<br>Of bitterns and fish-eating stoats.<br>O patrick! for a hundred years<br>The gentle Niamh was my wife;<br>But now two things devour my life;<br>The things that most of all I hate:<br>Fasting and prayers.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">S. Patrick. Tell on.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oisin. Yes, yes,<br>For these were ancient Oisin's fate<br>Loosed long ago from Heaven's gate,<br>For his last days to lie in wait.<br>When one day by the tide I stood,<br>I found in that forgetfulness<br>Of dreamy foam a staff of wood<br>From some dead warrior's broken lance:<br>I tutned it in my hands; the stains<br>Of war were on it, and I wept,<br>Remembering how the Fenians stept<br>Along the blood-bedabbled plains,<br>Equal to good or grievous chance:<br>Thereon young Niamh softly came<br>And caught my hands, but spake no word<br>Save only many times my name,<br>In murmurs, like a frighted bird.<br>We passed by woods, and lawns of clover,<br>And found the horse and bridled him,<br>For we knew well the old was over.<br>I heard one say, 'His eyes grow dim<br>With all the ancient sorrow of men';<br>And wrapped in dreams rode out again<br>With hoofs of the pale findrinny<br>Over the glimmering purple sea.<br>Under the golden evening light,<br>The Immortals moved among thc fountains<br>By rivers and the woods' old night;<br>Some danced like shadows on the mountains<br>Some wandered ever hand in hand;<br>Or sat in dreams on the pale strand,<br>Each forehead like an obscure star<br>Bent down above each hooked knee,<br>And sang, and with a dreamy gaze<br>Watched where the sun in a saffron blaze<br>Was slumbering half in the sea-ways;<br>And, as they sang, the painted birds<br>Kept time with their bright wings and feet;<br>Like drops of honey came their words,<br>But fainter than a young lamb's bleat.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'An old man stirs the fire to a blaze,<br>In the house of a child, of a friend, of a brother.<br>He has over-lingered his welcome; the days,<br>Grown desolate, whisper and sigh to each other;<br>He hears the storm in the chimney above,<br>And bends to the fire and shakes with the cold,<br>While his heart still dreams of battle and love,<br>And the cry of the hounds on the hills of old.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But We are apart in the grassy places,<br>Where care cannot trouble the least of our days,<br>Or the softness of youth be gone from our faces,<br>Or love's first tenderness die in our gaze.<br>The hare grows old as she plays in the sun<br>And gazes around her with eyes of brightness;<br>Before the swift things that she dreamed of were done<br>She limps along in an aged whiteness;<br>A storm of birds in the Asian trees<br>Like tulips in the air a-winging,<br>And the gentle waves of the summer seas,<br>That raise their heads and wander singing,<br>Must murmur at last, &quot;Unjust, unjust&quot;;<br>And &quot;My speed is a weariness,&quot; falters the mouse,<br>And the kingfisher turns to a ball of dust,<br>And the roof falls in of his tunnelled house.<br>But the love-dew dims our eyes till the day<br>When God shall come from the Sea with a sigh<br>And bid the stars drop down from the sky,<br>And the moon like a pale rose wither away.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=William+Butler+Yeats">William Butler Yeats</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=537301" data-title="The Wanderings of Oisin: Book I de William Butler Yeats" data-description="S. Patrick. 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 horsem..."></div>
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