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автор William Butler Yeats

THE SECRET ROSE. ROSA ALCHEMICA. THE TABLES OF THE LAW. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI. JOHN SHERMAN AND DHOYA :: BEING THE SEVENTH VOLUME OF THE COLLECTED WORKS IN VERSE & PROSE OF WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

THE COLLECTED WORKS OF WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

THE SECRET ROSE. ROSA ALCHEMICA.

THE TABLES OF THE LAW. THE

ADORATION OF THE MAGI. JOHN

SHERMAN AND DHOYA

BEING THE

SEVENTH VOLUME OF THE COLLECTED WORKS IN VERSE & PROSE OF WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

IMPRINTED

AT THE SHAKESPEARE

HEAD PRESS STRATFORD-ON-AVON

MCMVIII

CONTENTS

  PAGE

THE SECRET ROSE:

DEDICATION 3 TO THE SECRET ROSE 5 THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE OUTCAST 7 OUT OF THE ROSE 20 THE WISDOM OF THE KING 31 THE HEART OF THE SPRING 42 THE CURSE OF THE FIRES AND OF THE SHADOWS 51 THE OLD MEN OF THE TWILIGHT 61 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING, THERE IS GOD 69

OF COSTELLO THE PROUD, OF OONA THE DAUGHTER OF DERMOTT AND OF THE BITTER TONGUE

78

ROSA ALCHEMICA

103

THE TABLES OF THE LAW

141

THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI

165  

EARLY STORIES.

JOHN SHERMAN

183

DHOYA

283

THE SECRET ROSE

As for living, our servants will do that for us.—Villiers de L’Isle Adam.

Helen, when she looked in her mirror, seeing the withered wrinkles made in her face by old age, wept, and wondered why she had twice been carried away.—Leonardo da Vinci.

My Dear A.E.—I dedicate this book to you because, whether you think it well or ill written, you will sympathize with the sorrows and the ecstasies of its personages, perhaps even more than I do myself. Although I wrote these stories at different times and in different manners, and without any definite plan, they have but one subject, the war of spiritual with natural order; and how can I dedicate such a book to anyone but to you, the one poet of modern Ireland who has moulded a spiritual ecstasy into verse? My friends in Ireland sometimes ask me when I am going to write a really national poem or romance, and by a national poem or romance I understand them to mean a poem or romance founded upon some famous moment of Irish history, and built up out of the thoughts and feelings which move the greater number of patriotic Irishmen. I on the other hand believe that poetry and romance cannot be made by the most conscientious study of famous moments and of the thoughts and feelings of others, but only by looking into that little, infinite, faltering, eternal flame that we call ourselves. If a writer wishes to interest a certain people among whom he has grown up, or fancies he has a duty towards them, he may choose for the symbols of his art their legends, their history, their beliefs, their opinions, because he has a right to choose among things less than himself, but he cannot choose among the substances of art. So far, however, as this book is visionary it is Irish; for Ireland, which is still predominantly Celtic, has preserved with some less excellent things a gift of vision, which has died out among more hurried and more successful nations: no shining candelabra have prevented us from looking into the darkness, and when one looks into the darkness there is always something there.

W. B. YEATS.

TO THE SECRET ROSE

Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose,

Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those

ught thee at the Holy Sepulchre,

the wine-vat, dwell beyond the stir

mult of defeated dreams; and deep

pale eyelids heavy with the sleep

ve named beauty. Your great leaves enfold

cient beards, the helms of ruby and gold

crowned Magi; and the king whose eyes

e Pierced Hands and Rood of Elder rise

id vapour and make the torches dim;

ain frenzy awoke and he died; and him

t Fand walking among flaming dew,

rey shore where the wind never blew,

st the world and Emir for a kiss;

m who drove the gods out of their liss

ll a hundred morns had flowered red

Feasted, and wept the barrows of his dead;

And the proud dreaming king who flung the crown

And sorrow away, and calling bard and clown

Dwelt among wine-stained wanderers in deep woods;

And him who sold tillage and house and goods,

And sought through lands and islands numberless years

Until he found with laughter and with tears

A woman of so shining loveliness

That men threshed corn at midnight by a tress,

A little stolen tress. I too await

The hour of thy great wind of love and hate.

When shall the stars be blown about the sky,

Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die?

Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows,

Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose?