VERSE IN THE IRISH THEOSOPHIST BY AE:


CONTENTS:

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---- 1

 

While the yellow constellations shine with pale and tender glory,

In the lilac-scented stillness, let us listen to Earth's story.

All the flow'rs like moths a-flutter glimmer rich with dusky hues,

Everywhere around us seem to fall from nowhere the sweet dews.

Through the drowsy lull, the murmur, stir of leaf and sleep hum

We can feel a gay heart beating, hear a magic singing come.

Ah, I think that as we linger lighting at Earth's olden fire

Fitful gleams in clay that perish, little sparks that soon expire,

So the mother brims her gladness from a life beyond her own,

From whose darkness as a fountain up the fiery days are thrown

Starry worlds which wheel in splendour, sunny systems, histories,

Vast and nebulous traditions told in the eternities:

And our list'ning mother whispers through her children all the story:

Come, the yellow constellations shine with pale and tender glory!

 

- G.W.R.

(Irish Theosophist, October 15, 1892)[Rtn]

 

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---- 2



OM

FAINT grew the yellow buds of light

Far flickering beyond the snows,

As leaning o'er the shadowy white

Morn glimmered like a pale primrose.

 

Within an Indian vale below

A child said "Om" with tender heart,

Watching with loving eyes the glow

In dayshine fade and night depart.

 

The word which Brahma at his dawn

Outbreathes and endeth at his night;

Whose tide of sound so rolling on

Gives birth to orbs of golden light;

 

And beauty, wisdom, love, and youth,

By its enchantment, gathered grow

In age-long wandering to the truth,

Through many a cycle's ebb and flow.

 

And here all lower life was stilled,

The child was lifted to the Wise:

A strange delight his spirit filled,

And Brahm looked from his shining eyes.

 

- G.W.R

(Irish Theosophist, December 15, 1892)[Rtn]

 

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---- 3


KRISHNA

 

The East was crowned with snow-cold bloom

And hung with veils of pearly fleece;

They died away into the gloom,

Vistas of peace, and deeper peace.

 

And earth and air and wave and fire

In awe and breathless silence stood,

For One who passed into their choir

Linked them in mystic brotherhood.

 

Twilight of amethyst, amid

The few strange stars that lit the heights,

Where was the secret spirit hid,

Where was Thy place, O Light of Lights?

 

The flame of Beauty far in space -

When rose the fire, in Thee? in Me?

Which bowed the elemental race

To adoration silently.

 

- G.W.R.

(Irish Theosophist, February 15, 1893) [This is a different poem from "Krishna" in AE's Collected Poems - Ed.][Rtn]

 

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---- 4


PAIN

 

Men have made them gods of love,

Sun gods, givers of the rain,

Deities of hill and grove,

I have made a god of Pain.

 

Of my god I know this much,

And in singing I repeat,

Though there's anguish in his touch

Yet his soul within is sweet.

 

- G.W.R. (Irish Theosophist, March 15, 1893)[Rtn]

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---- 5


THREE COUNSILLORS

 

IT was the fairy of the place

Moving within a little light,

Who touched with dim and shadowy grace

The conflict at its fever height.

 

It seemed to whisper "quietness,"

Then quietly itself was gone;

Yet echoes of its mute caress

Still rippled as the years flowed on.


It was the Warrior within

Who called "Awake! prepare for fight,

"Yet lose not memory in the din;

"Make of thy gentleness thy might.

 

"Make of thy silence words to shake

"The long-enthroned kings of earth;

"Make of thy will the force to break

"Their towers of wantonness and mirth."

 

It was the wise all-seeing soul

Who counseled neither war nor peace

"Only be thou thyself that goal

"In which the wars of time shall cease."


- G.W.R (Irish Theosophist, April 15, 1893)[Rtn]

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---- 6


DUSK

 

DUSK wraps the village in its dim caress;

Each chimney's vapour, like a thin grey rod,

Mounting aloft through miles of quietness,

Pillars the skies of God.

 

Far up they break or seem to break their line,

Mingling their nebulous crests that bow and nod

Under the light of those fierce stars that shine

Out of the house of God.

 

Only in clouds and dreams I felt those souls

In the abyss, each fire hid in its clod,

From which in clouds and dreams the spirit rolls

Into the vast of God.

 

- G.W.R. (Irish Theosophist, May 15, 1893)[Rtn]

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---- 7


DAWN

 

STILL as the holy of holies breathes the vast,

Within its crystal depths the stars grow dim,

Fire on the altar of the hills at last

Burns on the shadowy rim.

 

Moment that holds all moments, white upon

The verge it trembles; then like mists of flowers

Break from the fairy fountain of the dawn

The hues of many hours.

 

Thrown downward from that high companionship

Of dreaming inmost heart with inmost heart,

Into the common daily ways I slip

My fire from theirs apart.

 

- G.W.R. (Irish Theosophist, June 15, 1893)[Rtn]

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---- 8


DESIRE

 

WITH Thee a moment! then what dreams have play!

Traditions of eternal toil arise,

Search for the high, austere and lonely way,

Where Brahma treads through the eternities.

Ah, in the soul what memories arise!

 

And with what yearning inexpressible,

Rising from long forgetfulness I turn

To Thee, invisible, unrumoured, still:

White for Thy whiteness all desires burn!

Ah, with what longing once again I turn!

 

- G.W.R (Irish Theosophist, August 15, 1893)[Rtn]

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---- 9



DEEP SLEEP

 

Heart-hidden from the outer things I rose,

The spirit woke anew in nightly birth

Into the vastness where forever glows

The star-soul of the earth.

 

There all alone in primal ecstasy,

Within her depths where revels never tire,

The olden Beauty shines; each thought of me

Is veined through with its fire.

 

And all my thoughts are throngs of living souls;

They breath in me, heart unto heart allied

With joy undimmed, though when the morning tolls

The planets may divide.

 

- G.W.R

(Irish Theosophist, September 15, 1893)[Rtn]

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---- 10

 

DAY


In day from some titanic past it seems

As if a thread divine of memory runs;

Born ere the Mighty One began his dreams,

Or yet were stars and suns.

 

But here an iron will has fixed the bars;

Forgetfulness falls on earth's myriad races,

No image of the proud and morning stars

Looks at us from their faces.

 

Yet yearning still to reach to those dim heights,

Each dream remembered is a burning-glass,

Where through to darkness from the light of lights

Its rays in splendour pass.

 

- G.W.R

(Irish Theosophist, September 15, 1893)[Rtn]

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---- 11

TO A POET


Oh, be not led away.

Lured by the colour of the sun-rich day.

The gay romances of song

Unto the spirit-life doth not belong.

Though far-between the hours

In which the Master of Angelic Powers

Lightens the dusk within

The Holy of Holies; be it thine to win

Rare vistas of white light,

Half-parted lips, through which the Infinite

Murmurs her ancient story;

Hearkening to whom the wandering planets hoary

Waken primeval fires,

With deeper rapture in celestial choirs

Breathe, and with fleeter motion

Wheel in their orbits through the surgeless ocean.

So, hearken thou like these,

Intent on her, mounting by slow degrees,

Until thy song's elation

Echoes her multitudinous meditation.

 

- G.W.R.

(Irish Theosophist, November 15, 1893)[Rtn]

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---- 12

 

THE PLACE OF REST

 

The soul is its own witness and its own refuge.

 

UNTO the deep the deep heart goes.

It lays its sadness nigh the breast:

Only the mighty mother knows

The wounds that quiver unconfessed.

 

It seeks a deeper silence still;

It folds itself around with peace,

Where thoughts alike of good or ill

In quietness unfostered, cease.

 

It feels in the unwounding vast

For comfort for its hopes and fears:

The mighty mother bows at last;

She listens to her children's tears.

 

Where the last anguish deepens - there -

The fire of beauty smites through pain,

A glory moves amid despair,

The Mother takes her child again.

 

- G.W.R.

(Irish Theosophist, December 15, 1893)[Rtn]

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---- 13

 

COMFORT

 

DARK head by the fireside brooding,

Sad upon your ears

Whirlwinds of the earth intruding

Sound in wrath and tears:

 

Tender-hearted, in your lonely

Sorrow I would fain

Comfort you, and say that only

Gods could feel such pain.

 

Only spirits know such longing

For the far away;

And the fiery fancies thronging

Rise not out of clay.

 

Keep the secret sense celestial

Of the starry birth;

Though about you call the bestial

Voices of the earth.

 

If a thousand ages since

Hurled us from the throne:

Then a thousand ages wins

Back again our own.

 

Sad one, dry away your tears:

Sceptred you shall rise,

Equal mid the crystal spheres

With seraphs kingly wise.

 

- G.W.R

(Irish Theosophist, February, 1894)[Rtn]

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---- 14

 

H. P. B.

(In Memoriam.)

 

Though swift the days flow from her day,

No one has left her day unnamed:

We know what light broke from her ray

On us, who in the truth proclaimed

 

Grew brother with the stars and powers

That stretch away - away to light,

And fade within the primal hours,

And in the wondrous First unite.

 

We lose with her the right to scorn

The voices scornful of her truth:

With her a deeper love was born

For those who filled her days with ruth.

 

To her they were not sordid things:

In them sometimes - her wisdom said -

The Bird of Paradise had wings;

It only dreams, it is not dead.

 

We cannot for forgetfulness

Forego the reverence due to them,

Who wear at times they do not guess

The sceptre and the diadem.

 

With wisdom of the olden time

She made the hearts of dust to flame;

And fired us with the hope sublime

Our ancient heritage to claim;

 

That turning from the visible,

By vastness unappalled nor stayed,

Our wills might rule beside that Will

By which the tribal stars are swayed;

 

And entering the heroic strife,

Tread in the way their feet have trod

Who move within a vaster life,

Sparks in the Fire - Gods amid God.


- R.

(Irish Theosophist, August 15, 1894)[Rtn]

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---- 15

 

BY THE MARGIN OF THE GREAT DEEP

 

When the breath of twilight blows to flame the misty skies,

All its vapourous sapphire, violet glow and silver gleam

With their magic flood me through the gateway of the eyes;

I am one with the twilight's dream.

 

When the trees and skies and fields are one in dusky mood,

Every heart of man is rapt within the mother's breast:

Full of peace and sleep and dreams in the vasty quietude,

I am one with their hearts at rest.

 

From our immemorial joys of hearth and home and love,

Strayed away along the margin of the unknown tide,

All its reach of soundless calm can thrill me far above

Word or touch from the lips beside.

 

Aye, and deep, and deep, and deeper let me drink and draw

From the olden Fountain more than light or peace or dream,

Such primeval being as o'erfills the heart with awe,

Growing one with its silent stream.

 

- G.W.R

(Irish Theosophist, March 15, 1894)[Rtn]

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---- 16

 

THE SECRET

 

One thing in all things have I seen:

One thought has haunted earth and air;

Clangour and silence both have been

Its palace chambers. Everywhere

 

I saw the mystic vision flow,

And live in men, and woods, and streams,

Until I could no longer know

The dream of life from my own dreams.

 

Sometimes it rose like fire in me,

Within the depths of my own mind,

And spreading to infinity,

It took the voices of the wind.


It scrawled the human mystery,

Dim heraldry - on light and air;

Wavering along the starry sea,

I saw the flying vision there.

 

Each fire that in God's temple lit

Burns fierce before the inner shrine,

Dimmed as my fire grew near to it,

And darkened at the light of mine.

 

At last, at last, the meaning caught:

When spirit wears its diadem,

It shakes its wondrous plumes of thought,

And trails the stars along with them.

 

- G.W.R.

(Irish Theosophist, April 15, 1894)[Rtn]

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---- 17


DUST

 

I heard them in their sadness say,

"The earth rebukes the thought of God:

We are but embers wrapt in clay

A little nobler than the sod."

 

But I have touched the lips of clay -

Mother, thy rudest sod to me

Is thrilled with fire of hidden day,

And haunted by all mystery.

 

- G.W.R

(Irish Theosophist, May 15, 1894)[Rtn]

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---- 18

 

MAGIC

After reading the Upanishads

 

Out of the dusky chamber of the brain

Flows the imperial will through dream on dream;

The fires of life around it tempt and gleam;

The lights of earth behind it fade and wane.

 

Passed beyond beauty tempting dream on dream,

The pure will seeks the hearthold of the light;

Sounds the deep "OM," the mystic word of might;

Forth from the hearthold breaks the living stream.

 

Passed out beyond the deep heart music-filled,

The kingly Will sits on the ancient throne,

Wielding the sceptre, fearless, free, alone,

Knowing in Brahma all it dared and willed.

 

- G.W.R.

(Irish Theosophist, June 15, 1894)[Rtn]

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---- 19

 

IMMORTALITY

 

We must pass like smoke, or live within the spirits' fire;

For we can no more than smoke unto the flame return.

If our thought has changed to dream, or will into desire,

As smoke we vanish o'er the fires that burn.

 

Lights of infinite pity star the grey dusk of our days;

Surely here is soul; with it we have eternal breath;

In the fire of love we live or pass by many ways,

By unnumbered ways of dream to death.

 

- G.W.R

(Irish Theosophist, July 15, 1894)[Rtn]

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---- 20

 

THE MAN TO THE ANGEL

 

I have wept a million tears;

Pure and proud one, where are thine?

What the gain of all your years

That undimmed in beauty shine?

 

All your beauty cannot win

Truth we learn in pain and sighs;

You can never enter in

To the Circle of the Wise.

 

They are but the slaves of light

Who have never known the gloom,

And between the dark and bright

Willed in freedom their own doom.

 

Think not in your pureness there

That our pain but follows sin;

There are fires for those who dare

Seek the Throne of Might to win.

 

Pure one, from your pride refrain;

Dark and lost amid the strife,

I am myriad years of pain

Nearer to the fount of life.

 

When defiance fierce is thrown

At the God to whom you bow,

Rest the lips of the Unknown

Tenderest upon the brow.

 

- G.W.R

(Irish Theosophist, September 15, 1894)[Rtn]

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---- 21


Songs of Olden Magic - II.


THE ROBING OF THE KING

 

"His candle shined upon my head, and by his light I walked through darkness." - Job, xxix. 3

 

On the bird of air blue-breasted

glint the rays of gold,

And a shadowy fleece above us

waves the forest old,

Far through rumorous leagues of midnight

stirred by breezes warm.

See the old ascetic yonder,

Ah, poor withered form!

Where he crouches wrinkled over

by unnumbered years

Through the leaves the flakes of moonfire

fall like phantom tears.

At the dawn a kingly hunter

passed proud disdain,

Like a rainbow-torrent scattered

flashed his royal train.

Now the lonely one unheeded

seeks earth's caverns dim,

Never king or princes will robe them

radiantly as him.

Mid the deep enfolding darkness,

follow him, oh seer,

While the arrow will is piercing

fiery sphere on sphere.

Through the blackness leaps and sparkles

gold and amethyst,

Curling, jetting and dissolving

in a rainbow mist.

In the jewel glow and lunar

radiance rise there

One, a morning star in beauty,

young, immortal, fair.

Sealed in heavy sleep, the spirit

leaves its faded dress,

Unto fiery youth returning

out of weariness.

Music as for one departing,

joy as for a king,

Sound and swell, and hark! above him

cymbals triumphing.

Fire an aureole encircling

suns his brow with gold

Like to one who hails the morning

on the mountains old.

Open mightier vistas changing

human loves to scorns,

And the spears of glory pierce him

like a Crown of Thorns.

As the sparry rays dilating

o'er his forehead climb

Once again he knows the Dragon

Wisdom of the prime.

High and yet more high to freedom

as a bird he springs,

And the aureole outbreathing,

gold and silver wings

Plume the brow and crown the seraph.

Soon his journey done

He will pass our eyes that follow,

sped beyond the sun.

None may know the darker radiance,

King, will there be thine.

Rapt above the Light and hidden

in the Dark Divine.

 

- AE (Irish Theosophist, September 15, 1895)[Rtn]

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---- 22

 

BROTHERHOOD

 

TWILIGHT a blossom grey in shadowy valleys dwells:

Under the radiant dark the deep blue-tinted bells

In quietness reimage heaven within their blooms,

Sapphire and gold and mystery. What strange perfumes,

Out of what deeps arising, all the flower-bells fling,

Unknowing the enchanted odorous song they sing!

Oh, never was an eve so living yet: the wood

Stirs not but breathes enraptured quietude.

Here in these shades the Ancient knows itself, the Soul,

And out of slumber waking starts unto the goal.

What bright companions nod and go along with it!

Out of the teeming dark what dusky creatures flit,

That through the long leagues of the island night above

Come wandering by me, whispering and beseeching love, -

As in the twilight children gather close and press

Nigh and more nigh with shadowy tenderness,

Feeling they know not what, with noiseless footsteps glide

Seeking familiar lips or hearts to dream beside.

Oh, voices, I would go with you, with you, away,

Facing once more the radiant gateways of the day;

With you, with you, what memories arise, and nigh

Trampling the crowded figures of the dawn go by;

Dread deities, the giant powers that warred on men

Grow tender brothers and gay children once again;

Fades every hate away before the Mother's breast

Where all the exiles of the heart return to rest.

 

- R. (G.W. Russell)

(Irish Theosophist, July 15, 1895)[Rtn]

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---- 23

 

IN THE WOMB

 

Still rests the heavy share on the dark soil:

Upon the dull black mould the dew-damp lies:

The horse waits patient: from his lonely toil

The ploughboy to the morning lifts his eyes.

 

The unbudding hedgerows, dark against day's fires,

Glitter with gold-lit crystals: on the rim

Over the unregarding city's spires

The lonely beauty shines alone for him.

 

And day by day the dawn or dark enfolds,

And feeds with beauty eyes that cannot see

How in her womb the Mighty Mother moulds

The infant spirit for Eternity.

 

- G.W.R. (G.W. Russell)

(Irish Theosophist, January 15, 1895)[Rtn]

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---- 24

 

IN THE GARDEN OF GOD

 

WITHIN the iron cities

One walked unknown for years,

In his heart the pity of pities

That grew for human tears

 

When love and grief were ended

The flower of pity grew;

By unseen hands 'twas tended

And fed with holy dew.

 

Though in his heart were barred in

The blooms of beauty blown;

Yet he who grew the garden

Could call no flower his own.

 

For by the hands that watered,

The blooms that opened fair

Through frost and pain were scattered

To sweeten the dull air.

 

- G.W.R. (G.W. Russell)

(Irish Theosophist, February 15, 1895)[Rtn]

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---- 25

 

THE BREATH OF LIGHT

 

From the cool and dark-lipped furrows

breathes a dim delight

Aureoles of joy encircle

every blade of grass

Where the dew-fed creatures silent

and enraptured pass:

And the restless ploughman pauses,

turns, and wondering

Deep beneath his rustic habit

finds himself a king;

For a fiery moment looking

with the eyes of God

Over fields a slave at morning

bowed him to the sod.

Blind and dense with revelation

every moment flies,

And unto the Mighty Mother

gay, eternal, rise

All the hopes we hold, the gladness,

dreams of things to be.

One of all they generations,

Mother, hails to thee!

Hail! and hail! and hail for ever:

though I turn again

For they joy unto the human

vestures of pain.

I, thy child, who went forth radiant

in the golden prime

Find thee still the mother-hearted

through my night in time;

Find in thee the old enchantment,

there behind the veil

Where the Gods my brothers linger,

Hail! for ever, Hail!

 

- G.W.R (G.W. Russell)

(Irish Theosophist, May 15, 1895)[Rtn]

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---- 26

 

THE FREE

 

THEY bathed in the fire-flooded fountains;

Life girdled them round and about;

They slept in the clefts of the mountains:

The stars called them forth with a shout.

 

They prayed, but their worship was only

The wonder at nights and at days,

As still as the lips of the lonely

Though burning with dumbness of praise.

 

No sadness of earth ever captured

Their spirits who bowed at the shrine;

They fled to the Lonely enraptured

And hid in the Darkness Divine.

 

At twilight as children may gather

They met at the doorway of death,

The smile of the dark hidden Father

The Mother with magical breath.

 

Untold of in song or in story,

In days long forgotten of men,

Their eyes were yet blind with a glory

Time will not remember again.

 

- AE (George W. Russell)

(Irish Theosophist, November 15, 1895)[Rtn]

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---- 27

 

Songs of Olden Magic - IV

 

THE MAGI

 

"The mountain was filled with the hosts of the Tuatha de Dannan." - Old Celtic Poem

 

SEE where the auras from the olden fountain

Starward aspire;

The sacred sign upon the holy mountain

Shines in white fire:

Waving and flaming yonder o'er the snows

The diamond light

Melts into silver or to sapphire glows

Night beyond night;

And from the heaven of heavens descends on earth

A dew divine.

Come, let us mingle in the starry mirth

Around the shrine!

Enchantress, mighty mother, to our home

In thee we press,

Thrilled by the fiery breath and wrapt in some

Vast tenderness

The homeward birds uncertain o'er their nest

Wheel in the dome,

Fraught with dim dreams of more enraptured rest,

Wheel in the dome,

But gather ye to whose undarkened eyes

The night is day:

Leap forth, Immortals, Birds of Paradise,

In bright array

Robed like the shining tresses of the sun;

And by his name

Call from his haunt divine the ancient one

Our Father Flame.

Aye, from the wonder-light that wraps the star,

Come now, come now;

Sun-breathing Dragon, ray thy lights afar,

Thy children bow;

Hush with more awe the breath; the bright-browed races

Are nothing worth

By those dread gods from out whose awful faces

The earth looks forth

Infinite pity, set incalm; their vision cast

Adown the years

Beholds how beauty burns away at last

Their children's tears.

Now while our hearts the ancient quietness

Floods with its tide,

The things of air and fire and height no less

In it abide;

And from their wanderings over sea and shore

They rise as one

Unto the vastness and with us adore

The midnight sun;

And enter the innumerable All,

And shine like gold,

And starlike gleam in the immortals' hall,

The heavenly fold,

And drink the sun-breaths from the mother's lips

Awhile - and then

Fail from the light and drop in dark eclipse

To earth again,

Roaming along by heaven-hid promontory

And valley dim.

Weaving a phantom image of the glory

They knew in Him.

Out of the fulness flow the winds, their son

Is heard no more,

Or hardly breathes a mystic sound along

The dreamy shore:

Blindly they move unknowing as in trance,

Their wandering

Is half with us, and half an inner dance

Led by the King.

 

- AE (George W. Russell)

(Irish Theosophist, January 15, 1896)[Rtn]

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---- 28



W. Q. J. *

 

O hero of the iron age,

Upon thy grave we will not weep,

Nor yet consume away in rage

For thee and thy untimely sleep.

Our hearts a burning silence keep.

 

O martyr, in these iron days

One fate was sure for soul like thine:

Well you foreknew but went your ways.

The crucifixion is the sign,

The meed of all the kingly line.

 

We may not mourn - though such a night

Has fallen on our earthly spheres

Bereft of love and truth and light

As never since the dawn of years; -

For tears give birth alone to tears.

 

One wreath upon they grave we lay

(The silence of our bitter thought,

Words that would scorch their hearts of clay),

And turn to learn what thou has taught,

To shape our lives as thine was wrought.

 

(Irish Theosophist, April 15, 1896)

[* This is unsigned but is very possibly G.W. Russell's. It was a memoriam to William Quan Judge (W.Q.J), the leader of the American and European Theosophical Societies at the time, one of the original founders of the Theosophical Society, and close co-worker with H.P. Blavatsky.][Rtn]

 

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---- 29

 

FROM THE BOOK OF THE EAGLE

[St. John, i. 1-33]

 

In the mighty Mother's bosom was the Wise

With the mystic Father in aeonian night;

Aye, for ever one with them though it arise

Going forth to sound its hymn of light.

 

At its incantation rose the starry fane;

At its magic thronged the myriad race of men;

Life awoke that in the womb so long had lain

To its cyclic labours once again.

 

'Tis the soul of fire within the heart of life;

From its fiery fountain spring the will and thought;

All the strength of man for deeds of love or strife,

Though the darkness comprehend it not.

 

In the mystery written here

John is but the life, the seer;

Outcast from the life of light,

Inly with reverted sight

Still he scans with eager eyes

The celestial mysteries.

Poet of all far-seen things

At his word the soul has wings,

Revelations, symbols, dreams

Of the inmost light which gleams.

 

The winds, the stars, and the skies though wrought

By the one Fire-Self still know it not;

And man who moves in the twilight dim

Feels not the love that encircles him,

Though in heart, on bosom, and eyelids press

Lips of an infinite tenderness,

He turns away through the dark to roam

Nor heeds the fire in his hearth and home.

 

They whose wisdom everywhere

Sees as through a crystal air

The lamp by which the world is lit,

And themselves as one with it;

In whom the eye of vision swells,

Who have in entranced hours

Caught the word whose might compels

All the elemental powers;

They arise as Gods from men

Like the morning stars again.

They who seek the place of rest

Quench the blood-heat of the breast,

Grow ascetic, inward turning

Trample down the lust from burning,

Silence in the self the will

For a power diviner still;

To the fire-born Self alone

The ancestral spheres are known.

 

Unto the poor dead shadows came

Wisdom mantled about with flame;

We had eyes that could see the light

Born of the mystic Father's might.

Glory radiant with powers untold

And the breath of God around it rolled.

 

Life that moved in the deeps below

Felt the fire in its bosom glow;

Life awoke with the Light allied,

Grew divinely stirred, and cried:

"This is the Ancient of Days within,

Light that is ere our days begin.

 

"Every power in the spirit's ken

Springs anew in our lives again.

We had but dreams of the heart's desire

Beauty thrilled with the mystic fire.

The white-fire breath whence springs the power

Flows alone in the spirit's hour."

 

Man arose the earth he trod,

Grew divine as he gazed on God:

Light in a fiery whirlwind broke

Out of the dark divine and spoke:

Man went forth through the vast to tread

By the spirit of wisdom charioted.

 

There came the learned of the schools

Who measure heavenly things by rules,

The sceptic, doubter, the logician,

Who in all sacred things precision,

Would mark the limit, fix the scope,

"Art thou the Christ for whom we hope?

Art thou a magian, or in thee

Has the divine eye power to see?"

He answered low to those who came,

"Not this, nor this, nor this I claim.

More than the yearning of the heart

I have no wisdom to impart.

I am the voice that cries in him

Whose heart is dead, whose eyes are dim,

'Make pure the paths where through may run

The light-streams from that golden one,

The Self who lives within the sun.'

As spake the seer of ancient days."

The voices from the earthly ways

Questioned him still: "What dost thou here,

If neither prophet, king nor seer?

What power is kindled by they might?"

"I flow before the feet of Light:

I am the purifying stream.

But One of whom ye have no dream,

Whose footsteps move among you still,

Though dark, divine, invisible.

Impelled by Him, before His ways

I journey, though I dare not raise

Even from the ground these eyes so dim

Or look upon the feet of Him."

 

When the dead or dreamy hours

Like a mantle fall away,

Wakes the eye of gnostic powers

To the light of hidden day,

 

And the yearning heart within

Seeks the true, the only friend,

He who burdened with our sin

Loves and loves unto the end.


Ah, the martyr of the world,

With a face of steadfast peace

Round whose brow the light is curled:

'Tis the Lamb with golden fleece.

 

So they called of old the shining,

Such a face the sons of men

See, and all its life divining

Wake primeval fires again.

 

Such a face and such a glory

Passed before the eyes of John,

With a breath of olden story

Blown from ages long agone

 

Who would know the God in man.

Deeper still must be his glance.

Veil on veil his eye must scan

For the mystic signs which tell

If the fire electric fell

On the seer in his trance:

As his way he upward wings

From all time-encircled things,

Flames the glory round his head

Like a bird with wings outspread.

Gold and silver plumes at rest:

Such a shadowy shining crest

Round the hero's head reveals him

To the soul that would adore,

As the master-power that heals him

And the fount of secret lore.

Nature such a diadem

Places on her royal line,

Every eye that looks on them

Knows the Sons of the Divine.

 

- AE (G.W. Russell)

(Irish Theosophist, April 15, 1896)[Rtn]

----------------------------------

---- 30


THE PROTEST OF LOVE

 

"Those who there take refuge nevermore return." - Bhagavad Gita

 

ERE I lose myself in the vastness and drowse myself with the peace,

While I gaze on the light and beauty afar from the dim homes of men,

May I still feel the heart-pang and pity, love-ties that I would not release,

May the voices of sorrow appealing call me back to their succour again.

 

Ere I storm with the tempest of power the thrones and dominions of old,

Ere the ancient enchantment allures me to roam through the star-misty skies,

I would go forth as one who has reaped well what harvest the earth may unfold:

May my heart be o'erbrimmed with compassion, on my brow be the crown of the wise.

 

I would go as the dove from the ark sent forth with wishes and prayers

To return with the paradise-blossoms that bloom in the eden of light:

When the deep star-chant of the seraphs I hear in the mystical airs

May I capture one tone of their joy for the sad ones discrowned in the night.

 

Not alone, not alone would I go to my rest in the Heart of the Love:

Were I tranced in the innermost beauty, the flame of its tenderest breath,

I would still hear the plaint of the fallen recalling me back from above

To go down to the side of the mourners who weep in the shadow of death.

 

- AE (G.W. Russell)

(Irish Theosophist, May 15, 1896)[Rtn]

---------------------------------

---- 31


THE KING INITIATE

 

"They took Iesous and scourged him." - St. John

 

AGE after age the world has wept

A joy supreme - I saw the hands

Whose fiery radiations swept

And burned away his earthly bands:

And where they smote the living dyes

Flashed like the plumes of paradise.

 

Their joys the heavy nations hush -

A form of purple glory rose

Crowned with such rays of light as flush

The white peaks on their towering snows:

It held the magic wand that gave

Rule over earth, air, fire and wave.

 

What sorrow makes the white cheeks wet:

The mystic cross looms shadowy dim -

There where the fourfold powers have met

And poured their living tides through him,

The Son who hides his radiant crest

To the dark Father's bosom pressed.

 

- AE (G.W. Russell)

(Irish Theosophist, June 15, 1896)[Rtn]

-----------------------------------

---- 32

 

THE DREAM OF THE CHILDREN

 

THE children awoke in their dreaming

While earth lay dewy and still:

They followed the rill in its gleaming

To the heart-light of the hill.

 

Its sounds and sights were forsaking

The world as they faded in sleep,

When they heard a music breaking

Out from the heart-light deep.

 

It ran where the rill in its flowing

Under the star-light gay

With wonderful colour was glowing

Like the bubbles they blew in their play.

 

From the misty mountain under

Shot gleams of an opal star:

Its pathways of rainbow wonder

Rayed to their feet from afar.

 

From their feet as they strayed in the meadow

It led through caverned aisles,

Filled with purple and green light and shadow

For mystic miles on miles.

The children were glad; it was lonely

To play on the hill-side by day.

"But now," they said, "we have only

To go where the good people stray."

 

For all the hill-side was haunted

By the faery folk come again;

And down in the heart-light enchanted

Were opal-coloured men.

 

They moved like kings unattended

Without a squire or dame,

But they wore tiaras splendid

With feathers of starlight flame.

 

They laughed at the children over

And called them into the heart:

"Come down here, each sleepless rover:

We will show you some of our art."

 

And down through the cool of the mountain

The children sank at the call,

And stood in a blazing fountain

And never a mountain at all.

 

The lights were coming and going

In many a shining strand,

For the opal fire-kings were blowing

The darkness out of the land.

 

This golden breath was a madness

To set a poet on fire,

And this was a cure for sadness,

And that the ease of desire.

 

And all night long over Eri

They fought with the wand of light

And love that never grew weary

The evil things of night.

 

They said, as dawn glimmered hoary,

"We will show yourselves for an hour;"

And the children were changed to a glory

By the beautiful magic of power.

 

The fire-kings smiled on their faces

And called them by olden names,

Till they towered like the starry races

All plumed with the twilight flames.

 

They talked for a while together,

How the toil of ages oppressed;

And of how they best could weather

The ship of the world to its rest.

 

The dawn in the room was straying:

The children began to blink,

When they heard a far voice saying,

"You can grow like that if you think!"

 

The sun came in yellow and gay light:

They tumbled out of the cot,

And half of the dream went with daylight

And half was never forgot.

 

- AE (G.W. Russell)

(Irish Theosophist, July 15, 1896)[Rtn]

-----------------------------------------------

---- 33

 

THE CHIEFS OF THE AIR

 

THEIR wise little heads with scorning

They laid the covers between:

"Do they think we stay here till morning?"

Said Rory and Aileen.

 

When out their bright eyes came peeping

The room was no longer there,

And they fled from the dark world creeping

Up a twilight cave of air.

 

They wore each one a gay dress,

In sleep, if you understand,

When earth puts off its grey dress

To robe it in faeryland.

 

Then loud o'erhead was a humming

As clear as the wood wind rings;

And here were the air-boats coming

And here the airy kings.

 

The magic barks were gleaming

And swift as the feathered throng:

With wonder-lights out-streaming

They blew themselves along.

 

And up on the night-wind swimming,

With pose and dart and rise,

Away went the air fleet skimming

Through a haze of jewel skies.

 

One boat above them drifted

Apart from the flying bands,

And an air-chief bent and lifted

The children with mighty hands.

 

The children wondered greatly,

Three air-chiefs met them there,

They were tall and grave and stately

With bodies of purple air.

 

A pearl light with misty shimmer

Went dancing about them all,

As the dyes of the moonbow glimmer

On a trembling waterfall.

 

The trail of the fleet to the far lands

Was wavy along the night,

And on through the sapphire starlands

They followed the wake of light.

 

"Look down, Aileen," said Rory,

"The earth's as thin as a dream."

It was lit by a sun-fire glory

Outraying gleam on gleam.

 

They saw through the dream-world under

Its heart of rainbow flame

Where the starry people wander;

Like gods they went and came.

 

The children looked without talking

Till Roray spoke again,

"Are those our folk who are walking

Like little shadow men?

 

"They don't see what is about them,

They look like pygmies small,

The world would be full without them

And they think themselves so tall!"

 

The magic bark went fleeting

Like an eagle on and on;

Till over its prow came beating

The foam-light of the dawn.

 

The children's dream grew fainter,

Three air-chiefs still were there,

But the sun the shadow painter

Drew five on the misty air.

 

The dream-light whirled bewild'ring,

An air-chief said, "You know.

You are living now, my children,

Ten thousand years ago."

 

They looked at themselves in the old light,

And mourned the days of the new

Where naught is but darkness or cold light,

Till a bell came striking through.

 

"We must go," said the wise young sages:

It was five at dawn by the chimes,

And they ran through a thousand ages

From the old De Danaan Times.

 

- AE (G.W. Russell)

(Irish Theosophist, August 15, 1896)[Rtn]

----------------------------------

---- 34

 

THE PALACES OF THE SIDHE

 

Two small sweet lives together

From dawn till the dew falls down,

They danced over rock and heather

Away from the dusty town.

 

Dark eyes like stars set in pansies,

Blue eyes like a hero's bold -

Their thoughts were all pearl-light fancies,

Their hearts in the age of gold.

 

They crooned o'er many a fable

And longed for the bright-capped elves,

The faery folk who are able

To make us faery ourselves.

 

A hush on the children stealing

They stood there hand in hand,

For the elfin chimes were pealing

Aloud in the underland.

 

And over the grey rock sliding,

A fiery colour ran,

And out of its thickness gliding

The twinkling mist of a man -

 

To-day for the children had fled to

An ancient yesterday,

And the rill from its tunneled bed too

Had turned another way.

 

Then down through an open hollow

The old man led with a smile:

"Come, star-hearts, my children, follow

To the elfin land awhile."

 

The bells above them were hanging,

Whenever the earth-breath blew

It made them go clanging, clanging,

The vasty mountain through.

 

But louder yet than the ringing

Came the chant of the elfin choir,

Till the mountain was mad with singing

And dense with the forms of fire.

 

The kings of the faery races

Sat high on the thrones of might,

And infinite years from their faces

Looked out through eyes of light.

 

And one in a diamond splendour

Shone brightest of all that hour,

More lofty and pure and tender,

They called him the Flower of Power.

 

The palace walls were glowing

Like stars together drawn,

And a fountain of air was flowing

The primrose colour of dawn.

 

"Ah, see!" said Aileen sighing,

With a bend of her saddened head

Where a mighty hero was lying,

He looked like one who was dead.

 

"He will wake," said their guide, "'tis but seeming,

And, oh, what his eyes shall see

I will know of only in dreaming

Till I lie there still as he."

 

They chanted the song of waking,

They breathed on him with fire,

Till the hero-spirit outbreaking,

Shot radiant above the choir.

 

Like a pillar of opal glory

Lit through with many a gem -

"Why, look at him now," said Rory,

"He has turned to a faery like them!"

 

The elfin kings ascending

Leaped up from the thrones of might,

And one with another blending

They vanished in air and light.

 

The rill to its bed came splashing

With rocks on the top of that:

The children awoke with a flashing

Of wonder, "What were we at?"

 

They groped through the reeds and clover -

"What funny old markings: look here,

They have scrawled the rocks all over:

It's just where the door was: how queer!"

 

- AE (G.W. Russell)

(Irish Theosophist, September 15, 1896)[Rtn]

----------------------------------------

---- 35

 

THE VOICE OF THE WISE

 

THEY sat with hearts untroubled,

The clear sky sparkled above,

And an ancient wisdom bubbled

From the lips of a youthful love.

 

They read in a coloured history

Of Egypt and of the Nile,

And half it seemed a mystery,

Familiar, half, the while.

 

Till living out of the story

Grew old Egyptian men,

And a shadow looked forth Rory

And said, "We meet again!"

 

And over Aileen a maiden

Looked back through the ages dim:

She laughed, and her eyes were laden

With an old-time love for him.

 

In a mist came temples thronging

With sphinxes seen in a row,

And the rest of the day was a longing

For their homes of long ago.

 

"We'd go there if they'd let us,"

They said with wounded pride:

"They never think when they pet us

We are old like that inside."

 

There was some one round them straying

The whole of the long day through,

Who seemed to say, "I am playing

At hide-and-seek with you."

 

And one thing after another

Was whispered out of the air,

How God was a big kind brother

Whose home was in everywhere.

 

His light like a smile come glancing

From the cool, cool winds as they pass;

From the flowers in heaven dancing

And the stars that shine in the grass,

 

And the clouds in deep blue wreathing,

And most from the mountains tall,

But God like a wind goes breathing

A heart-light of gold in all.

 

It grows like a tree and pushes

Its way through the inner gloom,

And flowers in quick little rushes

Of love to a magic bloom.

 

And no one need sigh now or sorrow

Whenever the heart-light flies,

For it comes again on some morrow

And nobody ever dies.

 

The heart of the Wise was beating

In the children's heart that day,

And many a thought came fleeting,

And fancies solemn and gay.

 

They were grave in a way divining

How childhood was taking wings,

And the wonder world was shining

With vast eternal things.

 

The solemn twilight fluttered

Like the plumes of seraphim,

And they felt what things were uttered

In the sunset voice of Him.

 

They lingered long, for dearer

Than home were the mountain places

Where God from the stars dropt nearer

Their pale, dreamy faces.

 

Their very hearts from beating

They stilled in awed delight.

For Spirit and children were meeting

In the purple, ample night.

 

Dusk its ash-grey blossoms sheds on violet skies

Over twilight mountains where the heart-songs rise,

Rise and fall and fade again from earth to air:

Earth renews the music sweeter. Oh, come there.

Come, ma cushla, come, as in ancient times

Rings aloud and the underland with faery chimes.

Down the unseen ways as strays each tinkling fleece

Winding ever onward to a fold of peace,

So my dreams go straying in a land more fair;

Half I tread the dew-wet grasses, half wander there.

Fade your glimmering eyes in a world grown cold:

Come, ma cushla, with me to the mountain's fold,

Where the bright ones call us waving to and fro:

Come, my children, with me to the Ancient go.

 

- AE (G.W. Russell)

(Irish Theosophist, October 15, 1896)[Rtn]

----------------------------------------

---- 36

 

A DAWN SONG

 

WHILE the earth is dark and grey

How I laugh within: I know

In my breast what ardours gay

From the morning overflow.

 

Though the cheek be white and wet

In my heart no fear may fall:

There my chieftain leads, and yet

Ancient battle-trumpets call.

 

Bend on me no hasty frown

If my spirit slight your cares:

Sunlike still my joy looks down

Changing tears to beamy airs.

 

Think me not of fickle heart

If with joy my bosom swells

Though your ways from mine depart:

In the true are no farewells.

 

What I love in you I find

Everywhere. A friend I greet

In each flower and tree and wind -

Oh, but life is sweet, is sweet.

 

What to you are bolts and bars

Are to me the hands that guide

To the freedom of the stars

Where my golden kinsmen bide.

 

From my mountain top I view:

Twilight's purple flower is gone,

And I send my song to you

On the level light of dawn.

 

- AE (G.W. Russell)

(Irish Theosophist, November 15, 1896)[Rtn]

------------------------------

---- 37

 

An Ancient Eden

OUR legends tell of aery fountains upspringing in Eri, and how the people of long ago saw them not but only the Tuatha de Danaan. Some deem it was the natural outflow of water at these places which was held to be sacred; but above fountain, rill and river rose up the enchanted froth and foam of invisible rills and rivers breaking forth from Tir-na-noge, the soul of the island, and glittering in the sunlight of its mystic day. What we see here is imaged forth from that invisible soul and is a path thereto. In the heroic Epic of Cuculain Standish O'Grady writes of such a fountain, and prefixes his chapter with the verse from Genesis, "And four rivers went forth from Eden to water the garden," and what follows in reference thereto.

 

THE FOUNTAIN OF SHADOWY BEAUTY

A Dream

 

I WOULD I could weave in

The colour, the wonder,

The song I conceive in

My heart while I ponder,

 

And show how it came like

The magi of old

Whose chant was a flame like

The dawn's voice of gold;

 

Who dreams followed near them

A murmur of birds,

And ear still could hear them

Unchanted in words.

 

In words I can only

Reveal thee my heart,

Oh, Light of the Lonely,

The shining impart.

 

Between the twilight and the dark

The lights danced up before my eyes:

I found no sleep or peace or rest,

But dreams of stars and burning skies.

 

I knew the faces of the day -

Dream faces, pale, with cloudy hair,

I know you not nor yet your home,

The Fount of Shadowy Beauty, where?

 

I passed a dream of gloomy ways

Where ne'er did human feet intrude:

It was the border of a wood,

A dreadful forest solitude.

 

With wondrous red and fairy gold

The clouds were woven o'er the ocean;

The stars in fiery aether swung

And danced with gay and glittering motion.

 

A fire leaped up within my heart

When first I saw the old sea shine;

As if a god were there revealed

I bowed my head in awe divine;

 

And long beside the dim sea marge

I mused until the gathering haze

Veiled from me where the silver tide

Ran in its thousand shadowy ways.

 

The black night dropped upon the sea:

The silent awe came down with it:

I saw fantastic vapours flit

As o'er the darkness of the pit.

 

When, lo! from out the furthest night

A speck of rose and silver light

Above a boat shaped wondrously

Came floating swiftly o'er the sea.

 

It was no human will that bore

The boat so fleetly to the shore

Without a sail spread or an oar.

 

The Pilot stood erect thereon

And lifted up his ancient face,

(Ancient with glad eternal youth

Like one who was of starry race.)

 

His face was rich with dusky bloom;

His eyes a bronze and golden fire;

His hair in streams of silver light

Hung flamelike on his strange attire

 

Which starred with many a mystic sign,

Fell as o'er sunlit ruby glowing:

His light flew o'er the waves afar

In ruddy ripples on each bar

Along the spiral pathways flowing.

 

It was a crystal boat that chased

The light along the watery waste,

Till caught amid the surges hoary

The Pilot stayed its jeweled glory.

 

Oh, never such a glory was:

The pale moon shot it through and through

With light of lilac, white and blue:

And there mid many a fairy hue

Of pearl and pink and amethyst,

Like lightning ran the rainbow gleams

And wove around a wonder-mist.

 

The Pilot lifted beckoning hands;

Silent I went with deep amaze

To know why came this Beam of Light

So far along the ocean ways

Out of the vast and shadowy night.

 

"Make haste, make haste!" he cried. "Away!

A thousand ages now are gone.

Yet thou and I ere night be sped

Will reck no more of eve or dawn."

 

Swift as the swallow to its nest

I leaped: my body dropt right down:

A silver star I rose and flew.

A flame burned golden at his breast:

I entered at the heart and knew

My Brother-Self who roams the deep,

Bird of the wonder-world of sleep.

 

The ruby body wrapped us round

As twain in one: we left behind

The league-long murmur of the shore

And fleeted swifter than the wind.

 

The distance rushed upon the bark:

We neared unto the mystic isles:

The heavenly city we could mark,

Its mountain light, its jewel dark,

Its pinnacles and starry piles.

 

The glory brightened: "Do not fear;

For we are real, though what seems

So proudly built above the waves

Is but one mighty spirit's dreams.

 

"Our Father's house hath many fanes;

Yet enter not and worship not,

For thought but follows after thought

Till last consuming self it wanes.

 

"The Fount of Shadowy Beauty flings

Its glamour o'er the light of day:

A music in the sunlight sings

To call the dreamy hearts away

Their mighty hopes to ease awhile:

We will not go the way of them:

The chant makes drowsy those who seek

The sceptre and the diadem.

 

"The Fount of Shadowy Beauty throws

Its magic round us all the night;

What things the heart would be, it sees

And chases them in endless flight.

Or coiled in phantom visions there

It builds within the halls of fire;

Its dreams flash like the peacock's wing

And glow with sun-hues of desire.

We will not follow in their ways

Nor heed the lure of fay or elf,

But in the ending of our days

Rest in the high Ancestral Self."

 

The boat of crystal touched the shore,

Then melted flamelike from our eyes,

As in the twilight drops the sun

Withdrawing rays of paradise.

 

We hurried under arched aisles

That far above in heaven withdrawn

With cloudy pillars stormed the night,

Rich as the opal shafts of dawn.

 

I would have lingered then - but he -

"Oh, let us haste: the dream grows dim,

Another night, another day,

A thousand years will part from him

"Who is that Ancient One divine

From whom our phantom being born

Rolled with the wonder-light around

Had started in the fairy morn.


"A thousand of our years to him

Are but the night, are but the day,

Wherein he rests from cyclic toil

Or chants the song of starry sway.

 

"He falls asleep: the Shadowy Fount

Fills all our heart with dreams of light:

He wakes to ancient spheres, and we

Through iron ages mourn the night.

We will not wander in the night

But in a darkness more divine

Shall join the Father Light of Lights

And rule the long-descended line."

 

Even then a vasty twilight fell:

Wavered in air the shadowy towers:

The city like a gleaming shell,

Its azures, opals, silvers, blues,

Were melting in more dreamy hues.

We feared the falling of the night

And hurried more our headlong flight.

In one long line the towers went by;

The trembling radiance dropt behind,

As when some swift and radiant one

Flits by and flings upon the wind

The rainbow tresses of the sun.

 

And then they vanished from our gaze

Faded the magic lights, and all

Into a Starry Radiance fell

As waters in their fountain fall.

 

We knew our time-long journey o'er

And knew the end of all desire,

And saw within the emerald glow

Our Father like the white sun-fire.

 

We could not say if age or youth

Were on his face: we only burned

To pass the gateways of the Day,

The exiles to the heart returned.

 

He rose to greet us and his breath,

The tempest music of the spheres,

Dissolved the memory of earth,

The cyclic labour and our tears.

In him our dream of sorrow passed,

The spirit once again was free

And heard the song the Morning-Stars

Chant in eternal revelry.

 

This was the close of human story;

We saw the deep unmeasured shine,

And sank within the mystic glory

They called of old the Dark Divine.

 

Well it is gone now,

The dream that I chanted:

On this side the dawn now

I sit fate-implanted.

 

But though of my dreaming

The dawn has bereft me,

It all was not seeming

For something has left me.

 

I fell in some other

World far from this cold light

The Dream Bird, my brother,

Is rayed with the gold light.

 

I too in the Father

Would hide me, and so,

Bright Bird, to foregather

With thee now I go.

 

- AE (G.W. Russell)

(Irish Theosophist, December 15, 1896)[Rtn]

----------------------------------

---- 38


A NEW EARTH

"Then felt I like some watcher of the skies

When a new planet swims within his ken."

 

I who had sought afar from earth

The faery land to greet,

Now find content within its girth,

And wonder nigh my feet.

 

To-day a nearer love I choose

And seek no distant sphere,

For aureoled by faery dews

The dear brown breasts appear.

 

With rainbow radiance come and go

The airy breaths of day,

And eve is all a pearly glow

With moonlit winds a-play.

 

The lips of twilight burn my brow,

The arms of night caress:

Glimmer her white eyes drooping now

With grave old tenderness.

 

I close mine eyes from dream to be

The diamond-rayed again,

As in the ancient hours ere we

Forgot ourselves to men.

 

And all I thought of heaven before

I find in earth below,

A sunlight in the hidden core

To dim the noon-day glow.

 

And with the Earth my heart is glad,

I move as one of old,

With mists of silver I am clad

And bright with burning gold.

 

- AE (G.W. Russell)

(Irish Theosophist, February 1896)

[This poem is entitled "A New World" in AE's Collected Poems] [Rtn]

---------------------------------

---- 39

 

DUALITY

 

"From me spring good and evil."

 

WHO gave thee such a ruby flaming heart,

And such a pure cold spirit? Side by side

I know these must eternally abide

In intimate war, and each to each impart

Life from their pain, with every joy a dart

To wound with grief or death the self-allied.

Red life within the spirit crucified,

The eyes eternal pity thee, thou art

Fated with deathless powers at war to be,

Not less the martyr of the world than he

Whose thorn-crowned brow usurps the due of tears

We would pay to thee, ever ruddy life,

Whose passionate peace is still to be at strife,

O'erthrown but in the unconflicting spheres.

 

(This is unsigned, but in AE's [G.W. Russell] Collected Poems)