Poems by George William Russell

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Tarry thou yet, late lingerer in the twilight's glory:
While the earth is dark and grey
I know myself no more, my child,
"Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
O, holy Spirit of the Hazel, hearken now,
Her mist of primroses within her breast
Where we sat at dawn together, while the star-rich heavens shifted,
His head within my bosom lay,
All the morn a spirit gay
Not unremembering we pass our exile from the starry ways:
The blue dusk ran between the streets; my love was winged within my mind;
Our true hearts are forever lonely:
Twilight, a blossom grey in shadowy valleys dwells:
When the breath of twilight blows to flame the misty skies,
Dark head by the fireside brooding,
As one by one the veils took flight,
I am the tender voice calling 'Away,'
Still as the holy of holies breathes the vast
In day from some titanic past it seems
Heart-hidden from the outer things I rose,
With thee a moment! Then what dreams have play!
The heavens lay hold on us: the starry rays
"From me spring good and evil."
Dusk wraps the village in its dim caress;
I heard them in their sadness say,
He bent above: so still her breath
The Shadow
At dusk the window panes grew grey;
--[St. John, i. 1-33]
Though swift the days flow from her day,
What is the love of shadowy lips
We must pass like smoke or live within the spirit's fire;
Within the iron cities
Still rests the heavy share on the dark soil:
Image of beauty, when I gaze on thee,
'I am Beauty itself among beautiful things.'
--After reading the Upanishads
We are tired who follow after
Heart-hidden from the outer things I rose;
Faint grew the yellow buds of light
Men have made them gods of love,
As from our dream we died away
Oh, be not led away,
FOR BRIAN WHEN HE IS GROWN UP THIS HANDFUL OF THE NUTS OF KNOWLEDGE I HAVE GATHERED ON THE SECRET STREAMS.
What call may draw thee back again,
I begin through the grass once again to be bound to the Lord;
How shallow is this mere that gleams!
There were many burning hours on the heart-sweet tide,
On me to rest, my bird, my bird:
Those delicate wanderers,
Dusk its ash-grey blossoms sheds on violet skies,
--"His candle shined upon my head, and by his light I walked
What of all the will to do?
Now when the spirit in us wakes and broods,
From the cool and dark-lipped furrows
A shaft of fire that falls like dew,
Their wise little heads with scorning
Come earth's little children pit-pat from their burrows on the hill;
This mood hath known all beauty for it sees
I did not deem it half so sweet
The children awoke in their dreaming
From the cool and dark-lipped furrow breathes a dim delight
While our vision, backward cast,
I would I could weave in
They bathed in the fire-flooded fountains;
Its edges foamed with amethyst and rose,
We are desert leagues apart;
Now the quietude of earth
By many a dream of God and man my thoughts in shining flocks were led:
Who would think this quiet breather
Twilight, a timid fawn, went glimmering by,
"They took Iesous and scourged him."--St. John
"The mountain was filled with the hosts of the Tuatha de Dannan."
I have wept a million tears:
A laughter in the diamond air, a music in the trembling grass;
In the wet dusk silver-sweet,
A cabin on the mountain side hid in a grassy nook
'Sinend daughter of Lodan Lucharglan, son of Lir, out of the
Two small sweet lives together
The skies from black to pearly grey
'The soul is its own witness and its own refuge'
"Those who there take refuge nevermore return."--Bhagavad Gita
One thing in all things have I seen:
The wonder of the world is o'er:
I pitied one whose tattered dress
Who is that goddess to whom men should pray
The twilight fleeted away in pearl on the stream,
They sat with hearts untroubled,
The grey road whereupon we trod became as holy ground:
It was the fairy of the place,
Oh, be not led away.
Your paths were all unknown to us:
O hero of the iron age,
While the yellow constellations shine with pale and tender glory,