No More Learning

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
Who sought thee at the Holy Sepulchre,
Or in the wine-vat, dwell beyond the stir
And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep
Among pale eyelids heavy with the sleep
Men have named beauty. Your great leaves enfold
The ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold
Of the crowned Magi; and the king whose eyes
Saw the Pierced Hands and Rood of Elder rise
In druid vapour and make the torches dim;
Till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and him
Who met Fand walking among flaming dew,
By a grey shore where the wind never blew,
And lost the world and Emir for a kiss;
And him who drove the gods out of their liss
And till 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? _


THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE OUTCAST

A MAN, with thin brown hair and a pale face, half ran, half walked,
along the road that wound from the south to the town of Sligo. Many
called him Cumhal, the son of Cormac, and many called him the Swift,
Wild Horse; and he was a gleeman, and he wore a short parti-coloured
doublet, and had pointed shoes, and a bulging wallet. Also he was of
the blood of the Ernaans, and his birth-place was the Field of Gold;
but his eating and sleeping places were the four provinces of Eri, and
his abiding place was not upon the ridge of the earth.
His eyes strayed
from the Abbey tower of the White Friars and the town battlements to
a row of crosses which stood out against the sky upon a hill a little
to the eastward of the town, and he clenched his fist, and shook it at
the crosses. He knew they were not empty, for the birds were fluttering
about them; and he thought how, as like as not, just such another
vagabond as himself was hanged on one of them; and he muttered: 'If it
were hanging or bowstringing, or stoning or beheading, it would be bad
enough. But to have the birds pecking your eyes and the wolves eating
your feet! I would that the red wind of the Druids had withered in
his cradle the soldier of Dathi, who brought the tree of death out of
barbarous lands, or that the lightning, when it smote Dathi at the foot
of the mountain, had smitten him also, or that his grave had been dug
by the green-haired and green-toothed merrows deep at the roots of the
deep sea. '

While he spoke, he shivered from head to foot, and the sweat came
out upon his face, and he knew not why, for he had looked upon many
crosses. He passed over two hills and under the battlemented gate, and
then round by a left-hand way to the door of the Abbey. It was studded
with great nails, and when he knocked at it, he roused the lay brother
who was the porter, and of him he asked a place in the guest-house.
Then the lay brother took a glowing turf on a shovel, and led the way
to a big and naked outhouse strewn with very dirty rushes; and lighted
a rush-candle fixed between two of the stones of the wall, and set
the glowing turf upon the hearth and gave him two unlighted sods and
a wisp of straw, and showed him a blanket hanging from a nail, and a
shelf with a loaf of bread and a jug of water, and a tub in a far
corner. Then the lay brother left him and went back to his place by
the door. And Cumhal the son of Cormac began to blow upon the glowing
turf that he might light the two sods and the wisp of straw; but the
sods and the straw would not light, for they were damp. So he took off
his pointed shoes, and drew the tub out of the corner with the thought
of washing the dust of the highway from his feet; but the water was so
dirty that he could not see the bottom. He was very hungry, for he had
not eaten all that day; so he did not waste much anger upon the tub,
but took up the black loaf, and bit into it, and then spat out the
bite, for the bread was hard and mouldy. Still he did not give way to
his anger, for he had not drunken these many hours; having a hope of
heath beer or wine at his day's end, he had left the brooks untasted,
to make his supper the more delightful. Now he put the jug to his lips,
but he flung it from him straightway, for the water was bitter and
ill-smelling. Then he gave the jug a kick, so that it broke against
the opposite wall, and he took down the blanket to wrap it about him
for the night. But no sooner did he touch it than it was alive with
skipping fleas.