Spirits in Bondage/escape

Song of the Pilgrims
O Dwellers at the back of the North Wind, What have we done to you? How have we sinned Wandering the Earth from Orkney unto Ind?

With many deaths our fellowship is thinned, Our flesh is withered in the parching wind, Wandering the earth from Orkney unto Ind.

We have no rest. We cannot turn again Back to the world and all her fruitless pain, Having once sought the land where ye remain.

Some say ye are not. But, ah God! we know That somewhere, somewhere past the Northern snow Waiting for us the red-rose gardens blow:

-The red-rose and the white-rose gardens blow In the green Northern land to which we go, Surely the ways are long and the years are slow.

We have forsaken all things sweet and fair, We have found nothing worth a moment's care Because the real flowers are blowing there.

Land of the Lotus fallen from the sun, Land of the Lake from whence all rivers run, Land where the hope of all our dreams is won!

Shall we not somewhere see at close of day The green walls of that country far away, And hear the music of her fountains play?

So long we have been wandering all this while By many a perilous sea and drifting isle, We scarce shall dare to look thereon and smile.

Yea, when we are drawing very near to thee, And when at last the ivory port we see Our hearts will faint with mere felicity:

But we shall wake again in gardens bright Of green and gold for infinite delight, Sleeping beneath the solemn mountains white, While from the flowery copses still unseen Sing out the crooning birds that ne'er have been Touched by the hand of winter frore and lean;

And ever living queens that grow not old And poets wise in robes of faerie gold Whisper a wild, sweet song that first was told

Ere God sat down to make the Milky Way. And in those gardens we shall sleep and play For ever and for ever and a day.

Ah, Dwellers at the back of the North Wind, What have we done to you? How have we sinned, That yes should hide beyond the Northern wind?

Land of the Lotus, fallen from the Sun, When shall your hidden, flowery vales be won And all the travail of our way be done?

Very far we have searched; we have even seen The Scythian waste that bears no soft nor green, And near the Hideous Pass our feet have been.

We have heard Syrens singing all night long Beneath the unknown stars their lonely song In friendless seas beyond the Pillars strong.

Nor by the dragon-daughter of Hypocras Nor the vale of the Devil's head we have feared to pass, Yet is our labour lost and vain, alas!

Scouring the earth from Orkney unto Ind, Tossed on the seas and withered in the wind, We seek and seek your land. How have we sinned?

Or is it all a folly of the wise, Bidding us walk these ways with blinded eyes While all around us real flowers arise?

But, by the very God, we know, we know That somewhere still, beyond the Northern snow Waiting for us the red-rose gardens blow.

Song
Faeries must be in the woods Or the satyrs' laughing broods- Tritons in the summer sea, Else how could the dead things be Half so lovely as they are? How could wealth of star on star Dusted o'er the frosty night Fill thy spirit with delight And lead thee from this care of thine Up among the dreams divine, Were it not that each and all Of them that walk the heavenly hall Is in truth a happy isle, Where eternal meadows smile, And golden globes of fruit are seen Twinkling through the orchards green; Were the Other People go On the bright sward to and fro? Atoms dead could never thus Stir the human heart of us Unless the beauty that we see The veil of endless beauty be, Filled full of spirits that have trod Far hence along the heavenly sod And see the bright footprints of God.

The Ass
I woke and rose and slipt away To the heathery hills in the morning grey.

In a field where the dew lay cold and deep I met an ass, new-roused from sleep.

I stroked his nose and I tickled his ears, And spoke soft words to quiet his fears.

His eyes stared into the eyes of me And he kissed my hands of his courtesy.

"O big, brown brother out of the waste, How do thistles for breakfast taste?

"And do you rejoice in the dawn divine With a heart that is glad no less than mine?

"For, brother, the depth of your gentle eyes Is strange and mystic as the skies:

"What are the thoughts that grope behind, Down in the mist of a donkey mind?

"Can it be true, as the wise men tell, That you are a mask of God as well,

"And, as in us, so in you no less Speaks the eternal Loveliness,

"And words of the lips that all things know Among the thoughts of a donkey go?

"However it be, O four-foot brother, Fair to-day is the earth, our mother.

"God send you peace and delight thereof, And all green meat of the waste you love,

"And guard you well from violent men Who'd put you back in the shafts again."

But the ass had far too wise a head To answer one of the things I said,

So he twitched his fair ears up and down And turned to nuzzle his shoulder brown.

Ballade Mystique
The big, red-house is bare and lone The stony garden waste and sere With blight of breezes ocean blown To pinch the wakening of the year; My kindly friends with busy cheer My wretchedness could plainly show. They tell me I am lonely here- What do they know? What do they know?

They think that while the gables moan And easements creak in winter drear I should be piteously alone Without the speech of comrades dear; And friendly for my sake they fear, It grieves them thinking of me so While all their happy life is near- What do they know? What do they know?

That I have seen the Dagda's throne In sunny lands without a tear And found a forest all my own To ward with magic shield and spear, Where, through the stately towers I rear For my desire, around me go Immortal shapes of beauty clear: They do not know, they do not know.

L'Envoi

The friends I have without a peer Beyond the western ocean's glow, Whither the faerie galleys steer, They do not know: how should they know?

Night
I know a little Druid wood Where I would slumber if I could And have the murmuring of the stream To mingle with a midnight dream, And have the holy hazel trees To play above me in the breeze, And smell the thorny eglantine; For there the white owls all night long In the scented gloom divine Hear the wild, strange, tuneless song Of faerie voices, thin and high As the bat's unearthly cry, And the measure of their shoon Dancing, dancing, under the moon, Until, amid the pale of dawn The wandering stars begin to swoon. . . . Ah, leave the world and come away!

The windy folk are in the glade, And men have seen their revels, laid In secret on some flowery lawn Underneath the beechen covers, Kings of old, I've heard them say, Here have found them faerie lovers That charmed them out of life and kissed Their lips with cold lips unafraid, And such a spell around them made That they have passed beyond the mist And found the Country-under-wave. . ..

Kings of old, whom none could save!

Oxford
It is well that there are palaces of peace And discipline and dreaming and desire, Lest we forget our heritage and cease The Spirit's work-to hunger and aspire:

Lest we forget that we were born divine, Now tangled in red battle's animal net, Murder the work and lust the anodyne, Pains of the beast 'gainst bestial solace set.

But this shall never be: to us remains One city that has nothing of the beast, That was not built for gross, material gains, Sharp, wolfish power or empire's glutted feast.

We are not wholly brute. To us remains A clean, sweet city lulled by ancient streams, A place of visions and of loosening chains, A refuge of the elect, a tower of dreams.

She was not builded out of common stone But out of all men's yearning and all prayer That she might live, eternally our own, The Spirit's stronghold-barred against despair.

Hymn (For Boys' Voices)
All the things magicians do Could be done by me and you Freely, if we only knew.

Human children every day Could play at games the faeries play If they were but shown the way.

Every man a God would be Laughing through eternity If as God's his eyes could see.

All the wizardries of God- Slaying matter with a nod, Charming spirits with his rod,

With the singing of his voice Making lonely lands rejoice, Leaving us no will nor choice,

Drawing headlong me and you As the piping Orpheus drew Man and beast the mountains through,

By the sweetness of his horn Calling us from lands forlorn Nearer to the widening morn-

All that loveliness of power Could be man's peculiar dower, Even mine, this very hour;

We should reach the Hidden Land And grow immortal out of hand, If we could but understand!

We could revel day and night In all power and all delight If we learn to think aright.

"Our Daily Bread"
We need no barbarous words nor solemn spell To raise the unknown. It lies before our feet; There have been men who sank down into Hell In some suburban street,

And some there are that in their daily walks Have met archangels fresh from sight of God, Or watched how in their beans and cabbage-stalks Long files of faerie trod.

Often me too the Living voices call In many a vulgar and habitual place, I catch a sight of lands beyond the wall, I see a strange god's face.

And some day this work will work upon me so I shall arise and leave both friends and home And over many lands a pilgrim go Through alien woods and foam,

Seeking the last steep edges of the earth Whence I may leap into that gulf of light Wherein, before my narrowing Self had birth, Part of me lived aright.

How He Saw Angus the God
I heard the swallow sing in the eaves and rose All in a strange delight while others slept, And down the creaking stair, alone, tip-toes, So carefully I crept.

The house was dark with silly blinds yet drawn, But outside the clean air was filled with light, And underneath my feet the cold, wet lawn With dew was twinkling bright.

The cobwebs hung from every branch and spray Gleaming with pearly strands of laden thread, And long and still the morning shadows lay Across the meadows spread.

At that pure hour when yet no sound of man, Stirs in the whiteness of the wakening earth, Alone through innocent solitudes I ran Singing aloud for mirth.

Till I had found the open mountain heath Yellow with gorse, and rested there and stood To gaze upon the misty sea beneath, Or on the neighbouring wood,

-That little wood of hazel and tall pine And youngling fir, where oft we have loved to see The level beams of early morning shine Freshly from tree to tree.

Through the denser wood there's many a pool Of deep and night-born shadow lingers yet Where the new-wakened flowers are damp and cool And the long grass is wet.

In the sweet heather long I rested there Looking upon the dappled, early sky, When suddenly, from out the shining air A god came flashing by.

Swift, naked, eager, pitilessly fair, With a live crown of birds about his head, Singing and fluttering, and his fiery hair, Far out behind him spread,

Streamed like a rippling torch upon the breeze Of his own glorious swiftness: in the grass He bruised no feathery stalk, and through the trees I saw his whiteness pass.

But when I followed him beyond the wood, Lo! He was changed into a solemn bull That there upon the open pasture stood And browsed his lazy full.

The Roads
I stand on the windy uplands among the hills of Down With all the world spread out beneath, meadow and sea and town, And ploughlands on the far-off hills that glow with friendly brown.

And ever across the rolling land to the far horizon line, Where the blue hills border the misty west, I see the white roads twine, The rare roads and the fair roads that call this heart of mine.

I see them dip in the valleys and vanish and rise and bend From shadowy dell to windswept fell, and still to the West they wend, And over the cold blue ridge at last to the great world's uttermost end.

And the call of the roads is upon me, a desire in my spirit has grown To wander forth in the highways, 'twixt earth and sky alone, And seek for the lands no foot has trod and the seas no sail has known:

For the lands to the west of the evening and east of the morning's birth, Where the gods unseen in their valleys green are glad at the ends of the earth And fear no morrow to bring them sorrow, nor night to quench their mirth.

Hesperus
Through the starry hollow Of the summer night I would follow, follow Hesperus the bright, To seek beyond the western wave His garden of delight.

Hesperus the fairest Of all gods that are, Peace and dreams thou bearest In thy shadowy car, And often in my evening walks I've blessed thee from afar.

Stars without number, Dust the noon of night, Thou the early slumber And the still delight Of the gentle twilit hours Rulest in thy right.

When the pale skies shiver, Seeing night is done, Past the ocean-river, Lightly thou dost run, To look for pleasant, sleepy lands, That never fear the sun.

Where, beyond the waters Of the outer sea, Thy triple crown of daughters That guards the golden tree Sing out across the lonely tide A welcome home to thee.

And while the old, old dragon For joy lifts up his head, They bring thee forth a flagon Of nectar foaming red, And underneath the drowsy trees Of poppies strew thy bed.

Ah! that I could follow In thy footsteps bright, Through the starry hollow Of the summer night, Sloping down the western ways To find my heart's delight!

The Star Bath
A place uplifted towards the midnight sky Far, far away among the mountains old, A treeless waste of rocks and freezing cold, Where the dead, cheerless moon rode neighbouring by- And in the midst a silent tarn there lay, A narrow pool, cold as the tide that flows Where monstrous bergs beyond Varanger stray, Rising from sunless depths that no man knows; Thither as clustering fireflies have I seen At fixed seasons all the stars come down To wash in that cold wave their brightness clean And win the special fire wherewith they crown The wintry heavens in frost. Even as a flock Of falling birds, down to the pool they came. I saw them and I heard the icy shock Of stars engulfed with hissing of faint flame -Ages ago before the birth of men Or earliest beast. Yet I was still the same That now remember, knowing not where or when.

Tu Ne Quaesieris
For all the lore of Lodge and Myers I cannot heal my torn desires, Nor hope for all that man can speer To make the riddling earth grow clear. Though it were sure and proven well That I shall prosper, as they tell, In fields beneath a different sun By shores where other oceans run, When this live body that was I Lies hidden from the cheerful sky, Yet what were endless lives to me If still my narrow self I be And hope and fail and struggle still, And break my will against God's will, To play for stakes of pleasure and pain And hope and fail and hope again, Deluded, thwarted, striving elf That through the window of my self As through a dark glass scarce can see A warped and masked reality? But when this searching thought of mine Is mingled in the large Divine, And laughter that was in my mouth Runs through the breezes of the South, When glory I have built in dreams Along some fiery sunset gleams, And my dead sin and foolishness Grow one with Nature's whole distress, To perfect being I shall win, And where I end will Life begin.

Lullaby
Lullaby! Lullaby! There's a tower strong and high Built of oak and brick and stone, Stands before a wood alone. The doors are of the oak so brown As any ale in Oxford town, The walls are builded warm and thick Of the old red Roman brick, The good grey stone is over all In arch and floor of the tower tall. And maidens three are living there All in the upper chamber fair, Hung with silver, hung with pall, And stories painted on the wall. And softly goes the whirring loom In my ladies' upper room, For they shall spin both night and day Until the stars do pass away. But every night at evening. The window open wide they fling, And one of them says a word they know And out as three white swans they go, And the murmuring of the woods is drowned In the soft wings' whirring sound, As they go flying round, around, Singing in swans' voices high A lonely, lovely lullaby.

World's Desire
Love, there is a castle built in a country desolate, On a rock above a forest where the trees are grim and great, Blasted with the lightning sharp-giant boulders strewn between, And the mountains rise above, and the cold ravine Echoes to the crushing roar and thunder of a mighty river Raging down a cataract. Very tower and forest quiver And the grey wolves are afraid and the call of birds is drowned, And the thought and speech of man in the boiling water's sound. But upon the further side of the barren, sharp ravine With the sunlight on its turrets is the castle seen, Calm and very wonderful, white above the green Of the wet and waving forest, slanted all away, Because the driving Northern wind will not rest by night or day. Yet the towers are sure above, very mighty is the stead, The gates are made of ivory, the roofs of copper red.

Round and round the warders grave walk upon the walls for ever And the wakeful dragons couch in the ports of ivory, Nothing is can trouble it, hate of the gods nor man's endeavour, And it shall be a resting-place, dear heart, for you and me.

Through the wet and waving forest with an age-old sorrow laden Singing of the world's regret wanders wild the faerie maiden, Through the thistle and the brier, through the tangles of the thorn, Till her eyes be dim with weeping and her homeless feet are torn.

Often to the castle gate up she looks with vain endeavour, For her soulless loveliness to the castle winneth never.

But within the sacred court, hidden high upon the mountain, Wandering in the castle gardens lovely folk enough there be, Breathing in another air, drinking of a purer fountain And among that folk, beloved, there's a place for you and me.

Death in Battle
Open the gates for me, Open the gates of the peaceful castle, rosy in the West, In the sweet dim Isle of Apples over the wide sea's breast,

Open the gates for me!

Sorely pressed have I been And driven and hurt beyond bearing this summer day, But the heat and the pain together suddenly fall away, All's cool and green.

But a moment agone, Among men cursing in fight and toiling, blinded I fought, But the labour passed on a sudden even as a passing thought,

And now-alone!

Ah, to be ever alone, In flowery valleys among the mountains and silent wastes untrod, In the dewy upland places, in the garden of God, This would atone!

I shall not see The brutal, crowded faces around me, that in their toil have grown Into the faces of devils-yea, even as my own- When I find thee,

O Country of Dreams! Beyond the tide of the ocean, hidden and sunk away, Out of the sound of battles, near to the end of day, Full of dim woods and streams.