George William Russell

Late, late, I come to you, now death discloses Love that in life was not to be our part: On your low lying mound between the roses, Sadly I cast my heart.

I have met other women who were tender, As you were cold, dear! with a grace as rare. Think you, I turned to them, or made surrender, I who had found you fair?

Nay, let this earth, your portion, likewise cover All the old anger, setting us apart: Always, in all, in truth was I your lover; Always, I held your heart.

What is the use of speech? Silence were fitter: Lest we should still be wishing things unsaid. Though all the words we ever spake were bitter, Shall I reproach you, dead?

You would have understood me, had you waited; I could have loved you, dear! as well as he: Had we not been impatient, dear! and fated Always to disagree.

Here's to you, men I never met, Yet hope to meet behind the veil, Thronged on some starry parapet, That looks down upon Innisfail, And sees the confluence of dreams That clashed together in our night,

The hope lives on age after age, Earth with its beauty might be won For labor as a heritage, For this has Ireland lost a son.

Life cannot utter words more great Than life may meet by sacrifice, High words were equaled by high fate, You paid the price. You paid the price.

You who have died on Eastern hills Or fields of France as undismayed, Who lit with interlinked wills The long heroic barricade, You, too, in all the dreams you had, Thought of some thing for Ireland done.

Their dream had left me numb and cold, But yet my spirit rose in pride, Refashioning in burnished gold The images of those who died, Or were shut in the penal cell. Here's to you, Pearse, your dream not mine,

You may succeed in your policy and ensure your own damnation by your victory.

Cry aloud to heaven for new souls.

The conception of yourselves as altogether virtuous and wronged is, I assure you, not at all the one which onlookers hold of you. No doubt, you have rights on your side. No doubt, some of you suffered without just cause. But nothing which …

The relation of landlord and tenant is not an ideal one, but any relations in a social order will endure if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy, which qualifies life for immortality.

Ah, when I think this earth on which we tread Hath borne these blossoms of the lovely dead, And made the living heart I love to beat, I look with sudden awe beneath my feet As you with erring reverence overhead.

Aye, after victory, the crown; Yet through the fight no word of cheer; And what would win and what go down No word could help, no light make clear. A thousand ages onward led Their joys and sorrows to that hour;

Let me dream only with my heart, Love first, and after see: Know thy diviner counterpart Before I kneel to thee. So in thy motions all expressed Thy angel I may view:

Oh, what is worth this lore of age If time shall never bring us back Our battle with the gods to wage Reeling along the starry track. The battle rapture here goes by In warring upon things that die.

The wonder of the world is o'er: The magic from the sea is gone: There is no unimagined shore, No islet yet to venture on. The Sacred Hazels' blooms are shed, The Nuts of Knowledge harvested.

He said, 'The royal robe I wear Trails all along the fields of light: Its silent blue and silver bear For gems the starry dust of night.' 'The breath of joy unceasingly Waves to and fro its folds starlit,

I pitied one whose tattered dress Was patched, and stained with dust and rain; He smiled on me; I could not guess The viewless spirit's wide domain.

He felt an inner secret joy! A spirit of unfettered will Through light and darkness moving still Within the All to find its own, To be immortal and alone.

Ah, immortality so blind, To dream all things with it conjoined Must follow it from star to star And share with it immortal years. The memory, yearning, grief, and tears, Fall from it and it goes afar.

Love's immortality so blind Dreams that all things with it conjoined Must share with it immortal day: But not of this—but not of this— The touch, the eyes, the laugh, the kiss, Fall from it and it goes its way.