Joy Be With Us

Joy be with us, and honour close the tale;

Now do we dip the prow, and shake the sail,

And take the wind, and bid adieu to rest. 

With glad endeavour we begin the quest

That destiny commands, though where we go.

Or guided by what star, no man doth know. 

Unchartered  is  our  course,  our hearts untried.

And we may weary e'er we take the tide,

Or make  fair  haven  from  the moaning sea. 

Be ye propitous, winds of destiny,

On us at first blow not too boisterous bold;

All Ireland hath is packed into this hold.

Her hopes fly at the peak. Now it is dawn.

And we away. Be with us Mananaun.

Green Branches [1916]

The Spring In Ireland: 1916

(1)

Do not forget my charge I beg of you;

That of what flow'rs you find of fairest hue

And sweetest odour you do gather those

Are best of all the best — A fragrant rose,

A tall calm lily from the waterside,

A half-blown poppy leaning at the side

Its graceful head to dream among the corn,

Forget-me-nots that seem as though the morn

Had tumbled down and grew into the clay.

And hawthorn buds that swing along the way

Easing the hearts of those who pass them by

Until they find contentment — Do not cry,

But gather buds, and with them greenery

Of slender branches taken from a tree

Well bannered by the spring that saw them fall:

Then you, for you are cleverest of all

Who have slim fingers and are pitiful,

Brimming your lap with bloom that you may cull,

Will sit apart, and weave for every head

A garland of the flow'rs you gatheréd

(2)

Be green upon the graves, O happy Spring,

For they were young and eager who are dead;

Of all the things that are young and quivering

With eager life by they rememberéd:

They move not here, they have gone to the clay,

They cannot die again in liberty;

Be they remembered of the land and aye;

Green be their graves and green their memory.

Fragrance and beauty come in with the green,

The ragged bushes put on sweet attire,

The birds forget how chill these airs have been,

The clouds bloom out again and move in fire; 

Blue is the dawn of day, calm is the lake.

And merry sounds are fitful in the morn;

In covert deep the young blackbirds awake,

They shake their wings and sing upon the morn.

At springtime of the year you came and swung

Green flags above the newly-greening earth;

Scarce were the leaves unfolded, they were young,

Nor had outgrown the wrinkles of their birth:

Comrades  they  thought you of their pleasant hour,

They had but glimpsed the sun when they saw you;

They heard your songs e'er birds had singing power,

And drank your blood e'er that they drank the dew.

Then you went down, and then, and as in pain.

The Spring affrighted fled her leafy ways,

The clouds came to the earth in gusty rain,

And no sun shone again for many days:

And day by day they told that one was dead,

And day by day the season mourned for you,

Until that count of woe was finished.

And spring remembered all was yet to do.

She came with mirth of wind and eager leaf,

With scampering feet and reaching out of wings,

She laughed among the boughs and banished grief,

And cared again for all her baby things:

Leading along the joy that has to be,

Bidding her timid buds think on the May,

And told that summer comes with victory,

And told the hope that is all creatures stay.

Go Winter now unto your own abode,

Your time is done, and Spring is conqueror

Lift up with all your gear and take your road.

For she is here and brings the sun with her;

Now are we resurrected, now are we,

Who lay so long beneath an icy hand,

New-risen into life and liberty.

Because the Spring is come into our land

(3)

In other lands they may,

With public joy or dole along the way,

With pomp and pagentry and loud lament

Of drums and trumpets, and with merriment

Of grateful hearts, lead into rest and sted

The nation's dead.

If we had drums and trumpets, if we had

Aught of heroic pitch or accent glad

To honour you as bids tradition old,

With banners flung or draped in mournful fold,

And pacing cortege; these would we not bring

For your last journeying.

We have no drums or trumpets; naught have we

But some green branches taken from a tree.

And flowers that grow at large in mead and vale;

Nothing of choice have we, or of avail

To do you honour as our honour deems,

And as your worth beseems.

Sleep drums and trumpets yet a little time:

All ends and all begins, and there is chime

At last where discord was, and joy at last

Where woe wept out her eyes: be not downcast,

Here is prosperity and goodly cheer,

For life does follow death, and death is here.

Green Branches [1916]

The Autumn In Ireland: 1915

(I)

It may be on a quiet mountaintop,

Or in a valley folded among hills

You take your path, and often you will stop

To hear the pleasant chatter of the rills,

The piping of a wind in branches green,

The murmuring of widely-lifted spray

As long boughs swing

And hear the twittering

Of drowsy birds when the great sun is seen

Climbing the steep horizon to the day.

The lovely moon trailing her silver dress

By quiet waters. Each living star

Moving apart in holy quietness,

Sphere over golden sphere moving afar,

These I can see;

And the unquiet zone

Rolling in snow along the edge of sight.

The world is very fair, and I am free

To see its beauty and to be

In solitude, and quite forget, and quite

Lose out of memory all I have known

Of everything but this.

(2)

Straying apart in sad and mournful way,

Alone, or with my heart for company.

Keeping the tone of a dejected day

And a bewilderment that came to me;

I said — The Spring

Will never come again, and there is end

Of everything.

Day after day

The sap will ebb away from the great tree,

And when the sap is gone

Then piteously

She tumbles to the clay:

And we say only — Such a one

Had pleasant shade, but there is

end of her. —

And you, and even you, the year

Will drain and dry, and you will disappear.

Then to my heart there came so wild a stir.

And such great pity and astonishment,

And such a start of fear and woe had I.

That where I went I did not know,

And only this did know,

That you could die.

(3)

I would have liked to sing from fuller throat 

To you who sang so well, but here

I stay

Resting the music on a falling note,

And hear it die away and die away,

With beauty unrehearsed, and life and love

Unsung. 

For I had clung,

With what of laughter and of eagerness,

Unto the hope that I might chance to be

The maker of a music nothing less

Than those great poets of antiquity,

Who sang of clouds and winds, of hills and clods,

Of trees and streams, and of the mind of man;

And chaunted too the universal gods.

And their high guardianship since time began;

And did not fail before a theme although

It passed the reason.

(4)

I heard a bird sing in the woods today

A failing song.

The times had caught on him.

In autumn boughs he tried a wonted lay,

And was abashed to find his music grim

As the crows song.

Then, when I raised an air

To comfort him,

I wretched was to hear

The crow did croak and chatter everywhere

Inside my ear

And so, behold,

I am a saddened elf;

And, as a deer

Flies timidly to shade,

I fly to laughter and I hide myself,

And couch me in the coverts that I made

Against those bold ambitions, and forswear

The palm, the prize, or what it is of gear

A poet gets with his appointed share

Of bread and beer.

(5)

Upon the grass I drop this tuneful reed,

And turn from it aside, and turn from more

That I had fancied to be mine indeed

Beyond all reclamation. See the door

Set in the boundary wall yawns windily,

It will be shut when I have wandered through.

And open will no more again for me

This side of life whatever thing I do.

And so, good-bye, and so, goodnight to you.

And farewell all. Behold the lifted hand.

And the long last look upon the view.

And the last glimpse of that most lovely land.

And thus away unto the mundane sphere,

And look not back again nor turn anew.

And hear no more that laughter at the ear,

And sing no more for you.

Green Branches [1916]