The Everlasting Voices

W. B. Yeats - 1865-1939

O sweet everlasting Voices be still;

Go to the guards of the heavenly fold

And bid them wander obeying your will

Flame under flame, till Time be no more;

Have you not heard that our hearts are old,

That you call in birds, in wind on the hill,

In shaken boughs, in tide on the shore?

O sweet everlasting Voices be still.

This poem is in the public domain.

I whispered, "I am too young," And then, "I am old enough"; Wherefore I threw a penny To find out if I might love. "Go and love, go and love, young man, If the lady be young and fair," Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny, I am looped in the loops of her hair. Oh, love is the crooked thing, There is nobody wise enough To find out all that is in it, For he would be thinking of love Till the stars had run away, And the shadows eaten the moon. Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny, One cannot begin it too soon.

The quarrel of the sparrows in the eaves, The full round moon and the star-laden sky, And the loud song of the ever-singing leaves, Had hid away earth's old and weary cry. And then you came with those red mournful lips, And with you came the whole of the world's tears, And all the sorrows of her labouring ships, And all the burden of her myriad years. And now the sparrows warring in the eaves, The curd-pale moon, the white stars in the sky, And the loud chaunting of the unquiet leaves Are shaken with earth's old and weary cry.

(Song from an Unfinished Play) My mother dandled me and sang, 'How young it is, how young!' And made a golden cradle That on a willow swung. 'He went away,' my mother sang, 'When I was brought to bed,' And all the while her needle pulled The gold and silver thread. She pulled the thread and bit the thread And made a golden gown, And wept because she had dreamt that I Was born to wear a crown. 'When she was got,' my mother sang, 'I heard a sea-mew cry, And saw a flake of the yellow foam That dropped upon my thigh.' How therefore could she help but braid The gold into my hair, And dream that I should carry The golden top of care?

i am witness to the threshing of the grain the man of corn hanging from a dry oak bough bade us to be silent in our flailing he bade us the understanding that pervades the silence that is veiled his whisper is no louder than the locust bade us no louder whrr chk chk whrr whrr chk chk flailed man threshed and scythed hung man of the harvest wheat bearded one unfleshed none the mistletoe on our smoky plain thus man sheared by the sun sterile fruit of the dry oak bough hanging turned gently to caress a wing of crows and turned and saw and bade us to be silent

Poems

The Everlasting Voices

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