The First Yeats by William Butler Yeats

Author:William Butler Yeats [Edward Larrissy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781847778437
Publisher: Carcanet
Published: 2011-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

NASCHINA, disguised as a shepherd-boy, enters with the ENCHANTRESS, the beautiful familiar of the Isle.

Naschina. What are the voices that in flowery ways

Have clothed their tongues with song of songless days?

Enchantress They are the flowers’ guardian sprites;

With streaming hair as wandering lights

They passed a-tiptoe everywhere,

And never heard of grief or care

Until this morn. The sky with wrack

Was banded as an adder’s back,

And they were sitting round a pool.

At their feet the waves in rings

Gently shook their moth-like wings;

For there came an air-breath cool

From the ever-moving pinions

Of the happy flower minions.

But a sudden melancholy

Filled them as they sat together;

Now their songs are mournful wholly

As they go with drooping feather.

Naschina. O Lady, thou whose vestiture of green

Is rolled as verdant smoke! O thou whose face

Is worn as though with fire! O goblin queen,

Lead me, I pray thee, to the statued place!

Enchantress. Fair youth, along a wandering way

I’ve led thee here, and as a wheel

We turned around the place alway,

Lest on thine heart the stony seal

As on those other hearts were laid.

Behold the brazen-gated glade!

[She partially opens the brazen gates. The statues are seen within. Some are bending, with their hands among the flowers; others are holding withered flowers.

Naschina. Oh, let me pass! The spells from off the heart

Of my sad hunter-friend will all depart

If on his lips the enchanted flower be laid.

Oh, let me pass!

[Leaning with an arm upon each gate.

Enchantress. That flower none

Who seek may find, save only one,

A shepherdess long years foretold;

And even she shall never hold

The flower, save some thing be found

To die for her in air or ground.

And none there is; if such there were,

E’en then, before her shepherd hair

Had left the island breeze, my lore

Had driven her forth, for evermore

To wander by the bubbling shore,

Laughter-lipped, but for her brain

A guerdon of deep-rooted pain,

And in her eyes a lightless stare;

For, if severed from the root

The enchanted flower were;

From my wizard island lair,

And the happy wingèd day,

I, as music that grows mute

On a girl’s forgotten lute,

Pass away –

Naschina. Your eyes are all aflash. She is not here.

Enchantress. I’d kill her if she were. Nay, do not fear!

With you I am all gentleness; in truth,

There’s little I’d refuse thee, dearest youth.

Naschina. It is my whim! bid some attendant sprite

Of thine cry over wold and water white,

That one shall die, unless one die for her.

’Tis but to see if anything will stir

For such a call. Let the wild word be cried

As though she whom you fear had crossed the wide

Swift lake.

Enchantress. A very little thing that is

And shall be done, if you will deign to kiss

My lips, fair youth.

Naschina. It shall be as you ask.

Enchantress. Forth! forth! O spirits, ye have heard your task!

Voices. We are gone!

Enchantress (sitting down by NASCHINA). Fair shepherd, as we wandered hither,

My words were all: ‘Here no loves wane and wither,

Where dream-fed passion is and peace encloses,

Where revel of foxglove is and revel of roses.’

My words were all: ‘O whither, whither, whither

Wilt roam away from this rich island rest?’

I bid thee stay, renouncing thy mad quest,

But

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