George William Russell

--After reading the Upanishads


Out of the dusky chamber of the brain
Flows the imperial will through dream on dream;
The fires of life around it tempt and gleam;
The lights of earth behind it fade and wane.

Passed beyond beauty tempting dream on dream,
The pure will seeks the hearthold of the light;
Sounds the deep "OM," the mystic word of might;
Forth from the hearthold breaks the living stream.

Passed out beyond the deep heart music-filled,
The kingly Will sits on the ancient throne,
Wielding the sceptre, fearless, free, alone,
Knowing in Brahma all it dared and willed.

--June 15, 1894

We are tired who follow after
Phantasy and truth that flies:
You with only look and laughter
Stain our hearts with richest dyes.

When you break upon our study
Vanish all our frosty cares;
As the diamond deep grows ruddy,
Filled with morning unawares.

With the stuff that dreams are made of
But an empty house we build:
Glooms we are ourselves afraid of,
By the ancient starlight chilled.

All unwise in thought or duty--
Still our wisdom envies you:
We who lack the living beauty
Half our secret knowledge rue.

Thought nor fear in you nor dreaming
Veil the light with mist about;
Joy, as through a crystal gleaming,
Flashes from the gay heart out.

Pain and penitence forsaking,
Hearts like cloisters dim and grey,

Heart-hidden from the outer things I rose;
The spirit woke anew in nightly birth
Unto the vastness where forever glows
    The star-soul of the earth.

There all alone in primal ecstasy,
Within her depths where revels never tire,
The Olden Beauty shines: each thought of me
    Is veined through with its fire.

And all my thoughts are throngs of living souls;
They breathe in me, heart unto heart allied;
Their joy undimmed, though when the morning tolls
    The planets may divide.

Faint grew the yellow buds of light
    Far flickering beyond the snows,
As leaning o'er the shadowy white
    Morn glimmered like a pale primrose.

Within an Indian vale below
    A child said "Om" with tender heart,
Watching with loving eyes the glow
    In dayshine fade and night depart.

The word which Brahma at his dawn
    Outbreathes and endeth at his night;
Whose tide of sound so rolling on
    Gives birth to orbs of golden light;

And beauty, wisdom, love, and youth,
    By its enchantment, gathered grow
In age-long wandering to the truth,
    Through many a cycle's ebb and flow.

And here all lower life was stilled,
    The child was lifted to the Wise:
A strange delight his spirit filled,
    And Brahm looked from ...

Men have made them gods of love,
Sun gods, givers of the rain,
Deities of hill and grove,
I have made a god of Pain.

Of my god I know this much,
And in singing I repeat,
Though there's anguish in his touch
Yet his soul within is sweet.

--March 15, 1893

As from our dream we died away
Far off I felt the outer things;
Your wind-blown tresses round me play,
Your bosom's gentle murmurings.

And far away our faces met
As on the verge of the vast spheres;
And in the night our cheeks were wet,
I could not say with dew or tears.

As one within the Mother's heart
In that hushed dream upon the height
We lived, and then we rose to part,
Because her ways are infinite.

Oh, be not led away,
    Lured by the colour of the sun-rich day.
The gay romance of song
    Unto the spirit life doth not belong:
Though far-between the hours
    In which the Master of Angelic powers
Lightens the dusk within
    The holy of holies, be it thine to win
Rare vistas of white light,
    Half parted lips through which the Infinite
Murmurs her ancient story,
    Harkening to whom the wandering planets hoary
Waken primeval fires,
    With deeper rapture in celestial choirs
Breathe, and with fleeter motion
    Wheel in their orbits through the surgeless ocean.
So hearken thou like these,
    Intent on her, mounting by slow degrees,
Until thy song's elation
    Echoes her multitudinous meditation.

FOR BRIAN WHEN HE IS GROWN UP THIS HANDFUL OF THE NUTS OF KNOWLEDGE I HAVE GATHERED ON THE SECRET STREAMS.




I thought, beloved, to have brought to you
A gift of quietness and ease and peace,
Cooling your brow as with the mystic dew
Dropping from twilight trees.

Homeward I go not yet; the darkness grows;
Not mine the voice to still with peace divine:
From the first fount the stream of quiet flows
Through other hearts than mine.

Yet of my night I give to you the stars,
And of my sorrow here the sweetest gains,
And out of hell, beyond its iron bars,
My scorn of all its pains.

What call may draw thee back again,
Lost dove, what art, what charm may please?
The tender touch, the kiss, are vain,
For thou wert lured away by these.

Oh, must we use the iron hand,
And mask with hate the holy breath,
With alien voice give love's command,
As they through love the call of death?

I begin through the grass once again to be bound to the Lord;
I can see, through a face that has faded, the face full of rest
Of the Earth, of the Mother, my heart with her heart in accord:
As I lie mid the cool green tresses that mantle her breast
I begin with the grass once again to be bound to the Lord.

By the hand of a child I am led to the throne of the King,
For a touch that now fevers me not is forgotten and far,
And His infinite sceptred hands that sway us can bring
Me in dreams from the laugh of a child to the song of a star.
On the laugh of a child I am borne to the joy of the King.

Well, when all is said and done
Best within my narrow way,
May some angel of the sun
Muse memorial o'er my clay:

'Here was beauty all betrayed
From the freed...

How shallow is this mere that gleams!
Its depth of blue is from the skies;
And from a distant sun the dreams
And lovely light within your eyes.

We deem our love so infinite
Because the Lord is everywhere,
And love awakening is made bright
And bathed in that diviner air.

We go on our enchanted way
And deem our hours immortal hours,
Who are but shadow kings that play
With mirrored majesties and powers.

There were many burning hours on the heart-sweet tide,
And we passed away from ourselves, forgetting all
The immortal moods that faded, the god who died,
Hastening away to the King on a distant call.

There were ruby dews were shed when the heart was riven,
And passionate pleading and prayers to the dead we had wronged;
And we passed away unremembering and unforgiven,
Hastening away to the King for the peace we longed.

Love unremembered and heart-ache we left behind,
We forsook them, unheeding, hastening away in our flight;
We knew the hearts we had wronged of old we would find
When we came to the fold of the King for rest in the night.

On me to rest, my bird, my bird:
The swaying branches of my heart
Are blown by every wind toward
The home whereto their wings depart.

Build not your nest, my bird, on me:
I know no peace but ever sway:
O, lovely bird, be free, be free,
On the wild music of the day.

But sometimes when your wings would rest,
And winds are laid on quiet eves:
Come, I will bear you breast to breast,
And lap you close with loving leaves.

Those delicate wanderers,
The wind, the star, the cloud,
Ever before mine eyes,
As to an altar bowed,
Light and dew-laden airs
Offer in sacrifice.

The offerings arise:
Hazes of rainbow light,
Pure crystal, blue, and gold,
Through dreamland take their flight;
And 'mid the sacrifice
God moveth as of old.

In miracles of fire
He symbols forth his days;
In gleams of crystal light
Reveals what pure pathways
Lead to the soul's desire,
The silence of the height.

Dusk its ash-grey blossoms sheds on violet skies,
Over twilight mountains where the heart songs rise,
Rise and fall and fade away from earth to air.
Earth renews the music sweeter. Oh, come there.
Come, acushla, come, as in ancient times
Rings aloud the underland with faery chimes.
Down the unseen ways as strays each tinkling fleece
Winding ever onward to a fold of peace,
So my dreams go straying in a land more fair;
Half I tread the dew-wet grasses, half wander there.
Fade your glimmering eyes in a world grown cold;
Come, acushla, with me to the mountains old.
There the bright ones call us waving to and fro--
Come, my children, with me to the ancient go.

--"His candle shined upon my head, and by his light I walked
through darkness."--Job, xxix. 3


On the bird of air blue-breasted
    glint the rays of gold,
And a shadowy fleece above us
    waves the forest old,
Far through rumorous leagues of midnight
    stirred by breezes warm.
See the old ascetic yonder,
    Ah, poor withered form!
Where he crouches wrinkled over
    by unnumbered years
Through the leaves the flakes of moonfire
    fall like phantom tears.
At the dawn a kingly hunter
    passed proud disdain,
Like a rainbow-torrent scattered
    flashed his royal train.
Now the lonely one unheeded
    seeks earth's caverns dim,
Never king or princes will robe them
    radiantly as him.
Mid the deep enfolding darknes...

What of all the will to do?
It has vanished long ago,
For a dream-shaft pierced it through
From the Unknown Archer's bow.

What of all the soul to think?
Some one offered it a cup
Filled with a diviner drink,
And the flame has burned it up.

What of all the hope to climb?
Only in the self we grope
To the misty end of time:
Truth has put an end to hope.

What of all the heart to love?
Sadder than for will or soul,
No light lured it on above;
Love has found itself the whole.

Now when the spirit in us wakes and broods,
Filled with home yearnings, drowsily it flings
From its deep heart high dreams and mystic moods,
Mixed with the memory of the loved earth things;
Clothing the vast with a familiar face;
Reaching its right hand forth to greet the starry race.

Wondrously near and clear the great warm fires
Stare from the blue; so shows the cottage light
To the field labourer whose heart desires
The old folk by the nook, the welcome bright
From the house-wife long parted from at dawn--
So the star villages in God's great depths withdrawn.

Nearer to Thee, not by delusion led,
Though there no house fires burn nor bright eyes gaze,
We rise, but by the symbol charioted,
Through loved things rising up to Love's own ways
By these ...