Produced by David Starner, Sankar Viswanathan, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net









                    THE NUTS OF KNOWLEDGE, LYRICAL
                       POEMS OLD AND NEW BY A.E.









TABLE OF CONTENTS


    Prologue
    The Nuts of Knowledge
    Immortality
    The Hermit
    The Great Breath
    The Divine Vision
    The Burning Glass
    A Vision of Beauty
    Rest
    The Earth Breath
    Divine Visitation
    The Master Singer
    Aphrodite
    Illusion
    Babylon
    Alter Ego
    Krishna
    Symbolism
    Sung on a By-Way
    The Hunter
    The Vision of Love
    A Call of the Sidhe
    Janus
    The Grey Eros
    The Memory of Earth
    By the Margin of the Great Deep
    Three Counsellors,
    Desire
    The Place of Rest
    Sacrifice
    Reconciliation
    Epilogue




The Manager of the Dun Emer Press has to thank Mr. John Lane for
permission to reprint ten poems from Homeward Songs By The Way, and
ten from The Earth Breath.




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.




THE NUTS OF KNOWLEDGE


    A cabin on the mountain side hid in a grassy nook
    Where door and windows open wide that friendly stars may look.
    The rabbit shy can patter in, the winds may enter free,
    Who throng around the mountain throne in living ecstasy.

    And when the sun sets dimmed in eve and purple fills the air,
    I think the sacred Hazel Tree is dropping berries there
    From starry fruitage waved aloft where Connla's Well o'erflows;
    For sure the enchanted waters pour through every wind that blows.

    I think when night towers up aloft and shakes the trembling dew
    How every high and lonely thought that thrills my being through
    Is but a ruddy berry dropped down through the purple air,
    And from the magic tree of life the fruit falls everywhere.




IMMORTALITY


    We must pass like smoke or live within the spirit's fire;
    For we can no more than smoke unto the flame return
    If our thought has changed to dream, our will unto desire,
    As smoke we vanish though the fire may burn.

    Lights of infinite pity star the grey dusk of our days:
    Surely here is soul: with it we have eternal breath:
    In the fire of love we live, or pass by many ways,
    By unnumbered ways of dream to death.




THE HERMIT


    Now the quietude of earth
    Nestles deep my heart within;
    Friendships new and strange have birth
    Since I left the city's din.

    Here the tempest stays its guile,
    Like a big kind brother plays,
    Romps and pauses here awhile
    From its immemorial ways.

    Now the silver light of dawn
    Slipping through the leaves that fleck
    My one window, hurries on,
    Throws its arms around my neck.

    Darkness to my doorway hies,
    Lays her chin upon the roof,
    And her burning seraph eyes
    Now no longer keep aloof.

    Here the ancient mystery
    Holds its hands out day by day,
    Takes a chair and croons with me
    By my cabin built of clay.

    When the dusky shadow flits,
    By the chimney nook I see
    Where the old enchanter sits,
    Smiles, and waves, and beckons me.




THE GREAT BREATH


    Its edges foamed with amethyst and rose,
    Withers once more the old blue flower of day:
    There where the ether like a diamond glows
    Its petals fade away.

    A shadowy tumult stirs the dusky air;
    Sparkle the delicate dews, the distant snows;
    The great deep thrills for through it everywhere
    The breath of beauty blows.

    I saw how all the trembling ages past,
    Moulded to her by deep and deeper breath,
    Neared to the hour when Beauty breathes her last
    And knows herself in death.




THE DIVINE VISION


    This mood hath known all beauty for it sees
    O'erwhelmed majesties
    In these pale forms, and kingly crowns of gold
    On brows no longer bold,
    And through the shadowy terrors of their hell
    The love for which they fell,
    And how desire which cast them in the deep
    Called God too from his sleep.
    O, pity, only seer, who looking through
    A heart melted like dew,
    Seest the long perished in the present thus,
    For ever dwell in us.
    Whatever time thy golden eyelids ope
    They travel to a hope;
    Not only backward from these low degrees
    To starry dynasties,
    But, looking far where now the silence owns
    And rules from empty thrones,
    Thou seest the enchanted halls of heaven burn
    For joy at our return.
    Thy tender kiss hath memory we are kings
    For all our wanderings.
    Thy shining eyes already see the after
    In hidden light and laughter.




THE BURNING GLASS


    A shaft of fire that falls like dew,
    And melts and maddens all my blood,
    From out thy spirit flashes through
    The burning glass of womanhood.

    Only so far; here must I stay:
    Nearer I miss the light, the fire:
    I must endure the torturing ray,
    And, with all beauty, all desire.

    Ah, time-long must the effort be,
    And far the way that I must go
    To bring my spirit unto thee,
    Behind the glass, within the glow.




A VISION OF BEAUTY


    Where we sat at dawn together, while the star-rich heavens shifted,
    We were weaving dreams in silence, suddenly the veil was lifted.
    By a hand of fire awakened, in a moment caught and led
    Upward to the wondrous vision: through the star-mists overhead
    Flare and flaunt the monstrous highlands; on the sapphire coast of night
    Fall the ghostly froth and fringes of the ocean of the light.
    Many coloured shine the vapours: to the moon-eye far away
    'Tis the fairy ring of twilight mid the spheres of night and day,
    Girdling with a rainbow cincture round the planet where we go,
    We and it together fleeting, poised upon the pearl  glow;
    We and it and all together flashing through the starry spaces
    In a tempest dream of beauty lighting up the place of places.
    Half our eyes behold the glory: half within the spirit's glow
    Echoes of the noiseless revels and the will of beauty go.
    By a hand of fire uplifted--to her star-strewn palace brought,
    To the mystic heart of beauty and the secret of her thought:
    Here of yore the ancient mother in the fire mists sank to rest,
    And she built her dreams about her, rayed from out her burning breast:
    Here the wild will woke within her lighting up her flying dreams,
    Round and round the planets whirling break in woods and flowers and streams,
    And the winds are shaken from them as the leaves from off the rose,
    And the feet of earth go dancing in the way that beauty goes,
    And the souls of earth are kindled by the incense of her breath
    As her light alternate lures them through the gates of birth and death.
    O'er the fields of space together following her flying traces,
    In a radiant tumult thronging, suns and stars and myriad races
    Mount the spirit spires of beauty, reaching onward to the day
    When the Shepherd of the Ages draws his misty hordes away
    Through the glimmering deeps to silence, and within the awful fold
    Life and joy and love forever vanish as a tale is told,
    Lost within the mother's being. So the vision flamed and fled,
    And before the glory fallen every other dream lay dead.




REST


    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.




THE EARTH BREATH


    From the cool and dark-lipped furrow breathes a dim delight
    Through the woodland's purple plumage to the diamond night.
    Aureoles of joy encircle every blade of grass
    Where the dew-fed creatures silent and enraptured pass.
    And the restless ploughman pauses, turns, and wondering,
    Deep beneath his rustic habit finds himself a king;
    For a fiery moment looking with the eyes of God
    Over fields a slave at morning bowed him to the sod.
    Blind and dense with revelation every moment flies.
    And unto the mighty mother, gay, eternal, rise
    All the hopes we hold, the gladness, dreams of things to be.
    One of all thy generations, mother, hails to thee.
    Hail, and hail, and hail for ever, though I turn again
    From thy joy unto the human vestiture of pain.
    I, thy child who went forth radiant in the golden prime,
    Find thee still the mother-hearted through my night in time:
    Find in thee the old enchantment there behind the veil
    Where the gods, my brothers, linger. Hail, for ever hail!




DIVINE VISITATION


    The heavens lay hold on us: the starry rays
    Fondle with flickering fingers brow and eyes:
    A new enchantment lights the ancient skies.
    What is it looks between us gaze on gaze?
    Does the wild spirit of the endless days
    Chase through my heart some lure that ever flies?
    Only I know the vast within me cries
    Finding in thee the ending of all ways.
    Ah, but they vanish; the immortal train
    From thee, from me, depart, yet take from thee
    Memorial grace: laden with adoration
    Forth from this heart they flow that all in vain
    Would stay the proud eternal powers that flee
    After the chase in burning exultation.




THE MASTER SINGER


    A laughter in the diamond air, a music in the trembling grass;
    And one by one the words of light as joydrops through my being pass.
    I am the sunlight in the heart, the silver moonglow in the mind;
    My laughter runs and ripples through the wavy tresses of the wind.
    I am the fire upon the hills, the dancing flame that leads afar
    Each burning-hearted wanderer, and I the dear and homeward star.
    A myriad lovers died for me, and in their latest yielded breath
    I woke in glory giving them immortal life though touched by death.
    They knew me from the dawn of time: if Hermes beats his rainbow wings,
    If Angus shakes his locks of light, or golden-haired Apollo sings,
    It matters not the name, the land; my joy in all the gods abides:
    Even in the cricket in the grass some dimness of me smiles and hides.
    For joy of me the day star glows, and in delight and wild desire
    The peacock twilight rays aloft its plumes and blooms of shadowy fire,
    Where in the vastness too I burn through summer nights and ages long,
    And with the fiery footed Watchers shake in myriad dance and song.




APHRODITE


    Not unremembering we pass our exile from the starry ways:
    One timeless hour in time we caught from the long night of endless days.
    With solemn gaiety the stars danced far withdrawn on elfin heights:
    The lilac breathed amid the shade of green and blue and citron lights.
    But yet the close enfolding night seemed on the phantom verge of things,
    For our adoring hearts had turned within from all their wanderings:
    For beauty called to beauty and there thronged at the enchanter's will
    The vanished hours of love that burn within the Ever-living still.
    And sweet eternal faces put the shadows of the earth to rout,
    And faint and fragile as a moth your white hand fluttered and went out.
    Oh, who am I who tower beside this goddess of the twilight air?
    The burning doves fly from my heart and melt within her bosom there.
    I know the sacrifice of old they offered to the mighty queen,
    And this adoring love has brought us back the beauty that has been.
    As to her worshippers she came descending from her glowing skies
    So Aphrodite I have seen with shining eyes look through your eyes:
    One gleam of the ancestral face which lighted up the dawn for me:
    One fiery visitation of the love the gods desire in thee!




ILLUSION


    What is the love of shadowy lips
    That know not what they seek or press,
    From whom the lure for ever slips
    And fails their phantom tenderness?

    The mystery and light of eyes
    That near to mine grow dim and cold;
    They move afar in ancient skies
    Mid flame and mystic darkness rolled.

    O, beauty, as thy heart o'erflows
    In tender yielding unto me,
    A vast desire awakes and grows
    Unto forgetfulness of thee.




BABYLON


    The blue dusk ran between the streets; my love was winged within my mind;
    It left to-day and yesterday and thrice a thousand years behind.
    To-day was past and dead for me for from to-day my feet had run
    Through thrice a thousand years to walk the ways of ancient Babylon.
    On temple top and palace roof the burnished gold flung back the rays
    Of a red sunset that was dead and lost beyond a million days.
    The tower of heaven turns darker blue; a starry sparkle now begins;
    The mystery and magnificence, the myriad beauty and the sins
    Come back to me. I walk beneath the shadowy multitude of towers;
    Within the gloom the fountain jets its pallid mist in lily flowers.
    The waters lull me, and the scent of many gardens, and I hear
    Familiar voices, and the voice I love is whispering in my ear.
    Oh real as in dream all this; and then a hand on mine is laid:
    The wave of phantom time withdraws; and that young Babylonian maid,
    One drop of beauty left behind from all the flowing of that tide,
    Is looking with the self-same eyes, and here in Ireland by my side.
    Oh, light our life in Babylon, but Babylon has taken wings,
    While we are in the calm and proud procession of eternal things.




ALTER EGO


    All the morn a spirit gay
    Breathes within my heart a rhyme,
    'Tis but hide and seek we play
    In and out the courts of Time.

    Fairy lover, when my feet
    Through the tangled woodland go,
    'Tis thy sunny fingers fleet
    Fleck the fire dews to and fro.

    In the moonlight grows a smile
    Mid its rays of dusty pearl--
    'Tis but hide and seek the while,
    As some frolic boy and girl.

    When I fade into the deep
    Some mysterious radiance showers
    From the jewel-heart of sleep
    Through the veil of darkened hours.

    Where the ring of twilight gleams
    Round the sanctuary wrought,
    Whispers haunt me--in my dreams
    We are one yet know it not.

    Some for beauty follow long
    Flying traces; some there be
    Seek thee only for a song:
    I to lose myself in thee.




KRISHNA

    'I am Beauty itself among beautiful things.'
                                       Bhagavad-Gita


    The East was crowned with snow-cold bloom
    And hung with veils of pearly fleece:
    They died away into the gloom,
    Vistas of peace--and deeper peace.

    And earth and air and wave and fire
    In awe and breathless silence stood;
    For One who passed into their choir
    Linked them in mystic brotherhood.

    Twilight of amethyst, amid
    Thy few strange stars that lit the heights,
    Where was the secret spirit hid?
    Where was Thy place, O Light of Lights?

    The flame of Beauty far in space--
    Where rose the fire: in thee? in me?
    Which bowed the elemental race
    To adoration silently?




SYMBOLISM


    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 the soul unto the vast has wings
    And sets the seal celestial on all mortal things.




SUNG ON A BY-WAY


    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.




THE HUNTER


    Twilight, a timid fawn, went glimmering by,
    And night, the dark blue hunter, followed fast:
    Ceaseless pursuit and flight were in the sky,
    But the long chase had ceased for us at last.

    We watched together while the driven fawn
    Hid in the golden thicket of the day:
    We from whose hearts pursuit and flight were gone
    Knew on the hunter's breast her refuge lay.




THE VISION OF LOVE


    The twilight fleeted away in pearl on the stream,
    And night, like a diamond dome, stood still in our dream.
    Your eyes like burnished stones or as stars were bright
    With the sudden vision that made us one with the night.

    We loved in infinite spaces, forgetting here
    The breasts that were lit with life and the lips so near;
    Till the wizard willows waved in the wind and drew
    Me away from the fulness of love and down to you.

    Our love was so vast that it filled the heavens up:
    But the soft white form I held was an empty cup,
    When the willows called me back to earth with their sigh,
    And we moved as shades through the deep that was you and I.




A CALL OF THE SIDHE


    Tarry thou yet, late lingerer in the twilight's glory:
    Gay are the hills with song: earth's faery children leave
    More dim abodes to roam the primrose-hearted eve,
    Opening their glimmering lips to breathe some wondrous story.
    Hush, not a whisper! Let your heart alone go dreaming.
    Dream unto dream may pass: deep in the heart alone
    Murmurs the Mighty One his solemn undertone.
    Canst thou not see adown the silver cloudland streaming
    Rivers of faery light, dewdrop on dewdrop falling,
    Starfire of silver flames, lighting the dark beneath?
    And what enraptured hosts burn on the dusky heath!
    Come thou away with them, for Heaven to Earth is calling.
    These are Earth's voice--her answer--spirits thronging.
    Come to the Land of Youth: the trees grown heavy there
    Drop on the purple wave the starry fruit they bear.
    Drink: the immortal waters quench the spirit's longing.
    Art thou not now, bright one, all sorrow past, in  elation,
    Made young with joy, grown brother-hearted with the vast,
    Whither thy spirit wending flits the dim stars past
    Unto the Light of Lights in burning adoration.




JANUS


    Image of beauty, when I gaze on thee,
    Trembling I waken to a mystery,
    How through one door we go to life or death
    By spirit kindled or the sensual breath.

    Image of beauty, when my way I go;
    No single joy or sorrow do I know:
    Elate for freedom leaps the starry power,
    The life which passes mourns its wasted hour.

    And, ah, to think how thin the veil that lies
    Between the pain of hell and paradise!
    Where the cool grass my aching head embowers
    God sings the lovely carol of the flowers.




THE GREY EROS


    We are desert leagues apart;
    Time is misty ages now
    Since the warmth of heart to heart
    Chased the shadows from my brow.

    Oh, I am so old, meseems
    I am next of kin to Time,
    The historian of her dreams
    From the long forgotten prime.

    You have come a path of flowers.
    What a way was mine to roam!
    Many a fallen empire's towers,
    Many a ruined heart my home.

    No, there is no comfort, none;
    All the dewy tender breath
    Idly falls when life is done
    On the starless brow of death.

    Though the dream of love may tire,
    In the ages long agone
    There were ruby hearts of fire--
    Ah, the daughters of the dawn!

    Though I am so feeble now,
    I remember when our pride
    Could not to the Mighty bow;
    We would sweep His stars aside.

    Mix thy youth with thoughts like those--
    It were but to wither thee,
    But to graft the youthful rose
    On the old and flowerless tree.

    Age is no more near than youth
    To the sceptre and the crown.
    Vain the wisdom, vain the truth;
    Do not lay thy rapture down.




THE MEMORY OF EARTH


    In the wet dusk silver-sweet,
    Down the violet scented ways,
    As I moved with quiet feet
    I was met by mighty days.

    On the hedge the hanging dew
    Glassed the eve and stars and skies;
    While I gazed a madness grew
    Into thundered battle cries.

    Where the hawthorn glimmered white,
    Flashed the spear and fell the stroke--
    Ah, what faces pale and bright
    Where the dazzling battle broke!

    There a hero-hearted queen
    With young beauty lit the van.
    Gone! the darkness flowed between
    All the ancient wars of man.

    While I paced the valley's gloom
    Where the rabbits pattered near,
    Shone a temple and a tomb
    With the legend carven clear:

    'Time put by a myriad fates
    That her day might dawn in glory.
    Death made wide a million gates
    So to close her tragic story.'




BY THE MARGIN OF THE GREAT DEEP


    When the breath of twilight blows to flame the misty skies,
    All its vaporous sapphire, violet glow, and silver gleam,
    With their magic flood me through the gateway of the eyes;
    I am one with the twilight's dream.

    When the trees and skies and fields are one in dusky mood,
    Every heart of man is wrapt within the mother's breast:
    Full of peace and sleep and dreams in the vasty quietude,
    I am one with their hearts at rest.

    From our immemorial joys of hearth and home and love
    Strayed away along the margin of the unknown tide,
    All its reach of soundless calm can thrill me far above
    Word or touch from the lips beside.

    Aye, and deep and deep and deeper let me drink and draw,
    From the olden fountain more than light or peace or dream,
    Such primeval being as o'erfills the heart with awe,
    Growing one with its silent stream.




THREE COUNSELLORS


    It was the fairy of the place,
    Moving within a little light,
    Who touched with dim and shadowy grace
    The conflict at its fever height.

    It seemed to whisper 'Quietness,'
    Then quietly itself was gone:
    Yet echoes of its mute caress
    Were with me as the years went on.

    It was the warrior within
    Who called 'Awake, prepare for fight:
    Yet lose not memory in the din:
    Make of thy gentleness thy might:

    'Make of thy silence words to shake
    The long-enthroned kings of earth:
    Make of thy will the force to break
    Their towers of wantonness and mirth.'

    It was the wise all-seeing soul
    Who counselled neither war nor peace:
    'Only be thou thyself that goal
    In which the wars of time shall cease.'




DESIRE


    With thee a moment! Then what dreams have play!
    Traditions of eternal toil arise,
    Search for the high austere and lonely way
    The Spirit moves in through eternities.
    Ah, in the soul what memories arise!
    And with what yearning inexpressible,
    Rising from long forgetfulness I turn
    To Thee, invisible, unrumoured, still:
    White for Thy whiteness all desires burn.
    Ah, with what longing once again I turn!




THE PLACE OF REST

    'The soul is its own witness and its own refuge'


    Unto the deep the deep heart goes,
    It lays its sadness nigh the breast:
    Only the Mighty Mother knows
    The wounds that quiver unconfessed.

    It seeks a deeper silence still;
    It folds itself around with peace,
    Where thoughts alike of good or ill
    In quietness unfostered cease.

    It feels in the unwounding vast
    For comfort for its hopes and fears:
    The Mighty Mother bows at last;
    She listens to her children's tears.

    Where the last anguish deepens--there
    The fire of beauty smites through pain:
    A glory moves amid despair,
    The Mother takes her child again.




SACRIFICE


    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.




RECONCILIATION


    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 freedom of her state;
    From her human uses stayed
    On an idle rhyme to wait.

    Ah, what deep despair might move
    If the beauty lit a smile,
    Or the heart was warm with love
    That was pondering the while.

    He has built his monument
    With the winds of time at strife,
    Who could have before he went
    Written in the book of life.

    To the stars from which he came
    Empty handed he goes home;
    He who might have wrought in flame
    Only traced upon the foam.'




THE NUTS OF KNOWLEDGE


     'Sinend daughter of Lodan Lucharglan, son of Lir, out of the
     Land of Promise went to Connlas' Well which is under the
     sea, to behold it. That is a well at which are the hazels of
     wisdom and inspiration that is, the hazels of the science of
     poetry; and in the same hour their fruit and their blossom &
     their foliage break forth, and then fall upon the well in
     the same shower, which raises upon the water a royal surge
     of purple.'




     HERE ENDS THE NUTS OF KNOWLEDGE, WRITTEN BY A.E., PRINTED,
     UPON PAPER MADE IN IRELAND, AND PUBLISHED BY ELIZABETH
     CORBET YEATS AT THE DUN EMER PRESS, IN THE HOUSE OF EVELYN
     GLEESON AT DUNDRUM IN THE COUNTY OF DUBLIN, IRELAND,
     FINISHED ON THE TENTH DAY OF OCTOBER, IN THE YEAR NINETEEN
     HUNDRED & THREE.







End of Project Gutenberg's The Nuts of Knowledge, by George William  Russell