As for living, our servants will do that for
us.—_Villiers de L’Isle Adam._
Helen, when she looked in her mirror, seeing the
withered wrinkles made in her face by old age,
wept, and wondered why she had twice been carried
away.—_Leonardo da Vinci._
_My Dear A.E.--I dedicate this book to you because, whether you think
it well or ill written, you will sympathize with the sorrows and the
ecstasies of its personages, perhaps even more than I do myself.
Although I wrote these stories at different times and in different
manners, and without any definite plan, they have but one subject,
the war of spiritual with natural order; and how can I dedicate such
a book to anyone but to you, the one poet of modern Ireland who has
moulded a spiritual ecstasy into verse? My friends in Ireland sometimes
ask me when I am going to write a really national poem or romance,
and by a national poem or romance I understand them to mean a poem or
romance founded upon some famous moment of Irish history, and built
up out of the thoughts and feelings which move the greater number of
patriotic Irishmen. I on the other hand believe that poetry and romance
cannot be made by the most conscientious study of famous moments and
of the thoughts and feelings of others, but only by looking into that
little, infinite, faltering, eternal flame that we call ourselves. If
a writer wishes to interest a certain people among whom he has grown
up, or fancies he has a duty towards them, he may choose for the
symbols of his art their legends, their history, their beliefs, their
opinions, because he has a right to choose among things less than
himself, but he cannot choose among the substances of art. So far,
however, as this book is visionary it is Irish; for Ireland, which is
still predominantly Celtic, has preserved with some less excellent
things a gift of vision, which has died out among more hurried and
more successful nations: no shining candelabra have prevented us from
looking into the darkness, and when one looks into the darkness there
is always something there._
_W. B. YEATS._
_TO THE SECRET ROSE_
_Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose,
Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those
Who sought thee at the Holy Sepulchre,
Or in the wine-vat, dwell beyond the stir
And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep
Among pale eyelids heavy with the sleep
Men have named beauty. Your great leaves enfold
The ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold
Of the crowned Magi; and the king whose eyes
Saw the Pierced Hands and Rood of Elder rise
In druid vapour and make the torches dim;
Till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and him
Who met Fand walking among flaming dew,
By a grey shore where the wind never blew,
And lost the world and Emir for a kiss;
And him who drove the gods out of their liss
And till a hundred morns had flowered red
Feasted, and wept the barrows of his dead;
And the proud dreaming king who flung the crown
And sorrow away, and calling bard and clown
Dwelt among wine-stained wanderers in deep woods;
And him who sold tillage and house and goods,
And sought through lands and islands numberless years
Until he found with laughter and with tears
A woman of so shining loveliness
That men threshed corn at midnight by a tress,
A little stolen tress. I too await
The hour of thy great wind of love and hate.
When shall the stars be blown about the sky,
Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die?
Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows,
Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose?_