Once on a summer’s night
Go-as-you-please
Saw fifty-nine witches
Sat in the trees.
Ghastly wet moon-faces
Puckered and peered;
Blind things in the darkness
Gibbered and jeered;
And ev’ry witch-woman there
Wagged a thin beard.
Each had an evil dream
Under her hood;
All spinning a witch-web
Redder than blood
Across the dim spaces
Near where he stood.
Their moonish old gabblement
Loosened his knees,
Down on his face fell
Go-as-you-please.
Now ev’ry summer’s night,
Go-as-you-please ’ll
Sing to the crazy moon
‘Pop goes the weazel.’
‘Æ’: THE INEFFABLE SPLENDOUR OF THINGUMBOB
Through the pearl-grey heart of twilight, lit with amethyst and gold,
We beheld the mystic Thingumbob, in visions fold on fold;
And the Ages bowed before him as he passed the glimmering deep;
We renewed our ancient beauty and arose from dewy sleep.
Where the starry thrones grew brighter as the heights were touched with flame,
High above a million faces burned the crown of What’s-his-Name.
In what ivory-towered city, in what thronged and radiant street,
Shall we see through mists of violet the shining Feet of Feet?
Not the lily nor the lotus but the crimson flow’r of Pain
Blossoms now to lead the spirit to the Light of Lights again;
Now the bard of faery song and rune is set down as a bore,
Far from Babylon and Sackville Street and boggy Carrowmore;
Gods and heroes flee before us in a reeling fiery rout;
Earth grows faint and hungry-hearted now as dream on dream fades out;
And the dim blue reader wonders what the poem is all about.