The Secret Rose
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W. B. Yeats >> The Secret Rose
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THE SECRET ROSE:
BY
W.B. YEATS
THE SECRET ROSE:
DEDICATION TO A.E.
TO THE SECRET ROSE
THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE OUTCAST
OUT OF THE ROSE
THE WISDOM OF THE KING
THE HEART OF THE SPRING
THE CURSE OF THE FIRES AND OF THE SHADOWS
THE OLD MEN OF THE TWILIGHT
WHERE THERE IS NOTHING, THERE IS GOD
OF COSTELLO THE PROUD, OF OONA THE DAUGHTER OF DERMOTT, AND OF THE
BITTER TONGUE
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?
THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE OUTCAST.
A man, with thin brown hair and a pale face, half ran, half walked,
along the road that wound from the south to the town of Sligo. Many
called him Cumhal, the son of Cormac, and many called him the Swift,
Wild Horse; and he was a gleeman, and he wore a short parti-coloured
doublet, and had pointed shoes, and a bulging wallet. Also he was of
the blood of the Ernaans, and his birth-place was the Field of Gold;
but his eating and sleeping places where the four provinces of Eri,
and his abiding place was not upon the ridge of the earth. His eyes
strayed from the Abbey tower of the White Friars and the town
battlements to a row of crosses which stood out against the sky upon
a hill a little to the eastward of the town, and he clenched his
fist, and shook it at the crosses. He knew they were not empty, for
the birds were fluttering about them; and he thought how, as like as
not, just such another vagabond as himself was hanged on one of them;
and he muttered: 'If it were hanging or bowstringing, or stoning or
beheading, it would be bad enough. But to have the birds pecking your
eyes and the wolves eating your feet! I would that the red wind of
the Druids had withered in his cradle the soldier of Dathi, who
brought the tree of death out of barbarous lands, or that the
lightning, when it smote Dathi at the foot of the mountain, had
smitten him also, or that his grave had been dug by the green-haired
and green-toothed merrows deep at the roots of the deep sea.'
While he spoke, he shivered from head to foot, and the sweat came out
upon his face, and he knew not why, for he had looked upon many
crosses. He passed over two hills and under the battlemented gate,
and then round by a left-hand way to the door of the Abbey. It was
studded with great nails, and when he knocked at it, he roused the
lay brother who was the porter, and of him he asked a place in the
guest-house. Then the lay brother took a glowing turf on a shovel,
and led the way to a big and naked outhouse strewn with very dirty
rushes; and lighted a rush-candle fixed between two of the stones of
the wall, and set the glowing turf upon the hearth and gave him two
unlighted sods and a wisp of straw, and showed him a blanket hanging
from a nail, and a shelf with a loaf of bread and a jug of water, and
a tub in a far corner. Then the lay brother left him and went back to
his place by the door. And Cumhal the son of Cormac began to blow
upon the glowing turf that he might light the two sods and the wisp
of straw; but the sods and the straw would not light, for they were
damp. So he took off his pointed shoes, and drew the tub out of the
corner with the thought of washing the dust of the highway from his
feet; but the water was so dirty that he could not see the bottom. He
was very hungry, for he had not eaten all that day; so he did not
waste much anger upon the tub, but took up the black loaf, and bit
into it, and then spat out the bite, for the bread was hard and
mouldy. Still he did not give way to his anger, for he had not
drunken these many hours; having a hope of heath beer or wine at his
day's end, he had left the brooks untasted, to make his supper the
more delightful. Now he put the jug to his lips, but he flung it from
him straightway, for the water was bitter and ill-smelling. Then he
gave the jug a kick, so that it broke against the opposite wall, and
he took down the blanket to wrap it about him for the night. But no
sooner did he touch it than it was alive with skipping fleas. At
this, beside himself with anger, he rushed to the door of the guest-
house, but the lay brother, being well accustomed to such outcries,
had locked it on the outside; so he emptied the tub and began to beat
the door with it, till the lay brother came to the door and asked
what ailed him, and why he woke him out of sleep. 'What ails me!'
shouted Cumhal, 'are not the sods as wet as the sands of the Three
Rosses? and are not the fleas in the blanket as many as the waves of
the sea and as lively? and is not the bread as hard as the heart of a
lay brother who has forgotten God? and is not the water in the jug as
bitter and as ill-smelling as his soul? and is not the foot-water the
colour that shall be upon him when he has been charred in the Undying
Fires?' The lay brother saw that the lock was fast, and went back to
his niche, for he was too sleepy to talk with comfort. And Cumhal
went on beating at the door, and presently he heard the lay brother's
foot once more, and cried out at him, 'O cowardly and tyrannous race
of friars, persecutors of the bard and the gleeman, haters of life
and joy! O race that does not draw the sword and tell the truth! O
race that melts the bones of the people with cowardice and with
deceit!'
'Gleeman,' said the lay brother, 'I also make rhymes; I make many
while I sit in my niche by the door, and I sorrow to hear the bards
railing upon the friars. Brother, I would sleep, and therefore I make
known to you that it is the head of the monastery, our gracious
abbot, who orders all things concerning the lodging of travellers.'
'You may sleep,' said Cumhal, 'I will sing a bard's curse on the
abbot. 'And he set the tub upside down under the window, and stood
upon it, and began to sing in a very loud voice. The singing awoke
the abbot, so that he sat up in bed and blew a silver whistle until
the lay brother came to him. 'I cannot get a wink of sleep with that
noise,' said the abbot. 'What is happening?'
'It is a gleeman,' said the lay brother, 'who complains of the sods,
of the bread, of the water in the jug, of the foot-water, and of the
blanket. And now he is singing a bard's curse upon you, O brother
abbot, and upon your father and your mother, and your grandfather and
your grandmother, and upon all your relations.'
'Is he cursing in rhyme?'
'He is cursing in rhyme, and with two assonances in every line of his
curse.'
The abbot pulled his night-cap off and crumpled it in his hands, and
the circular brown patch of hair in the middle of his bald head
looked like an island in the midst of a pond, for in Connaught they
had not yet abandoned the ancient tonsure for the style then coming
into use. 'If we do not somewhat,' he said, 'he will teach his curses
to the children in the street, and the girls spinning at the doors,
and to the robbers upon Ben Bulben.'
'Shall I go, then,' said the other, 'and give him dry sods, a fresh
loaf, clean water in a jug, clean foot-water, and a new blanket, and
make him swear by the blessed Saint Benignus, and by the sun and
moon, that no bond be lacking, not to tell his rhymes to the children
in the street, and the girls spinning at the doors, and the robbers
upon Ben Bulben?'
'Neither our Blessed Patron nor the sun and moon would avail at all,'
said the abbot; 'for to-morrow or the next day the mood to curse
would come upon him, or a pride in those rhymes would move him, and
he would teach his lines to the children, and the girls, and the
robbers. Or else he would tell another of his craft how he fared in
the guest-house, and he in his turn would begin to curse, and my name
would wither. For learn there is no steadfastness of purpose upon the
roads, but only under roofs and between four walls. Therefore I bid
you go and awaken Brother Kevin, Brother Dove, Brother Little Wolf,
Brother Bald Patrick, Brother Bald Brandon, Brother James and Brother
Peter. And they shall take the man, and bind him with ropes, and dip
him in the river that he shall cease to sing. And in the morning,
lest this but make him curse the louder, we will crucify him.'
'The crosses are all full,' said the lay brother.
'Then we must make another cross. If we do not make an end of him
another will, for who can eat and sleep in peace while men like him
are going about the world? Ill should we stand before blessed Saint
Benignus, and sour would be his face when he comes to judge us at the
Last Day, were we to spare an enemy of his when we had him under our
thumb! Brother, the bards and the gleemen are an evil race, ever
cursing and ever stirring up the people, and immoral and immoderate
in all things, and heathen in their hearts, always longing after the
Son of Lir, and Aengus, and Bridget, and the Dagda, and Dana the
Mother, and all the false gods of the old days; always making poems
in praise of those kings and queens of the demons, Finvaragh, whose
home is under Cruachmaa, and Red Aodh of Cnocna-Sidhe, and Cleena of
the Wave, and Aoibhell of the Grey Rock, and him they call Donn of
the Vats of the Sea; and railing against God and Christ and the
blessed Saints.' While he was speaking he crossed himself, and when
he had finished he drew the nightcap over his ears, to shut out the
noise, and closed his eyes, and composed himself to sleep.
The lay brother found Brother Kevin, Brother Dove, Brother Little
Wolf, Brother Bald Patrick, Brother Bald Brandon, Brother James and
Brother Peter sitting up in bed, and he made them get up. Then they
bound Cumhal, and they dragged him to the river, and they dipped him
in it at the place which was afterwards called Buckley's Ford.
'Gleeman,' said the lay brother, as they led him back to the guest-
house, 'why do you ever use the wit which God has given you to make
blasphemous and immoral tales and verses? For such is the way of your
craft. I have, indeed, many such tales and verses well nigh by rote,
and so I know that I speak true! And why do you praise with rhyme
those demons, Finvaragh, Red Aodh, Cleena, Aoibhell and Donn? I, too,
am a man of great wit and learning, but I ever glorify our gracious
abbot, and Benignus our Patron, and the princes of the province. My
soul is decent and orderly, but yours is like the wind among the
salley gardens. I said what I could for you, being also a man of many
thoughts, but who could help such a one as you?'
'Friend,' answered the gleeman, 'my soul is indeed like the wind, and
it blows me to and fro, and up and down, and puts many things into my
mind and out of my mind, and therefore am I called the Swift, Wild
Horse.' And he spoke no more that night, for his teeth were
chattering with the cold.
The abbot and the friars came to him in the morning, and bade him get
ready to be crucified, and led him out of the guest-house. And while
he still stood upon the step a flock of great grass-barnacles passed
high above him with clanking cries. He lifted his arms to them and
said, 'O great grass-barnacles, tarry a little, and mayhap my soul
will travel with you to the waste places of the shore and to the
ungovernable sea!' At the gate a crowd of beggars gathered about
them, being come there to beg from any traveller or pilgrim who might
have spent the night in the guest-house. The abbot and the friars led
the gleeman to a place in the woods at some distance, where many
straight young trees were growing, and they made him cut one down and
fashion it to the right length, while the beggars stood round them in
a ring, talking and gesticulating. The abbot then bade him cut off
another and shorter piece of wood, and nail it upon the first. So
there was his cross for him; and they put it upon his shoulder, for
his crucifixion was to be on the top of the hill where the others
were. A half-mile on the way he asked them to stop and see him juggle
for them; for he knew, he said, all the tricks of Aengus the Subtle-
hearted. The old friars were for pressing on, but the young friars
would see him: so he did many wonders for them, even to the drawing
of live frogs out of his ears. But after a while they turned on him,
and said his tricks were dull and a shade unholy, and set the cross
on his shoulders again. Another half-mile on the way, and he asked
them to stop and hear him jest for them, for he knew, he said, all
the jests of Conan the Bald, upon whose back a sheep's wool grew. And
the young friars, when they had heard his merry tales, again bade him
take up his cross, for it ill became them to listen to such follies.
Another half-mile on the way, he asked them to stop and hear him sing
the story of White-breasted Deirdre, and how she endured many
sorrows, and how the sons of Usna died to serve her. And the young
friars were mad to hear him, but when he had ended they grew angry,
and beat him for waking forgotten longings in their hearts. So they
set the cross upon his back and hurried him to the hill.
When he was come to the top, they took the cross from him, and began
to dig a hole to stand it in, while the beggars gathered round, and
talked among themselves. 'I ask a favour before I die,' says Cumhal.
'We will grant you no more delays,' says the abbot.
'I ask no more delays, for I have drawn the sword, and told the
truth, and lived my vision, and am content.'
'Would you, then, confess?'
' By sun and moon, not I; I ask but to be let eat the food I carry in
my wallet. I carry food in my wallet whenever I go upon a journey,
but I do not taste of it unless I am well-nigh starved. I have not
eaten now these two days.'
'You may eat, then,' says the abbot, and he turned to help the friars
dig the hole.
The gleeman took a loaf and some strips of cold fried bacon out of
his wallet and laid them upon the ground. 'I will give a tithe to the
poor,' says he, and he cut a tenth part from the loaf and the bacon.
'Who among you is the poorest?' And thereupon was a great clamour,
for the beggars began the history of their sorrows and their poverty,
and their yellow faces swayed like Gara Lough when the floods have
filled it with water from the bogs.
He listened for a little, and, says he, 'I am myself the poorest, for
I have travelled the bare road, and by the edges of the sea; and the
tattered doublet of particoloured cloth upon my back and the torn
pointed shoes upon my feet have ever irked me, because of the towered
city full of noble raiment which was in my heart. And I have been the
more alone upon the roads and by the sea because I heard in my heart
the rustling of the rose-bordered dress of her who is more subtle
than Aengus, the Subtle-hearted, and more full of the beauty of
laughter than Conan the Bald, and more full of the wisdom of tears
than White-breasted Deirdre, and more lovely than a bursting dawn to
them that are lost in the darkness. Therefore, I award the tithe to
myself; but yet, because I am done with all things, I give it unto
you.'
So he flung the bread and the strips of bacon among the beggars, and
they fought with many cries until the last scrap was eaten. But
meanwhile the friars nailed the gleeman to his cross, and set it
upright in the hole, and shovelled the earth in at the foot, and
trampled it level and hard. So then they went away, but the beggars
stared on, sitting round the cross. But when the sun was sinking,
they also got up to go, for the air was getting chilly. And as soon
as they had gone a little way, the wolves, who had been showing
themselves on the edge of a neighbouring coppice, came nearer, and
the birds wheeled closer and closer. 'Stay, outcasts, yet a little
while,' the crucified one called in a weak voice to the beggars, 'and
keep the beasts and the birds from me.' But the beggars were angry
because he had called them outcasts, so they threw stones and mud at
him, and went their way. Then the wolves gathered at the foot of the
cross, and the birds flew lower and lower. And presently the birds
lighted all at once upon his head and arms and shoulders, and began
to peck at him, and the wolves began to eat his feet. 'Outcasts,' he
moaned, 'have you also turned against the outcast?'
OUT OF THE ROSE.
One winter evening an old knight in rusted chain-armour rode slowly
along the woody southern slope of Ben Bulben, watching the sun go
down in crimson clouds over the sea. His horse was tired, as after a
long journey, and he had upon his helmet the crest of no neighbouring
lord or king, but a small rose made of rubies that glimmered every
moment to a deeper crimson. His white hair fell in thin curls upon
his shoulders, and its disorder added to the melancholy of his face,
which was the face of one of those who have come but seldom into the
world, and always for its trouble, the dreamers who must do what they
dream, the doers who must dream what they do.
After gazing a while towards the sun, he let the reins fall upon the
neck of his horse, and, stretching out both arms towards the west, he
said, 'O Divine Rose of Intellectual Flame, let the gates of thy
peace be opened to me at last!' And suddenly a loud squealing began
in the woods some hundreds of yards further up the mountain side. He
stopped his horse to listen, and heard behind him a sound of feet and
of voices. 'They are beating them to make them go into the narrow
path by the gorge,' said someone, and in another moment a dozen
peasants armed with short spears had come up with the knight, and
stood a little apart from him, their blue caps in their hands. Where
do you go with the spears?' he asked; and one who seemed the leader
answered: 'A troop of wood-thieves came down from the hills a while
ago and carried off the pigs belonging to an old man who lives by
Glen Car Lough, and we turned out to go after them. Now that we know
they are four times more than we are, we follow to find the way they
have taken; and will presently tell our story to De Courcey, and if
he will not help us, to Fitzgerald; for De Courcey and Fitzgerald
have lately made a peace, and we do not know to whom we belong.'
'But by that time,' said the knight, 'the pigs will have been eaten.'
'A dozen men cannot do more, and it was not reasonable that the whole
valley should turn out and risk their lives for two, or for two dozen
pigs.'
'Can you tell me,' said the knight, 'if the old man to whom the pigs
belong is pious and true of heart?'
'He is as true as another and more pious than any, for he says a
prayer to a saint every morning before his breakfast.'
'Then it were well to fight in his cause,' said the knight, 'and if
you will fight against the wood-thieves I will take the main brunt of
the battle, and you know well that a man in armour is worth many like
these wood-thieves, clad in wool and leather.'
And the leader turned to his fellows and asked if they would take the
chance; but they seemed anxious to get back to their cabins.
'Are the wood-thieves treacherous and impious?'
'They are treacherous in all their dealings,' said a peasant, 'and no
man has known them to pray.'
'Then,' said the knight, 'I will give five crowns for the head of
every wood-thief killed by us in the fighting'; and he bid the leader
show the way, and they all went on together. After a time they came
to where a beaten track wound into the woods, and, taking this, they
doubled back upon their previous course, and began to ascend the
wooded slope of the mountains. In a little while the path grew very
straight and steep, and the knight was forced to dismount and leave
his horse tied to a tree-stem. They knew they were on the right
track: for they could see the marks of pointed shoes in the soft clay
and mingled with them the cloven footprints of the pigs. Presently
the path became still more abrupt, and they knew by the ending of the
cloven foot-prints that the thieves were carrying the pigs. Now and
then a long mark in the clay showed that a pig had slipped down, and
been dragged along for a little way. They had journeyed thus for
about twenty minutes, when a confused sound of voices told them that
they were coming up with the thieves. And then the voices ceased, and
they understood that they had been overheard in their turn. They
pressed on rapidly and cautiously, and in about five minutes one of
them caught sight of a leather jerkin half hidden by a hazel-bush. An
arrow struck the knight's chain-armour, but glanced off harmlessly,
and then a flight of arrows swept by them with the buzzing sound of
great bees. They ran and climbed, and climbed and ran towards the
thieves, who were now all visible standing up among the bushes with
their still quivering bows in their hands: for they had only their
spears and they must at once come hand to hand. The knight was in the
front and smote down first one and then another of the wood-thieves.
The peasants shouted, and, pressing on, drove the wood-thieves before
them until they came out on the flat top of the mountain, and there
they saw the two pigs quietly grubbing in the short grass, so they
ran about them in a circle, and began to move back again towards the
narrow path: the old knight coming now the last of all, and striking
down thief after thief. The peasants had got no very serious hurts
among them, for he had drawn the brunt of the battle upon himself, as
could well be seen from the bloody rents in his armour; and when they
came to the entrance of the narrow path he bade them drive the pigs
down into the valley, while he stood there to guard the way behind
them. So in a moment he was alone, and, being weak with loss of
blood, might have been ended there and then by the wood-thieves he
had beaten off, had fear not made them begone out of sight in a great
hurry.