A Month with Yeats: Day Eleven

Today’s quote is from ‘The Harp of Aengus’ by W.B. Yeats.

‘Where time is drowned in odour-laden winds
And Druid moons, and murmuring of boughs,’

 

She holds tight the thread of dreams

 

Rain falls dull on sodden fields,

The sky so low it scrapes the boughs

Of trees in winter nakedness.

This time, this place is all we have,

Its aches and pains and unsaid fears,

An ocean grey with greedy hands.

But woven through with fleeting lights,

This damp and misty stillness fills

With all the perfumes of the past,

A host in flowing, broidered robes,

Their feet on running water tread.

The trick, to hold the silken thread,

Where all our days are strung, bright bead on bead,

Lest twisted winter fingers yank it free,

And strew our tumbling, filmy-coloured dreams,

Among the sad remains of last year’s leaves.