The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats. Volume 1 of 8. Poems Lyrical and Narrative. Yeats William Butler

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      I heard the old, old men say,

      ‘Everything alters,

      And one by one we drop away.’

      They had hands like claws, and their knees

      Were twisted like the old thorn trees

      By the waters.

      I heard the old, old men say,

      ‘All that’s beautiful drifts away

      Like the waters.’

      I have no happiness in dreaming of Brycelinde,

      Nor Avalon the grass-green hollow, nor Joyous Isle,

      Where one found Lancelot crazed and hid him for a while;

      Nor Ulad, when Naoise had thrown a sail upon the wind,

      Nor lands that seem too dim to be burdens on the heart;

      Land-under-Wave, where out of the moon’s light and the sun’s

      Seven old sisters wind the threads of the long-lived ones;

      Land-of-the-Tower, where Aengus has thrown the gates apart,

      And Wood-of-Wonders, where one kills an ox at dawn,

      To find it when night falls laid on a golden bier:

      Therein are many queens like Branwen and Guinivere;

      And Niamh and Laban and Fand, who could change to an otter or fawn,

      And the wood-woman, whose lover was changed to a blue-eyed hawk;

      And whether I go in my dreams by woodland, or dun, or shore,

      Or on the unpeopled waves with kings to pull at the oar,

      I hear the harp-string praise them, or hear their mournful talk.

      Because of a story I heard under the thin horn

      Of the third moon, that hung between the night and the day,

      To dream of women whose beauty was folded in dismay,

      Even in an old story, is a burden not to be borne.

      O hurry to the water amid the trees,

      For there the tall deer and his leman sigh

      When they have but looked upon their images,

      O that none ever loved but you and I!

      Or have you heard that sliding silver-shoed,

      Pale silver-proud queen-woman of the sky,

      When the sun looked out of his golden hood,

      O that none ever loved but you and I!

      O hurry to the hollow wood, for there

      I will drive out the deer and moon and cry —