In the Seven Woods. William Butler Yeats

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      THE OLD AGE OF QUEEN MAEVE

      Maeve the great queen was pacing to and fro,

       Between the walls covered with beaten bronze,

       In her high house at Cruachan; the long hearth,

       Flickering with ash and hazel, but half showed

       Where the tired horse-boys lay upon the rushes,

       Or on the benches underneath the walls,

       In comfortable sleep; all living slept

       ​But that great queen, who more than half the night

       Had paced from door to fire and fire to door.

       Though now in her old age, in her young age

       She had been beautiful in that old way

       That's all but gone; for the proud heart is gone

       And the fool heart of the counting-house fears all

       But soft beauty and indolent desire.

       She could have called over the rim of the world

       Whatever woman's lover had hit her fancy,

       And yet had been great bodied and great limbed,

       Fashioned to be the mother of strong children;

       And she'd had lucky eyes and a high heart,

       And wisdom that caught fire like the dried flax,

       At need, and made her beautiful and fierce,

       Sudden and laughing.

      O unquiet heart,

       Why do you praise another, praising her,

       As if there were no tale but your own tale

       Worth knitting to a measure of sweet sound?.

       Have I not bid you tell of that great queen

       Who has been buried some two thousand years?.

       When night was at its deepest, a wild goose

       Cried from the porter’s lodge, and with long clamour

       Shook the ale horns and shields upon their hooks;

       But the horse-boys slept on, as though some power

       Had filled the house with Druid heaviness;

       ​And wondering who of the many changing Sidhe

       Had come as in the old times to counsel her,

       Maeve walked, yet with slow footfall being old,

       To that small chamber by the outer gate.

       The porter slept although he sat upright

       With still and stony limbs and open eyes.

       Maeve waited, and when that ear-piercing noise

       Broke from his parted lips and broke again,

       She laid a hand on either of his shoulders,

       And shook him wide awake, and bid him say

       Who of the wandering many-changing ones

       Had troubled his sleep. But all he had to say

       Was that, the air being heavy and the dogs

       More still than they had been for a good month,

       He had fallen asleep, and, though he had dreamed nothing,

       He could remember when he had had fine dreams.

       It was before the time of the great war

       Over the White-Horned Bull, and the Brown Bull.

       She turned away; he turned again to sleep

       That no god troubled now, and, wondering

       What matters were afoot among the Sidhe,

       Maeve walked through that great hall, and with a sigh

       Lifted the curtain of her sleeping room,

       Remembering that she too had seemed divine

       To many thousand eyes, and to her own

       One that the generations had long waited

       ​That work too difficult for mortal hands

       Might be accomplished. Bunching the curtain up

       She saw her husband Ailell sleeping there,

       And thought of days when he'd had a straight body,

       And of that famous Fergus, Nessa's husband,

       Who had been the lover of her middle life.

       Suddenly Ailell spoke out of his sleep,

       And not with his own voice or a man's voice,

       But with the burning, live, unshaken voice

       Of those that it may be can never age.

       He said 'High Queen of Cruachan and Mag Ai

       A king of the Great Plain would speak with you.'

       And with glad voice Maeve answered him 'What King

       Of the far wandering shadows has come to me?

       As in the old days when they would come and go

       About my threshold to counsel and to help.'

       The parted lips replied 'I seek your help,

       For I am Aengus and I am crossed in love.'

       'How may a mortal whose life gutters out

       Help them that wander with hand clasping hand

       By rivers where nor rain nor hail has dimmed

       Their haughty images, that cannot fade

       Although their beauty's like a hollow dream'

       'I come from the undimmed rivers to bid you call

       ​The children of the Maines out of sleep,

       And set them digging into Anbual's hill.

       We shadows, while they uproot his earthy house,

       Will overthrow his shadows and carry off

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