The Memory Of Earth

In the wet dusk silver-sweet,
Down the violet scented ways,
As I moved with quiet feet
I was met by mighty days.

On the hedge the hanging dew
Glassed the eve and stars and skies;
While I gazed a madness grew
Into thundered battle cries.

Where the hawthorn glimmered white,
Flashed the spear and fell the stroke--
Ah, what faces pale and bright
Where the dazzling battle broke!

There a hero-hearted queen
With young beauty lit the van.
Gone! the darkness flowed between
All the ancient wars of man.

While I paced the valley's gloom
Where the rabbits pattered near,
Shone a temple and a tomb
With the legend carven clear:

'Time put by a myriad fates
That her day might dawn in glory.
Death made wide a million gates
So to close her tragic story.'

George William Russell

George William Russell, who wrote under the pseudonym 'AE,' was an Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and painter. As a prominent mystical writer, he contributed significantly to the Irish Literary Revival. He also played a vital role in the cooperative movement in Ireland and was a close associate of notable literary figures like W.B. Yeats.

George William Russell

The Hour Of The King

George William Russell, Simple Poetry

The Enchantment of Cuchullain

George William Russell, Simple Poetry

The Winds Of Angus

George William Russell, Simple Poetry

A New Earth

George William Russell, Simple Poetry

English

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The Twilight Of Earth

The wonder of the world is o'er:
The magic from the sea is gone:
There is no unimagined shore,
No islet yet to venture on.
The Sacred Hazels' blooms are shed,
The Nuts of Knowledge harvested.

Oh, what is worth this lore of age
If time shall never bring us back
Our battle with the gods to wage
Reeling along the starry track.
The battle rapture here goes by
In warring upon things that die.

Let be the tale of him whose love
Was sighed between white Deirdre's breasts,
It will not lift the heart above
The sodden clay on which it rests.
Love once had power the gods to bring
All rapt on its wild wandering.

We shiver in the falling dew,
And seek a shelter from the storm:
When man these elder brothers knew
He found the mother ...

George William Russell

The Grey Eros

We are desert leagues apart;
Time is misty ages now
Since the warmth of heart to heart
Chased the shadows from my brow.

Oh, I am so old, meseems
I am next of kin to Time,
The historian of her dreams
From the long forgotten prime.

You have come a path of flowers.
What a way was mine to roam!
Many a fallen empire's towers,
Many a ruined heart my home.

No, there is no comfort, none;
All the dewy tender breath
Idly falls when life is done
On the starless brow of death.

Though the dream of love may tire,
In the ages long agone
There were ruby hearts of fire--
Ah, the daughters of the dawn!

Though I am so feeble now,
I remember when our pride
Could not to the Mighty bow;
We would sweep His stars aside....

George William Russell

The Dawn Of Darkness

Come earth's little children pit-pat from their burrows on the hill;
Hangs within the gloom its weary head the shining daffodil.
In the valley underneath us through the fragrance flit along
Over fields and over hedgerows little quivering drops of song.
All adown the pale blue mantle of the mountains far away
Stream the tresses of the twilight flying in the wake of day.
Night comes; soon alone shall fancy follow sadly in her flight
Where the fiery dust of evening, shaken from the feet of light,
Thrusts its monstrous barriers between the pure, the good, the true,
That our weeping eyes may strain for, but shall never after view.
Only yester eve I watched with heart at rest the nebulæ
Looming far within the shadowy shining of the Milky Way;
Finding in the stillness joy and hope for a...

George William Russell

Day

In day from some titanic past it seems
As if a thread divine of memory runs;
Born ere the Mighty One began his dreams,
    Or yet were stars and suns.

But here an iron will has fixed the bars;
Forgetfulness falls on earth's myriad races:
No image of the proud and morning stars
    Looks at us from their faces.

Yet yearning still to reach to those dim heights,
Each dream remembered is a burning-glass,
Where through to darkness from the Light of Lights
    Its rays in splendour pass.

George William Russell

Remembrance

There were many burning hours on the heart-sweet tide,
And we passed away from ourselves, forgetting all
The immortal moods that faded, the god who died,
Hastening away to the King on a distant call.

There were ruby dews were shed when the heart was riven,
And passionate pleading and prayers to the dead we had wronged;
And we passed away unremembering and unforgiven,
Hastening away to the King for the peace we longed.

Love unremembered and heart-ache we left behind,
We forsook them, unheeding, hastening away in our flight;
We knew the hearts we had wronged of old we would find
When we came to the fold of the King for rest in the night.

George William Russell

The Voice of the Wise

They sat with hearts untroubled,
    The clear sky sparkled above,
And an ancient wisdom bubbled
    From the lips of a youthful love.

They read in a coloured history
    Of Egypt and of the Nile,
And half it seemed a mystery,
    Familiar, half, the while.

Till living out of the story
    Grew old Egyptian men,
And a shadow looked forth Rory
    And said, "We meet again!"

And over Aileen a maiden
    Looked back through the ages dim:
She laughed, and her eyes were laden
    With an old-time love for him.

In a mist came temples thronging
    With sphinxes seen in a row,
And the rest of the day was a longing
    For their homes of long ago.

"We'd go there if they'd let us,"
    They said with wounded pride:...

George William Russell