Calling us forth, to be with earth again,
Her memories, her splendours, her desires!
The fires of the hearth are fallen: now the rain
Stirs its delight of waters, as the flame
Stirred its delight of heat and spirited fires.
Come! by the lintel listen: clouds proclaim,
That thunder is their vast voice: the winds wane,
That all the storm may gather strength, and strive
Once more in their great breath to be alive;
And fill the angry air with such a strain,
As filled the world's war, when the world first came.
Desolate Cornwall, desolate Brittany,
Are up in vehement wind and vehement wave:
Ancient delights are on their ancient sea,
And nature's violent graces waken there;
And there goes loveliness about the grave,
And death means dreaming, not life's long despair.
Our sister lands are they, one people we,
Cornwall desolate, Brittany desolate,
And Wales: to us is granted to be great:
Because, as winds and seas and flames are free,
We too have freedom full, as wild and rare.
And therefore, on a night of heavenly fires;
And therefore, on a windy hour of noon;
Our soul, like nature's eager soul, aspires,
Finding all thunders and all winds our friends:
And like the moving sea, love we the moon;
And life in us the way of nature wends,
Ardent as nature's own, that never tires.
Born of wild land, children of mountains, we
Fear neither ruining earth, nor stormy sea:
Even as men told in Athens, of our sires:
And as it shall be, till the old world ends.
Your eyes but brighten to the streaming wind,
But lighten to the sighing air, but break
To tears before the labouring hills: your mind
Moves with the passionate spirit of the land.
Now crystal is your soul, now flame: a lake,
Proud and calm, with high scaurs on either hand;
Or a swift lance of lightning, to strike blind.
True child of Gwynedd, child of wilds and fields!
To you earth clings, to you strange nature yields
Far learning, sudden light, fierce fire: these find
Home in your heart, and thoughts that understand.
We will not wander from this land; we will
Be wise together, and accept our world:
This world of the gray cottage by the hill,
This gorge, this lusty air, this loneliness:
The calm of drifting clouds; the pine-tops whirled
And swayed along the ridges. Here distress
Dreams, and delight dreams: dreaming, we can fill
All solitary haunts with prophecy,
All heights with holiness and mystery;
Our hearts with understanding, and our will
With love of nature's law and loveliness.
Old voices call, old pleasures lure: for now
The wet earth breathes ancient fair fragrance forth;
And dying gales hang in the branches, blow
And fall, and blow again: our widest home
Is with rich winds of West, loud winds of North,
Sweeping beneath a gray and vasty dome.
Not with the hearth, whose consolations go,
Our home of homes: but where our eyes grown tired
Of straitened joys, with stretching joys are fired:
Joys of the rolling moor and cloudy brow,
Or worn, precipitous bastions of the foam.
Our fires are fallen from their blossoming height,
And linger in sad embers: but gray bloom
Is on the heather, an enchaunting light
Of purple dusk and vesper air: rich rain
Falls on our hearts, through eve and gentle gloom,
More than upon our foreheads. The world's pain
And joy of storm are proven our delight,
And peace enthroned for ever: ours the mirth,
And melancholy of this ancient earth:
Ours are the mild airs and the starred twilight;
And we, who love them, are not all in vain.
1888
A CORNISH NIGHT.
To William Butler Yeats.