"...MORE FULL OF WEEPING..."
In the bedroom
from which he first
saw snow falling...
...snow now falls.
He watches the ghost
of his young self
press his face
against the glass
snow sticking
to his reflection.
Amazed that a world
can fall
into such a silence
hide itself in a white quiet.
Snow falls
in the old bedroom
where his sister recited
his first Yeats....kissed him goodnight.
Snow clings
to peeling wall
blown against
the remembrance
of things long ago
forgotten.
Snow covering
his lost sister's voice
"...for the world’s
more full of weeping
than you
can understand..."
*
I was about 6 at the time and a great big storm was building up outside and Junie was just saying this off the top of her head as the storm broke and her words were broken into by the thunder and lightning.
It was like an incantation and I thought that the poem had conjured up the breaking heavens and that it would always happen when the words had their say. Oh the power of poetry on the very young!. I thought the Sturm und Drang were all part of the magic of poetry.
It was the first poem I remember hearing by Mr. Yeats and in the wonder of my sister's voice.
THE STOLEN CHILD
Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand.
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than he can understand.
W.B. YEATS