The wind among the reeds

Song Cycle by Richard Roderick-Jones (b. 1947)

?. He reproves the curlew [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

O, curlew, cry no more in the air, 
Or only to the waters in the West; 
Because your crying brings to my mind 
Passion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hair 
That was shaken out over my breast: 
There is enough evil in the crying of wind.

Text Authorship:

by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), "O'Sullivan Rua to the Curlew"

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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

FRE French (Français) (Pierre Mathé) , copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "O chiurlo, più non gridare all'aria", copyright © 2013, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

First published in Savoy, November 1896, as one of Windlestraws, revised 1899 and 1906

Researcher for this page: David K. Smythe

?. The valley of the black pig

Language: English

The dew drops slowly and dreams gather
 . . . . . . . . . .

— The rest of this text is not
currently in the database but will be
added as soon as we obtain it. —

Text Authorship:

by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), "The valley of the black pig"

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First published in Savoy, April 1896 as one of "Two Poems Concerning Peasant Visionaries"

?. The everlasting voices [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

O sweet everlasting Voices, be still;
Go to the guards of the heavenly fold
And bid them wander obeying your will,
Flame under flame, till Time be no more;
Have you not heard that our hearts are old,
That you call in birds, in wind on the hill,
In shaken boughs, in tide on the shore?
O sweet everlasting Voices, be still.

Text Authorship:

by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), "Everlasting voices"

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First published in New Review (January 1896), revised 1899

Researcher for this page: David K. Smythe

?. He wishes for the cloths of heaven [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

Had I the [heavens']¹ embroidered cloths
Enwrought with golden and silver light
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Text Authorship:

by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), title 1: "Aedh wishes for the cloths of heaven", title 2: "He wishes for the cloths of heaven", appears in The Wind among the reeds, first published 1899

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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

View original text (without footnotes)
Original title is "Aedh wishes for the cloths of heaven"; revised 1906; re-titled "He wishes for the cloths of heaven".

Confirmed with W. B. Yeats, Later Poems, Macmillan and Co., London, 1926, page 45.

¹ Gurney: "Heaven's"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

?. To his heart, bidding it have no fear [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

Be you still, be you still, trembling heart;
Remember the wisdom out of the old days:
Him who trembles before the flame and the flood,
And the winds that blow through the starry ways,
Let the starry winds and the flame and the flood
Cover over and hide, for he has no part
With the proud, majestical multitude.

Text Authorship:

by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), "Out of the old days"

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Note: first published in Savoy, November 1896 as one of "Windlestraws", revised 1899 and 1922, renamed "To his heart, bidding it have no fear"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

Total word count: 226