I sat on cushioned otter skin:
My word was law from Ith to Emen
And shook at Invar Amargin
The hearts of the world-troubling seamen.
And drove tumult and war away
From girl and boy and man and beast;
The fields grew fatter day by day
The wild fowl of the air increased;
And every ancient Ollave said
While he bent down his fading head
“He drives away the Northern cold.”
They will not hush the leaves a-flutter round me the beech leaves old.
I sat and mused and drank sweet wine;
A herdsman came from inland valleys
Crying the pirates drove his swine
To fill their dark-beaked hollow galleys.
I called my battle-breaking men
And my loud brazen battle-cars
From rolling vale and rivery glen
And under the blinking of the stars
Fell on the pirates by the deep
And hurled them in the gulph of sleep:
These hands won many a torque of gold.
They will not hush the leaves a-flutter round me the beech leaves old.
But slowly as I shouting slew
And trampled in the bubbling mire
In my most secret spirit grew
A whirling and a wandering fire:
I stood: keen stars above me shone
Around me shone keen eyes of men:
I laughed aloud and hurried on
By rocky shore and rushy fen;
I laughed because birds fluttered by
And starlight gleamed and clouds flew high
And rushes waved and waters rolled.
They will not hush the leaves a-flutter round me the beech leaves old.
And now I wander in the woods
When summer gluts the golden bees
Or in autumnal solitudes
Arise the leopard-coloured trees;
Or when along the wintry strands
The cormorants shiver on their rocks;
I wander on and wave my hands
And sing and shake my heavy locks.
The gray wolf knows me; by one ear
I lead along the woodland deer;
The hares run by me growing bold.
They will not hush the leaves a-flutter round me the beech leaves old.
I came upon a little town
That slumbered in the harvest moon
And passed a-tiptoe up and down
Murmuring to a fitful tune
How I have followed night and day
A tramping of tremendous feet
And saw where this old tympan lay
Deserted on a doorway seat
And bore it to the woods with me;
Of some unhuman misery
Our married voiced wildly trolled.
They will not hush the leaves a-flutter round me the beech leaves old.
I sang how when day’s toil is done
Orchil shakes out her long dark hair
That hides away the dying sun
And sheds faint odours through the air:
When my hand passed from wire to wire
It quenched with sound like falling dew
The whirling and the wandering fire;
But lift a mournful ulalu
For the kind wires are torn and still
And I must wander wood and hill
Through summer’s heat and winter’s cold.
They will not hush the leaves a-flutter round me the beech leaves old.