The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 3 (of 8) / The Countess Cathleen. The Land of Heart's Desire. The Unicorn from the Stars

Chapter 54: THE WIND BLOWS OUT OF THE GATES OF THE DAY.

Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

About This Book

A trio of lyrical dramas blends mythic atmosphere, music, and symbolic action to examine encounters between ordinary households and supernatural visitors. One play stages desperate choices amid hunger and otherworldly temptation; another portrays the seductive promise of an enchanted life offered to a young couple; the third presents collaborative mythic tableaux that fuse folkloric motifs and poetic stagecraft. Throughout, ritual, song, and evocative imagery take precedence over realistic explanation, and themes of sacrifice, desire, mortality, and the tension between earthly duties and transcendent longing recur across compact, mood-driven scenes.

THE WIND BLOWS OUT OF THE GATES OF THE DAY.

THE WIND BLOWS OUT OF THE GATES OF THE DAY.[D]

Florence Farr.

The wind blows out of the gates of the day,

The wind blows over the lonely of heart,

And the lonely of heart is withered away,

While the fairies dance in a place apart,

Shaking their milkwhite feet in a ring,

Tossing their milkwhite arms in the air

For they hear the wind laugh and murmur and sing

Of a land where even the old are fair

And even the wise are merry of tongue.

But I heard a reed of Coolaney say,

When the wind has laughed and murmured and sung,

The lovely of heart must wither away.