The withering of the
boughs
I cried when the moon was murmuring to
the birds,
Let peewit call and curlew cry where
they will,
I long for your merry and tender and
pitiful words,
For the roads are unending, and there
is no place to my mind.
The honey-pale moon lay low on the
sleepy hill,
And I fell asleep upon lonely Echtge of
streams.
No boughs have withered because of the
wintry wind;
The boughs have withered because I have
told them my dreams.
I know of the leafy paths the witches
take,
Who come with their crowns of pearl and
their spindles of wool,
And their secret smile, out of the
depths of the lake;
I know where a dim moon drifts, where
the Danaan kind
Wind and unwind their dances when the
light grows cool
On the island lawns, their feet where
the pale foam gleams.
No boughs have withered because of the
wintry wind;
The boughs have withered because I have
told them my dreams.
I know of the sleepy country, where
swans fly round
Coupled with golden chains, and sing as
they fly.
A king and a queen are wandering there,
and the sound
Has made them so happy and hopeless, so
deaf and so blind
With wisdom, they wander till all the
years have gone by;
I know. and the curlew and peewit on
Echtge of streams.
No boughs have withered because of the
wintry wind;
The boughs have withered because I have
told them my dreams.
W. B. Yeats.
as well
