They think that while the gables moan And easements creak in winter drear I should be piteously alone Without the speech of comrades dear; And friendly for my sake they fear, It grieves them thinking of me so While all their happy life is near-- What do they know? What do they know? That I have seen the Dagda's throne In sunny lands without a tear And found a forest all my own To ward with magic shield and spear, Where, through the stately towers I rear For my desire, around me go Immortal shapes of beauty clear: They do not know, they do not know. L'Envoi The friends I have without a peer Beyond the western ocean's glow, Whither the faerie galleys steer, They do not know: how should they know? XXIX. Night I know a little Druid wood Where I would slumber if I could And have the murmuring of the stream To mingle with a midnight dream, And have the holy hazel trees To play above me in the breeze, And smell the thorny eglantine; For there the white owls all night long In the scented gloom divine Hear the wild, strange, tuneless song Of faerie voices, thin and high As the bat's unearthly cry, And the measure of their shoon Dancing, dancing, under the moon, Until, amid the pale of dawn The wandering stars begin to swoon. . . . Ah, leave the world and come away! The windy folk are in the glade, And men have seen their revels, laid In secret on some flowery lawn Underneath the beechen covers, Kings of old, I've heard them say, Here have found them faerie lovers That charmed them out of life and kissed Their lips with cold lips unafraid, And such a spell around them made That they have passed beyond the mist And found the Country-under-wave. . . . Kings of old, whom none could save! XXX. Oxford It is well that there are palaces of peace And discipline and dreaming and desire, Lest we forget our heritage and cease The Spirit's work-to hunger and aspire: Lest we forget that we were born divine, Now tangled in red battle's animal net, Murder the work and lust the anodyne, Pains of the beast 'gainst bestial solace set. But this shall never be: to us remains One city that has nothing of the beast, That was not built for gross, material gains, Sharp, wolfish power or empire's glutted feast. We are not wholly brute. To us remains A clean, sweet city lulled by ancient streams, A place of visions and of loosening chains, A refuge of the elect, a tower of dreams. She was not builded out of common stone But out of all men's yearning and all prayer That she might live, eternally our own, The Spirit's stronghold-barred against despair. XXXI. Hymn (For Boys' Voices)