When the flowery hands of spring Forth their woodland riches fling, Through the meadows, through the valleys Goes the satyr carolling. From the mountain and the moor, Forest green and ocean shore All the faerie kin he rallies Making music evermore. See! the shaggy pelt doth grow On his twisted shanks below, And his dreadful feet are cloven Though his brow be white as snow-- Though his brow be clear and white And beneath it fancies bright, Wisdom and high thoughts are woven And the musics of delight, Though his temples too be fair Yet two horns are growing there Bursting forth to part asunder All the riches of his hair. Faerie maidens he may meet Fly the horns and cloven feet, But, his sad brown eyes with wonder Seeing-stay from their retreat. IV. Victory Roland is dead, Cuchulain's crest is low, The battered war-rear wastes and turns to rust, And Helen's eyes and Iseult's lips are dust And dust the shoulders and the breasts of snow. The faerie people from our woods are gone, No Dryads have I found in all our trees, No Triton blows his horn about our seas And Arthur sleeps far hence in Avalon. The ancient songs they wither as the grass And waste as doth a garment waxen old, All poets have been fools who thought to mould A monument more durable than brass. For these decay: but not for that decays The yearning, high, rebellious spirit of man That never rested yet since life began From striving with red Nature and her ways. Now in the filth of war, the baresark shout Of battle, it is vexed. And yet so oft Out of the deeps, of old, it rose aloft That they who watch the ages may not doubt. Though often bruised, oft broken by the rod, Yet, like the phoenix, from each fiery bed Higher the stricken spirit lifts its head And higher-till the beast become a god. V. Irish Nocturne