The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 7 (of 8): The Secret Rose. Rosa Alchemica. The Tables of the Law. The Adoration of the Magi. John Sherman and DhoyaYeats, W. B. (William Butler)
General
The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 7 (of 8): The Secret Rose. Rosa Alchemica. The Tables of the Law. The Adoration of the Magi. John Sherman and Dhoya
Yeats, W. B. (William Butler)
English literature -- Irish authors
I stirred a little in my wonder, and the beggar turned
and saw me, and, bending low, said, “O Brother Dove, if I have done
wrong, forgive me, and I will do penance. It was my pity moved me”;
but I was afraid and I ran away, and did not stop running until I came
here.’
Then all the Brothers began talking together, one saying it was such
and such a saint, and one that it was not he but another; and one that
it was none of these, for they were still in their brotherhoods, but
that it was such and such a one; and the talk was as near to quarreling
as might be in that gentle community, for each would claim so great
a saint for his native province. At last the abbot said, ‘He is none
that you have named, for at Easter I had greeting from all, and each
was in his brotherhood; but he is Aengus the Lover of God, and the
first of those who have gone to live in the wild places and among
the wild beasts. Ten years ago he felt the burden of many labours
in a brotherhood under the Hill of Patrick and went into the forest
that he might labour only with song to the Lord; but the fame of his
holiness brought many thousands to his cell, so that a little pride
clung to a soul from which all else had been driven. Nine years ago he
dressed himself in rags, and from that day none has seen him, unless,
indeed, it be true that he has been seen living among the wolves on the
mountains and eating the grass of the fields. Let us go to him and
bow down before him; for at last, after long seeking, he has found the
nothing that is God; and bid him lead us in the pathway he has trodden.
They passed in their white habits along the beaten path in the wood,
the acolytes swinging their censers before them, and the abbot, with
his crozier studded with precious stones, in the midst of the incense;
and came before the quern-house and knelt down and began to pray,
awaiting the moment when the child would wake, and the Saint cease
from his watch and come to look at the sun going down into the unknown
darkness, as his way was.
OF COSTELLO THE PROUD, OF OONA THE DAUGHTER OF DERMOTT
AND OF THE BITTER TONGUE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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