They say that on your barren mountain ridge You have measured out the road that the soul treads When it has vanished from our natural eyes; That you have talked with apparitions. GOATHERD Indeed My daily thoughts since the first stupor of youth Have found the path my goats' feet cannot find. SHEPHERD Sing, for it may be that your thoughts have plucked Some medicable herb to make our grief Less bitter. GOATHERD They have brought me from that ridge Seed pods and flowers that are not all wild poppy. [_Sings._ 'He grows younger every second That were all his birthdays reckoned Much too solemn seemed; Because of what he had dreamed, Or the ambitions that he served, Much too solemn and reserved. Jaunting, journeying To his own dayspring, He unpacks the loaded pern Of all 'twas pain or joy to learn, Of all that he had made. The outrageous war shall fade; At some old winding whitethorn root He'll practice on the shepherd's flute, Or on the close-cropped grass Court his shepherd lass, Or run where lads reform our day-time Till that is their long shouting play-time; Knowledge he shall unwind Through victories of the mind, Till, clambering at the cradle side, He dreams himself his mother's pride, All knowledge lost in trance Of sweeter ignorance.' SHEPHERD When I have shut these ewes and this old ram Into the fold, we'll to the woods and there Cut out our rhymes on strips of new-torn bark But put no name and leave them at her door. To know the mountain and the valley grieve May be a quiet thought to wife and mother, And children when they spring up shoulder high. LINES WRITTEN IN DEJECTION When have I last looked on The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies Of the dark leopards of the moon? All the wild witches those most noble ladies, For all their broom-sticks and their tears, Their angry tears, are gone. The holy centaurs of the hills are banished; And I have nothing but harsh sun; Heroic mother moon has vanished, And now that I have come to fifty years I must endure the timid sun. THE DAWN I would be ignorant as the dawn That has looked down On that old queen measuring a town With the pin of a brooch, Or on the withered men that saw From their pedantic Babylon The careless planets in their courses, The stars fade out where the moon comes, And took their tablets and did sums; I would be ignorant as the dawn That merely stood, rocking the glittering coach Above the cloudy shoulders of the horses; I would be--for no knowledge is worth a straw-- Ignorant and wanton as the dawn. ON WOMAN May God be praised for woman That gives up all her mind, A man may find in no man A friendship of her kind That covers all he has brought As with her flesh and bone, Nor quarrels with a thought Because it is not her own.