O’SULLIVAN RUA TO MARY LAVELL

The Database of Ornament

                        WHEN my arms wrap you round, I press
                        My heart upon the loveliness
                        That has long faded in the world ;
                        The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled
                        In shadowy pools, when armies fled ;
                        The love-tales wrought with silken thread
                        By dreaming ladies upon cloth
                        That has made fat the murderous moth ;
                        The roses that of old time were
                        Woven by ladies in their hair,
                        Before they drowned their lovers’ eyes
                        In twilight shaken with low sighs ;
                        The dew-cold lilies ladies bore
                        Through many a sacred corridor
                        Where a so sleepy incense rose
                        That only God’s eyes did not close :
                        For that dim brow and lingering hand
                        Come from a more dream-heavy land,
                        A more dream-heavy hour than this ;
                        And, when you sigh from kiss to kiss,
                        I hear pale Beauty sighing too,
                        For hours when all must fade like dew
                        Till there be naught but throne on throne
                        Of seraphs, brooding, each alone,
                        A sword upon his iron knees,
                        On her most lonely mysteries.

                                                                                                W. B. YEATS.