NOTES THE BIRD OF FIRE AND TRANCE These two poems are in the nature of metrical experiments. The first is a kind of compromise between the stress system and the foot measure. The stanza is of four lines, alternately of twelve and ten stresses. The second and fourth line in each stanza can be read as a ten-foot line of mixed iambs and anapaests, the first and third, though a similar system subject to replacement of a foot anywhere by a single-syllable half-foot could be applied, are still mainly readable by stresses. The other poem is an experiment in the use of quantitative foot measures. It is a four-line stanza reading alternately ˘ ¯ ˘ | ˘ ¯ ˘ | ¯ ˘ ¯ | ¯ ¯ ˘ | ˘ ¯ ¯

Hic Jacet GLASNEVIN CEMETERY Patriots, behold your guerdon. This man found Erin, his mother, bleeding, chastised, bound, Naked to imputation, poor, denied, While alien masters held her house of pride. And now behold her! Terrible and fair With the eternal ivy in her hair, Armed with the clamorous thunder, how she stands Like Pallas’ self, the Gorgon in her hands. True that her puissance will be easily past, The vision ended; she herself has cast Her fate behind her: yet the work not vain Since that which once has been may be again, And she this image yet recover, fired With godlike workings, brain and hands inspired,

VII METRICAL EXPERIMENTS Winged with dangerous deity, Passion swift and implacable Arose and, storm-footed In the dim heart of him, Ran, insatiate, conquering, Worlds devouring and hearts of men, Then perished, broken by The irresistible Occult masters of destiny,- They who sit in the secrecy And watch unmoved ever Unto the end of all. Metrical Scheme: ¯ ˘ | ¯ ˘ ˘ | ¯ ˘ ˘ | ¯ ˘ | ¯ ˘ ˘ | ¯ ˘ ˘ | ˘ ¯ | ˘ ¯ | ˘ ˘ | ˘ ˘ ˘ | ¯ ˘ ˘ |

Urvasie CANTO I Pururavus from Titan conflict ceased Turned worldwards, through illimitable space Had travelled like a star ’twixt earth and heaven Slowly and brightly. Late our mortal air He breathed; for downward now the hooves divine Trampling out fire with sound before them went, And the great earth rushed up towards him, green. With the first line of dawn he touched the peaks, Nor paused upon those savage heights, but reached Inferior summits subject to the rain, And rested. Looking northwards thence he saw The giant snows upclimbing to the sky, And felt the mighty silence. In his ear The noise of a retreating bat

KHALED OF THE SEA An Arabic Romance An early work, conceived in twelve cantos with a Prologue and Epilogue, found unrevised and incomplete. Prologue Alnuman and the Peri Canto 1 The Story of Alnuman and the Emir Canto 2 The Companions of Alnuman 1 Canto 3 The Companions of Alnuman 2 Canto 4 The Companions of Alnuman 3 Canto 5 The First Quest of the Sapphire Crown Canto 6 The Quest of the- Golden Snake Canto 7 The Quest of the Marble Queen Canto 8 The Quest of the Snowbird Canto 9 The Second Quest of the Sapphire Crown Canto 10 The Journey of the Green Oasis

Silence is all 1 Silence is all, say the sages. Silence watches the work of the ages; In the book of Silence the cosmic Scribe has written his cosmic pages; Silence is all, say the sages. 2 What then of the word, O speaker? What then of the thought, O thinker? Thought is the wine of the soul and the word is the beaker; Life is the banquet-table - the soul of the sage is the drinker. 3 What of the wine, O mortal? I am drunk with the wine as I sit at Wisdom’s portal, Waiting for the Light beyond thought and the Word immortal. I sit in vain at Wisdom’s portal. 4 How

Love in Sorrow Do you remember, Love, that sunset pale When from near meadows sad with mist the breeze Sighed like a feverous soul and with soft wail The ghostly river sobbed among the trees? I think that Nature heard our misery Weep to itself and wept for sympathy. For we were strangers then; we knew not Fate In ambush by the solitary stream Nor did our sorrows hope to find a mate, Much less of love or friendship dared we dream. Rather we thought that loneliness and we Were wed in marble perpetuity. For there was none who loved me, no, not one. Alas, what was there that a man should love? For I was misery

Saraswati with the Lotus BANKIM CHANDRA CHATTERJI. OBIIT 1894 Thy tears fall fast, O mother, on its bloom. O white-armed mother, like honey fall thy tears; Yet even their sweetness can no more relume The golden light, the fragrance heaven rears, The fragrance and the light for ever shed, Upon his lips immortal who is dead. Goethe A perfect face amid barbarian faces, A perfect voice of sweet and serious rhyme, Traveller with calm, inimitable paces, Critic with judgment absolute to all time, A complete strength when men were maimed and weak, German obscured the spirit of a Greek.

-54_The Children of Wotan (1940).htm The Children of Wotan (1940) “Where is the end of your armoured march, O children of Wotan? Earth shudders with fear at your tread, the death-flame laughs in your eyes.” “We have seen the sign of Thor and the hammer of new creation, A seed of blood on the soil, a flower of blood in the skies. We march to make of earth a hell and call it heaven. The heart of mankind we have smitten with the whip of the sorrows seven; The Mother of God lies bleeding in our black and gold sunrise.” “I hear the cry of a broken world, O children of Wotan.” “Question the volcano when it burns, chide the fire and bitumen! Suffering is the