George William Russell

thumb|right|Our hearts were drunk with a beauty Our eyes could never see. George William Russell (10 April 1867 – 17 July 1935) was an Irish nationalist, critic, poet, painter and mystic who often wrote under the pseudonym "Æ." Quotes thumb|right|Forgive me, Spirit of my spirit, for this, that I have found it easier to read the mystery told in tears and understood Thee better in sorrow than in joy. thumb|right| I can imagine that believer in material power murmuring as he went homeward, "it will all blow over now." thumb|right|What are called business habits were intended to make the life of man run in harmony with the steam engine, and his movement rival the train in punctuality. Far up the dim twilight fluttered Moth-wings of vapour and flame: The lights danced over the mountains, Star after star they came. The lights grew thicker unheeded, For silent and still were we;Our hearts were drunk with a beauty Our eyes could never see. "The Unknown God" (1913) When I first discovered for myself how near was the King in His beauty I thought I would be the singer of the happiest songs. Forgive me, Spirit of my spirit, for this, that I have found it easier to read the mystery told in tears and understood Thee better in sorrow than in joy; that, though I would not, I have made the way seem thorny, and have wandered in too many byways, imagining myself into moods which held Thee not. I should have parted the true from the false, but I have not yet passed away from myself who am in the words of this book. Time is a swift winnower, and that he will do quickly for me. Preface to Collected Poems (1913) A young man who had been troubling society with impalpable doctrines of a new civilization which he called "the Kingdom of Heaven" had been put out of the way; and I can imagine that believer in material power murmuring as he went homeward, "it will all blow over now." Yes. The wind from the Kingdom of Heaven has blown over the world, and shall blow for centuries yet. The Economics of Ireland and the Policy of the British Government (1921) After the spiritual powers, there is no thing in the world more unconquerable than the spirit of nationality. … The spirit of nationality in Ireland will persist even though the mightiest of material powers be its neighbor. The Economics of Ireland and the Policy of the British Government (1921) In ancient shadows and twilightsWhere childhood had strayed,The world’s great sorrows were bornAnd its heroes were made. In the lost boyhood of JudasChrist was betrayed. "Germinal" in Vale and Other Poems (1931) Let thy young wanderer dream on:Call him not home.A door opens, a breath a voiceFrom the ancient room,Speaks to him now. Be it dark or brightHe is knit with his doom. "Germinal" in Vale and Other Poems (1931) We may fight against what is wrong, but if we allow ourselves to hate, that is to insure our spiritual defeat and our likeness to what we hate. As quoted in The Living Torch, A.E. (1937) by Monk Gibbon Seek on earth what you have found in heaven. As quoted in The Unpractised Heart (1942) by Leonard Alfred George Strong, p. 147 I remember once quarreling with Yeats who was walking around the room with a sword in one hand muttering spells to ward off evil spirits, and I noticed that every time he passed a plate of plums he put down his unoccupied hand and took a plum and I said, "Yeats, you cannot evoke great spirits and eat plums at the same time." As quoted in Across My Path (1952) by Pelham Edgar, p. 148 When steam first began to pump and wheels go round at so many revolutions per minute, what are called business habits were intended to make the life of man run in harmony with the steam engine, and his movement rival the train in punctuality. As quoted in The School as a Home for the Mind : Creating Mindful Curriculum, Instruction, and Dialogue (2007) by Arthur L. Costa, p. 91 Letter to Mrs. T. P. Hyatt (1895) thumb|right|There are heaps of things I would like to do, but there is no time to do them. Published in the Canadian Theosophist Volume 20, #1 (1939) There are heaps of things I would like to do, but there is no time to do them. The most gorgeous ideas float before the imagination, but time, money, and alas! inspiration to complete them do not arrive, and for any work to be really valuable we must have time to brood and dream a little over it, or else it is bloodless and does not draw forth the God light in those who read. I believe myself, that there is a great deal too much hasty writing in our magazines and pamphlets. No matter how kindly and well disposed we are when we write we cannot get rid of the essential conditions under which really good literature is produced, love for the art of expression in itself; a feeling for the music of sentences, so that they become mantrams, and the thought sings its way into the soul. To get this, one has to spend what seems a disproportionate time in dreaming over and making the art and workmanship as perfect as possible. I could if I wanted, sit down and write steadily and without any soul; but my conscience would hurt me just as much as if I had stolen money or committed some immorality. To do even a ballad as long as The Dream of the Children, takes months of thought, not about the ballad itself, but to absorb the atmosphere, the special current connected with the subject. When this is done the poem shapes itself readily enough; but without the long, previous brooding it would be no good. So you see, from my slow habit of mind and limited time it is all I can do to place monthly, my copy in the hands of my editor when he comes with a pathetic face to me. If the Gods would only inspire me a little more vigorously I would write no end, but as it is I have to sweat over my work, such as it is, and often groan that I never have a chance to do it properly. The Nuts of Knowledge (1903) The Nuts Of Knowledge, Lyrical Poems Old and New By Æ, "Finished on the tenth day of October, in the year Nineteen Hundred & Three." thumb|right|I thought, beloved, to have brought to youA gift of quietness and ease and peace,Cooling your brow as with the mystic dewDropping from twilight trees. I thought, beloved, to have brought to youA gift of quietness and ease and peace,Cooling your brow as with the mystic dewDropping from twilight trees. Homeward I go not yet; the darkness grows;Not mine the voice to still with peace divine:From the first fount the stream of quiet flowsThrough other hearts than mine.Yet of my night I give to you the stars,And of my sorrow here the sweetest gains,And out of hell, beyond its iron bars,My scorn of all its pains. "For Brian when he is grown up this handful of The Nuts of Knowledge I have gathered on The Secret Streams". The Nuts of Knowledge For sure the enchanted waters pour through every wind that blows.I think when night towers up aloft and shakes the trembling dewHow every high and lonely thought that thrills my being throughIs but a ruddy berry dropped down through the purple air,And from the magic tree of life the fruit falls everywhere. Immortality We must pass like smoke or live within the spirit's fire;For we can no more than smoke unto the flame returnIf our thought has changed to dream, our will unto desire,As smoke we vanish though the fire may burn. In the fire of love we live, or pass by many ways,By unnumbered ways of dream to death. The Hermit Now the quietude of earthNestles deep my heart within;Friendships new and strange have birthSince I left the city's din. Here the ancient mysteryHolds its hands out day by day,Takes a chair and croons with meBy my cabin built of clay.When the dusky shadow flits,By the chimney nook I seeWhere the old enchanter sits,Smiles, and waves, and beckons me. The Great Breath Its edges foamed with amethyst and rose,Withers once more the old blue flower of day:There where the ether like a diamond glowsIts petals fade away. The great deep thrills for through it everywhereThe breath of beauty blows. I saw how all the trembling ages past,Moulded to her by deep and deeper breath,Neared to the hour when Beauty breathes her lastAnd knows herself in death. The Divine Vision This mood hath known all beauty for it seesO'erwhelmed majestiesIn these pale forms, and kingly crowns of goldOn brows no longer bold,And through the shadowy terrors of their hellThe love for which they fell,And how desire which cast them in the deepCalled God too from his sleep. Whatever time thy golden eyelids opeThey travel to a hope;Not only backward from these low degreesTo starry dynasties,But, looking far where now the silence ownsAnd rules from empty thrones,Thou seest the enchanted halls of heaven burnFor joy at our return. Thy tender kiss hath memory we are kingsFor all our wanderings.Thy shining eyes already see the afterIn hidden light and laughter. The Burning Glass A shaft of fire that falls like dew,And melts and maddens all my blood,From out thy spirit flashes throughThe burning glass of womanhood. I must endure the torturing ray,And, with all beauty, all desire.Ah, time-long must the effort be,And far the way that I must goTo bring my spirit unto thee,Behind the glass, within the glow. A Vision of Beauty Where we sat at dawn together, while the star-rich heavens shifted,We were weaving dreams in silence, suddenly the veil was lifted.By a hand of fire awakened, in a moment caught and ledUpward to the wondrous vision: through the star-mists overheadFlare and flaunt the monstrous highlands; on the sapphire coast of nightFall the ghostly froth and fringes of the ocean of the light. We and it and all together flashing through the starry spacesIn a tempest dream of beauty lighting up the place of places.Half our eyes behold the glory: half within the spirit's glowEchoes of the noiseless revels and the will of beauty go.By a hand of fire uplifted—to her star-strewn palace brought,To the mystic heart of beauty and the secret of her thought: Here the wild will woke within her lighting up her flying dreams,Round and round the planets whirling break in woods and flowers and streams,And the winds are shaken from them as the leaves from off the rose,And the feet of earth go dancing in the way that beauty goes,And the souls of earth are kindled by the incense of her breathAs her light alternate lures them through the gates of birth and death. O'er the fields of space together following her flying traces,In a radiant tumult thronging, suns and stars and myriad racesMount the spirit spires of beauty, reaching onward to the dayWhen the Shepherd of the Ages draws his misty hordes awayThrough the glimmering deeps to silence, and within the awful fold Life and joy and love forever vanish as a tale is told,Lost within the mother's being. So the vision flamed and fled,And before the glory fallen every other dream lay dead. The Master Singer I am the sunlight in the heart, the silver moonglow in the mind;My laughter runs and ripples through the wavy tresses of the wind.I am the fire upon the hills, the dancing flame that leads afarEach burning-hearted wanderer, and I the dear and homeward star. They knew me from the dawn of time: if Hermes beats his rainbow wings,If Angus shakes his locks of light, or golden-haired Apollo sings,It matters not the name, the land; my joy in all the gods abides:Even in the cricket in the grass some dimness of me smiles and hides.For joy of me the day star glows, and in delight and wild desireThe peacock twilight rays aloft its plumes and blooms of shadowy fire,Where in the vastness too I burn through summer nights and ages long,And with the fiery footed Watchers shake in myriad dance and song. Aphrodite Not unremembering we pass our exile from the starry ways:One timeless hour in time we caught from the long night of endless days. For beauty called to beauty and there thronged at the enchanter's willThe vanished hours of love that burn within the Ever-living still. As to her worshippers she came descending from her glowing skiesSo Aphrodite I have seen with shining eyes look through your eyes:One gleam of the ancestral face which lighted up the dawn for me:One fiery visitation of the love the gods desire in thee! Babylon The blue dusk ran between the streets; my love was winged within my mind;It left to-day and yesterday and thrice a thousand years behind.To-day was past and dead for me for from to-day my feet had run Through thrice a thousand years to walk the ways of ancient Babylon. The tower of heaven turns darker blue; a starry sparkle now begins;The mystery and magnificence, the myriad beauty and the sinsCome back to me. Oh real as in dream all this; and then a hand on mine is laid:The wave of phantom time withdraws; and that young Babylonian maid,One drop of beauty left behind from all the flowing of that tide,Is looking with the self-same eyes, and here in Ireland by my side.Oh, light our life in Babylon, but Babylon has taken wings,While we are in the calm and proud procession of eternal things. Alter Ego All the morn a spirit gayBreathes within my heart a rhyme,'Tis but hide and seek we playIn and out the courts of Time. Where the ring of twilight gleamsRound the sanctuary wrought,Whispers haunt me — in my dreamsWe are one yet know it not.Some for beauty follow longFlying traces; some there beSeek thee only for a song:I to lose myself in thee. Symbolism Now when the spirit in us wakes and broods,Filled with home yearnings, drowsily it flingsFrom its deep heart high dreams and mystic moods,Mixed with the memory of the loved earth things;Clothing the vast with a familiar face;Reaching its right hand forth to greet the starry race. Nearer to Thee, not by delusion led,Though there no house fires burn nor bright eyes gaze,We rise, but by the symbol charioted,Through loved things rising up to Love's own waysBy these the soul unto the vast has wingsAnd sets the seal celestial on all mortal things. Sung On A By-Way What of all the will to do?It has vanished long ago,For a dream-shaft pierced it throughFrom the Unknown Archer's bow. Only in the self we gropeTo the misty end of time:Truth has put an end to hope.What of all the heart to love?Sadder than for will or soul,No light lured it on above;Love has found itself the whole. The Hunter Also known as "Refuge". Twilight, a timid fawn, went glimmering by,And night, the dark blue hunter, followed fast:Ceaseless pursuit and flight were in the sky, But the long chase had ceased for us at last. The Vision Of Love The twilight fleeted away in pearl on the stream,And night, like a diamond dome, stood still in our dream. We loved in infinite spaces, forgetting hereThe breasts that were lit with life and the lips so near;Till the wizard willows waved in the wind and drewMe away from the fulness of love and down to you. Our love was so vast that it filled the heavens up:But the soft white form I held was an empty cup,When the willows called me back to earth with their sigh,And we moved as shades through the deep that was you and I. A Call of the Sidhe Hush, not a whisper! Let your heart alone go dreaming.Dream unto dream may pass: deep in the heart aloneMurmurs the Mighty One his solemn undertone. Canst thou not see adown the silver cloudland streamingRivers of faery light, dewdrop on dewdrop falling,Starfire of silver flames, lighting the dark beneath?And what enraptured hosts burn on the dusky heath!Come thou away with them, for Heaven to Earth is calling. Drink: the immortal waters quench the spirit's longing.Art thou not now, bright one, all sorrow past, in elation,Made young with joy, grown brother-hearted with the vast,Whither thy spirit wending flits the dim stars pastUnto the Light of Lights in burning adoration. Janus Image of beauty, when I gaze on thee,Trembling I waken to a mystery,How through one door we go to life or deathBy spirit kindled or the sensual breath. The life which passes mourns its wasted hour.And, ah, to think how thin the veil that liesBetween the pain of hell and paradise! The Grey Eros We are desert leagues apart;Time is misty ages nowSince the warmth of heart to heartChased the shadows from my brow. Oh, I am so old, meseemsI am next of kin to Time,The historian of her dreamsFrom the long forgotten prime. Though the dream of love may tire,In the ages long agoneThere were ruby hearts of fire —Ah, the daughters of the dawn! Age is no more near than youthTo the sceptre and the crown.Vain the wisdom, vain the truth;Do not lay thy rapture down. By The Margin Of The Great Deep When the breath of twilight blows to flame the misty skies,All its vaporous sapphire, violet glow, and silver gleam,With their magic flood me through the gateway of the eyes;I am one with the twilight's dream. Aye, and deep and deep and deeper let me drink and draw,From the olden fountain more than light or peace or dream,Such primeval being as o'erfills the heart with awe,Growing one with its silent stream. Three Counsellors It was the fairy of the place,Moving within a little light,Who touched with dim and shadowy graceThe conflict at its fever height.It seemed to whisper 'Quietness,'Then quietly itself was gone:Yet echoes of its mute caressWere with me as the years went on. It was the warrior withinWho called 'Awake, prepare for fight:Yet lose not memory in the din:Make of thy gentleness thy might:'Make of thy silence words to shakeThe long-enthroned kings of earth:Make of thy will the force to breakTheir towers of wantonness and mirth.' It was the wise all-seeing soulWho counselled neither war nor peace: 'Only be thou thyself that goalIn which the wars of time shall cease.' Desire Search for the high austere and lonely wayThe Spirit moves in through eternities.Ah, in the soul what memories arise!And with what yearning inexpressible,Rising from long forgetfulness I turnTo Thee, invisible, unrumoured, still:White for Thy whiteness all desires burn.Ah, with what longing once again I turn! Sacrifice The offerings arise:Hazes of rainbow light,Pure crystal, blue, and gold,Through dreamland take their flight;And 'mid the sacrificeGod moveth as of old.In miracles of fireHe symbols forth his days;In gleams of crystal lightReveals what pure pathwaysLead to the soul's desire,The silence of the height. Reconciliation Of the Earth, of the Mother, my heart with her heart in accord:As I lie mid the cool green tresses that mantle her breastI begin with the grass once again to be bound to the Lord. On the laugh of a child I am borne to the joy of the King. Well, when all is said and done Well, when all is said and doneBest within my narrow way,May some angel of the sunMuse memorial o'er my clay:'Here was beauty all betrayedFrom the freedom of her state;From her human uses stayedOn an idle rhyme to wait. He has built his monumentWith the winds of time at strife,Who could have before he wentWritten in the book of life.To the stars from which he cameEmpty handed he goes home;He who might have wrought in flameOnly traced upon the foam.' By Still Waters (1906) By Still Waters, Lyrical Poems Old And New By Æ, "Finished on All Soul's Eve, in the year 1906." Silence and coolness now the earth enfold:Jewels of glittering green, long mists of gold,Hazes of nebulous silver veil the height,And shake in tremors through the shadowy night.Heard through the stillness, as in whispered words,The wandering God-guided wings of birdsRuffle the dark. The little lives that lieDeep hid in grass join in a long-drawn sighMore softly still; and unheard through the blueThe falling of innumerable dew,Lifts with grey fingers all the leaves that layBurned in the heat of the consuming day. "A Summer Night" Sacred thy laughter on the air,Holy thy lightest word that fell,Proud the innumerable hairThat waved at the enchanter's spell.Oh Master of the Beautiful,Creating us from hour to hour,Give me this vision to the fullTo see in lightest things thy power!This vision give, no heaven afar,No throne, and yet I will rejoice,Knowing beneath my feet a star,Thy word in every wandering voice. "Creation" Only in clouds and dreams I felt those soulsIn the abyss, each fire hid in its clod,From which in clouds and dreams the spirit rollsInto the vast of God. "Dusk" Heart-hidden from the outer things I rose;The spirit woke anew in nightly birthUnto the vastness where forever glowsThe star-soul of the earth.There all alone in primal ecstasy,Within her depths where revels never tire,The Olden Beauty shines: each thought of meIs veined through with its fire. "Night" Still as the holy of holies breathes the vastWithin its crystal depths the stars grow dim;Fire on the altar of the hills at lastBurns on the shadowy rim.Moments that holds all moments; white uponThe verge it trembles; then like mists of flowersBreak from the fairy fountain of the dawnThe hues of many hours. "Dawn" thumb|right|Each dream remembered is a burning-glass,Where through to darkness from the Light of LightsIts rays in splendour pass. In day from some titanic past it seems As if a thread divine of memory runs; Born ere the Mighty One began his dreams, Or yet were stars and suns. "Day" thumb|I shine afar, till men may not divineWhether it is the stars or the belovedThey follow with wrapt spirit. Each dream remembered is a burning-glass,Where through to darkness from the Light of LightsIts rays in splendour pass. "Day" Dana I am the tender voice calling 'Away,'Whispering between the beatings of the heart,And inaccessible in dewy eyesI dwell, and all unkissed on lovely lips,Lingering between white breasts inviolate,And fleeting ever from the passionate touch,I shine afar, till men may not divineWhether it is the stars or the belovedThey follow with wrapt spirit. I can enchant the trees and rocks, and fillThe dumb brown lips of earth with mystery,Make them reveal or hide the god. I breatheA deeper pity than all love, myselfMother of all, but without hands to heal:Too vast and vague, they know me not. I am the heartbreak over fallen things,The sudden gentleness that stays the blow,And I am in the kiss that foemen givePausing in battle, and in the tears that fallOver the vanquished foe, and in the highest;Among the Danaan gods, I am the lastCouncil of mercy in their hearts where theyMete justice from a thousand starry thrones. Remembrance There were many burning hours on the heart-sweet tide,And we passed away from ourselves, forgetting allThe immortal moods that faded, the god who died,Hastening away to the King on a distant call. There were ruby dews were shed when the heart was riven,And passionate pleading and prayers to the dead we had wronged;And we passed away unremembering and unforgiven,Hastening away to the King for the peace we longed. The Hour of the King Who would think this quiet breatherFrom the world had taken flight?Yet within the form we see thereWakes the golden King to-night. When he wakes, the dreamy-hearted,He will know not whence he came,And the light from which he partedBe the seraph's sword of flame,And behind it hosts supernalGuarding the lost paradise,And the tree of life eternalFrom the weeping human eyes. The Winds of Angus The grey road whereupon we trod became as holy ground:The eve was all one voice that breathed its message with no sound:And burning multitudes pour through my heart, too bright, too blind,Too swift and hurried in their flight to leave their tale behind. And sun and moon and starry fires and earth and air and seaAre creatures from the deep let loose who pause in ecstasy,Or wing their wild and heavenly way until again they find The ancient deep and fade therein, enraptured, bright and blind. Reflections How shallow is this mere that gleams!Its depth of blue is from the skies;And from a distant sun the dreamsAnd lovely light within your eyes. We deem our love so infiniteBecause the Lord is everywhere,And love awakening is made brightAnd bathed in that diviner air. We go on our enchanted wayAnd deem our hours immortal hours,Who are but shadow kings that playWith mirrored majesties and powers. Natural Magic We are tired who follow afterPhantasy and truth that flies:You with only look and laughterStain our hearts with richest dyes. Pain and penitence forsaking,Hearts like cloisters dim and grey,By your laughter lured, awakingJoin with you the dance of day. Forgiveness I needed love no words could say;She drew me softly nigh her chair,My head upon her knees to lay,With cool hands that caressed my hair.She sat with hands as if to bless,And looked with grave, ethereal eyes;Ensouled by ancient quietness,A gentle priestess of the Wise. A Woman's Voice When the lips I breathed uponAsked for such love as equals claimI looked where all the stars were goneBurned in the day's immortal flame."Come thou like yon great dawn to meFrom darkness vanquished, battles done:Flame unto flame shall flow and beWithin thy heart and mine as one.". The Heroes By many a dream of God and man my thoughts in shining flocks were led:But as I went through Patrick Street the hopes and prophecies were dead.The hopes and prophecies were dead: they could not blossom where the feetWalked amid rottenness, or where the brawling shouters stamped the street. Where was the beauty that the Lord gave man when first he towered in pride?But one came by me at whose word the bitter condemnation died.His brows were crowned with thorns of light: his eyes were bright as one who seesThe starry palaces shine o'er the sparkle of the heavenly seas. 'Is it not beautiful?' he cried. Our Faery Land of Hearts' DesireIs mingled through the mire and mist, yet stainless keeps its lovely fire. The pearly phantoms with blown hair are dancing where the drunkards reel:The cloud frail daffodils shine out where filth is splashing from the heel.O sweet, and sweet, and sweet to hear, the melodies in rivers run:The rapture of their crowded notes is yet the myriad voice of One. We cannot for forgetfulness forego the reverence due to themWho wear at times they do not guess the sceptre and the diadem.As bright a crown as this was theirs when first they from the Father sped;Yet look with deeper eyes and still the ancient beauty is not dead.He mingled with the multitude. I saw their brows were crowned and bright,A light around the shadowy heads, a shadow round the head of light. Blindness Our true hearts are forever lonely:A wistfulness is in our thought:Our lights are like the dawns which onlySeem bright to us and yet are not. Something you see in me I wis not:Another heart in you I guess:A stranger's lips — but thine I kiss not,Erring in all my tenderness. I sometimes think a mighty loverTakes every burning kiss we give:His lights are those which round us hover:For him alone our lives we live. Ah, sigh for us whose hearts unseeingPoint all their passionate love in vain,And blinded in the joy of being,Meet only when pain touches pain. Brotherhood Here in these shades the Ancient knows itself, the Soul,And out of slumber waking starts unto the goal. Dread deities, the giant powers that warred on menGrow tender brothers and gay children once again;Fades every hate away before the Mother's breastWhere all the exiles of the heart return to rest. The Man to the Angel I have wept a million tears:Pure and proud one, where are thine,What the gain though all thy yearsIn unbroken beauty shine? All your beauty cannot winTruth we learn in pain and sighs:You can never enter inTo the circle of the wise. Endurance He bent above: so still her breathWhat air she breathed he could not say,Whether in worlds of life or death:So softly ebbed away, awayThe life that had been light to him,So fled her beauty leaving dimThe emptying chambers of his heartThrilled only by the pang and smart,The dull and throbbing agonyThat suffers still, yet knows not why. Love's immortality so blindDreams that all things with it conjoinedMust share with it immortal day:But not of this—but not of this—The touch, the eyes, the laugh, the kiss,Fall from it and it goes its way. Ah, immortality so blind,To dream all things with it conjoinedMust follow it from star to starAnd share with it immortal years.The memory, yearning, grief, and tears,Fall from it and it goes afar. He felt an inner secret joy!A spirit of unfettered willThrough light and darkness moving stillWithin the All to find its own,To be immortal and alone. The Vesture of the Soul I pitied one whose tattered dressWas patched, and stained with dust and rain;He smiled on me; I could not guessThe viewless spirit's wide domain. He said, 'The royal robe I wearTrails all along the fields of light:Its silent blue and silver bearFor gems the starry dust of night.''The breath of joy unceasinglyWaves to and fro its folds starlit,And far beyond earth's miseryI live and breathe the joy of it.' The Twilight of Earth The wonder of the world is o'er:The magic from the sea is gone:There is no unimagined shore,No islet yet to venture on.The Sacred Hazels' blooms are shed,The Nuts of Knowledge harvested. Oh, what is worth this lore of ageIf time shall never bring us backOur battle with the gods to wageReeling along the starry track.The battle rapture here goes byIn warring upon things that die. The power is ours to make or marOur fate as on the earliest morn,The Darkness and the Radiance areCreatures within the spirit born.Yet, bathed in gloom too long, we mightForget how we imagined light. Not yet are fixed the prison bars:The hidden light the spirit ownsIf blown to flame would dim the starsAnd they who rule them from their thrones:And the proud sceptred spirits thenceWould bow to pay us reverence. The Dream Let me dream only with my heart,Love first, and after see:Know thy diviner counterpartBefore I kneel to thee.So in thy motions all expressedThy angel I may view:I shall not on thy beauty rest,But Beauty's ray in you. The Parting of Ways Aye, after victory, the crown;Yet through the fight no word of cheer;And what would win and what go downNo word could help, no light make clear.A thousand ages onward ledTheir joys and sorrows to that hour;No wisdom weighed, no word was said,For only what we were had power. The Virgin Mother Who is that goddess to whom men should prayBut her from whom their hearts have turned away,Out of whose virgin being they were born,Whose mother nature they have named in scornCalling its holy substance common clay.Yet from this so despised earth was madeThe milky whiteness of those queens who swayedTheir generations with a light caress,And from some image of whose lovelinessThe heart built up high heaven when it prayed. Ah, when I think this earth on which we treadHath borne these blossoms of the lovely dead,And made the living heart I love to beat,I look with sudden awe beneath my feetAs you with erring reverence overhead. Open letter to the Masters of Dublin (1913) thumb|right|The relation of landlord and tenant is not an ideal one, but any relations in a social order will endure if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy, which qualifies life for immortality. The Irish Times (7 October 1913) Full text online Sirs, I address this warning to you, the aristocracy of industry in this city, because, like all aristocracies, you tend to grow blind in long authority, and to be unaware that you and your class and its every action are being considered and judged day by day by those who have power to shake or overturn the whole social order, and whose restlessness in poverty today is making our industrial civilisation stir like a quaking bog. You do not seem to realise that your assumption that you are answerable to yourselves alone for your actions in the industries you control is one that becomes less and less tolerable in a world so crowded with necessitous life. The relation of landlord and tenant is not an ideal one, but any relations in a social order will endure if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy, which qualifies life for immortality. Despotisms endure while they are benevolent, and aristocracies while noblesse oblige is not a phrase to be referred to with a cynical smile. Even an oligarchy might be permanent if the spirit of human kindness, which harmonises all things otherwise incompatible, is present. The conception of yourselves as altogether virtuous and wronged is, I assure you, not at all the one which onlookers hold of you. No doubt, you have rights on your side. No doubt, some of you suffered without just cause. But nothing which has been done to you cries aloud to Heaven for condemnation as your own actions. You assumed that no other guarantees than those you asked were possible, and you determined deliberately, in cold anger, to starve out one third of the population of the city, to break the manhood of the men by the sight of the suffering of their wives and the hunger of their children. We read in the Dark Ages of the rack and thumb screw. But these iniquities were hidden and concealed from the knowledge of men in dungeons and torture chambers. Even in the Dark Ages, humanity could not endure the sight of such suffering, and it learnt of such misuse of power by slow degrees, through rumour, and when it was certain it razed its Bastilles to their foundations. It remained for the twentieth century and the capital city of Ireland to see an oligarchy of four hundred masters deciding openly upon starving one hundred thousand people, and refusing to consider any solution except that fixed by their pride. You, masters, asked men to do that which masters of labour in any other city in these islands had not dared to do. You insolently demanded of those men who were members of a trade union that they should resign from that union; and from those who were not members, you insisted on a vow that they would never join it. Your insolence and ignorance of the rights conceded to workers universally in the modern world were incredible, and as great as your inhumanity. If you had between you collectively a portion of human soul as large as a threepenny bit, you would have sat night and day with the representatives of labour, trying this or that solution of the trouble, mindful of the women and children, who at least were innocent of wrong against you. But no! You reminded labour you could always have your three square meals a day while it went hungry. Cry aloud to heaven for new souls. The souls you have got cast upon the screens of publicity appear like the horrid and writhing creatures enlarged from the insect world, and revealed to us by the cinematographer. You may succeed in your policy and ensure your own damnation by your victory. The men whose manhood you have broken will loathe you, and will always be brooding and scheming to strike a fresh blow. The children will be taught to curse you. The infant being moulded in the womb will have breathed into its starved body the vitality of hate. It is not they — it is you who are the blind Samsons pulling down the pillars of the social order. There was autocracy in political life, and it was superseded by democracy. So surely will democratic power wrest from you the control of industry. The fate of you, the aristocracy of industry, will be as the fate of the aristocracy of land if you do not now show that you have some humanity still among you. Humanity abhors, above all things, a vacuum in itself, and your class will be cut off from humanity as the surgeon cuts the cancer and alien growth from the body. Be warned ere it is too late. To the Memory of Some I knew Who are Dead and Who Loved Ireland (1917) Also known as "Salutation" Their dream had left me numb and cold,But yet my spirit rose in pride, Refashioning in burnished gold The images of those who died,Or were shut in the penal cell. Here's to you, Pearse, your dream not mine, But yet the thought, for this you fell, Has turned life's water into wine. You who have died on Eastern hills Or fields of France as undismayed, Who lit with interlinked wills The long heroic barricade, You, too, in all the dreams you had, Thought of some thing for Ireland done. Life cannot utter words more great Than life may meet by sacrifice, High words were equaled by high fate, You paid the price. You paid the price. The hope lives on age after age, Earth with its beauty might be won For labor as a heritage, For this has Ireland lost a son. Here's to you, men I never met, Yet hope to meet behind the veil, Thronged on some starry parapet, That looks down upon Innisfail, And sees the confluence of dreams That clashed together in our night, One river, born from many streams, Roll in one blaze of blinding light. You Would Have Understood Me You would have understood me, had you waited; I could have loved you, dear! as well as he: Had we not been impatient, dear! and fated Always to disagree. What is the use of speech? Silence were fitter: Lest we should still be wishing things unsaid. Though all the words we ever spake were bitter, Shall I reproach you, dead? Nay, let this earth, your portion, likewise cover All the old anger, setting us apart: Always, in all, in truth was I your lover; Always, I held your heart. I have met other women who were tender, As you were cold, dear! with a grace as rare. Think you, I turned to them, or made surrender, I who had found you fair? Late, late, I come to you, now death discloses Love that in life was not to be our part: On your low lying mound between the roses, Sadly I cast my heart. Quotes about Russell thumb|I felt immediate mutuality with him, this great elderly man bothering about me. But he bothered about all young poets. They were always welcome. ~ P. L. Travers I read Æ’s poems when I was a child in Australia. Later I came to England to see my relatives. But before I did that, I sent a poem to Æ, who was then editing The Irish Statesman, and with all the arrogance of youth I didn’t put any letter with it explaining myself or saying that I was Irish or anything. I just sent it with a stamped addressed envelope. And sure enough, the stamped envelope came back. But in it was a check for two guineas and a letter that said, “I’m accepting your poem, which is a very good one, and I think it could not have been written by anyone who wasn’t Irish. If you’re ever coming to Ireland, be sure to come and see me.” Since I was going to Ireland, I did go to see him and was greatly welcomed and more poems were taken. I felt immediate mutuality with him, this great elderly man bothering about me. But he bothered about all young poets. They were always welcome. After our visit he said to me, “On your way back through Dublin you come and see me again.” I said, “Of course, I will.” But when the time arrived and I was back in Dublin, an awful timidity came upon me. I thought he was a great man and I shouldn’t take up his time; he was doing this for politesse. And so I refrained from going to see him and went back to England. Sometime later when I opened the door, there was Æ. He said to me, “You’re a faithless girl. You promised to see me on your way back through Dublin and you didn’t.” And he added, “I meant to give you my books then and, as you weren’t there, I brought them.” And there were all his books. P. L. Travers, as quoted in The Paris Review No. 86 (Winter 1982) These men — Yeats, James Stephens, and the rest — had aristocratic minds. For them, the world was not fragmented. An idea did not suddenly grow … all alone and separate. For them, all things had long family trees. They saw nothing shameful or silly in myths and fairy stories, nor did they shovel them out of sight and some cupboard marked "Only For Children." They were always willing to concede that there was more things in heaven and earth than philosophy dreamed of. They allowed for the unknown. And, as you can imagine, I took great heart from this. It was Æ who showed me how to look and learn from one's own writing. "Popkins" he said once — he always called her just plain Popkins, whether deliberately mistaking the name or not I never knew. His humor was always subtle — "Popkins had she lived in another age, in the old times to which she certainly belongs, she would undoubtedly have had long golden tresses, a wreath of flowers in one hand, and perhaps a spear in the other. Her eyes would have been like the sea, her nose comely, and on her feet winged sandals. But, this age being the Kali Yuga, as the Indus call it — in our terms, the Iron Age — she comes in habiliments suited to it." P. L. Travers, as quoted in Myth, Symbol, and Meaning in Mary Poppins: The Governess as Provocateur (2007) by Giorgia Grilli, p. 39 External links Brief biography Retrospectives on Russell from The Canadian Theosophist (15 August 1935) Chronology of Russell's life The Candle of Vision (1918) Collected Poems by Æ (1913) Russell at the Online Books Page (University of Pennsylvania) Online books ~ This page links to material under several variants of Russell's name at Project Gutenberg but also confuses him with a contemporary: George William Erskine Russell (1853 - 1919). Category:Poets from Ireland Category:Mystics Category:Critics Category:Painters from Ireland Category:1867 births Category:1935 deaths