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Yeats, W B - Collected poems - I passed along the waters edge below the humid trees
Identifier
007362
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
W B Yeats – Collected Poems
I passed along the water’s edge below the humid trees
My spirit rocked in evening light, the rushes round my knees
My spirit rocked in sleep and sighs; and saw the moorfowl pace
All dripping on a grassy slope, and saw them cease to chase
Each other round in circles, and heard the eldest speak
Who holds the world between His bill and made us strong or weak
Is an underlying moorfowl, and He lives beyond the sky.
The rains are from his dripping wing, the moonbeams from his eye
I passed a little further on and heard a lotus talk
Who made the world and ruleth it, He hangeth on a stalk
For I am in His image made, and all this tinkling tide
Is but a sliding drop of rain between his petals wide
A little way within the gloom a roebuck raised his eyes
Brimful of starlight and he said The Stamper of the skies
He is a gentle roebuck; for how else, I pray, could He
Conceive a thing so sad and soft, a gentle thing like me?
I passed a little further on and heard the peacock say
Who made the grass and made the worms and made my feathers gay
He is a monstrous peacock and He waveth all the night
His languid tail above us, lit with myriad spots of light