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Yeats, W B - The Wanderings of Oisin - We sought the part that was most distant from the door
Identifier
001715
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
W B Yeats – Collected Poems
From The Wanderings of Oisin
We sought the part that was most distant from the door
Green slime made the way slippery, and time on time
Showed prints of sea born scales, while down through it
The captive’s journeys to and fro were writ
Like a small river, and where feet touched came
A momentary gleam of phosphorus flame
Under the deepest shadows of the hall
That woman found a ring hung on the wall
And in the ring a torch, and with its flare
Making a world about her in the air
Passed under the dim doorway, out of sight
And came again, holding a second light
Burning between her fingers and in mine
Laid it and sighed; I held a sword whose shine
No centuries could dim, and a word ran
Thereon in Ogham letters, ‘Manannan’;
That sea god’s name, who in deep content
Sprang dripping, and with captive demons sent
Out of the sevenfold seas, built the dark hall
Rooted in foam and clouds, and cried to all
The mightier masters of a mightier race;
And at his cry there came no milk pale face
Under a crown of thorns and dark with blood
But only exultant faces.