Observations placeholder

The Shadowy Waters – W B Yeats

I walked among the seven woods of Coole: 

Shan-walla,
where a willow-bordered pond
Gathers the wild duck from the winter dawn;

Shady Kyle-dortha;

Sunnier Kyle-na-no,

Where many hundred squirrels are as happy
As though they had been hidden by green boughs
Where old age cannot find them;

Paire-na-lee,

Where hazel and ash and privet blind the paths:

Dim Pairc-na-carraig,

where the wild bees fling
Their sudden fragrances on the green air;

Dim Pairc-na-tarav,

where enchanted eyes
Have seen immortal, mild, proud shadows walk;

Dim Inchy wood,

 that hides badger and fox
And marten-cat, and borders that old wood
Wise Buddy Early called the wicked wood:

 Seven odours, seven murmurs, seven woods.

I had not eyes like those enchanted eyes,
Yet dreamed that beings happier than men
Moved round me in the shadows, and at night
My dreams were clown by voices and by fires;
And the images I have woven in this story
Of Forgael and Dectora and the empty waters
Moved round me in the voices and the fires,
And more I may not write of, for they that cleave
The waters of sleep can make a chattering tongue
Heavy like stone, their wisdom being half silence.