The Two Trees (by William Butler Yeats)

Yeats [by George Charles Beresford, 1911]
The Two Trees
by William Butler Yeats
from The Rose (1893)
| Beloved, gaze in thine own heart, | |||
| The holy tree is growing there; | |||
| From joy the holy branches start, | |||
| And all the trembling flowers they bear. | |||
| 5 | The changing colours of its fruit | ||
| Have dowered the stars with merry light; | |||
| The surety of its hidden root | |||
| Has planted quiet in the night; | |||
| The shaking of its leafy head | |||
| 10 | Has given the waves their melody, | ||
| And made my lips and music wed, | |||
| Murmuring a wizard song for thee. | |||
| There the Loves a circle go, | |||
| The flaming circle of our days, | |||
| 15 | Gyring, spiring to and fro | ||
| In those great ignorant leafy ways; | |||
| Remembering all that shaken hair | |||
| And how the wingèd sandals dart, | |||
| Thine eyes grow full of tender care: | |||
| 20 | Beloved, gaze in thine own heart. | ||
| Gaze no more in the bitter glass | |||
| The demons, with their subtle guile. | |||
| Lift up before us when they pass, | |||
| Or only gaze a little while; | |||
| 25 | For there a fatal image grows | ||
| That the stormy night receives, | |||
| Roots half hidden under snows, | |||
| Broken boughs and blackened leaves. | |||
| For all things turn to barrenness | |||
| 30 | In the dim glass the demons hold, | ||
| The glass of outer weariness, | |||
| Made when God slept in times of old. | |||
| There, through the broken branches, go | |||
| The ravens of unresting thought; | |||
| 35 | Flying, crying, to and fro, | ||
| Cruel claw and hungry throat, | |||
| Or else they stand and sniff the wind, | |||
| And shake their ragged wings; alas! | |||
| Thy tender eyes grow all unkind: | |||
| 40 | Gaze no more in the bitter glass. |
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