I have drunk ale from the Country of the Young
And weep because I know all things now:
I have been a hazel-tree, and they hung
The Pilot Star and the Crooked Plough
Among my leaves in times out of mind:
I became a rush that horses tread:
I became a man, a hater of the wind,
Knowing one, out of all things, alone, that his head
May not lie on the breast nor his lips on the hair
Of the woman that he loves, until he dies.
O beast of the wilderness, bird of the air,
Must I endure your amorous cries?
Notes
In an earlier version of this poem (October 1898) the final two lines read:-
Although the rushes and the fowl of the air
Cry of his love with their pitiful cries.
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Comments
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this one is such a treasure so much thinking there that was ahead of the time .... the thinking of a harmonium in all things, the thinking that the world was not created for the benefit of man but rather that man was a part or a constituent of the world not more important or less important than anything very Holistic and healthy view
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I think old poetry is great....for it has never been forgotton!!
I love reading it to... -
I'm never quite sure how to critique poems from Oldpoetry, for if is already there, then it means that in someone elses eyes it is already thought of as a worthy example of how poetry should be.
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