George William Russell

He felt an inner secret joy!To be immortal and alone.

— George William Russell

I pitied one whose tattered dressThe viewless spirit's wide domain.

— George William Russell

He said, 'The royal robe I wearI live and breathe the joy of it.'

— George William Russell

The wonder of the world is o'er:The Nuts of Knowledge harvested.

— George William Russell

Oh, what is worth this lore of ageIn warring upon things that die.

— George William Russell

The power is ours to make or marWould bow to pay us reverence.

— George William Russell

Let me dream only with my heart,But Beauty's ray in you.

— George William Russell

Aye, after victory, the crown;For only what we were had power.

— George William Russell

Who is that goddess to whom men should prayThe heart built up high heaven when it prayed.

— George William Russell

Ah, when I think this earth on which we treadAs you with erring reverence overhead.

— George William Russell

The conception of yourselves as altogether virtuous and wronged is, I assure you, not at all the one which onlookers hold of you. No doubt, you have rights on your side. No doubt, some of you suffered without just cause. But nothing which has been done to you cries aloud to Heaven for condemnation as your own actions.

— George William Russell

There was autocracy in political life, and it was superseded by democracy. So surely will democratic power wrest from you the control of industry. The fate of you, the aristocracy of industry, will be as the fate of the aristocracy of land if you do not now show that you have some humanity still among you. Humanity abhors, above all things, a vacuum in itself, and your class will be cut off from humanity as the surgeon cuts the cancer and alien growth from the body. Be warned ere it is too late.

— George William Russell

Their dream had left me numb and cold, Has turned life's water into wine.

— George William Russell

You who have died on Eastern hills Thought of some thing for Ireland done.

— George William Russell

Life cannot utter words more great You paid the price. You paid the price.

— George William Russell

Here's to you, men I never met, Roll in one blaze of blinding light.

— George William Russell

You would have understood me, had you waited; Always to disagree.

— George William Russell

What is the use of speech? Silence were fitter: Shall I reproach you, dead?

— George William Russell

Nay, let this earth, your portion, likewise cover\t Always, I held your heart.

— George William Russell

I have met other women who were tender, I who had found you fair?

— George William Russell

Late, late, I come to you, now death discloses Sadly I cast my heart.

— George William Russell

Far up the dim twilight fluttered Our eyes could never see.

— George William Russell

A young man who had been troubling society with impalpable doctrines of a new civilization which he called "the Kingdom of Heaven" had been put out of the way; and I can imagine that believer in material power murmuring as he went homeward, "it will all blow over now." Yes. The wind from the Kingdom of Heaven has blown over the world, and shall blow for centuries yet.

— George William Russell

In ancient shadows and twilightsChrist was betrayed.

— George William Russell

Let thy young wanderer dream on:He is knit with his doom.

— George William Russell

We have the universe to roam in in imagination. It is our virtue to be infinitely varied. The worst tyranny is uniformity.

— George William Russell

We may fight against what is wrong, but if we allow ourselves to hate, that is to insure our spiritual defeat and our likeness to what we hate.

— George William Russell

Seek on earth what you have found in heaven.

— George William Russell

I remember once quarreling with Yeats who was walking around the room with a sword in one hand muttering spells to ward off evil spirits, and I noticed that every time he passed a plate of plums he put down his unoccupied hand and took a plum and I said, "Yeats, you cannot evoke great spirits and eat plums at the same time."

— George William Russell

When steam first began to pump and wheels go round at so many revolutions per minute, what are called business habits were intended to make the life of man run in harmony with the steam engine, and his movement rival the train in punctuality.

— George William Russell

If the Gods would only inspire me a little more vigorously I would write no end, but as it is I have to sweat over my work, such as it is, and often groan that I never have a chance to do it properly.

— George William Russell

For sure the enchanted waters pour through every wind that blows.And from the magic tree of life the fruit falls everywhere.

— George William Russell

We must pass like smoke or live within the spirit's fire;As smoke we vanish though the fire may burn.

— George William Russell

In the fire of love we live, or pass by many ways,By unnumbered ways of dream to death.

— George William Russell

Now the quietude of earthSince I left the city's din.

— George William Russell

Here the ancient mysterySmiles, and waves, and beckons me.

— George William Russell

Its edges foamed with amethyst and rose,Its petals fade away.

— George William Russell

The great deep thrills for through it everywhereThe breath of beauty blows.

— George William Russell

I saw how all the trembling ages past,And knows herself in death.

— George William Russell

This mood hath known all beauty for it seesCalled God too from his sleep.

— George William Russell

Whatever time thy golden eyelids opeFor joy at our return.

— George William Russell

Thy tender kiss hath memory we are kingsIn hidden light and laughter.

— George William Russell

A shaft of fire that falls like dew,The burning glass of womanhood.

— George William Russell

I must endure the torturing ray,Behind the glass, within the glow.

— George William Russell

Our hearts were drunk with a beauty Our eyes could never see.

— George William Russell

Where we sat at dawn together, while the star-rich heavens shifted,Fall the ghostly froth and fringes of the ocean of the light.

— George William Russell

We and it and all together flashing through the starry spacesTo the mystic heart of beauty and the secret of her thought:

— George William Russell

Here the wild will woke within her lighting up her flying dreams,As her light alternate lures them through the gates of birth and death.

— George William Russell

I am the sunlight in the heart, the silver moonglow in the mind;Each burning-hearted wanderer, and I the dear and homeward star.

— George William Russell

Not unremembering we pass our exile from the starry ways:One timeless hour in time we caught from the long night of endless days.

— George William Russell

For beauty called to beauty and there thronged at the enchanter's willThe vanished hours of love that burn within the Ever-living still.

— George William Russell

As to her worshippers she came descending from her glowing skiesOne fiery visitation of the love the gods desire in thee!

— George William Russell

The blue dusk ran between the streets; my love was winged within my mind; Through thrice a thousand years to walk the ways of ancient Babylon.

— George William Russell

The tower of heaven turns darker blue; a starry sparkle now begins;Come back to me.

— George William Russell

Oh real as in dream all this; and then a hand on mine is laid:While we are in the calm and proud procession of eternal things.

— George William Russell

All the morn a spirit gayIn and out the courts of Time.

— George William Russell

Where the ring of twilight gleamsI to lose myself in thee.

— George William Russell

Now when the spirit in us wakes and broods,Reaching its right hand forth to greet the starry race.

— George William Russell

Nearer to Thee, not by delusion led,And sets the seal celestial on all mortal things.

— George William Russell

What of all the will to do?From the Unknown Archer's bow.

— George William Russell

Only in the self we gropeLove has found itself the whole.

— George William Russell

Twilight, a timid fawn, went glimmering by, But the long chase had ceased for us at last.

— George William Russell

The twilight fleeted away in pearl on the stream,And night, like a diamond dome, stood still in our dream.

— George William Russell

We loved in infinite spaces, forgetting hereMe away from the fulness of love and down to you.

— George William Russell

Our love was so vast that it filled the heavens up:And we moved as shades through the deep that was you and I.

— George William Russell

Hush, not a whisper! Let your heart alone go dreaming.Murmurs the Mighty One his solemn undertone.

— George William Russell

Canst thou not see adown the silver cloudland streamingCome thou away with them, for Heaven to Earth is calling.

— George William Russell

Drink: the immortal waters quench the spirit's longing.Unto the Light of Lights in burning adoration.

— George William Russell

Image of beauty, when I gaze on thee,By spirit kindled or the sensual breath.

— George William Russell

The life which passes mourns its wasted hour.Between the pain of hell and paradise!

— George William Russell

We are desert leagues apart;Chased the shadows from my brow.

— George William Russell

Oh, I am so old, meseemsFrom the long forgotten prime.

— George William Russell

Age is no more near than youthDo not lay thy rapture down.

— George William Russell

When the breath of twilight blows to flame the misty skies,I am one with the twilight's dream.

— George William Russell

Aye, and deep and deep and deeper let me drink and draw,Growing one with its silent stream.

— George William Russell

It was the fairy of the place,Were with me as the years went on.

— George William Russell

It was the warrior withinTheir towers of wantonness and mirth.'

— George William Russell

It was the wise all-seeing soulIn which the wars of time shall cease.'

— George William Russell

Search for the high austere and lonely wayAh, with what longing once again I turn!

— George William Russell

The offerings arise:The silence of the height.

— George William Russell

Of the Earth, of the Mother, my heart with her heart in accord:I begin with the grass once again to be bound to the Lord.

— George William Russell

On the laugh of a child I am borne to the joy of the King.

— George William Russell

Well, when all is said and doneOn an idle rhyme to wait.

— George William Russell

He has built his monumentOnly traced upon the foam.'

— George William Russell

Sacred thy laughter on the air,Thy word in every wandering voice.

— George William Russell

Only in clouds and dreams I felt those soulsInto the vast of God.

— George William Russell

Heart-hidden from the outer things I rose;Is veined through with its fire.

— George William Russell

Still as the holy of holies breathes the vastThe hues of many hours.

— George William Russell

In day from some titanic past it seems Or yet were stars and suns.

— George William Russell

Each dream remembered is a burning-glass,Its rays in splendour pass.

— George William Russell

I am the tender voice calling 'Away,'They follow with wrapt spirit.

— George William Russell

I can enchant the trees and rocks, and fillToo vast and vague, they know me not.

— George William Russell

I am the heartbreak over fallen things,Mete justice from a thousand starry thrones.

— George William Russell

There were many burning hours on the heart-sweet tide,Hastening away to the King on a distant call.

— George William Russell

There were ruby dews were shed when the heart was riven,Hastening away to the King for the peace we longed.

— George William Russell

Who would think this quiet breatherWakes the golden King to-night.

— George William Russell

When he wakes, the dreamy-hearted,From the weeping human eyes.

— George William Russell

The grey road whereupon we trod became as holy ground:Too swift and hurried in their flight to leave their tale behind.

— George William Russell

And sun and moon and starry fires and earth and air and sea The ancient deep and fade therein, enraptured, bright and blind.

— George William Russell

How shallow is this mere that gleams!And lovely light within your eyes.

— George William Russell

We deem our love so infiniteAnd bathed in that diviner air.

— George William Russell

We go on our enchanted wayWith mirrored majesties and powers.

— George William Russell

We are tired who follow afterStain our hearts with richest dyes.

— George William Russell

Pain and penitence forsaking,Join with you the dance of day.

— George William Russell

I needed love no words could say;A gentle priestess of the Wise.

— George William Russell

By many a dream of God and man my thoughts in shining flocks were led:Walked amid rottenness, or where the brawling shouters stamped the street.

— George William Russell

We cannot for forgetfulness forego the reverence due to themA light around the shadowy heads, a shadow round the head of light.

— George William Russell

Our true hearts are forever lonely:Seem bright to us and yet are not.

— George William Russell

Something you see in me I wis not:Erring in all my tenderness.

— George William Russell

I sometimes think a mighty loverFor him alone our lives we live.

— George William Russell

Ah, sigh for us whose hearts unseeingMeet only when pain touches pain.

— George William Russell

Here in these shades the Ancient knows itself, the Soul,And out of slumber waking starts unto the goal.

— George William Russell

Dread deities, the giant powers that warred on menWhere all the exiles of the heart return to rest.

— George William Russell

I have wept a million tears:To the circle of the wise.

— George William Russell

He bent above: so still her breathThat suffers still, yet knows not why.

— George William Russell

Love's immortality so blindFall from it and it goes its way.

— George William Russell

Ah, immortality so blind,Fall from it and it goes afar.

— George William Russell