(Νew moon in 12th house)

THE BLESSED

by: William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

•  

  UMHAL called out, bending his head,

  Till Dathi came and stood,

  With a blink in his eyes, at the cave-mouth,

  Between the wind and the wood.

   

  And Cumhal said, bending his knees,

  'I have come by the windy way

  To gather the half of your blessedness

  And learn to pray when you pray.

   

  I can bring you salmon out of the streams

  And heron out of the skies.'

  But Dathi folded his hands and smiled

  With the secrets of God in his eyes.

   

  And Cumhal saw like a drifting smoke

  All manner of blessed souls,

  Women and children, young men with books,

  And old men with croziers and stoles.

   

  'Praise God and God's Mother, Dathi said,

  'For God and God's Mother have sent

  The blessedest souls that walk in the world

  To fill your heart with content.'

   

  'And which is the blessedest,' Cumhal said,

  'Where all are comely and good?

  Is it these that with golden thuribles

  Are singing about the wood?'

   

  'My eyes are blinking,' Dathi said,

  'With the secrets of God half blind,

  But I can see where the wind goes

  And follow the way of the wind;

   

  'And blessedness goes where the wind goes,

  And when it is gone we are dead;

  I see the blessedest soul in the world

  And he nods a drunken head.

   

  'O blessedness comes in the night and the day

  And whither the wise heart knows;

  And one has seen in the redness of wine

  The Incorruptible Rose,

   

  'That drowsily drops faint leaves on him

  And the sweetness of desire,

  While time and the world are ebbing away

  In twilights of dew and of fire.'