There too for ever in twilight Time slips away, Closing in darkness and rapture Its awful day.
In the black pool of the midnight Lugh has slung the Morning Star, And its foam in rippling silver whitens into day afar Falling on the mountain rampart piled with pearl above our glen, Only you and I, beloved, moving in the fields of men.
In the dark tarn of my spirit, Love, the Morning Star is lit; And its halo, ever brightening, lightens into dawn in it. Love, a pearl-grey dawn in darkness, breathing peace without desire; But I fain would shun the burning terrors of the mid-day fire.
Through the faint and tender airs of twilight star on star may gaze, But the eyes of light are blinded in the white flame of the days, From the heat that melts together oft a rarer essence slips, And our hearts may still be parted in the meeting of the lips.
What a darkness would I gaze on when the day had passed the west, If my eyes were dazed and blinded by the whiteness of a breast? Never through the diamond darkness could I hope to see afar Where beyond the pearly rampart burned the purer Evening Star.
I go down from the hills half in gladness, and half with a pain I depart, Where the Mother with gentlest breathing made music on lip and in heart; For I know that my childhood is over: a call comes out of the vast, And the love that I had in the old time like beauty in twilight is past.
I am fired by a Danaan whisper of battles afar in the world, And my thought is no longer of peace, for the banners in dream are unfurled, And I pass from the council of stars and of hills to a life that is new: And I bid to you stars and you mountains a tremulous long adieu.
I will come once again as a master, who played here as child in my dawn I will enter the heart of the hills where the gods of the old world are gone. And will war like the bright Hound of Ulla with princes of earth and of sky. For my dream is to conquer the heavens and battle for kingship on high.
Do you not feel the white glow in your breast, my bird? That is the flame of love I send to you from afar: Not a wafted kiss, hardly a whispered word, But love itself that flies as a white-winged star.
Let it dwell there, let it rest there, at home in your heart: Wafted on winds of gold, it is Love itself, the Dove. Not the god whose arrows wounded with bitter smart, Nor the purple-fiery birds of death and love.