

#The Old Age of Queen Maeve


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#### Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition


### Background details and bibliographic information


The Old Age of Queen Maeve
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Author: William Butler Yeats
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### File Description

Electronic edition compiled and proof-read by Beatrix Färber, Rebecca Daly

Funded by School of History, University College, Cork 1. First draft.Extent of text: 1928 words#### Publication


CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork  
College Road, Cork, Ireland—http://www.ucc.ie/celt

 (2014) Distributed by CELT online at University College, Cork, Ireland.  
Text ID Number: E910001-056Availability [RESTRICTED] 
The works by W. B. Yeats are in the public domain. This electronic text is available with prior consent of the CELT programme for purposes of private or academic research and teaching.


#### Notes

First published in 1903[?].

#### Sources


**Literature (a small selection)**2. W. B. Yeats, The Autobiography of William Butler Yeats, consisting of Reveries over childhood and youth, The trembling of the veil, and Dramatis personae (New York 1938).
3. Richard Ellmann, Yeats: The Man and the Masks. Corrected edition with a new preface (Oxford 1979). [First published New York 1948; reprinted London 1961.]
4. Peter Allt and Russell K. Alspach, The Variorum Edition of the Poems of W.B. Yeats (New York: Macmillan 1957).
5. W. B. Yeats, Essays and Introductions (New York: Macmillan 1961).
6. W. B. Yeats, Explorations: selected by Mrs W. B.Yeats (London/New York: Macmillan 1962).
7. Richard Ellmann, The Identity of Yeats (New York 1964).
8. Norman Jeffares, A New Commentary on the Poems of W.B. Yeats (Stanford 1984).
9. Helen Vendler, Our Secret Discipline: Yeats and Lyric Form (Oxford/New York 2007).
10. A general bibliography is available online at the official web site of the Nobel Prize. See: http://nobelprize.org/nobel\_prizes/literature/laureates/1923/yeats-bibl.html
**The edition used in the digital edition**2. William Butler Yeats The Old Age of Queen Maeve in , Ed. William Butler Yeats Later Poems. Macmillan, London, (1922) page 51–58

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CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts


#### Sampling Declaration


The whole poem.


#### Editorial Declaration


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The text has been proof-read twice.


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The electronic text represents the edited text.


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The editorial practice of the hard-copy editor has been retained.


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div0= the individual poem, stanzas are marked lg.


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Names of persons (given names), and places are not tagged. Terms for cultural and social roles are not tagged.


### Profile Description


Created: (Range>1903) #### Use of language


##### Language: [EN] The poem is in English.


### Revision History


* (2014-02-07) Beatrix Färber (ed.)

* File parsed and validated; SGML and HTML files created.
* (2014-02-03) Beatrix Färber (ed.)

* TEI header created.
* (2014-02-07) Rebecca Daly (ed.)

* Structural markup applied according to CELT practice.
* (1996) Students at the CELT Project, UCC (ed.)

* First proofing.
* (1996) Donnchadh Ó Corráin (data capture)

* Text captured




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#### Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition: E910001-056


### The Old Age of Queen Maeve: Author: William Butler Yeats




---

p.51


1. Maeve the great queen was pacing to and fro, 
  
Between the walls covered with beaten bronze, 
  
In her high house at Cruachan; the long hearth, 
  
Flickering with ash and hazel, but half showed 
  
Where the tired horse-boys lay upon the rushes, 
  
Or on the benches underneath the walls, 
  
In comfortable sleep; all living slept 
  
But that great queen, who more than half the night 
  
Had paced from door to fire and fire to door. 
  
Though now in her old age, in her young age 
  
She had been beautiful in that old way 
  
That's all but gone; for the proud heart is gone, 
  
And the fool heart of the counting-house fears all 
  
But soft beauty and indolent desire. 


---

p.52


She could have called over the rim of the world 
  
Whatever woman's lover had hit her fancy, 
  
And yet had been great bodied and great limbed, 
  
Fashioned to be the mother of strong children; 
  
And she'd had lucky eyes and a high heart, 
  
And wisdom that caught fire like the dried flax, 
  
At need, and made her beautiful and fierce, 
  
Sudden and laughing. 
  
O unquiet heart, 
  
Why do you praise another, praising her, 
  
As if there were no tale but your own tale 
  
Worth knitting to a measure of sweet sound? 
  
Have I not bid you tell of that great queen 
  
Who has been buried some two thousand years?
2. When night was at its deepest, a wild goose 
  
Cried from the porter's lodge, and with long clamour 
  
Shook the ale horns and shields upon their hooks; 
  
But the horse-boys slept on, as though some power 
  
Had filled the house with Druid heaviness; 
  
And wondering who of the many-changing Sidhe 
  
Had come as in the old times to counsel her, 


---

p.53


Maeve walked, yet with slow footfall, being old, 
  
To that small chamber by the outer gate. 
  
The porter slept, although he sat upright 
  
With still and stony limbs and open eyes. 
  
Maeve waited, and when that ear-piercing noise 
  
Broke from his parted lips and broke again, 
  
She laid a hand on either of his shoulders, 
  
And shook him wide awake, and bid him say 
  
Who of the wandering many-changing ones 
  
Had troubled his sleep. But all he had to say 
  
Was that, the air being heavy and the dogs 
  
More still than they had been for a good month, 
  
He had fallen asleep, and, though he had dreamed nothing, 
  
He could remember when he had had fine dreams. 
  
It was before the time of the great war 
  
Over the White-Horned Bull, and the Brown Bull.
3. She turned away; he turned again to sleep 
  
That no god troubled now, and, wondering 
  
What matters were afoot among the Sidhe, 
  
Maeve walked through that great hall, and with a sigh 
  
Lifted the curtain of her sleeping-room, 
  
Remembering that she too had seemed divine 


---

p.54


To many thousand eyes, and to her own 
  
One that the generations had long waited 
  
That work too difficult for mortal hands 
  
Might be accomplished. Bunching the curtain up 
  
She saw her husband Ailell sleeping there, 
  
And thought of days when he'd had a straight body, 
  
And of that famous Fergus, Nessa's husband, 
  
Who had been the lover of her middle life.
4. Suddenly Ailell spoke out of his sleep, 
  
And not with his own voice or a man's voice, 
  
But with the burning, live, unshaken voice, 
  
Of those that it may be can never age. 
  
He said, "High Queen of Cruachan and Magh Ai, 
  
A king of the Great Plain would speak with you." 
  
And with glad voice Maeve answered him, "What king 
  
Of the far wandering shadows has come to me? 
  
As in the old days when they would come and go 
  
About my threshold to counsel and to help." 
  
The parted lips replied, "I seek your help, 
  
For I am Aengus, and I am crossed in love." 
  
"How may a mortal whose life gutters out 
  
Help them that wander with hand clasping hand, 


---

p.55


Their haughty images that cannot wither, 
  
For all their beauty's like a hollow dream, 
  
Mirrored in streams that neither hail nor rain 
  
Nor the cold North has troubled?" 
  
 He replied: 
  
"I am from those rivers and I bid you call 
  
The children of the Maines out of sleep, 
  
And set them digging under Bual's hill. 
  
We shadows, while they uproot his earthy house, 
  
Will overthrow his shadows and carry off 
  
Caer, his blue-eyed daughter that I love. 
  
I helped your fathers when they built these walls, 
  
And I would have your help in my great need, 
  
Queen of high Cruachan." 
  
 "I obey your will 
  
With speedy feet and a most thankful heart: 
  
For you have been, O Aengus of the birds, 
  
Our giver of good counsel and good luck." 
  
And with a groan, as if the mortal breath 
  
Could but awaken sadly upon lips 
  
That happier breath had moved, her husband turned 
  
Face downward, tossing in a troubled sleep; 
  
But Maeve, and not with a slow feeble foot, 
  
Came to the threshold of the painted house, 
  
Where her grandchildren slept, and cried aloud, 
  
Until the pillared dark began to stir 


---

p.56


With shouting and the clang of unhooked arms. 
  
She told them of the many-changing ones; 
  
And all that night, and all through the next day 
  
To middle night, they dug into the hill. 
  
At middle night great cats with silver claws, 
  
Bodies of shadow and blind eyes like pearls, 
  
Came up out of the hole, and red-eared hounds 
  
With long white bodies came out of the air 
  
Suddenly, and ran at them and harried them.
5. The Maines' children dropped their spades, and stood 
  
With quaking joints and terror-strucken faces, 
  
Till Maeve called out: "These are but common men. 
  
The Maines' children have not dropped their spades, 
  
Because Earth, crazy for its broken power, 
  
Casts up a show and the winds answer it 
  
With holy shadows." Her high heart was glad, 
  
And when the uproar ran along the grass 
  
She followed with light footfall in the midst, 
  
Till it died out where an old thorn tree stood.
6. Friend of these many years, you too had stood 
  
With equal courage in that whirling rout; 


---

p.57


For you, although you've not her wandering heart, 
  
Have all that greatness, and not hers alone, 
  
For there is no high story about queens 
  
In any ancient book but tells of you; 
  
And when I've heard how they grew old and died, 
  
Or fell into unhappiness, I've said: 
  
"She will grow old and die, and she has wept!" 
  
And when I'd write it out anew, the words, 
  
Half crazy with the thought, She too has wept! 
  
Outrun the measure. 
  
I'd tell of that great queen 
  
Who stood amid a silence by the thorn 
  
Until two lovers came out of the air 
  
With bodies made out of soft fire. The one, 
  
About whose face birds wagged their fiery wings, 
  
Said: "Aengus and his sweetheart give their thanks 
  
To Maeve and to Maeve's household, owing all 
  
In owing them the bride-bed that gives peace." 
  
Then Maeve: "O Aengus, Master of all lovers, 
  
A thousand years ago you held high talk 
  
With the first kings of many-pillared Cruachan. 


---

p.58


O when will you grow weary?" 
  
 They had vanished; 
  
But out of the dark air over her head there came 
  
A murmur of soft words and meeting lips.










