Pierce Butler

“Literature is, to my mind, the great teaching power of the world, the ultimate creator of all values, and it is this, not only in the sacred books whose power everybody acknowledges, but by every movement of imagination in song or story or drama that height of intensity and sincerity has made literature at all. Literature must take the responsibility of its power, and keep all its freedom: it must be like the spirit and like the wind that blows where it listeth; it must claim its right to pierce through every crevice of human nature, and to descrive the relation of the soul and the heart to the facts of life and of law, and to describe that relation as it is, not as we would have it be...””

“... WHEN ONE LOOKS INTO THE DARKNESS THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING THERE...Far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose,Enfold me in my hour of hours; where thoseWho sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre,Or in the wine-vat, dwell beyond the stirAnd tumult of defeated dreams; and deepAmong pale eyelids, heavy with the sleepMen have named beauty. Thy great leaves enfoldThe ancient beards, the helms of ruby and goldOf the crowned Magi; and the king whose eyesSaw the pierced Hands and Rood of elder riseIn Druid vapour and make the torches dim;Till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and himWho met Fand walking among flaming dewBy a grey shore where the wind never blew,And lost the world and Emer for a kiss;And him who drove the gods out of their liss,And till a hundred morns had flowered redFeasted, and wept the barrows of his dead;And the proud dreaming king who flung the crownAnd sorrow away, and calling bard and clownDwelt among wine-stained wanderers in deep woods:And him who sold tillage, and house, and goods,And sought through lands and islands numberless years,Until he found, with laughter and with tears,A woman of so shining lovelinessThat men threshed corn at midnight by a tress,A little stolen tress. I, too, awaitThe hour of thy great wind of love and hate.When shall the stars be blown about the sky,Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die?Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows,Far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose? Out of sight is out of mind:Long have man and woman-kind,Heavy of will and light of mood,Taken away our wheaten food,Taken away our Altar stone;Hail and rain and thunder alone,And red hearts we turn to grey,Are true till time gutter away.... the common people are always ready to blame the beautiful.””

“Who Goes With Fergus?Who will go drive with Fergus now,And pierce the deep wood's woven shade,And dance upon the level shore?Young man, lift up your russet brow,And lift your tender eyelids, maid,And brood on hopes and fear no more.And no more turn aside and broodUpon love's bitter mystery;For Fergus rules the brazen cars,And rules the shadows of the wood,And the white breast of the dim seaAnd all dishevelled wandering stars.””