The Nuts of Knowledge

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Russell
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Title: The Nuts of Knowledge
Lyrical Poems New and Old
Author: George William Russell
Release Date: August 29, 2005 [EBook #16616]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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OF KNOWLEDGE ***
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THE NUTS OF KNOWLEDGE, LYRICAL
POEMS OLD AND NEW BY A.E.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Prologue
The Nuts of Knowledge
Immortality
The Hermit
The
Great Breath
The Divine Vision
The Burning Glass
A Vision of
Beauty
Rest
The Earth Breath
Divine Visitation
The Master
Singer
Aphrodite
Illusion
Babylon
Alter Ego
Krishna

Symbolism
Sung on a By-Way
The Hunter
The Vision of Love

A Call of the Sidhe
Janus
The Grey Eros
The Memory of Earth

By the Margin of the Great Deep
Three Counsellors,
Desire
The
Place of Rest
Sacrifice
Reconciliation
Epilogue

The Manager of the Dun Emer Press has to thank Mr. John Lane for
permission to reprint ten poems from Homeward Songs By The Way,
and ten from The Earth Breath.
FOR BRIAN WHEN HE IS GROWN UP THIS HANDFUL OF
THE NUTS OF KNOWLEDGE I HAVE GATHERED ON THE
SECRET STREAMS.
I thought, beloved, to have brought to you
A gift of quietness and
ease and peace,
Cooling your brow as with the mystic dew

Dropping from twilight trees.
Homeward I go not yet; the darkness grows;
Not mine the voice to
still with peace divine:
From the first fount the stream of quiet flows

Through other hearts than mine.
Yet of my night I give to you the stars,
And of my sorrow here the
sweetest gains,
And out of hell, beyond its iron bars,
My scorn of
all its pains.
THE NUTS OF KNOWLEDGE
A cabin on the mountain side hid in a grassy nook
Where door and
windows open wide that friendly stars may look. The rabbit shy can
patter in, the winds may enter free, Who throng around the mountain
throne in living ecstasy.
And when the sun sets dimmed in eve and purple fills the air, I think
the sacred Hazel Tree is dropping berries there From starry fruitage
waved aloft where Connla's Well o'erflows; For sure the enchanted
waters pour through every wind that blows.
I think when night towers up aloft and shakes the trembling dew How
every high and lonely thought that thrills my being through Is but a
ruddy berry dropped down through the purple air, And from the magic
tree of life the fruit falls everywhere.

IMMORTALITY
We must pass like smoke or live within the spirit's fire; For we can no
more than smoke unto the flame return
If our thought has changed to
dream, our will unto desire, As smoke we vanish though the fire may
burn.
Lights of infinite pity star the grey dusk of our days: Surely here is soul:
with it we have eternal breath:
In the fire of love we live, or pass by
many ways,
By unnumbered ways of dream to death.
THE HERMIT
Now the quietude of earth
Nestles deep my heart within;

Friendships new and strange have birth
Since I left the city's din.
Here the tempest stays its guile,
Like a big kind brother plays,

Romps and pauses here awhile
From its immemorial ways.
Now the silver light of dawn
Slipping through the leaves that fleck

My one window, hurries on,
Throws its arms around my neck.
Darkness to my doorway hies,
Lays her chin upon the roof,
And her
burning seraph eyes
Now no longer keep aloof.
Here the ancient mystery
Holds its hands out day by day,
Takes a
chair and croons with me
By my cabin built of clay.
When the dusky shadow flits,
By the chimney nook I see
Where the
old enchanter sits,
Smiles, and waves, and beckons me.
THE GREAT BREATH
Its edges foamed with amethyst and rose,
Withers once more the old
blue flower of day:
There where the ether like a diamond glows
Its
petals fade away.

A shadowy tumult stirs the dusky air;
Sparkle the delicate dews, the
distant snows;
The great deep thrills for through it everywhere
The
breath of beauty blows.
I saw how all the trembling ages past,
Moulded to her by deep and
deeper breath,
Neared to the hour when Beauty breathes her last

And knows herself in death.
THE DIVINE VISION
This mood hath known all beauty for it sees
O'erwhelmed majesties

In these pale forms, and kingly crowns of gold
On brows no longer
bold,
And through the shadowy terrors of their hell
The love for
which they fell,
And how