{ "id": "w-b-yeats/the-two-kings", "title": "The Two Kings", "ordinal": null, "subtitle": null, "poet": "W. B. Yeats", "poet_slug": "w-b-yeats", "language": "en", "book": "Responsibilities", "book_slug": "responsibilities", "book_kind": "volume", "sequence": 1, "container": "Responsibilities", "epigraph": null, "first_published": { "year": 1914, "venue": "Responsibilities (1914)", "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.", "uncertain": false, "sources": [ "https://archive.org/details/responsibilities0000will_k2v1" ] }, "source": { "kind": "standard-ebooks", "repo": "standardebooks/w-b-yeats_poetry", "file": "poetry.xhtml", "upstream": [ "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49608", "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32491", "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36865", "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49609", "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49615", "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49609", "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32233", "https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.92252", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001776372", "https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Dublin_University_Review/fE8wAQAAMAAJ", "https://www.google.ie/books/edition/The_Dublin_University_Review/TWUEAAAAQAAJ", "https://www.google.ie/books/edition/The_Dublin_University_Review/TFAwAQAAMAAJ", "https://www.google.ie/books/edition/The_Irish_Monthly/EMoaAAAAYAAJ", "https://archive.org/details/gop-1889", "https://archive.org/details/poemsandballads00unkngoog", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000551354", "https://archive.org/details/fairytalesirish00yeatrich", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008958226", "https://archive.org/details/countesskathleen00yeat", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008883383", "https://archive.org/details/poeticalworksofw01yeat", "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksin01yeat", "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksin02yeatuoft", "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksin00yeatuoft", "https://archive.org/details/responsibilities00yeatiala", "https://books.google.com/books?id=jDI3AAAAIAAJ", "https://archive.org/details/robertes00wby/robertes00wby", "https://archive.org/details/poemsyeatrich", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001020237" ], "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)" }, "verification": { "level": "structural-only", "last_checked": "2026-08-21" }, "stats": { "n_lines": 221, "n_stanzas": 2, "n_parts": 0, "longest_line_chars": 57, "max_indent": 0 }, "site_ready": true, "parts": [], "stanzas": [ [ { "text": "King Eochaid came at sundown to a wood", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Westward of Tara. Hurrying to his queen", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He had out-ridden his war-wasted men", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That with empounded cattle trod the mire;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And where beech trees had mixed a pale green light", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With the ground-ivy’s blue, he saw a stag", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whiter than curds, its eyes the tint of the sea.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Because it stood upon his path and seemed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "More hands in height than any stag in the world", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He sat with tightened rein and loosened mouth", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon his trembling horse, then drove the spur;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But the stag stooped and ran at him, and passed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Rending the horse’s flank. King Eochaid reeled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then drew his sword to hold its levelled point", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Against the stag. When horn and steel were met", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The horn resounded as though it had been silver,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A sweet, miraculous, terrifying sound.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Horn locked in sword, they tugged and struggled there", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As though a stag and unicorn were met", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In Africa on Mountain of the Moon,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until at last the double horns, drawn backward,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Butted below the single and so pierced", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The entrails of the horse. Dropping his sword", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "King Eochaid seized the horns in his strong hands", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And stared into the sea-green eye, and so", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hither and thither to and fro they trod", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Till all the place was beaten into mire.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The strong thigh and the agile thigh were met,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The hands that gathered up the might of the world,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And hoof and horn that had sucked in their speed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Amid the elaborate wilderness of the air.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Through bush they plunged and over ivied root,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And where the stone struck fire, while in the leaves", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A squirrel whinnied and a bird screamed out;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But when at last he forced those sinewy flanks", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Against a beech bole, he threw down the beast", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And knelt above it with drawn knife. On the instant", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It vanished like a shadow, and a cry", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So mournful that it seemed the cry of one", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who had lost some unimaginable treasure", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wandered between the blue and the green leaf", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And climbed into the air, crumbling away,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Till all had seemed a shadow or a vision", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But for the trodden mire, the pool of blood,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The disembowelled horse. King Eochaid ran,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Toward peopled Tara, nor stood to draw his breath", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until he came before the painted wall,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The posts of polished yew, circled with bronze,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of the great door; but though the hanging lamps", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Showed their faint light through the unshuttered windows,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor door, nor mouth, nor slipper made a noise,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor on the ancient beaten paths, that wound", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From well-side or from plough-land, was there noise;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And there had been no sound of living thing", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Before him or behind, but that far-off", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "On the horizon edge bellowed the herds.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Knowing that silence brings no good to kings,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And mocks returning victory, he passed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Between the pillars with a beating heart", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And saw where in the midst of the great hall", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Pale-faced, alone upon a bench, Edain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sat upright with a sword before her feet.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Her hands on either side had gripped the bench,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Her eyes were cold and steady, her lips tight.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some passion had made her stone. Hearing a foot", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She started and then knew whose foot it was;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But when he thought to take her in his arms", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She motioned him afar, and rose and spoke:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“I have sent among the fields or to the woods", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The fighting men and servants of this house,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For I would have your judgment upon one", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who is self-accused. If she be innocent", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She would not look in any known man’s face", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Till judgment has been given, and if guilty,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Will never look again on known man’s face.”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And at these words he paled, as she had paled,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Knowing that he should find upon her lips", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The meaning of that monstrous day. Then she:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“You brought me where your brother Ardan sat", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Always in his one seat, and bid me care him", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Through that strange illness that had fixed him there,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And should he die to heap his burial mound", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And carve his name in Ogham.” Eochaid said,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“He lives?” “He lives and is a healthy man.”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“While I have him and you it matters little", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What man you have lost, what evil you have found.”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“I bid them make his bed under this roof", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And carried him his food with my own hands,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And so the weeks passed by. But when I said", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "‘What is this trouble?’ he would answer nothing,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Though always at my words his trouble grew;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And I but asked the more, till he cried out,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Weary of many questions: ‘There are things", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That make the heart akin to the dumb stone.’", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then I replied: ‘Although you hide a secret,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hopeless and dear, or terrible to think on,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Speak it, that I may send through the wide world", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For medicine.’ Thereon he cried aloud:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "‘Day after day you question me, and I,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Because there is such a storm amid my thoughts", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I shall be carried in the gust, command,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Forbid, beseech and waste my breath.’ Then I,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "‘Although the thing that you have hid were evil,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The speaking of it could be no great wrong,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And evil must it be, if done ’twere worse", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Than mound and stone that keep all virtue in,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And loosen on us dreams that waste our life,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Shadows and shows that can but turn the brain.’", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But finding him still silent I stooped down", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And whispering that none but he should hear,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Said: ‘If a woman has put this on you,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "My men, whether it please her or displease,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And though they have to cross the Loughlan waters", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And take her in the middle of armed men,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Shall make her look upon her handiwork,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That she may quench the rick she has fired; and though", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She may have worn silk clothes, or worn a crown,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She’ll not be proud, knowing within her heart", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That our sufficient portion of the world", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Is that we give, although it be brief giving,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Happiness to children and to men.’", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then he, driven by his thought beyond his thought,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And speaking what he would not though he would,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sighed: ‘You, even you yourself, could work the cure!’", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And at those words I rose and I went out", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And for nine days he had food from other hands,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And for nine days my mind went whirling round", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The one disastrous zodiac, muttering", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That the immedicable mound’s beyond", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Our questioning, beyond our pity even.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But when nine days had gone I stood again", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Before his chair and bending down my head", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Told him, that when Orion rose, and all", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The women of his household were asleep,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To go⁠—for hope would give his limbs the power⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To an old empty woodman’s house that’s hidden", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Close to a clump of beech trees in the wood", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Westward of Tara, there to await a friend", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That could, as he had told her, work his cure", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And would be no harsh friend. When night had deepened,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I groped my way through boughs, and over roots,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Till oak and hazel ceased and beech began,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And found the house, a sputtering torch within,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And stretched out sleeping on a pile of skins", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ardan, and though I called to him and tried", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To shake him out of sleep, I could not rouse him.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I waited till the night was on the turn,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then fearing that some labourer, on his way", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To plough or pasture-land, might see me there,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Went out. Among the ivy-covered rocks,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As on the blue light of a sword, a man", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who had unnatural majesty, and eyes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like the eyes of some great kite scouring the woods,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Stood on my path. Trembling from head to foot", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I gazed at him like grouse upon a kite;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But with a voice that had unnatural music,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "‘A weary wooing and a long,’ he said,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "‘Speaking of love through other lips and looking", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Under the eyelids of another, for it was my craft", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That put a passion in the sleeper there,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when I had got my will and drawn you here,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where I may speak to you alone, my craft", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sucked up the passion out of him again", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And left mere sleep. He’ll wake when the sun wakes,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Push out his vigorous limbs and rub his eyes,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And wonder what has ailed him these twelve months.’", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I cowered back upon the wall in terror,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But that sweet-sounding voice ran on: ‘Woman,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I was your husband when you rode the air,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Danced in the whirling foam and in the dust,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In days you have not kept in memory,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Being betrayed into a cradle, and I come", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That I may claim you as my wife again.’", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I was no longer terrified, his voice", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had half awakened some old memory,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet answered him: ‘I am King Eochaid’s wife", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And with him have found every happiness", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Women can find.’ With a most masterful voice,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That made the body seem as it were a string", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Under a bow, he cried: ‘What happiness", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Can lovers have that know their happiness", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Must end at the dumb stone? But where we build", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Our sudden palaces in the still air", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Pleasure itself can bring no weariness,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor can time waste the cheek, nor is there foot", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That has grown weary of the whirling dance,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor an unlaughing mouth, but mine that mourns,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Among those mouths that sing their sweethearts’ praise,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Your empty bed.’ ‘How should I love,’ I answered,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "‘Were it not that when the dawn has lit my bed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And shown my husband sleeping there, I have sighed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Your strength and nobleness will pass away.”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or how should love be worth its pains were it not", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That when he has fallen asleep within my arms,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Being wearied out, I love in man the child?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What can they know of love that do not know", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She builds her nest upon a narrow ledge", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Above a windy precipice?’ Then he:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "‘Seeing that when you come to the death-bed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "You must return, whether you would or no,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "This human life blotted from memory,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Why must I live some thirty, forty years,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Alone with all this useless happiness?’", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Thereon he seized me in his arms, but I", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Thrust him away with both my hands and cried,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "‘Never will I believe there is any change", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Can blot out of my memory this life", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sweetened by death, but if I could believe", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That were a double hunger in my lips", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For what is doubly brief.’ And now the shape,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "My hands were pressed to, vanished suddenly.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I staggered, but a beech tree stayed my fall,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And clinging to it I could hear the cocks", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Crow upon Tara.” King Eochaid bowed his head", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And thanked her for her kindness to his brother,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For that she promised, and for that refused.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Thereon the bellowing of the empounded herds", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Rose round the walls, and through the bronze-ringed door", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Jostled and shouted those war-wasted men,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And in the midst King Eochaid’s brother stood.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And bade all welcome, being ignorant.", "indent": 0 } ] ] }