THE MADNESS OF KING GOLL
 
 I SAT on cushioned otter-skin:
 My word was law from Ith to Emain,
 And shook at Inver Amergin
 The hearts of the world-troubling seamen,
 And drove tumult and war away
 From girl and boy and man and beast;
 The fields grew fatter day by day,
 The wild fowl of the air increased;
 And every ancient Ollave said,
 While he bent down his fading head.
 "He drives away the Northern cold.'
 They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.
 I sat and mused and drank sweet wine;
 A herdsman came from inland valleys,
 Crying, the pirates drove his swine
 To fill their dark-beaked hollow galleys.
 I called my battle-breaking men
 And my loud brazen battle-cars
 From rolling vale and rivery glen;
 And under the blinking of the stars
 Fell on the pirates by the deep,
 And hurled them in the gulph of sleep:
 These hands won many a torque of gold.
 They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.
 But slowly, as I shouting slew
 And trampled in the bubbling mire,
 In my most secret spirit grew
 A whirling and a wandering fire:
 I stood:  keen stars above me shone,
 Around me shone keen eyes of men:
 I laughed aloud and hurried on
 By rocky shore and rushy fen;
 I laughed because birds fluttered by,
 And starlight gleamed, and clouds flew high,
 And rushes waved and waters rolled.
 They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.
 And now I wander in the woods
 When summer gluts the golden bees,
 Or in autumnal solitudes
 Arise the leopard-coloured trees;
 Or when along the wintry strands
 The cormorants shiver on their rocks;
 I wander on, and wave my hands,
 And sing, and shake my heavy locks.
 The grey wolf knows me; by one ear
 I lead along the woodland deer;
 The hares run by me growing bold.
 They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.
 I came upon a little town
 That slumbered in the harvest moon,
 And passed a-tiptoe up and down,
 Murmuring, to a fitful tune,
 How I have followed, night and day,
 A tramping of tremendous feet,
 And saw where this old tympan lay
 Deserted on a doorway seat,
 And bore it to the woods with me;
 Of some inhuman misery
 Our married voices wildly trolled.
 They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.
 I sang how, when day's toil is done,
 Orchil shakes out her long dark hair
 That hides away the dying sun
 And sheds faint odours through the air:
 When my hand passed from wire to wire
 It quenched, with sound like falling dew
 The whirling and the wandering fire;
 But lift a mournful ulalu,
 For the kind wires are torn and still,
 And I must wander wood and hill
 Through summer's heat and winter's cold.
 They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.