Sacred Texts
Legends/Sagas
Yeats
Celtic
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p. 87
THE PLAYERS ASK FOR A BLESSING ON THE PSALTERIES AND ON THEMSELVES
Three voices together:
HURRY to bless the hands that play,
The mouths that speak, the notes and strings,
O masters of the glittering town!
O ! lay the shrilly trumpet down,
Though drunken with the flags that sway
Over the ramparts and the towers,
And with the waving of your wings.
First voice:
Maybe they linger by the way.
One gathers up his purple gown;
One leans and mutters by the wall--
He dreads the weight of mortal hours.
Second voice:
O no, O no! they hurry down
Like plovers that have heard the call.
p. 88
Third voice:
O kinsmen of the Three in One,
O kinsmen bless the hands that play.
The notes they waken shall live on
When all this heavy history's done;
Our hands, our hands must ebb away.
Three voices together:
The proud and careless notes live on
But bless our hands that ebb away.
Next: The Happy Townland