Mythology & Folklore
The Spell-Struck
From A Book of Irish Verse, ed. W. B. Yeats (1900)
She walks as she were moving
Some mystic dance to tread,
So falls her gliding footstep,
So leans her listening head;
For once to fairy harping
She danced upon the hill,
And through her brain and bosom
The music pulses still.
Her eyes are bright and tearless,
But wide with yearning pain;
She longs for nothing earthly,
But O! to hear again
The sound that held her listening
Upon her moonlit path!
The rippling fairy music
That filled the lonely rath.
Her lips, that once have tasted
The fairy banquet's bliss,
Shall glad no mortal lover
With maiden smile or kiss.
She's dead to all things living
Since that November Eve;
And when she dies in autumn
No living thing will grieve.
Cite this poem
MLA
Rolleston, Thomas William. “The Spell-Struck.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/rolleston/2/.
Chicago
Rolleston, Thomas William. “The Spell-Struck.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/rolleston/2/.
Read this poem with the Codex →