The Two Trees

"The Two Trees" is the second song of David Leisner's song cycle O Love is the Crooked Thing.

The audio selection features William Alvarado, baritone, and Kate Bowen, piano. The recording is from a live performance in Boston, 1998. Used with the permission of the composer.

Date: 1980Composer: David LeisnerText: William Butler YeatsSong Collection: O Love is the Crooked Thing

Print vitals & song text

Text

The Two Trees
by William Butler Yeats

Beloved, gaze in thine own heart,
The holy tree is growing there;
From joy the holy branches start,
And all the trembling flowers they bear.
The changing colours of its fruit
Have dowered the stars with merry light;
The surety of its hidden root
Has planted quiet in the night;
The shaking of its leafy head
Has given the waves their melody,
And made my lips and music wed,
Murmuring a wizard song for thee.
There the Loves a circle go,
The flaming circle of our days,
Gyring, spiring to and fro
In those great ignorant leafy ways;
Remembering all that shaken hair
And how the wingèd sandals dart,
Thine eyes grow full of tender care:
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart.

Gaze no more in the bitter glass
The demons, with their subtle guile,
Lift up before us when they pass,
Or only gaze a little while;
For there a fatal image grows
That the stormy night receives,
Roots half hidden under snows,
Broken boughs and blackened leaves.
For all things turn to barrenness
In the dim glass the demons hold,
The glass of outer weariness,
Made when God slept in times of old.
There, through the broken branches, go
The ravens of unresting thought;
Flying, crying, to and fro,
Cruel claw and hungry throat,
Or else they stand and sniff the wind,
And shake their ragged wings; alas!
Thy tender eyes grow all unkind:
Gaze no more in the bitter glass.

Audio

Track:

    Sheet Music

    O Love Is The Crooked Thing

    Composer(s): David Leisner

    Song(s): 1. Down by the Salley Gardens
    2. The Two Trees
    3. A Drinking Song
    4. The Wild Swans at Coole
    5. Brown Penny

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