"The Cap and Bells" by William Butler Yeats

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Enjoy this poem by Irish poet William Butler Yeats.

The Cap and Bells
by William Butler Yeats

The jester walked in the garden: 
The garden had fallen still; 
He bade his soul rise upward 
And stand on her window-sill. 

It rose in a straight blue garment, 
When owls began to call: 
It had grown wise-tongued by thinking 
Of a quiet and light footfall; 

But the young queen would not listen; 
She rose in her pale night-gown; 
She drew in the heavy casement 
And pushed the latches down. 

He bade his heart go to her, 
When the owls called out no more; 
In a red and quivering garment 
It sang to her through the door. 

It had grown sweet-tongued by dreaming 
Of a flutter of flower-like hair; 
But she took up her fan from the table 
And waved it off on the air. 

'I have cap and bells,’ he pondered, 
'I will send them to her and die’; 
And when the morning whitened 
He left them where she went by. 

She laid them upon her bosom, 
Under a cloud of her hair, 
And her red lips sang them a love-song 
Till stars grew out of the air. 

She opened her door and her window, 
And the heart and the soul came through, 
To her right hand came the red one, 
To her left hand came the blue. 

They set up a noise like crickets, 
A chattering wise and sweet, 
And her hair was a folded flower 
And the quiet of love in her feet. 





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