The Secret Splendour

(Yeats records that in old Irish legends the perfect woman was not merely beautiful in looks but also vigorous in her bodily functions, and that a special mark was the force with which she could empty her bladder. The poem voices the Irish king who picks out Emer for his wife.)

Six queens in the chill air straddled

And the secret waters purled—

O thine as though thou wert striking

Thy will into the world!

Lovely great-bladdered queen

Who madest with crystalline blow,

From parts like a kingdom within,

 The deepest hole in the snow—

Emer, I choose thee and give

To the inward strength of thy keeping

The load of the formless future

That now in my loins is sleeping.

Come with thy hidden powers—

Thy organs of purple and gold—

Press forth a perfect hour

From the ancient mother-mould!

The Gods have their home in thy belly,

They spoke in thy thundering stream;

The snow where thy sign lay the deepest

Was the tablet of my dream.

Page 706