Starting next week, I might, for a time, in order to save time, only keep a how-my-day-was blog. But today, a longer poem from Yeats:
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NINETEEN
HUNDRED AND NINETEEN
By W.B.
Yeats
I.
Many ingenious lovely things are gone
That
seemed sheer miracle to the multitude,
protected
from the circle of the moon
That
pitches common things about. There stood
Amid the
ornamental bronze and stone
An
ancient image made of olive wood --
And gone
are Phidias' famous ivories
And all
the golden grasshoppers and bees.
We too
had many pretty toys when young:
A law
indifferent to blame or praise,
To bribe
or threat; habits that made old wrong
Melt
down, as it were wax in the sun's rays;
Public
opinion ripening for so long
We
thought it would outlive all future days.
O what
fine thought we had because we thought
That the
worst rogues and rascals had died out.
All
teeth were drawn, all ancient tricks unlearned,
And a
great army but a showy thing;
What
matter that no cannon had been turned
Into a
ploughshare? Parliament and king
Thought
that unless a little powder burned
The
trumpeters might burst with trumpeting
And yet
it lack all glory; and perchance
The guardsmen's
drowsy chargers would not prance.
Now days
are dragon-ridden, the nightmare
Rides
upon sleep: a drunken soldiery
Can
leave the mother, murdered at her door,
To crawl
in her own blood, and go scot-free;
The
night can sweat with terror as before
We
pieced our thoughts into philosophy,
And
planned to bring the world under a rule,
Who are
but weasels fighting in a hole.
He who
can read the signs nor sink unmanned
Into the
half-deceit of some intoxicant
From
shallow wits; who knows no work can stand,
Whether
health, wealth or peace of mind were spent
On
master-work of intellect or hand,
No
honour leave its mighty monument,
Has but
one comfort left: all triumph would
But
break upon his ghostly solitude.
But is
there any comfort to be found?
Man is
in love and loves what vanishes,
What
more is there to say? That country round
None
dared admit, if Such a thought were his,
Incendiary
or bigot could be found
To burn
that stump on the Acropolis,
Or break
in bits the famous ivories
Or
traffic in the grasshoppers or bees.
II.
When
Loie Fuller's Chinese dancers enwound
A
shining web, a floating ribbon of cloth,
It
seemed that a dragon of air
Had
fallen among dancers, had whirled them round
Or
hurried them off on its own furious path;
So the
platonic Year
Whirls
out new right and wrong,
Whirls
in the old instead;
All men
are dancers and their tread
Goes to
the barbarous clangour of a gong.
III
Some
moralist or mythological poet
Compares
the solitary soul to a swan;
I am
satisfied with that,
Satisfied
if a troubled mirror show it,
Before
that brief gleam of its life be gone,
An image
of its state;
The
wings half spread for flight,
The
breast thrust out in pride
Whether
to play, or to ride
Those
winds that clamour of approaching night.
A man in
his own secret meditation
Is lost
amid the labyrinth that he has made
In art
or politics;
Some
Platonist affirms that in the station
Where we
should cast off body and trade
The
ancient habit sticks,
And that
if our works could
But
vanish with our breath
That
were a lucky death,
For
triumph can but mar our solitude.
The swan
has leaped into the desolate heaven:
That
image can bring wildness, bring a rage
To end
all things, to end
What my
laborious life imagined, even
The
half-imagined, the half-written page;
O but we
dreamed to mend
Whatever
mischief seemed
To
afflict mankind, but now
That
winds of winter blow
Learn
that we were crack-pated when we dreamed.
IV.
We, who
seven years ago
Talked
of honour and of truth,
Shriek
with pleasure if we show
The
weasel's twist, the weasel's tooth.
V.
Come let
us mock at the great
That had
such burdens on the mind
And
toiled so hard and late
To leave
some monument behind,
Nor
thought of the levelling wind.
Come let
us mock at the wise;
With all
those calendars whereon
They
fixed old aching eyes,
They
never saw how seasons run,
And now
but gape at the sun.
Come let
us mock at the good
That
fancied goodness might be gay,
And sick
of solitude
Might
proclaim a holiday:
Wind
shrieked -- and where are they?
Mock
mockers after that
That
would not lift a hand maybe
To help
good, wise or great
To bar
that foul storm out, for we
Traffic
in mockery.
VI.
Violence
upon the roads: violence of horses;
Some few
have handsome riders, are garlanded
On
delicate sensitive ear or tossing mane,
But
wearied running round and round in their courses
All
break and vanish, and evil gathers head:
Herodias'
daughters have returned again,
A sudden
blast of dusty wind and after
Thunder
of feet, tumult of images,
Their
purpose in the labyrinth of the wind;
And
should some crazy hand dare touch a daughter
All turn
with amorous cries, or angry cries,
According
to the wind, for all are blind.
But now
wind drops, dust settles; thereupon
There
lurches past, his great eyes without thought
Under
the shadow of stupid straw-pale locks,
That
insolent fiend Robert Artisson
To whom
the love-lorn Lady Kyteler brought
Bronzed
peacock feathers, red combs of her cocks.
