<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=537114" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Lapis Lazuli</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">(For Harry Clifton)</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I HAVE heard that hysterical women say<br>They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow.<br>Of poets that are always gay,<br>For everybody knows or else should know<br>That if nothing drastic is done<br>Aeroplane and Zeppelin will come out.<br>Pitch like King Billy bomb-balls in<br>Until the town lie beaten flat.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">All perform their tragic play,<br>There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,<br>That's Ophelia, that Cordelia;<br>Yet they, should the last scene be there,<br>The great stage curtain about to drop,<br>If worthy their prominent part in the play,<br>Do not break up their lines to weep.<br>They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;<br>Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.<br>All men have aimed at, found and lost;<br>Black out; Heaven blazing into the head:<br>Tragedy wrought to its uttermost.<br>Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages,<br>And all the drop-scenes drop at once<br>Upon a hundred thousand stages,<br>It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">On their own feet they came, or On shipboard,'<br>Camel-back; horse-back, ass-back, mule-back,<br>Old civilisations put to the sword.<br>Then they and their wisdom went to rack:<br>No handiwork of Callimachus,<br>Who handled marble as if it were bronze,<br>Made draperies that seemed to rise<br>When sea-wind swept the corner, stands;<br>His long lamp-chimney shaped like the stem<br>Of a slender palm, stood but a day;<br>All things fall and are built again,<br>And those that build them again are gay.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Two Chinamen, behind them a third,<br>Are carved in lapis lazuli,<br>Over them flies a long-legged bird,<br>A symbol of longevity;<br>The third, doubtless a serving-man,<br>Carries a musical instmment.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Every discoloration of the stone,<br>Every accidental crack or dent,<br>Seems a water-course or an avalanche,<br>Or lofty slope where it still snows<br>Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch<br>Sweetens the little half-way house<br>Those Chinamen climb towards, and I<br>Delight to imagine them seated there;<br>There, on the mountain and the sky,<br>On all the tragic scene they stare.<br>One asks for mournful melodies;<br>Accomplished fingers begin to play.<br>Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,<br>Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=William+Butler+Yeats">William Butler Yeats</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=537114" data-title="Lapis Lazuli de William Butler Yeats" data-description="(For Harry Clifton) I HAVE heard that hysterical women say They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow. Of poets that are always gay, For everybody knows or else should know That if nothing drastic is done Aeroplane and Zeppelin will come out. Pi..."></div> </div> </div>

solid border dashed border dotted border double border groove border ridge border inset border outset border no border blue green red purple cyan gold silver black