No second Troy
How could I reproach her
that she brings destruction to me,
turns my whole life upside down
and aimless hate rather than love
radiates from her.
How was she able
to estrange me from work
and the people in the street
with slander,
that goes over whole continents,
with robbery, lies and curses
that rain down purposelessly.
Where could she find peace
with a spirit that devours
every thing around her
like a fire from hell,
while she thinks that she’s honourable
and her beauty greater
than that of the girls of today,
was enough to drive any man
to madness.
No second Troy would she burn,
no, the whole world would be aflame
if she could reach her hands to it.
[Reference: No second Troy by William Butler Yeats.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Related quotes
No Second Troy
Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great,
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?
poem by William Butler Yeats
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Troy Town
HEAVENBORN Helen, Sparta's queen,
(O Troy Town!)
Had two breasts of heavenly sheen,
The sun and moon of the heart's desire:
All Love's lordship lay between.
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
Helen knelt at Venus' shrine,
(O Troy Town!)
Saying, “A little gift is mine,
A little gift for a heart's desire.
Hear me speak and make me a sign!
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
“Look, I bring thee a carven cup;
(O Troy Town!)
See it here as I hold it up,—
Shaped it is to the heart's desire,
Fit to fill when the gods would sup.
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
“It was moulded like my breast;
(O Troy Town!)
He that sees it may not rest,
Rest at all for his heart's desire.
O give ear to my heart's behest!
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
“See my breast, how like it is;
(O Troy Town!)
See it bare for the air to kiss!
Is the cup to thy heart's desire?
O for the breast, O make it his!
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
“Yea, for my bosom here I sue;
(O Troy Town!)
Thou must give it where 'tis due,
Give it there to the heart's desire.
Whom do I give my bosom to?
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
“Each twin breast is an apple sweet.
(O Troy Town!)
Once an apple stirred the beat
Of thy heart with the heart's desire:—
Say, who brought it then to thy feet?
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
“They that claimed it then were three:
(O Troy Town!)
For thy sake two hearts did he
Make forlorn of the heart's desire.
Do for him as he did for thee!
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
“Mine are apples grown to the south,
(O Troy Town!)
Grown to taste in the days of drouth,
Taste and waste to the heart's desire:
Mine are apples meet for his mouth.”
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
Venus looked on Helen's gift,
(O Troy Town!)
Looked and smiled with subtle drift,
Saw the work of her heart's desire:—
“There thou kneel'st for Love to lift!”
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
Venus looked in Helen's face,
(O Troy Town!)
Knew far off an hour and place,
And fire lit from the heart's desire;
Laughed and said, “Thy gift hath grace!”
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
Cupid looked on Helen's breast,
(O Troy Town!)
Saw the heart within its nest,
Saw the flame of the heart's desire,—
Marked his arrow's burning crest.
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
Cupid took another dart,
(O Troy Town!)
Fledged it for another heart,
Winged the shaft with the heart's desire,
Drew the string and said, “Depart!”
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
Paris turned upon his bed,
(O Troy Town!)
Turned upon his bed and said,
Dead at heart with the heart's desire—
“Oh to clasp her golden head!”
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Oh peace, where do I find you.....
Oh peace, where do I find you
I search you everywhere in my country but I could not find you
Oh peace, our countrymen love to have you in their hearts
but now your presence is not there to have a peaceful life.
Oh peace where do you go and where can I find you
I see our mothers tears in my country more than rain has poured
I see our nation's charming beauty is lost and its taken away from many acts of hate
I see our people wandering like broken arms to recover their lost freedoms
I see our people beautiful brotherly smiles lost where anger knows no boundaries
I see our people often plant a seed of peace to grow smoothly
but often its burn like a wild fire to the ash by our leaders
We are yet to free from political terrorism and thugs in our own country
and they have trapped us behind shelter of broken promises and blatant lies
Always, life seems to be enjoyed with another man's hearts pain
Oh peace, what have we done to you for you to keep us away within reach
If our country is peaceful, it will blossom like a flower
There is nothing more precious than peace in this world
But peace without justice will not make any nation peaceful
because injustice is the enemy of peace
So, let us find peace where ever it is there within our reach in our minds and hearts
Ravi Sathasivam / Sri Lanka
Copyright @Feb/2010 Ravi Sathasivam
poem by Ravi Sathasivam
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Epitaph on King Priam of Troy
Priam, the Trojan king
Lies in a great peace.
Lies he there
The city of Troy,
Where no more is joy.
Caused by Paris’s ploy,
Thought the city was a toy.
So brought the coil
And Troy, received it, as a spoil,
As the Greeks took the coil, away
And Troy, in ruins, alas.
poem by Deepta Protik Osman
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When Helen Lived
WE have cried in our despair
That men desert,
For some trivial affair
Or noisy, insolent sport,
Beauty that we have won
From bitterest hours;
Yet we, had we walked within
Those topless towers
Where Helen waked with her boy,
Had given but as the rest
Of the men and women of Troy,
A word and a jest.
poem by William Butler Yeats
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About Troy
1
Troy O Troy
an archeologist
will sift your ashes through his fingers
yet a fire occurred greater than that of the Iliad
for seven strings--
too few strings
one needs a chorus
a sea of laments
and thunder of mountains
rain of stone
--how to lead
people away from the ruins
how to lead
the chorus from poems--
thinks the faultless poet
respectably mute
as a pillar of salt
--The song will escape unharmed
It escaped
with flaming wing
into a pure sky
The moon rises over the ruins
Troy O Troy
The city is silent
The poet struggles with his own shadow
The poet cries like a bird in the void
The moon repeats its landscape
gentle metal in smoldering ash
2
They walked along ravines of former streets
as if on a red sea of cinders
and wind lifted the red dust
faithfully painted the sunset of the city
They walked along ravines of former streets
they breathed on the frozen dawn in vain
they said: long years will pass
before the first house stands here
they walked along ravines of former streets
they thought they would find some traces
a cripple plays
on a harmonica
about the braids of a willow
about a girl
the poet is silent
rain falls
poem by Zbigniew Herbert
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A Gentle Madness (Love Poem)
Love is a gentle madness that leaves you empty,
Giving everything and expecting nothing back.
Love is a gentle madness that makes you feel alive,
Taking pleasure in every little thing she does.
Love is a gentle madness that changes everything,
Making your life impossible without her near.
Love is a gentle madness that drowns your sorrow,
Blinding you to her perfectly obvious imperfections.
Love is a gentle madness that brings you peace,
Holding you closer than her breath each night.
Love is a gentle madness that turns your world,
Seeing only beauty as she looks into your eyes.
poem by Ian Beckett
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Modern Beauty
I am the torch, she saith, and what to me
If the moth die of me? I am the flame
Of Beauty, and I burn that all may see
Beauty, and I have neither joy nor shame.
But live with that clear light of perfect fire
Which is to men the death of their desire.
I am Yseult and Helen, I have seen
Troy burn, and the most loving knight lies dead.
The world has been my mirror, time has been
My breath upon the glass; and men have said,
Age after age, in rapture and despair,
Love's poor few words, before my image there.
I live, and am immortal; in my eyes
The sorrow of the world, and on my lips
The joy of life, mingle to make me wise;
Yet now the day is darkened with eclipse:
Who is there lives for beauty? Still am I
The torch, but where's the moth that still dares die?
poem by Arthur Symons
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Slander
The word is out -- heads are talkin
And just like a fire ragin wild in the night,
The rumors hot, the room is rockin,
Its out of control, too vicious to fight
Two lovers split -- a heart is shattered
And out of revenge it steals through the night,
Making sure the lies are scattered
To every border of this town tonight
The words on the street, you call it truth,
I call it slander,
Times are tough, talk is cheap --
Soon theyll talk about you --
Slander
The jury splits -- undecided,
Theyre searching for clues,
My live in their hands
The hour has come, they stand divided,
The future shall judge the good and the bad
And now, theres talk on the street --
I call it slander,
I will fight this somehow
Revenge will be sweet
Slander -- like a knife in my heart --
Slander
Slander -- gonna keep us apart --
Slander
Slander c theres talk on the street
Slander -- revenge will be sweet
Slander -- Im ready to fight
Slander -- I will find it tonight
Slander -- like a knife in my heart --
Slander
Slander -- gonna keep us apart
Slander
Slander -- theres talk on the street --
Slander -- revenge will be sweet
Slander -- too vicious to fight
Slander -- wild in the night
song performed by by Survivor
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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My Stories Of You (chapter eleven)
The whales are fishing our hearts, from the other side of the world
proof that the giants were missing something important
as we all do.
It's almost like the battle of Troy,
heroes killing one another on the Plains of Love,
for the chance that maybe
maybe
you love them too.
And you are white and freckled, as the creatures on the moon,
that dance with the sun in his great eclipses.
You're a miracle of a girl,
beyond the beauty of Cleopatra or Helen of the Troy.
Even the great Babylon lost, in it's bet to reach you, so
how can you expect me
to remain untouched
by this impossible love of yours.
Grilling my heart in hell, at the cost of your love,
I break all the bottles,
and let the sins come out once again.
Mouth full of love, I take all I can get
before you'll refuse my kisses forever.
This land of brave words,
and eleventh part of a love,
is not even close to a masterpiece,
but it is the way I love you.
INSANELY
poem by Serban Raducu Bogdan
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The Second Coming (Cavatina Sequence)
(after William Butler Yeats)
Anarchy, mere madness is loose,
a president
for life is enthroned (while voted out) ,
an incident
of total corruption occurs daily,
not diffident
a country is laid waist, in merriment
brought to an utter impoverishment.
His fifth brigade cleans Matabeleland;
killing, raping;
farmers are driven from their property
just escaping
with their bare lives from some murderous crowds,
with mouth gaping
he smiles on the conquest of fertile farmland,
causing famine, in victory holds up a hand.
While havoc reigns some blood flows everywhere,
chaos is spreading,
the opposition is sent to prison,
he is leading
the country to ruin, its falling apart,
its degrading,
it looses all kinds of decent order,
some millions flee south and cross the border.
Without any conviction destruction
is on the earth,
while people want to rob, rape, pillage and kill;
are told from birth
that they have been robbed from a future,
anger they girth;
pray to their ancestor spirits for war,
surely God will now be coming once more!
[Reference: 'The Second Coming' by William Butler Yeats.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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The Rose Of The World
WHO dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?
For these red lips, with all their mournful pride,
Mournful that no new wonder may betide,
Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam,
And Usna's children died.
We and the labouring world are passing by:
Amid men's souls, that waver and give place
Like the pale waters in their wintry race,
Under the passing stars, foam of the sky,
Lives on this lonely face.
Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode:
Before you were, or any hearts to beat,
Weary and kind one lingered by His seat;
He made the world to be a grassy road
Before her wandering feet.
poem by William Butler Yeats
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A Man Young And Old: VI. His Memories
We should be hidden from their eyes,
Being but holy shows
And bodies broken like a thorn
Whereon the bleak north blows,
To think of buried Hector
And that none living knows.
The women take so little stock
In what I do or say
They'd sooner leave their cosseting
To hear a jackass bray;
My arms are like the twisted thorn
And yet there beauty lay;
The first of all the tribe lay there
And did such pleasure take -
She who had brought great Hector down
And put all Troy to wreck -
That she cried into this ear,
'Strike me if I shriek.'
poem by William Butler Yeats
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A March Day in London
The east wind blows in the street to-day;
The sky is blue, yet the town looks grey.
'Tis the wind of ice, the wind of fire,
Of cold despair and of hot desire,
Which chills the flesh to aches and pains,
And sends a fever through all the veins.
From end to end, with aimless feet,
All day long have I paced the street.
My limbs are weary, but in my breast
Stirs the goad of a mad unrest.
I would give anything to stay
The little wheel that turns in my brain;
The little wheel that turns all day,
That turns all night with might and main.
What is the thing I fear, and why?
Nay, but the world is all awry--
The wind's in the east, the sun's in the sky.
The gas-lamps gleam in a golden line;
The ruby lights of the hansoms shine,
Glance, and flicker like fire-flies bright;
The wind has fallen with the night,
And once again the town seems fair
Thwart the mist that hangs i' the air.
And o'er, at last, my spirit steals
A weary peace ; peace that conceals
Within its inner depths the grain
Of hopes that yet shall flower again.
Love's Bower.
On the white bosom, 'tween the breasts
Of Helen Love has made his bower,
As in a sweet and secret tower
Where mid the world's decay he rests —
A bridegroom in his dream's desire
With the imperial bride whose brow
Is great with beauty now,
Whose eyes have the old fire
That in their passion's joy
Burnt to a cinder on the towers of Troy!
All youths and virgins may go there,
And thence their hearts as torches light,
Fragrant and fresh as new-born air
In the old world's serenest might —
May learn from Love and his warm mate
The secret of the tender tune
Of that long honeymoon,
That like the fire of Fate
Still in their passion's joy
Burns to a cinder on the towers of Troy!
poem by Robert Crawford
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This World Today
Maurice white, wade flemmons & don whitehead
In this new world
The world of today
Now you might think
That the world has changed
But boy meets girl
Same as before
And they vow their love forever more
In this world today.
In this new world
Of troubled times
Just you look back
And Im sure youll find
Man fighting man
For no cause at all
And though it is wrong
The fighting goes on
In this world today.
Why do you say
Were in a different bag
When all the things you did
Were just as bad.
In this new world
Of suffering
Love, peace of mind
Should be our thing
Let man join hands
The old and the young
And let every heart
Now beat as one
In this world today.
Love, peace of mind should be our thing
Love, peace of mind should be our thing
Love, peace of mind should be our thing.
song performed by by Earth Wind And Fire
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Street Gangs
Where there is little love there can be no peace
If hearts are at war, thus begins the warring of nations afar
Only with peace of the heart can peace start
With its absence we have the beginnings, of hate and of war
The ultimate cause of destruction among men
Evil hearts kill, their friends and their for
Bombs and fire can kill all life
Strife in the heart can kill the spirit
Why not try to love the people of this world
Some are our foe with a poisoined soul
The warring hearts who poison their souls
We need not hate, but have freedom and peace
It is hard to love, our friends and our foe.
poem by Anne McDowell
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My Father's Words
Yesterday I finally understood
“Beauty like a tightened bow”
And as read “No Second Troy”
Things, though already clear,
Became even clearer still.
Not just because of Yeats’ words,
But by what my father earlier said.
He told me that life is full of obstacles,
That some surmount those obstacles and
Move on with their lives,
While others remain adrift at sea.
He demanded courage of me,
Courage equal to my desire be happy,
And to understand people are who they are
And will not be changed by me.
My decision must be base on the good as I see,
And not anyone or anything else but that good.
A tighten bow is always ready to be fired.
So Yeats’ beauty of the tightened bow is
Not a just a reference to her visage,
But her readiness to act while others remain still.
Still because their courage does not equal their desire.
My father said I am slow to act
Because I am, in his estimation, a decent and good man.
He said decent and good men quickly fall into a lover’s trap.
And oft times decent and good men are slow to act.
Not because their courage does equal their desire, he encouraged,
But because in overcoming the obstacle they don’t want to hurt anyone.
This is not possible in a storm tossed sea, he said to me.
You must act and do so quickly.
So I must act, and it has nothing to do with
Anyone but me and what is good and right.
The course is set and I will act.
I will not live a life set in misery.
poem by Hal Caufield
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The Gyres
THE GYRES! the gyres! Old Rocky Face, look forth;
Things thought too long can be no longer thought,
For beauty dies of beauty, worth of worth,
And ancient lineaments are blotted out.
Irrational streams of blood are staining earth;
Empedocles has thrown all things about;
Hector is dead and there's a light in Troy;
We that look on but laugh in tragic joy.
What matter though numb nightmare ride on top,
And blood and mire the sensitive body stain?
What matter? Heave no sigh, let no tear drop,
A-greater, a more gracious time has gone;
For painted forms or boxes of make-up
In ancient tombs I sighed, but not again;
What matter? Out of cavern comes a voice,
And all it knows is that one word 'Rejoice!'
Conduct and work grow coarse, and coarse the soul,
What matter? Those that Rocky Face holds dear,
Lovers of horses and of women, shall,
From marble of a broken sepulchre,
Or dark betwixt the polecat and the owl,
Or any rich, dark nothing disinter
The workman, noble and saint, and all things run
On that unfashionable gyre again.
poem by William Butler Yeats
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The second coming
Some people call the name
of the Almighty, before they kill
and have no compassion of their deeds.
Planes filled with people
crash into two very high office towers
and burn before they collapse.
War beasts crawl on tracts
through the desert
and blow fire over a distance.
The air is filled
with flying scavengers,
that strikes more deadly than any living thing.
Oil wells are burning
like huge torches,
throwing flames and smoke into the sky.
Bombs rain down
on the guilty and innocent
and surely the entire universe takes notice.
The sphinx arises from stone
and the nightmare walks the earth,
pitiless and without compassion.
In an evil spiritus mundi man kills one another
and the second coming of the Lord of lords,
must be very near.
[References: The second coming by William Butler Yeats. Spiritus mundi=> “Literally, the spirit of the world or analytically - the morals and mores of the times.” Matthew 24: 6-7, Revelation 11: 18, Joël 3: 9-14.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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