En.Citatepedia^®.ro

Under Ben Bulben

I

SWEAR by what the sages spoke
Round the Mareotic Lake
That the Witch of Atlas knew,
Spoke and set the cocks a-crow.

Swear by those horsemen, by those women
Complexion and form prove superhuman,
That pale, long-visaged company
That air in immortality
Completeness of their passions won;
Now they ride the wintry dawn
Where Ben Bulben sets the scene.

Here s the gist of what they mean.

II

Many times man lives and dies
Between his two eternities,
That of race and that of soul,
And ancient Ireland knew it all.
Whether man die in his bed
Or the rifle knocks him dead,
A brief parting from those dear
Is the worst man has to fear.
Though grave-diggers' toil is long,
Sharp their spades, their muscles strong.
They but thrust their buried men
Back in the human mind again.

III

You that Mitchel's prayer have heard,
'Send war in our time, O Lord!'
Know that when all words are said
And a man is fighting mad,
Something drops from eyes long blind,
He completes his partial mind,
For an instant stands at ease,
Laughs aloud, his heart at peace.
Even the wisest man grows tense
With some sort of violence
Before he can accomplish fate,
Know his work or choose his mate.

IV

Poet and sculptor, do the work,
Nor let the modish painter shirk
What his great forefathers did.
Bring the soul of man to God,
Make him fill the cradles right.

Measurement began our might:
Forms a stark Egyptian thought,
Forms that gentler phidias wrought.
Michael Angelo left a proof
On the Sistine Chapel roof,
Where but half-awakened Adam
Can disturb globe-trotting Madam
Till her bowels are in heat,
proof that there's a purpose set
Before the secret working mind:
Profane perfection of mankind.

Quattrocento put in paint
On backgrounds for a God or Saint
Gardens where a soul's at ease;
Where everything that meets the eye,
Flowers and grass and cloudless sky,
Resemble forms that are or seem
When sleepers wake and yet still dream.
And when it's vanished still declare,
With only bed and bedstead there,
That heavens had opened.
Gyres run on;
When that greater dream had gone
Calvert and Wilson, Blake and Claude,
Prepared a rest for the people of God,
Palmer's phrase, but after that
Confusion fell upon our thought.

V

Irish poets, earn your trade,
Sing whatever is well made,
Scorn the sort now growing up
All out of shape from toe to top,
Their unremembering hearts and heads
Base-born products of base beds.
Sing the peasantry, and then
Hard-riding country gentlemen,
The holiness of monks, and after
Porter-drinkers' randy laughter;
Sing the lords and ladies gay
That were beaten into the clay
Through seven heroic centuries;
Cast your mind on other days
That we in coming days may be
Still the indomitable Irishry.

VI

Under bare Ben Bulben's head
In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid.
An ancestor was rector there
Long years ago, a church stands near,
By the road an ancient cross.

No marble, no conventional phrase;
On limestone quarried near the spot
By his command these words are cut:

Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman, pass by!

poem by William Butler Yeats
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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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So Much To Do

The face of the world is a homely face,
And the look of the world unkind,
When harsh on your arm a hand it lays
And bids you into the grind,
That 's little to your mind, my dear,
That 's little to your mind.

But it 's work that counts in the world, you see;
Not what we dream, but do:
For the dreamer of dreams, whatever he be,
If he 'd have his dreams come true,
Must be a workman, too, my dear,
Must be a workman, too.

So much to do; so much to know;
So much that life would shirk!
But each is one of a hive below,
The world's great Hive of Irk,
Where each must do his work, my dear,
Each one must do his work.

A song, a look, a word of cheer,
Will help more than a sigh!
For this is the law of the hive, my dear,
That every bee must try, my dear,
And all the drones must die, my dear,
That all the drones must die.

Oft-times it seems that the end is far,
And the work we do, in vain;
That night will never reveal a star,
And day bring only rain,
To trouble our hearts again, my dear,
To trouble our hearts again.

But ever the stars are shining there
With ever the old regard;
And be it foul, or be it fair,
However long debarred,
All work has its reward, my dear,
All work has its reward.

Could summer come without the rose?
Or morn without the sun?
And thus shall toil bring soul's repose
To each and every one,
Whose work at last is done, my dear,
Whose work at last is done.

For the face of the world is a homely face,
But the look in its eyes is kind
To him who sets his heart's brisk pace
To the work he has in mind,
And turns not with the wind, my dear,
And turns not with the wind.

poem by Madison Julius Cawein
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A Dialogue Of Self And Soul

i{My Soul} I summon to the winding ancient stair;
Set all your mind upon the steep ascent,
Upon the broken, crumbling battlement,
Upon the breathless starlit air,
'Upon the star that marks the hidden pole;
Fix every wandering thought upon
That quarter where all thought is done:
Who can distinguish darkness from the soul
i{My Self}. The consecretes blade upon my knees
Is Sato's ancient blade, still as it was,
Still razor-keen, still like a looking-glass
Unspotted by the centuries;
That flowering, silken, old embroidery, torn
From some court-lady's dress and round
The wodden scabbard bound and wound
Can, tattered, still protect, faded adorn
i{My Soul.} Why should the imagination of a man
Long past his prime remember things that are
Emblematical of love and war?
Think of ancestral night that can,
If but imagination scorn the earth
And interllect is wandering
To this and that and t'other thing,
Deliver from the crime of death and birth.
i{My self.} Montashigi, third of his family, fashioned it
Five hundred years ago, about it lie
Flowers from I know not what embroidery --
Heart's purple -- and all these I set
For emblems of the day against the tower
Emblematical of the night,
And claim as by a soldier's right
A charter to commit the crime once more.
i{My Soul.} Such fullness in that quarter overflows
And falls into the basin of the mind
That man is stricken deaf and dumb and blind,
For intellect no longer knows
i{Is} from the i{Ought,} or i{knower} from the i{Known -- }
That is to say, ascends to Heaven;
Only the dead can be forgiven;
But when I think of that my tongue's a stone.
i{My Self.} A living man is blind and drinks his drop.
What matter if the ditches are impure?
What matter if I live it all once more?
Endure that toil of growing up;
The ignominy of boyhood; the distress
Of boyhood changing into man;
The unfinished man and his pain
Brought face to face with his own clumsiness;
The finished man among his enemies? --
How in the name of Heaven can he escape
That defiling and disfigured shape
The mirror of malicious eyes
Casts upon his eyes until at last
He thinks that shape must be his shape?
And what's the good of an escape
If honour find him in the wintry blast?
I am content to live it all again
And yet again, if it be life to pitch
Into the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch,
A blind man battering blind men;
Or into that most fecund ditch of all,
The folly that man does
Or must suffer, if he woos
A proud woman not kindred of his soul.
I am content to follow to its source
Every event in action or in thought;
Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot!
When such as I cast out remorse
So great a sweetness flows into the breast
We must laugh and we must sing,
We are blest by everything,
Everything we look upon is blest.

poem by William Butler Yeats
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The Winding Stair

My Soul. I summon to the winding ancient stair;
Set all your mind upon the steep ascent,
Upon the broken, crumbling battlement,
Upon the breathless starlit air,
'Upon the star that marks the hidden pole;
Fix every wandering thought upon
That quarter where all thought is done:
Who can distinguish darkness from the soul

My Self. The consecretes blade upon my knees
Is Sato's ancient blade, still as it was,
Still razor-keen, still like a looking-glass
Unspotted by the centuries;
That flowering, silken, old embroidery, torn
From some court-lady's dress and round
The wodden scabbard bound and wound
Can, tattered, still protect, faded adorn

My Soul. Why should the imagination of a man
Long past his prime remember things that are
Emblematical of love and war?
Think of ancestral night that can,
If but imagination scorn the earth
And intellect is wandering
To this and that and t'other thing,
Deliver from the crime of death and birth.

My Self. Montashigi, third of his family, fashioned it
Five hundred years ago, about it lie
Flowers from I know not what embroidery -
Heart's purple - and all these I set
For emblems of the day against the tower
Emblematical of the night,
And claim as by a soldier's right
A charter to commit the crime once more.

My Soul. Such fullness in that quarter overflows
And falls into the basin of the mind
That man is stricken deaf and dumb and blind,
For intellect no longer knows
Is from the Ought, or knower from the Known -
That is to say, ascends to Heaven;
Only the dead can be forgiven;
But when I think of that my tongue's a stone.

II

My Self. A living man is blind and drinks his drop.
What matter if the ditches are impure?
What matter if I live it all once more?
Endure that toil of growing up;
The ignominy of boyhood; the distress
Of boyhood changing into man;
The unfinished man and his pain
Brought face to face with his own clumsiness;

The finished man among his enemies? -
How in the name of Heaven can he escape
That defiling and disfigured shape
The mirror of malicious eyes
Casts upon his eyes until at last
He thinks that shape must be his shape?
And what's the good of an escape
If honour find him in the wintry blast?

I am content to live it all again
And yet again, if it be life to pitch
Into the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch,
A blind man battering blind men;
Or into that most fecund ditch of all,
The folly that man does
Or must suffer, if he woos
A proud woman not kindred of his soul.

I am content to follow to its source
Every event in action or in thought;
Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot!
When such as I cast out remorse
So great a sweetness flows into the breast
We must laugh and we must sing,
We are blest by everything,
Everything we look upon is blest.

poem by William Butler Yeats
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The Double Vision Of Michael Robartes

I
ON the grey rock of Cashel the mind's eye
Has called up the cold spirits that are born
When the old moon is vanished from the sky
And the new still hides her horn.
Under blank eyes and fingers never still
The particular is pounded till it is man.
When had I my own will?
O not since life began.
Constrained, arraigned, baffled, bent and unbent
By these wire-jointed jaws and limbs of wood,
Themselves obedient,
Knowing not evil and good;
Obedient to some hidden magical breath.
They do not even feel, so abstract are they.
So dead beyond our death,
Triumph that we obey.
On the grey rock of Cashel I suddenly saw
A Sphinx with woman breast and lion paw.
A Buddha, hand at rest,
Hand lifted up that blest;
And right between these two a girl at play
That, it may be, had danced her life away,
For now being dead it seemed
That she of dancing dreamed.
Although I saw it all in the mind's eye
There can be nothing solider till I die;
I saw by the moon's light
Now at its fifteenth night.
One lashed her tail; her eyes lit by the moon
Gazed upon all things known, all things unknown,
In triumph of intellect
With motionless head erect.
That other's moonlit eyeballs never moved,
Being fixed on all things loved, all things unloved.
Yet little peace he had,
For those that love are sad.
Little did they care who danced between,
And little she by whom her dance was seen
So she had outdanced thought.
Body perfection brought,
For what but eye and ear silence the mind
With the minute particulars of mankind?
Mind moved yet seemed to stop
As 'twere a spinning-top.
In contemplation had those three so wrought
Upon a moment, and so stretched it out
That they, time overthrown,
Were dead yet flesh and bone.
I knew that I had seen, had seen at last
That girl my unremembering nights hold fast
Or else my dreams that fly
If I should rub an eye,
And yet in flying fling into my meat
A crazy juice that makes the pulses beat
As though I had been undone
By Homer's Paragon
Who never gave the burning town a thought;
To such a pitch of folly I am brought,
Being caught between the pull
Of the dark moon and the full,
The commonness of thought and images
That have the frenzy of our western seas.
Thereon I made my moan,
And after kissed a stone,
And after that arranged it in a song
Seeing that I, ignorant for So long,
Had been rewarded thus
In Cormac's ruined house.

MICHAEL ROBARTES AND THE DANCER

He. Opinion is not worth a rush;
In this altar-piece the knight,
Who grips his long spear so to push
That dragon through the fading light,
Loved the lady; and it's plain
The half-dead dragon was her thought,
That every morning rose again
And dug its claws and shrieked and fought.
Could the impossible come to pass
She would have time to turn her eyes,
Her lover thought, upon the glass
And on the instant would grow wise.
She. You mean they argued.
He. Put it so;
But bear in mind your lover's wage
Is what your looking-glass can show,
And that he will turn green with rage
At all that is not pictured there.
She. May I not put myself to college?
He. Go pluck Athene by the hair;
For what mere book can grant a knowledge
With an impassioned gravity
Appropriate to that beating breast,
That vigorous thigh, that dreaming eye?
And may the Devil take the rest.
She. And must no beautiful woman be
Learned like a man?
He. Paul Veronese
And all his sacred company
Imagined bodies all their days
By the lagoon you love so much,
For proud, soft, ceremonious proof
That all must come to sight and touch;
While Michael Angelo's Sistine roof,
His 'Morning' and his 'Night' disclose
How sinew that has been pulled tight,
Or it may be loosened in repose,
Can rule by supernatural right
Yet be but sinew.
She. I have heard said
There is great danger in the body.
He. Did God in portioning wine and bread
Give man His thought or His mere body?
She. My wretched dragon is perplexed.
Hec. I have principles to prove me right.
It follows from this Latin text
That blest souls are not composite,
And that all beautiful women may
Live in uncomposite blessedness,
And lead us to the like -- if they
Will banish every thought, unless
The lineaments that please their view
When the long looking-glass is full,
Even from the foot-sole think it too.
She. They say such different things at school.

poem by William Butler Yeats
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Laus Deo

IN the hall the coffin waits, and the idle armourer stands.
At his belt the coffin nails, and the hammer in his hands.
The bed of state is hung with crape--the grand old bed where she was
wed--
And like an upright corpse she sitteth gazing dumbly at the bed.
Hour by hour her serving-men enter by the curtain'd door,
And with steps of muffled woe pass breathless o'er the silent floor,
And marshal mutely round, and look from each to each with eyelids red;

'Touch him not,' she shriek'd and cried, 'he is but newly dead!'
'O my own dear mistress,' the ancient Nurse did say,
'Seven long days and seven long nights you have watch'd him where he
lay.'
'Seven long days and seven long nights,' the hoary Steward said;
'Seven long days and seven long nights,' groan'd the Warrener gray;
'Seven,' said the old Henchman, and bow'd his aged head;
'On your lives!' she shriek'd and cried, 'he is but newly dead!'
Then a father Priest they sought,
The Priest that taught her all she knew,
And they told him of her loss.
'For she is mild and sweet of will,
She loved him, and his words are peace,
And he shall heal her ill.'
But her watch she did not cease.
He bless'd her where she sat distraught,
And show'd her holy cross,--
The cross she kiss'd from year to year--
But she neither saw nor heard;
And said he in her deaf ear
All he had been wont to teach,
All she had been fond to hear,
Missall'd prayer, and solemn speech,
But she answer'd not a word.
Only when he turn'd to speak with those who wept about the bed,
'On your lives!' she shriek'd and cried, 'he is but newly dead!'
Then how sadly he turn'd from her, it were wonderful to tell,
And he stood beside the death-bed as by one who slumbers well,
And he lean'd o'er him who lay there, and in cautious whisper low,
'He is not dead, but sleepeth,' said the Priest, and smooth'd his
brow.
'Sleepeth?' said she, looking up, and the sun rose in her face!
'He must be better than I thought, for the sleep is very sound.'
'He is better,' said the Priest, and call'd her maidens round.
With them came that ancient dame who nursed her when a child;
O Nurse!' she sigh'd, 'O Nurse!' she cried 'O Nurse!' and then she
smiled,
And then she wept; with that they drew
About her, as of old;
Her dying eyes were sweet and blue,
Her trembling touch was cold;
But she said, 'My maidens true,
No more weeping and well-away;
Let them kill the feast.
I would be happy in my soul.
"He is better," saith the Priest;
He did but sleep the weary day,
And will waken whole.
Carry me to his dear side,
And let the halls be trim;
Whistly, whistly,' said she,
'I am wan with watching and wail,
He must not wake to see me pale,
Let me sleep with him.
See you keep the tryst for me,
I would rest till he awake
And rise up like a bride.
But whistly, whistly!' said she.
'Yet rejoice your Lord doth live;
And for His dear sake
Say Laus, Domine.'
Silent they cast down their eyes,
And every breast a sob did rive,
She lifted her in wild surprise
And they dared not disobey.
'Laus Deo,' said the Steward, hoary when her days were new;
'Laus Deo,' said the Warrener, whiter than the warren snows;
'Laus Deo,' the bald Henchman, who had nursed her on his knee.
The old Nurse moved her lips in vain,
And she stood among the train
Like a dead tree shaking dew.
Then the Priest he softly stept
Midway in the little band,
And he took the Lady's hand.
'Laus Deo,' he said aloud,
'Laus Deo,' they said again,
Yet again, and yet again,
Humbly cross'd and lowly bow'd,
Till in wont and fear it rose
To the Sabbath strain.
But she neither turn'd her head
Nor 'Whistly, whistly,' said she.
Her hands were folded as in grace,
We laid her with her ancient race
And all the village wept.

poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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If I Knew What Poets Know

If I knew what poets know,
Would I write a rhyme
Of the buds that never blow
In the summer-time?
Would I sing of golden seeds
Springing up in ironweeds?
And of rain-drops turned to snow,
If I knew what poets know?

Did I know what poets do,
Would I sing a song
Sadder than the pigeon's coo
When the days are long?
Where I found a heart in pain,
I would make it glad again;
And the false should be the true,
Did I know what poets do.

If I knew what poets know,
I would find a theme
Sweeter than the placid flow
Of the fairest dream:
I would sing of love that lives
On the errors it forgives;
And the world would better grow
If I knew what poets know.

poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Dead And Gone

In years from now when I am dead and gone
Will people read the words that I had wrote
If they do will they agree with what they read
And if so truly, understand the feelings I had spoke.
Will they feel the pain and suffering that I felt
In the many days of my own life
Maybe they will etch my feelings inside their soul
And If so, I wonder for me if they will cry.
I wonder if anyone will go into a deep thought
After reading the words that I had spoke
And then will they think and understand that feeling too
While inside their soul or heart a memory I will had awoke.
Maybe they will be with me in those lonesome nights
When my soul and I felt so very alone
When I couldn't sleep so I had to write
While my soul stayed stationary, but my mind it did roam.
And will they feel the pain that I did feel
With every line that I suffered as I did write
Will they shed a tear that my lover never shed for me
While she was always in my heart and in my sight.
And when they finish my book and close it shut
Will they reflect my feelings as they walk away
Will they say they know the pain that I have felt
As they too had felt it in their very own days.
Will they cry the tears that was never cried for me
As they go searching for my last resting place
To give the sympathy they might say I deserve
While trying to visualize my soul through my face.
If they look and find and then walk unto my grave
I wander for me if i will receive long forgotten grieving
Telling me how sad and the pity they hold for me
After reading my words, maybe they will start believing.
And maybe they will walk to the graves of the others
The ones who did me wrong and who sealed my fate
Who made me the poet whom I had to become
Will they tell them their souls, and living they do hate.
So as I finish writing with these last few thoughts
I hope forever my words and feelings will continue on
As I know I am not alone and my pain is not fastened to me
But really who will know, until I am dead and gone.

Randy L. McClave

poem by Randy McClave
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In Memory of Major Robert Gregory

Now that we're almost settled in our house
I'll name the friends that cannot sup with us
Beside a fire of turf in th' ancient tower,
And having talked to some late hour
Climb up the narrow winding stairs to bed:
Discoverers of forgotten truth
Or mere companions of my youth,
All, all are in my thoughts to-night being dead.

Always we'd have the new friend meet the old
And we are hurt if either friend seem cold,
And there is salt to lengthen out the smart
In the affections of our heart,
And quarrels are blown up upon that head;
But not a friend that I would bring
This night can set us quarrelling,
For all that come into my mind are dead.

Lionel Johnson comes the first to mind,
That loved his learning better than mankind.
Though courteous to the worst; much falling he
Brooded upon sanctity
Till all his Greek and Latin learning seemed
A long blast upon the horn that brought
A little nearer to his thought
A measureless consummation that he dreamed.

And that enquiring man John Synge comes next,
That dying chose the living world for text
And never could have rested in the tomb
But that, long travelling, he had come
Towards nightfall upon certain set apart
In a most desolate stony place,
Towards nightfall upon a race
Passionate and simple like his heart.

And then I think of old George Pollexfen,
In muscular youth well known to Mayo men
For horsemanship at meets or at racecourses,
That could have shown how pure-bred horses
And solid men, for all their passion, live
But as the outrageous stars incline
By opposition, square and trine;
Having grown sluggish and contemplative.

They were my close companions many a year.
A portion of my mind and life, as it were,
And now their breathless faces seem to look
Out of some old picture-book;
I am accustomed to their lack of breath,
But not that my dear friend's dear son,
Our Sidney and our perfect man,
Could share in that discourtesy of death.

For all things the delighted eye now sees
Were loved by him: the old storm-broken trees
That cast their shadows upon road and bridge;
The tower set on the stream's edge;
The ford where drinking cattle make a stir
Nightly, and startled by that sound
The water-hen must change her ground;
He might have been your heartiest welcomer.

When with the Galway foxhounds he would ride
From Castle Taylor to the Roxborough side
Or Esserkelly plain, few kept his pace;
At Mooneen he had leaped a place
So perilous that half the astonished meet
Had shut their eyes; and where was it
He rode a race without a bit?
And yet his mind outran the horses' feet.

We dreamed that a great painter had been born
To cold Clare rock and Galway rock and thorn,
To that stern colour and that delicate line
That are our secret discipline
Wherein the gazing heart doubles her might.
Soldier, scholar, horseman, he,
And yet he had the intensity
To have published all to be a world's delight.

What other could so well have counselled us
In all lovely intricacies of a house
As he that practised or that understood
All work in metal or in wood,
In moulded plaster or in carven stone?
Soldier, scholar, horseman, he,
And all he did done perfectly
As though he had but that one trade alone.

Some burn damp faggots, others may consume
The entire combustible world in one small room
As though dried straw, and if we turn about
The bare chimney is gone black out
Because the work had finished in that flare.
Soldier, scholar, horseman, he,
As 'twere all life's epitome.
What made us dream that he could comb grey hair?

I had thought, seeing how bitter is that wind
That shakes the shutter, to have brought to mind
All those that manhood tried, or childhood loved
Or boyish intellect approved,
With some appropriatc commentary on each;
Until imagination brought
A fitter welcome; but a thought
Of that late death took all my heart for speech.

poem by William Butler Yeats
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Irish poets, learn your trade, sing whatever is well made, scorn the sort now growing up all out of shape from toe to top.

quote by William Butler Yeats
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The aged poet. For Kealan if

When he was young
and life was poetry
and poetry was life
and girls made poetry
in his heart

he’d showed his poems to
an aged poet who
was quiet a while then
nodded his head and
smiled and
said ‘keep writing’

and he swore that day
as long as he could hold a pen
he’d write some sort of poetry

and so he did and so he did

and when he was
too old to hold a pen
he spoke his poetry
some say in an Irish pub

and people came from miles around
and said sure it was a t’ousand times
better than to read his poems on the page
which was itself worth –
and that last phrase was poetry
for who is not Irish and a poet

and when he was too old
to walk down to the pub

they came and listened
at his door and at his window

and when he was too old to speak
they came to see his silence

and left as poets
for their head
had joined their heart

poem by Michael Shepherd
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Phases Of The Moon

An old man cocked his car upon a bridge;
He and his friend, their faces to the South,
Had trod the uneven road. Their hoots were soiled,
Their Connemara cloth worn out of shape;
They had kept a steady pace as though their beds,
Despite a dwindling and late-risen moon,
Were distant still. An old man cocked his ear.
Aherne. What made that Sound?
Robartes. A rat or water-hen
Splashed, or an otter slid into the stream.
We are on the bridge; that shadow is the tower,
And the light proves that he is reading still.
He has found, after the manner of his kind,
Mere images; chosen this place to live in
Because, it may be, of the candle-light
From the far tower where Milton's Platonist
Sat late, or Shelley's visionary prince:
The lonely light that Samuel Palmer engraved,
An image of mysterious wisdom won by toil;
And now he seeks in book or manuscript
What he shall never find.
Ahernc. Why should not you
Who know it all ring at his door, and speak
Just truth enough to show that his whole life
Will scarcely find for him a broken crust
Of all those truths that are your daily bread;
And when you have spoken take the roads again?
Robartes. He wrote of me in that extravagant style
He had learnt from pater, and to round his tale
Said I was dead; and dead I choose to be.
Aherne. Sing me the changes of the moon once more;
True song, though speech: 'mine author sung it me.'
Robartes. Twenty-and-eight the phases of the moon,
The full and the moon's dark and all the crescents,
Twenty-and-eight, and yet but six-and-twenty
The cradles that a man must needs be rocked in:
For there's no human life at the full or the dark.
From the first crescent to the half, the dream
But summons to adventure and the man
Is always happy like a bird or a beast;
But while the moon is rounding towards the full
He follows whatever whim's most difficult
Among whims not impossible, and though scarred.
As with the cat-o'-nine-tails of the mind,
His body moulded from within his body
Grows comelier. Eleven pass, and then
Athene takes Achilles by the hair,
Hector is in the dust, Nietzsche is born,
Because the hero's crescent is the twelfth.
And yet, twice born, twice buried, grow he must,
Before the full moon, helpless as a worm.
The thirteenth moon but sets the soul at war
In its own being, and when that war's begun
There is no muscle in the arm; and after,
Under the frenzy of the fourteenth moon,
The soul begins to tremble into stillness,
To die into the labyrinth of itself!
Aherne. Sing out the song; sing to the end, and sing
The strange reward of all that discipline.
Robartes. All thought becomes an image and the soul
Becomes a body: that body and that soul
Too perfect at the full to lie in a cradle,
Too lonely for the traffic of the world:
Body and soul cast out and cast away
Beyond the visible world.
Aherne. All dreams of the soul
End in a beautiful man's or woman's body.
Robartes, Have you not always known it?
Aherne. The song will have it
That those that we have loved got their long fingers
From death, and wounds, or on Sinai's top,
Or from some bloody whip in their own hands.
They ran from cradle to cradle till at last
Their beauty dropped out of the loneliness
Of body and soul.
Robartes. The lover's heart knows that.
Aherne. It must be that the terror in their eyes
Is memory or foreknowledge of the hour
When all is fed with light and heaven is bare.
Robartes. When the moon's full those creatures of the full
Are met on the waste hills by countrymen
Who shudder and hurry by: body and soul
Estranged amid the strangeness of themselves,
Caught up in contemplation, the mind's eye
Fixed upon images that once were thought;
For separate, perfect, and immovable
Images can break the solitude
Of lovely, satisfied, indifferent eyes.
And thereupon with aged, high-pitched voice
Aherne laughed, thinking of the man within,
His sleepless candle and lahorious pen.
Robartes. And after that the crumbling of the moon.
The soul remembering its loneliness
Shudders in many cradles; all is changed,
It would be the world's servant, and as it serves,
Choosing whatever task's most difficult
Among tasks not impossible, it takes
Upon the body and upon the soul
The coarseness of the drudge.
Aherne. Before the full
It sought itself and afterwards the world.
Robartes. Because you are forgotten, half out of life,
And never wrote a book, your thought is clear.
Reformer, merchant, statesman, learned man,
Dutiful husband, honest wife by turn,
Cradle upon cradle, and all in flight and all
Deformed because there is no deformity
But saves us from a dream.
Aherne. And what of those
That the last servile crescent has set free?
Robartes. Because all dark, like those that are all light,
They are cast beyond the verge, and in a cloud,
Crying to one another like the bats;
And having no desire they cannot tell
What's good or bad, or what it is to triumph
At the perfection of one's own obedience;
And yet they speak what's blown into the mind;
Deformed beyond deformity, unformed,
Insipid as the dough before it is baked,
They change their bodies at a word.
Aherne. And then?
Rohartes. When all the dough has been so kneaded up
That it can take what form cook Nature fancies,
The first thin crescent is wheeled round once more.
Aherne. But the escape; the song's not finished yet.
Robartes. Hunchback and Saint and Fool are the last crescents.
The burning bow that once could shoot an arrow
Out of the up and down, the wagon-wheel
Of beauty's cruelty and wisdom's chatter --
Out of that raving tide -- is drawn betwixt
Deformity of body and of mind.
Aherne. Were not our beds far off I'd ring the bell,
Stand under the rough roof-timbers of the hall
Beside the castle door, where all is stark
Austerity, a place set out for wisdom
That he will never find; I'd play a part;
He would never know me after all these years
But take me for some drunken countryman:
I'd stand and mutter there until he caught
'Hunchback and Sant and Fool,' and that they came
Under the three last crescents of the moon.
And then I'd stagger out. He'd crack his wits
Day after day, yet never find the meaning.
And then he laughed to think that what seemed hard
Should be so simple -- a bat rose from the hazels
And circled round him with its squeaky cry,
The light in the tower window was put out.

poem by William Butler Yeats
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Michael Robartes and the Dancer

He. Opinion is not worth a rush;
In this altar-piece the knight,
Who grips his long spear so to push
That dragon through the fading light,
Loved the lady; and it's plain
The half-dead dragon was her thought,
That every morning rose again
And dug its claws and shrieked and fought.
Could the impossible come to pass
She would have time to turn her eyes,
Her lover thought, upon the glass
And on the instant would grow wise.

She. You mean they argued.

He. Put it so;
But bear in mind your lover's wage
Is what your looking-glass can show,
And that he will turn green with rage
At all that is not pictured there.

She. May I not put myself to college?

He. Go pluck Athena by the hair;
For what mere book can grant a knowledge
With an impassioned gravity
Appropriate to that beating breast,
That vigorous thigh, that dreaming eye?
And may the devil take the rest.

She. And must no beautiful woman be
Learned like a man?

He. Paul Veronese
And all his sacred company
Imagined bodies all their days
By the lagoon you love so much,
For proud, soft, ceremonious proof
That all must come to sight and touch;
While Michael Angelo's Sistine roof
His 'Morning' and his 'Night' disclose
How sinew that has been pulled tight,
Or it may be loosened in repose,
Can rule by supernatural right
Yet be but sinew.

She. I have heard said
There is great danger in the body.

He. Did God in portioning wine and bread
Give man His thought or His mere body?

She. My wretched dragon is perplexed.

He. I have principles to prove me right.
It follows from this Latin text
That blest souls are not composite,
And that all beautiful women may
Live in uncomposite blessedness,
And lead us to the like -- if they
Will banish every thought, unless
The lineaments that please their view
When the long looking-glass is full,
Even from the foot-sole think it too.

She. They say such different things at school.

poem by William Butler Yeats
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I Have Grave Doubts

Long ago when the world was new
It was a perfect paradise
Which every living creature knew
And none of them thought otherwise.

But then the Lord created man.
Equipped him with a brain to use
That's when the troubles all began
Man decided to refuse

To do as he was bidden to
Defied the lords authority
He thought he was entitled to.
As it turned out mistakenly.

Man was cast forth from paradise.
Or so the bible stories say.
A mixture of half truths and lies.
The church is teaching still today.

We have free will so we choose
What to accept or to reject
Amongst the many varied views
Promoted by each different sect.

I choose to disregard them all.
Despite their claims to know the truth.
The tale they tell of Adams fall
I can't believe without more proof.

I think religions are designed
to exercise social control.
A fact I do not really mind.
Which seems effective on the whole.

But when the founding figure dies
His followers will fight to take his place.
His spoken word no longer applies.
He is impossible to replace.

That's why we have so many sects
Which all attempt to dominate.
and show each other small respect.
With no attempt to integrate.

The separate wisdom which they teach.
Although they are quite similar.
Nor do they practice what they preach.
My words may sound familiar.

Because they have been said before.
By men much wiser far than me.
I am no fiery orator.
Nor do I think I'd like to be.

I see no point in taking part
In debates or arguments.
Which have no base from which to start.
Reviving ancient discontents.

What I believe is up to me.
Though I admit I might be wrong
It's my responsibility.
I merely try to get along.

poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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The Way To Happiness

How long ye miserable blind
Shall idle dreams engage your mind,
How long the passions make their flight
At empty shadows of delight?
No more in paths of error stray,
The Lord thy Jesus is the way,
The spring of happiness, and where
Shou'd men seek happiness but there?
Then run to meet him at your need,
Run with boldness, run with speed,
For he forsook his own abode
To meet thee more than half the road.
He laid aside his radiant crown
And love for mankind brought him down
To thirst and hunger, pain and woe,
To wounds, to death it self below,
And he that suffer'd these alone
For all the World, despises none.
To bid the soul that's sick be clean,
To bring the lost to life again,
To comfort those that grieve for ill,
Is his peculiar goodness still.
And as the thoughts of parents run
Upon a dear and only son,
So kind a love his mercies shew,
So kind and more extreamly so.

Thrice happy men (or find a phrase
That speaks your bliss with greater praise)
Who most obedient to thy call
Leaving pleasures leaving all,
With heart with soul, with strength incline
O sweetest Jesu! to be thine;
Who know thy will, observe thy ways,
And in thy service spend their days:
E'en death that seems to set them free
But brings them closer still to thee.

poem by Thomas Parnell
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The Grail

In the village Bellastrino
On the craggy Tuscan hills,
Lies an old abandoned Abbey
And the Church of San Michele,
Though the village was abandoned
There are two who would not go,
The Abbot, Father Grandier,
The Priest, Don Angelo.

The Abbey on the mountain top,
The Church down in the dell,
They'd fought, these two, for twenty years
Consigning each to Hell!
For in the Church of San Michele
Before the village failed,
Down in the crypt, beneath the floor
They'd found the Holy Grail.

A bowl, fine wrought in pale green glass,
There's no room for debate,
The Templar Knights had left it in
Eleven eighty-eight,
They'd always said they would return,
In fact, they never did,
They went to challenge Saladin
And died, as they had lived!

‘It's mine, ' said Father Grandier,
‘Not so, ' said Angelo,
‘I found it and I'm keeping it,
Here, in the Church below.'
‘It should be in the Abbey, '
Father Grandier opined,
‘Its glory on the mountain top…'
‘Not so! The Grail is mine! '

For years the two had tussled
Had approached the Holy See,
The Pope thought it ridiculous
And said: ‘Don't bother me!
We have two dozen of those things,
A heap of rusty nails,
All from the Cross at Calvary
But these are peasant tales.'

A Cardinal then came to call
And tried to sort them out,
Well practiced in diplomacy
He said: ‘No need to shout!
You have a choir each, ' he said
‘Who visit in the spring,
So hold a competition here,
What better way, than sing? '

‘The better choir shall win the Grail
And keep it for a year,
Up in the Abbey's mountain top,
Or down here, if you dare.
Then sing for it each passing year,
Three judges, understood?
If one should win it three years straight
They keep the Grail for good! '

With many muttered mumblings
And hellfire in their eyes,
The Abbot and the priest said yes,
Dissembled with their lies,
They each set out to cheat their way
To keep that Holy Grail,
The Abbot got to pick each judge
He thought he couldn't fail!

The Abbey won the first two years
And held the Grail on high,
While poor Don Angelo despaired,
The time was coming nigh;
They had to sing for it once more,
He knew that if he failed,
The Abbot would, victorious,
Not let him keep the Grail.

Don Angelo went down to Rome
And brought a tenor back,
His voice like rich red Tuscan wine
To join his choir's attack,
They sang their hearts out on the day
But saw the judges feign,
And shake their heads, Don Angelo
Had nothing left to gain.

The judge stood up to name the prize,
The Abbot had his way,
The tenor stood and sang a note
Not heard since Jesu's day,
He held it long, unwavering
The Grail began to ring,
A long high-pitched reverberance,
The Grail began to sing.

A minute there, without a breath
The tenor held his tone,
And Grandier stood up, alarmed,
Let out a fervid moan,
The Grail sang on, then shattered
Fell in pieces to the floor,
The judge stood up and shook his head,
Then said - ‘The sing's a draw! '

The Abbey holds the base of it,
Up on the mountain top,
All glued together, like some vase
Bought in the Red Cross Shop.
While down there in the little Church
On a thousand Euro tips,
They're coining them a fortune with
The rim that touched his lips!

1 September 2012

poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Currency Lass

THEY marshalled her lovers four and four,
A drum at their heads, in the days of old:
O, none could have guessed their hearts were sore;
They marched with such gayness in scarlet and gold.
They came to the dance place on the hill
Where Death was the piper (he pipes full well);
They grounded their arms and stood stock-still;
And just why he sorrowed no one would tell.
O, some had been wed in distant lands,
And sweethearts had others — but let that pass;
She held them at ease in snow-white hands,
For Queen over all was the Currency Lass.
They ushered her forth in all her charms —
Her eyes were alight and as gold her hair;
She looked on the men and oped her arms —
What wonder if then they had wished them there?
She hearkened the Preacher, thin and pale;
His voice was as frost, yet his words were wise;
But sin on the soul is like wrought mail,
And only a scorn of him fired her eyes.
'O sorrow and pray, the hour draws nigh,
The Lord in His justice shall question thee!'
The Preacher made prayer 'twixt sob and sigh,
And down dropped his soul on bended knee.
'He fashioned thee fair' — a sideways look —
'Red-lipped and right royal to look upon,
A joy of the Earth' — his thin hands shook,
And passionate lights in his deep eyes shone.
In scarlet and gold her lovers stood,
A host under famine with heads out-thrust;
Keen-flamed in the sun ran reddest blood,
And lips that were thirsty grew dry as dust.
They loved her for years — their tangled souls
Like silvery fish in her beauty-mesh
All breathless reposed . . .A dull drum rolls,
And Death is at hand for the Flower of Flesh.
She lifted her head for one love-word
(Afar was a clamour of new-come ships);
Her hair in a cloud the low wind stirred,
And silent they marvelled at her red lips.
'A lover was I from youth,' she said;
'And Love is my lord till I fill the grave' —
Then coyly she drooped her gold-haired head —
'Now, last of my lovers, a kiss I crave!'
The Preacher was whirled in passion's rout,
And dark was the stain on his soul's white snow;
Her lips were as life — his soul leapt out,
And sure there was laughter in Hell below.
'A singer was I these years,' she said,
'And so I must sing till my soul doth pass.'
Then forth from her sin-sweet lips there sped
The long-dead song of the Currency Lass.
The hands of the spoiler touch her throat;
The noon grows near and the last sands run:
(Still over the scene her wild words float)
The noose is ready, the song is done.
'A dancer I was from birth,' she said;
'A baby, I danced on my mother's knee;
Now whistle a jig, with swaying head,
And, lovers of mine, I will dance for ye!'
Stood each with a droop, a cheated man,
While Sorrow went weaving an ice-cold spell . . .
Good-bye to the world! The dance began
With Death for the piper — he piped full well!

poem by Roderic Quinn
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To The Rose Upon The Rood Of Time

Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!
Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways:
Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide;
The Druid, grey, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed,
Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold;
And thine own sadness, where of stars, grown old
In dancing silver-sandalled on the sea,
Sing in their high and lonely melody.
Come near, that no more blinded hy man's fate,
I find under the boughs of love and hate,
In all poor foolish things that live a day,
Eternal beauty wandering on her way.
Come near, come near, come near -- Ah, leave me still
A little space for the rose-breath to fill!
Lest I no more bear common things that crave;
The weak worm hiding down in its small cave,
The field-mouse running by me in the grass,
And heavy mortal hopes that toil and pass;
But seek alone to hear the strange things said
By God to the bright hearts of those long dead,
And learn to chaunt a tongue men do not know.
Come near; I would, before my time to go,
Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways:
Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.

poem by William Butler Yeats
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Storm Of Your Mind.

storm clouds eternal starvation of your soul your mind wanders around and around sunrises and sunsets darkness rules your sight the heart doesnt beat as soft or gentle as it once did your heart fills blackness in the pit of your stomach hatred rises in the back of mind what to do where to go you have no answers more fucking questions you have no clue why deep deep down in the crevices of your soul your inner anger forms like a volcanoe waiting to erupt you feel desolate like being stuck on pluto lost and alone cold and dead inside winds blow hard against gone away gone from here dead dead last last in your heart last in anyones mind all back of the fucking bus where the cool people sit what now? and what next a dark flame forms burning away everything and anything that you ever held near and dear storm clouds dark and dreary rain drops falling hard on you the path you once knew forgotten to all including yourself mad and angry as you are you see time ticking away to a future of whatever you'll never know until you take those first few crucial steps and cross that bridge of hope over the deepest river and know that even if all seems lost somewhere along the way goodness can happen to you for all you can do is believe until such a time comes for you.

poem by Dorian Suchelle
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Old Times

Friend of my youth, let us talk of old times;
Of the long lost golden hours.
When "Winter" meant only Christmas chimes,
And "Summer" wreaths of flowers.
Life has grown old, and cold, my friend,
And the winter now, means death.
And summer blossoms speak all too plain
Of the dear, dead forms beneath.

But let us talk of the past to-night;
And live it over again,
We will put the long years out of sight,
And dream we are young as then.
But you must not look at me, my friend,
And I must not look at you,
Or the furrowed brows, and silvered locks,
Will prove our dream untrue.

Let us sing of the summer, too sweet to last,
And yet too sweet to die.
Let us read tales, from the book of the past,
And talk of the days gone by.
We will turn our backs to the West, my friend,
And forget we are growing old.
The skies of the Present are dull, and gray,
But the Past's are blue, and gold.

The sun has passed over the noontide line
And is sinking down the West.
And of friends we knew in days Lang Syne,
Full half have gone to rest.
And the few that are left on earth, my friend
Are scattered far, and wide.
But you and I will talk of the days
Ere any roamed, or died.

Auburn ringlets, and hazel eyes
Blue eyes and tresses of gold.
Winds joy laden, and azure skies,
Belong to those days of old.
We will leave the Present's shores awhile
And float on the Past's smooth sea.
But I must not look at you, my friend,
And you must not look at me.

poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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