Poetry (W. B. Yeats)

A man has a hope for heaven, But soulless a faery dies, As a leaf that is old, and withered and cold When the wint’ry vapours rise.

Soon shall our wings be stilled, And our laughter over and done, So let us dance where the yellow lance Of the barley shoots in the sun.

So let us dance on the fringed waves, And shout at the wisest owls In their downy caps, and startle the naps Of the dreaming water-fowls.

And fight for the black sloe-berries, For soulless a faery dies, As a leaf that is old, and withered and cold When the wintry vapours rise.

Behold the flashing waters, A cloven, dancing jet, That from the milk-white marble For ever foam and fret; Far off in drowsy valleys Where the meadow-saffrons blow, The feet of summer dabble In their coiling calm and slow. The banks are worn for ever By a people sadly gay: A Titan, with loud laughter, Made them of fire and clay. Go ask the springing flowers, And the flowing air above, What are the twin-born waters, And they’ll answer Death and Love.

With wreaths of withered flowers Two lonely spirits wait, With wreaths of withered flowers, ’Fore paradise’s gate. They may not pass the portal, Poor earth-enkindled pair, Though sad is many a spirit Το pass and leave them there Still staring at their flowers, That dull and faded are. If one should rise beside thee, The other is not far. Go ask the youngest angel, She will say with bated breath, By the door of Mary’s garden Are the spirits Love and Death.

A Dramatic Poem in Two Scenes

A woodland valley at evening. Around a wood-fire sit three shepherds; without a curve rises the smoke.

A ruined palace in the forest. Away in the depth of the shadow of the pillars a motionless Figure.

Around the twitter of the lips of dust A tossing laugh between their redness ’bides— With patient beauty yonder Attic bust In the deep alcove’s dimness smiles and hides.

Two spirit things a man hath for his friends: Sorrow that gives for guerdon liberty, And joy, the touching of whose finger lends To lightest of light things all sanctity.

The child pursuing lizards in the grass, The sage, who deep in central nature delves, The preacher watching for the evil hour to pass, All these are souls that fly from their dread selves.

The squirrel yonder, hushed and wise Forswears his wandering ’mong the pine, And wherefore, then, should thy grey eyes Wander away from mine?

The talking winds have found their home, Eve-soothed in some far leafy rest, And wherefore should thy bright brow roam Madonna from my breast?

A little while and—red eve dies— Our love shall be of yesterday, Ah, let us kiss each other’s eyes, And laugh our love away.

“I laughed upon the lips of Sophocles, I go as soft as folly; I am Fate.” This heard I where among the apple trees, Wild indolence and music have no date.

A Political Poem

The vision of a rock where lightnings whirl’d Bruising the darkness with their crackling light; The waves, enormous wanderers of the world, Beat on it with their hammers day and night. Two figures crouching on the black rock, bound To one another with a coiling chain; A grey-haired youth, whose cheeks had never found, Or long ere this had lost their ruddy stain; A sibyl, with fierce face as of a hound That dreams. She moveth, feeling in her brain The lightnings pulse—behold her, aye behold— Ignoble joy, and more ignoble pain Cramm’d all her youth; and hates have bought and sold Her spirit. As she moves, the foam-globes burst Over her spotted flesh and flying hair And her gigantic limbs. The weary …