NY ingenious lovely things are
That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude,protected from the circle of the
That pitches common things about. There
Amid the ornamental bronze and
An ancient image made of olive wood —And gone are phidias' famous
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
Melt down, as it were wax in the sun's rays;
Public opinion ripening for so
We thought it would outlive all future days.
O what fine thought we had because we
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
Into a ploughshare?
Parliament and
Thought that unless a little powder
The trumpeters might burst with
And yet it lack all glory; and
The guardsmen's drowsy chargers would not prance.
Now days are dragon-ridden, the
Rides upon sleep: a drunken
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
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
Into the half-deceit of some
From shallow wits; who knows no work can stand,
Whether health, wealth or peace of mind were
On master-work of intellect or hand,
No honour leave its mighty monument,
Has but one comfort left: all triumph
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
None dared admit, if Such a thought were his,
Incendiary or bigot could be
To burn that stump on the Acropolis,
Or break in bits the famous
Or traffic in the grasshoppers or bees.
When Loie Fuller's Chinese dancers enwoundA shining web, a floating ribbon of cloth,
It seemed that a dragon of
Had fallen among dancers, had whirled them
Or hurried them off on its own furious path;
So the platonic
Whirls out new right and wrong,
Whirls in the old instead;
All men are dancers and their
Goes to the barbarous clangour of a gong.
Some moralist or mythological
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
Whether to play, or to
Those winds that clamour of approaching night.
A man in his own secret
Is lost amid the labyrinth that he has
In art or politics;
Some platonist affirms that in the
Where we should cast off body and
The ancient habit sticks,
And that if our works
But vanish with our
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
To end all things, to
What my laborious life imagined,
The half-imagined, the half-written page;
O but we dreamed to
Whatever mischief
To afflict mankind, but
That winds of winter
Learn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed.
We, who seven yeats
Talked of honour and of truth,
Shriek with pleasure if we
The weasel's twist, the weasel's tooth.
Come let us mock at the
That had such burdens on the
And toiled so hard and
To leave some monument behind,
Nor thought of the levelling wind.
Come let us mock at the wise;
With all those calendars
They fixed old aching eyes,
They never saw how seasons run,
And now but gape at the sun.
Come let us mock at the
That fancied goodness might be gay,
And sick of
Might proclaim a holiday:
Wind shrieked — and where are they?
Mock mockers after
That would not lift a hand
To help good, wise or
To bar that foul storm out, for
Traffic in mockery.
Violence upon the roads: violence of horses;
Some few have handsome riders, are
On delicate sensitive ear or tossing mane,
But wearied running round and round in their
All break and vanish, and evil gathers head:
Herodias' daughters have returned again,
A sudden blast of dusty wind and
Thunder of feet, tumult of images,
Their purpose in the labyrinth of the wind;
And should some crazy hand dare touch a
All turn with amorous cries, or angry cries,
According to the wind, for all are blind.
But now wind drops, dust settles;
There lurches past, his great eyes without
Under the shadow of stupid straw-pale locks,
That insolent fiend Robert
To whom the love-lorn Lady Kyteler
Bronzed peacock feathers, red combs of her cocks.
