are there yeats lovers in here ?

[parsifal_e]

whenever I'm down I find his poetry very soothing....

*******************************

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth wood in the lake
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats
There we've hid our fairy vats
Full of berries
And of Reddest Stolen Cherries.

Come away oh human child
To the waters and the wild
With a fairy hand in hand
For the world's more full of weeping
Than you can understand

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light
By far off the furthest roses
We foot it all the night
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles
Whilst the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in it's sleep

Come away oh human child
To the waters and the wild
For the world's more full of weeping
Than you can understand

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above glen car
In pools amung the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams

Come away oh human child
To the waters and the wild
For the World's more full of weeping
Than you can understand

Away with us he's going
The solemned eyed
He'll bear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest

Come away oh human child
To the waters and the wild
For the world's more full of weeping
Than you can understand

For he comes, the human child
To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand
For the world is more full of weeping
Than you can understand

********************************

for some reason my favourite line is
when he says " We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears Give them unquiet dreams "

It just gets me ! simple ... yet has something
so poignant although I can't put my finger on it.

bet you someone will post a "are there any yeast lovers in here " copycat post.

[progmom]

1. me!

[Must_B_Free]

2. No one here but us yeast lovers

[Skittles]

3. LOL

sans glasses, that is how I read the subject line! :o

[saltpoint]

4. Count me in.

"In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise..."

(W.H. Auden's eulogy to W.B. Yeats)

_____


I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

And I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear the lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

____

And heavy with sleep am I
To bed do I go.

Goodnight, DU.

[parsifal_e]

5. thanks old crusoe for reminding me of that poem , one of his best!

come to think of it , his best is what I'm reading any
particular moment.

[parsifal_e]

6. another favourite

I

I sought a theme and sought for it in vain,
I sought it daily for six weeks or so.
Maybe at last, being but a broken man,
I must be satisfied with my heart, although
Winter and summer till old age began
My circus animals were all on show,
Those stilted boys, that burnished chariot,
Lion and woman and the Lord knows what.

II

What can I but enumerate old themes,
First that sea-rider Oisin led by the nose
Through three enchanted islands, allegorical dreams,
Vain gaiety, vain battle, vain repose,
Themes of the embittered heart, or so it seems,
That might adorn old songs or courtly shows;
But what cared I that set him on to ride,
I, starved for the bosom of his faery bride.

And then a counter-truth filled out its play,
'The Countess Cathleen' was the name I gave it;
She, pity-crazed, had given her soul away,
But masterful Heaven had intervened to save it.
I thought my dear must her own soul destroy
So did fanaticism and hate enslave it,
And this brought forth a dream and soon enough
This dream itself had all my thought and love.

And when the Fool and Blind Man stole the bread
Cuchulain fought the ungovernable sea;
Heart-mysteries there, and yet when all is said
It was the dream itself enchanted me:
Character isolated by a deed
To engross the present and dominate memory.
Players and painted stage took all my love,
And not those things that they were emblems of.

III

Those masterful images because complete
Grew in pure mind, but out of what began?
A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street,
Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,
Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut
Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder's gone,
I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.

[Withywindle]

7. Not soothing, but...

Here's one that really hit me right after the election:

To A Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing

Now all the truth is out,
Be secret and take defeat
From any brazen throat,
For how can you compete,
Being honour bred, with one
Who, were it proved he lies,
Were neither shamed in his own
Nor in his neighbors' eyes?
Bred to a harder thing
Than Triumph, turn away
And like a laughing string
Whereon mad fingers play
Amid a place of stone,
Be secret and exult,
Because of all things known
That is most difficult.

[Hardrada]

8. And therefore I have crossed the seas and come

To the holy city of Byzantium...