Let Read and think together William B Yeats (1865-1939) From The Wind Among the Reeds (1899) Men improve with the Years I am worn out with dreams; A weather-worn, marble triton Among the streams; And all day long I look Upon this ladys beauty As though I had found in book A pictured beauty, Pleased to have filled the eyes Or the discerning ears, Delighted to be but wise, For men improve with the years; And yet and yet Is this my dream, or the truth? O would that we had met When I had my burning youth; But I grow old among dreams, A weather-worn, marble triton Among the streams.. main William B Yeats (1865-1939) From The Wind Among the Reeds (1899) He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven Had I the heavens embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. main William B Yeats (1865-1939) From The Wind Among the Reeds (1899) The Song of Wandering Aengus I went out to the hazel wood, Because a fire was in my head, And cut and peeled a hazel wand, And hooked a berry to a thread; And when white moths were on the wing And moth-like stars were flickering out, I dropped the berry in a stream and caught a little silver trout. When I had laid it on the floor I went to blow the fire aflame, but something rustled on the floor, And some one called me by my name: It had become a glimmering girl With apple blossom in her hair Who called me by my name and ran And faded through the brightening air. Though I am old with wandering Through hollow lands and hilly lands, I will find out where she has gone, And kiss her lips and take her hands; And walk among long dappled grass, And pluck till time and times are done The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun. main William B Yeats (1865-1939) The Lake Isle of Innisfree 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 honeybee, 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 midnights all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnets wings. I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear 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 hearts core. main Dylan Thomas (1914-53) Fern Hill Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green, The night above the dingle starry, Time let me hail and climb Golden in the heydays of his eyes, And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves Trail with daisies and barley Down the rivers of the windfall light. And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home, In the sun that is young once only, Time let me play and be Golden in the mercy of his means, And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold, And the sabbath rang slowly In the pebbles of the holy streams. All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air And playing, lovely and watery And fire green as grass. And nightly under the simple stars As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away, All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars Flying with the ricks, and the horses Flashing into the dark. And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all Shining, it was Adam and maiden, The sky gathered again And the sun grew round that very day. So it must have been after the birth of the simple light In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm Out of the whinnying green stable On to the fields of praise. And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long, In the sun born over and over, I ran my heedless ways, My wishes raced through the house high hay And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs Before the children green and golden Follow him out of grace. Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand, In the moon that is always rising, Nor that riding to sleep I should hear him fly with the high fields And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land. Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means, Time held me green and dying Though I sang in my chains like the sea. main Dylan Thomas (1914-53) And Death Shall Have No Dominion And death shall have no dominion. Dead men naked they shall be one With the man in the wind and the west moon; When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone, They shall have stars at elbow and foot; Though they go mad they shall be sane, Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again; Though lovers be lost love shall not; And death shall have no dominion. And death shall have no dominion. Under the winding of the sea They lying long shall not die windily; Twisting on racks when sinews give way, Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break; Faith in their hands shall snap in two, and the unicorn evils run them through; Split all ends up they shant crack; And death shall have no dominion. And death shall have no dominion. main William B Yeats (1865-1939) The Cat and the Moon The cat went here and there And the moon spun round like a top, And the nearest kin of the moon, The creeping cat, looked up Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon, For, wander and wail as he would, The pure cold light in the sky Troubled his animal blood. Minnaloushe runs in the grass Lifting his delicate feet. Do you dance Minnaloushe, do you dance? When two close kindred meet, What better than call a dance? Maybe the moon may learn, Tired of that courtly fashion, A new dance turn. Minnaloushe creeps through the grass From moonlit place to place, The sacred moon overhead Has taken a new phase. Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils Will pass from change to change, And that from round to crescent, From crescent to round they range? Minnaloushe creeps through the grass Alone, important and wise, And lifts to the changing moon His changing eyes. main William B Yeats (1865-1939) The Three Hermits THREE old hermits took the air By a cold and desolate sea, First was muttering a prayer, Second rummaged for a flea; On a windy stone, the third, Giddy with his hundredth year, Sang unnoticed like a bird. Though the Door of Death is near And what waits behind the door, Three times in a single day I, though upright on the shore, Fall asleep when I should pray. So the first but now the second, Were but given what we have earned When all thoughts and deeds are reckoned So its plain to be discerned That the shades of holy men, Who have failed being weak of will, Pass the Door of Birth again, And are plagued by crowds, until Theyve the passion to escape. Moaned the other, They are thrown Into some most fearful shape. But the second mocked his moan: They are not changed to anything, Having loved God once, but maybe, To a poet or a king Or a witty lovely lady. While hed rummaged rags and hair, Caught and cracked his flea, the third, Giddy with his hundredth year, Sang unnoticed like a bird. main John Clare (1793-1864) Love Lives Beyond the Tomb Love lives beyond the tomb, And earth, which fades like dew! I love the fond, The faithful, and the true. Love lives in sleep: Tis happiness of healthy dreams: Eves dews may weep, But love delightful seems. Tis seen in flowers, And in the mornings pearly dew; In earths green hours, And in the heavens eternal blue. Tis heard in Spring When light and sunbeams, warm and kind, On angels wing Bring love and music to the mind. And wheres the voice, So young, so beautiful, and sweet As Natures choice, Where Spring and lovers meet? Love lives beyond the tomb, And earth, which fades like dew! I love the fond, The faithful, and the true. main Dylan Thomas (1914-53) Poem in October It was my thirtieth year to heaven Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood And the mussel pooled and the heron Priested shore The morning beckon With water praying and call of seagull and rook And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall Myself to set foot That second In the still sleeping town and set forth. My birthday began with the water- Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name Above the farms and the white horses And I rose In rainy autumn And walked abroad in a shower of all my days. High tide and the heron dived when I took the road Over the border And the gates Of the town closed as the town awoke. A springful of larks in a rolling Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling Blackbirds and the sun of October Summery On the hills shoulder, Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly Come in the morning where I wandered and listened To the rain wringing Wind blow cold In the wood faraway under me. Pale rain over the dwindling harbour And over the sea wet church the size of a snail With its horns through mist and the castle Brown as owls But all the gardens Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud. There could I marvel My birthday Away but the weather turned around. It turned away from the blithe country And down the other air and the blue altered sky Streamed again a wonder of summer With apples Pears and red currants And I saw in the turning so clearly a childs Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother Through the parables Of sun light And the legends of the green chapels And the twice told fields of infancy That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine. These were the woods the river and sea Where a boy In the listening Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide. And the mystery Sang alive Still in the water and singingbirds. And there could I marvel my birthday Away but the weather turned around. And the true Joy of the long dead child sang burning In the sun. It was my thirtieth Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon Though the town below lay leaved with October blood. O may my hearts truth Still be sung On this high hill in a years turning. main William B Yeats (1865-1939) In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz The light of evening, Lissadell, Great windows open to the south, Two girls in silk kimonos,both Beautiful, one a gazelle. But a raving Autumn shears Blossom from the Summers wreath; The older is condemned to death, Pardoned, drags out lonely years Conspiring among the ignorant. I know not what the younger dreams- Some vague Utopia-and she seems, When withered old and skeleton-gaunt, An image of such politics. Many a time I think to seek One or the other out and speak Of that old Georgian mansion, mix Pictures of the mind, recall That table and the talk of youth, Two girls in silk kimonos, both Beautiful, one a gazelle. Dear shadows, now you know it all, All the folly of a fight With a common wrong or right. The innocent and the beautiful Have no enemy but time; Arise and bid me strike a match And strike another till time catch; Should the conflagration climb, Run till all the sages know. We the great gazebo built, They convicted us of guilt; Bid me strike a match and blow. main William B Yeats (1865-1939) The Host of the Air ODriscoll drove with a song The wild duck and the drake From the tall and the tufted reeds Of the drear Hart Lake. And he saw how the reeds grew dark At the coming of night-tide, And dreamed of the long dim hair Of Bridget his bride. He heard while he sang and dreamed A piper piping away And never was piping so sad And never was piping so gay. And he saw young men and young girls Who danced on a level place, And Bridget his bride among them, With a sad and a gay face. The dancers crowded about him And many a sweet thing said, And a young man brought him red wine And a young girl white bread. But Bridget drew him by the sleeve Away fom the merry bands, To old men playing at cards With a twinkling of ancient hands. The bread and the wine had a doom, For these were the host of the air; He sat and played in a dream Of her long dim hair. He played with the merry old men And thought not of evil chance, Until one bore Bridget his bride Away from the merry dance. He bore her away in his arms, The handsomest young man there, And his neck and his breast and his arms Were drowned in her long dim hair. ODriscoll scattered the cards And out of his dream awoke: Old men and young men and young girls Were gone like a drifting smoke; But he heard high up in the air A piper piping away, And never was piping so sad, And never was piping so gay. main Lewis Carroll (1832-98) You Are Old, Father William This is an exerpt from Alice in Wonderland. You are old, Father William, the young man said, And your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head -- Do you think, at your age, it is right? * In my youth, Father William replied to his son, I feared it might injure the brain; But, now that Im perfectly sure I have none, Why, I do it again and again. * You are old, said the youth, as I mentioned before, And have grown most uncommonly fat; Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door -- Pray, what is the reason for that? * In my youth, said the sage, as he shook his grey locks, I kept all my limbs very supple By the use of this ointment - one shilling the box - Allow me to sell you a couple? * You are old, said the youth, and your jaws are too weak For anything tougher than suet; Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak - Pray, how did you manage to do it? * In my youth, said his father, I took to the law, And argued each case with my wife; And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw, Has lasted the rest of my life. * You are old, said the youth, one would hardly suppose That your eye was as steady as ever; Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose - What made you so awfully clever? * I have answered three questions, and that is enough, Said his father, dont give yourself airs! Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? Be off, or Ill kick you downstairs! main William B Yeats (1865-1939) The Cap and Bells The jester walked in the garden: The garden had fallen still; He bade his soul rise upward And stand on her window-sill. It rose in a straight blue garment When owls began to call: It had grown wise-tongued by thinking Of a quiet and light footfall; But the young queen would not listen; She rose in her pale night-gown; She drew in the heavy casement And pushed the latches down. He bade his heart go to her, When the owls called out no more; In a red and quivering garment It sang to her through the door. It had grown sweet-tongued by dreaming Of a flutter of flower-like hair; But she took up her fan from the table And waved it off in the air. I have cap and bells, he pondered, I will send them to her and die; And when the morning whitened He left them where she went by. She laid them upon her bosom Under a cloud of her hair, And her red lips sang them a love-song Till stars grew out of the air. She opened her door and her window, And the heart and the soul came through, To her right hand came the red one, To her left hand came the blue. They set up a noise like crickets, A chattering wise and sweet, And her hair was a folded flower And the quiet of love in her feet.
Posted on: Sat, 19 Oct 2013 11:01:09 +0000
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