Soma

Resources => Poetry [Public] => Topic started by: niamhspark on October 18, 2006, 01:37:32 AM

Title: William Butler Yeats
Post by: niamhspark on October 18, 2006, 01:37:32 AM
Sailing to Byzantium

by WB Yeats

THAT is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
Title: Re: William Butler Yeats
Post by: nichi on March 10, 2007, 01:26:36 PM
The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?


WB Yeats
Title: Re: William Butler Yeats
Post by: Michael on January 24, 2008, 11:13:29 PM
Quote from: niamhspark on October 18, 2006, 01:37:32 AM
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

so often
Title: Re: William Butler Yeats
Post by: Nichi on December 11, 2009, 05:29:11 AM
http://www.youtube.com/v/OXrQlDJ3qhM&hl=en_US&fs=1&
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXrQlDJ3qhM


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.
 

                                    William Butler Yeats
Title: Re: William Butler Yeats
Post by: Nichi on June 19, 2010, 04:28:36 AM
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 midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's 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 grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.


William Butler Yeats
Title: Re: William Butler Yeats
Post by: Nichi on November 22, 2010, 04:28:07 AM
http://www.youtube.com/v/OEunVObSnVM?fs=1
Title: Re: William Butler Yeats
Post by: Nichi on June 24, 2013, 02:56:07 PM
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.

~ W.B. Yeats
Title: Re: William Butler Yeats
Post by: Michael on June 24, 2013, 07:43:00 PM
That Yeats knows his craft. A most curious poem.
Title: Re: William Butler Yeats
Post by: Nichi on June 24, 2013, 08:22:39 PM
Quote from: Michael on June 24, 2013, 07:43:00 PM
That Yeats knows his craft. A most curious poem.

Very playful, for him.
Title: Re: William Butler Yeats
Post by: Nichi on December 27, 2013, 02:44:41 PM
(https://scontent-a-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/1527063_10151903501602956_1223832555_n.jpg)

I've encountered him, somewhere in my travels.
Title: Re: William Butler Yeats
Post by: Nichi on December 28, 2013, 09:34:58 AM
Quote from: Nichi on December 27, 2013, 02:44:41 PM
(https://scontent-a-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/1527063_10151903501602956_1223832555_n.jpg)

I've encountered him, somewhere in my travels.

If he was inclined to be a womanizer (and I'm not sure of his history), I'll bet he had a lot of success.
Title: Re: William Butler Yeats
Post by: Nichi on June 09, 2015, 01:11:16 AM
The Mermaid

A mermaid found a swimming lad,
Picked him for her own,
Pressed her body to his body,
Laughed; and plunging down
Forgot in cruel happiness
That even lovers drown.

--William Butler Yeats
Title: Re: William Butler Yeats
Post by: Nichi on June 24, 2015, 11:51:43 PM
Quote from: nichi on March 10, 2007, 01:26:36 PM
The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?


WB Yeats
Title: Re: William Butler Yeats
Post by: Nichi on January 26, 2016, 03:52:35 PM
Quote from: nichi on March 10, 2007, 01:26:36 PM
The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?


WB Yeats


Slouching Towards Bethlehem
https://www.youtube.com/v/qxB9-CB4BqI