Favorite Poems/Poets

[Regina]

I can't think of Yeats without thinking of this:

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

I KNOW that I shall meet my fate

Somewhere among the clouds above;

Those that I fight I do not hate

Those that I guard I do not love;

My country is Kiltartan Cross,

My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,

No likely end could bring them loss

Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,

Nor public man, nor cheering crowds,

A lonely impulse of delight

Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

I balanced all, brought all to mind,

The years to come seemed waste of breath,

A waste of breath the years behind

In balance with this life, this death.

Granted, everyone who ever watched the movie Memphis Belle knows this one, but I still love it. "A lonely impluse of delight" is simply beautiful.

And I'll throw a little something by Robert Frost:

A Soldier

He is that fallen lance that lies as hurled,

That lies unlifted now, come dew, come rust,

But still lies pointed as it plowed the dust.

If we who sight along it round the world,

See nothing worthy to have been its mark,

It is because like men we look too near,

Forgetting that as fitted to the sphere,

Our missiles always make too short an arc.

They fall, they rip the grass, they intersect

The curve of earth, and striking, break their own;

They make us cringe for metal-point on stone.

But this we know, the obstacle that checked

And tripped the body, shot the spirit on

Further than target ever showed or shone.

I hadn't planned it this way, but those actually work rather well with the upcoming Memorial Day weekend.

[Angalin]

Beautiful choices, Regina. :) They remind me of High Flight by John Gillespie Magee, which I always associate with the Challenger.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there

I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,

I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew -

And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod

The high untresspassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

[Suttree]

SUICIDE IN THE TRENCHES

By Siegfried Sassoon

I knew a simple soldier boy

Who grinned at life in empty joy,

Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,

And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,

With crumps and lice and lack of rum,

He put a bullet through his brain.

No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye

Who cheer when soldier lads march by,

Sneak home and pray you'll never know

The hell where youth and laughter go.

[Regina]

Beautiful choices, Regina. :) They remind me of High Flight by John Gillespie Magee, which I always associate with the Challenger.

Losing the Challenger was one of those things I will never forget, even though I was still a kid when it happened. Christa McAuliffe was from the next town over from me, I had met her and had pictures taken with her at some events celebrating her selection as Teacher in Space. :frown5:

To bring this back to topic, I can see why that poem makes you think of it. It's a lovely tribute if you look at it that way.

Suttree, that is also a very powerful poem. And sadly apt considering how many military men and women are lost to suicide.

Wow, this is the most emo response ever. I will try to find some uplifting poems for my next post, I promise.

[Regina]

Okay, this might be a little more uplifting:

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Arrow and the Song

I shot an arrow into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For, so swiftly it flew, the sight

Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For who has sight so keen and strong,

That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak

I found the arrow, still unbroke;

And the song, from beginning to end,

I found again in the heart of a friend.

That last couple of lines makes me all :grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug:

[The Killer Snark]

Angalin, I really like that poem. I'd never heard of it before. I'd have cut and pasted a lot of stuff here but unfortunately that function at my end has not been working for a while.

[direwolf_of_white_fangs]

Wordsworth, Byron, Bukowski, Ezra...

[Angalin]

Losing the Challenger was one of those things I will never forget, even though I was still a kid when it happened. Christa McAuliffe was from the next town over from me, I had met her and had pictures taken with her at some events celebrating her selection as Teacher in Space. :frown5:

To bring this back to topic, I can see why that poem makes you think of it. It's a lovely tribute if you look at it that way.

Peggy Noonan, Reagan's speechwriter, adapted High Flight for his speech after the Challenger disaster. Immensely touching.

Angalin, I really like that poem. I'd never heard of it before. I'd have cut and pasted a lot of stuff here but unfortunately that function at my end has not been working for a while.

It's a good one, isn't it?

The latest Windows updates have played merry hell with some browser functions in IE if that's what you're using.

This is Vicki Feaver's poem on ironing. A friend who knows her was very amused by it, as she said Feaver has never been known for her devotion to ironing. ;)

Ironing – Vicki Feaver

I used to iron everything:

my iron flying over sheets and towels

like a sledge chased by wolves over snow;

the flex twisting and crinking

until the sheath frayed, exposing

wires like nerves. I stood like a horse

with a smoking hoof,

inviting anyone who dared

to lie on my silver padded board,

to be pressed to the thinness

of dolls cut from paper.

I’d have commandeered a crane

if I could, got the welders at Jarrow

to heat me an iron the size of a tug

to flatten the house.

Then for years I ironed nothing.

I put the iron in a high cupboard.

I converted to crumpledness.

And now I iron again: shaking

dark spots of water onto wrinkled

silk, nosing into sleeves, round

buttons, breathing the sweet heated smell

hot metal draws from newly-washed

cloth, until my blouse dries

to a shining, creaseless blue,

an airy shape with room to push

my arms, breasts, lungs, heart into.

[Regina]

Peggy Noonan, Reagan's speechwriter, adapted High Flight for his speech after the Challenger disaster. Immensely touching.

Now that you mention it, that does ring a bell.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Love’s Philosophy

The fountains mingle with the river,

And the rivers with the ocean;

The winds of heaven mix forever

With a sweet emotion;

Nothing in the world is single;

All things by a law divine

In another's being mingle--

Why not I with thine?

See, the mountains kiss high heaven,

And the waves clasp one another;

No sister flower could be forgiven

If it disdained its brother;

And the sunlight clasps the earth,

And the moonbeams kiss the sea;--

What are all these kissings worth,

If thou kiss not me?

[Sci-2]

Heh, courtesy of the Sopranos:

Burroughs' "Seven Souls" meditation.

The ancient Egyptians postulated Seven Souls.

Top soul, and the first to leave at the moment of death, is Ren, the Secret Name. This corresponds to my Director. He directs the film of your life from conception to death. The Secret Name is the title of your film. When you die, that's where Ren came in.

Second soul, and second one off the sinking ship, is Sekem: Energy, Power, Light. The Director gives the orders, Sekem presses the right buttons.

Number three is Khu, the Guardian Angel. He, she, or it is third man out...depicted as flying away across a full moon, a bird with luminous wings and head of light. Sort of thing you might see on a screen in an Indian restaurant in Panama. The Khu is responsible for the subject and can be injured in his defense -- but not permanently, since the first three souls are eternal. They go back to Heaven for another vessel.

The four remaining souls must take their chances with the subject in the Land of the Dead.

Number four is Ba, the heart -- often treacherous. This is a hawk's body with your face on it, shrunk down to the size of a fist. Many a hero has been brought down, like Samson, by a perfidious Ba.

Number five is Ka, the Double, most closely associated with the subject. The Ka, which usually reaches adolescence at the time of bodily death, is the only reliable guide through the Land of the Dead to the Western Lands.

Number six is Khaibit, the Shadow, Memory, your whole past conditioning from this and other lives.

Number seven is Sekhu, the Remains.

[Old-Growth]

Francois Villon was a late medieval Parisian street thug who also happened to be a pretty good poet. Here is the wiki page for him.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Villon

In 1910, Claude Debussy set three of his poems: the following is the french text of the original for the second of the three. The modernized French is shown as subtitles in the first performance linked below.

Ballade que Villon feit à la requeste de sa mère pour prier Nostre-Dame (Ballad that Villon wrote at the request of his mother for to pray to Our Lady.)

Dame du ciel, regente terrienne,

Emperière des infernaulx palux,

Recevez-moy, vostre humble chrestienne,

Que comprinse soye entre vos esleuz,

Ce non obstant qu'oncques riens ne valuz.

Les biens de vous, ma dame et ma maistresse,

Sont trop plus grans que ne suys pecheresse,

Sans lesquelz bien ame ne peult

Merir n'avoir les cieulx,

Je n'en suis mentèresse.

En ceste foy je vueil vivre et mourir.

À vostre Filz dictes que je suys sienne;

De luy soyent mes pechez aboluz:

Pardonnez-moy comme à l'Egyptienne,

Ou comme il feut au clerc Theophilus,

Lequel par vous fut quitte et absoluz,

Combien qu'il eust au diable faict promesse.

Preservez-moy que je n'accomplisse ce!

Vierge portant sans rompure encourir 

Le sacrement qu'on celebre à la messe.

En ceste foy je vueil vivre et mourir.

Femme je suis povrette et ancienne,

Qui riens ne sçay, oncques lettre ne leuz;

Au moustier voy dont suis paroissienne,

Paradis painct où sont harpes et luz,

Et ung enfer où damnez sont boulluz:

L'ung me faict paour, l'aultre joye et liesse.

La joye avoir faismoy, haulte Deesse,

A qui pecheurs doibvent tous recourir,

Comblez de foy, sans faincte ne paresse.

En ceste foy je vueil vivre et mourir.

Lady of Heaven and earth, and therewithal 

Crowned Empress of the nether clefts of Hell,-

I, thy poor Christian, on thy name do call, 

Commending me to thee, with thee to dwell,

Albeit in nought I be commendable.

But all mine undeserving may not mar 

Such mercies as thy sovereign mercies are;

 Without the which (as true words testify) 

No soul can reach thy Heaven so fair and far.

Even in this faith I choose to live and die.

Unto thy Son say thou that I am His, 

And to me graceless make Him gracious. 

Said Mary of Egypt lacked not of that bliss,

Nor yet the sorrowful clerk Theophilus, 

Whose bitter sins were set aside even thus 

Though to the Fiend his bounden service was. 

Oh help me, lest in vain for me should pass

 (Sweet Virgin that shalt have no loss thereby!) 

The blessed Host and sacring of the Mass 

Even in this faith I choose to live and die.

A pitiful poor woman, shrunk and old, I am,

and nothing learn'd in letter-lore.

Within my parish-cloister I behold 

A painted Heaven where harps and lutes adore, 

And eke an Hell whose damned folk seethe full sore: 

One bringeth fear, the other joy to me. 

That joy, great Goddess, make thou mine to be,- 

Thou of whom all must ask it even as I; 

And that which faith desires, that let it see. 

For in this faith I choose to live and die.

O excellent Virgin Princess!

thou didst bear King Jesus, the most excellent comforter, 

Who even of this our weakness craved a share

And for our sake stooped to us from on high,

Offering to death His young life sweet and fair. 

Such as He is, Our Lord, I Him declare,

And in this faith I choose to live and die.

Now for Debussy's beautiful music for this poem: remarkable because it uses the composer's impressionist harmonic style and yet somehow conveys a sense of music out of the middle ages.

Valentina Coladinato, Soprano:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UVipUhHjpKQ

Gerard Souzay, baritone:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=myCL5CRPkyY

This has the accompaniment orchestrated: normally a no-no for me, but for Souzay one may make an exception.

Brian Hupp, baritone:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bEUMthx9hq4

Another one of those senior year recitals, but heartfelt singing by this young baritone.

Edward Nelson, baritone:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AIQba_i7WyM

Another young baritone, and another heartfelt performance---this song seems to inspire that.

[Theda Baratheon]

William Blake is one of my favourite people ever, let alone poets. He was fucking awesome.

[Old-Growth]

Regina:

As it happens there is a well-known, and quite pleasing IMHO, setting of "Love's Philosophy" by the English song composer Roger Quilter.

Here is the wiki page for him:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Quilter

Here are some performances from You Tube:

Janet Baker, mezzo-soprano:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A3CDDaMAoQk

This includes the text of the poem, so one need not scroll back to find it

Rebecca O'Neil, soprano:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_BNmwGP0A4Q

For some reason, this has more page views than the Baker. Given Dame Janet's stature as a recitalist, I find this peculiar.

[Old-Growth]

A poem and song for the Fourth of July. The text is the short poem written by Emma Lazarus for the Statue of Liberty. The song is the stately setting thereof by the late American composer Lee Hoiby.

Here is the full poem; only the last lines are on the Statue, and are used in the song.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Here is the wiki page for Emma Lazarus:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Lazarus

And here is the wiki page for Lee Hoiby:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Hoiby

Abby Lindig, soprano

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J0jMty6MJn4

Ellen Broen, mezzo-soprano

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4V8Pnz_mtd4

Aleah Prentice, mezzo-soprano:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-129ngVom1o

Be warned, this singer has a big voice.

[Old-Growth]

Well, I finally found a performance on you tube of a setting of "I'm Nobody" by Emily Dickinson---the one by American composer Arthur Farwell. The you tube entry is of a recital group and the poems for the other three are pleasing also, so I will post them all in a group, as they are all fairly short. First we have a well known poem by Robert Frost:

I'm going out to clean the pasture spring; 

I'll only stop to rake the leaves away

(And wait to watch the water clear, I may): 

I sha'n't be gone long. You come too.

I'm going out to fetch the little calf

That's standing by the mother. It's so young, 

It totters when she licks it with her tongue.

I sha'n't be gone long. You come too.

That "You come too." has a welcoming feel and is part of the charm of the poem, but what if we go? I think we end up doing some of the work :)

Next "The level bee"

Like trains of cars on tracks of plush

I hear the level bee: 

A jar across the flowers goes,

Their velvet masonry 

Withstands until the sweet assault 

Their chivalry consumes, 

While he, victorious, tilts away 

To vanquish other blooms

His feet are shod with gauze,

His helmet is of gold;

His breast, a single onyx

With chrysoprase, inlaid.

His labor is a chant,

His idleness a tune;

Oh, for a bee's experience

Of clovers and of noon!

Next the 1859 version of "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers":

SAFE in their alabaster chambers,

Untouched by morning and untouched by noon,

Sleep the meek members of the resurrection,

Rafter of satin, and roof of stone. 

Light laughs the breeze in her castle of sunshine;

Babbles the bee in a stolid ear;

Pipe the sweet birds in ignorant cadence,—

Ah, what sagacity perished here!  

Emily Dickinson

Finally, here is the poem I posted months ago, intending it for Arya, once she becomes a novice in the house of black and white. I am reposting it here so that one need not scroll back pages and pages to find it.

I'm Nobody! Who are you?

Are you — Nobody — Too?

Then there's a pair of us!

Don't tell! they'd advertise — you know!

How dreary — to be — Somebody!

How public — like a Frog —

To tell your name — the livelong June —

To an admiring Bog!

Emily Dickinson 

The first song is by Charles Naginski, and the next three by Arthur Farwell. The latter wrote settings for upwards of thirty of Dickinson's poems!

Here is the wiki page for Charles Naginski:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Naginski

And here is the wiki page for Farwell:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Farwell

I trust you do not need a wiki page for Dickinson or Frost :).

And finally, here is the link to the performance.

Broadus Hamilton, tenor

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2k3jAQJVqQg

Nice tenor voice; has a decent sense of how to deliver these songs.

[Old-Growth]

Work in progress, please be patient.

This is a set of four William Blake poems, one each from the songs of innocence and experience and two from the period after those two collections. Two are as well known as any, two less so. The first of the latter is "The Divine Image":

To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love

All pray in their distress,

And to these virtues of delight

Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love

Is God our father dear,

And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love

Is Man His child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart,

Pity a human face,

And Love the human form divine,

And Peace the human dress.

Then every man of every clime

That prays in his distress,

Prays to the human form divine:

Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form,

In heathen, Turk or Jew.

Where Mercy, Love and Pity dwell,

There God is dwelling too.

There is a complementary poem at the end of the songs of experience that speaks not of God but humans and of cruelty and jealousy, I should note, but we pass on to the most well known of the songs of experience:

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright 

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry? 

In what distant deeps or skies 

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare sieze the fire? 

And what shoulder, & what art. 

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat, 

What dread hand? & what dread feet? 

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain? 

What the anvil? what dread grasp 

Dare its deadly terrors clasp? 

When the stars threw down their spears,

And watered heaven with their tears, 

Did he smile his work to see? 

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright 

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Now here is something that I associate with a young Jon Snow, albeit I do not recall him having any dream like this---but then our author is holding back anything more than enigmatic hints on this subject:

The Land of Dreams

'Awake, awake my little boy,

Thou wast thy mother's only joy.

Why dost thou weep in thy gentle sleep?

Awake, thy father does thee keep.'

'O, what land is the Land of Dreams?

What are its mountains, and what are its streams?

O father, I saw my mother there,

Among the lillies by waters fair.'

'Among the lambs clothed in white

She walked with her Thomas in sweet delight.

I wept for joy; like a dove I mourn.

Oh, when shall I return again?'

'Dear child, I also by pleasant streams

Have wandered all night in the Land of Dreams;

But though calm and warm the waters wide,

I could not get to the other side.'

'Father, O father, what do we here,

In this land of unbelief and fear?

The Land of Dreams is better far---

Above the light of the morning star.'

This fourth and last of the group was the preface to a longer poem "Milton", but is much better known separately as the text for a familiar song often sung in England:

And did those feet in ancient time

Walk upon England's mountains green?

And was the holy Lamb of God,

On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the countenance divine

Shine forth upon our clouded hills?

And was Jerusalem builded here,

Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold;

Bring me my arrows of desire:

Bring me my spear; O clouds unfold!

Bring me my chariot of fire!

I will not cease from mental fight,

Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,

Till we have built Jerusalem,

In England's green and pleasant land.

Well, you ask, having seen previous posts, is there music to go with these poems? Indeed there is, and firstly these were the texts for a group of four songs composed by Virgil Thomson (there was a fifth "The Little Black Boy", from the songs of innocence, but in that poem Blake tried but failed to overcome the racism of his time, and likewise for Thomson).

The wiki page for our composer:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgil_Thomson

The Thomson songs were originally for voice and piano, but what is on YouTube is the orchestrated version:

Mack Harrell, baritone

The Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Thomson:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HpY7q_UNBZo

We do have on you tube three of the four in the voice and piano version

Donald Gramm, baritone:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TEHZFFX6_6Q

There was a time when Gramm was one of the few singers performing the American art song, his voice is no longer youthful in this live recording, but he still knows how to sing these songs.

Now here is a nice version of Tiger, Tiger by the American folk singer, Greg Brown:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8iNhSJzL3mk

Here is William Bolcom's setting of "The Tiger":

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PzDefyfPj1w

This is from his music for all 48 of the songs of innocence and experience.

And here is the more familiar setting of Jerusalem by Sir Charles H. H. Parry:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F_78e2a-WiE

(The LSO and chorus.)

I prefer Thomson's music for that poem, but this may just be American Chauvinism. At least it should be a bit of a novelty for those used to the Parry.

[Lord Tyrion's Whore]

Shakespeare's "Sonnet 57"

Sylvia Plath's "Daddy"

Google them if you aren't familiar, as I can't be arsed to type them out :)

[Old-Growth]

Okay LTWh: here is a you tube entry with the text of "Daddy" and audio of Plath reading that poem:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_hz1ar58BIM

And here is Janet McTeer reading sonnet 57:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XWqQvW1SU6k

This you tube entry also includes the text of the poem.

I would cut and paste from those you tube entries but this I leave for LTW to do :)

[Old-Growth]

Well it is time for some serious poetry in praise of music, to wit Lorenzo's speech from Act V Scene I of The Merchant of Venice . And yes there is lovely music for this poetry by Ralph Vaughn Williams from 1938. After all, poetry in praise of Music must have music, sweet music, yes?

Here is the Wikipedia page:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenade_to_Music

'How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! 

Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music

Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night

Become the touches of sweet harmony.

[How sweet the night is... ]

Look how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold :

There's not the smallest orb that thou behold'st

But in his motion like an angel sings

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;

Such harmony is in immortal souls;

But whilst this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

Come ho, and wake Diana with a hymn!

With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear,

And draw her home with music',

'I am never merry when I hear sweet music'.

'The reason is your spirits are attentive:

The man that hath no music in himself,

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,

Is fit for treasons, strategems and spoils;

The motions of his spirit is dull as night,

And his affections dark as Erebus:

Let no such man be trusted'.

'Music hark! It is your music of the house'.

'Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.

Silence bestows that virtue on it.

How many things by season season'd are

To their right praise and true perfection!

'Peace, ho! The moon sleeps with Endymion,

And would not be awaked'.

'Soft stillness and the night

Become the touches of sweet harmony'.

[How sweet the harmony]

Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, Act V, Scene I

The primary speaker is Lorenzo, but there is one line for Jessica in between (I have left space, and the last lines are Lorenzo and Portia.

The bits in brackets were interpolated by Vaughn Williams.

Here is Sir Adrian Boult, 16 soloists, and the London Philharmonic:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SjHyhznz9LM

And here is. Mssr. Bernstein, the NY Philharmonic and soloists:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S5K7gw4198A

Finally here is Sir Henry Wood---to whom the piece was dedicated, with the original soloists, from 1939:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0bExuTNHwIs

FWIW: the man with no music in him is Lord Petyr Baelish, in my way of looking at this. Also Diana (Artemis) could be The Maiden.

[Liffguard]

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death-

I know that I shall meet my fate

Somewhere among the clouds above;

Those that I fight I do not hate,

Those that I guard I do not love;

My country is Kiltartan Cross,

My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,

No likely end could bring them loss

Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,

Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,

A lonely impulse of delight

Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

I balanced all, brought all to mind,

The years to come seemed waste of breath,

A waste of breath the years behind

In balance with this life, this death.

— William Butler Yeats, 1919