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Why should not old men be mad?
Some have known a likely lad
That had a sound fly-fisher's wrist
Turn to a drunken journalist;
A girl that knew all Dante once
Live to bear children to a dunce;
A Helen of social welfare dream,
Climb on a wagonette to scream.
Some think it a matter of course that chance
Should starve good men and bad advance,
That if their neighbors figured plain,
As though upon a lighted screen,
No single story would they find
Of an unbroken happy mind,
A finish worthy of the start.
Young men know nothing of this sort,
Observant old men know it well;
And when they know what old books tell,
And that no better can be had,
Know why an old man should be mad.
WHY SHOULD NOT OLD MEN BE MAD? ~ Wm. Butler Yeats
________________________
And while we're at it, although these lines may have been quoted so often that they no longer can be heard or register on the blunted minds of info-saturated cyber-addicts, here they come again, since never have they rung more true:
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
xxxx~ W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming
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Showing posts with label W.B. Yeats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label W.B. Yeats. Show all posts
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Readings: A Triptych
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THE MOTHER OF GOD
The threefold terror of love; a fallen flare
Through the hollow of an ear;
Wings beating about the room;
The terror of all terrors that I bore
The Heavens in my womb.
Had I not found content among the shows
Every common woman knows,
Chimney corner, garden walk,
Or rocky cistern where we tread the clothes
And gather all the talk?
What is this flesh I purchased with my pains,
This fallen star my milk sustains,
This love that makes my heart's blood stop
Or strikes a sudden chill into my bones
And bids my hair stand up?
~ William Butler Yeats
MOSAIC OF THE NATIVITY: SERBIA, WINTER 1993
On the domed ceiling God
is thinking:
I made them my joy,
and everything else I created
I made to bless them,
But see what they do!
I know their hearts
and arguments:
"We're descended from
Cain. Evil is nothing new,
so what does it matter now
if we shell the infirmary,
and the well where the fearful
and rash alike must
come for water?"
God thinks Mary into being.
Suspended at the apogee
of the golden dome,
She curls in a brown pod,
and inside her the mind
of Christ, cloaked in blood,
lodges and begins to grow.
~ Jane Kenyon
anti-x
his costume is scarlet.
he rides the cold wind.
as he passes through the sky
he blots out the star.
his mask glows with neon
and tinsel.
behind it he laughs.
it is droll how we think him so jolly.
his sustenance--slave labor.
"something for nothing"
is his creed: how we listen with glee
as we macy and gimble one another to death.
his obese, slow thighs don't slow him,
for he rides in style, over our heads:
but always away from bethlehem.
oh no, w.b., it will be no sphinx.
~ Rodak (circa 1965)
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THE MOTHER OF GOD
The threefold terror of love; a fallen flare
Through the hollow of an ear;
Wings beating about the room;
The terror of all terrors that I bore
The Heavens in my womb.
Had I not found content among the shows
Every common woman knows,
Chimney corner, garden walk,
Or rocky cistern where we tread the clothes
And gather all the talk?
What is this flesh I purchased with my pains,
This fallen star my milk sustains,
This love that makes my heart's blood stop
Or strikes a sudden chill into my bones
And bids my hair stand up?
~ William Butler Yeats
MOSAIC OF THE NATIVITY: SERBIA, WINTER 1993
On the domed ceiling God
is thinking:
I made them my joy,
and everything else I created
I made to bless them,
But see what they do!
I know their hearts
and arguments:
"We're descended from
Cain. Evil is nothing new,
so what does it matter now
if we shell the infirmary,
and the well where the fearful
and rash alike must
come for water?"
God thinks Mary into being.
Suspended at the apogee
of the golden dome,
She curls in a brown pod,
and inside her the mind
of Christ, cloaked in blood,
lodges and begins to grow.
~ Jane Kenyon
anti-x
his costume is scarlet.
he rides the cold wind.
as he passes through the sky
he blots out the star.
his mask glows with neon
and tinsel.
behind it he laughs.
it is droll how we think him so jolly.
his sustenance--slave labor.
"something for nothing"
is his creed: how we listen with glee
as we macy and gimble one another to death.
his obese, slow thighs don't slow him,
for he rides in style, over our heads:
but always away from bethlehem.
oh no, w.b., it will be no sphinx.
~ Rodak (circa 1965)
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