- WIlliam Butler Yeats, "No Second Troy"Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great.
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Burdened?
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_______ FIRST LOVE _______
Why do all the arts of words
_____ and gestures fail ––
__________In Thy fair sight?
Intellect and education ––
_____ all the things to recommend me ––
__________ vanish before a new and far more brilliant light
As moths about a candle die of Fascination
_____ consumed by by Indifferent Flame?
_____ Must it be so with me
__________ who surely have the mind to see
_______________ that no one by myself could be to blame?
For harm to come to me from Thee seems so absurd
_____ it is thy gentle sweetness
__________ that causes need for Thy caress
And yet a word, that shows Thy slightest displeasure
_____ may cut me in twain.
Oh! How a Thy innocent hands have I suffered ––
_____ the agonies of exquisite pain!
My very need would seem to cut me off
___ from the supply
_____ of that which could restore my reason
__________ and make my will comply
_______________ with all the unreasonable demands
____________________ of every day.
What is this sin for which I must
___ so heavily pay?
Is it that of loving you
_____ or being born?
~ FreeThinke c. 1960, his long-ago Unicorn Phase
That one's a keeper, FT. No doubt, from the top shelf. :)
Thank you, Farmer, but Alas! 'tis only a wispy relic from my fey, misspent youth. Yeats always evokes heartbreak most eloquently:
Down By the Salley Gardens
Down by the salley gardens
my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens
with little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy,
as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish,
with her would not agree.
In a field by the river
my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder
she laid her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy,
as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish,
and now am full of tears.
~ William Butler Yeats
But what do our small passions, yearnings, vain ambitions matter? We're all destined to meet the same end-- rich poor, beautiful, homely, haughty, humble, intelligent, foolish, creative, dull, generous, parsimonious, shy, bold, impulsive, calculating, heroic, cowardly ...
Edgar Allan Poe spells it out in grimly colorful detail reminiscent of the work of Hieronymus Bosch:
THE CONQUEROR WORM (1843)
Lo! 'tis a gala night
__ Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
__ In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
__ A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
__ The music of the spheres.
Mimes, in the form of God on high,
__ Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly ––
__ Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
__ That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
__ Invisible Woe!
That motley drama –– oh, be sure
__ It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
__ By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
__ To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
__ And Horror the soul of the plot.
But see, amid the mimic rout
__ A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
__ The scenic solitude!
It writhes! –– it writhes! –– with mortal pangs
__ The mimes become its food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
__ In human gore imbued.
Out- out are the lights –– out all!
__ And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
__ Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
__ Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
__ And its hero the Conqueror Worm.
~ Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
The story just posted captures a bit of this, along with the trivialities which constitute some of the minor joys of life.
EQUALLY POIGNANT, but in A DIFFERENT IDIOM:
YOU FORGOT TO REMEMBER
One little kiss, a moment of bliss,
___ then hours of deep regret
One little smile, and after a while,
___ a longing to forget
One little heartache left as a token
One little plaything carelessly broken
Remember the night,
___ the night you said, "I love you"
______ Remember?
Remember you vowed
___ by all the stars above you
______ Remember?
Remember we found a lonely spot
___ And after I learned to care a lot
You promised that you'd forget me not
___ But you forgot to remember
Into my dreams you wandered it seems,
___ and then there came a day
You loved me too, my dreams had come true,
___ and all the world was May
But soon the Maytime turned to December
You had forgotten, do you remember?
Remember the night, ___
the night you said, "I love you"
______ Remember?
Remember you vowed
___ by all the stars above you
______ Remember?
Remember we found a lonely spot
___ And after I learned to care a lot
You promised that you'd forget me not ___
But you forgot to remember
~ Irving Berlin (1888-1989)
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