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| William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939): Nobel Laureate 1923 |
TALKS TO THE BISHOP
I met the Bishop on the road
And much said he and I.
"Those breasts are flat and fallen now,
Those veins must soon be dry;
Live in a heavenly mansion,
Not in some foul sty."
"Fair and foul are near of kin,
And fair needs foul," I cried.
"My friends are gone, but that's a truth
Nor grave nor bed denied,
Learned in bodily lowliness
And in the heart's pride.
A woman can be proud and stiff
When on love intent;
But Love has pitched his mansion in
The place of excrement;
For nothing can be hale or whole
That has not been rent."
---William Butler Yeats (1933)
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| Arago Spot: Green |
Hi, Mr. "Quantum" ;) (Ginny here...) Gosh, Mr. William Butler Yeats sure didn't have a happy view on life at the time he wrote that "diddy"!! Thanks for sharing his poem.
ReplyDeleteThe great love of Yeats's life (Maude Gonne) was unrequited and although he had two children by the women he married (Georgie Hyde Lees) she also produced reams of messages from spirits through automatic writing which Yeats fashioned into a weird book called "A Vision". Strange dude, Yeats. He really got into it.
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