NAPOMO Day 8: In Memoriam WB Yeats, III

[tree_and_leaf]

Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.

In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;

Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.

Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice.

With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress.

In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountains start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.

-- W.H. Auden

The best poem about the poet's vocation that I know.

Comments

[rivrea.livejournal.com]

It's a marvellous poem indeed, but I think that all three parts belong together and shouldn't be treated at seperate entities. (Look at the theme of each part and at the form as represented by the rhyme scheme, if you know what I mean...). /nitpicky ex-lit person

[tree_and_leaf]

Sorry. Bad habit picked up from hanging round mediaeval redactors, who tended to show their appreciation by a textual strategy of 'picking out their favourite bits'...