Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition

Meditations in Time of Civil War (Author: William Butler Yeats)

part 2

My House

1. An ancient bridge, and a more ancient tower,
   A farmhouse that is sheltered by its wall,
   An acre of stony ground,
   Where the symbolic rose can break in flower,
   Old ragged elms, old thorns innumerable,
   The sound of the rain or sound
   Of every wind that blows;
   The stilted water-hen
   Crossing Stream again
   Scared by the splashing of a dozen cows;
   A winding stair, a chamber arched with stone,
   A grey stone fireplace with an open hearth,
   A candle and written page.
   i{Il Penseroso's} Platonist toiled on
   In some like chamber, shadowing forth

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   p.19

   How the daemonic rage
   Imagined everything.
   Benighted travellers
   From markets and from fairs
   Have seen his midnight candle glimmering.
   Two men have founded here. A man-at-arms
   Gathered a score of horse and spent his days
   In this tumultuous spot,
   Where through long wars and sudden night alarms
   His dwinding score and he seemed castaways
   Forgetting and forgot;
   And I, that after me
   My bodily heirs may find,
   To exalt a lonely mind,
   Befitting emblems of adversity.

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p.20