Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition

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

part 7

I see Phantoms of Hatred and of the Heart's Fullness and of the Coming Emptiness

1. I climb to the tower-top and lean upon broken stone,
   A mist that is like blown snow is sweeping over all,
   Valley, river, and elms, under the light of a moon
   That seems unlike itself, that seems unchangeable,
   A glittering sword out of the east. A puff of wind
   And those white glimmering fragments of the mist sweep by.
   Frenzies bewilder, reveries perturb the mind;
   Monstrous familiar images swim to the mind's eye.
   'Vengeance upon the murderers,' the cry goes up,
   'Vengeance for Jacques Molay.' In cloud-pale rags, or in lace,
   The rage-driven, rage-tormented, and rage-hungry troop,
   Trooper belabouring trooper, biting at arm or at face,
   Plunges towards nothing, arms and fingers spreading wide
   For the embrace of nothing; and I, my wits astray
   Because of all that senseless tumult, all but cried
   For vengeance on the murderers of Jacques Molay.
   Their legs long, delicate and slender, aquamarine their eyes,
   Magical unicorns bear ladies on their backs.
   The ladies close their musing eyes. No prophecies,
   Remembered out of Babylonian almanacs,
   Have closed the ladies' eyes, their minds are but a pool
   Where even longing drowns under its own excess;

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   p.25

   Nothing but stillness can remain when hearts are full
   Of their own sweetness, bodies of their loveliness.
   The cloud-pale unicorns, the eyes of aquamarine,
   The quivering half-closed eyelids, the rags of cloud or of lace,
   Or eyes that rage has brightened, arms it has made lean,
   Give place to an indifferent multitude, give place
   To brazen hawks. Nor self-delighting reverie,
   Nor hate of what's to come, nor pity for what's gone,
   Nothing but grip of claw, and the eye's complacency,
   The innumerable clanging wings that have put out the moon.
   I turn away and shut the door, and on the stair
   Wonder how many times I could have proved my worth
   In something that all others understand or share;
   But O! ambitious heart, had such a proof drawn forth
   A company of friends, a conscience set at ease,
   It had but made us pine the more. The abstract joy,
   The half-read wisdom of daemonic images,
   Suffice the ageing man as once the growing boy.