Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition

Parnell's Funeral (Author: William Butler Yeats)

p.279

part 1

1. Under the Great Comedian's tomb the crowd.
   A bundle of tempestuous cloud is blown
   About the sky; where that is clear of cloud
   Brightness remains; a brighter star shoots down;
   What shudders run through all that animal blood?
   What is this sacrifice? Can someone there
   Recall the Cretan barb that pierced a star?
• Rich foliage that the starlight glittered through,
  A frenzied crowd, and where the branches sprang
  A beautiful seated boy; a sacred bow;
  A woman, and an arrow on a string;
  A pierced boy, image of a star laid low.
  That woman, the Great Mother imaging,
  Cut out his heart. Some master of design
  Stamped boy and tree upon Sicilian coin.
• An age is the reversal of an age:
  When strangers murdered Emmet, Fitzgerald, Tone,
  We lived like men that watch a painted stage.
  What matter for the scene, the scene once gone:
  It had not touched our lives. But popular rage,
  Hysterica passio dragged this quarry down.
  None shared our guilt; nor did we play a part
  Upon a painted stage when we devoured his heart.
• Come, fix upon me that accusing eye.
  I thirst for accusation. All that was sung,

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  p.280

  All that was said in Ireland is a lie
  Bred out of the contagion of the throng,
  Saving the rhyme rats hear before they die.
  Leave nothing but the nothings that belong
  To this bare soul, let all men judge that can
  Whether it be an animal or a man.