He stumbled, tumbled, fumbled to and fro
And drove him drunk or sober through the dawn
And I declare my faith:
Till the wreck of body,
Or dull decrepitude,
Strange, but the man who made the song was blind;
The people of Burke and of Grattan
A pack of hounds and not a pack of cards,
Some few remembered still when I was young
Last reach of glittering stream
And I myself created Hanrahan
Compelling it to study
plunge, lured by a softening eye,
As I would question all, come all who can;
Does the imagination dwell the most
No, not in boyhood when with rod and fly,
And certain men-at-arms there were
The man drowned in a bogs mire,
Or anything called conscience once;
And send imagination forth
A sort of battered kettle at the heel.
When theyhave mounted up,
Whose images, in the Great Memory stored,
Or that of the sudden shower
They may drop a fly;
Yet, now I have considered it, I find
And drop twigs layer upon layer.
And bring beautys blind rambling celebrant;
Clipped an insolent farmers ears
And that he changed into a hare.
But I have found an answer in those eyes
But they mistook the brightness of the moon
And had the livelong summer day to spend.
That under bursting dawn
All that you have discovered in the grave,
I pace upon the battlements and stare
As at the loophole there
Man makes a superhuman,
The fountain leap, and at dawn
From a great labyrinth out of pride,
I choose upstanding men
Or the humbler worm, I climbed Ben Bulbens back
Of every brilliant eye
Hanrahan rose in frenzy there
Come with loud cry and panting breast
And further add to that
They shall inherit my pride,
Now shall I make my soul,
The daws chatter and scream,
Through God-forsaken meadows; Mrs. French,
Under eclipse and the day blotted out.
Out of his bitter soul,
To test their fancy by their sight;
All those things whereof
This sedentary trade.
From ruin or from ancient trees,
Go therefore; but leave Hanrahan,
Mirror-resembling dream.
Cowardice, some silly over-subtle thought
For the prosaic light of day -
I have prepared my peace
Slow decay of blood,
So great a glory did the song confer.
It is time that I wrote my will;
Images and memories
That more expected the impossible -
In a learned school
Could, he was so harried, cheer;
Who trod upon these rocks or passed this door,
The Tower
And so warmher wild nest.
To young upstanding men
I leave both faith and pride
Theres not a neighbour left to say
O heart, O troubled heart - this caricature,
And cry in platos teeth,
Aye, sun and moon and star, all,
From somewhere in the neighbouring cottages.
The pride of people that were
He so bewitched the cards under his thumb
Upon a woman won or woman lost?
And had but broken knees for hire
Imagination, nor an ear and eye
The death of friends, or death
Caught by an old mans juggleries
Whether in public or in secret rage
I must recall a man that neither love
And there sing his last song.
Being of that metal made
Climbing the mountain-side,
And memories of love,
Whod lived somewhere upon that rocky place,
Gifted with so fine an ear;
A peasant girl commended by a Song,
Memories of the words of women,
Did all old men and women, rich and poor,
On the foundations of a house, or where
As I do now against old age?
Music had driven their wits astray -
That made a catch in the breath - .
That climb the streams until
And horrible splendour of desire;
While their great wooden dice beat on the board.
Death and life were not
That most respected ladys every wish,
When he finished his dogs day:
Reckoned up every unforeknown, unseeing
Bring up out of that deep considering mind
When the horizon fades;
When mocking Muses chose the country wench.
Bound neither to Cause nor to State.
For I would ask a question of them all.
When all streams are dry,
And that if memory recur, the suns
And the proud stones of Greece,
Poets imaginings
Or what worse evil come -
Rough men-at-arms, cross-gartered to the knees
Beyond that ridge lived Mrs. French, and once
Good fellows shuffled cards in an old bawn;
Decrepit age that has been tied to me
It seems that I must bid the Muse go pack,
And followed up those baying creatures towards -
And when that ancient ruffians turn was on
The red man the juggler sent
pride, like that of the morn,
As to a dogs tail?
II
Never had I more
Farmers jostled at the fair
Come old, necessitous. half-mounted man;
O may the moon and sunlight seem
On their hollow top,
Till it was broken by
Or a birds sleepy cry
When the swan must fix his eye
Made lock, stock and barrel
With learned Italian things
The mother bird will rest
Or that of the fabulous horn,
Tree, like a sooty finger, starts from the earth;
And certain men, being maddened by those rhymes,
For if I triumph I must make men mad.
Upon a fading gleam,
Or that of the hour
Until imagination, ear and eye,
That are impatient to be gone;
Rose from the table and declared it right
Float out upon a long
When the headlong light is loose,
For I need all his mighty memories.
Old lecher with a love on every wind,
That nothing strange; the tragedy began
A serving-man, that could divine
Or by a touch or a sigh,
I
Neither to slaves that were spat on,
Before that ruin came, for centuries,
Ran and with the garden shears
Of dripping stone; I declare
Drop their cast at the side
I thought it all out twenty years ago:
I mock plotinus thought
Among the deepening shades.
To break upon a sleepers rest
That all but the one card became
That gave, though free to refuse -
If on the lost, admit you turned aside
And had the greater joy in praising her,
Remembering that, if walked she there,
An ancient bankrupt master of this house.
And Helen has all living hearts betrayed.
Or shod in iron, climbed the narrow stairs,
Under the days declining beam, and call
And one was drowned in the great bog of Cloone.
Dream and so create
Till man made up the whole,
Excited, passionate, fantastical
Nor music nor an enemys clipped ear
WHAT shall I do with this absurdity -
And brought them in a little covered dish.
With Homer that was a blind man,
When every silver candlestick or sconce
For it is certain that you have
Testy delirium
Into the labyrinth of anothers being;
Or else by toasting her a score of times,
Can be content with argument and deal
Nor to the tyrants that spat,
Lit up the dark mahogany and the wine.
In abstract things; or be derided by
One inextricable beam,
Choose Plato and Plotinus for a friend
A figure that has grown so fabulous
And praised the colour of her face,
O towards I have forgotten what - enough!
Translunar paradise.
That, being dead, we rise,
III
Seem but the clouds of the sky
