What Was Lost

I sing what was lost and dread what was won,
I walk in a battle fought over again,
My king a lost king, and lost soldiers my men;
Feet to the Rising and Setting may run,
They always beat on the same small stone.

William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet, dramatist, prose writer, and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms. Yeats was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and was co-founder of the Abbey Theatre. In 1923, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

William Butler Yeats

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William Butler Yeats, Simple Poetry

On Those That Hated "The Playboy Of The Western World"

William Butler Yeats, Simple Poetry

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William Butler Yeats, Simple Poetry

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William Butler Yeats, Simple Poetry

English

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Reconciliation

Some may have blamed you that you took away
The verses that could move them on the day
When, the ears being deafened, the sight of the eyes blind
With lightning you went from me, and I could find
Nothing to make a song about but kings,
Helmets, and swords, and half-forgotten things
That were like memories of you, but now
Well out, for the world lives as long ago;
And while were in our laughing, weeping fit,
Hurl helmets, crowns, and swords into the pit.
But, dear, cling close to me; since you were gone,
My barren thoughts have chilled me to the bone.

William Butler Yeats

Fallen Majesty

Although crowds gathered once if she but showed her face,
And even old mens eyes grew dim, this hand alone,
Like some last courtier at a gypsy camping place,
Babbling of fallen majesty, records whats gone.

The lineaments, a heart that laughter has made sweet,
These, these remain, but I record whats gone. A crowd
Will gather, and not know it walks the very street
Whereon a thing once walked that seemed a burning cloud.

William Butler Yeats

The Rose Of Battle

Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!
The tall thought-woven sails, that flap unfurled
Above the tide of hours, trouble the air,
And God's bell buoyed to be the water's care;
While hushed from fear, or loud with hope, a band
With blown, spray-dabbled hair gather at hand,
i(Turn if you may from battles never done,)
I call, as they go by me one by one,
i(Danger no refuge holds, and war no peace,)
i(For him who hears love sing and never cease,)
i(Beside her clean-swept hearth, her quiet shade:)
i(But gather all for whom no love hath made)
i(A woven silence, or but came to cast)
i(A song into the air, and singing passed)
i(To smile on the pale dawn; and gather you)
i(Who have sought more than is in rain or dew,)
i(Or in the sun and moon, or on the earth,)

William Butler Yeats

The Black Tower

Say that the men of the old black tower,
Though they but feed as the goatherd feeds,
Their money spent, their wine gone sour,
Lack nothing that a soldier needs,
That all are oath-bound men:
Those banners come not in.

i(There in the tomb stand the dead upright,)
i(But winds come up from the shore:)
i(They shake when the winds roar,)
i(Old bones upon the mountain shake.)

Those banners come to bribe or threaten,
Or whisper that a man's a fool
Who, when his own right king's forgotten,
Cares what king sets up his rule.
If he died long ago
Why do yopu dread us so?

i(There in the tomb drops the faint moonlight,)
i(But wind comes up from the shore:)
i(They shake when the winds roar,)
i(Old bones upon the mountain shake.)

The...

William Butler Yeats

The Lost Battle

It is not over yet-the fight
    Where those immortal dreamers failed.
They stormed the citadels of night
    And the night praised them--and prevailed.
So long ago the cause was lost
    We scarce distinguish friend from foe;
But--if the dead can help it most--
    The armies of the dead will grow.

The world has all our banners now,
    And filched our watchwords for its own.
The world has crowned the "rebel's" brow
    And millions crowd his lordly throne.
The masks have altered. Names are names;
    They praise the "truth" that is not true.
The "rebel" that the world acclaims
    Is not the rebel Shelley knew.

We may not build that Commonweal.
    We may not reach the goal we set.
But there's a flag they dare not steal.
    Forwar...

Alfred Noyes

The Lost Leader

I.

Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote;
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed:
How all our copper had gone for his service!
Rags were they purple, his heart had been proud!
We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him,
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die!
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,
Burns, Shelley, were with us, they watch from their graves!
He alone breaks from the van and the free-men,
He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!

II.

W...

Robert Browning