For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.

We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;

And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?

I write it out in a verse --
MacDonagh and MacBride

And Connolly and pearse
Now and in time to be,

Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.
THE LAMENTATION OF THE OLD PENSIONER

ALTHOUGH I shelter from the rain
Under a broken tree,

My chair was nearest to the fire
In every company

That talked of love or politics,
Ere Time transfigured me.

Though lads are making pikes again
For some conspiracy,

And crazy rascals rage their fill
At human tyranny,

My contemplations are of Time
That has transfigured me.

There's not a woman turns her face
Upon a broken tree,

And yet the beauties that I loved
Are in my memory;

I spit into the face of Time
That has transfigured me.

LAPIS LAZULI
i{(For Harry Clifton)}

I HAVE heard that hysterical women say
They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow.

Of poets that are always gay,
For everybody knows or else should know

That if nothing drastic is done
Aeroplane and Zeppelin will come out.

Pitch like King Billy bomb-balls in
Until the town lie bearen flat.

All perform their tragic play,
There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,

That's Ophelia, that Cordelia;
Yet they, should the last scene be there,

The great stage curtain about to drop,
If worthy their prominent part in the play,

Do not break up their lines to weep.
They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;

Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.
All men have aimed at, found and lost;

Black out; Heaven blazing into the head:
Tragedy wrought to its uttermost.

Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages,
And all the drop-scenes drop at once

Upon a hundred thousand stages,
It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.

On their own feet they came, or On shipboard,'
Camel-back; horse-back, ass-back, mule-back,

Old civilisations put to the sword.
Then they and their wisdom went to rack:

No handiwork of Callimachus,
Who handled marble as if it were bronze,

Made draperies that seemed to rise
When sea-wind swept the corner, stands;

His long lamp-chimney shaped like the stem
Of a slender palm, stood but a day;

All things fall and are built again,
And those that build them again are gay.

Two Chinamen, behind them a third,
Are carved in lapis lazuli,

Over them flies a long-legged bird,
A symbol of longevity;

The third, doubtless a serving-man,
Carries a musical instmment.

Every discoloration of the stone,
Every accidental crack or dent,

Seems a water-course or an avalanche,
Or lofty slope where it still snows

Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch
Sweetens the little half-way house

Those Chinamen climb towards, and I
Delight to imagine them seated there;

There, on the mountain and the sky,
On all the tragic scene they stare.

One asks for mournful melodies;
Accomplished fingers begin to play.

Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,
Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.

LONG-LEGGED FLY
THAT civilisation may not sink,

Its great battle lost,
Quiet the dog, tether the pony

To a distant post;
Our master Caesar is in the tent

Where the maps ate spread,
His eyes fixed upon nothing,

A hand under his head.
<1Like a long-legged fly upon the stream

His mind moves upon silence.>1
That the topless towers be burnt

And men recall that face,
Move most gently if move you must

In this lonely place.
She thinks, part woman, three parts a child,

That nobody looks; her feet
Practise a tinker shuffle

Picked up on a street.
<1Like a long-legged fly upon the stream

Her mind moves upon silence.>1
That girls at puberty may find

The first Adam in their thought,
Shut the door of the Pope's chapel,

Keep those children out.
There on that scaffolding reclines

Michael Angelo.
With no more sound than the mice make

His hand moves to and fro.
Like a long-leggedfly upon the stream

His mind moves upon silence.
THE MADNESS OF KING GOLL

I SAT on cushioned otter-skin:
My word was law from Ith to Emain,

And shook at Inver Amergin
The hearts of the world-troubling seamen,

And drove tumult and war away
From girl and boy and man and beast;

The fields grew fatter day by day,
The wild fowl of the air increased;

And every ancient Ollave said,
While he bent down his fading head.

"He drives away the Northern cold.'
i{They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.}

I sat and mused and drank sweet wine;
A herdsman came from inland valleys,

Crying, the pirates drove his swine
To fill their dark-beaked hollow galleys.

I called my battle-breaking men
And my loud brazen battle-cars

From rolling vale and rivery glen;
And under the blinking of the stars

Fell on the pirates by the deep,
And hurled them in the gulph of sleep:

These hands won many a torque of gold.
i{They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.}

But slowly, as I shouting slew
And trampled in the bubbling mire,

In my most secret spirit grew
A whirling and a wandering fire:

I stood: keen stars above me shone,
Around me shone keen eyes of men:

I laughed aloud and hurried on
By rocky shore and rushy fen;

I laughed because birds fluttered by,
And starlight gleamed, and clouds flew high,

And rushes waved and waters rolled.
i{They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.}

And now I wander in the woods
When summer gluts the golden bees,

Or in autumnal solitudes
Arise the leopard-coloured trees;

Or when along the wintry strands
The cormorants shiver on their rocks;

I wander on, and wave my hands,
And sing, and shake my heavy locks.

The grey wolf knows me; by one ear
I lead along the woodland deer;

The hares run by me growing bold.
i{They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.}

I came upon a little town
That slumbered in the harvest moon,

And passed a-tiptoe up and down,
Murmuring, to a fitful tune,

How I have followed, night and day,
A tramping of tremendous feet,

And saw where this old tympan lay
Deserted on a doorway seat,

And bore it to the woods with me;
Of some inhuman misery

Our married voices wildly trolled.
i{They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.}

I sang how, when day's toil is done,
Orchil shakes out her long dark hair

That hides away the dying sun
And sheds faint odours through the air:

When my hand passed from wire to wire
It quenched, with sound like falling dew

The whirling and the wandering fire;
But lift a mournful ulalu,

For the kind wires are torn and still,
And I must wander wood and hill

Through summer's heat and winter's cold.
i{They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.}

THE MAN AND THE ECHO
i{Man}

IN a cleft that's christened Alt
Under broken stone I halt

At the bottom of a pit
That broad noon has never lit,

And shout a secret to the stone.

• excess [´ekses] n.超过 a.过分的 (初中英语单词)
• worthy [´wə:ði] a.有价值的；值得的 (初中英语单词)
• prominent [´prɔminənt] a.突起的；凸出的 (初中英语单词)
• wrought [rɔ:t] work 的过去式(分词) (初中英语单词)
• wisdom [´wizdəm] n.智慧，聪明，才智 (初中英语单词)
• marble [´mɑ:bəl] n.大理石 a.大理石的 (初中英语单词)
• slender [´slendə] a.细长的；微薄的 (初中英语单词)
• doubtless [´dautlis] ad.无疑地；大概，多半 (初中英语单词)
• musical [´mju:zikəl] a.音乐的；悦耳的 (初中英语单词)
• gently [´dʒentli] ad.温和地；静静地 (初中英语单词)
• lonely [´ləunli] a.孤独的；无人烟的 (初中英语单词)
• wander [´wɔndə, ´wɑ:n:dər] v.徘徊；流浪 (初中英语单词)
• shiver [´ʃivə] v.&n.(使)颤抖；碎片 (初中英语单词)
• harvest [´hɑ:vist] n.&v.收获；收割 (初中英语单词)
• tremendous [tri´mendəs] a.可怕的；巨大的 (初中英语单词)
• doorway [´dɔ:wei] n.门口 (初中英语单词)
• tragic [´trædʒik] a.悲剧的；悲惨的 (高中英语单词)
• hamlet [´hæmlit] n.村庄 (高中英语单词)
• symbol [´simbəl] n.符号；象征 (高中英语单词)
• half-way [´hɑ:fwei] ad.半途；几乎 (高中英语单词)
• caesar [´si:zə] n.凯撒；暴君；独裁者 (高中英语单词)
• madness [´mædnis] n.疯狂；狂热 (高中英语单词)
• tumult [´tju:mʌlt, ´tu:-] n.喧哗；激昂；烦乱 (高中英语单词)
• inland [´inlənd, in´lænd] a.&n.内地的 ad.在内地 (高中英语单词)
• hurried [´hʌrid] a.仓促的，慌忙的 (高中英语单词)
• woodland [´wudlənd] n.树林，林地 (高中英语单词)
• lamentation [,læmen´teiʃən] n.悲痛，哀悼，痛哭 (英语四级单词)
• accidental [,æksi´dentl] a.偶然的；附属的 (英语四级单词)
• mournful [´mɔ:nful] a.令人沮丧的 (英语四级单词)
• tinker [´tiŋkə] n.&v.补锅(匠) (英语四级单词)
• brazen [´breizən] a.黄铜制的；无耻的 (英语四级单词)
• hysterical [hi´sterikəl] a.歇斯底里的，癔病的 (英语六级单词)
• drastic [´dræstik] a.激烈的，猛烈的 (英语六级单词)
• herdsman [´hə:dzmən] n.牧民，牧人 (英语六级单词)
• starlight [´stɑ:lait] n.星光 (英语六级单词)
• wintry [´wintri] a.冬天的；荒凉的 (英语六级单词)