Juno's peacock screamed.
IV

i{My Descendants}
Having inherited a vigorous mind

From my old fathers, I must nourish dreams
And leave a woman and a man behind

As vigorous of mind, and yet it seems
Life scarce can cast a fragrance on the wind,

Scarce spread a glory to the morning beams,
But the torn petals strew the garden plot;

And there's but common greenness after that.
And what if my descendants lose the flower

Through natural declension of the soul,
Through too much business with the passing hour,

Through too much play, or marriage with a fool?
May this laborious stair and this stark tower

Become a roofless min that the owl
May build in the crackedmasonry and cry

Her desolation to the desolate sky.
The primum Mobile that fashioned us

Has made the very owls in circles move;
And I, that count myself most prosperous,

Seeing that love and friendship are enough,
For an old neighbour's friendship chose the house

And decked and altered it for a girl's love,
And know whateverflourish and decline

These stones remain their monument and mine.
V

i{The Road at My Door}
An affable Irregular,

A heavily-built Falstaffian man,
Comes cracking jokes of civil war

As though to die by gunshot were
The finest play under the sun.

A brown Lieutenant and his men,
Half dressed in national uniform,

Stand at my door, and I complain
Of the foul weather, hail and rain,

A pear-tree broken by the storm.
I count those feathered balls of soot

The moor-hen guides upon the stream.
To silence the envy in my thought;

And turn towards my chamber, caught
In the cold snows of a dream.

VI
i{The Stare's Nest by My Window}

The bees build in the crevices
Of loosening masonry, and there

The mother birds bring grubs and flies.
My wall is loosening; honey-bees,

Come build in the empty house of the state.
We are closed in, and the key is turned

On our uncertainty; somewhere
A man is killed, or a house burned,

Yet no cleat fact to be discerned:
Come build in he empty house of the stare.

A barricade of stone or of wood;
Some fourteen days of civil war;

Last night they trundled down the road
That dead young soldier in his blood:

Come build in the empty house of the stare.
We had fed the heart on fantasies,

The heart's grown brutal from the fare;
More Substance in our enmities

Than in our love; O honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of the stare.

VII
i{I see Phantoms of Hatred and of the Heart's}

i{Fullness and of the Coming Emptiness}
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 senselesstumult, 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;
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 indifferentmultitude, 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.

COLONEL MARTIN
THE Colonel went out sailing,

He spoke with Turk and Jew,
With Christian and with Infidel,

For all tongues he knew.
"O what's a wifeless man?' said he,

And he came sailing home.
He rose the latch and went upstairS

And found an empty room.
i{The Colonel went out sailing.}

"I kept her much in the country
And she was much alone,

And though she may be there,' he said,
"She may be in the town.

She may be all alone there,
For who can say?' he said.

"I think that I shall find her
In a young man's bed.'

i{The Colonel went out sailing.}
III

The Colonel met a pedlar,
Agreed their clothes to swop,

And bought the grandest jewelry
In a Galway shop,

Instead of thread and needle
put jewelry in the pack,

Bound a thong about his hand,
Hitched it on his back.

i{The Colonel wcnt out sailing.}
The Colonel knocked on the rich man's door,

"I am sorry,' said the maid,
"My mistress cannot see these things,

But she is still abed,
And never have I looked upon

Jewelry so grand.'
"Take all to your mistress,'

And he laid them on her hand.
i{The Colonel went out sailing.}

And he went in and she went on
And both climbed up the stair,

And O he was a clever man,
For he his slippers wore.

And when they came to the top stair
He ran on ahead,

His wife he found and the rich man
In the comfort of a bed.

i{The Colonel went out sailing.}
The Judge at the Assize Court,

When he heard that story told,
Awarded him for damages

Three kegs of gold.
The Colonel said to Tom his man,

"Harness an ass and cart,
Carry the gold about the town,

Throw it in every patt.'
i{The Colonel went out sailing.}

VII
And there at all street-corners

A man with a pistol stood,
And the rich man had paid them well

To shoot the Colonel dead;
But they threw down their pistols

And all men heard them swear
That they could never shoot a man

Did all that for the poor.
i{The Colonel went out sailing.}

VIII
"And did you keep no gold, Tom?

You had three kegs,' said he.
"I never thought of that, Sir.'

"Then want before you die.'
And want he did; for my own grand-dad

Saw the story's end,
And Tom make out a living

From the seaweed on the strand.
i{The Colonel went out sailing.}

THE COMING OF WISDOM WITH TIME
THOUGH leaves are many, the root is one;

Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;

Now I may wither into the truth.
THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN IN PARADISE

ALL the heavy days are over;
Leave the body's coloured pride

Underneath the grass and clover,

• scarce [skeəs, skers] a.缺乏的；稀有的 (初中英语单词)
• whatever [wɔt´evə] pron.&a.无论什么 (初中英语单词)
• flourish [´flʌriʃ] v.茂盛；挥动 n.挥舞 (初中英语单词)
• monument [´mɔnjumənt] n.纪念碑；古迹 (初中英语单词)
• lieutenant [lef´tenənt] n.陆军中尉；代理；副手 (初中英语单词)
• feathered [´feðəd] a.有羽毛的；羽状的 (初中英语单词)
• hatred [´heitrid] n.憎恨，敌意 (初中英语单词)
• unlike [,ʌn´laik] a.不同的 prep.不象... (初中英语单词)
• bewilder [bi´wildə] vt.迷惑；使为难 (初中英语单词)
• embrace [im´breis] vt.&n.拥抱；采纳；信奉 (初中英语单词)
• delicate [´delikət] a.精美的；微妙的 (初中英语单词)
• slender [´slendə] a.细长的；微薄的 (初中英语单词)
• multitude [´mʌltitju:d] n.大群(批)；众多 (初中英语单词)
• ambitious [æm´biʃəs] a.有雄心的；热望的 (初中英语单词)
• conscience [´kɔnʃəns] n.良心；道德心 (初中英语单词)
• wisdom [´wizdəm] n.智慧，聪明，才智 (初中英语单词)
• mistress [´mistris] n.女主人；情妇；女能手 (初中英语单词)
• pistol [´pistl] n.手枪 vt.用手枪射击 (初中英语单词)
• peacock [´pi:kɔk] n.(雄)孔雀 vi.炫耀 (高中英语单词)
• vigorous [´vigərəs] a.精力旺盛的；健壮的 (高中英语单词)
• nourish [´nʌriʃ] vt.养育；施肥于 (高中英语单词)
• fragrance [´freigrəns] n.芬芳，芳香 (高中英语单词)
• desolate [´desəleit] a.荒凉的；孤独的 (高中英语单词)
• chamber [´tʃeimbə] n.房间；议院；会议室 (高中英语单词)
• sweeping [´swi:piŋ] a.掠过的 n.扫除；清除 (高中英语单词)
• tumult [´tju:mʌlt, ´tu:-] n.喧哗；激昂；烦乱 (高中英语单词)
• vengeance [´vendʒəns] n.报复，复仇 (高中英语单词)
• longing [´lɔŋiŋ] n.&a.渴望(的) (高中英语单词)
• stillness [´stilnis] n.不动；无声，寂静 (高中英语单词)
• sweetness [´swi:tnis] n.甜蜜；芳香；亲切 (高中英语单词)
• indifferent [in´difrənt] a.不关心的；中立的 (高中英语单词)
• innumerable [i´nju:mərəbəl] a.无数的，数不清的 (高中英语单词)
• colonel [´kə:nəl] n.海(陆)军上校 (高中英语单词)
• jewelry [´dʒu:əlri] n.珠宝(饰物) (高中英语单词)
• wither [´wiðə] v.(使)枯萎(衰弱) (高中英语单词)
• clover [´kləuvə] n.三叶草 (高中英语单词)
• desolation [desə´leiʃ(ə)n] n.荒凉 (英语四级单词)
• uncertainty [ʌn´sə:tənti] n.不可靠；不确定的事 (英语四级单词)
• brutal [´bru:tl] a.兽性的；残暴的 (英语四级单词)
• senseless [´sensləs] a.无知觉的；愚蠢的 (英语四级单词)
• brazen [´breizən] a.黄铜制的；无耻的 (英语四级单词)
• abstract [´æbstrækt] a.抽象的 n.提要 (英语四级单词)
• laborious [lə´bɔ:riəs] a.吃力的 (英语六级单词)
• cracked [krækt] a.有裂缝的；碎的；粗哑 (英语六级单词)
• masonry [´meisənri] n.石工技术；石工行业 (英语六级单词)
• trooper [´tru:pə] n.骑兵；伞兵；运兵船 (英语六级单词)
• biting [´baitiŋ] a.刺痛的；尖利的 (英语六级单词)
• seaweed [´si:wi:d] n.海草，海藻 (英语六级单词)
• countess [´kauntis] n.伯爵夫人；女伯爵 (英语六级单词)