All that I have said and done,

Now that I am old and ill,
Turns into a question till

I lie awake night after night
And never get the answers right.

Did that play of mine send out
Certain men the English shot?

Did words of mine put too great strain
On that woman's reeling brain?

Could my spoken words have checked
That whereby a house lay wrecked?

And all seems evil until I
Sleepless would lie down and die.

i{Echo}
Lie down and die.

i{Man}
That were to shirk

The spiritualintellect's great work,
And shirk it in vain. There is no release

In a bodkin or disease,
Nor can there be work so great

As that which cleans man's dirty slate.
While man can still his body keep

Wine or love drug him to sleep,
Waking he thanks the Lord that he

Has body and its stupidity,
But body gone he sleeps no more,

And till his intellect grows sure
That all's arranged in one clear view,

pursues the thoughts that I pursue,
Then stands in judgment on his soul,

And, all work done, dismisses all
Out of intellect and sight

And sinks at last into the night.
i{Echo}

Into the night.
i{Man}

O Rocky Voice,
Shall we in that great night rejoice?

What do we know but that we face
One another in this place?

But hush, for I have lost the theme,
Its joy or night-seem but a dream;

Up there some hawk or owl has struck,
Dropping out of sky or rock,

A strickenrabbit is crying out,
And its cry distracts my thought.

MEN IMPROVE WITH THE YEARS
I AM worn out with dreams;

A weather-worn, marble triton
Among the streams;

And all day long I look
Upon this lady's beauty

As though I had found in a book
A pictured beauty,

pleased to have filled the eyes
Or the discerning ears,

Delighted to be but wise,
For men improve with the years;

And yet, and yet,
Is this my dream, or the truth?

O would that we had met
When I had my burning youth!

But I grow old among dreams,
A weather-worn, marble triton

Among the streams.
THE DOUBLE VISION OF MICHAEL ROBARTES

I
ON the grey rock of Cashel the mind's eye

Has called up the cold spirits that are born
When the old moon is vanished from the sky

And the new still hides her horn.
Under blank eyes and fingers never still

The particular is pounded till it is man.
When had I my own will?

O not since life began.
Constrained, arraigned, baffled, bent and unbent

By these wire-jointed jaws and limbs of wood,
Themselves obedient,

Knowing not evil and good;
Obedient to some hiddenmagical breath.

They do not even feel, so abstract are they.
So dead beyond our death,

Triumph that we obey.
On the grey rock of Cashel I suddenly saw

A Sphinx with woman breast and lion paw.
A Buddha, hand at rest,

Hand lifted up that blest;
And right between these two a girl at play

That, it may be, had danced her life away,
For now being dead it seemed

That she of dancing dreamed.
Although I saw it all in the mind's eye

There can be nothing solider till I die;
I saw by the moon's light

Now at its fifteenth night.
One lashed her tail; her eyes lit by the moon

Gazed upon all things known, all things unknown,
In triumph of intellect

With motionless head erect.
That other's moonlit eyeballs never moved,

Being fixed on all things loved, all things unloved.
Yet little peace he had,

For those that love are sad.
Little did they care who danced between,

And little she by whom her dance was seen
So she had outdanced thought.

Body perfection brought,
For what but eye and ear silence the mind

With the minute particulars of mankind?
Mind moved yet seemed to stop

As 'twere a spinning-top.
In contemplation had those three so wrought

Upon a moment, and so stretched it out
That they, time overthrown,

Were dead yet flesh and bone.
I knew that I had seen, had seen at last

That girl my unremembering nights hold fast
Or else my dreams that fly

If I should rub an eye,
And yet in flying fling into my meat

A crazy juice that makes the pulses beat
As though I had been undone

By Homer's Paragon
Who never gave the burning town a thought;

To such a pitch of folly I am brought,
Being caught between the pull

Of the dark moon and the full,
The commonness of thought and images

That have the frenzy of our western seas.
Thereon I made my moan,

And after kissed a stone,
And after that arranged it in a song

Seeing that I, ignorant for So long,
Had been rewarded thus

In Cormac's ruined house.
MICHAEL ROBARTES AND THE DANCER

i{He.} Opinion is not worth a rush;
In this altar-piece the knight,

Who grips his long spear so to push
That dragon through the fading light,

Loved the lady; and it's plain
The half-dead dragon was her thought,

That every morning rose again
And dug its claws and shrieked and fought.

Could the impossible come to pass
She would have time to turn her eyes,

Her lover thought, upon the glass
And on the instant would grow wise.

i{She.} You mean they argued.
i{He.} Put it so;

But bear in mind your lover's wage
Is what your looking-glass can show,

And that he will turn green with rage
At all that is not pictured there.

i{She.} May I not put myself to college?
i{He.} Go pluck Athene by the hair;

For what mere book can grant a knowledge
With an impassioned gravity

Appropriate to that beating breast,
That vigorous thigh, that dreaming eye?

And may the Devil take the rest.
i{She.} And must no beautiful woman be

Learned like a man?
i{He.} Paul Veronese

And all his sacred company
Imagined bodies all their days

By the lagoon you love so much,
For proud, soft, ceremonious proof

That all must come to sight and touch;
While Michael Angelo's Sistine roof,

His "Morning' and his "Night' disclose
How sinew that has been pulled tight,

Or it may be loosened in repose,
Can rule by supernatural right

Yet be but sinew.
i{She.} I have heard said

There is great danger in the body.
i{He.} Did God in portioning wine and bread

Give man His thought or His mere body?
i{She.} My wretcheddragon is perplexed.

i{Hec.} I have principles to prove me right.
It follows from this Latin text

That blest souls are not composite,
And that all beautiful women may

Live in uncomposite blessedness,
And lead us to the like -- if they

Will banish every thought, unless
The lineaments that please their view

When the long looking-glass is full,
Even from the foot-sole think it too.

i{She.} They say such different things at school.
MOHINI CHATTERJEE

I ASKED if I should pray.
But the Brahmin said,

"pray for nothing, say
Every night in bed,

""I have been a king,
I have been a slave,

Nor is there anything.
Fool, rascal, knave,

• spoken [´spəukən] speak的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
• spiritual [´spiritʃuəl] a.精神(上)的；神圣的 (初中英语单词)
• rabbit [´ræbit] n.兔子，野兔 (初中英语单词)
• marble [´mɑ:bəl] n.大理石 a.大理石的 (初中英语单词)
• vision [´viʒən] n.视觉；想象力；幻影 (初中英语单词)
• hidden [´hid(ə)n] hide 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
• triumph [´traiəmf] n.胜利 vi.得胜，战胜 (初中英语单词)
• western [´westən] a.西的；西方的 (初中英语单词)
• ignorant [´ignərənt] a.无知的，愚昧的 (初中英语单词)
• dragon [´drægən] n.龙 (初中英语单词)
• instant [´instənt] a.立即的 n.紧迫；瞬间 (初中英语单词)
• sacred [´seikrid] a.神圣的；庄严的 (初中英语单词)
• wretched [´retʃid] a.可怜的；倒霉的 (初中英语单词)
• stricken [´strikən] strike的过去分词 (高中英语单词)
• motionless [´məuʃənləs] a.静止的；固定的 (高中英语单词)
• perfection [pə´fekʃən] n.完美；极致；熟练 (高中英语单词)
• vigorous [´vigərəs] a.精力旺盛的；健壮的 (高中英语单词)
• banish [´bæniʃ] vt.流放；消除(顾虑等) (高中英语单词)
• rascal [´rɑ:skəl] n.流氓 (高中英语单词)
• whereby [weə´bai] ad.凭什么；靠那个 (英语四级单词)
• intellect [´intilekt] n.智力；有才智的人 (英语四级单词)
• abstract [´æbstrækt] a.抽象的 n.提要 (英语四级单词)
• contemplation [,kɔntem´pleiʃən] n.注视；冥想；打算 (英语四级单词)
• frenzy [´frenzi] n.&vt.(使)狂乱 (英语四级单词)
• magical [´mædʒikəl] a.有魔术的，神奇的 (英语六级单词)
• moonlit [´mu:n,lit] a.月光普照的 (英语六级单词)
• beating [´bi:tiŋ] n.敲；搅打；失败 (英语六级单词)
• lagoon [lə´gu:n] n.濒海湖，泻湖 (英语六级单词)