Others

We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.

I made my song a coat Covered with embroideries Out of old mythologies From heel to throat; But the fools caught it, Wore it in the world’s eyes As though they’d wrought it. Song, let them take it, For there’s more enterprise In walking naked.

I made my song a coat Covered with embroideries Out of old mythologies From heel to throat; But the fools caught it, Wore it in the world’s eyes As though they’d wrought it. Song, let them take it, For there’s more enterprise In walking naked.

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.

I heard the old, old men say, “All that’s beautiful drifts away Like the waters.”

For to articulate sweet sounds together Is to work harder than all these, and yet Be thought an idler by the noisy set Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen The martyrs call the world.

I said, “A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought, Our stitching and unstitching has been naught. Better go down upon your marrow-bones And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones.”

Never give all the heart, for love Will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seem Certain, and they never dream That it fades out from kiss to kiss; For everything that’s lovely is But a brief, dreamy kind delight.

When I play on my fiddle in Dooney, Folk dance like a wave of the sea.

Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood, But joy is wisdom, time an endless song.

Where nobody gets old and godly and grave, Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise, Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue.

The woods of Arcady are dead, And over is their antique joy; Of old the world on dreaming fed; Gray Truth is now her painted toy.

The Devil whispered behind the leaves, “It’s pretty, but is it Art?”

When Earth’s last picture is painted, and the tubes are twisted and dried, When the oldest colors have faded, and the youngest critic has died, We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it—lie down for an eon or two, Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew.

When Earth’s last picture is painted, and the tubes are twisted and dried, When the oldest colors have faded, and the youngest critic has died, We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it—lie down for an eon or two, Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew.

And down the long and silent street, The dawn, with silver-sandaled feet, Crept like a frightened girl.

Black A, white E, red I, green U, blue O: vowels, Someday I shall recount your latent births. 10

Black A, white E, red I, green U, blue O: vowels, Someday I shall recount your latent births. 10

Bright is the ring of words When the right man rings them.

Take eloquence and wring its neck! 4

And all else is literature. 5

How to keep—is there any any, is there none such, nowhere known some, bow or brooch or braid or brace, lace, latch or catch or key to keep Back beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty… from vanishing away?

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame.

All things counter, original, spare, strange; Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise him.