HIS DREAM
by: W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)
- SWAYED upon the gaudy stern
- The butt-end of a steering-oar,
- And saw wherever I could turn
- A crown upon the shore.
-
- And though I would have hushed the crowd,
- There was no mother's son but said,
- 'What is the figure in a shroud
- Upon a gaudy bed?'
-
- And after running at the brim
- Cried out upon that thing beneath
- --It had such dignity of limb--
- By the sweet name of Death.
-
- Though I'd my finger on my lip,
- What could I but take up the song?
- And running crowd and gaudy ship
- Cried out the whole night long,
-
- Crying amid the glittering sea,
- Naming it with ecstatic breath,
- Because it had such dignity,
- By the sweet name of Death.
"His Dream" is reprinted
from The Green Helmet and Other Poems. W.B. Yeats. Dundrum:
Cuala Press, 1910. |
MORE
POEMS BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS |
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