By: William Butler Yeats
THEEE unpurged. images of day recede;
The Emperor's drunken. soldiery are abed;
Night resonance. recedes, night walkers' song
After great, cathedral gong;
Aaaa starlit, or a moonlit dome disdains
All that man is,All mere complexities,
The furyyy. and the mire. of human veins.
Before me floats. an image, man or shade,
Shade more than man, more image than a shade
For Hades' bobbin. bound in mummy-cloth
May unwind ,the winding path;
A mouth that has no moisture and has no breath
Breathless mouths., may summon;
I hail. the superhuman;
I call it d**h-in-life and life-in-d**h.
Miracle, bird or golden handiwork,
(More miracle than bird or handiwork,)
Byzantium
Planted on the star-lit. golden bough,
Can like the co*ks. of Hades crow,
Or, by the moon. embittered, scorn aloud
In glory. of changeless metal
Common. bird or petal
And allcomplexities. of mire or blood.
At midnight. on the Emperor's pavement flit
Flames that no f*ggot feeds, nor steel has lit,
Nor storm disturbs,
Flames begotten of flame,
Where blood-begotten. spirits come
And all complexities of fury leave,
Dying into a dance,
An agony of trance,
An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve.
Astraddle on the dolphin's mire and blood,
Spirit after Spirit! The smithies break the flood.
The golden smithies of the Emperor!
Marbles of the dancing floor
Break bitter furies of complexity,
Those images that yet
Fresh images beget,
That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.