Samhain (BG) - Byzantium lyrics

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.