|
Byzantium
| The unpurged images of day recede; | | The Emperor’s drunken soldiery are abed; | | Night resonance recedes,
night-walkers’ song | | After great cathedral gong; | | A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains | | All that man is, | | All
mere complexities, | | The fury 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 no breath | | Breathless mouths may summon; | | I hail
the superhuman; | | I call it death-in-life and life-in-death. | | | | | | Miracle, bird or golden handiwork, | | More miracle
than bird or handiwork, | | Planted on the star-lit golden bough, | | Can like the cocks of Hades crow, | | Or, by
the moon embittered, scorn aloud | | In glory of changeless metal | | Common bird or petal | | And all complexities
of mire or blood. | | | | | | At midnight on the Emperor’s pavement flit | | Flames that no faggot 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. | | 1930 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright: All texts on Bibliomania are © Bibliomania.com Ltd,
and may not be reproduced in any form without our written permission.
See our FAQ for more details.
|
| |