Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen + 

I + 

Many ingenious lovely things are gone + 

That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude, + 

Protected from the circle of the moon + 

That pitches common things about. There stood + 

Amid the ornamental bronze and stone + 

An ancient image made of olive wood⁠— + 

And gone are Phidias’ famous ivories + 

And all the golden grasshoppers and bees. + 

We too had many pretty toys when young; + 

A law indifferent to blame or praise, + 

To bribe or threat; habits that made old wrong + 

Melt down, as it were wax in the sun’s rays; + 

Public opinion ripening for so long + 

We thought it would outlive all future days. + 

O what fine thought we had because we thought + 

That the worst rogues and rascals had died out. + 

All teeth were drawn, all ancient tricks unlearned, + 

And a great army but a showy thing; + 

What matter that no cannon had been turned + 

Into a ploughshare; parliament and king + 

Thought that unless a little powder burned + 

The trumpeters might burst with trumpeting + 

And yet it lack all glory; and perchance + 

The guardsmen’s drowsy chargers would not prance. + 

Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmare + 

Rides upon sleep: a drunken soldiery + 

Can leave the mother, murdered at her door, + 

To crawl in her own blood, and go scot-free; + 

The night can sweat with terror as before + 

We pieced our thoughts into philosophy, + 

And planned to bring the world under a rule, + 

Who are but weasels fighting in a hole. + 

He who can read the signs nor sink unmanned + 

Into the half-deceit of some intoxicant + 

From shallow wits; who knows no work can stand, + 

Whether health, wealth or peace of mind were spent + 

On master work of intellect or hand, + 

No honour leave its mighty monument, + 

Has but one comfort left: all triumph would + 

But break upon his ghostly solitude. + 

But is there any comfort to be found? + 

Man is in love and loves what vanishes, + 

What more is there to say? That country round + 

None dared admit, if such a thought were his, + 

Incendiary or bigot could be found + 

To burn that stump on the Acropolis, + 

Or break in bits the famous ivories + 

Or traffic in the grasshoppers or bees? + 

II + 

When Loie Fuller’s Chinese dancers enwound + 

A shining web, a floating ribbon of cloth, + 

It seemed that a dragon of air + 

Had fallen among dancers, had whirled them round + 

Or hurried them off on its own furious path; + 

So the platonic year + 

Whirls out new right and wrong, + 

Whirls in the old instead; + 

All men are dancers and their tread + 

Goes to the barbarous clangour of gong. + 

III + 

Some moralist or mythological poet + 

Compares the solitary soul to a swan; + 

I am satisfied with that, + 

Satisfied if a troubled mirror show it + 

Before that brief gleam of its life be gone, + 

An image of its state; + 

The wings half spread for flight, + 

The breast thrust out in pride + 

Whether to play, or to ride + 

Those winds that clamour of approaching night. + 

A man in his own secret meditation + 

Is lost amid the labyrinth that he has made + 

In art or politics; + 

Some platonist affirms that in the station + 

Where we should cast off body and trade + 

The ancient habit sticks, + 

And that if our works could + 

But vanish with our breath + 

That were a lucky death, + 

For triumph can but mar our solitude. + 

The swan has leaped into the desolate heaven: + 

That image can bring wildness, bring a rage + 

To end all things, to end + 

What my laborious life imagined, even + 

The half imagined, the half written page; + 

O but we dreamed to mend + 

Whatever mischief seemed + 

To afflict mankind, but now + 

That winds of winter blow + 

Learn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed. + 

IV + 

We, who seven years ago + 

Talked of honour and of truth, + 

Shriek with pleasure if we show + 

The weasel’s twist, the weasel’s tooth. + 

V + 

Come let us mock at the great + 

That had such burdens on the mind + 

And toiled so hard and late + 

To leave some monument behind, + 

Nor thought of the levelling wind. + 

Come let us mock at the wise; + 

With all those calendars whereon + 

They fixed old aching eyes, + 

They never saw how seasons run, + 

And now but gape at the sun. + 

Come let us mock at the good + 

That fancied goodness might be gay, + 

And sick of solitude + 

Might proclaim a holiday: + 

Wind shrieked⁠—and where are they? + 

Mock mockers after that + 

That would not lift a hand maybe + 

To help good, wise or great + 

To bar that foul storm out, for we + 

Traffic in mockery. + 

VI + 

Violence upon the roads: violence of horses; + 

Some few have handsome riders, are garlanded + 

On delicate sensitive ear or tossing mane, + 

But wearied running round and round in their courses + 

All break and vanish, and evil gathers head: + 

Herodias’ daughters have returned again + 

A sudden blast of dusty wind and after + 

Thunder of feet, tumult of images, + 

Their purpose in the labyrinth of the wind; + 

And should some crazy hand dare touch a daughter + 

All turn with amorous cries, or angry cries, + 

According to the wind, for all are blind. + 

But now wind drops, dust settles; thereupon + 

There lurches past, his great eyes without thought + 

Under the shadow of stupid straw-pale locks, + 

That insolent fiend Robert Artisson + 

To whom the love-lorn Lady Kyteler brought + 

Bronzed peacock feathers, red combs of her cocks. + 