William Butler Yeats. Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai
William Butler Yeats.
William Butler Yeats.
Man of duty, for we to our country duty have
to render it brave and grave
and great.
You did your duty, you knew your duty, and you
did duty well.
Now the verse remains, open the book, read and
feel.
And that be you; to feel, to be, to be, to feel.
And in that phenomenon to all of us common,
there issue the wonders from your homely
verse, and great lines.
Your heart looks greater, your brain no less,
but more than these the throbbing of the pulse
Brave Ireland-Eire, brave Yeats, green land of
beauty in the small,
amidst the vast and greater in this Earth
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4/19/2024 5:55:42 PM # 1.0.0.1119
I have been reading Yeats for 51 years, I consider him my Master. I don't disagree with your poem about him, but it emphasizes the political Yeats. He was burned many times by politics and politicians, Enough said. His gifts to Ireland were the creation of a national literature, the Abbey Theater, the support of younger writers, cultural rather than political achievements. Personally, what Yeats has given me, for which I love and honor him, is a basis for belief in spiritual things after the collapse of my Roman Catholic Faith. Too many people who lose their childhood faith become nihilists. I know many. But Yeats gave me the experience of Western Hermeticism which has been my salvation. This is one of his acts of faith: WHATEVER FLAMES UPON THE NIGHT / MAN'S OWN RESINOUS HEART HAS FED and THE SOUL IS SELF-DELIGHTING, SELF-APPEASING, SELF AFFRIGHTING AND IT'S OWN SWEET WILL IS HEAVEN'S WILL.