On Perhaps The Day That William Butler Yeats Passed On Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

Language is leaving the cloudy shores
The waves of Innisfree
The poet Yeats lies dying
In my dream the dream of Poetry is
Weeping inside of weeping
The streams of Sligo mourn.
Is singing still possible in the world
Is the lilt that lifts the skies
Will ruthless prose reclaim the Romantics
Could we visit the scene, not having been born then
But aftercomers to his reveries would we have known
What kind of king was departing
Such terrible beauty carries us along
Even mere echos of it though
Now we make do
With our patchwork songs.
But then, his music was for us had we been there
Would have seemed would have seemed
A scroll of stars forgotten, found and stashed
Brought to Light, the enigmas.
mary angela douglas 10 june 2024