Lapis Lazuli

I have heard that hysterical women say

They are sick of palette and fiddle-bow,

Of poets that are always gay,

For everybody knows or else should know

That if nothing drastic is done

Aeroplane and Zeppelin will come out,

Pitch like King Billy bombs-falls in

Until the town lie beaten flat.

 

All perform their tragic play,

There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,

That’s Ophelia, that Cordelia;

Yet they, should the last scene be there,

The great scene curtain about to drop,

If worthy their prominent part in the play,

Do not break up their lines to weep.

They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;

Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.

All man have aimed at, found and lost;

Black-out; Heaven blazing into the head;

Tragedy wrought to its uttermost.

Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages,

And all the drop-scenes drop at once

Uppon a hundred thousand stages,

It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.

*

 

Two Chinamen, behind them a third,

Are carved in lapis lazuli,

Over them flies a long-legged bird,

A symbol of longevity;

The third, doubtless a serving man

Carries a musical instrument.

 

*

 

One asks for mournful melodies;

Accomplished fingers begin to play.

Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,

Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.

William  Butler  Yeats, Lapis Lazuli

NOTES:

King Billy – William II, the German emperor who had started World War I

palette and fiddle-bow  – the artists (painters and musicians)

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