not long now until The Bomber and In praise of W B Yeats

I do not feel like writing too much today. I am tired and feeling strangely about my debut novel and its arrival in two days. I am twisted like an old branch. Will it do well and be well received. Will it find those that love it and will read it and perhaps come back to it years later and recall ‘yes, it was good to read, I shall read it again.’

I hope so. I have no control.

My favorite poet is W. B Yeats. I have below one of his poems. Not his most famous nor my favorite. But it is well written and full of truth, thus as it has been scientifically proven by Keats, full of beauty.

Adam’s Curse

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

We sat together at one summer’s end,

That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,

And you and I, and talked of poetry.

I said, ‘A line will take us hours maybe;

Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought,

Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.

Better go down upon your marrow-bones

And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones

Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;

For to articulate sweet sounds together

Is to work harder than all these, and yet

Be thought an idler by the noisy set

Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen

The martyrs call the world.’

And thereupon

That beautiful mild woman for whose sake

There’s many a one shall find out all heartache

On finding that her voice is sweet and low

Replied, ‘To be born woman is to know—

Although they do not talk of it at school—

That we must labour to be beautiful.’

I said, ‘It’s certain there is no fine thing

Since Adam’s fall but needs much labouring.

There have been lovers who thought love should be

So much compounded of high courtesy

That they would sigh and quote with learned looks

Precedents out of beautiful old books;

Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.’

We sat grown quiet at the name of love;

We saw the last embers of daylight die,

And in the trembling blue-green of the sky

A moon, worn as if it had been a shell

Washed by time’s waters as they rose and fell

About the stars and broke in days and years.

I had a thought for no one’s but your ears:

That you were beautiful, and that I strove

To love you in the old high way of love;

That it had all seemed happy, and yet we’d grown

As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.

Source: The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (1989)