Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, JOHN BUTLER YEATS, by JEANNE ROBERT FOSTER



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

JOHN BUTLER YEATS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: We shall remember him
Last Line: "myself seen through a glass darkly."
Subject(s): Memory; Poetry & Poets; Yeats, William Butler (1865-1939)


We shall remember him
As a man who had a little in him of the men of all time.
We shall remember him --
This tall, lean-shouldered, witty Irishman,
Master of the art of conversation,
Jesting with us in his high-pitched Irish voice,
That lilted to a delicate string
Beyond our hearing.

"Shakespeare was a kindly man," he often said.
John Yeats was a kindly man
Who gave lavishly of himself
As if life had no end.
Around him gathered
The tangible aroma of life
Full-flavored with intense living.

"Ireland is kind," he said.
"She has many faults, but I feel about her
As I do about Heaven.
If Heaven were a perfect place it would bore me.
I like to think of Heaven as a place with discords;
As a beautiful orchestration with Love as master of the music."

"Montaigne said" -- that phrase was often on his lips.
Stories of wits and poets and artists,
Memories of Morris and Samuel Butler and Dowden,
Brilliant debris of irrecoverable personality.

"The artist is the only happy man," he told us.
"Art springs from a mood of divine unreason.
Unreason is when a man cannot be at peace with external conditions."

We shall remember him intimately
As we knew him -- his room, his pipes, his drawings.
We shall remember him sitting at his easel,
Keen-eyed, young, eager to live a thousand years,
Unwearied by life,
Sheltered beneath the green tree of his own thoughts.
We shall remember him
Ripening like an apple in quiet sunshine,
Responsive to human affection,
And -- patient of our human limitations --
Writing under his own portrait
(Painted from his reflection in a mirror),
"Myself seen through a glass darkly."





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