Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ODE: ON THE DEATH OF WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS, by ARTHUR JAMES MARSHALL SMITH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ODE: ON THE DEATH OF WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS, by                
First Line: An old thorn tree in a stony place
Last Line: Of the sky his cold and passionate song.
Alternate Author Name(s): Smith, A. J. M.
Subject(s): Death; Odes (as Poetic Form); Poetry & Poets; Yeats, William Butler (1865-1939); Dead, The


An old thorn tree in a stony place
Where the mountain stream has run dry,
Torn in the black wind under the race
Of the icicle-sharp kaleidoscopic white sky,
Bursts into sudden flower.

Under the central dome of winter and night
A wild swan spreads his fanatic wing.
Ancestralled energy of blood and power
Beats in his sinewy breast. And now the ravening
Soul, fulfilled, his first-last hour
Upon him, chooses to exult.

Over the edge of shivering Europe,
Over the chalk front of Kent, over Eire,
Dwarfing the crawling waves' amoral savagery,
Daring the hiding clouds' rhetorical tumult,
The white swan plummets the mountain top.

The stream has suddenly pushed the papery leaves!
It digs a rustling channel of clear water
On the scarred flank of Ben Bulben.
The twisted tree is incandescent with flowers.
The swan leaps singing into the cold air:
This is a glory not for an hour.

Over the Galway shore
The white bird is flying
Forever, and crying
To the tumultuous throng
Of the sky his cold and passionate song.





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