A Dialogue of Self and Soul

(WB Yeats) My Soul. Why should the

I imagination of a man
Long past his prime
My Soul. I summon to the remember things that are
winding ancient stair; Emblematical of love and
Set all your mind upon the war?
steep ascent, Think of ancestral night
Upon the broken, that can,
crumbling battlement, If but imagination scorn the
Upon the breathless starlit earth
air, And intellect its wandering
Upon the star that marks To this and that and t'other
the hidden pole; thing,
Fix every wandering Deliver from the crime of
thought upon death and birth.
That quarter where all
thought is done: My Self. Montashigi, third of
Who can distinguish his family, fashioned it
darkness from the soul? Five hundred years ago,
about it lie
My Self. The consecrated Flowers from I know not
blade upon my knees what embroidery—
Is Sato's ancient blade, still Heart's purple—and all
as it was, these I set
Still razor-keen, still like a For emblems of the day
looking-glass against the tower
Unspotted by the centuries; Emblematical of the night,
That flowering, silken, old And claim as by a soldier's
embroidery, torn right
From some court-lady's A charter to commit the
dress and round crime once more.
The wooden scabbard
bound and wound, My Soul. Such fullness in that
Can, tattered, still protect, quarter overflows
faded adorn. And falls into the basin of
the mind
 That man is stricken deaf That defiling and disfigured
and dumb and blind, shape
For intellect no longer The mirror of malicious eyes
knows Casts upon his eyes until at
Is from the Ought, last
or Knower from the Known He thinks that shape must be
— his shape?
That is to say, ascends to And what's the good of an
Heaven; escape
Only the dead can be If honour find him in the
forgiven; wintry blast?
But when I think of that my
tongue's a stone. I am content to live it all
II again
My Self. A living man is blind And yet again, if it be life to
and drinks his drop. pitch
What matter if the ditches Into the frog-spawn of a blind
are impure? man's ditch,
What matter if I live it all A blind man battering blind
once more? men;
Endure that toil of growing Or into that most fecund
up; ditch of all,
The ignominy of boyhood; the The folly that man does
distress Or must suffer, if he woos
Of boyhood changing into A proud woman not kindred
man; of his soul.
The unfinished man and his
pain I am content to follow to its
Brought face to face with his source
own clumsiness; Every event in action or in
thought;
The finished man among his Measure the lot; forgive
enemies?— myself the lot!
How in the name of Heaven When such as I cast out
can he escape remorse
So great a sweetness flows
into the breast
We must laugh and we must An aged man is but a paltry
sing, thing,
We are blest by everything,
Everything we look upon is A tattered coat upon a
blest. stick, unless

Soul clap its hands and

Sailing to Byzantium (WB sing, and louder sing
Yeats)
For every tatter in its
I mortal dress,
That is no country for old Nor is there singing school
men. The young but studying
In one another's arms, birds Monuments of its own
in the trees, magnificence;
—Those dying generations And therefore I have sailed
—at their song, the seas and come
The salmon-falls, the To the holy city of
mackerel-crowded seas, Byzantium.
Fish, flesh, or fowl, III
commend all summer long
O sages standing in God's
Whatever is begotten, born, holy fire
and dies.
As in the gold mosaic of a
Caught in that sensual wall,
music all neglect
Come from the holy fire,
Monuments of unageing perne in a gyre,
intellect.
And be the singing-masters
of my soul.
II
Consume my heart away; Unbiased at least he was
sick with desire when he arrived on his
mission,
And fastened to a dying
Having never set eyes on
animal
the land he was called to
It knows not what it is; and partition
gather me Between two peoples
fanatically at odds,
Into the artifice of eternity.
With their different diets
IV and incompatible gods.
"Time," they had briefed
Once out of nature I shall
him in London, "is short.
never take
It's too late
My bodily form from any For mutual reconciliation or
natural thing, rational debate:
The only solution now lies
But such a form as Grecian
in separation.
goldsmiths make
The Viceroy thinks, as you
Of hammered gold and gold will see from his letter,
enamelling That the less you are seen
in his company the better,
To keep a drowsy Emperor
So we've arranged to
awake;
provide you with other
Or set upon a golden bough accommodation.
to sing We can give you four
judges, two Moslem and
To lords and ladies of
two Hindu,
Byzantium
To consult with, but the
Of what is past, or passing, final decision must rest
or to come. with you."
Partition (WH Auden)
Shut up in a lonely
mansion, with police night What am I? Nosing here,
and day turning leaves over
Patrolling the gardens to Following a faint stain on
keep the assassins away. the air to the river's edge
He got down to work, to the I enter water. Who am I to
task of settling the fate split
Of millions. The maps at his The glassy grain of water
disposal were out of date looking upward I see the
And the Census Returns bed
almost certainly incorrect, Of the river above me
But there was no time to upside down very clear
check them, no time to What am I doing here in
inspect mid-air? Why do I find
Contested areas. The this frog so interesting as I
weather was frightfully hot, inspect its most secret
And a bout of dysentery interior and make it my
kept him constantly on the own? Do these weeds
trot, know me and name me to
But in seven weeks it was each other have they
done, the frontiers decided, seen me before do I fit in
A continent for better or their world? I seem
worse divided. separate from the ground
and not rooted but dropped
The next day he sailed for out of nothing casually I've
England, where he could no threads
quickly forget fastening me to anything I
The case, as a good lawyer can go anywhere
must. Return he would not, I seem to have been given
Afraid, as he told his Club, the freedom
that he might get shot. of this place what am I
then? And picking
Wodwo (Ted Hughes)
bits of bark off this rotten
stump gives me
no pleasure and it's no use
Thrushes (Ted Hughes)
so why do I do it
me and doing that have Terrifying are the attent
coincided very queerly sleek thrushes on the lawn,
But what shall I be called More coiled steel than
am I the first living - a poised
have I an owner what shape Dark deadly eye, those
am I what delicate legs
shape am I am I huge if I go Triggered to stirrings
to the end on this way past beyond sense - with a start,
these trees and past these a bounce,
trees a stab
till I get tired that's Overtake the instant and
touching one wall of me drag out some writhing
for the moment if I sit still thing.
how everything No indolent
stops to watch me I procrastinations and no
suppose I am the exact yawning states,
centre No sighs or head-
but there's all this what is it scratchings. Nothing but
roots bounce and stab
roots roots roots and here's And a ravening second.
the water
again very queer but I'll go Is it their single-mind-sized
on looking skulls, or a trained
Body, or genius, or a nestful
of brats
Gives their days this bullet
and automatic
Purpose? Mozart's brain
had it, and the shark's
mouth
That hungers down the
blood-smell even to a leak
of its own
Side and devouring of itself:
efficiency which
Strikes too streamlined for
any doubt to pluck at it
Or obstruction deflect.

With a man it is otherwise.

Heroisms on horseback,
Outstripping his desk-diary
at a broad desk,
Carving at a tiny ivory
ornament
For years: his act worships
itself - while for him,
Though he bends to be
blent in the prayer, how
loud and
above what
Furious spaces of fire do
the distracting devils
Orgy and hosannah, under
what wilderness
Of black silent waters
weep.