On A Picture Of A Black
Centaur
Your hooves have
stamped at the black margin of the wood,
Even where horrible
green parrots call and swing.
My works are all
stamped down into the sultry mud
I knew that horse-play,
knew it for a murderous thing.
What wholesome
sun has ripened is wholesome food to eat,
And that alone;
yet I, being driven half insane
Because of some
green wing, gathered old mummy wheat
In the mad abstract
dark and ground it grain by grain
And after baked
it slowly in an oven; but now
I bring full-flavoured
wine out of a barrel found
Where seven Ephesian
topers slept and never knew
When Alexander's
empire passed, they slept so sound.
Stretch out your
limbs and sleep a long Saturnian sleep;
I have loved you
better than my soul for all my words,
And there is none
so fit to keep a watch and keep
Unwearied eyes
upon those horrible green birds.
William Butler Yeats
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