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Yeats, W B - Blood and the Moon - The Tower
Identifier
014706
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
W B Yeats –Blood and the Moon
from The Tower
Did all old men and women, rich and poor
Who trod upon these rocks or passed this door,
Whether in public or in secret, rage
As I do now against old age?
But I have found an answer in those eyes
That are impatient to be gone;
Go therefore; but leave Hanrahan
For I need all his mighty memories
Old lecher with a love on every wind,
Bring up out of that deep considered mind
All that you have discovered in the grave
For it is certain that you have
Reckoned up every unforeknown, unseeing
Plunge, lured by a softening eye,
Or by a touch or a sigh
Into the labyrinth of another's being
Does the imagination dwell the most
Upon a woman won or woman lost?
If on the lost, admit you turned aside
From a great labyrinth out of pride,
Cowardice, some silly over-subtle thought
Or anything called conscience once;
And that if memory recur, the sun's
Under eclipse and the day blotted out