Classic and Contemporary Poetry
MEDITATIONS IN TIME OF CIVIL WAR: 4. MY DESCENDANTS, by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Having inherited a vigorous mind Alternate Author Name(s): Yeats, W. B. Subject(s): Ireland - Rebellions | ||||||||
Having inherited a vigorous mind From my old fathers, I must nourish dreams And leave a woman and a man behind As vigorous of mind, and yet it seems Life scarce can cast a fragrance on the wind, Scarce spread a glory to the morning beams, But the torn petals strew the garden plot; And there's but common greenness after that. And what if my descendants lose the flower Through natural declension of the soul, Through too much business with the passing hour, Through too much play, or marriage with a fool? May this laborious stair and this stark tower Become a roofless min that the owl May build in the cracked masonry and cry Her desolation to the desolate sky. The primum Mobile that fashioned us Has made the very owls in circles move; And I, that count myself most prosperous, Seeing that love and friendship are enough, For an old neighbour's friendship chose the house And decked and altered it for a girl's love, And know whatever flourish and decline These stones remain their monument and mine. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FONTENOY by THOMAS OSBORNE DAVIS DIRGE OF RORY O'MORE; 1642 by AUBREY THOMAS DE VERE THE IRISH RAPPAREES; A PEASANT BALLAD OF 1691 by CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY MEMORY OF THE IRISH DEAD by JOHN KELLS INGRAM FONTENOY, 1745: 1. BEFORE THE BATTLE: NIGHT by EMILY LAWLESS FONTENOY, 1745: 2. AFTER THE BATTLE, EARLY DAWN, CLARE COAST by EMILY LAWLESS REBEL MOTHER'S LULLABY by SHANE LESLIE THE CROPPY BOY: (A BALLAD OF '98) by WILLIAM B. MCBURNEY O, BREATHE NOT HIS NAME! by THOMAS MOORE SIXTEEN DEAD MEN by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS |
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