Blasted rocks and an old warped tree Lift above a still spot of the sea As though some vague hand had painted them; A little back from the verge, A step or two back from the verge, And compelled by a strong salt wind, A clanging ear and troubled eye A battered head without a tooth, Rags and crutch and old broken bones--- All that wreck which I call myself, Having climbed an unaccustomed stair In a changing state of mind Or with a bewildered mind, And revealed to the weather On the promontory, Stood shaken by a vision. A burning woman and a man In Quattrocento gesture struck Above the bed where all began; Half-risen above the multitudinous sea Above the tangled branches of the yew, Their abstract bodies are not mixed With commoner dirt, nor sullied by a cut Thought of sin or guilt begot. Is that sweetest skin, ghostly there, Half human still or all celestial? World-engendering Pythagoras Stalked Heaven and never took a bride. ---O all that golden multitude Had clarity to unpuzzle it. I, A skittish old man upon a rock, With a mouthful of rue With a slippery crutch on a rock And reeling backwards in a fright Am blinded by the unbearable light.
Disturb the Eagles’ Nest
[Poetry], Burning Byzantium
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Aug 272011