The Secret Rose E-Book

William Butler Yeats

• Herausgeber: E-BOOKARAMA
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Originally published in 1897, "The Secret Rose" offers, in chronological sequence, a glimpse of all William Butler Yeats' styles-beginning with his youthful romantic idealism and ending with his more outspoken, sardonic treatment of sexuality.

William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and dramatist, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years Yeats served as an Irish Senator for two terms. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, and along with Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn founded the Abbey Theatre, serving as its chief during its early years. In 1923 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for what the Nobel Committee described as "inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation." He was the first Irishman so honoured. Yeats is generally considered one of the few writers who completed their greatest works after being awarded the Nobel Prize; such works include "The Tower" (1928) and "The Winding Stair and Other Poems" (1929).

Leseprobe

Table of contents

THE SECRET ROSE

Dedication

To The Secret Rose

The Crucifixion Of The Outcast

Out Of The Rose

The Wisdom Of The King

The Heart Of The Spring

The Curse Of The Fires And Of The Shadows

The Old Men Of The Twilight

Where There Is Nothing, There Is God

Of Costello The Proud, Of Oona The Daughter Of Dermott, And Of The Bitter Tongue

THE SECRET ROSE

William Butler Yeats

Dedication

As for living, our servants will do that for us.— Villiers de L'Isle Adam.

Helen, when she looked in her mirror, seeing the withered wrinkles made in her face by old age, wept, and wondered why she had twice been carried away.— Leonardo da Vinci.

My dear A.E.—I dedicate this book to you because, whether you think it well or ill written, you will sympathize with the sorrows and the ecstasies of its personages, perhaps even more than I do myself. Although I wrote these stories at different times and in different manners, and without any definite plan, they have but one subject, the war of spiritual with natural order; and how can I dedicate such a book to anyone but to you, the one poet of modern Ireland who has moulded a spiritual ecstasy into verse?

My friends in Ireland sometimes ask me when I am going to write a really national poem or romance, and by a national poem or romance I understand them to mean a poem or romance founded upon some famous moment of Irish history, and built up out of the thoughts and feelings which move the greater number of patriotic Irishmen.

I on the other hand believe that poetry and romance cannot be made by the most conscientious study of famous moments and of the thoughts and feelings of others, but only by looking into that little, infinite, faltering, eternal flame that we call ourselves. If a writer wishes to interest a certain people among whom he has grown up, or fancies he has a duty towards them, he may choose for the symbols of his art their legends, their history, their beliefs, their opinions, because he has a right to choose among things less than himself, but he cannot choose among the substances of art.

So far, however, as this book is visionary it is Irish for Ireland, which is still predominantly Celtic, has preserved with some less excellent things a gift of vision, which has died out among more hurried and more successful nations: no shining candelabra have prevented us from looking into the darkness, and when one looks into the darkness there is always something there.

W.B. YEATS.

To The Secret Rose

Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose,

Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those

Who sought thee at the Holy Sepulchre,

Or in the wine-vat, dwell beyond the stir

And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep

Among pale eyelids heavy with the sleep

Men have named beauty. Your great leaves enfold

The ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold

Of the crowned Magi; and the king whose eyes

Saw the Pierced Hands and Rood of Elder rise

In druid vapour and make the torches dim;

Till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and him

Who met Fand walking among flaming dew,

By a grey shore where the wind never blew,

And lost the world and Emir for a kiss;

And him who drove the gods out of their liss

And till a hundred morns had flowered red

Feasted, and wept the barrows of his dead;

And the proud dreaming king who flung the crown

And sorrow away, and calling bard and clown

Dwelt among wine-stained wanderers in deep woods;

And him who sold tillage and house and goods,

And sought through lands and islands numberless years

Until he found with laughter and with tears

A woman of so shining loveliness

That men threshed corn at midnight by a tress,

A little stolen tress. I too await

The hour of thy great wind of love and hate.

When shall the stars be blown about the sky,

Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die?

Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows,

Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose?

The Crucifixion Of The Outcast