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