I <br /> <br />I saw a staring virgin stand <br />Where holy Dionysus died, <br />And tear the heart out of his side. <br />And lay the heart upon her hand <br />And bear that beating heart away; <br />Of Magnus Annus at the spring, <br />As though God's death were but a play. <br /> <br />Another Troy must rise and set, <br />Another lineage feed the crow, <br />Another Argo's painted prow <br />Drive to a flashier bauble yet. <br />The Roman Empire stood appalled: <br />It dropped the reins of peace and war <br />When that fierce virgin and her Star <br />Out of the fabulous darkness called. <br /> <br />II <br /> <br />In pity for man's darkening thought <br />He walked that room and issued thence <br />In Galilean turbulence; <br />The Babylonian starlight brought <br />A fabulous, formless darkness in; <br />Odour of blood when Christ was slain <br />Made all platonic tolerance vain <br />And vain all Doric discipline. <br /> <br />Everything that man esteems <br />Endures a moment or a day. <br />Love's pleasure drives his love away, <br />The painter's brush consumes his dreams; <br />The herald's cry, the soldier's tread <br />Exhaust his glory and his might: <br />Whatever flames upon the night <br />Man's own resinous heart has fed.<br /><br />William Butler Yeats<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/two-songs-from-a-play/
