Poem II

I pace upon the battlements and stareOn the foundations of a house, or whereTree, like a sooty finger, starts from the earth;And send imagination forthUnder the day’s declining beam, and callImages and memoriesFrom ruin or from ancient trees,For I would ask a question of them all.

Beyond that ridge lived Mrs. French, and onceWhen every silver candlestick or sconceLit up the dark mahogany and the wine,A serving man that could divineThat most respected lady’s every wish,Ran and with the garden shearsClipped an insolent farmer’s earsAnd brought them in a little covered dish.

Some few remembered still when I was youngA peasant girl commended by a song,Who’d lived somewhere upon that rocky place,And praised the colour of her face,And had the greater joy in praising her,Remembering that, if walked she there,Farmers jostled at the fairSo great a glory did the song confer.

And certain men, being maddened by those rhymes,Or else by toasting her a score of times,Rose from the table and declared it rightTo test their fancy by their sight;But they mistook the brightness of the moonFor the prosaic light of day--Music had driven their wits astray--And one was drowned in the great bog of Cloone.

Strange, but the man who made the song was blind,Yet, now I have considered it, I findThat nothing strange; the tragedy beganWith Homer that was a blind man,And Helen has all living hearts betrayed.O may the moon and sunlight seemOne inextricable beam,For if I triumph I must make men mad.

And I myself created HanrahanAnd drove him drunk or sober through the dawnFrom somewhere in the neighbouring cottages.Caught by an old man’s juggleriesHe stumbled, tumbled, fumbled to and froAnd had but broken knees for hireAnd horrible splendour of desire;I thought it all out twenty years ago:

Good fellows shuffled cards in an old bawn;And when that ancient ruffian’s turn was onHe so bewitched the cards under his thumbThat all, but the one card, becameA pack of hounds and not a pack of cards,And that he changed into a hare.Hanrahan rose in frenzy thereAnd followed up those baying creatures towards--

O towards I have forgotten what--enough!I must recall a man that neither loveNor music nor an enemy’s clipped earCould, he was so harried, cheer;A figure that has grown so fabulousThere’s not a neighbour left to sayWhen he finished his dog’s day:An ancient bankrupt master of this house.

Before that ruin came, for centuries,Rough men-at-arms, cross-gartered to the kneesOr shod in iron, climbed the narrow stairs,And certain men-at-arms there wereWhose images, in the Great Memory stored,Come with loud cry and panting breastTo break upon a sleeper’s restWhile their great wooden dice beat on the board.

As I would question all, come all who can;Come old, necessitous, half-mounted man;And bring beauty’s blind rambling celebrant;The red man the juggler sentThrough God-forsaken meadows; Mrs. French,Gifted with so fine an ear;The man drowned in a bog’s mire,When mocking muses chose the country wench.

Did all old men and women, rich and poor,Who trod upon these rocks or passed this door,Whether in public or in secret rageAs I do now against old age?But I have found an answer in those eyesThat are impatient to be gone;Go therefore; but leave HanrahanFor I need all his mighty memories.

Old lecher with a love on every windBring up out of that deep considering mindAll that you have discovered in the grave,For it is certain that you haveReckoned up every unforeknown, unseeingPlunge, lured by a softening eye,Or by a touch or a sigh,Into the labyrinth of another’s being;

Does the imagination dwell the mostUpon a woman won or woman lost?If on the lost, admit you turned asideFrom a great labyrinth out of pride,Cowardice, some silly over-subtle thoughtOr anything called conscience once;And that if memory recur, the sun’sUnder eclipse and the day blotted out.