• lightninglord151's Gallery
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    DEMON AND BEAST<br />
    <br />
    For certain minutes at the least<br />
    That crafty demon and that loud beast<br />
    That plague me day and night<br />
    Ran out of my sight;<br />
    Though I had long perned in the gyre,<br />
    Between my hatred and desire.<br />
    I saw my freedom won<br />
    And all laugh in the sun.<br />
    <br />
    The glittering eyes in a death's head<br />
    Of old Luke Wadding's portrait said<br />
    Welcome, and the Ormondes all<br />
    Nodded upon the wall,<br />
    And even Strafford smiled as though<br />
    It made him happier to know<br />
    I understood his plan.<br />
    Now that the loud beast ran<br />
    There was no portrait in the Gallery<br />
    But beckoned to sweet company,<br />
    For all men's thoughts grew clear<br />
    Being dear as mine are dear.<br />
    <br />
    But soon a tear-drop started up,<br />
    For aimless joy had made me stop<br />
    Beside the little lake<br />
    To watch a white gull take<br />
    A bit of bread thrown up into the air;<br />
    Now gyring down and perning there<br />
    He splashed where an absurd<br />
    Portly green-pated bird<br />
    Shook off the water from his back;<br />
    Being no more demoniac<br />
    A stupid happy creature<br />
    Could rouse my whole nature.<br />
    <br />
    Yet I am certain as can be<br />
    That every natural victory<br />
    Belongs to beast or demon,<br />
    That never yet had freeman<br />
    Right mastery of natural things,<br />
    And that mere growing old, that brings<br />
    Chilled blood, this sweetness brought;<br />
    Yet have no dearer thought<br />
    Than that I may find out a way<br />
    To make it linger half a day.<br />
    <br />
    O what a sweetness strayed<br />
    Through barren Thebaid,<br />
    Or by the Mareotic sea<br />
    When that exultant Anthony<br />
    And twice a thousand more<br />
    Starved upon the shore<br />
    And withered to a bag of bones!<br />
    What had the Caesars but their thrones?    <br />
    <br />
    -W.B. Yeats
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