Yeats’ most famous poems

 

 

white concrete building beside the body of water
Photo by Mark Dalton on Pexels.com

10 Most Famous Poems By William Butler Yeats

 

#1 THE SECOND COMING

Published: 1920

This poem was written at the end of the First World War and the beginning of the Irish War of Independence. In it Yeats uses Christian imagery regarding the Apocalypse and Second Coming to describe the atmosphere of post-war Europe. The speaker first gives an account of anarchy and violence in the world; and then uses it as a sign to indicate that “the Second Coming is at hand.” He concludes with the prophesy that a rough beast is on its way to Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ, to be born into the world. The Second Coming is regarded as one of the most important works of Modernist poetry. It is one of the most influential poetic works of the 20th century and the most famous poem by William Butler Yeats.

Excerpt:-

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

United in Bravery

The horror of the London Bridge attack where 2 people were killed brought  out the best in some men nearby as they tackled the  man  before the police and prevented him stabbing anyone else

After Brexit, let’s  be  grateful  for  our   brave people, who risked their own lives and stop the civil war of words and actions

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/nov/30/narwhal-tusk-and-fire-extinguisher-used-to-tackle-london-bridge-attacker

 

Extract

Three members of the public, including one armed with a fire extinguisher and another a 5ft narwhal tusk, grappled with and eventually grounded the London Bridge knife attacker before police arrived.

Footage has emerged showing people at the scene surrounding the attacker, who is eventually pinned to the ground. One man sprays him with a fire extinguisher before trying to hit him with it, while another approaches him with a narwhal tusk, lunging at him. It is believed the item was pulled from the wall of Fishmongers’ Hall.

Trust the dark

Photo0205

Photo my own

Trust the unknown force that grew you,
From the  union of two cells.
An act of love  and total giving,
Which has produced whom you call self

Trust the dark,the unseen aspects
Of the life we all do live.
Trust that there is wisdom elsewhere,
To your emptiness to give.

Wait in patience for the time
When inspiration comes at last
Trust in darkness,silence,lowness.
Opposition forms the cross.

Pain is bearable in lowness,
Like the worm in earth I dwell.
When I look I see the sunrise
And I trust all shall be well.

Love without reward

img_20191128_114117http://micahlapidus.com/love-without-reward/

Extract:

What is spirituality? It is connection. It is either the desire to connect with another person, the natural world, or something intangible, or the recognition that this connectedness is an essential part of the human experience.

The love that Levinas describes is an expression of this connectedness. Love cannot exist without connection. Connection is the foundation of spiritual experience. Love is a heightened form of spiritual experience, a connection so deep that it falls into this profound relational category.

Does it matter what the numbers where?

 For 1600 days I woke alone
Does it matter what the numbers where?
25 x 64  unknown

For 1600 nights I sleeping moaned
Does sorrow  have to make us feel too bare?
For 1600 days I woke alone

1600  dreams , you   cracked my bones
Does  there have to be  a number bar?
25 x 64  unknown

 For 1600 , 2  to power stole
Does   crime like that  show how you broke my heart?
For 1600 days I woke alone

For 1600, 5 is squared and  bold
Does that   throw us off the apple cart?
25 x 64 , a poem

Why  does the mind  too lone become a liar ?
Who will stoke its everlasting pyre?
For 1600 days I woke alone
32 x 50  what’s this game?

200 days times 8……my mind now claims
For forty days  did Jesus learn Love’s  game
400 days times 4,   is that  your claim?
100 days times sixteen, naught remains

Illusions

Women screen themselves without the veil
Wear their   cream foundation, dye their hair
Get push up bras with wires as thick as cords
Thongs  that I have seen  when jeans are worn!
They wear dark glasses, strands of  lucid pearls
Hoping to attract a deviant earl
They wear pyjamas ,claiming to be cold
Or polyester nighties   men can’t hold
But Shakespeare said that all the world’s a stage
This fills me with  annoyance. even rage
Yet I see it’s true  when I go out
Disguise myself  with crutches and shoes stout
Cut my hair till hardly any’s left
That is right,I  act like I am deaf
I wash it in the kitchen with  the plates
The water’s hot and  hair cannot escape
It looks pathetic  yet I am so old
White hair is the fashion for the bold
I smile with pensive attitude and    plead
Do not  quarrel if I act with speed

Jewish English touch of humour

1.

Who’s the most famous Jewish man ever?

Jesus Christ!

Don’t you wish  God was your Father?

2

Which Jew   was most famous  relatively?

Do shut up about Albert Einstein

3
Can mechanics be Jews?

Only Quantum Mechanics 

4.

My cat looks Jewish

Is he canny?

5.

Why are Jewish people more intelligent ?

So  God could send messages

Does he text?

Not yet but he can whisper.

6.
I’ve heard Nothing

I’ve seen Nothing

I’ve  felt Nothing

Now I almost know Nothing.Give me time, oh Lord

7
It’s so dark at night I feel soulful

Well. put a  light on

On what?

8

We forgot to turn the TV off  before Sabbat Dinner

We can’t turn if off for 24 hours since it is electric

Just   cover  it up

Is  it a crime?

No, it’s   only a  sin

I feel shamed

Join the club

But it’s Sabbat!

It’s  a Sabbat Club but it meets on Sundays

Are we all shamefilled?

No just the duvets

But shame has no feathers

They are in the duvets of the world

Is it a duck?

Don’t ask me,I’m Jewish

You might be an ornithologist

Not today, thanks.I’m an atheist

A Jewish atheist?

No, A Catholic atheist!

How many non existent Gods are there?

How can we  answer that?

GOK

 

 

A petrol bomb

As down St Giles I cycled late one night
The road as silent as an empty church 
A speeding car  attacked me from the right

I saw, I knew, I felt no touch of fright
Time was stopped until  I felt the punch
As down St Giles I cycled in the night

 Flying like a moth  towards the light
Is this my end or shall  my  mind  come back?
A speeding car  attacked me from the right

The car drove at right angles  to my bike
I had no time to scream or speed my foot
As down St Giles I cycled in the night

I saw stars,  when flung to fearsome flight
I landed on my head, a flash,  a flood
A speeding car  attacked me from the right

The choir   rehearse without  my  voice ,now crushed
To Woodstock  and to Banbury  cars  rush
As down St Giles I cycle in the night
A speeding car, a petrol bomb , ignites

 

 

 

 

Song of the earthworm

They tell me that trees are a wonderful sight
They have leaves hanging on them all day and all night.
They tell me the golden sun shines in the sky
It’s said to be so much brighter so high.
I’d like to hear birdsong and thunder and hail.
At all these pursuits worms are likely to fail.
We only make holes in the soil as we move
And we know almost nothing about feelings and love.
We don’t know why we’re here or what purpose we serve
And our earthen workplace is also our grave.

 

You have to laugh or else you’ll cry

 

 

Autumn 2013 008

My image  of my own garden

 

 

Since my husband died I have been afflicted with recurrent UTI’s.
This year  has been the worst I have only one  entire month  when I was well.
Unfortunately   they affect the brain  and hence the mind.I have had scans but it seems my immune system is not strong.I wondered if it was the steroid injections as steroids do affect things like white blood cells etc

Anyway, today I have something humorous to tell you.~
I  have  had antibiotics then they doctor asked me to take a sample to send to  the pathology lab

I took it yesterday.When I gave it  to the receptionist she said in a  rather unkind tone
Why have you brought this?

I wonder why?
I might have said, it’s your morning  coffee replacement
Your plants need watering.
It seemed a good idea at the time
It’s so pale I wonder if I have anaemia.
I was bored and wanted to see you.
Mind your own business
However I just said the doctor told me to
Are they trying to economise even on lab tests?
The government has told doctors to delay the referring for cataract surgery
As my mother used to say:You have to laugh or else you’d cry

A more understandable article about Godel’s theorem

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

img_20191122_203051https://www.perrymarshall.com/articles/religion/godels-incompleteness-theorem/

Excerpt

Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem says:

“Anything you can draw a circle around cannot explain itself without referring to something outside the circle – something you have to assume but cannot prove.”

Stated in Formal Language:

Gödel’s theorem says: “Any effectively generated theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete. In particular, for any consistent, effectively generated formal theory that proves certain basic arithmetic truths, there is an arithmetical statement that is true, but not provable in the theory.”

The Church-Turing thesis says that a physical system can express elementary arithmetic just as a human can, and that the arithmetic of a Turing Machine (computer) is not provable within the system and is likewise subject to incompleteness.

Any physical system subjected to measurement is capable of expressing elementary arithmetic. (In other words, children can do math by counting their fingers, water flowing into a bucket does integration, and physical systems always give the right answer.)

Therefore the universe is capable of expressing elementary arithmetic and like both mathematics itself and a Turing machine, is incomplete.

Syllogism:

1. All non-trivial computational systems are incomplete

2. The universe is a non-trivial computational system

3. Therefore the universe is incomplete

You can draw a circle around all of the concepts in your high school geometry book. But they’re all built on Euclid’s 5 postulates which are clearly true but cannot be proven. Those 5 postulates are outside the book, outside the circle.

You can draw a circle around a bicycle but the existence of that bicycle relies on a factory that is outside that circle. The bicycle cannot explain itself.

Gödel proved that there are ALWAYS more things that are true than you can prove. Any system of logic or numbers that mathematicians ever came up with will always rest on at least a few unprovable assumptions.

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem applies not just to math, but to everything that is subject to the laws of logic. Incompleteness is true in math; it’s equally true in science or language or philosophy.

And: If the universe is mathematical and logical, Incompleteness also applies to the universe.

Stephen King : How to Write

Scilla_aristides2018-1.jpg

http://uk.businessinsider.com/stephen-king-on-how-to-write-2014-8?r=US&IR=T

1. Stop watching television. Instead, read as much as possible.
If you’re just starting out as a writer, your television should be the first thing to go. It’s “poisonous to creativity,” he says. Writers need to look into themselves and turn toward the life of the imagination.

To do so, they should read as much as they can. King takes a book with him everywhere he goes, and even reads during meals. “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot,” he says. Read widely, and constantly work to refine and redefine your own work as you do so.

2. Prepare for more failure and criticism than you think you can deal with.
King compares writing fiction to crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a bathtub, because in both, “there’s plenty of opportunity for self-doubt.” Not only will you doubt yourself, but other people will doubt you, too. “If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that’s all,” writes King.

Oftentimes, you have to continue writing even when you don’t feel like it. “Stopping a piece of work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea,” he writes. And when you fail, King suggests that you remain positive. “Optimism is a perfectly legitimate response to failure.”

3. Don’t waste time trying to please people.
According to King, rudeness should be the least of your concerns. “If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered anyway,” he writes. King used to be ashamed of what he wrote, especially after receiving angry letters accusing him of being bigoted, homophobic, murderous, and even psychopathic.

By the age of 40, he realized that every decent writer has been accused of being a waste of talent. King has definitely come to terms with it. He writes, “If you disapprove, I can only shrug my shoulders. It’s what I have.” You can’t please all of your readers all the time, so King advises that you stop worrying.

4. Write primarily for yourself.
You should write because it brings you happiness and fulfillment. As King says, “I did it for the pure joy of the thing. And if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever.”

Writer Kurt Vonnegut provides a similar insight: “Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about,” he says. “It is this genuine caring, not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.”

To risk perception is a fear we share

The pools of water on the pavement gleam
Reflect  the colours  of the   shops and cars
Giving us a feeling all’s serene

As I walk I wander and daydream
I sit on an  old wall,  the moss like hair
The pools of water on the pavement gleam

I invent a   sentence and a theme
Will I forget before I have gone far
Taking back the feeling all’s serene?

I notice how the old wall seems to lean
To risk perception is a fear  we share
The pools of water on the pavement gleam

I feel the moss ,I love the colour scheme
I love the texture with my  hand  unbared
Giving me a feeling all’s serene

Each lovely brick is different  yet is fair
Evoking in my mind  the sacred  word
The pools of water on the pavement gleam
A light rain falls and  this world feels serene

 

That is not mine alone.



Come back to me, my sweetheart
Don’t leave me all alone.
Come back to me, my darling
I can’t believe you've gone.
I’m crying ‘cos I’m feeling blue again.
I’m crying’cos I’m falling like a stone.
Oh, let me tempt you with my beauty
And my voice forever young.
Let me tempt you with my spirit
My laughter and my songs.
I’m crying ‘cos I never did you wrong.
I’m crying ‘cos with you I  still belong.
I thought maybe I’d follow,
To see where you have gone
But there’s a hand upon this tiller
That is not mine alone.
I’m crying ‘cos I wrote this old blue song.
I’m crying, I’ve been lonely for too long.
The hand upon my tiller
The mystery of the dark
The unknown one who lives in me
And sings like a skylark.
I’m singing ‘cos I wrote you a new song.
I’m singing ‘cos the cat ain’t got my tongue 

Are you foreign?

Are  you foreign  locals say to me
You have a funny accent, and you rhyme
So do you ever have a cup of tea?

Where do you come from, did you swim the  sea?
I see a kind of hatred in their eyes
Are  you foreign   locals say to me

Lord, forgive them,  what  can  these folk see?
I must look other, not the same as I
And do they ever use a cup  for tea?

All of us are blends of history
The Romans and the Vikings left  long lines
Are  you foreign.   locals  question  me?

I wonder  have I missed some little cue
To tell the truth, it’s rare for  me to lie
And even now I nurse a cup of tea?

I look odd but  so do all I  spy
What a nerve , they stole a whole pork pie
Are  you foreign  locals say to me
Be off ,I  cry, I’ll kill  for   privacy

 

 

Not by   immigrants from Pakistan

How we met is   not at all bizarre
Someone stole my bike.I had no car
I walked along the street and then met you
You had just come back from Timbuctoo

We never  found the bike. it had  a curse
But fortune favours courage and  good work
The joy was tempered by the  wrath of Mam
Not by   immigrants from Pakistan

Later on we  owned a  cheapo car
We went to Suffolk on some kind of dare
The houses painted pink ,soft white and green
By Framlingham which once housed Tudor Queen

We  soon learned   to love the South Folks lands
Yet deep inside ,the North  grips heart with  hand

A little death  to let the earth revive

A stillness falls across the garden trees
A little death  to let the earth revive
Stand silent here  and feel the gentle breeze

Yet some icy hands will sting like bees
To test our spirit, show we are alive
As stillness falls across the garden trees

Later in mid winter trees half freeze
Frost will hang like silver chains devised
Stand silent here  and feel the sharper breeze

As the year is ending  don’t retrieve
The bad ideas, the feelings  cruel  archived
As stillness falls across red maple trees

The sun so low  it blinds  us to our needs
We waste our time of peace with pointed jibes
Stand silent here  and feel the colder breeze

Winter rituals enrich starving lives
So cruel the cold,   yet frost with beauty chides
A stillness falls across the garden trees
Stand silent  fall and winter ,feel the breeze

 

 

What we women wear

beach bikini braided hair carefree
Photo by Vaibhav Kashyap on Pexels.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwire_bra

You may like your wife or partner to look like this but do you know what it feels like?[Though once or twice these wires have deflected bullets] never knew what underwires looked like until I accidentally bought a nice looking bra online.When I felt the wires I decided to remove them.I am really shocked to see how tough and strong these wires are.I imagine unless you were very thin [and would not need much of a bra] the wires would really cut into your flesh at the sides where it runs up the cup edge.The wires are so strong I am sure one could make a weapon from them.I showed one to a friend and he was horrified.But looking round Marks and Spencer that great British shop [!] most bras are underwired.
I can’t see how,if you have large breasts that these wires would hold them up.They’d just dig in and then the breast would hang over the edge.
With all the fear of breast cancer,why do we submit to the diktat that we must make our breasts stand up or out?
If we are that bothered then wearing a long waistcoat over a top or blouse would hide our bulging figures.
So either I return to modelling birds from wire [ I have done before] or else it’s the garbage can for these nightmare objects.I wonder who invented them?

When the underwire breaks through the bra fabric, it can cause tremendous discomfort. Celebrity chef, television personality, and businesswoman Clarissa Dickson Wright only wears a bra on special occasions. At her 50th birthday party, she was dancing when she suddenly felt a “terrifying pain in my chest.” She initially thought she was having a heart attack. “The pain got more and more intense. I staggered off and discovered I’d broken my underwired bra.”

Look into the sun and fire perceive

Whirling in the winter wind, dead leaves
Dry and brown and broken ever more
Send their substance to the souls bereaved

People pray and yet do not believe
Christ was born  and angels  him adored
On the winter wind float dying  leaves

By our spirits may we be deceived,
Even in the heart’s most hidden core,
Sharing   presence with all us bereaved?

Look into the sun and fire  perceive
Power  destroys the lives  of all its whores
On the wind float  lingering, burned out leaves

For men of power think they can  God deceive
Yet even kings will die despite their  force
To lie in marble graves,  of love bereaved

Wrapped in cloths of linen, cream and coarse
With no coffin, Jesus  high  is borne
With the wind, with ashes , with dead leaves,
The photons of his love  light  hearts bereaved