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A Man Who Has Nothing In Particular To Recommend Him Discusses All Sorts of Subjects at Random as Though He Knew Everything

He Remembers Forgotten Beauty

San Francisco, 1905

WHEN my arms wrap you round I press
My heart upon the loveliness
That has long faded from the world;
The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled
In shadowy pools, when armies fled;
The love-tales wrought with silken thread
By dreaming ladies upon cloth
That has made fat the murderous moth;
The roses that of old time were
Woven by ladies in their hair,
The dew-cold lilies ladies bore
Through many a sacred corridor
Where such grey clouds of incense rose
That only God’s eyes did not close:
For that pale breast and lingering hand
Come from a more dream-heavy land,
A more dream-heavy hour than this;
And when you sigh from kiss to kiss
I hear white Beauty sighing, too,
For hours when all must fade like dew,
But flame on flame, and deep on deep,
Throne over throne where in half sleep,
Their swords upon their iron knees,
Brood her high lonely mysteries.

William Butler Yeats

2 Responses

  1. Headin' down Market Street towards the clock tower on the Ferry Building – what a ride! And what a range of traffic, conveyances and human behavior. I like the pace – I guess modern times are somewhat more frenetic.

    Thanks for posting that.

  2. I love that video. I have always wanted to go to San Fran but have never gotten the opportunity. I seems like such an enchanting place.

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