Peace is the heir of dead desire,

Babbles a woeful song and babblesThe end of the world, the moon’s like fired Troy in a flyingcloud, the stormRises again, the stream’s in flood.The moon’s like the sack of Carthage, the Bastile’s broken, pedlarsand empiresStill deal in luxury, men sleep in prison.Old Saturn thinks it was better in his grandsire’s time but that’sfrom the…

One might dream badly.In beautiful seas a beautifulAnd sainted island, but the dark earth so shallow on the rockGorged with bad meat.Kings buried in the lee of the saint,Kings of fierce Norway, blood-boltered Scotland, bitterly dreamingTreacherous Ireland.Imagine what delusions of grandeur,What suspicion-agonized eyes, what jellies of arrogance and terrorThis earth has absorbed.

Headlong convexities of forest, drawn in together to the steepravine. Below, on the sea-cliff,A lonely clearing; a little field of corn by the streamside; a roofunder spared trees. Then the oceanLike a great stone someone has cut to a sharp edge and polishedto shining. Beyond it, the fountainAnd furnace of incredible light flowing up from…

She has taken honesty and confidence from nations and men,She is hunting the lonely heron of liberty.She loads the arts with nonsense, she is very cunningScience with dreams and the state with powers to catch them at last.Nothing will escape her at last, flying nor running.This is the hawk that picks out the star’s eyes.This…

Over the calm of an ebb that almost mirrors their wings.The sun has gone down, and the water has gone downFrom the weed-clad rock, but the distant cloud-wall rises. Theebb whispers.Great cloud-shadows float in the opal water.Through rifts in the screen of the world pale gold gleams, and theeveningStar suddenly glides like a flying torch.As…

and their tyrants come, many times before.When open violence appears, to avoid it with honor or choosethe least ugly faction; these evils are essential.To keep one’s own integrity, be merciful and uncorruptedand not wish for evil; and not be dupedBy dreams of universal justice or happiness. These dreams willnot be fulfilled.To know this, and know…