The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats, Vol. 1: The Poems by William Butler Yeats

Author:William Butler Yeats [Yeats, William Butler]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Poetry, General, European, English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh
ISBN: 9780684807317
Google: GZLoiRZxDiUC
Amazon: 0684807319
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 1996-09-08T23:00:00+00:00

358

The Black Tower

Say that the men of the old black tower

Though they but feed as the goatherd feeds

Their money spent, their wine gone sour,

Lack nothing that a soldier needs,

That all are oath-bound men

Those banners come not in.

There in the tomb stand the dead upright But winds come up from the shore

They shake when the winds roar

Old bones upon the mountain shake.

Those banners come to bribe or threaten

Or whisper that a man’s a fool

Who when his own right king’s forgotten

Cares what king sets up his rule.

If he died long ago

Why do you dread us so?

There in the tomb drops the faint moonlight

But wind comes up from the shore

They shake when the winds roar

Old bones upon the mountain shake.

The tower’s old cook that must climb and clamber

Catching small birds in the dew of the morn

When we hale men lie stretched in slumber

Swears that he hears the king’s great horn.

But he’s a lying hound;

Stand we on guard oath-bound.

There in the tomb the dark grows blacker But wind comes up from the shore

They shake when the winds roar

Old bones upon the mountain shake.

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