Time drops in decay,
Like a candle burnt out
And the mountains and woods
Have their day, have their day;
What one in the rout
Of the fire-born moods
Has fallen away?
THE MASK
'Put off that mask of burning gold
With emerald eyes.'
'O no, my dear, you make so bold
To find if hearts be wild and wise,
And yet not cold.'
'I would but find what's there to find,
Love or deceit.'
'It was the mask engaged your mind,
And after set your heart to beat,
Not what's behind.'
'But lest you are my enemy,
I must enquire.'
'O no, my dear, let all that be;
What matter, so there is but fire
In you, in me.'
--William Butler Yeats
P.S. The sense of loss that pervades "The Moods" is absolute, though I'm never quite sure how to answer that question at the end of that poem. (I look around me to see who is missing now, to see whom to name. I wonder about the "fire-born" and yearn to join that "rout," even as the loss is presented to me.) The repetition of "Have their day, have their day" has always worked its magic on me, resonating down the years.
I love how these poems make me think, dramatically and thematically, and yet the emotions emanating from and evoked by these poems are the roots, the sources, the impulses for such thinking. When I was younger, I always thought that more thought was needed to "get" Yeats' work, but older now, I see that more feeling is the real key. Imagination demands both sides of the coin, after all.
