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William Butler Yeats: The Circus Animals' Desertion
William Butler Yeats: The Circus Animals' Desertion
William Butler Yeats: The Circus Animals' Desertion
II III
What can I but enumerate old themes, Those masterful images because complete
First that sea-rider Oisin led by the nose Grew in pure mind but out of what began?
Through three enchanted islands, allegorical A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a
dreams, street,
Vain gaiety, vain battle, vain repose, Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,
Themes of the embittered heart, or so it Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut
seems, Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder's
That might adorn old songs or courtly gone
shows; I must lie down where all the ladders start
But what cared I that set him on to ride, In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.
I, starved for the bosom of his fairy bride.