Lay for the Day 
28th
January
1939: W.B. Yeats dies in Menton in France. After the Second World War, his
bones were brought home to be laid in the churchyard of Drumcliff, County
Sligo, according to the request in ‘Under Ben Bulben’, one of his
last poems. Subsequently, doubt has been cast on the authenticity of the remains
that were translated.
Exile
Far
from a hero, far from saint,
Either
in an action frozen
Or
burning in the lamplit paint,
You
were uncomfortably chosen
To
stand dumbfounded in the fellside light,
To
witness all the restless human night,
And
have what came as words in youth
Come in the dry September of your years, in truth,
In tears you would not let fall, being bent on rhyme;
EternityŐs
exile in love with time.
Monkey
in a Chinese story
Reaches
For
the moon in a stream,
CanŐt
let go his branch, can’t grasp her glory,
Can’t
shun her gleam,
Hung
between deed and dream.
Fall
through the light of desire and go down
Into
darkness and drown,
One
sage teaches.
John Gibbens, from Collected Poems
The
Lay Reader: an archive of the poetic calendar
