Produced by Marius Masi, Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net SEVEN POEMS AND A FRAGMENT BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS. [Illustration] THE CUALA PRESS DUNDRUM MCMXXII TABLE OF CONTENTS All Souls' Night Page 1 Suggested by a Picture of a Black Centaur 6 Thoughts upon the Present State of the World 7 The New Faces 14 A Prayer for My Son 14 Cuchulain the Girl and the Fool 16 The Wheel 18 A New End for 'The King's Threshold' 18 NOTES Note on 'Thoughts Upon the Present State of the World' Section Six 23 Note on The New End to 'The King's Threshold' 24 SEVEN POEMS AND A FRAGMENT: BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS. ALL SOULS' NIGHT 'Tis All Souls' Night and the great Christ Church bell, And many a lesser bell, sound through the room, For it is now midnight; And two long glasses brimmed with muscatel Bubble upon the table. A ghost may come, For it is a ghost's right, His element is so fine Being sharpened by his death, To drink from the wine-breath While our gross palates drink from the whole wine. I need some mind that, if the cannon sound From every quarter of the world, can stay Wound in mind's pondering, As mummies in the mummy-cloth are wound; Because I have a marvellous thing to say, A certain marvellous thing None but the living mock, Though not for sober ear; It may be all that hear Should laugh and weep an hour upon the clock. H--'s the first I call. He loved strange thought And knew that sweet extremity of pride That's called platonic love, And that to such a pitch of passion wrought Nothing could bring him, when his lady died, Anodyne for his love. Words were but wasted breath; One dear hope had he: The inclemency Of that or the next winter would be death. Two thoughts were so mixed up I could not tell Whether of her or God he thought the most, But think that his mind's eye, When upward turned, on one sole image fell, And that a slight companionable ghost, Wild with divinity, Had so lit up the whole Immense miraculous house, The Bible promised us, It seemed a gold-fish swimming in a bowl. On Florence Emery I call the next, Who finding the first wrinkles on a face Admired and beautiful, And knowing that the future would be vexed With 'minished beauty, multiplied commonplace, Preferred to teach a school, Away from neighbour or friend Among dark skins, and there Permit foul years to wear Hidden from eyesight to the unnoticed end.