But names are nothing. What matter who it be, So that his elements have grown so fine The fume of muscatel Can give his sharpened palate ecstasy No living man can drink from the whole wine. I have mummy truths to tell Whereat the living mock, Though not for sober ear, For maybe all that hear Should laugh and weep an hour upon the clock. Such thought--such thought have I that hold it tight Till meditation master all its parts, Nothing can stay my glance Until that glance run in the world’s despite To where the damned have howled away their hearts, And where the blessed dance; Such thought, that in it bound I need no other thing Wound in mind’s wandering, As mummies in the mummy-cloth are wound. NOTES SAILING TO BYZANTIUM Stanza IV I have read somewhere that in the Emperor’s palace at Byzantium was a tree made of gold and silver, and artificial birds that sang. THE TOWER. Part II The persons mentioned are associated by legend, story and tradition with the neighbourhood of Thoor Ballylee or Ballylee Castle, where the poem was written. Mrs. French lived at Peterswell in the eighteenth century and was related to Sir Jonah Barrington, who described the incident of the ear and the trouble that came of it. The peasant beauty and the blind poet are Mary Hynes and Raftery, and the incident of the man drowned in Cloone Bog is recorded in my ‘Celtic Twilight’. Hanrahan’s pursuit of the phantom hare and hounds is from my ‘Stories of Red Hanrahan’. The ghosts have been seen at their game of dice in what is now my bedroom, and the old bankrupt man lived about a hundred years ago. According to one legend he could only leave the Castle upon a Sunday because of his creditors, and according to another he hid in the secret passage. THE TOWER. Part III In the passage about the Swan I have unconsciously echoed one of the loveliest lyrics of our time--Mr. Sturge Moore’s ‘Dying Swan’. I often recited it during an American lecturing tour, which explains the theft. THE DYING SWAN O silver-throated Swan Struck, struck! A golden dart Clean through thy breast has gone Home to thy heart. Thrill, thrill, O silver throat! O silver trumpet, pour Love for defiance back On him who smote! And brim, brim o’er With love; and ruby-dye thy track Down thy last living reach Of river, sail the golden light-- Enter the sun’s heart--even teach, O wondrous-gifted pain, teach thou The God to love, let him learn how!