The joys of the bookstore!

As I was wandering through the bookstore on Sunday, making a mental list of all the books I need to buy to read over the summer, I came upon a book of W.B. Yeat's poetry. I had remembered Dr. Sexson mentioning something about him, and then remembered reading Sutter's blog about the poem by W.H. Auden called 'In Memory of W.B. Yeats,' and decided to take a minute to check it out. As I started reading through the list of poems that he wrote I became excited because of the randomness and variety of the titles. Titles like 'The Song of the Happy Shepherd,' 'A Poet to his Beloved,' and then 'To a Squirrel at Kyle-na-no,' and 'The Mermaid.' Then, as I kept reading I found a poem entitled "From 'Oedipus at Colonus,'" and "From the 'Antigone,'" and I thought I'd share them.

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From 'Oedipus at Colonus'
Endure what life God gives and ask no longer span;
Cease to remember the delights of youth, travel-wearied aged man;
Delight becomes death-longing if all longing else be vain.
~
Even from that delight memory treasures so,
Death, despair, division of families, all entanglements of mankind grow,
As that old wandering beggar and these God-hated children know.
~
In the long echoing street the laughing dancers throng,
The bride is carried to the bridegroom's chamber through torchlight and tumultuous song;
I celebrate the silent kiss that ends short life or long.
~
Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say;
Never to have drawn the breath of life, never to have looked into the eye of day;
The second best's a gay goodnight and quickly turn away.

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From the 'Antigone'

Overcome -- O bitter sweetness,

Inhabitant of the soft cheek of a girl --

The rich man and his affairs,

The fat flocks and the fields' fatness,

Mariners, rough harvesters;

Overcome Gods upon Parnassus;

~

Overcome the Empyrean; hurl

Heaven and Earth out of their places,

That in the Same calamity

Brother and brother, friend and friend,

Family and family,

City and city may contend,

By that great glory driven wild.

~

Pray I will and sing I must,

And yet I weep -- Oedipus' child

Descends into the loveless dust.