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From a Cloven World

For W.B. Yeats

Sail on forever to Byzantium

proving the cloven soul’s two halves cross-paled,

and after you the millioned world shall come.

It does not matter that vogue’s pendulum

will swing again, time doubt your deed prevailed;

sail on forever. To Byzantium

each act stands, permanent. The goal-vacuum

of history and heart craves man re-grailed,

and after you the millioned world shall come.

Child of our waking age, you augur some

gigantic hope—not peace, but stars unjailed;

sail on forever to Byzantium,

for lives are measured by what seas they plumb,

their reach determined by which scope is scaled;

and after you the millioned world shall come.

Thus if I praise you, though my hope fall dumb

for harboring, I have not wholly failed.

Sail on forever to Byzantium

And after you the millioned world shall come.