High Talk

Portrait of William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats 1865–1939

Processions that lack high stilts have nothing that catches the eye. What if my great-granddad had a pair that were twenty foot high, And mine were but fifteen foot, no modern Stalks upon higher, Some rogue of the world stole them to patch up a fence or a fire.

Because piebald ponies, led bears, caged lions, ake but poor shows, Because children demand Daddy-long-legs upon This timber toes, Because women in the upper storeys demand a face at the pane, That patching old heels they may shriek, I take to chisel and plane.

Malachi Stilt-Jack am I, whatever I learned has run wild, From collar to collar, from stilt to stilt, from father to child.

All metaphor, Malachi, stilts and all. A barnacle goose Far up in the stretches of night; night splits and the dawn breaks loose; I, through the terrible novelty of light, stalk on, stalk on; Those great sea-horses bare their teeth and laugh at the dawn.

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  1. Zack Crack Belgium

    This is his best poem in my op, which discovered in Rag & Bone Shop collection by Robert Bly, only meaningful thing to come out of men's movement was that poetry collection.

  2. Lin Slovakia Republic

    What a great way to

    What a great way to end my day, seeing these potohs and reading that moving poem. Another wonderful day finds itself nestling into the memory bank.Aloha, Cloudia !

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