HHmm... I guess I like some depressing prose...

"Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy which sustained him through temporary periods of happiness."
-- William Butler Yeats

Well, I really didn't have anything to post today, so I thought I would post my two favorite poems. Maybe my subjects would like to feel part of a swanky literary Salon. As I was placing them below, it occurred to me that they are really maudlin and depressing... Ah well, must be the Irish in me...

Stop all the clocks

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

-- W. H. Auden
When You Are Old

WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

-- William Butler Yeats

If you have a poem to share, you are welcome to do so!

Stay cool and safe!