Clouds about the Fallen Sun
These are the Clouds These are the clouds about the fallen sun, The majesty that shuts his burning eye: The weak lay hand on what the strong has done, Till that be tumbled that was lifted high And discord follow upon unison, And all things at one common level lie. And therefore, friend, if your great race were run And these things came, so much the more thereby Have you made greatness your companion, Although it be for children that you sigh: These are the clouds about the fallen sun, The majesty that shuts his burning eye. (W. B. Yeats, "These are the Clouds," The Green Helmet and Other Poems , 1910) I don't know why, but I found this poem particularly beautiful. Published in 1910 it anticipates the sense of brokenness and fallenness to permeate literature and philosophy after World War I (see, e.g., Woolf and Proust) and especially World War II (do I need to say more than Paul Celan?). Yet as an Irish poet, Yeats acutely sensed imposition from foreign powers, living i...