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Upon Silence

Song Cycle by James Walter Wilson (b. 1922)

?. The cat and the moon  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
The cat went here and there
And the moon spun round like a top,
And the nearest kin of the moon
The creeping cat looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,
For wander and wail as he would
The pure cold light in the sky
Troubled his animal blood.
Minnaloushe runs in the grass,
Lifting his delicate feet.
Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?
When two close kindred meet
What better than call a dance?
Maybe the moon may learn,
Tired of that courtly fashion,
A new dance turn.
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
From moonlit place to place,
The sacred moon overhead
Has taken a new phase.
Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils
Will pass from change to change,
And that from round to crescent,
From crescent to round they range?
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
Alone, important and wise,
And lifts to the changing moon
His changing eyes.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), "The cat and the moon", appears in Nine Poems, appears in The Wild Swans at Coole, first published 1918

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • FRE French (Français) (Pierre Mathé) , "Le chat et la lune", copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Confirmed with W. B. Yeats, Later Poems, Macmillan and Co., London, 1926, page 310.


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

?. Long‑legged fly  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
That civilisation may not sink,
Its great battle lost,
Quiet the dog, tether the pony
To a distant post;
Our master Caesar is in the tent
Where the maps are spread,
His eyes fixed upon nothing,
A hand under his head.
  Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
  His mind moves upon silence.

That the topless towers be burnt
And men recall that face,
Move most gently if move you must
In this lonely place.
She thinks, part woman, three parts a child,
That nobody looks; her feet
Practise a tinker shuffle
Picked up on a street.
  Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
  Her mind moves upon silence.

That girls at puberty may find
The first Adam in their thought,
Shut the door of the Pope's chapel,
Keep those children out.
There on that scaffolding reclines
Michael Angelo.
With no more sound than the mice make
His hand moves to and fro.
  Like a long-leggedfly upon the stream
  His mind moves upon silence.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), "Long-legged fly"

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , "L'Araignée d'eau", copyright © 2012, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

First published in London Mercury, March 1939

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

?. The Coat  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world's eyes
As though they'd wrought it.
Song, let them take it
For there's more enterprise
In walking naked.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), "A Coat", appears in Responsibilities and Other Poems

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • FRE French (Français) (Pierre Mathé) , copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

First published in Poetry, Chicago, May 1914

Confirmed with W. B. Yeats, Later Poems, Macmillan and Co., London, 1926, page 233.


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 361
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