Dialogue Of Self And Soul

it is wow poem i found it by chance while searching for somthing unrelated to poetry , for me W.B Yeats is wounderfull poet and this poem really beautfull

A Dialogue Of Self And Soul – W. B. Yeats

My Soul. I summon to the winding ancient stair;
Set all your mind upon the steep ascent,
Upon the broken, crumbling battlement,
Upon the breathless starlit air,
"Upon the star that marks the hidden pole;
Fix every wandering thought upon
That quarter where all thought is done:
Who can distinguish darkness from the soul

My Self. The consecretes blade upon my knees
Is Sato's ancient blade, still as it was,
Still razor-keen, still like a looking-glass
Unspotted by the centuries;
That flowering, silken, old embroidery, torn
From some court-lady's dress and round
The wodden scabbard bound and wound
Can, tattered, still protect, faded adorn

My Soul. Why should the imagination of a man
Long past his prime remember things that are
Emblematical of love and war?
Think of ancestral night that can,
If but imagination scorn the earth
And interllect is wandering
To this and that and t'other thing,
Deliver from the crime of death and birth.

My Self. Montashigi, third of his family, fashioned it
Five hundred years ago, about it lie
Flowers from I know not what embroidery -
Heart's purple - and all these I set
For emblems of the day against the tower
Emblematical of the night,
And claim as by a soldier's right
A charter to commit the crime once more.

My Soul. Such fullness in that quarter overflows
And falls into the basin of the mind
That man is stricken deaf and dumb and blind,
For intellect no longer knows
Is from the Ought, or knower from the Known -
That is to say, ascends to Heaven;
Only the dead can be forgiven;
But when I think of that my tongue's a stone.

II

My Self. A living man is blind and drinks his drop.
What matter if the ditches are impure?
What matter if I live it all once more?
Endure that toil of growing up;
The ignominy of boyhood; the distress
Of boyhood changing into man;
The unfinished man and his pain
Brought face to face with his own clumsiness;

The finished man among his enemies? -
How in the name of Heaven can he escape
That defiling and disfigured shape
The mirror of malicious eyes
Casts upon his eyes until at last
He thinks that shape must be his shape?
And what's the good of an escape
If honour find him in the wintry blast?

I am content to live it all again
And yet again, if it be life to pitch
Into the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch,
A blind man battering blind men;
Or into that most fecund ditch of all,
The folly that man does
Or must suffer, if he woos
A proud woman not kindred of his soul.

I am content to follow to its source
Every event in action or in thought;
Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot!
When such as I cast out remorse
So great a sweetness flows into the breast
We must laugh and we must sing,
We are blest by everything,
Everything we look upon is blest.

[color=black]As Yeats matures in life, the focus goes from what the wotld is doing and what he can do. In other words, he focuses on the meaning of his life, this is shown in the poem a Dialogue of Self and Soul. A dialogue of Self amd Soul is broken down into two parts. The first part is the actuall dialogue between self and soul. The soul is driven by the past or acient events. The self is the reaction to the soul. In this poem Yeats soul can be describe as " think of ancestral knight, that can, if but imagination scorn the earth and infellect its wondering." The self of Yeats in this play is describe as " the wooden scabbard found and wound, can, tattered, still protect, faded adorn." In the second part of this poem his self is only expressed. The self and soul have become a whole. You can conclude from this poem that a person has matured,self-actualization is obtained. For example, in this poem Yeats says " I am content to follow to its source every event in action or in though; measure the lot; forgive myself the lot

i hope that you like it

This needs a bit of pondering, LULU ...
One would have to read it again & again & again & etc.
Thanks for the nice poem.

I see that you have just registered! Congrats!!
Welcome aboard the S.S. BridgeS!

Since LULU devoted this topic for poetry, I have something I'd like to share ...

This is a poem that I have accidently come across in our text book >> "The Norton Anthology of English Literature" while being in class & having nothing to do ...

It was written by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge.
It's actually depicted from Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre".
The one described in the poem is Rochester's deranged wife, Bertha.

Enjoy!!

The Other Side of a Mirror

I sat before my glass one day,
And conjured up a vision bare,
Unlike the aspects glad and gay,
That erst were found reflected there -
The vision of a woman, wild
With more than womanly despair.
Her hair stood back on either side
A face bereft of loveliness.
It had no envy now to hide
What once no man on earth could guess.
It formed the thorny aureole
Of hard, unsanctified distress.

Her lips were open - not a sound
Came though the parted lines of red,
Whate'er it was, the hideous wound
In silence and in secret bled.
No sigh relieved her speechless woe,
She had no voice to speak her dread.

And in her lurid eyes there shone
The dying flame of life's desire,
Made mad because its hope was gone,
And kindled at the leaping fire
Of jealousy and fierce revenge,
And strength that could not change nor tire.

Shade of a shadow in the glass,
O set the crystal surface free!
Pass - as the fairer visions pass -
Nor ever more return, to be
The ghost of a distracted hour,
That heard me whisper: - 'I am she!'

Lulu, Regina...

you make me want to go back to poetry classes again with Dr.Fozia

I miss those classes so much

thanks for ur contribution

wow as if you know me for years iam found with this kind of poems
the poem told me in my opnion that every one has his own dark side he just need to discover it ...haha sory if it was harsh statment but there was a time when i was strong believer on that but know i do not
thank you for the poem it is really Amazing it also

wow you brok my heart where we can finde a teacher withe a HEART but you know the poem must be hanged in every school and college and university it really show what a teacher a reall one should be