Poem by William Butler Yeats

The Rose of Battle

  Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!
  The tall thought-woven sails, that flap unfurled
  Above the tide of hours, trouble the air,
  And God's bell buoyed to be the water's care;
  While hushed from fear, or loud with hope, a band
  With blown, spray-dabbled hair gather at hand.
  _Turn if you may from battles never done_,
  I call, as they go by me one by one,
  _Danger no refuge holds; and war no peace,
  For him who hears love sing and never cease,
  Beside her clean-swept hearth, her quiet shade:
  But gather all for whom no love hath made
  A woven silence, or but came to cast
  A song into the air, and singing past
  To smile on the pale dawn; and gather you
  Who have sought more than is in rain or dew
  Or in the sun and moon, or on the earth,_
  _Or sighs amid the wandering, starry mirth,
  Or comes in laughter from the sea's sad lips
  And wage God's battles in the long gray ships.
  The sad, the lonely, the insatiable,
  To these Old Night shall all her mystery tell;
  God's bell has claimed them by the little cry
  Of their sad hearts, that may not live nor die._

  Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!
  You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled
  Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring
  The bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing.
  Beauty grown sad with its eternity
  Made you of us, and of the dim gray sea.
  Our long ships loose thought-woven sails and wait,
  For God has bid them share an equal fate;
  And when at last defeated in His wars,
  They have gone down under the same white stars,
  We shall no longer hear the little cry
  Of our sad hearts, that may not live nor die.

1. The Lover Tells of the Rose in His Heart
2. The Rose of the World
3. The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water
4. The Rose of Peace
5. For Anne Gregory

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