Poem by Delmore Schwartz

* * *

Yeats died Saturday in France.
Freedom from his animal
Has come at last in alien Nice,
His heart beat separate from his will:
He knows at last the old abyss
Which always faced his staring face.

No ability, no dignity
Can fail him now who trained so long
For the outrage of eternity,
Teaching his heart to beat a song
In which man's strict humanity,
Erect as a soldier, became a tongue.

1. Cambridge, Spring 1937
2. Phoenix Lyrics
3. Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day
4. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

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