to a mocking bird

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 10/28/06 at 12:18pm

Is there a bridle for this Proteus
That turns and changes like his draughty seas?
Or is there none, most popular of men,
But when they mock us that we mock again?

from "At the Abbey Theatre"
(Imitated from Ronsard)
W.B. Yeats (1865–1939)

[Fiction Writer]

Posted: 10/28/06 at 12:39pm

Thank you for sharing such a delightful little poem.

I have no idea what it means.

[StageManager2]

Posted: 10/28/06 at 12:41pm

FW: How can you find it delightful, if you don't know what it means?

[Fiction Writer]

Posted: 10/28/06 at 12:42pm

I dunno.

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 10/28/06 at 1:07pm

"The Irish poets had also, it may be, what seemed a supernatural sanction, for a chief poet had to understand not only innumerable kinds of poetry, but how to keep himself for nine days In a trance. Surely they believed or half-believed in the historical reality of their wildest imaginations."

W.B.Yeats
from the Preface to
CUCHULAIN OF MUIRTHEMNE
THE STORY OF THE MEN OF THE RED BRANCH OF ULSTER;
ARRANGED AND PUT INTO ENGLISH BY LADY GREGORY

(Lady Augusta Gregory was born at Roxborough, County Galway, Ireland, in 1859. For many years she participated, like Yeats, in various revivals of Irish lore and literature, and in the creation of a national theater and drama. Together with Yeats and other collaborators, she helped found the Irish National Theater Society, and served as manager of the Abbey Theater in Dublin.) see
http://www.theatredatabase.com/20th_century/lady_gregory_001.html

(and notice the seven year discrepancy in her date of birth from the top line there, tee hee)
CUCHULAIN OF MUIRTHEMNE