W.B.Yeats - AT ALGECIRAS

The Winding Stairs and Other Poems

AT ALGECIRAS -- A MEDITATION UPON DEATH

THE heron-billed pale cattle-birds
That feed on some foul parasite
Of the Moroccan flocks and herds
Cross the narrow Straits to light
In the rich midnight of the garden trees
Till the dawn break upon those mingled seas.

Often at evening when a boy
Would I carry to a friend --
Hoping more substantial joy
Did an older mind commend --
Not such as are in Newton's metaphor,
But actual shells of Rosses' level shore.

Greater glory in the Sun,
An evening chill upon the air,
Bid imagination run
Much on the Great Questioner;
What He can question, what if questioned I
Can with a fitting confidence reply.