Sligo, Leonard Cohen Recites W.B.Yeats, Lissadell House, july 31st , 2010

William Butler Yeats was born on the 13th of June 1865 in Dublin but spent much of his childhood in Sligo. Above Leonard recites a verse of "In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz". With thanks to youtube and the guy who loaded.



In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz

The light of evening, Lissadell
Great windows open to the south,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.
But a raving autumn shears
Blossom from the summer's wreath;
The older is condemned to death,
Pardoned, drags out lonely years
Conspiring among the ignorant.
I know not what the younger dreams--

Some vague Utopia--and she seems,
When withered old and skeleton-gaunt,
An image of such politics.
Many a time I think to speak
Of that old Georgian mansion, mix
Pictures of the mind, recall
That table and the talk of youth,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.

Dear shadows, now you know it all,
All the folly of a fight
With a common wrong or right.
The innocent and the beautiful
Have no enemy but time;
Arise and bid me strike a match
And strike another till time catch;
Should the conflagration climb,
Run till all the sages know.
We the great gazebo built,
They convicted us of guilt;
Bid me strike a match and blow.

W. B. Yeats