These Are the Clouds / W.B. Yeats

These Are the Clouds

These are the clouds about the fallen sun,
The majesty that shuts his burning eye:
The weak lay hand on what the strong has done,
Till that be tumbled that was lifted high
And discord follow upon unison,
And all things at one common level lie.
And therefore, friend, if your great race were run
And these things came, So much the more thereby
Have you made greatness your companion,
Although it be for children that you sigh:
These are the clouds about the fallen sun,
The majesty that shuts his burning eye.

---
W.B. Yeats (1865-1939)
from The Green Helmet, and other poems , 1910

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

W.B. Yeats biography