Lapis Lazuli
By William Butler Yeats
(for Harry Clifton)
Dm/A Amaj7 F Am7
I have heard that hysterical women say
Cmaj7 Bbmaj7 Am7
They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow,
Dm/A Amaj7 F Am7
Of poets that are always gay,
Cmaj7 Bbmaj7 Am7
For everybody knows or else should know
Gm7 C Am7 Dm
That if nothing drastic is done
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Aeroplane and Zeppelin will come out,
Gm7 C Am7 Dm
Pitch like King Billy bomb-balls in
Gm7 Am Bb C
Until the town lie beaten flat.
All perform their tragic play,
There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,
That's Ophelia, that Cordelia;
Yet they, should the last scene be there,
The great stage curtain about to drop,
If worthy their prominent part in the play,
Do not break up their lines to weep.
They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;
Em Bm Em Bm
Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.
C F B7
All men have aimed at, found and lost;
C D Em Am
Black out; Heaven blazing into the head:
C G Am7
Tragedy wrought to its uttermost.
Em Bm Em Bm
Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages,
C F B7
And all the drop scenes drop at once
C D Em Am
Upon a hundred thousand stages,
C G B7
It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.
On their own feet they came, or on shipboard,
Camel-back, horse-back, ass-back, mule-back,
Old civilisations put to the sword.
Then they and their wisdom went to rack:
No handiwork of Callimachus
Who handled marble as if it were bronze,
Made draperies that seemed to rise
When sea-wind swept the corner, stands;
His long lamp chimney shaped like the stem
Of a slender palm, stood but a day;
All things fall and are built again
And those that build them again are gay.
Two Chinamen, behind them a third,
Are carved in Lapis Lazuli,
Over them flies a long-legged bird
A symbol of longevity;
The third, doubtless a serving-man,
Carries a musical instrument.
Every discolouration of the stone,
Every accidental crack or dent
Seems a water-course or an avalanche,
Or lofty slope where it still snows
Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch
Sweetens the little half-way house
Those Chinamen climb towards, and I
Delight to imagine them seated there;
There, on the mountain and the sky,
On all the tragic scene they stare.
One asks for mournful melodies;
Accomplished fingers begin to play.
Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,
Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.
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