{
 "id": "w-b-yeats/in-memory-of-major-robert-gregory",
 "title": "In Memory of Major Robert Gregory",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "W. B. Yeats",
 "poet_slug": "w-b-yeats",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Wild Swans at Coole",
 "book_slug": "the-wild-swans-at-coole-1919",
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 "sequence": 1,
 "container": "The Wild Swans at Coole",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1919,
  "venue": "The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
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  "sources": [
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  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
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  [
   {
    "text": "Now that we’re almost settled in our house",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’ll name the friends that cannot sup with us",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beside a fire of turf in th’ ancient tower,",
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   },
   {
    "text": "And having talked to some late hour",
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   },
   {
    "text": "Climb up the narrow winding stair to bed:",
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   },
   {
    "text": "Discoverers of forgotten truth",
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   },
   {
    "text": "Or mere companions of my youth,",
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   },
   {
    "text": "All, all are in my thoughts to-night, being dead.",
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  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Always we’d have the new friend meet the old",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And we are hurt if either friend seem cold,",
    "indent": 0
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   {
    "text": "And there is salt to lengthen out the smart",
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   {
    "text": "In the affections of our heart,",
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   },
   {
    "text": "And quarrels are blown up upon that head;",
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   {
    "text": "But not a friend that I would bring",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This night can set us quarrelling,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For all that come into my mind are dead.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Lionel Johnson comes the first to mind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That loved his learning better than mankind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though courteous to the worst; much falling he",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Brooded upon sanctity",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till all his Greek and Latin learning seemed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A long blast upon the horn that brought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A little nearer to his thought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A measureless consummation that he dreamed.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And that enquiring man John Synge comes next",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That dying chose the living world for text",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And never could have rested in the tomb",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But that, long travelling, he had come",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Towards nightfall upon certain set apart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In a most desolate stony place,",
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   },
   {
    "text": "Towards nightfall upon a race",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Passionate and simple like his heart.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And then I think of old George Pollexfen,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In muscular youth well known to Mayo men",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For horsemanship at meets or at race-courses,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That could have shown how purebred horses",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And solid men, for all their passion, live",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But as the outrageous stars incline",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By opposition, square and trine;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Having grown sluggish and contemplative.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They were my close companions many a year,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A portion of my mind and life, as it were,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And now their breathless faces seem to look",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Out of some old picture-book;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I am accustomed to their lack of breath,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But not that my dear friend’s dear son,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our Sidney and our perfect man,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Could share in that discourtesy of death.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For all things the delighted eye now sees",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were loved by him; the old storm-broken trees",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That cast their shadows upon road and bridge;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The tower set on the stream’s edge;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ford where drinking cattle make a stir",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nightly, and startled by that sound",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The water-hen must change her ground;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He might have been your heartiest welcomer.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "When with the Galway foxhounds he would ride",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From Castle Taylor to the Roxborough side",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or Esserkelly plain, few kept his pace;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At Mooneen he had leaped a place",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So perilous that half the astonished meet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had shut their eyes, and where was it",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He rode a race without a bit?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And yet his mind outran the horses’ feet.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We dreamed that a great painter had been born",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To cold Clare rock and Galway rock and thorn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To that stern colour and that delicate line",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That are our secret discipline",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wherein the gazing heart doubles her might.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Soldier, scholar, horseman, he,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And yet he had the intensity",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To have published all to be a world’s delight.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "What other could so well have counselled us",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In all lovely intricacies of a house",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As he that practised or that understood",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All work in metal or in wood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In moulded plaster or in carven stone?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Soldier, scholar, horseman, he,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all he did done perfectly",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As though he had but that one trade alone.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Some burn damp fagots, others may consume",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The entire combustible world in one small room",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As though dried straw, and if we turn about",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The bare chimney is gone black out",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because the work had finished in that flare.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Soldier, scholar, horseman, he,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As ’twere all life’s epitome.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What made us dream that he could comb grey hair?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I had thought, seeing how bitter is that wind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That shakes the shutter, to have brought to mind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All those that manhood tried, or childhood loved",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or boyish intellect approved,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With some appropriate commentary on each;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Until imagination brought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A fitter welcome; but a thought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of that late death took all my heart for speech.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}