{
 "id": "w-b-yeats/meditations-in-time-of-civil-war",
 "title": "Meditations in Time of Civil War",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "W. B. Yeats",
 "poet_slug": "w-b-yeats",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Tower",
 "book_slug": "the-tower",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": "The Tower",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1928,
  "venue": "The Tower (1928)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/yeats_thetower_1928"
  ]
 },
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  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-21"
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 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 201,
  "n_stanzas": 24,
  "n_parts": 7,
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 "parts": [
  {
   "ordinal": "I",
   "title": "Ancestral Houses",
   "stanza_range": [
    0,
    5
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "II",
   "title": "My House",
   "stanza_range": [
    5,
    8
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "III",
   "title": "My Table",
   "stanza_range": [
    8,
    9
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "IV",
   "title": "My Descendants",
   "stanza_range": [
    9,
    12
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "V",
   "title": "The Road at My Door",
   "stanza_range": [
    12,
    15
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "VI",
   "title": "The Stare’s Nest by My Window",
   "stanza_range": [
    15,
    19
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "VII",
   "title": "I See Phantoms of Hatred and of the Heart’s Fullness and of the Coming Emptiness",
   "stanza_range": [
    19,
    24
   ]
  }
 ],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Surely among a rich man’s flowering lawns,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Amid the rustle of his planted hills,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Life overflows without ambitious pains;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And rains down life until the basin spills,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And mounts more dizzy high the more it rains",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As though to choose whatever shape it wills",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And never stoop to a mechanical,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or servile shape, at others’ beck and call.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Mere dreams, mere dreams! Yet Homer had not sung",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had he not found it certain beyond dreams",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That out of life’s own self-delight had sprung",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The abounding glittering jet; though now it seems",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As if some marvellous empty sea-shell flung",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Out of the obscure dark of the rich streams,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And not a fountain, were the symbol which",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shadows the inherited glory of the rich.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Some violent bitter man, some powerful man",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Called architect and artist in, that they,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bitter and violent men, might rear in stone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sweetness that all longed for night and day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The gentleness none there had ever known;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But when the master’s buried mice can play,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And maybe the great-grandson of that house,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For all its bronze and marble, ’s but a mouse.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Oh, what if gardens where the peacock strays",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With delicate feet upon old terraces,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or else all Juno from an urn displays",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Before the indifferent garden deities;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh, what if levelled lawns and gravelled ways",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where slippered Contemplation finds his ease",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Childhood a delight for every sense,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But take our greatness with our violence!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "What if the glory of escutcheoned doors,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And buildings that a haughtier age designed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The pacing to and fro on polished floors",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Amid great chambers and long galleries, lined",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With famous portraits of our ancestors;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What if those things the greatest of mankind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Consider most to magnify, or to bless,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But take our greatness with our bitterness!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "An ancient bridge, and a more ancient tower,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A farmhouse that is sheltered by its wall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "An acre of stony ground,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the symbolic rose can break in flower,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Old ragged elms, old thorns innumerable,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sound of the rain or sound",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of every wind that blows;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The stilted water-hen",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Crossing stream again",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Scared by the splashing of a dozen cows;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A winding stair, a chamber arched with stone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A grey stone fireplace with an open hearth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A candle and written page.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Il Penseroso”’s Platonist toiled on",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In some like chamber, shadowing forth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How the daemonic rage",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Imagined everything.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Benighted travellers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From markets and from fairs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have seen his midnight candle glimmering.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Two men have founded here. A man-at-arms",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gathered a score of horse and spent his days",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In this tumultuous spot,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where through long wars and sudden night alarms",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His dwindling score and he seemed cast-a-ways",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Forgetting and forgot;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I, that after me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My bodily heirs may find,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To exalt a lonely mind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Befitting emblems of adversity.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Two heavy tressels, and a board",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where Sato’s gift, a changeless sword,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By pen and paper lies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That it may moralise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My days out of their aimlessness.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A bit of an embroidered dress",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Covers its wooden sheath.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Chaucer had not drawn breath",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When it was forged. In Sato’s house,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Curved like new moon, moon luminous",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It lay five hundred years.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet if no change appears",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No moon; only an aching heart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Conceives a changeless work of art.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our learned men have urged",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That when and where ’twas forged",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A marvellous accomplishment,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In painting or in pottery, went",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From father unto son",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And through the centuries ran",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And seemed unchanging like the sword.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Soul’s beauty being most adored,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Men and their business took",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The soul’s unchanging look;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the most rich inheritor,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Knowing that none could pass heaven’s door",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That loved inferior art,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had such an aching heart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That he, although a country’s talk",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For silken clothes and stately walk,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had waking wits; it seemed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Juno’s peacock screamed.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Having inherited a vigorous mind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From my old fathers I must nourish dreams",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And leave a woman and a man behind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As vigorous of mind, and yet it seems",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Life scarce can cast a fragrance on the wind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Scarce spread a glory to the morning beams,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the torn petals strew the garden plot;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And there’s but common greenness after that.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And what if my descendants lose the flower",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through natural declension of the soul,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through too much business with the passing hour,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through too much play, or marriage with a fool?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May this laborious stair and this stark tower",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Become a roofless ruin that the owl",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May build in the cracked masonry and cry",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her desolation to the desolate sky.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The Primum Mobile that fashioned us",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Has made the very owls in circles move;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I, that count myself most prosperous,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seeing that love and friendship are enough,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For an old neighbour’s friendship chose the house",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And decked and altered it for a girl’s love,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And know whatever flourish and decline",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These stones remain their monument and mine.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "An affable Irregular,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A heavily built Falstaffan man,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Comes cracking jokes of civil war",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As though to die by gunshot were",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The finest play under the sun.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A brown Lieutenant and his men,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Half dressed in national uniform,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stand at my door, and I complain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the foul weather, hail and rain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A pear tree broken by the storm.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I count those feathered balls of soot",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The moor-hen guides upon the stream,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To silence the envy in my thought;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And turn towards my chamber, caught",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the cold snows of a dream.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The bees build in the crevices",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of loosening masonry, and there",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The mother birds bring grubs and flies.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My wall is loosening; honey-bees",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Come build in the empty house of the stare.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We are closed in, and the key is turned",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On our uncertainty; somewhere",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A man is killed, or a house burned,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet no clear fact to be discerned:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Come build in the empty house of the stare.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A barricade of stone or of wood;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some fourteen days of civil war;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Last night they trundled down the road",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That dead young soldier in his blood:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Come build in the empty house of the stare.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We had fed the heart on fantasies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The heart’s grown brutal from the fare,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "More substance in our enmities",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than in our love; oh, honey-bees",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Come build in the empty house of the stare.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I climb to the tower top and lean upon broken stone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A mist that is like blown snow is sweeping over all,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Valley, river, and elms, under the light of a moon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That seems unlike itself, that seems unchangeable,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A glittering sword out of the east. A puff of wind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And those white glimmering fragments of the mist sweep by.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Frenzies bewilder, reveries perturb the mind;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Monstrous familiar images swim to the mind’s eye.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Vengeance upon the murderers,” the cry goes up,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Vengeance for Jacques Molay.” In cloud-pale rags, or in lace,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The rage driven, rage tormented, and rage hungry troop,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Trooper belabouring trooper, biting at arm or at face,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Plunges towards nothing, arms and fingers spreading wide",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the embrace of nothing; and I, my wits astray",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because of all that senseless tumult, all but cried",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For vengeance on the murderers of Jacques Molay.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Their legs long delicate and slender, aquamarine their eyes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Magical unicorns bear ladies on their backs,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ladies close their musing eyes. No prophecies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Remembered out of Babylonian almanacs,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have closed the ladies’ eyes, their minds are but a pool",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where even longing drowns under its own excess;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nothing but stillness can remain when hearts are full",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of their own sweetness, bodies of their loveliness.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The cloud-pale unicorns, the eyes of aquamarine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The quivering half-closed eyelids, the rags of cloud or of lace,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or eyes that rage has brightened, arms it has made lean,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Give place to an indifferent multitude, give place",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To brazen hawks. Nor self-delighting reverie,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor hate of what’s to come, nor pity for what’s gone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nothing but grip of claw, and the eye’s complacency,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The innumerable clanging wings that have put out the moon.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I turn away and shut the door, and on the stair",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wonder how many times I could have proved my worth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In something that all others understand or share;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But oh, ambitious heart had such a proof drawn forth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A company of friends, a conscience set at ease,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It had but made us pine the more. The abstract joy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The half read wisdom of daemonic images,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Suffice the ageing man as once the growing boy.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}