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Home  »  Responsibilities and Other Poems  »  21. The Mountain Tomb

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939). Responsibilities and Other Poems. 1916.

21. The Mountain Tomb

POUR wine and dance if Manhood still have pride,

Bring roses if the rose be yet in bloom;

The cataract smokes upon the mountain side,

Our Father Rosicross is in his tomb.

Pull down the blinds, bring fiddle and clarionet

That there be no foot silent in the room

Nor mouth from kissing, nor from wine unwet;

Our Father Rosicross is in his tomb.

In vain, in vain; the cataract still cries

The everlasting taper lights the gloom;

All wisdom shut into his onyx eyes

Our Father Rosicross sleeps in his tomb.