Byzantium

The unpurged images of day recede;
The Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed;
Night resonance recedes, night walkers' song
After great cathedral gong;
A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains
All that man is
All mere complexities
The fury and the mire of human veins

Before me floats an image, man or shade
Shade more than man, more image than a shade;
For Hades' bobbin bound in mummy-cloth
May unwind the winding path;
A mouth that has no moisture and no breath
Breathless mouths may summon;
I hail the superhuman;
I call it death-in-life and life-in-death

Miracle, bird or golden handiwork
More miracle than bird or handiwork
Planted on the star-lit golden bough
Can like the cocks of Hades crow
Or, by the moon embittered, scorn aloud
In glory of changeless metal
Common bird or petal
And all complexities of mire or blood

At midnight on the Emperor's pavement flit
Flames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit
Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame
Where blood-begotten spirits come
And all complexities of fury leave
Dying into a dance
An agony of trance
An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve

Astraddle on the dolphin's mire and blood
Spirit after Spirit! The smithies break the flood
The golden smithies of the Emperor!
Marbles of the dancing floor
Break bitter furies of complexity
Those images that yet
Fresh images beget
That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea