Responsibilities; and other poems

Excerpt: ...(Imitated from Ronsard) Dear Craoibhin Aoibhin, look into our case. When we are high and airy hundreds say That if we hold that flight they'll leave the place, While those same hundreds mock another day Because we have made our art of common things, So bitterly, you'd dream they longed to look All their lives through into some drift of wings. You've dandled them and fed them from the book 109 And know them to the bone; impart to us- We'll keep the secret-a new trick to please. Is there a bridle for this Proteus That turns and changes like his draughty seas? Or is there none, most popular of men, But when they mock us that we mock again? 110 THESE ARE THE CLOUDS These are the clouds about the fallen sun, The majesty that shuts his burning eye; The weak lay hand on what the strong has done, Till that be tumbled that was lifted high And discord follow upon unison, And all things at one common level lie. And therefore, friend, if your great race were run And these things came, so much the more thereby Have you made greatness your companion, 111 Although it be for children that you sigh: These are the clouds about the fallen sun, The majesty that shuts his burning eye. 112 AT GALWAY RACES There where the course is, Delight makes all of the one mind, The riders upon the galloping horses, The crowd that closes in behind: We, too, had good attendance once, Hearers and hearteners of the work; Aye, horsemen for companions, Before the merchant and the clerk Breathed on the world with timid breath. Sing on: sometime, and at some new moon, We'll learn that sleeping is not death, Hearing the whole earth change its tune, Its flesh being wild, and it again Crying aloud as the race course is, And we find hearteners among men That ride upon horses. 113 A FRIEND'S ILLNESS Sickness brought me this Thought, in that scale of his: Why should I be dismayed Though flame had burned the whole World, as it were a coal, Now I have seen it weighed Against a soul?...