Literature Network » William Butler Yeats

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From: The Washington Post
Date: 19971221
Author:Robert Hass

PROBABLY the best-known modern poem about the Nativity story is one by the Irish poet William Butler Yeats: THE MAGI

Now, as at all times I can see in the mind's eye, In their stiff, painted clothes the pale unsatisfied ones Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones, With all their helms of silver hovering side by side, And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more, Being by Calvary's turbulence unsatisfied, The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor. This comes from his book Responsibilities, published in 1914. He ...

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