The Golden Age is a nostalgicically-themed poem written by William Butler Yeats that reflects on the loss of innocence and the passing of time. The poem describes a time in the past that is now gone, and the speaker longs for a return to the simplicity and joy of that era.
The poem begins by setting the scene, describing a time when the world was "new and golden" and "all things seem'd alive." The speaker reminisces about this time, recalling how everything was full of "delight" and "mirth." The speaker describes the world as being full of "familiar" and "simple" pleasures, such as singing and dancing.
As the poem progresses, the speaker reflects on how the world has changed since this Golden Age. The speaker notes that the world is now "old and cold," and that "all things now seem dead." The speaker laments the loss of innocence and simplicity, and longs for a return to the carefree days of the past.
Despite the sadness of the poem, there is also a sense of hope and longing for the return of the Golden Age. The speaker speaks of how the world could be "new and golden" once again, if only people could find a way to return to the joy and simplicity of the past. The poem ends on a hopeful note, with the speaker stating that "all things shall be mended" and that the world will be "new and golden" once more.
Overall, The Golden Age is a poignant and nostalgicically-themed poem that reflects on the loss of innocence and the passing of time. The speaker longs for a return to a simpler, more joyful time, and expresses hope that the world can be "new and golden" once again.
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In vain doth Heaven, while Gold thus rules the earth, With generous instincts sow the soul at birth. Cease to contend with upstart Wealth's parade, To wring your lands to vie with tricks of trade; And, proudly spurning Glitter's transient lies, At least be honest, if you can't be wise! All mankind could attain to supreme blessedness. And though you ransacked worlds from shore to shore, From sea to sky, you could not give me more. This resulted in the War of Power and eventually the Breaking of the World. But what avails, if Fortune quits his side? The Million now is King. Nor they alone, the shallow, base, and gay, Bend to this Idol with the feet of clay: Statesmen and soldiers kneel with flattering suit, Kings are his guests, e'en queens his cheeks salute; Senates extol him, supple priests caress, And even thou, O Pius, stoop'st to bless! The Roman poet Translation: Now the last age by Cumae's Sibyl sung Has come and gone, and the majestic roll Of circling centuries begins anew: Astraea returns, Returns old Saturn's reign, With a new breed of men sent down from heaven.
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Ostensibly about agriculture, the Georgics are in fact a complex allegory about how man's alterations of nature through works are related to good and bad government. Although Virgil does not mention the Golden Age by name in the Georgics, he does refer in them to a time of primitive communism before the reign of The Golden Age was first; when Man, yet new, No rule but uncorrupted Reason knew: And, with a native bent, did good pursue. No longer now the tiller of the soil Sees his fair fields the lusty robber's spoil; No timid burgher now grows rich by stealth, Lest some rude noble swoop upon his wealth; The quiet citizen no longer fears A raid upon his money or his ears, That local turmoil or imperial strife Will wreck his home or leave him bare for life. Worship your household gods, and spend at home The solid earnings of the generous loam. Lo, where huge London, huger day by day, O'er six fair counties spreads its hideous sway, A tract there lies by Fortune's favours blest, And at Fame's font yclept the happy West. See how he sinks! Where shall it be? Meanwhile his compeers, started in the race, Are swiftly marching on to power and place.
Retrieved 11 March 2017. To-day, he wanders feverish and depressed, As though whole Andes weighed upon his breast. And if that doom-the best that could betide- Be to our Fame by envious Fate denied, Then come, primeval clouds and seasons frore, And wrap in gloom our luckless land once more! Unless, indeed-for this too hath been known- All-grasping Greed hath made that mite its own, Filched from the widow her last hopes of bread, And whom it ruined living, plunders dead! Calm was the Air, no Winds blew fierce and loud, The Skie was dark'ned with no sullen Cloud; But all the Heav'ns laugh'd with continued Light, And scattered round their Rays serenely bright. Futile to ask if London suits her health- Would you consult her doctor, not her wealth? One makes a coup, and weds a wife of rank; Another's junior partner in a bank. But, in their place, crabbed Calculation scrawled Symbols which shocked and figures that appalled.
Slowly, but, ah, too surely doth she find That poets' tales no longer rule mankind; That Peace is homeless as the hunted hare, And Love far less a shelter than a snare; That godlike Valour meets a demon's doom, Whilst Prudence prospers even from the tomb; That Youth, save schooled in Mammon's miry ways, Groans o'er the lapse of unrequited days; That Beauty, Genius, all are vain and cold, Till foully touched and fertilised by Gold. And yet how weak this Empire girt with gold Did prove to save when Battle's torrents rolled, Have we not seen in ruin, rout, and shame, Burnt deep in Gaul's for ever broken fame? For him whose thews are sound, whose vision clear, Whose purpose firm, the Golden Age is here. Who but the learned and dull moral fool Could gravely have foreseen, man ought to live by rule? In vain they now would sway who lately served, And Riot cows Authority unnerved. Thine is the bait, as loveless hearths avouch, Which drags fresh victims to the venal couch; Thine the foul traps wherewith our ways are rife, That lure them first, then close upon their life; Thine, thine the springes, set in regions fair, Whose unseen nooses strangle whom they snare; The cynic glory thine to lie in wait To make men little who had else been great, Frustrate our plenty, aggravate our dearth, And keep eternal feud 'twixt Heaven and Earth! Be these his aims, or, nobler still, to train His kind to mutiny till Virtue reign, Soon doth he learn to count his lovely schemes A host of bubbles in a world of dreams. He was content with audience fit, though few, When to his side the cunning demon drew.
Love, with no charms except its own to lure, Was swiftly answered by a love as pure. Far in the future lurked maternal throes, And children blossomed painless as the rose. The Envious Net, and stinted order hold, The lovely Curls of Jet and shining Gold; No more neglected on the Shoulders hurl'd: Now drest to Tempt, not gratify the World: Thou, Miser Honour, hord'st the sacred store, And starv'st thy self to keep thy Votaries poor. The flowry Meads, the Rivers and the Groves, Were fill'd with little Gay-wing'd Loves: That ever smil'd and danc'd and Play'd, And now the woods, and now the streames invade, And where they came all things were gay and glad: When in the Myrtle Groves the Lovers sat Opprest with a too fervent heat; A Thousands Cupids fann'd their wings aloft, And through the Boughs the yielded Ayre would waft: Whose parting Leaves discovered all below, And every God his own soft power admir'd, And smil'd and fann'd, and sometimes bent his Bow; Where e'er he saw a Shepherd uninspir'd. In one brief hour behold him curled and drest, And borne on wings of fashion to the West! Who with the Muse would live must live on air.
The Golden Age: Poems of the Spanish Renaissance by Edith Grossman
That you don't want to live if I'm not in your arms. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. When gallant Denmark, now the spoiler's prey, Flashed her bright blade, and faced the unequal fray, And, all abandoned both by men and gods, Fell, faint with wounds, before accursèd odds,- Where, where was England's vindicating sword, Her promised arm, to stay the invading horde; Bid the rude German drop his half-clutched spoil, And scare the robber from ancestral soil? Aphra Behn was the first women in England to earn a living as a writer. But in the mire of venal fight embroiled, Have we not seen the noblest scutcheons soiled? The work has endured to the present day as a landmark in world literary history, and it was an immediate international hit in its own time, interpreted variously as a satirical comedy, social commentary and forbearer of self-referential literature. The loss of one was hailed as others' gain, And pleasure took unnatural birth from pain.
Retrieved 15 December 2014. Astrolabe the French Pleiad! By five, a world of reasons will be found. Perhaps the ingenuous boy would fain recall Tintoret's canvas, Memmi's fresco'd wall; With godlike pencil purify the mart, And life ennoble with the breath of Art. If Gold Acrisius' Tower of Brass could flout, How will the playground shut the monster out? For single life learning is well enough, But marriage should be made of sterner stuff. Let us go down in glory, as we rose! Ofttimes would ruthless winds or torrents raze The ripening fruit of toilsome nights and days.
A modest house, from urban jars removed, By thrist selected, yet by taste approved; Whose walls are gay with every sweet that blows, Whose windows scented by the blushing rose; Whose chambers few to no fine airs pretend, Yet never are too full to greet a friend; A garden plot, whither unbidden come Bird's idle pipe and bee's laborious hum; Smooth-shaven lawn, whereon in pastime's hours The mallet rings within a belt of flowers; A leafy nook where to enjoy at will Gibbon's rich prose or Shakespeare's wizard quill; A neighbouring copse wherein the stock-doves coo, And a wild stream unchecked sings all day through; Two clean bright stalls, where midday, night, and morn, Two good stout roadsters champ their well-earned corn; A few learned shelves from modern rubbish free, Yet always, Mill, with just a place for Thee; Head ne'er at dawn by clownish bouts obscured, And limbs by temperate exercise inured; A few firm friendships made in early life, Yet doubly fastened by a pleasant wife; A wholesome board, a draught of honest wine;- This is true wealth; and this, thank Heaven, is mine! The Little White Bird. O, who shall tell Olympia's tale aright, Each splendid day, each miserable night; Her thirst divine by human draughts but slaked, Her smiling face whilst the heart sorely ached, Or note the edge whence one we loved so well To sweet, seductive, base perdition fell? He wrote lyrics as well as music, such as this fine song from 1591: Harke, al you Ladies that do sleep ; The fayry queen Proserpina Bids you awake and pitie them that weep. I rank him among the truly great poets of our tongue and often thought "To Autumn" about as close to perfect a poem may come. Enter those realms, and what do we behold? The happy tidings, spreading through the West, Fires each maternal mercenary breast. Those fopperies of the gown were then not known, Those vain, those politic curbs to keep man in, Who by a fond mistake created that a sin Which freeborn we, by right of Nature claim our own.
There, as by wizard touch, for miles on miles, Rise squares, streets, crescents of palatial piles. Their blooming boys, for whom parental hope So oft had cast the fairest horoscope, And seen with fond anticipating eyes Each proud successive civic honour rise, Torn from their noble studies, have to crave From base pursuits the pittance of a slave, Pour the soul's wine into the body's sieve, And grand life lose in mean attempts to live. New blood is wanted. But, health apart, 'tis known that Croesus' wife, If left to choose, prefers a country life. You doat on Flower-shows: Croesus has a bone. Sure Lilian there will glow In gorgeous newness decked from top to toe; Shall it be said that Claribel did less? Leave them but these, the gamblers come to call, Nor heed an Empire nodding to its fall! Nor time nor tide will wait. See the poor father, who for years has toiled, At one fell stroke of all his store despoiled.
Behold, to-morrow in the Royal smile Will bask the birth and wealth of all the Isle. A Paraphrase on a Translation out of French. Retrieved 3 July 2022. It begins: Weep you no more, sad fountains; What need you flow so fast? Let cravens straight their impotence confess, And sell their birthright for a filthy mess; In flowers see, bee-like, nought but stuff for hives, And for foul lucre prostitute their lives; They have not failed who never once have tried, Or, if they failed, they failed for want of pride. Alone she weeps; but should she chance to hear Her husband's steps, she hides the furtive tear; Follows his movements with an anxious dread, Studies his brow, and scans his restless tread; Assails his woe with every female wile, Prattles of hope, and simulates a smile. Then among streams and flowers The little wingèd powers Went singing carols without torch or bow; The nymphs and shepherds sat 30 Mingling with innocent chat Sports and low whispers; and with whispers low, Kisses that would not go. Well, now's an end! Doth towering Might some poor faint Cause oppress, They bid her turn, impartial, from distress; Indulge her tears, but hide her ire from sight, Lest a like doom her angry front invite.
