THE
PERNICIOUS HYPOCRISY
OF FRANK RICH

Addendum 1
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"Lapis Lazuli"
by
William Butler Yeats
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......................................................................I have heard that hysterical women say
......................................................................They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow.
......................................................................Of poets that are always gay,
......................................................................For everybody knows or else should know
......................................................................That if nothing drastic is done
......................................................................Aeroplane and Zeppelin will come out.
......................................................................Pitch like King Billy bomb-balls in
......................................................................Until the town lie beaten flat.

......................................................................All perform their tragic play,
......................................................................There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,
......................................................................That's Ophelia, that Cordelia;
......................................................................Yet they, should the last scene be there,
......................................................................The great stage curtain about to drop,
......................................................................If worthy their prominent part in the play,
......................................................................Do not break up their lines to weep.
......................................................................They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;
......................................................................Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.
......................................................................All men have aimed at, found and lost;
......................................................................Black out; Heaven blazing into the head:
......................................................................Tragedy wrought to its uttermost.
......................................................................Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages,
......................................................................And all the drop-scenes drop at once
......................................................................Upon a hundred thousand stages,
......................................................................It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.

......................................................................On their own feet they came, or On shipboard,
......................................................................Camel-back; horse-back, ass-back, mule-back,
......................................................................Old civilisations put to the sword.
......................................................................Then they and their wisdom went to rack:
......................................................................No handiwork of Callimachus,
......................................................................Who handled marble as if it were bronze,
......................................................................Made draperies that seemed to rise
......................................................................When sea-wind swept the corner, stands;
......................................................................His long lamp-chimney shaped like the stem
......................................................................Of a slender palm, stood but a day;
......................................................................All things fall and are built again,
......................................................................And those that build them again are gay.

......................................................................Two Chinamen, behind them a third,
......................................................................Are carved in Lapis Lazuli,
......................................................................Over them flies a long-legged bird,
......................................................................A symbol of longevity;
......................................................................The third, doubtless a serving-man,
......................................................................Carries a musical instrument.

......................................................................Every discoloration of the stone,
......................................................................Every accidental crack or dent,
......................................................................Seems a water-course or an avalanche,
......................................................................Or lofty slope where it still snows
......................................................................Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch
......................................................................Sweetens the little half-way house
......................................................................Those Chinamen climb towards, and I
......................................................................Delight to imagine them seated there;
......................................................................There, on the mountain and the sky,
......................................................................On all the tragic scene they stare.
......................................................................One asks for mournful melodies;
......................................................................Accomplished fingers begin to play.
......................................................................Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,
......................................................................Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.
............................................................................................................................................(1938)


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