W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright
His Dream http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1509/ <br class="br">The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910) <br class="br">Context: I swayed upon the gaudy stern<br>The butt-end of a steering-oar,<br>And saw wherever I could turn<br>A crowd upon a shore.<br>And though I would have hushed the crowd,<br>There was no mother's son but said,<br>'What is the figure in a shroud<br>Upon a gaudy bed?'<br>And after running at the brim<br>Cried out upon that thing beneath<br>--It had such dignity of a limb--<br>By the sweet name of Death.<br>Though I'd my finger on my lip,<br>What could I but take up the song?<br>And running crowd and gaudy ship<br>Cried out the whole night long,<br>Crying amid the glittering sea,<br>Naming it with the ecstatic breath,<br>Because it had such dignity,<br>By the sweet name of Death.