Yeats' Hanzo Steel

Two heavy trestles, and a board

Where Sato's gift, a changeless sword,

By pen and paper lies,

That it may moralise

5My days out of their aimlessness.

A bit of an embroidered dress

Covers its wooden sheath.

Chaucer had not drawn breath

When it was forged. In Sato's house,

10Curved like new moon, moon-luminous,

It lay five hundred years.

Yet if no change appears

No moon; only an aching heart

Conceives a changeless work of art.

15Our learned men have urged

That when and where 'twas forged

A marvellous accomplishment,

In painting or in pottery, went

From father unto son

20And through the centuries ran

And seemed unchanging like the sword.

Soul's beauty being most adored,

Men and their business took

Me soul's unchanging look;

25For the most rich inheritor,

Knowing that none could pass Heaven's door

That loved inferior art,

Had such an aching heart

That he, although a country's talk

30For silken clothes and stately walk,

Had waking wits; it seemed

Juno's peacock screamed.