"thread softly because you thread on my dreams"

Lately, I have become mildly fascinated with the intriguing character that was Maud Gonne. Gonne, the ultimate artistic muse perhaps, inspired a great deal of Yeats' poetry including the beautiful but perhaps saccharine "He wishes for the cloths of heaven". To say he was infatuated with her beauty, intelligence and spirit would be an understatement; more aptly he was utterly consumed by Gonne, proposing to her on numerous occassions, to which she refused each time.

I adore this painting of Gonne with her sweet expression and duck egg blue dress by Sarah Purser

The following poem is in memory of Yeats' first meeting with Gonne in 1889.

The Arrow

I thought of your beauty, and this arrow,
Made out of a wild thought, is in my marrow.
There's no man may look upon her, no man,
As when newly grown to be a woman,
Tall and noble but with face and bosom
Delicate in colour as apple blossom.
This beauty's kinder, yet for a reason
I could weep that the old is out of season.