All perform their tragic play, There struts Hamlet, there is Lear, That’s Ophelia, that Cordelia. - William Butler Yeats

Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood,
But joy is wisdom,
Time an endless song.
I kiss you and the world begins to fade.

We have fallen in the dreams the ever-living
Breathe on the tarnished mirror of the world,
And then smooth out with ivory hands and sigh.

Now all the truth is out,
Be secret and take defeat
From any brazen throat,
For how can you compete,
Being honour bred, with one
Who, were it proved he lies,
Were neither shamed in his own
Nor in his neighbours’ eyes?
Bred to a harder thing
Than Triumph, turn away
And like a laughing string
Whereon mad fingers play
Amid a place of stone,
Be secret and exult,
Because of all things known
That is most difficult.