He Tells of the Perfect Beauty
love
art & creativity
lyric poem
gentle
intimate
O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes, The poets labouring all their days To build a perfect beauty in rhyme Are overthrown by a woman's gaze And by the unlabouring brood of the skies: And therefore my heart will bow, when dew Is dropping sleep, until God burn time, Before the unlabouring stars and you.
He Tells of the Perfect Beauty - meaning Summary
Beauty Surpasses Art
The poem contrasts the poet’s lifelong craft with effortless, natural beauty. Yeats presents a woman’s gaze and the unlabouring stars as forces that overthrow the poets’ carefully built ideal. The speaker accepts humility and reverence—bowing at dew-dropped dusk—suggesting surrender to immediate, uncrafted loveliness that renders poetic striving secondary, while invoking a cosmic scale when he asks God to "burn time."
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