(a meditation on the poem of the 
same title by W.B.Yeats)

A woman, her love, is like a white
feathered one; far-seeing gull or royal swan
or more, for beauty, the tender dove,
entrusted to a vale swooped beneath the storm:
the furrow of a ploughed field below the blasts.
And there she bides, unnoticed, no-one has noticed
how long. As in her place as a stone in mud
yet, astounded, humbled is he who at last
begs all of heaven to defend the field
where to his growing surprise has alighted
that loveliness.

Nestless the fair precious shell
smoothly bemuses like a bright 
intimation of homecoming spring.
Beyond and above bland fanfare she'll arise 
imperceptibly as widened truth
free of restless condition with light of the day,
warmth of the sun, calming of woes.
This sure loveliness.