W.B. Yeats

Anyone who has taken college English or highschool should be familiar with this OG daddy. A poem entitled; the long legged fly by W.B. Yeats.

"THAT civilisation may not sink, Its great battle lost, Quiet the dog, tether the pony To a distant post; Our master Caesar is in the tent Where the maps are spread, His eyes fixed upon nothing, A hand under his head. Like a long-legged fly upon the stream His mind moves upon silence.

That the topless towers be burnt And men recall that face, Move most gently if move you must In this lonely place. She thinks, part woman, three parts a child, That nobody looks; her feet Practise a tinker shuffle Picked up on a street. Like a long-legged fly upon the stream Her mind moves upon silence.

That girls at puberty may find The first Adam in their thought, Shut the door of the Pope's chapel, Keep those children out. There on that scaffolding reclines Michael Angelo. With no more sound than the mice make His hand moves to and fro. Like a long-legged fly upon the stream His mind moves upon silence. "

In all those scenes he portrayed for us, each their own greatness, with Caeser the great commander, Helen the beautiful dancer, or Michael Angelo painting in the Chapel, each was essentially pondering/reflecting seemingly nothing. Reminescent of listening to what I'm producing over and over and over..

The supreme act of creation, the genius of mind, moves outside its own awareness – becomes like the long legged fly that moves upon the stream or the the source of being and mind. It must not be observed lest the mind too, become aware of itself, and so slip from the supple surface of its contemplation. The beautiful metaphor of the fly upon the stream is Yeats’ expression of true genius – the state in which great art is produced. Though the maps are spread before him, Caesar gazes on nothing.

peace