28 November 2022

a radical innocence

1 comment

taiji heartwork said...

Considering that, all hatred driven hence,
The soul recovers radical innocence
And learns at last that it is self-delighting,
Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,
And that its own sweet will is Heaven’s will;
She can, though every face should scowl
And every windy quarter howl
Or every bellows burst, be happy still.

WB Yeats, from A Prayer For My Daughter, 1919

earlier in the poem there is the astonishing line:

Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.