King and No King

by William Butler Yeats

    ‘Would it were anything but merely voice!’
    The No King cried who after that was King,
    Because he had not heard of anything
    That balanced with a word is more than noise;
    Yet Old Romance being kind, let him prevail
    Somewhere or somehow that I have forgot,
    Though he’d but cannon, Whereas we that had thought
    To have lit upon as clean and sweet a tale
    Have been defeated by that pledge you gave
    In momentary anger long ago;
    And I that have not your faith, how shall I know
    That in the blinding light beyond the grave
    We’ll find so good a thing as that we have lost?
    The hourly kindness, the day’s common speech,
    The habitual content of each with each
    When neither soul nor body has been crossed.