The Wild Swans at Coole. William Butler Yeats

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      What other could so well have counselled us

      In all lovely intricacies of a house

      As he that practised or that understood

      All work in metal or in wood,

      In moulded plaster or in carven stone?

      Soldier, scholar, horseman, he,

      And all he did done perfectly

      As though he had but that one trade alone.

      Some burn damp fagots, others may consume

      The entire combustible world in one small room

      As though dried straw, and if we turn about

      The bare chimney is gone black out

      Because the work had finished in that flare.

      Soldier, scholar, horseman, he,

      As 'twere all life's epitome.

      What made us dream that he could comb grey hair?

      I had thought, seeing how bitter is that wind

      That shakes the shutter, to have brought to mind

      All those that manhood tried, or childhood loved,

      Or boyish intellect approved,

      With some appropriate commentary on each;

      Until imagination brought

      A fitter welcome; but a thought

      Of that late death took all my heart for speech.

      I know that I shall meet my fate

      Somewhere among the clouds above;

      Those that I fight I do not hate

      Those that I guard I do not love;

      My country is Kiltartan Cross,

      My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,

      No likely end could bring them loss

      Or leave them happier than before.

      Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,

      Nor public man, nor angry crowds,

      A lonely impulse of delight

      Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

      I balanced all, brought all to mind,

      The years to come seemed waste of breath,

      A waste of breath the years behind

      In balance with this life, this death.

      I am worn out with dreams;

      A weather-worn, marble triton

      Among the streams;

      And all day long I look

      Upon this lady's beauty

      As though I had found in book

      A pictured beauty,

      Pleased to have filled the eyes

      Or the discerning ears,

      Delighted to be but wise,

      For men improve with the years;

      And yet and yet

      Is this my dream, or the truth?

      O would that we had met

      When I had my burning youth;

      But I grow old among dreams,

      A weather-worn, marble triton

      Among the streams.

      Would I could cast a sail on the water

      Where many a king has gone

      And many a king's daughter,

      And alight at the comely trees and the lawn,

      The playing upon pipes and the dancing,

      And learn that the best thing is

      To change my loves while dancing

      And pay but a kiss for a kiss.

      I would find by the edge of that water

      The collar-bone of a hare

      Worn thin by the lapping of water,

      And pierce it through with a gimlet and stare

      At the old bitter world where they marry in churches,

      And laugh over the untroubled water

      At all who marry in churches,

      Through the white thin bone of a hare.

      'Although I'd lie lapped up in linen

      A deal I'd sweat and little earn

      If I should live as live the neighbours,'

      Cried the beggar, Billy Byrne;

      'Stretch bones till the daylight come

      On great-grandfather's battered tomb.'

      Upon a grey old battered tombstone

      In Glendalough beside the stream,

      Where the O'Byrnes and Byrnes are buried,

      He stretched his bones and fell in a dream

      Of sun and moon that a good hour

      Bellowed and pranced in the round tower;

      Of golden king and silver lady,

      Bellowing up and bellowing round,

      Till toes mastered a sweet measure,

      Mouth mastered a sweet sound,

      Prancing round and prancing up

      Until they pranced upon the top.

      That golden king and that wild lady

      Sang till stars began to fade,

      Hands gripped in hands, toes close together,

      Hair spread on the wind they made;

      That lady and that golden king

      Could like a brace of blackbirds sing.

      'It's certain that my luck is broken,'

      That rambling jailbird Billy said;

      'Before nightfall I'll pick a pocket

      And snug it in a feather-bed,

      I cannot find the peace of home

      On great-grandfather's battered tomb.'

      Sang Solomon to Sheba,

      And kissed her dusky face,

      'All day long from mid-day

      We have talked in the one place,

      All day long from shadowless noon

      We have gone round and round

      In the narrow theme of love

      Like an old horse in a pound.'

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