The Tower (Yeats)/A Man Young and Old
A MAN YOUNG AND OLD
FIRST LOVEThough nurtured like the sailing moonIn beauty's murderous brood,She walked awhile and blushed awhileAnd on my pathway stoodUntil I thought her body boreA heart of flesh and blood.
But since I laid a hand thereonAnd found a heart of stoneI have attempted many thingsAnd not a thing is done,For every hand is lunaticThat travels on the moon.
She smiled and that transfigured meAnd left me but a lout, Maundering here, and maundering there,Emptier of thoughtThan heavenly circuit of its starsWhen the moon sails out.
HUMAN DIGNITYLike the moon her kindness is,If kindness I may callWhat has no comprehension in't,But is the same for allAs though my sorrow were a sceneUpon a painted wall.
So like a bit of stone I lieUnder a broken tree.I could recover if I shriekedMy heart's agonyTo passing bird, but I am dumbFrom human dignity.
THE MERMAIDA mermaid found a swimming lad,Picked him for her own,Pressed her body to his body,Laughed; and plunging downForgot in cruel happinessThat even lovers drown.
THE DEATH OF THE HAREI have pointed out the yelling pack,The hare leap to the wood,And when I pass a complimentRejoice as lover shouldAt the drooping of an eyeAt the mantling of the blood.
Then suddenly my heart is wrungBy her distracted airAnd I remember wildness lostAnd after, swept from there,Am set down standing in the woodAt the death of the hare.
THE EMPTY CUPA crazy man that found a cup,When all but dead of thirst,Hardly dared to wet his mouthImagining, moon accursed,That another mouthfulAnd his beating heart would burst.October last I found it tooBut found it dry as bone,And for that reason am I crazedAnd my sleep is gone.
HIS MEMORIESWe should be hidden from their eyes,Being but holy showsAnd bodies broken like a thornWhereon the bleak north blows,To think of buried HectorAnd that none living knows.
The women take so little stockIn what I do or sayThey'd sooner leave their cossetingTo hear a jackass bray;My arms are like the twisted thornAnd yet there beauty lay;
The first of all the tribe lay thereAnd did such pleasure take—She who had brought great Hector downAnd put all Troy to wreck—That she cried into this earStrike me if I shriek.
THE FRIENDS OF HIS YOUTHLaughter not time destroyed my voiceAnd put that crack in it,And when the moon's pot-belliedI get a laughing fit, For that old Madge comes down the laneA stone upon her breast,And a cloak wrapped about the stone,And she can get no restWith singing hush and hush-a-bye;She that has been wildAnd barren as a breaking waveThinks that the stone's a child.And Peter that had great affairsAnd was a pushing manShrieks 'I am King of the Peacocks,'And perches on a stone;And then I laugh till tears run downAnd the heart thumps at my side,Remembering that her shriek was loveAnd that he shrieks from pride.
SUMMER AND SPRINGWe sat under an old thorn-treeAnd talked away the night,Told all that had been said or doneSince first we saw the light, And when we talked of growing upKnew that we'd halved a soulAnd fell the one in t'other's armsThat we might make it whole;Then Peter had a murdering lookFor it seemed that he and sheHad spoken of their childish daysUnder that very tree.O what a bursting out there was,And what a blossoming,When we had all the summer timeAnd she had all the spring.
THE SECRETS OF THE OLDI have old women's secrets nowThat had those of the young;Madge tells me what I dared not thinkWhen my blood was strong,And what had drowned a lover onceSounds like an old song.
Though Margery is stricken dumbIf thrown in Madge's way,We three make up a solitude;For none alive to-dayCan know the stories that we knowOr say the things we say:
How such a man pleased women mostOf all that are gone,How such a pair loved many yearsAnd such a pair but one,Stories of the bed of strawOr the bed of down.
HIS WILDNESSO bid me mount and sail up thereAmid the cloudy wrack,For Peg and Meg and Paris' loveThat had so straight a back,Are gone away, and some that stay,Have changed their silk for sack.
Were I but there and none to hearI'd have a peacock cryFor that is natural to a manThat lives in memory,Being all alone I'd nurse a stoneAnd sing it lullaby.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1930.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1939, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 85 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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