William Butler Yeats
1865 - 1939


Speech after long silence; it is right,
All other lovers being estranged or dead,
Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade,
The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night,
That we descant and yet again descant
Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song:
Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young
We loved each other and were ignorant.
Yeats in 1933, unknown photographer, Library of Congress

From The Winding Stair and Other Poems, 1933


Keats: Endymion (Book 1 excerpt)    home    library    Lapis Lazuli

posted 22 July 2010