A Man Young And Old: X. His Wildness

Portrait of William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats 1865–1939

O bid me mount and sail up there Amid the cloudy wrack, For peg and Meg and Paris' love That 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 hear I'd have a peacock cry, For that is natural to a man That lives in memory, Being all alone I'd nurse a stone And sing it lullaby.

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