He Thinks of His Past Greatness When a Part of the Constellations of Heaven (by W.B. Yeats)

File:William Butler Yeat by George Charles Beresford.jpg
Yeats [by George Charles Beresford, 1911]


He Thinks of His Past Greatness When
a Part of the Constellations of Heaven
by William Butler Yeats
from The Wind Among the Reeds (London: Elkin Mathews, 1899)

I have drunk ale from the Country of the Young
And weep because I know all things now:
I have been a hazel-tree and they hung
The Pilot Star and the Crooked Plough
Among my leaves in times out of mind:
I became a rush that horses tread:
I became a man, a hater of the wind,
Knowing one, out of all things, alone, that his head
Would not lie on the breast or his lips on the hair
Of the woman that he loves, until he dies.
O beast of the wilderness, bird of the air,
Must I endure your amorous cries? 

 
 
 
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