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A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

A Man Young And Old: X. His Wildness

William Butler Yeats

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.
Online text © 1998-2009 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From The Tower | 1928
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