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A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Before The World Was Made

William Butler Yeats

If I make the lashes dark 
And the eyes more bright
And the lips more scarlet,
Or ask if all be right
From mirror after mirror,
No vanity’s displayed:
I’m looking for the face I had
Before the world was made.

What if I look upon a man
As though on my beloved,
And my blood be cold the while
And my heart unmoved?
Why should he think me cruel
Or that he is betrayed?
I’d have him love the thing that was
Before the world was made.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From The Winding Stair and Other Poems | 1933
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