All Things Can Tempt Me
ALL things can tempt me from this craft of verse:
One time it was a woman’s face, or worse—
The seeming needs of my fool-driven land;
Now nothing but comes readier to the hand
Than this accustomed toil. When I was young,
I had not given a penny for a song
Did not the poet sing it with such airs
That one believed he had a sword upstairs;
Yet would be now, could I but have my wish,
Colder and dumber and deafer than a fish.
William Butler Yeats
What plaintive cry is this we hear
rent from a one we all hold dear,
who’s back at his ancestral manse
to do a little shuffle dance
with life — or its resisted end —
which daily seems but ’round a bend,
and yet might be a long ways off,
and so to you our hats we doff,
as well to dear HV and Mack,
who for a stellar son don’t lack.
“Be of good cheer!”, the blogship sends,
Know that your hearts are held by friends.
Comment by adam — April 17, 2006 @ 7:14 am
Me: “Let me read Adam’s response to the poem we posted yesterday.”
HV: “Oooo, isn’t that beautiful. Adam, that’s practically tear-jerking.”
Comment by michael — April 17, 2006 @ 7:52 am