The Wild Swans At Coole

 THE trees are in their autumn beauty,

 The woodland paths are dry,

 Under the October twilight the water

 Mirrors a still sky;

 Upon the brimming water among the stones

 Are nine-and-fifty Swans.

 The nineteenth autumn has come upon me

 Since I first made my count;

 I saw, before I had well finished,

 All suddenly mount

 And scatter wheeling in great broken rings

 Upon their clamorous wings.

 I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,

 And now my heart is sore.

 All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,

 The first time on this shore,

 The bell-beat of their wings above my head,

 Trod with a lighter tread.

 Unwearied still, lover by lover,

 They paddle in the cold

 Companionable streams or climb the air;

 Their hearts have not grown old;

 Passion or conquest, wander where they will,

 Attend upon them still.

 But now they drift on the still water,

 Mysterious, beautiful;

 Among what rushes will they build,

 By what lake’s edge or pool

 Delight men’s eyes when I awake some day

 To find they have flown away?

-W.B. Yeats (1865-1939) 
		

A Prayer For Old Age

GOD guard me from those thoughts men think

In the mind alone;

He that sings a lasting song

Thinks in a marrow-bone;

From all that makes a wise old man

That can be praised of all;

O what am I that I should not seem

For the song’s sake a fool?

I pray - for word is out

And prayer comes round again -

That I may seem, though I die old,

A foolish, passionate man. 

-W.B. Yeats (1865-1939)