The Young Mans Song

I Whispered, I am too young,
And then, I am old enough;
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might love.
Go and love, go and love, young man,
If the lady be young and fair,
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
I am looped in the loops of her hair.

Oh, love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away,
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon.

William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet, dramatist, prose writer, and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms. Yeats was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and was co-founder of the Abbey Theatre. In 1923, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

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English

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Brown Penny

I Whispered, "I am too young,"
And then, "I am old enough";
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might love.
"Go and love, go and love, young man,
If the lady be young and fair."
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
I am looped in the loops of her hair.
O love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon.

William Butler Yeats

A Song

I Thought no more was needed
Youth to prolong
Than dumb-bell and foil
To keep the body young.
Oh, who could have foretold
That the heart grows old?

Though I have many words,
What womans satisfied,
I am no longer faint
Because at her side?
Oh, who could have foretold
That the heart grows old?

I have not lost desire
But the heart that I had,
I thought twould burn my body
Laid on the death-bed.
But who could have foretold
That the heart grows old?

William Butler Yeats

Two Songs Rewritten For The Tune's Sake

I

My Paistin Finn is my sole desire,
And I am shrunken to skin and bone,
For all my heart has had for its hire
Is what I can whistle alone and alone.
i(Oro, oro.!)
i(Tomorrow night I will break down the door.)
What is the good of a man and he
Alone and alone, with a speckled shin?
I would that I drank with my love on my knee
Between two barrels at the inn.
Oro, oro.!
i(Tomorrow night I will break down the door.)
Alone and alone nine nights I lay
Between two bushes under the rain;
I thought to have whistled her down that
I whistled and whistled and whistled in vain.
i(Oro, oro!)
i(To-morrow night I will break down the door.)


II

I would that I were an old beggar
Rolling a blind pearl eye,
For he cannot see my...

William Butler Yeats

The Three Bushes

Said lady once to lover,
"None can rely upon
A love that lacks its proper food;
And if your love were gone
How could you sing those songs of love?
I should be blamed, young man.
i(O my dear, O my dear.)

Have no lit candles in your room,"
That lovely lady said,
"That I at midnight by the clock
May creep into your bed,
For if I saw myself creep in
I think I should drop dead."
i(O my dear, O my dear.)

"I love a man in secret,
Dear chambermaid," said she.
"I know that I must drop down dead
If he stop loving me,
Yet what could I but drop down dead
If I lost my chastity?
i(O my dear, O my dear.)

"So you must lie beside him
And let him think me there.
And maybe we are all the same
Where no candles are,
An...

William Butler Yeats

A Man Young And Old:- The Friends Of His Youth

Laughter not time destroyed my voice
And put that crack in it,
And when the moons pot-bellied
I get a laughing fit,
For that old Madge comes down the lane,
A stone upon her breast,
And a cloak wrapped about the stone,
And she can get no rest
With singing hush and hush-a-bye;
She that has been wild
And barren as a breaking wave
Thinks that the stones a child.

And Peter that had great affairs
And was a pushing man
Shrieks, I am King of the Peacocks,
And perches on a stone;
And then I laugh till tears run down
And the heart thumps at my side,
Remembering that her shriek was love
And that he shrieks from pride.

William Butler Yeats

A Man Young And Old:- His Wildness

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
Id have a peacock cry,
For that is natural to a man
That lives in memory,
Being all alone Id nurse a stone
And sing it lullaby.

William Butler Yeats

The Young Mans Song

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The Young Mans Song