Make of this what you will...

When You Are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.



No Second Troy

Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great,
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?

--William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)


Samuel Taylor Coleridge, is the only other classic poet I like... author of such notables as Kubla Khan, The Second Coming, and Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

"For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise."

--Samuel Taylor Coleridge -- Kubla Khan

"To stand within The Pleasure Dome
Decreed by Kubla Khan
To taste anew the fruits of life
The last immortal man
To find the sacred river Alph
To walk the caves of ice
Oh, I will dine on honey dew
And drink the milk of Paradise"

--Neal Peart, Rush -- Xanadu

Now, I ask you all... What would the world be without poetry?