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. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO A POET, WHO WOULD HAVE ME PRAISE CERTAIN BAD POETS, IMITATORS ... by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS THE RIGS O' BARLEY by ROBERT BURNS ON GEORGE HERBERT'S BOOK, THE TEMPLE, SENT TO A GENTLEWOMAN by RICHARD CRASHAW LIBERTY FOR ALL by WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON THE SONG OF THE SHIRT by THOMAS HOOD WHEN I HEARD AT THE CLOSE OF THE DAY by WALT WHITMAN THE DOVE by ABUL HASAN OF SEVILLE LAURENCE BLOOMFIELD IN IRELAND: 4. BALLYTULLAGH by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM |