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Title: Cuchulain The Girl And The Fool
Author: William Butler Yeats [
More Titles by Yeats]
THE GIRL.
I am jealous of the looks men turn on you
For all men love your worth; and I must rage
At my own image in the looking-glass
That's so unlike myself that when you praise it
It is as though you praise another, or even
Mock me with praise of my mere opposite;
And when I wake towards morn I dread myself
For the heart cries that what deception wins
My cruelty must keep; and so begone
If you have seen that image and not my worth.
CUCHULAIN.
All men have praised my strength but not my worth.
THE GIRL.
If you are no more strength than I am beauty
I will find out some cavern in the hills
And live among the ancient holy men,
For they at least have all men's reverence
And have no need of cruelty to keep
What no deception won.
CUCHULAIN.
I have heard them say
That men have reverence for their holiness
And not their worth.
THE GIRL.
God loves us for our worth;
But what care I that long for a man's love.
THE FOOL BY THE ROADSIDE.
When my days that have
From cradle run to grave
From grave to cradle run instead;
When thoughts that a fool
Has wound upon a spool
Are but loose thread, are but loose thread;
When cradle and spool are past
And I mere shade at last
Coagulate of stuff
Transparent like the wind,
I think that I may find
A faithful love, a faithful love.
[The end]
William Butler Yeats's poem: Cuchulain The Girl And The Fool
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