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1865–1939

II

William Butler Yeats

Has no one said those daring Kind eyes should be more learn'd? Or warned you how despairing The moths are when they are burned,

I could have warned you, but you are young, So we speak a different tongue. O you will take whatever's offered And dream that all the world's a friend,

Suffer as your mother suffered, Be as broken in the end. But I am old and you are young, And I speak a barbarous tongue.

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II · William Butler Yeats · Poetry Cove