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1865–1939

THE LIVING BEAUTY

William Butler Yeats

I'll say and maybe dream I have drawn content — Seeing that time has frozen up the blood, The wick of youth being burned and the oil spent — From beauty that is cast out of a mould

In bronze, or that in dazzling marble appears, Appears, and when we have gone is gone again, Being more indifferent to our solitude Than‘ twere an apparition. O heart, we are old,

The living beauty is for younger men, We cannot pay its tribute of wild tears.

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THE LIVING BEAUTY · William Butler Yeats · Poetry Cove