FOR ANNE GREGORY - WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS (Poet)
Before you read
This poem is a conversation between a young man and a young woman. What are they arguing about?
Poet
William Butler Yeats (1865 –1939) was an Irish nationalist. He was educated in London and Dublin, and was interested in folklore and mythology. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.
Poem
“Never shall a young man,
Thrown into despair
By those great honey-coloured
Ramparts at your ear,
Love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.”
“But I can get a hair-dye
And set such colour there,
Brown, or black, or carrot,
That young men in despair May love me for myself alone
And not my yellow hair.”
“I heard an old religious man
But yesternight declare
That he had found a text to prove
That only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.”
Source: This topic is taken from NCERT TEXTBOOK