52. All Things can tempt me. Yeats, W. B. 1916. Responsibilities and Other Poems

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939). Responsibilities and Other Poems. 1916.

52. All Things can tempt me

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,	5
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.	10