The Song of the Old Mother by William Butler Yeats. Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. 1895. A Victorian Anthology, 1837-1895

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

The Song of the Old Mother

William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)


I RISE in the dawn, and I kneel and blow
Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow.
And then I must scrub, and bake, and sweep,
Till stars are beginning to blink and peep;
But the young lie long and dream in their bed	5
Of the matching of ribbons, the blue and the red,
And their day goes over in idleness,
And they sigh if the wind but lift up a tress;
While I must work, because I am old
And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold.	10