William Butler Yeats. The Thorn Tree. Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912-22

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22.

The Thorn Tree

By William Butler Yeats


SHE is foremost of those that I would hear praised.
I have gone about the house, gone up and down
As a man does who has published a new book
Or a young girl dressed out in her new gown,
And though I have turned the talk by hook or crook	5
Until her praise should be the uppermost theme,
A woman spoke of some new tale she had read;
A man—so vaguely that he seemed to dream—
Of some strange woman’s name that ran in his head.

She is foremost of those that I would hear praised.	10
I will talk no more of books or the long war,
But walk by the dry thorn until I have found
Some beggar sheltering from the wind, and there
If there be rags enough he will know her name
And be well pleased remembering it, for in the old days,	15
Though she had young men’s praise and old men’s blame,
Among the poor both old and young gave her praise.