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Yeats

 
William Butler Yeats
1865-1939

"John Kinsella's Lament
for Mrs. Mary Moore"

 
A bloody and a sudden end,
     Gunshot or a noose,
For Death who takes what man would keep,
     Leaves what man would lose.
He might have had my sister,
     My cousins by the score,
But nothing satisfied the fool
     But my dear Mary Moore,
None other knows what pleasures man
     At table or in bed.
What shall I do for pretty girls
Now my old bawd is dead?

Though stiff to strike a bargain
     Like an old Jew man,
Her bargain stuck we laughed and talked
     And emptied many a can;
And O! but she had stories,
     Though not for the priest's ear,
To keep the soul of man alive,
     Banish age and care,
And being old she put a skin
     On everything she said.
What shall I do for pretty girls
Now my old bawd is dead?

The priests have got a book that says
     But for Adam's sin
Eden's Garden would be there
     And I there within.
No expectation fails there,
     No pleasing habit ends,
No man grows old, no girl grows cold,
     But friends walk by friends.
Who quarrels over halfpennies
     That plucks the trees for bread?
What shall I do for pretty girls
Now my old bawd is dead?

 

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