The Poem Adam’s Curse By W. B. Yeats

 

 Poem

Adam’s  Curse

By  W. B. Yeats  

 

We sat together at  one summer’s end.

That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,

And you and I, and talked a poetry.

 I said, ‘ a line will take us hours may be;

Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought,

Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.

 

Better go down upon your marrow –bones

And scurb a kitchen pavement; or break stones

Like an old pauper , in all kinds of weather,

 

For to articulate sweet sounds together

Is to work harder than all these, and yet

Be thought an idler by the noisy set

Of  bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen

The martyrs call the world.’

And thereupon

That beautiful mild women for whose sake

There is many a one shall find out all heartache

On finding that her voice is sweet and low

Replied, ‘ To  be born women is to know-

Although they do not talk of it at school-

That we  must labour to be beautiful.’

 

I said ‘it’s  certain there is no fine thing

 Since adams fall but needs much laboring.

There have been lovers who thought love should be

So much compounded of  high courtesy

That they would sigh and quote with learned looks

Precedents out of beautiful old books

Yet now it seems and idle trade enough.’

 

We sat grown quiet at the name of love;

We saw  the last embers of daylight die,

And in the trembling blue green of the sky

A moon, worn as if it had been a shell

Washed by time’s waters as they rose and fell

About the stars and broke in the days and years.

 

 I had a thought for no one’s but your ears:

That you were beautiful, and I strove

To love you in the old highway of love;

That it had all seemed happy, and yet we would grown

As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.