Cuchulain The Girl And The Fool

By William Butler Yeats

THE GIRL.

I am jealous of the looks men turn on you

For all men love your worth; and I must rage

At my own image in the looking-glass

That’s so unlike myself that when you praise it

It is as though you praise another, or even

Mock me with praise of my mere opposite;

And when I wake towards morn I dread myself

For the heart cries that what deception wins

My cruelty must keep; and so begone

If you have seen that image and not my worth.


CUCHULAIN.

All men have praised my strength but not my worth.


THE GIRL.

If you are no more strength than I am beauty

I will find out some cavern in the hills

And live among the ancient holy men,

For they at least have all men’s reverence

And have no need of cruelty to keep

What no deception won.


CUCHULAIN.

I have heard them say

That men have reverence for their holiness

And not their worth.


THE GIRL.

God loves us for our worth;

But what care I that long for a man’s love.


THE FOOL BY THE ROADSIDE.

When my days that have

From cradle run to grave

From grave to cradle run instead;

When thoughts that a fool

Has wound upon a spool

Are but loose thread, are but loose thread;


When cradle and spool are past

And I mere shade at last

Coagulate of stuff

Transparent like the wind,

I think that I may find

A faithful love, a faithful love.