WE sat together at one summer's end, <br />That beautiful mild woman, your close friend, <br />And you and I, and talked of poetry. <br />I said, 'A line will take us hours maybe; <br />Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought, <br />Our stitching and unstitching has been naught. <br />Better go down upon your marrow-bones <br />And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones <br />Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather; <br />For to articulate sweet sounds together <br />Is to work harder than all these, and yet <br />Be thought an idler by the noisy set <br />Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen <br />The martyrs call the world.' <br />And thereupon <br />That beautiful mild woman for whose sake <br />There's many a one shall find out all heartache <br />On finding that her voice is sweet and low <br />Replied, 'To be born woman is to know -- <br />Although they do not talk of it at school -- <br />That we must labour to be beautiful.' <br />I said, 'It's certain there is no fine thing <br />Since Adam's fall but needs much labouring. <br />There have been lovers who thought love should be <br />So much compounded of high courtesy <br />That they would sigh and quote with learned looks <br />precedents out of beautiful old books; <br />Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.' <br />We sat grown quiet at the name of love; <br />We saw the last embers of daylight die, <br />And in the trembling blue-green of the sky <br />A moon, worn as if it had been a shell <br />Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell <br />About the stars and broke in days and years. <br />I had a thought for no one's but your ears: <br />That you were beautiful, and that I strove <br />To love you in the old high way of love; <br />That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown <br />As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.<br /><br />William Butler Yeats<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/adam-s-curse/
