SHE is foremost of those that I would hear praised. <br />I have gone about the house, gone up and down <br />As a man does who has published a new book, <br />Or a young girl dressed out in her new gown, <br />And though I have turned the talk by hook or crook <br />Until her praise should be the uppermost theme, <br />A woman spoke of some new tale she had read, <br />A man confusedly in a half dream <br />As though some other name ran in his head. <br />She is foremost of those that I would hear praised. <br />I will talk no more of books or the long war <br />But walk by the dry thorn until I have found <br />Some beggar sheltering from the wind, and there <br />Manage the talk until her name come round. <br />If there be rags enough he will know her name <br />And be well pleased remembering it, for in the old days, <br />Though she had young men's praise and old men's blame, <br />Among the poor both old and young gave her praise.<br /><br />William Butler Yeats<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/her-praise/
