'WHAT have I earned for all that work,' I said, <br />'For all that I have done at my own charge? <br />The daily spite of this unmannerly town, <br />Where who has served the most is most defaned, <br />The reputation of his lifetime lost <br />Between the night and morning. I might have lived, <br />And you know well how great the longing has been, <br />Where every day my footfall Should have lit <br />In the green shadow of Ferrara wall; <br />Or climbed among the images of the past -- <br />The unperturbed and courtly images -- <br />Evening and morning, the steep street of Urbino <br />To where the Duchess and her people talked <br />The stately midnight through until they stood <br />In their great window looking at the dawn; <br />I might have had no friend that could not mix <br />Courtesy and passion into one like those <br />That saw the wicks grow yellow in the dawn; <br />I might have used the one substantial right <br />My trade allows: chosen my company, <br />And chosen what scenery had pleased me best. <br />Thereon my phoenix answered in reproof, <br />'The drunkards, pilferers of public funds, <br />All the dishonest crowd I had driven away, <br />When my luck changed and they dared meet my face, <br />Crawled from obscurity, and set upon me <br />Those I had served and some that I had fed; <br />Yet never have I, now nor any time, <br />Complained of the people.' <br />All I could reply <br />Was: 'You, that have not lived in thought but deed, <br />Can have the purity of a natural force, <br />But I, whose virtues are the definitions <br />Of the analytic mind, can neither close <br />The eye of the mind nor keep my tongue from speech.' <br />And yet, because my heart leaped at her words, <br />I was abashed, and now they come to mind <br />After nine years, I sink my head abashed.<br /><br />William Butler Yeats<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-people/
