The First. My great-grandfather spoke to Edmund Burke <br />In Grattan's house. <br />The Second. My great-grandfather shared <br />A pot-house bench with Oliver Goldsmith once. <br />The Third. My great-grandfather's father talked of music, <br />Drank tar-water with the Bishop of Cloyne. <br />The Fourth. But mine saw Stella once. <br />The Fifth. Whence came our thought? <br />The Sixth. From four great minds that hated Whiggery. <br />The Fifth. Burke was a Whig. <br />The Sixth. Whether they knew or not, <br />Goldsmith and Burke, Swift and the Bishop of Cloyne <br />All hated Whiggery; but what is Whiggery? <br />A levelling, rancorous, rational sort of mind <br />That never looked out of the eye of a saint <br />Or out of drunkard's eye. <br />The Seventh. All's Whiggery now, <br />But we old men are massed against the world. <br />The First. American colonies, Ireland, France and India <br />Harried, and Burke's great melody against it. <br />The Second. Oliver Goldsmith sang what he had seen, <br />Roads full of beggars, cattle in the fields, <br />But never saw the trefoil stained with blood, <br />The avenging leaf those fields raised up against it. <br />The Fourth. The tomb of Swift wears it away. <br />The Third. A voice <br />Soft as the rustle of a reed from Cloyne <br />That gathers volume; now a thunder-clap. <br />The Sixtb. What schooling had these four? <br />The Seventh. They walked the roads <br />Mimicking what they heard, as children mimic; <br />They understood that wisdom comes of beggary.<br /><br />William Butler Yeats<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-seven-sages/
