You gave, but will not give again <br />Until enough of paudeen's pence <br />By Biddy's halfpennies have lain <br />To be 'some sort of evidence', <br />Before you'll put your guineas down, <br />That things it were a pride to give <br />Are what the blind and ignorant town <br />Imagines best to make it thrive. <br />What cared Duke Ercole, that bid <br />His mummers to the market-place, <br />What th' onion-sellers thought or did <br />So that his plautus set the pace <br />For the Italian comedies? <br />And Guidobaldo, when he made <br />That grammar school of courtesies <br />Where wit and beauty learned their trade <br />Upon Urbino's windy hill, <br />Had sent no runners to and fro <br />That he might learn the shepherds' will <br />And when they drove out Cosimo, <br />Indifferent how the rancour ran, <br />He gave the hours they had set free <br />To Michelozzo's latest plan <br />For the San Marco Library, <br />Whence turbulent Italy should draw <br />Delight in Art whoSe end is peace, <br />In logic and in natural law <br />By sucking at the dugs of Greece. <br />Your open hand but shows our loss, <br />For he knew better how to live. <br />Let paudeens play at pitch and toss, <br />Look up in the sun's eye and give <br />What the exultant heart calls good <br />That some new day may breed the best <br />Because you gave, not what they would, <br />But the right twigs for an eagle's nest!<br /><br />William Butler Yeats<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-a-wealthy-man-who-promised-a-second-subscript/
