When youth was life and life was youth <br />and life was love and love was life, <br />I thought love came and went; <br />its coming, overwhelming; and its going, <br />death of spirit; then, as if <br />the wild white swans had flown away <br />and left the waters of the heart’s lake cold. <br /> <br />But now I know it’s not like that: <br />love that, guarded, never flies from here in heart <br />to where it will, may grow dark, cold and miserly; <br />ungiven every livelong day <br />it turns to rags and dry old bones, <br />confiscated in the heart. <br /> <br />Better now, be with those wild white swans <br />which on a dark cold icy winter’s day <br />gather at the water’s edge to stretch <br />for yesterday’s warm loaf still fresh; <br />then turn, swim, lift strong wings and fly <br />one knows not where, and may not ask; <br /> <br />watch them then, into the distance; <br />hear the flap of wings grow into silent air; <br />pause still a little while; <br />then turn, one’s living breath <br />white in that winter air; <br />then back to warmth of home and love and peat fire <br />glowing in the hearth of heart renewed.<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-thought-after-yeats/
