Poem by William Butler Yeats

For Anne Gregory

"NEVER shall a young man,
Thrown into despair
By those great honey-coloured
Ramparts at your ear,
Love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.'
"But I can get a hair-dye
And set such colour there,
Brown, or black, or carrot,
That young men in despair
May love me for myself alone
And not my yellow hair.'
"I heard an old religious man
But yesternight declare
That he had found a text to prove
That only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair."

1. The Dedication to a Book of Stories Selected from the Irish Novelists
2. To Ireland in the Coming Times
3. The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner
4. The Pity of Love
5. The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water

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