Poem by William Butler Yeats

When Helen Lived

We have cried in our despair
That men desert,
For some trivial affair
Or noisy, insolent sport,
Beauty that we have won
From bitterest hours;
Yet we, had we walked within
Those topless towers
Where Helen walked with her boy,
Had given but as the rest
Of the men and women of Troy,
A word and a jest.

1. To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing
2. The Three Beggars
3. To a Wealthy Man Who Promised a Second Subscription to the Dublin Municipal Gallery if It Were Proved the People Wanted Pictures
4. The Attack on 'The Playboy of the Western World', 1907
5. The Two Kings

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