The Fisherman

Although I have been in the old streets, And spoke with the great men of the age, I find their thoughts as but in confusion pass, And am ready among the trees.

Thus, let me be like the fisherman alone, With rocks and waters flowing by umbra lights, Who wanders round his stone, in sinuous tides, And speaks not louder than the whistling of the night.

But ah! that I am oft the bitterness flying by, And witness the dead seize my fruitless praise, Thus wrung by sound and tree, I find no solemn rest; When sunk beneath the bronze and weathered wood, They catch once more the devotion in their ways.

• William Butler Yeats