An Acre of Grass by W.B. Yeats
1
Picture and book remain,
An acre of green grass
For air and exercize,
Now strength and body goes;
Midnight, an old house
Where nothing stirs but a mouse.
2
My temptation is quiet.
Here at life's end
Neither loose imagination,
Nor the mill of the mind
Consuming its rag and bone
Can make the truth known.
3
Grant me an old man's frenzy,
Myself must I remake
Till I am Timon and Lear
Or that William Blake
Who beat upon the wall
Till Truth obeyed his call;
4
A mind Michael Angelo knew
That can pierce the clouds,
Or inspired by frenzy
Shake the dead in their shrouds;
Forgotten else by mankind,
An old man's eagle mind.
----1936
1
Picture and book remain,
An acre of green grass
For air and exercize,
Now strength and body goes;
Midnight, an old house
Where nothing stirs but a mouse.
2
My temptation is quiet.
Here at life's end
Neither loose imagination,
Nor the mill of the mind
Consuming its rag and bone
Can make the truth known.
3
Grant me an old man's frenzy,
Myself must I remake
Till I am Timon and Lear
Or that William Blake
Who beat upon the wall
Till Truth obeyed his call;
4
A mind Michael Angelo knew
That can pierce the clouds,
Or inspired by frenzy
Shake the dead in their shrouds;
Forgotten else by mankind,
An old man's eagle mind.
----1936