Another Song of a Fool - a poem by W. B. Yeats

For the, hopefully, quiet summer days, here is one of William Butler Yeats' perhaps lesser known poems, provided here by virtue of it being lesser known.


Another Song of a Fool

This great purple butterfly,
In the prison of my hands,
Has a learning in his eye
Not a poor fool understands.

Once he lived a schoolmaster
With a stark, denying look;
A string of scholars went in fear
Of his great birch and his great book.

Like the clangour of a bell,
Sweet and harsh, harsh and sweet,
That is how he learnt so well
To take the roses for his meat.

- From The Wild Swans at Coole, 1919