Via a quote in a link...

[packbat]

        THE OLD MEN ADMIRING THEMSELVES IN THE WATER

        by: William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

            I heard the old, old men say,
            "Everything alters,
            And one by one we drop away."
            They had hands like claws, and their knees
            Were twisted like the old thorn-trees
            By the waters.
            "All that's beautiful drifts away
            Like the waters."

- from In the Seven Woods, 1903.

(Quoted in "And So To Fade Away" by Ken Arneson, linked by pecunium a while ago. Text was copy-pasted from The Poetry Archive.)

Comments

[chanlemur.livejournal.com]

Yeats is good. I haven't read much of him; I probably ought to.

[packbat.livejournal.com]

Poetry in general is a hit-or-miss endeavor for me - for my part I'm planning to keep track of poems I like when I find them, rather than spend too much time hunting.

I like Aedh wishes for the Cloths of Heaven (http://www.bartleby.com/146/36.html), though, and The Wild Swans at Coole (http://www.bartleby.com/148/1.html) used to be a favorite.

[chanlemur.livejournal.com]

Yeah, those are nice. I'm afraid I'm not much of an informed critic, mind you.

[packbat.livejournal.com]

Oh, hardly anyone is. 'Sides, remember Wordsworth's adage:

One request I must make of my reader, which is, that in judging these poems he would decide by his own feelings genuinely, and not by reflection upon what will probably be the judgment of others. How common is it to hear a person say, I myself do not object to this style of composition, or this or that expression, but to such and such classes of people it will appear mean or ludicrous! This mode of criticism, so destructive of all sound unadulterated judgment, is almost universal: let the reader then abide, independently, by his own feelings, and, if he finds himself affected, let him not suffer such conjectures to interfere with his pleasure.
- Wordsworth's preface to Lyrical Ballads, qtd. in Forms of Verse, pg. 36

[chanlemur.livejournal.com]

Despite my implied sentiment above, I very much agree with Mr. Wordsworth, but it's good to have it set out in such an authoritative tone. And yes, I realize how ridiculous it is to say that I enjoy having an authoritative speaker tell me about the dangers of the authoritative approach to criticism.

[packbat.livejournal.com]

Relax - authoritative sources don't really count as authoritative when they're obviously shilling their own wares. ^_^