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.