{"id":9,"date":"2005-09-18T23:03:07","date_gmt":"2005-09-19T04:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/astra\/2005\/09\/18\/to-love-you-in-the-old-high-way-of-love"},"modified":"2005-09-18T23:03:07","modified_gmt":"2005-09-19T04:03:07","slug":"to-love-you-in-the-old-high-way-of-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/astra\/2005\/09\/18\/to-love-you-in-the-old-high-way-of-love\/","title":{"rendered":"To love you in the old high way of love…"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

\nYeats to Maud Gonne:<\/p>\n


\nWe sat together at one summer’s end,<\/span>

\nThat beautiful mild woman, your close friend,<\/span>

\nAnd you and I, and talked of poetry.<\/span>

\nI said, ‘A line will take us hours maybe;<\/span>

\nYet if it does not seem a moment’s thought,<\/span>

\nOur stitching and unstitching has been naught.<\/span>

\nBetter go down upon your marrow-bones<\/span>

\nAnd scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones<\/span>

\nLike an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;<\/span>

\nFor to articulate sweet sounds together<\/span>

\nIs to work harder than all these, and yet<\/span>

\nBe thought an idler by the noisy set<\/span>

\nOf bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen<\/span>

\nThe martyrs call the world.’<\/span><\/p>\n


\nAnd thereupon<\/span>

\nThat beautiful mild woman for whose sake<\/span>

\nThere’s many a one shall find out all heartache<\/span>

\nOn finding that her voice is sweet and low<\/span>

\nReplied, ‘To be born woman is to know-<\/span>

\nAlthough they do not talk of it at school-<\/span>

\nThat we must labour to be beautiful.’<\/span><\/p>\n


\nI said, ‘It’s certain there is no fine thing<\/span>

\nSince Adam’s fall but needs much labouring.<\/span>

\nThere have been lovers who thought love should be<\/span>

\nSo much compounded of high courtesy<\/span>

\nThat they would sigh and quote with learned looks<\/span>

\nPrecedents out of beautiful old books;<\/span>

\nYet now it seems an idle trade enough.’<\/span><\/p>\n


\nWe sat grown quiet at the name of love;<\/span>

\nWe saw the last embers of daylight die,<\/span>

\nAnd in the trembling blue-green of the sky<\/span>

\nA moon, worn as if it had been a shell<\/span>

\nWashed by time’s waters as they rose and fell<\/span>

\nAbout the stars and broke in days and years.<\/span><\/p>\n


\nI had a thought for no one’s but your ears:<\/span>

\nThat you were beautiful, and that I strove<\/span>

\nTo love you in the old high way of love;<\/span>

\nThat it had all seemed happy, and yet we’d grown<\/span>

\nAs weary-hearted as that hollow moon.<\/span><\/p>\n

– W.B. Yeats, “Adam’s Curse”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yeats to Maud Gonne: We sat together at one summer’s end, That beautiful mild woman, your close friend, And you and I, and talked of poetry. I said, ‘A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought, Our stitching and unstitching has been naught. Better go down upon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":745,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/astra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/astra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/astra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/astra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/745"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/astra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/astra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/astra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/astra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/astra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}