The Poetry Corner

All Things Can Tempt Me

By William Butler Yeats

All things can tempt me from this craft of verse: One time it was a womans face, or worse, The seeming needs of my fool-driven land; Now nothing but comes readier to the hand Than this accustomed toil. When I was young, I had not given a penny for a song Did not the poet sing it with such airs That one believed he had a sword upstairs; Yet would be now, could I but have my wish, Colder and dumber and deafer than a fish.