On Being Asked for a –
Posted by Erin Brown in poetry on November 10, 2010
Â
In anticipation of returning to Ireland after seventeen years, I’ve been reading Yeats again, wondering if I will find the country much changed, as some say it is; wondering, too, what words there are to describe where we are now, in November 2010.
Here is a poem on the virtue of speechlessness.
On Being Asked for a War Poem
I think it better that in times like these
A poet’s mouth be silent, for in truth
We have no gift to set a statesman right;
He has had enough of meddling who can please
A young girl in the indolence of her youth,
Or an old man upon a winter’s night.
From The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)
Categories: poetry | No Comments »
Comments