«When You Are Old»

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

William B. YEATS

«Lavdi i saj»

Ajo është pikësëpari nga ato që dua t’i lëvdojnë.
I kam ardhur rreth shtëpisë, shkuar poshtë e lart
Siç shkon njeriu që një libër ka botuar,
Apo një vajzë e re që një fustan të ri mbart;
E ndonëse bisedën me hir a pahir e kam drejtuar
Ku tema kryesore të bëhej lavdi i saj
Një grua prapë për përralla ka dashur të fliste,
Apo një burrë hutimthi të ëndërronte pastaj,
Sikur një tjetër emër ndër mend i shkonte e vinte.
Ajo është pikësëpari nga ato që dua t’i lëvdojnë.
S’do të flas më për libra a luftën e gjatë
Por do të ec nëpër ferrat e thata derisa të takoj
Një lypës strehuar nga era dhe me atë të ngratë
Të bëj çmos të dal ku emrin e saj të shqiptoj.
Sa të ketë leckamanë, emrin kanë për t’ia mësuar
Dhe do t’kënaqen të kujtojnë se në kohë të largëta,
Ndonëse të rinjtë e patën lëvduar e pleqtë fajësuar,
Mes të varfërve, si pleq e të rinj, i thurnin lëvdata.

William Butler YEATS

«Among School Children»

I

I walk through the long schoolroom questioning;
A kind old nun in a white hood replies;
The children learn to cipher and to sing,
To study reading-books and histories,
To cut and sew, be neat in everything
In the best modern way—the children's eyes
In momentary wonder stare upon
A sixty year old smiling public man.

II

I dream of a Ledæan body, bent
Above a sinking fire, a tale that she
Told of a harsh reproof, or trivial event
That changed some childish day to tragedy—
Told, and it seemed that our two natures blent
Into a sphere from youthful sympathy,
Or else, to alter Plato's parable,
Into the yolk and white of the one shell.

III

And thinking of that fit of grief or rage
I look upon one child or t'other there
And wonder if she stood so at that age—
For even daughters of the swan can share
Something of every paddler's heritage—
And had that colour upon cheek or hair,
And thereupon my heart is driven wild:
She stands before me as a living child.

IV

Her present image floats into the mind—
Did quattrocento finger fashion it
Hollow of cheek as though it drank the wind
And took a mess of shadows for its meat?
And I though never of Ledæan kind

Had pretty plumage once—enough of that,
Better to smile on all that smile, and show
There is a comfortable kind of old scarecrow.

V

What youthful mother, a shape upon her lap
Honey of generation had betrayed,
And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape
As recollection or the drug decide,
Would think her son, did she but see that shape
With sixty or more winters on its head,
A compensation for the pang of his birth,
Or the uncertainty of his setting forth?

VI

Plato thought nature but a spume that plays
Upon a ghostly paradigm of things;
Solider Aristotle played the taws
Upon the bottom of a king of kings;
World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras
Fingered upon a fiddle stick or strings
What a star sang and careless Muses heard:
Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.

VII

Both nuns and mothers worship images,
But those the candles light are not as those
That animate a mother's reveries,
But keep a marble or a bronze repose.
And yet they too break hearts—O presences
That passion, piety or affection knows,
And that all heavenly glory symbolise—
O self-born mockers of man's enterprise;

VIII

Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?

William Butler YEATS

«Her Praise»

She is foremost of those that I would hear praised.
I have gone about the house, gone up and down
As a man does who has published a new book,
Or a young girl dressed out in her new gown,
And though I have turned the talk by hook or crook
Until her praise should be the uppermost theme,
A woman spoke of some new tale she had read,
A man confusedly in a half dream
As though some other name ran in his head.
She is foremost of those that I would hear praised.
I will talk no more of books or the long war
But walk by the dry thorn until I have found
Some beggar sheltering from the wind, and there
Manage the talk until her name come round.
If there be rags enough he will know her name
And be well pleased remembering it, for in the old days,
Though she had young men's praise and old men's blame,
Among the poor both old and young gave her praise.

William Butler YEATS

«Cloths of Heaven»

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

William Butler YEATS

[«Pëlhura qiejsh»

Të paskësha pëlhurat e qëndisura të qiejve,

Punuar me dritë ari dhe argjendi,

Të kaltrat të zbehtat të errëtat pëlhura

Të natës të ditës e të mugëtirës,

Do t'i shtroja pëlhurat nën këmbët e tua:

Por, i varfër siç jam, kam vetëm ëndrrat e mia;

I kam shtruar ëndrrat e mia nën këmbët e tua;

Shkel me ngadalë se shkel mbi ëndrrat e mia.]