Page:In the Seven Woods, Yeats, 1903.djvu/30

 ADAM'S CURSE

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 your marrow bones

And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones

Like an old pauper in all kinds of weather;

For to articulate sweet sounds together

Is to work harder than all these and yet

Be thought an idler by the noisy set

Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen

The martyrs call the world.'

That woman then

Murmured with her young voice, for whose mild sake

There's many a one shall find out all heartache

In finding that it's young and mild and low.

'There is one thing that all we women know

Although we never heard of it at school,

That we must labour to be beautiful.'

I said, 'It's certain there is no fine thing

Since Adam's fall but needs much labouring.

18