pilgrim soul

(7x11)
Today is William Butler Yeats's birthday; he was born 6/13/1865.
I planned to do four studies of Yeats at different ages, but we went fishing, and this is as far as I got--sorry W.B.--a young Yeats, serious and pouty-lipped.
Tomorrow, a day late, I'll paint the older handsome sad (or is it chagrin?) Yeats.

When You Are Old

When you are old and grey 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.


A Coat

I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world's eyes
As though they'd wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there's more enterprise
In walking naked.