William Butler Yeats

W.B. Yeats] (13 June 1865 – 28 January 1939 / County Dublin / Ireland

When Helen Lived

WE have cried in our despair
That men desert,
For some trivial affair
Or noisy, insolent sport,
Beauty that we have won
From bitterest hours;
Yet we, had we walked within
Those topless towers
Where Helen waked with her boy,
Had given but as the rest
Of the men and women of Troy,
A word and a jest.
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