The Sorrow of Love
The Sorrow of Love
Original Text
Yeats, William Butler. W. B. Yeats: Selected Poetry: 16. Ed. by A. Norman Jeffares. London: Macmillan, 1968.
1The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves,
2The brilliant moon and all the milky sky,
3And all that famous harmony of leaves,
4Had blotted out man's image and his cry.
5A girl arose that had red mournful lips
6And seemed the greatness of the world in tears,
7Doomed like Odysseus and the labouring ships
8And proud as Priam murdered with his peers;
9Arose, and on the instant clamorous eaves,
10A climbing moon upon an empty sky,
11And all that lamentation of the leaves,
12Could but compose man's image and his cry.
Publication Start Year
1893
Publication Notes
The Rose, 1893.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire, assisted by Ana Berdinskikh
RPO Edition
2009
Rhyme
Form