Keith Bickerstaffe Poet Quatrain

When You Are Young

...dedicated to W.B. Yeats, in response
   to his poem 'When You Are Old'
 

When you are young sweet innocence abounds,
your step is gentle, all your dreams are free
of grim disquietude, such joy you see
as gaily you discharge your daily rounds.
 
Your heart is light, bereft of grave concern
that troubles him whose purity is lost,
who argues and contends at any cost,
who complicates and twists at every turn.
 
Simplicity must be your cornerstone,
strengthen your heart against all sorts of strife
that undermine a childlike view of life,
strive and prevail, lest innocence be gone!

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Mark Peterson February 20, 2016 at 8:44 AM How rare to encounter one in whom there is no guile. So prepare and banish all vexations. Become a child again, if you've not forgotten how. There is great wisdom in this poem. Keith Bickerstaffe February 20, 2016 at 9:24 AM Yeats' original... 863. 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, 5 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 10 And paced upon the mountains overhead, And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.