William B Yeats (1865-1939)

From The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)

Men improve with the Years

I am worn out with dreams

A weather-worn, marble triton

Among the streams

And all day long I look

Upon this lady's beauty

As though I had found in book

A pictured beauty

Pleased to have filled the eyes

Or the discerning ears

Delighted to be but wise

For men improve with the years

And yet and yet

Is this my dream, or the truth?

O would that we had met

When I had my burning youth

But I grow old among dreams

A weather-worn, marble triton

Among the streams…