W.B. Yeats (1865–1939). Responsibilities and Other Poems. 1916.

48. At the Abbey Theatre

(Imitated from Ronsard)

DEAR Craoibhin Aoibhin, look into our case.

When we are high and airy hundreds say

That if we hold that flight they’ll leave the place,

While those same hundreds mock another day

Because we have made our art of common things,

So bitterly, you’d dream they longed to look

All their lives through into some drift of wings.

You’ve dandled them and fed them from the book

And know them to the bone; impart to us—

We’ll keep the secret—a new trick to please.

Is there a bridle for this Proteus

That turns and changes like his draughty seas?

Or is there none, most popular of men,

But when they mock us that we mock again?