In a folder in my office are a bunch of pieces of paper, each of which has a nicely formatted poem or quotation. At some point they were either posted in my cubicle, back in the days when I worked outside the house, or else they were framed and displayed in my house during the days before I had art. I liked to say that I decorated with words.<\/p>\n
I was looking through this folder today, and the top page was this:<\/p>\n
An untitled poem by W. B. Yeats<\/strong><\/p>\n
Why should not old men be mad?
\nSome have known a likely lad
\nThat had a sound fly fisher’s wrist
\nTurn to a drunken journalist;
\nA girl that knew all Dante once
\nLive to bear children to a dunce;
\nA Helen of social welfare dream
\nClimb on a wagonette to scream.
\nSome think it matter of course that chance
\nShould starve good men and bad advance,
\nThat if their neighbours figured plain,
\nAs though upon a lighted screen,
\nNo single story would they find
\nOf an unbroken happy mind,
\nA finish worthy of the start.
\nYoung men know nothing of this sort
\nObservant old men know it well;
\nAnd when they know what old books tell
\nAnd that no better can be had
\nKnow why an old man should be mad.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nAt twenty-three I liked the idea that there were secrets that you learned from experience, and there was a seductive pathos to the idea that promise not being achieved is the normal state of affairs.<\/p>\n
At thirty-three I am beginning to get a glimmering of a different, and less Romantic interpretation. I certainly (still) think it’s true that is is “matter of course that chance\/Should starve good men and bad advance”. Not that chance always<\/em> starves the good men, or advances the bad one, but that it certainly does sometimes, randomly. You know, by chance<\/em>.<\/p>\n
Not yet mad, though. Or at least not any more so than at twenty-three.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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