Tom O’Roughley

by William Butler Yeats

　　

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‘Though logic choppers rule the town, And every man and maid and boy Has marked a distant object down, An aimless joy is a pure joy,’ Or so did Tom O’Roughley say That saw the surges running by, ‘And wisdom is a butterfly And not a gloomy bird of prey. ‘If little planned is little sinned But little need the grave distress. What’s dying but a second wind? How but in zigzag wantonness Could trumpeter Michael be so brave?’ Or something of that sort he said, ‘And if my dearest friend were dead I’d dance a measure on his grave.’

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