A Drunken Man's Praise Of Sobriety

COME swish around, my pretty punk,

And keep me dancing still

That I may stay a sober man

Although I drink my fill.

Sobriety is a jewel

That I do much adore;

And therefore keep me dancing

Though drunkards lie and snore.

O mind your feet, O mind your feet,

Keep dancing like a wave,

And under every dancer

A dead man in his grave.

No ups and downs, my pretty,

A mermaid, not a punk;

A drunkard is a dead man,

And all dead men are drunk.

William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats, (born June 13, 1865, Sandymount, Dublin, Ireland—died January 28, 1939, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France), Irish poet, dramatist, and prose writer, one of the greatest English-language poets of the 20th century. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. He was appointed to the Irish Senate in 1922. Yeats is one of the few writers whose greatest works were written after the award of the Nobel Prize. Whereas he received the Prize chiefly for his dramatic works, his significance today rests on his lyric achievement. His poetry, especially the volumes The Wild Swans at Coole (1919), Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921), The Tower (1928), The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933), and Last Poems and Plays (1940), made him one of the outstanding and most influential twentieth-century poets writing in English. His recurrent themes are the contrast of art and life, masks, cyclical theories of life (the symbol of the winding stairs), and the ideal of beauty and ceremony contrasting with the hubbub of modern life.

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A Song From 'The Player Queen' A Drinking Song A Man Young And Old: III. The Mermaid A Man Young And Old: VII. The Friends Of His Youth A Man Young And Old: XI. From Oedipus At Colonus

A Drunken Man's Praise Of Sobriety

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