by W.B. Yeats
Three Things
`O cruel Death, give three things back,'
Sang a bone upon the shore;
`A child found all a child can lack,
Whether of pleasure or of rest,
Upon the abundance of my breast':
A bone wave-whitened and dried in the wind.
`Three dear things that women know,'
Sang a bone upon the shore;
`A man but if I held him so
When my body was alive
Found all the pleasure that life gave':
A bone wave-whitened and dried in the wind.
`The third thing that I think of yet,'
Sang a bone upon the shore;
`Is that morning when I met
Face to face my rightful man
And did after stretch and yawn':
A bone wave-whitened and dried in the wind.
