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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
W. B. Yeats
W. B. Yeats
William Butler Yeats was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1865, the son of a well-known Irish painter, John Butler Yeats. He spent his childhood in County Sligo, where his parents were raised,...
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FURTHER READING
Poems About Aging
Affirmation
by Donald Hall
Age
by Robert Creeley
At Thirty
by Lynda Hull
Blues
by Elizabeth Alexander
Do not go gentle into that good night
by Dylan Thomas
First Gestures
by Julia Spicher Kasdorf
In View of the Fact
by A. R. Ammons
My Lost Youth
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
To Chloe: Who for his sake wished herself younger
by William Cartwright
When You are Old
by W. B. Yeats
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The Young Man's Song  
by W. B. Yeats

I whispered, "I am too young,"  
And then, "I am old enough";   
Wherefore I threw a penny   
To find out if I might love.   
"Go and love, go and love, young man,
If the lady be young and fair,"   
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,   
I am looped in the loops of her hair.   
   
Oh, love is the crooked thing,   
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,   
For he would be thinking of love   
Till the stars had run away,   
And the shadows eaten the moon.   
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon. 
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