Adam's Curse

            By William
Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

            
               (posted Wednesday, Jan.
14)
            

            To hear Robert Pinsky read
"Adam's Curse," click .

            In "Adam's
Curse," Yeats writes in apparently effortless couplets, demonstrating what he
says about writing--what is demanding is made to look natural and easy. The
conversation in his poem is so convincingly real yet the poetry so gorgeous in
its sounds that I always feel a little shocked to realize how sad the
resolution actually is. Yet the sweep and grace--to include so much of love and
art and life in such a small space, with such a beguilingly intimate
surface--temper the sadness a lot.

            
               --Robert Pinsky
            

            We sat together at one
summer's end,That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,And you and I, and
talked of poetry.I said, "A line will take us hours maybe;Yet if it does not
seem a moment's thought,Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.Better go
down upon your marrow-bonesAnd scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stonesLike an
old pauper, in all kinds of weather;For to articulate sweet sounds togetherIs
to work harder than all these, and yetBe thought an idler by the noisy setOf
bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymenThe martyrs call the world."

                                      
   And thereuponThat beautiful mild woman for whose sakeThere's many a one
shall find out all heartacheOn finding that her voice is sweet and lowReplied,
"To be born woman is to know--Although they do not talk of it at school--That
we must labour to be beautiful."

            I said, "It's certain
there is no fine thingSince Adam's fall but needs much labouring.There have
been lovers who thought love should beSo much compounded of high courtesyThat
they would sigh and quote with learned looksPrecedents out of beautiful old
books;Yet now it seems an idle trade enough."

            We sat grown quiet at the
name of love;We saw the last embers of daylight die,And in the trembling
blue-green of the skyA moon, worn as if it had been a shellWashed by time's
waters as they rose and fellAbout the stars and broke in days and years.

            I had a
thought for no one's but your ears:That you were beautiful, and that I stroveTo
love you in the old high way of love;That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd
grownAs weary-hearted as that hollow moon.