Recollecting a Visit to W. B. Yeats

It is most pitiful to watch men go
In search of beauty with despairing eyes,
And what it is they lack as this world lies
Open before their gaze they do not know.
These porcelain skies with billows of graven snow
They paint on cold, thin cups, and draw from strings
Voices of mourning winds and sense of wings;
From woods rob sad-faced flowers and bid them grow
Nearer their souls; ay, creep out in the night
And steal the stars and the bright Moon from Heaven,
And bring them home to decorate their dreams—
My God it is a strange and pitiful sight
To see the treasury of a poet's room
And him alone there shrouded in beauty's gloom!