"Two Songs of a Fool" by W B Yeats (poetry reading)

'Stretched' is perhaps the longest single-syllable word in the language.
The hearth is in an Irish cottage, common until 50 years ago.
Yeats' portrair was by Stephen McGrogan
The painting of a Sleeping Cat, 1862, was by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

I
A speckled cat and a tame hare
Eat at my hearthstone
And sleep there;
And both look up to me alone
For learning and defence
As I look up to Providence.

I start out of my sleep to think
Some day I may forget
Their food and drink;
Or, the house door left unshut,
The hare may run till it's found
The horn's sweet note and the tooth of the hound.

I bear a burden that might well try
Men that do all by rule,
And what can I
That am a wandering witted fool
But pray to God that He ease
My great responsibilities?

II
I slept on my three-legged stool by the fire,
The speckled cat slept on my knee;
We never thought to enquire
Where the brown hare might be,
And whether the door were shut.
Who knows how she drank the wind
Stretched up on two legs from the mat,

Before she had settled her mind
To drum with her heel and to leap:
Had I but awakened from sleep
And called her name she had heard,
It may be, and had not stirred,
That now, it may be, has found
The horn's sweet note and the tooth of the hound.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Two
• Songs
• Fool
• Yeats
• poetry
• poem

[thissong4you]

I do love it when you read Yeats.  Once again, your reading and your choice of images evoke such feeling. Thank you.

[hswatnik]

top notch poem 4****

[scifiwritir1]

ah, caretaking-of-animal guilt! A terrible responsibility to endure. I know it well. Good poem, good reading as usual.

[johnalanhale5]

interesting selection :) as always stunning voice