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by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939)

Two Years Later
 (Sung text for setting by S. Grill)
 See original
Language: English 
Has no one said those daring
Kind eyes should be more learn'd?
Or warned you how despairing
The moths are when they are burned,
I could have warned you, but you are young,
So we speak a different tongue.
  
O you will take whatever's offered
And dream that all the world's a friend,
Suffer as your mother suffered,
Be as broken in the end.
But I am old and you are young,
And I speak a different tongue.

Composition:

    Set to music by Stanley Grill (b. 1953), "Two Years Later", copyright © 1987 [ soprano and string quartet ], from To a Child, no. 6, confirmed with an online score

Text Authorship:

  • by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), "Two years later"

See other settings of this text.


Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2017-07-01
Line count: 12
Word count: 79

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–Emily Ezust, Founder

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