by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939)
To a young girl
Language: English
Our translations: FRE
My dear, my dear I know More than another What makes your heart beat so; Not even your own mother Can know it as I know, Who broke my heart for her When the wild thought, That she denies And has forgot, Set all her blood astir And glittered in her eyes.
Confirmed with W. B. Yeats, Later Poems, Macmillan and Co., London, 1926, page 254.
Text Authorship:
- by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), "To a young girl", appears in Nine Poems, appears in The Wild Swans at Coole, first published 1918 [author's text checked 2 times against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Ned Rorem (1923 - 2022), "To a young girl", published 1972 [ voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Stephen Wilkinson (b. 1919), "To a young girl" [ voice and piano ], from Eternal Summer, no. 8 [sung text checked 1 time]
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FRE French (Français) (Pierre Mathé) , "À une fille jeune", copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Researcher for this page: John Versmoren
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 11
Word count: 52