Though you are in your shining days,
Voices among the crowd
And new friends busy with your praise,
Be not unkind or proud,
But think about old friends the most:
Time's bitter flood will rise,
Your beauty perish and be lost
For all eyes but these eyes.

First published in Saturday Review, July 1897, as "Song", revised 1899 and 1906

Authorship

• by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), "The Lover Pleads with His Friend for Old Friends", appears in The Wind among the reeds, first published 1899 [author's text checked 1 time 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 Ben Moore (b. 1960), "The lover pleads with his friend for old friends" [medium-high voice and piano], from 14 Songs, no. 10, G. Schirmer [
   text not verified 
  ]
• by Paul Schwartz (b. 1907), "The Lover Pleads with His Friend for Old Friends", 1945 [high voice or medium voice and piano], from A Poet to His Beloved [
   text not verified 
  ]

Available translations, adaptations, and transliterations (if applicable):

• ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , title 1: "L'innamorato supplica l'amica a favore dei vecchi amici", copyright © 2008, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

Text added to the website: 2004-06-14 00:00:00
Last modified: 2014-06-16 10:02:07
Line count: 8
Word count: 47