The Dolls

by William Butler Yeats

    A Doll in the doll-maker’s house
    Looks at the cradle and balls:
    ‘That is an insult to us.’
    But the oldest of all the dolls
    Who had seen, being kept for show,
    Generations of his sort,
    Out-screams the whole shelf: ‘Although
    There’s not a man can report
    Evil of this place,
    The man and the woman bring
    Hither to our disgrace,
    A noisy and filthy thing.’
    Hearing him groan and stretch
    The doll-maker’s wife is aware
    Her husband has heard the wretch,
    And crouched by the arm of his chair,
    She murmurs into his ear,
    Head upon shoulder leant:
    ‘My dear, my dear, oh dear,
    It was an accident.’