The Meditation Of The Old Fisherman

by William Butler Yeats

You waves, though you dance by my feet like children
at play,
Though you glow and you glance, though you purr and
you dart;
In the Junes that were warmer than these are, the waves
were more gay,
i(When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.)
The herring are not in the tides as they were of old;
My sorrow! for many a creak gave the creel in the-cart
That carried the take to Sligo town to be sold,
i(When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.)
And ah, you proud maiden, you are not so fair when
his oar
Is heard on the water, as they were, the proud and apart,
Who paced in the eve by the nets on the pebbly shore,
i(When) I i(was) a boy i(with never) a i(crack in my heart.)