A Drinking Song -- William Butler Yeats

Guest poem submitted by Janice:

(Poem #1811) A Drinking Song Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That's all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die. I lift the glass to my mouth, I look at you, and I sigh. -- William Butler Yeats

I was going through the Yeats collection on Minstrels and noticed that this
wasn't part of it. "A Drinking Song" has been one of my favourite poems for
years. It captures, at least I feel it does, the sweet, underlying sadness
that runs through a large number of his poems ("The Song of Wandering
Aengus", "He Gives his Beloved Certain Rhymes", "Cloths of Heaven", "Adam's
Curse" and many more), this sense of great loss and longing, of something
that remains just out of reach. I love the simplicity of these lines, their
poignancy, the inbuilt harshness of 'before we grow old and die' and the
soft despair of 'I look at you, and I sigh'. And though the title evokes a
celebration, it's a song mingled with sorrow. Probably the best kind.

Hope you enjoy the poem,
Janice.