The Well And The Tree

by William Butler Yeats

    ‘The man that I praise,’
    Cries out the empty well,
    ‘Lives all his days
    Where a hand on the bell
    Can call the milch-cows
    To the comfortable door of his house.
    Who but an idiot would praise
    Dry stones in a well?’

    ‘The Man that I praise,’
    Cries out the leafless tree,
    ‘Has married and stays
    By an old hearth, and he
    On naught has set store
    But children and dogs on the floor.
    Who but an idiot would praise
    A withered tree?’