| A Prayer on Going into My House | |
| William Butler Yeats (1921) | |
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God grant a blessing on this tower and cottage And on my heirs, if all remain unspoiled, No table or chair or stool not simple enough For shepherd lads in Galilee; and grant That I myself for portions of the year May handle nothing and set eyes on nothing But what the great and passionate have used Throughout so many varying centuries We take it for the norm; yet should I dream Sinbad the sailor’s brought a painted chest, Or image, from beyond the Loadstone Mountain, That dream is a norm; and should some limb of the Devil Destroy the view by cutting down an ash That shades the road, or setting up a cottage Planned in a government office, shorten his life, Manacle his soul upon the Red Sea bottom. 
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