Honey coloured ramparts

This poem is a bit of a wallow - it's so sensual, and really rather silly.  But I loved it when I was young, and I love it still.  Frankly, if you can resist the charm of "honey coloured ramparts at your ear", you're probably past praying for, and you've certainly never fallen in love with auburn hair in front of a wood fire!  This is William Butler Yeats' For Anne Gregory:

“Never shall a young man,

Thrown into despair

By those great honey-coloured

Ramparts at your ear,

Love you for yourself alone

And not your yellow hair.”

“But I can get a hair-dye

And set such color there,

Brown, or black, or carrot

That young men in despair

May love me for myself alone

And not my yellow hair.”

“I heard an old religious man

But yesternight declare

That he had found a text to prove

That only God, my dear,

Could love you for yourself alone

And not your yellow hair.”

 

Comments

[glo]

By the way, I found another interesting poem; To Autumn by John Keats. Here it is.
http://booksdofurnisharoom.typepad.com/books_do_furnish_a_room/2008/11/ghh--kkkl--------autumnleaves-autumn-leaves-lie-strewn-around-he-here---autumn-leaves-autumn-leaves-how-sad-how-cold-h.html

Quite appropriate as fall is beginning to strike right now. Oddly enough, it has the same charm, same musicality and same pompous style as On First Looking into Chapman's Homer. Enjoy!

The film directed by Jane Campion about Keats is called Bright Star. And I first typed Jane Austen instead of Jane Campion!

[glo]

I was somehow vaguely recalling this poem and then I went searching for it through the blog, and found that you have already published it in February 2008. Here it is:
http://booksdofurnisharoom.typepad.com/books_do_furnish_a_room/2008/02/for-anne-gregor.html
I hope the link is working since I was unable to copy and paste it, but was reduced to type it integrally. In case it doesn't work, the date is 15th February 2008.

I think it is well worth rereading it. Afterwards, I find this poem even more desperate than when I first read it -I guess I may have improved and matured by then.
I agree that it could sound rather silly, mean or even meaningless. But there is so much despair in the simple mention of those "ramparts at your ear" because this means that the girl won't listen to the young man's speech. The situation is hopeless and so cruel from his point of view. The hair may have a nice colour and evoke some sensuality, they still are ramparts, and they are apparently unshakable.