(13 June 1865 – 28 January 1939 / County Dublin / Ireland)

poet William Butler Yeats
#16 on top 500 poets
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A Friend's Illness

SICKNESS brought me this
Thought, in that scale of his:
Why should I be dismayed
Though flame had burned the whole
World, as it were a coal,
Now I have seen it weighed
Against a soul?

Submitted: Tuesday, May 15, 2001


Read poems about / on: world, friend

Comments about this poem (A Friend's Illness by William Butler Yeats )

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  • Andrew Hoellering (12/15/2009 3:05:00 AM)

    The suffering of a person one loves moves one more than the suffering of those not know to one personally.
    A simple thought, beautifully expressed, but not necessarily true. Think of Miranda's line in Shakespeare's Tempest; 'How I suffered with those that I saw suffer.' It takes an exceptional person to feel that way.

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