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

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Never Give All The Heart

NEVER give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy. Kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.

Submitted: Tuesday, May 15, 2001


Read poems about / on: kiss, women, dream, lost, heart, love, woman

Comments about this poem (Never Give All The Heart by William Butler Yeats )

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  • Sylvia Myres (7/12/2010 6:32:00 PM)

    Should we hede these words or make ourselves succumb to the beating of the 'other' heart, within the one we love?
    Should we succumb to the beating heart and not take warning from the start of these, kind words of one, who has been and lost his heart to love?

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  • Richard Bunch (1/5/2005 4:24:00 PM)

    Such poetic advice still rings true.

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