A Prayer on going into my House

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.

—
William Butler Yeats

The Wild Swans at Coole, 1919