“Some burn damp faggots, others may consume
The entire combustible world in one small room
As though dried straw, and if we turn about
The bare chimney is gone black out
Because the work had finished in that flare.
Soldier, scholar, horseman, he,
As ’twere all life’s epitome.
What made us dream that he could comb grey hair?”

—  W.B. Yeats

In Memory Of Major Robert Gregory http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1516/, st. 11
The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)

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W.B. Yeats photo
W.B. Yeats 255
Irish poet and playwright 1865–1939

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