“O heart, be at peace, because
Nor knave nor dolt can break
What's not for their applause”
W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright
Against Unworthy Praise http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1433/ <br class="br">The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910) <br class="br">Context: p>O heart, be at peace, because<br>Nor knave nor dolt can break<br>What's not for their applause<br>Being for a woman's sake.<br>Enough if the work has seemed,<br>So did she your strength renew,<br>A dream that a lion had dreamed<br>Till the wilderness cried aloud,<br>A secret between you two,<br>Between the proud and the proud.What, still you would have their praise!<br>But here's a haughtier text,<br>The labyrinth of her days<br>That her own strangeness perplexed;<br>And how what her dreaming gave<br>Earned slander, ingratitude,<br>From self-same dolt and knave;<br>Aye, and worse wrong than these.<br>Yet she, singing upon her road,<br>Half lion, half child, is at peace.</p