Never shall a young man,"
Thrown into despair
By those great honey-coloured
Ramparts at your ear,
Love you for yourself alone
"And not your yellow hair


But I can get a hair-dye "
And set such colour there,
Brown, or black, or carrot,
That young men in despair
May love me for myself alone
"And not my yellow hair.

I heard an old religious man "
But yesternight declare
That he had found a text to prove
That only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
"And not your yellow hair.

 

W. B. Yeats