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William Butler Yeats - The Three Beggars
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"Though to my feathers in the wet,
I have stood here from break of day.
I have not found a thing to eat,
For only rubbish comes my way.
Am I to live on lebeen-lone?`
Muttered the old crane of Gort.
"For all my pains on lebeen-lone?`
King Guaire walked amid his court
The palace-yard and river-side
And there to three old beggars said,
"You that have wandered far and wide
Can ravel out what`s in my head.
Do men who least desire get most,
Or get the most who most desire?`
A beggar said, "They get the most
Whom man or devil cannot tire,
And what could make their muscles taut
Unless desire had made them so?`
But Guaire laughed with secret thought,
"If that be true as it seems true,
One of you three is a rich man,
For he shall have a thousand pounds
Who is first asleep, if but he can
Sleep before the third noon sounds."
And thereon, merry as a bird
With his old thoughts, King Guaire went
From river-side and palace-yard
And left them to their argument.
"And if I win,` one beggar said,
`Though I am old I shall persuade
A pretty girl to share my bed`;
The second:  "I shall learn a trade`;
The third:  "I`ll hurry` to the course
Among the other gentlemen,
And lay it all upon a horse`;
The second:  "I have thought again:
A farmer has more dignity.`
One to another sighed and cried:
The exorbitant dreams of beggary.
That idleness had borne to pride,
Sang through their teeth from noon to noon;
And when the second twilight brought
The frenzy of the beggars` moon
None closed his blood-shot eyes but sought
To keep his fellows from their sleep;
All shouted till their anger grew
And they were whirling in a heap.
They mauled and bit the whole night through;
They mauled and bit till the day shone;
They mauled and bit through all that day
And till another night had gone,
Or if they made a moment`s stay
They sat upon their heels to rail,,
And when old Guaire came and stood
Before the three to end this tale,
They were commingling lice and blood
"Time`s up,` he cried, and all the three
With blood-shot eyes upon him stared.
"Time`s up,` he cried, and all the three
Fell down upon the dust and snored.

`Maybe I shall be lucky yet,
Now they are silent,` said the crane.
`Though to my feathers in the wet
I`ve stood as I were made of stone
And seen the rubbish run about,
It`s certain there are trout somewhere
And maybe I shall take a trout
but I do not seem to care.`
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