My Self.
A living man is blind and drinks his drop.
What matter if the ditches are impure?
What matter if I live it all once more?
Endure the toil of growing up;
Th e ignominy of boyhood; the distress
Of boyhood changing into man;
Th e unfi nished man and his pain
Brought face to face with his own clumsiness…
I am content to follow to its source
Every event in action or in thought;
Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot!
When such as I cast out remorse
So great a sweetness fl ows into the breast
We must laugh and we must sing,
We are blessed by everything,
Everything we look upon is blessed.
William Butler Yeats — from A Dialogue of Self and Soul (1928)