{
 "id": "w-b-yeats/the-grey-rock",
 "title": "The Grey Rock",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "W. B. Yeats",
 "poet_slug": "w-b-yeats",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Responsibilities",
 "book_slug": "responsibilities",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": "Responsibilities",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1914,
  "venue": "Responsibilities (1914)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/responsibilities0000will_k2v1"
  ]
 },
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  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-21"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 131,
  "n_stanzas": 8,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 45,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Poets with whom I learned my trade,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Companions of the Cheshire Cheese,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here’s an old story I’ve re-made,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Imagining ’twould better please",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your ears than stories now in fashion,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though you may think I waste my breath",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pretending that there can be passion",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That has more life in it than death,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And though at bottling of your wine",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The bow-legged Goban had no say;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The moral’s yours because it’s mine.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "When cups went round at close of day⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is not that how good stories run?⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The gods were sitting at the board",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In their great house at Slievenamon.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They sang a drowsy song, or snored,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For all were full of wine and meat.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The smoky torches made a glare",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On metal Goban ’d hammered at,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On old deep silver rolling there",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or on some still unemptied cup",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That he, when frenzy stirred his thews,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had hammered out on mountain top",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To hold the sacred stuff he brews",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That only gods may buy of him.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Now from the juice that made them wise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All those had lifted up the dim",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Imaginations of their eyes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For one that was like woman made",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Before their sleepy eyelids ran",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And trembling with her passion said,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Come out and dig for a dead man,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who’s burrowing somewhere in the ground,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And mock him to his face and then",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hollo him on with horse and hound,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For he is the worst of all dead men.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We should be dazed and terror-struck,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If we but saw in dreams that room,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Those wine-drenched eyes, and curse our luck",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That emptied all our days to come.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I knew a woman none could please,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because she dreamed when but a child",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of men and women made like these;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And after, when her blood ran wild,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had ravelled her own story out,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And said, “In two or in three years",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I need must marry some poor lout,”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And having said it burst in tears.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Since, tavern comrades, you have died,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Maybe your images have stood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mere bone and muscle thrown aside,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Before that roomful or as good.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You had to face your ends when young⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twas wine or women, or some curse⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But never made a poorer song",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That you might have a heavier purse,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor gave loud service to a cause",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That you might have a troop of friends.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You kept the Muses’ sterner laws,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And unrepenting faced your ends,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And therefore earned the right⁠—and yet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dowson and Johnson most I praise⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To troop with those the world’s forgot,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And copy their proud steady gaze.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“The Danish troop was driven out",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Between the dawn and dusk,” she said;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Although the event was long in doubt,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Although the King of Ireland’s dead",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And half the kings, before sundown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All was accomplished. When this day",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Murrough, the King of Ireland’s son,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Foot after foot was giving way,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He and his best troops back to back",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had perished there, but the Danes ran,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stricken with panic from the attack,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The shouting of an unseen man;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And being thankful Murrough found,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Led by a footsole dipped in blood",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That had made prints upon the ground,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where by old thorn trees that man stood;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And though when he gazed here and there,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He had but gazed on thorn trees, spoke,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "‘Who is the friend that seems but air",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And yet could give so fine a stroke?’",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thereon a young man met his eye,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who said, ‘Because she held me in",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her love, and would not have me die,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rock-nurtured Aoife took a pin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And pushing it into my shirt,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Promised that for a pin’s sake,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No man should see to do me hurt;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But there it’s gone; I will not take",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The fortune that had been my shame",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seeing, King’s son, what wounds you have.’",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twas roundly spoke, but when night came",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He had betrayed me to his grave,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For he and the King’s son were dead.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’d promised him two hundred years,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And when for all I’d done or said⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And these immortal eyes shed tears⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He claimed his country’s need was most,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’d save his life, yet for the sake",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of a new friend he has turned a ghost.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What does he care if my heart break?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I call for spade and horse and hound",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That we may harry him.” Thereon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She cast herself upon the ground",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And rent her clothes and made her moan:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Why are they faithless when their might",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is from the holy shades that rove",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The grey rock and the windy light?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why should the faithfullest heart most love",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The bitter sweetness of false faces?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why must the lasting love what passes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why are the gods by men betrayed!”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But thereon every god stood up",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a slow smile and without sound,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And stretching forth his arm and cup",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To where she moaned upon the ground,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Suddenly drenched her to the skin;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And she with Goban’s wine adrip,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No more remembering what had been,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stared at the gods with laughing lip.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I have kept my faith, though faith was tried,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To that rock-born, rock-wandering foot,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the world’s altered since you died,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I am in no good repute",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the loud host before the sea,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That think sword strokes were better meant",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than lover’s music⁠—let that be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So that the wandering foot’s content.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}