For Anne Gregory

A conversation in three stanzas. The book says it is 'a conversation between a young man and a young woman'. They are arguing about whether she can be loved for herself.

Stanza 1: he says it can't happen. 'Never shall a young man… love you for yourself alone and not your yellow hair.' Her golden hair falls by her ears like 'great honey-coloured ramparts' (the high walls of a fort, like the Red Fort's). Young men are 'thrown into despair' by its beauty.

Stanza 2: she has an answer. 'But I can get a hair-dye' and make it 'brown, or black, or carrot'. Then young men may love her for herself, not for her hair.

Stanza 3: he has the last word. An 'old religious man' found a text to prove that 'only God, my dear, could love you for yourself alone and not your yellow hair'.

The big question. Can people love someone for themselves, apart from looks or qualities? Think about a parent's love for a newborn, fans' love for a star, love for a friend or a pet. Yeats asks elsewhere: 'How can we separate the dancer from the dance?' Can a person be separated from how they look and move? (Yeats was an Irish poet who won the Nobel Prize in 1923.)