I had a chair at every hearth,
When no one turned to see
With 'Look at that old fellow there;
And who may he be?'
And therefore do I wander on,
And the fret is on me.
The road-side trees keep murmuring-
Ah, wherefore murmur ye
As in the old days long gone by,
Green oak and poplar tree!
The well-known faces are all gone,
And the fret is on me.
Notes
As with many of Yeats poems, he later alterd part of this poem.
In The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics, 1892.
The refraine on lines 6 and 12 read:- And the fret lies on me.
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