Poetry Thursday

Poetry Thursday's topic this week is humorous poetry. This is a link to a poem I've always loved by Thomas Hardy. Hardy is not usually known for humor (or for his poetry either, although he wanted to be a poet more than an author) but his poem about a prosperous (relatively speaking) prostitute has always been a favorite of mine.

And here is another favorite from Yeats that is also a departure from his usual tone and quite funny...well, I've always thought so...

For Anne Gregory

'NEVER shall a young man,
Thrown into despair
By those great honey-coloured
Ramparts at your ear,
Love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.''

But I can get a hair-dye
And set such colour there,
Brown, or black, or carrot,
That young men in despair
May love me for myself alone
And not my yellow hair.

''I heard an old religious man
But yesternight declare
That he had found a text to prove
That only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.'

William Butler Yeats