Read "The Saint and the Hunchback" by W.B. Yeats online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
HUNCHBACK
Stand up and lift your hand and bless / A man that finds great bitterness / In thinking of his lost renown.
A Roman Caesar is held down / Under this hump.
SAINT
God tries each man / According to a different plan.
I shall not cease to bless because / I lay about me with the taws / That night and morning I may thrash / Greek Alexander from my flesh, / Augustus Caesar, and after these / That great rogue Alcibiades.
HUNCHBACK
To all that in your flesh have stood / And blessed, I give my gratitude, / Honoured by all in their degrees, / But most to Alcibiades.