WB Yeats touches matters of priority lightly, and with charm, in this brief poem.

It is included in Don't Bring Me No Rocking Chair: Poems on Ageing (Bloodaxe, £9.95, with foreword by Joan Bakewell).

POLITICS

In our time the destiny of man presents its meaning in political terms. - ThomasMann

How can I, that girl standing there,

My attention fix

On Roman or on Russian

Or on Spanish politics?

Yet here's a travelled man that knows

What he talks about,

And there's a politician

That has read and thought,

And maybe what they say is true

Of war and war's alarms,

But O that I were young again

And held her in my arms!