Brown Penny

I whispered, "I am too young,"
And then, "I am old enough";
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might love.

O love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough to find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin too soon.

-William Butler Yeats
Abridged, in "Looking at the Moon", by Kit Pearson