Scribble, scribble, scribble

salley gardens

Consider two famous poems: W B Yeats's Down by the salley gardens and A E Housman's When I was one-and-twenty. They share the following features:

• The exact same length, metre and rhyme. (Housman's poem is presented as two 8-line stanzas and Yeats's as two 4-line stanzas with lines double the length. This is a difference to the eye only, not to the ear.)
• The same "plot": a young man is wisely advised to "take love easy" / "give not your heart away", foolishly doesn't listen, and (in the last line of the second stanza) now regrets his foolishness.

"Down by the salley gardens" was published in 1889. "When I was one-and-twenty" is one of the poems in "A Shropshire lad", published in 1896. I think Housman was copying Yeats. Is this idea old hat, or obviously wrong, or new? (Lest there be any misunderstanding: I am not accusing Housman of plagiarism! This sort of copying is entirely legitimate.)

Google doesn't seem to know of any connection.

idealism and realism

Michael Gerson, speechwriter and policy adviser to George W Bush, is reported as having said: His goals are deeply idealistic ... His methods are deeply realistic.

I think that means that his goals (say, ending tyranny and terrorism across the world) are unachievable, but that he's prepared to use immoral means (lying to the public, starting unjust wars, torturing suspects, that sort of thing) to achieve them. Can we have some deeply realistic goals (say, not getting enmeshed in a disastrous global war between United States forces and fundamentalist Islam, or reducing the national debt below five trillion dollars) and deeply idealistic methods (such as, um, not lying to the public, starting unjust wars, and torturing suspects) instead, please?