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"Eyes spiritualised by death can judge,
I cannot, but I am not content."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "Are You Content?" |
"O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes,
The poets labouring all their days
To build a perfect beauty in rhyme
Are overthrown by a woman's gaze...."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "He Tells of the Perfect Beauty." |
""Old lovers yet may have
All that time denied
Grave is heaped on grave
That they be satisfied
Over the blackened earth
The old troops parade....""
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "Mohini Chatterjee." |
"'I have cap and bells,' he pondered,
'I will send them to her and die';
And when the morning whitened
He left them where she went by."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet. The Cap and Bells (l. 21-24). . .
The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Richard J. Finneran, ed. (1989) Macmillan. |
"Pale brows, still hands and dim hair,
I had a beautiful friend
And dreamed that the old despair
Would end in love in the end...."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "The Lover Mourns for the Loss of Love." |
"We are closed in, and the key is turned
On our uncertainty;"
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet. The Stare's Nest by My Window (l. 6-7). . .
The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Richard J. Finneran, ed. (1989) Macmillan. |
"A speckled cat and a tame hare
Eat at my hearthstone
And sleep there;
And both look up to me alone
For learning and defence
As I look up to Providence."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "Two Songs of a Fool." |
"I call on those that call me son,
Grandson, or great-grandson,
On uncles, aunts, great-uncles or great-aunts
To judge what I have done.
Have I, that put it into words,
Spoilt what old loins have sent?"
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "Are You Content?" |
"I have drunk ale from the Country of the Young
And weep because I know all things now:
I have been a hazel-tree, and they hung
The Pilot Star and the Crooked Plough
Among my leaves in times out of mind...."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "He Thinks of His Past Greatness When a Part of the Constellations of Heaven." |
"O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?"
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "Never Give All the Heart." |
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William Butler Yeats
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