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"O but there is wisdom
In what the sages said;
But stretch that body for a while
And lay down that head
Till I have told the sages
Where man is comforted."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "V. Consolation." |
"A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. Adam's Curse, st. 1, In the Seven Woods (1904). |
"For wisdom is the property of the dead,
A something incompatible with life; and power,
Like everything that has the stain of blood,
A property of the living; but no stain
Can come upon the visage of the moon
When it has looked in glory from a cloud."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "Blood and the Moon." |
"I care not what the sailors say:
All those dreadful thunder-stones,
All that storm that blots the day
Can but show that Heaven yawns;
Great Europa played the fool
That changed a lover for a bull."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "II. Crazy Jane Reproved." |
"When long ago I saw her ride
Under Ben Bulben to the meet,
The beauty of her country-side
With all youth's lonely wildness stirred,
She seemed to have grown clean and sweet
Like any rock-bred, sea-borne bird...."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "On a Political Prisoner." |
"You ask what I have found and far and wide I go,
Nothing but Cromwell's house and Cromwell's murderous crew,
The lovers and the dancers are beaten into the clay,
And the tall men and the swordsmen and the horsemen where are they?"
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "The Curse of Cromwell." |
"At middle night great cats with silver claws,
Bodies of shadow and blind eyes like pearls,
Came up out of the hole, and red-eared hounds
With long white bodies came out of the air
Suddenly, and ran at them and harried them."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "The Old Age of Queen Maeve." |
"I kiss my wailing child and press it to my breast,
And hear the narrow graves calling my child and me."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "The Unappeasable Host." |
"Thought is a garment and the soul's a bride
That cannot in that trash and tinsel hide:
Hatred of God may bring the soul to God."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "V. Ribh Considers Christian Love Insufficient." |
"Yet always when I look death in the face,
When I clamber to the heights of sleep,
Or when I grow excited with wine,
Suddenly I meet your face."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet. A Deep-sworn Vow (l. 3-6). . .
The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Richard J. Finneran, ed. (1989) Macmillan. |
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William Butler Yeats
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