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""Were not all her life but storm,
Would not painters paint a form
Of such noble times ...""
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "Peace." |
"The people of coming days will know
About the casting out of my net,
And how you have leaped times out of mind
Over the little silver cords,
And think that you were hard and unkind...."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "The Fish." |
"Or have you heard that sliding silver-shoed
Pale silver-proud queen-woman of the sky,
When the sun looked out of his golden hood?
O that none ever loved but you and I!"
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "The Ragged Wood." |
"I am haunted by numberless islands, many a Danaan shore,
Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no more;
Soon far from the rose and the lily and fret of the flames would we be,
Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea!"
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "The White Birds." |
"God be with the times when I
Cared not a thraneen for what chanced
So that I had the limbs to try
Such a dance as there was danced—
Love is like the lion's tooth."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "VII. Crazy Jane Grown Old Looks at the Dancers." |
"Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young
We loved each other and were ignorant."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet. After Long Silence (l. 7-8). . .
The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Richard J. Finneran, ed. (1989) Macmillan. |
"The Colonel went out sailing,
He spoke with Turk and Jew
With Christian and with Infidel
For all tongues he knew.
"O what's a wifeless man?" said he
And he came sailing home."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "Colonel Martin." |
"The innocent and the beautiful
Have no enemy but time;"
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet. In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz (l. 24-25). . .
The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Richard J. Finneran, ed. (1989) Macmillan. |
"Accursed who brings to light of day
The writings I have cast away."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "Poems Not Included in the Definitive Edition," Untitled, in Variorum edition, eds. Peter Allt and Russell Alspach (1957). |
"All day I'd looked in the face
What I had hoped 'twould be
To write for my own race
And the reality;"
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet. The Fisherman (l. 9-12). . .
The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Richard J. Finneran, ed. (1989) Macmillan. |
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