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"Cried out the whole night long,
Crying amid the glittering sea,
Naming it with ecstatic breath,
Because it had such dignity,
By the sweet name of Death."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "His Dream." |
"We too had many pretty toys when young;
A law indifferent to blame or praise,
To bribe or threat; habits that made old wrong
Melt down, as it were wax in the sun's rays;
Public opinion ripening for so long
We thought it would outlive all future days."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen." |
"A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street,
Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,
Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut
Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder's gone,
I must lie down where all the ladders start,
In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet. The Circus Animals' Desertion (l. 35-40). . .
The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Richard J. Finneran, ed. (1989) Macmillan. |
"Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones
Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky"
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet. The Magi (l. 1-3). . .
The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Richard J. Finneran, ed. (1989) Macmillan. |
""... And maybe we are all the same
Where no candles are,
And maybe we are all the same
That strip the body bare."
O my dear, O my dear."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "The Three Bushes." |
"Even the wisest man grows tense
With some sort of violence
Before he can accomplish fate,
Know his work or choose his mate.
Poet and sculptor, do the work,
Nor let the modish painter shirk"
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet. Under Ben Bulben (l. 33-38). . .
The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Richard J. Finneran, ed. (1989) Macmillan. |
"There where the course is,
Delight makes all of the one mind,
The riders upon the galloping horses,
The crowd that closes in behind...."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "At Galway Races." |
"There's Margaret and Marjorie and Dorothy and Nan,
A Daphne and a Mary who live in privacy;
One's had her fill of lovers, another's had but one,
Another boasts, "I pick and choose and have but two or three."
If head and limb have beauty and the instep's high and light
They can spread out what sail they please for all I have to say...."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "His Phoenix." |
"Some moralist or mythological poet
Compares the solitary soul to a swan;
I am satisfied with that,
Satisfied if a troubled mirror show it,
Before that brief gleam of its life be gone...."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen." |
"yet when all is said
It was the dream itself enchanted me:
Character isolated by a deed
To engross the present and dominate memory."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet. The Circus Animals' Desertion (l. 27-30). . .
The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Richard J. Finneran, ed. (1989) Macmillan. |
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William Butler Yeats
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