William Butler Yeats (1865-1939 / County Dublin / Ireland)

poet William Butler Yeats
#15 on top 500 poets

Quotations

  • ''Hidden by old age awhile
    In masker's cloak and hood,
    Each hating what the other loved,
    Face to face we stood:
    "That I have met with such," said he,
    "Bodes me little good."''
    William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "X. Meeting."
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  • ''What made the ceiling waterproof?
    Landor's tarpaulin on the roof.''
    William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "A Nativity."
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  • ''Those men that in their writings are most wise
    Own nothing but their blind, stupefied hearts.''
    William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "Ego Dominus Tuus."
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  • ''The hourly kindness, the day's common speech,
    The habitual content of each with each
    When neither soul nor body has been crossed.''
    William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "King and No King."
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  • ''"There's not a man or woman
    Born under the skies
    Dare match in learning with us two,
    And all day long we have found
    There's not a thing but love can make
    The world a narrow pound."''
    William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "Solomon to Sheba." Observation by a "beautiful mild woman," actually the sister of Irish freedom fighter Maud Gonne.
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  • ''The island dreams under the dawn
    And great boughs drop tranquillity;
    The peahens dance on a smooth lawn,
    A parrot sways upon a tree,
    Raging at his own image in the enamelled sea.''
    William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "The Indian to his Love."
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  • ''They walked the roads
    Mimicking what they heard, as children mimic;
    They understood that wisdom comes of beggary.''
    William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "The Seven Sages."
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  • ''But was there ever dog that praised his fleas?''
    William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "To a Poet, Who Would Have Me Praise Certain Bad Poets, Imitators of His and Mine."
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  • ''All the stream that's roaring by
    Came out of a needle's eye....''
    William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "XI. A Needle's Eye."
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  • ''A sweetheart from another life floats there
    As though she had been forced to linger
    From vague distress
    Or arrogant loveliness,
    Merely to loosen out a tress
    Among the starry eddies of her hair....''
    William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "An Image from a Past Life."
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An Acre Of Grass

PICTURE and book remain,
An acre of green grass
For air and exercise,
Now strength of body goes;
Midnight, an old house
Where nothing stirs but a mouse.

My temptation is quiet.
Here at life's end

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