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"Poetry and music I have banished,
But the stupidity
Of root, shoot, blossom or clay
Makes no demand.
I bend my body to the spade
Or grope with a dirty hand."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "The Spirit Medium." |
"I grew wild
Even accusing Heaven because
It had set down among its laws:
Nothing that we love over-much
Is ponderable to our touch."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "Towards Break of Day." |
"should some limb of the devil
Destroy the view by cutting down an ash
That shades the road, or setting up a cottage
Planned in a government office, shorten his life,
Manacle his soul upon the Red Sea bottom."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "A Prayer on Going into My House." |
"I dreamed that I stood in a valley, and amid sighs,
For happy lovers passed two by two where I stood;
And I dreamed my lost love came stealthily out of the wood
With her cloud-pale eyelids falling on dream-dimmed eyes...."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "He Tells of a Valley Full of Lovers." |
"While Michael Angelo's Sistine roof,
His "Morning" and his "Night" disclose
How sinew that has been pulled tight,
Or it may be loosened in repose,
Can rule by supernatural right
Yet be but sinew."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "Michael Robartes and the Dancer." |
"They set up a noise like crickets,
A chattering wise and sweet,
And her hair was a folded flower
And the quiet of love in her feet."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet. The Cap and Bells (l. 33-36). . .
The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Richard J. Finneran, ed. (1989) Macmillan. |
"If this importunate heart trouble your peace
With words lighter than air,
Or hopes that in mere hoping flicker and cease;
Crumple the rose in your hair;
And cover your lips with odorous twilight...."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "The Lover Asks Forgiveness Because of His Many Moods." |
"We had fed the heart on fantasies,
The heart's grown brutal from the fare;
More substance in our enmities
Than in our love; O honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of the stare."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet. The Stare's Nest by My Window (l. 16-21). . .
The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Richard J. Finneran, ed. (1989) Macmillan. |
"Had I but awakened from sleep
And called her name, she had heard
It may be, and had not stirred,
That now, it may be, has found
The horn's sweet note and the tooth of the hound."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. "Two Songs of a Fool." |
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William Butler Yeats
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