William Butler Yeats Quotes - Page 17

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What were all the world's alarms To mighty Paris when he found Sleep upon a golden bed That first dawn in Helen's arms?

William Butler Yeats

Sleep, Paris, Bed

'Meditations in Time of Civil War 6: The Stare's Nest by my Window'

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The fascination of what's difficult Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent Spontaneous joy and natural content Out of my heart.

William Butler Yeats

Heart, Joy, Fascination

"The Fascination of What's Difficult" l. 1 (1910)

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But boys and girls, pale from the imagined love
Of solitary beds, knew what they were,
That passion could bring character enough
And pressed at midnighht in some public place
Live lips upon a plummet-measured face.

William Butler Yeats

Girl, Passion, Character

'The Statues'

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Come swish around my pretty punk
And keep me dancing still
That I may stay a sober man
Although I drink my fill.

William Butler Yeats

Drinking, Men, Dancing

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.268, Wordsworth Editions

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Brown Penny I WHISPERED, 'I am too young,' And then, 'I am old enough'; Wherefore I threw a penny To find out if I might love. 'Go and love, go and love, young man, If the lady be young and fair.' Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny, I am looped in the loops of her hair. O love is the crooked thing, There is nobody wise enough To find out all that is in it, For he would be thinking of love Till the stars had run away And the shadows eaten the moon. Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny, One cannot begin it too soon.

William Butler Yeats

Wise, Running, Stars

William Butler Yeats (2016). “Collected Poems”, p.52, William Butler Yeats

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... Let the cage bird and the cage bird mate and the wild bird mate in the wild.

William Butler Yeats

Marriage, Bird, Cages

William Butler Yeats (2016). “Collected Poems”, p.124, William Butler Yeats

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I--though heart might find relief
Did I become a Christian man and choose for my belief
What seems most welcome in the tomb--play a predestined part.
Homer is my example and his unchristened heart.

William Butler Yeats

Faith, Christian, Heart

William Butler Yeats (2011). “Selected Poems And Four Plays”, p.143, Simon and Schuster

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Because this age and the next age
Engender in the ditch,
No man can know a happy man
From any passing wretch,
If Folly link with Elegance
No man knows which is which.

William Butler Yeats

Happiness, Men, Age

William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.324, Simon and Schuster

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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

Beauty, Swans, Mirrors

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.177, Wordsworth Editions

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Let the minor genius go his light way and enjoy his life - the great nature cannot so live, he is never really in holiday mood, even though he often plucks flowers by the wayside and ties them into knots and garlands like little children and lays out on a sunny morning.

William Butler Yeats

Morning, Children, Flower

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While they danced they came over them the weariness with the world, the melancholy, the pity one for the other, which is the exultation of love.

William Butler Yeats

Love, World, Melancholy

William Butler Yeats (1925). “Early poems and stories”

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Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.

William Butler Yeats

Blood, World, Anarchy

"The Second Coming" l. 1 (1921)

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Whence had they come The hand and lash that beat down frigid Rome? What sacred drama through her body heaved When world-transforming Charlemagne was conceived?

William Butler Yeats

Drama, Rome, Hands

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.247, Wordsworth Editions

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The Father and His angelic hierarchy
That made the magnitude and glory there
Stood in the circuit of a needle's eye.

William Butler Yeats

Father, Eye, Angel

William Butler Yeats (2011). “Selected Poems And Four Plays”, p.135, Simon and Schuster

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If a powerful and benevolent spirit has shaped the destiny of this world, we can better discover that destiny from the words that have gathered up the heart's desire of the world, than from historical records, or from speculation, wherein the heart withers.

William Butler Yeats

Powerful, Heart, Destiny

William Butler Yeats, Richard J. Finneran, George Bornstein (2007). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume IV: Early Essays”, p.51, Simon and Schuster

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And God, the herdsman, goads them on behind.

William Butler Yeats

Time, Oxen, Behinds

Poems (1895) "The Countess Cathleen" act 4

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All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart, The heavy steps of the plowman, splashing the wintry mold, Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.

William Butler Yeats

Children, Heart, Broken

William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.52, Simon and Schuster

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When I play on my fiddle in Dooney
Folk dance like a wave on the sea.

William Butler Yeats

Dance, Sea, Play

William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.71, Simon and Schuster

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Speech after long silence; it is right, All other lovers being estranged or dead . . . That we descant and yet again descant Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song: Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young We loved each other and were ignorant.

William Butler Yeats

Wisdom, Song, Art

William Butler Yeats (2011). “The Yeats Reader, Revised Edition: A Portable Compendium of Poetry, Drama, and Prose”, p.206, Simon and Schuster

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O heart, be at peace, because
Nor knave nor dolt can break
What's not for their applause,
Being for a woman's sake.

William Butler Yeats

Heart, Poetry, Sake

William Butler Yeats (2011). “Selected Poems And Four Plays”, p.33, Simon and Schuster

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Come let us mock at the great That had such burdens on the mind And toiled so hard and late To leave some monument behind, Nor thought of the leveling wind.

William Butler Yeats

Wind, Mind, Burden

William Butler Yeats, Richard J. Finneran, Jared R. Curtis (2007). “The Tower (1928): Manuscript Materials”

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I summon to the winding ancient stair;
Set all your mind upon the steep ascent

William Butler Yeats

Thoughtful, Thinking, Mind

William Butler Yeats (2012). “The Winding Stair and Other Poems: A Facsimile Edition”, p.4, Simon and Schuster

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Because of something told under the famished horn
Of the hunter's moon, that hung between the night and the day,
To dream of women whose beauty was folded in dismay,
Even in an old story, is a burden not to be borne.

William Butler Yeats

Beauty, Dream, Women

William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.33, Library of Alexandria

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Whatever flames upon the night Man's own resinous heart has fed.

William Butler Yeats

Heart, Night, Men

William Butler Yeats (2008). “COLLECTED POEMS OF W.B. YEATS”, p.527, Simon and Schuster

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Those men that in their writings are most wise
Own nothing but their blind, stupefied hearts.

William Butler Yeats

Wise, Wisdom, Writing

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.136, Wordsworth Editions

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Born: June 13, 1865
Died: January 28, 1939
Occupation: Poet
Cite this Page: Citation

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