William Butler Yeats Quotes - Page 20

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It's certain that fine women eat A crazy salad with their meat.

William Butler Yeats

Crazy, Women, Meat

"A Prayer for my Daughter" l. 30 (1919)

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I carry from my mother's womb a fanatic's heart.

William Butler Yeats

Mother, Heart, Womb

'Remorse for Intemperate Speech'

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From dream to dream and rhyme to rhyme I have ranged / In rambling talk with an image of air: / Vague memories, nothing but memories.

William Butler Yeats

Dream, Memories, Air

William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.114, Library of Alexandria

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I call on those that call me son, Grandson, or great-grandson, On uncles, aunts, great-uncles or great-aunts, To judge what I have done. Have I, that put it into words, Spoilt what old loins have sent?

William Butler Yeats

Uncles, Son, Aunt

William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.329, Simon and Schuster

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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 With all their ancient faces like rain- beaten stones, And all their helms of silver hovering.

William Butler Yeats

Rain, Eye, Blue

William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.95, Library of Alexandria

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I have no question: It is enough, I know what fixed the station Of star and cloud. And knowing all, I cry. . . .

William Butler Yeats

Stars, Clouds, Knowing

William Butler Yeats (2010). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Vol II: The Plays”, p.294, Simon and Schuster

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The labor of the alchemists, who were called artist in their day, is a befitting comparison for a deliberate change of style.

William Butler Yeats

Artist, Style, Alchemist

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I have nothing but the embittered sun;
Banished heroic mother moon and vanished,
And now that I have come to fifty years
I must endure the timid sun.

William Butler Yeats

Mother, Moon, Reality

William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.109, Library of Alexandria

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How can they know
Truth flourishes where the student's lamp has shone,
And there alone, that have no solitude?
So the crowd come they care not what may come.
They have loud music, hope every day renewed
And heartier loves; that lamp is from the tomb.

William Butler Yeats

Truth, Solitude, Lamps

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.156, Wordsworth Editions

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For what but eye and ear silence the mind
With the minute particulars of mankind?

William Butler Yeats

Eye, Silence, Mind

William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.233, Hayes Barton Press

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Give to these children, new from the world,
Rest far from men.
Is anything better, anything better?
Tell us it then.

William Butler Yeats

Life, Children, Men

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.30, Wordsworth Editions

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Surely among a rich man's flowering lawns,
Amid the rustle of his planted hills,
Life overflows without ambitious pains;
And rains down life until the basin spills,
And mounts more dizzy high the more it rains
As though to choose whatever shape it wills.

William Butler Yeats

Life, Pain, Rain

William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.204, Simon and Schuster

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Let the new faces play what tricks they will
In the old rooms; night can outbalance day,
Our shadows rove the garden gravel still,
The living seem more shadowy than they.

William Butler Yeats

Life, Night, Garden

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.179, Wordsworth Editions

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Death and life were not
Till man made up the whole,
Made lock, stock and barrel
Out of his bitter soul

William Butler Yeats

Life, Men, Soul

William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.428, Hayes Barton Press

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Come near; I would, before my time to go,
Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways:
Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.

William Butler Yeats

Rose, Proud, Red

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.23, Wordsworth Editions

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Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make

William Butler Yeats

Art, Nature, Byzantium

"Sailing to Byzantium" l. 25 (1928)

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Boughs have their fruit and blossom
At all times of the year;
Rivers are running over
With red beer and brown beer.

William Butler Yeats

Running, Beer, Years

William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.36, Library of Alexandria

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I can exchange opinion with any neighbouring mind,
I have as healthy flesh and blood as any rhymer's had,
But O! my Heart could bear no more when the upland caught the wind;
I ran, I ran, from my love's side because my Heart went mad.

William Butler Yeats

Heart, Blood, Wind

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.187, Wordsworth Editions

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May we two stand,
When we are dead, beyond the setting suns,
A little from other shades apart,
With mingling hair, and play upon one lute.

William Butler Yeats

Prayer, Hair, Play

William Butler Yeats (2015). “When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales”, p.146, Penguin

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How could passion run so deep
Had I never thought
That the crime of being born
Blackens all our lot?

William Butler Yeats

Running, Passion, Sin

William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.524, Hayes Barton Press

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And there's a score of duchesses, surpassing womankind,
Or who have found a painter to make them so for pay
And smooth out stain and blemish with the elegance of his mind:
I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.

William Butler Yeats

Women, Phoenix, Mind

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.127, Wordsworth Editions

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The women that I picked spoke sweet and low
And yet gave tongue. "Hound voices" were they all.

William Butler Yeats

Sweet, Women, Voice

William Butler Yeats (2001). “The Major Works”, p.175

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I would that I were an old beggar
Rolling a blind pearl eye,
For he cannot see my lady
Go gallivanting by.

William Butler Yeats

Eye, Rolling, Pearls

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.242, Wordsworth Editions

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I see a schoolboy when I think of him,
With face and nose pressed to a sweet-shop window.

William Butler Yeats

Sweet, Thinking, Noses

'Ego Dominus Tuus' (referring to Keats)

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. . . you may think I waste my breath
Pretending that there can be passion
That has more life in it than death

William Butler Yeats

Passion, Thinking, May

William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.75, Library of Alexandria

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

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