William Butler Yeats Quotes - Page 20

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A thought Of that late death took all my heart for speech.

William Butler Yeats

Death, Heart, Speech

William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.135, Simon and Schuster

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somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

William Butler Yeats

Moving, Men, Bird

William Butler Yeats (2015). “A Vision: The Revised 1937 Edition: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats”, p.192, Simon and Schuster

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This melancholy London - I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets perpetually. One feels them passing like a whiff of air.

William Butler Yeats

Air, Soul, London

William Butler Yeats, Richard J. Finneran (1969). “John Sherman & Dhoya”

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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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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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The years like great black oxen tread the world, and God, the herdsman goads them on behind, and I am broken by their passing feet.

William Butler Yeats

God, Time, Oxen

Poems (1895) "The Countess Cathleen" act 4

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Thought is a garment and the soul's a bride
That cannot in that trash and tinsel hide:
Hatred of God may bring the soul to God.

William Butler Yeats

God, Hatred, Soul

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.246, Wordsworth Editions

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We are happy when for everything inside us there is a corresponding something outside us.

William Butler Yeats

Happiness, Laughter, Joy

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But Love has pitched his mansion in the place of excrement. For nothing can be sole or whole that has not been rent.

William Butler Yeats

Sad, Sole, Whole

"Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop" l. 13 (1932)

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I weave the shoes of Sorrow:
Soundless shall be the footfall light
In all men's ears of Sorrow,
Sudden and light.

William Butler Yeats

Fate, Men, Shoes

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.5, Wordsworth Editions

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Players and painted stage took all my love, And not those things that they were emblems of.

William Butler Yeats

Love, Player, Stage

William Butler Yeats (2001). “The Major Works”, p.181

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I gave what other women gave That stepped out of their clothes But when this soul, its body off Naked to naked goes, He it has found shall find therein What none other knows.

William Butler Yeats

Clothes, Soul, Naked

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.235, Wordsworth Editions

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But was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

William Butler Yeats

Dog, Fleas

1909 'To a Poet, who would have me Praise certain Bad Poets, Imitators of His and Mine', complete poem. Collected in The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910).

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I pray-for fashion's word is out And prayer comes round again- That I may seem, though I die old, A foolish, passionate man.

William Butler Yeats

Death, Fashion, Prayer

William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.288, Simon and Schuster

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Processions that lack high stilts have nothing that catches the eye.
What if my great-granddad had a pair that were twenty foot high,
And mine were but fifteen foot, no modern stalks upon higher,
Some rogue of the world stole them to patch up a fence or a fire.

William Butler Yeats

Eye, Fire, Feet

William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.193, Hayes Barton Press

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Because the priest must have like every dog his day
Or keep us all awake with baying at the moon,
We and our dolls being but the world were best away.

William Butler Yeats

Dog, Moon, Dolls

William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.159, Simon and Schuster

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I think you can leave the arts, superior or inferior, to the conscience of mankind.

William Butler Yeats

Art, Thinking, Censorship

Speech at Seanad Éireann (Irish Free Senate) on the Censorship of Films Bill, June 07, 1923.

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Laughter not time destroyed my voice
And put that crack in it,
And when the moon's pot-bellied
I get a laughing fit.

William Butler Yeats

Laughter, Moon, Voice

William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.228, Simon and Schuster

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A strange thing surely that my Heart, when love had come unsought
Upon the Norman upland or in that poplar shade,
Should find no burden but itself and yet should be worn out.
It could not bear that burden and therefore it went mad.

William Butler Yeats

Heart, Mad, Shade

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

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Come let us mock at the good
That fancied goodness might be gay,
And sick of solitude
Might proclaim a holiday:
Wind shrieked and where are they?

William Butler Yeats

Holiday, Gay, Wind

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.178, Wordsworth Editions

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On the grey rock of Cashel I suddenly saw
A Sphinx with woman breast and lion paw,
A Buddha, hand at rest,
Hand lifted up that blest;
And right between these two a girl at play
That, it may be, had danced her life away.

William Butler Yeats

Girl, Rocks, Hands

William Butler Yeats (2008). “COLLECTED POEMS OF W.B. YEATS”, p.446, Simon and Schuster

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If a poet interprets a poem of his own he limits its suggestibility.

William Butler Yeats

Poetry, Limits, Poet

Alexander Norman Jeffares, William Butler Yeats (1984). “A New Commentary on the Poems of W.B. Yeats”, Palgrave Schol, Print UK

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A mouth that has no moisture and no breath
Breathless mouths may summon;
I hail the superhuman;
I call it death-in-life and life-in-death.

William Butler Yeats

Greatness, Moisture, Mouths

"Byzantium" l. 15 (1933)

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Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid
My child sleeps on.

William Butler Yeats

Children, Sleep, Storm

William Butler Yeats (2016). “Collected Poems”, p.101, William Butler Yeats

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Irish poets, learn your trade, sing whatever is well made, scorn the sort now growing up all out of shape from toe to top.

William Butler Yeats

Growing Up, Shapes, Toes

Last Poems (1939) "Under Ben Bulben" pt. 5

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

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