William Butler Yeats Quotes - Page 21

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Now must we sing and sing the best we can,
But first you must be told your character:
Convicted cowards all, by kindred slain.

William Butler Yeats

Character, Coward, Firsts

William Butler Yeats (2001). “The Major Works”, p.170

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I say that Roger Casement
Did what he had to do,
He died upon the gallows
But that is nothing new.

William Butler Yeats

Roger, Killing, Gallows

William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.312, Simon and Schuster

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The Danaan children laugh, in cradles of wrought gold,
And clap their hands together, and half close their eyes,
For they will ride the North when the ger-eagle flies,
With heavy whitening wings, and a heart fallen cold.

William Butler Yeats

Children, Heart, Eye

William Butler Yeats (2013). “Early Poems”, p.43, Courier Corporation

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So long as all is ordered for attack, and that alone, leaders will instinctively increase the number of enemies that they may give their followers something to do.

William Butler Yeats

Numbers, Long, Giving

William Butler Yeats (2010). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Vol. III: Autobiogra”, p.369, Simon and Schuster

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In mockery I have set
A powerful emblem up,
And sing it rhyme upon rhyme
In mockery of a time
Half dead at the top.

William Butler Yeats

Powerful, Symbolism, Towers

William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.241, Simon and Schuster

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The old priest Peter Gilligan
Was weary night and day;
For half his flock were in their beds,
Or under green sods lay.

William Butler Yeats

Night, Bed, Half

William Butler Yeats (2015). “When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales”, p.137, Penguin

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Books are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought - asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation.

William Butler Yeats

Book, Reading, Pride

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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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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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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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How can I, that girl standing there, My attention fix On Roman or on Russian Or on Spanish politics? Yet here's a travelled man that knows What he talks about, And there's a politician That has read and thought, And maybe what they say is true Of war and war's alarms, But O that I were young again And held her in my arms!

William Butler Yeats

Girl, War, Men

William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.356, Simon and Schuster

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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 but in custom and in ceremony are innocence and beauty born?

William Butler Yeats

Innocence, Born, Ceremony

William Butler Yeats (2008). “COLLECTED POEMS OF W.B. YEATS”, p.478, Simon and Schuster

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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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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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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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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 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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Acquaintance; companion;
One dear brilliant woman;
The best-endowed, the elect,
All by their youth undone,
All, all, by that inhuman
Bitter glory wrecked.

William Butler Yeats

Brilliant, Youth, Bitter

William Butler Yeats (2010). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume I: The Poems: Revised Second Edition”, p.253, Simon and Schuster

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When we are high and airy hundreds say
That if we hold that flight they'll leave the place,
While those same hundreds mock another day
Because we have made our art of common things.

William Butler Yeats

Art, Public Opinion, Another Day

William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.72, Library of Alexandria

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The Bishop has a skin, God knows,
Wrinkled like the foot of a goose,
(All find safety in the tomb.)
Nor can he hide in holy black
The heron's hunch upon his back,
But a birch-tree stood my Jack.

William Butler Yeats

Feet, Hypocrisy, Safety

William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.260, Simon and Schuster

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The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told;
I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart.

William Butler Yeats

Green, Hunger, Ugliness

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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The creations of a great writer are little more than the moods and passions of his own heart, given surnames and Christian names, and sent to walk the earth.

William Butler Yeats

Christian, Passion, Writing

William Butler Yeats (1955). “Letters”

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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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Why should the imagination of a man
Long past his prime remember things that are
Emblematical of love and war?

William Butler Yeats

War, Past, Men

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.198, Wordsworth Editions

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

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