William Butler Yeats Quotes About Death

Quotes about: Death

• Through winter-time we call on spring,
  And through the spring on summer call,
  And when the abounding hedges ring
  Declare that winter's best of all:
  And after that there's nothing good
  Because the spring time has not come-
  Not know that what disturbs our blood
  Is but its longing for the tomb.

  William Butler Yeats

  Death, Summer, Spring

  William Butler Yeats (2012). “The Tower: A Facsimile Edition”, p.42, Simon and Schuster

• We poets would die of loneliness but for women, and we choose our men friends that we may have somebody to talk about women with. Letter to Olivia Shakespeare, 1936

  William Butler Yeats

  Friendship, Death, Loneliness

• What shall I do for pretty girls Now my old bawd is dead?

  William Butler Yeats

  Girl, Death, Pretty Girl

  William Butler Yeats (2010). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume I: The Poems: Revised Second Edition”, p.342, Simon and Schuster

• I balanced all, brought all to mind, the years to come seemed waste of breath, a waste of breath the years behind, in balance with this life, this death.

  William Butler Yeats

  Death, Years, Mind

  "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" l. 9 (1919)

• 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

• On limestone quarried near the spot By his command these words are cut: Cast a cold eye On life, on death. Horseman, pass by!

  William Butler Yeats

  Life, Death, Eye

  "Under Ben Bulben" l. 89 (1939). The final three lines are in fact inscribed on Yeats's gravestone.

• That is no country for old men. The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees - Those dying generations-at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unaging intellect.

  William Butler Yeats

  Death, Summer, Country

  "Sailing to Byzantium" l. 1 (1928)

• 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

• I am still of opinion that only two topics can be of the least interest to a serious and studious mood - sex and the dead.

  William Butler Yeats

  Death, Sex, Two

  Letter to Olivia Shakespear, Oct. 1927

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