William Butler Yeats Quotes - Page 17

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Age Aging Anarchy Angels Animals Art Balance

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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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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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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For he would be thinking of love Till the stars had run away And the shadows eaten the moon.

William Butler Yeats

Running, Stars, Moon

William Butler Yeats (2013). “Early Poems”, p.75, Courier Corporation

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I kiss you and kiss you, With arms around my own, Ah, how shall I miss you, When, dear, you have grown.

William Butler Yeats

Kissing, Missing, Arms

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And God would bid His warfare cease,
Saying all things were well;
And softly make a rosy peace,
A peace of Heaven with Hell.

William Butler Yeats

Beauty, God, Heaven

William Butler Yeats (2013). “Early Poems”, p.26, Courier Corporation

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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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I thought of rhyme alone,
For rhyme can beat a measure out of trouble
And make the daylight sweet once more.

William Butler Yeats

Happiness, Sweet, Poetry

William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.142, Simon and Schuster

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I have heard that hysterical women say
They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow,
Of poets that are always gay

William Butler Yeats

Gay, Sick, Poetry

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.250, Wordsworth Editions

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O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes,
The poets labouring all their days
To build a perfect beauty in rhyme
Are overthrown by a woman's gaze.

William Butler Yeats

Beauty, Dream, Women

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.54, Wordsworth Editions

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Man has created death.

William Butler Yeats

Men, Biodiversity

'Death'

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Come near, that no more blinded by man's fate, I find under the boughs of love and hate, In all poor foolish things that live a day, Eternal beauty wandering on her way.

William Butler Yeats

Hate, Fate, Men

William Butler Yeats (2015). “When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales”, p.115, Penguin

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Shakespeare cared little for the State, the source of all our judgments, apart from its shows and splendours, its turmoils and battles, its flamings out of the uncivilized heart.

William Butler Yeats

Heart, Battle, Littles

William Butler Yeats (1908). “Ideas of good and evil”

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If Michael, leader of God's host
When Heaven and Hell are met,
Looked down on you from Heaven's door-post
He would his deeds forget.

William Butler Yeats

Beauty, Doors, Leader

William Butler Yeats (2001). “The Major Works”, p.18

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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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All things can tempt me from this craft of verse:
One time it was a woman's face, or worse--
The seeming needs of my fool-driven land;
Now nothing but comes readier to the hand
Than this accustomed toil.

William Butler Yeats

Hands, Land, Poetry

William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.38, Hayes Barton Press

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My father was an angry and impatient teacher and flung the reading book at my head.

William Butler Yeats

Teacher, Father, Book

William Butler Yeats (2010). “Autobiographies: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats”, p.53, Simon and Schuster

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for never yet
Has lover lived, but longed to wive
Like them that are no more alive.

William Butler Yeats

Alive, Lovers

William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.28, Library of Alexandria

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An age is the reversal of an age:
When strangers murdered Emmet, Fitzgerald, Tone,
We lived like men that watch a painted stage.
What matter for the scene, the scene once gone:
It had not touched our lives.

William Butler Yeats

Men, What Matters, Age

William Butler Yeats (2010). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Vol II: The Plays”, p.703, Simon and Schuster

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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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We all to some extent meet again and again the same people and certainly in some cases form a kind of family of two or three or more persons who come together life after life until all passionate relations are exhausted, the child of one life the husband, wife, brother, sister of the next. Sometimes, however, a single relationship will repeat itself, turning its revolving wheel again and again.

William Butler Yeats

Brother, Children, Husband

William Butler Yeats (2015). “A Vision: The Revised 1937 Edition: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats”, p.173, Simon and Schuster

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I made my song a coat Covered with embroideries Out of old mythologies From heel to throat But the fools caught it, Wore it in the world's eyes As though they'd wrought it. Song, let them take it, For there's more enterprise In walking naked.

William Butler Yeats

Song, Eye, Fool

"A Coat" l. 8 (1914)

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Labor is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul, Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut tree, great-rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance How can we know the dancer from the dance?

William Butler Yeats

Wisdom, Oil, Dancing

"Among School Children" l. 57 (1928) See Quarles 1

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Come, fix upon me that accusing eye.
I thirst for accusation. All that was sung.
All that was said in Ireland is a lie
Breed out of the contagion of the throng,
Saving the rhyme rats hear before they die.

William Butler Yeats

Lying, Eye, Saving

William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.285, Simon and Schuster

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

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