William Butler Yeats Quotes - Page 22

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For the good are always the merry, / Save by an evil chance,/ And the merry love the fiddle,/ And the merry love to dance: / And when the folk there spy me,/ They will all come up to me, / With,”Here is the fiddler of Dooney!” / And dance like a wave of the sea.

William Butler Yeats

Sea, Evil, Spy

William Butler Yeats, Colton Johnson (2000). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Vol X: Later Articles and Reviews: Uncollected Articles, Reviews, and Radio Broadcasts Written After 1900”, p.225, 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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A mermaid found a swimming lad, Picked him up for her own, Pressed her body to his body, Laughed; and plunging down Forgot in cruel happiness That even lovers drown.

William Butler Yeats

Swimming, Mermaid, Body

William Butler Yeats, “A Man Young And Old”

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Land of Heart's Desire Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood, But joy is wisdom, time an endless song.

William Butler Yeats

Song, Heart, Land

The Land of Heart's Desire (1894) p. 36

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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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Brown Penny I WHISPERED, 'I am too young,' And then, 'I am old enough'; Wherefore I threw a penny To find out if I might love. 'Go and love, go and love, young man, If the lady be young and fair.' Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny, I am looped in the loops of her hair. O love is the crooked thing, There is nobody wise enough To find out all that is in it, For he would be thinking of love Till the stars had run away And the shadows eaten the moon. Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny, One cannot begin it too soon.

William Butler Yeats

Wise, Running, Stars

William Butler Yeats (2016). “Collected Poems”, p.52, William Butler Yeats

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Those men that in their writings are most wise
Own nothing but their blind, stupefied hearts.

William Butler Yeats

Wise, Wisdom, Writing

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.136, Wordsworth Editions

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Odor of blood when Christ was slain Made all Platonic tolerance vain And vain all Doric discipline.

William Butler Yeats

Blood, Discipline, Tolerance

Thomas Stearns Eliot, William Butler Yeats (2001). “YER”

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What portion in the world can the artist have, Who has awakened from the common dream, But dissipation and despair?

William Butler Yeats

Dream, Artist, Despair

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.135, Wordsworth Editions

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To sit beside the board and drink good wine And watch the turf smoke coiling from the fire And feel content and wisdom in your heart, This is the best of life; when we are young We long to tread a way none trod before, But find the excellent old way through love And through the care of children to the hour Forbidding Fate and Time and Change goodbye.

William Butler Yeats

Goodbye, Children, Heart

William Butler Yeats (2015). “When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales”, p.101, Penguin

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No man, even though he be Shakespeare, can write perfectly when his web is woven of threads that have been spun in many lands.

William Butler Yeats

Writing, Men, Land

William Butler Yeats, Richard J. Finneran, George Bornstein (2007). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume IV: Early Essays”, p.82, Simon and Schuster

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If a powerful and benevolent spirit has shaped the destiny of this world, we can better discover that destiny from the words that have gathered up the heart's desire of the world, than from historical records, or from speculation, wherein the heart withers.

William Butler Yeats

Powerful, Heart, Destiny

William Butler Yeats, Richard J. Finneran, George Bornstein (2007). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume IV: Early Essays”, p.51, Simon and Schuster

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I have desired, like every artist, to create a little world out of the beautiful, pleasant, and significant things of this marred and clumsy world, and to show in a vision something of the face of Ireland to any of my own people who would look where I bid them. I have therefore written down accurately and candidly much that I have heard and seen, and, except by way of commentary, nothing that I have merely imagined.

William Butler Yeats

Beautiful, Artist, Significant Things

William Butler Yeats (2015). “When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales”, p.222, Penguin

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I spit into the face of time that has transfigured me

William Butler Yeats

Faces, Spit

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.37, Wordsworth Editions

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Like a long-legged fly upon the stream / His mind moves upon silence.

William Butler Yeats

Moving, Long, Silence

'Meditations in Time of Civil War 6: The Stare's Nest by my Window'

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It seems that I must bid the Muse to pack, / Choose Plato and Plotinus for a friend / Until imagination, ear and eye, / Can be content with argument and deal / In abstract things; or be derided by / A sort of battered kettle at the heel.

William Butler Yeats

Plato, Eye, Imagination

William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.418, Hayes Barton Press

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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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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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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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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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Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?
For these red lips, with all their mournful pride,
Mournful that no new wonder may betide,
Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam,
And Usna's children died.

William Butler Yeats

Beauty, Dream, Children

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.28, Wordsworth Editions

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Because of something told under the famished horn
Of the hunter's moon, that hung between the night and the day,
To dream of women whose beauty was folded in dismay,
Even in an old story, is a burden not to be borne.

William Butler Yeats

Beauty, Dream, Women

William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.33, 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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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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Born: June 13, 1865
Died: January 28, 1939
Occupation: Poet
Cite this Page: Citation

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