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William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats Quotes

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Famous William Butler Yeats Quotes

“A daughter of a King of Ireland, heard A voice singing on a May Eve like this, And followed half awake and half asleep, Until she came into the Land of Faery, Where nobody gets old and godly and grave, Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise, Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue. And she is still there, busied with a dance Deep in the dewy shadow of a wood, Or where stars walk upon a mountain-top.”

MayStillsStarsVoiceWalksHalfWiseHeardLandKingsMountainSingingDaughterShadowWoodsTongueGravesBitterAwakeIrelandGodlyCraftyMountain TopVoice Singing
Book:The Land of Heart's Desire
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“Hope and Memory have one daughter and her name is Art, and she has built her dwelling far from the desperate field where men hang out their garments upon forked boughs to be banners of battle. O beloved daughter of Hope and Memory, be with me for a while.”

MenInspirationalArtNamesMemoriesFieldsBattleDaughterBuiltBelovedDesperateHanging OutDwellingGarmentsBanner
Book:When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales
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“...Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World! You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring The bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing. Beauty grown sad with its eternity Made you of us, and of the dim grey sea. Our long ships loose thought-woven sails and wait, For God has bid them share an equal fate; And when at last defeated in His wars, They have gone down under the same white stars, We shall no longer hear the little cry Of our sad hearts, that may not live nor die.”

WorldHeartMayLittlesLongMadeWarLastsDiesStarsWaitingWhiteGoneFateHeardSeaShareCrySweetSorrowEqualEternityRoseRingsShipsBellsTidesDefeatedSailGreyWovenSad Heart
Book:When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales
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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.”

IfsThinkingMenEnoughMightWould BeRunningYoungStarsLove IsWiseHairMoonShadowFairsAnd LoveYoung ManBrownRunning AwayPenniesCrookedLoopsBe Young
Book:Collected Poems
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“An Irish Airman foresees his Death I Know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate Those that I guard I do not love, My country is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public man, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds; 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.”

KnowsMenYearsMindEndsCountryLawHateFightingLossPoorBehindsFateDutyBalanceWasteCrossesLonelyBreathsCloudsCrowdsDelightThis LifeImpulseCheerBalancedCountrymenTumultAirmen
Author:William Butler Yeats
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“Never give all the heart, for love Will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seem Certain, and they never dream That it fades out from kiss to kiss; For everything that's lovely is But a brief, dreamy, kind delight. O Never give the heart outright, For they, for all smooth lips can say, Have given their hearts up to the play. And who could play it well enough If deaf and dumb and blind with love? He that made this knows all the cost, For he gave all his heart and lost.”

IfsThinkingKnowsGivingWellsHeartKindMadeEnoughPlayDreamSeemsCertainLostGivenCostKissingBlindLipsPassionateDelightLovelyDumbFadesSmoothDeafDreamyDeaf And DumbPassionate Woman
Book:The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats
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“Where the wave of moonlight glosses The dim gray sands with light, Far off by furthest Rosses We foot it all the night, Weaving olden dances, Mingling hands and mingling glances Till the moon has taken flight; To and fro we leap And chase the frothy bubbles, While the world is full of troubles And is anxious in its sleep. . . .”

WorldHandsLightNightSleepTakenTroubleFeetMoonWaveFlightSandLeapGrayAnxiousBubblesGlancesMoonlightWeavingGlossMingling
Book:The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats
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“Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet; She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet. She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree; But I, being young and foolish, with her did not agree. In a field by the river my love and I did stand, And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand. She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs; But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.”

LittlesHandsYoungGrowsEasyWhiteTreeFeetFieldsTearsGardenRiversAgreeFoolishShouldersSnowGrassSnow White
Author:William Butler Yeats
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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.”

PeopleKindChildrenPersonsTwoSometimesTogetherFormThreeNextCasesWifeBrotherHusbandRelationPassionateRepeatsWheelsAgain And AgainExhaustedRevolvingBrother SisterSingle RelationshipHusband Wife
Book:A Vision: The Revised 1937 Edition: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats
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“THAT crazed girl improvising her music. Her poetry, dancing upon the shore, Her soul in division from itself Climbing, falling She knew not where, Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship, Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing Heroically lost, heroically found. No matter what disaster occurred She stood in desperate music wound, Wound, wound, and she made in her triumph Where the bales and the baskets lay No common intelligible sound But sang, 'O sea-starved, hungry sea”

MadeSoulMatterBeautifulFallGirlFoundLostSoundCommonSeaBrokenNo Matter WhatLaysDancingWoundsDisasterHungryTriumphKneesDesperateDivisionHidingClimbingShoreIrelandCapsLoftyBasketsThat GirlImprovisingCargo
Book:Poems of William Butler Yeats
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“THOUGH you are in your shining days, Voices among the crowd And new friends busy with your praise, Be not unkind or proud, But think about old friends the most: Time's bitter flood will rise, Your beauty perish and be lost For all eyes but these eyes.”

ThinkingEyeLostVoiceProudPraiseShiningBusyCrowdsBitterFloodOld FriendsUnkindNew FriendsThese Eyes
Book:The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition
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“I sat, a solitary man, In a crowded London shop, An open book and empty cup On the marble table-top. While on the shop and street I gazed My body of a sudden blazed; And twenty minutes more or less It seemed, so great my happiness, That I was blessed and could bless.”

MenBookBodyStreetsMinutesEmptyTwentiesTablesBlessedLondonCupsSatShopsBlessSolitaryCrowdedMarbleOpen BookEmpty CupSolitary Man
Book:The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition
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“Before The World Was Made If I make the lashes dark and the eyes more bright and the lips more scarlet, or ask if all be right from mirror after mirror, no vanity's displayed: I'm looking for the face I had before the world was made. What if I look upon a man as though on my beloved, and my blood be cold the while and my heart unmoved? Why should he think me cruel or that he is betrayed? I'd have him love the thing that was before the world was made.”

IfsThinkingMenWorldShouldLooksHeartMadeEyeFacesAsksDarkBloodColdMy HeartMirrorsLipsVanityBelovedWhat IfBetrayedLashesScarlet
Author:William Butler Yeats
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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.”

PeopleWorldWayLooksLittlesShowsBeautifulFacesArtistMy OwnVisionWrittenHeardSignificantPleasantIrelandCommentaryClumsySignificant Things
Book:When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales
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“As I thought of these things, I drew aside the curtains and looked out into the darkness, and it seemed to my troubled fancy that all those little points of light filling the sky were the furnaces of innumerable divine alchemists, who labour continually, turning lead into gold, weariness into ecstasy, bodies into souls, the darkness into God; and at their perfect labour my mortality grew heavy, and I cried out, as so many dreamers and men of letters in our age have cried, for the birth of that elaborate spiritual beauty which could alone uplift souls weighted with so many dreams.”

MenLittlesSoulDreamBodyLightAgeSpiritualPerfectDarknessSkyDivineGrewBirthLettersGoldHeavyUpliftingFancyLabourMortalityEcstasyDreamerCriedCurtainsFillingAlchemistWearinessFurnacesPoints Of LightSpiritual Beauty
Book:The Yeats companion
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