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William Butler Yeats Quotes - Page 17

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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.

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.

William Butler Yeats
Eye, Dark, Vanity
1928 'A Woman Young and Old', part 2 'Before the World was Made', stanza 1. Collected in The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933).

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

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.

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

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

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

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

An intellectual hatred is the worst, So let her think opinions are accursed. Have I not seen the loveliest woman born Out of the mouth of Plenty's horn, Because of her opinionated mind Barter that horn and every good By quiet natures understood For an old bellows full of angry wind?

William Butler Yeats
Thinking, Wind, Hatred
Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1920) "A Prayer for My Daughter"

Imagining in excited reverie That the future years had come, Dancing to a frenzied drum, Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.

William Butler Yeats
Future, Years, Sea
William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.140, Library of Alexandria

That toil of growing up; The ignominy of boyhood; the distress Of boyhood changing into man; The unfinished man and his pain.

William Butler Yeats
Growing Up, Pain, Men
William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.240, Simon and Schuster

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

Locke sank into a swoon; The Garden died; God took the spinning-jenny Out of his side.

William Butler Yeats
Garden, Spinning, Jenny
"Fragments" l. 1 (1931)

What made us dream that he could comb gray hair?

William Butler Yeats
Dream, Hair, Made
Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenit︠s︡yn, Rabindranath Tagore, Sigrid Undset, William Butler Yeats (1971). “Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Rabindranath Tagore, Sigrid Undset [and] William Butler Yeats”

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

I carry from my mother's womb a fanatic's heart.

William Butler Yeats
Mother, Heart, Womb
'Remorse for Intemperate Speech'

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

Whence had they come The hand and lash that beat down frigid Rome? What sacred drama through her body heaved When world-transforming Charlemagne was conceived?

William Butler Yeats
Drama, Rome, Hands
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.247, Wordsworth Editions

It's certain there is no fine thing Since Adam's fall but needs much laboring.

William Butler Yeats
Fall, Needs, Adam
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.64, Wordsworth Editions

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

My temptation is quiet. Here at life's end Neither loose imagination Nor the mill of the mind Consuming its rag and bone, Can make the truth known.

William Butler Yeats
Life, Truth, Imagination
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.257, Wordsworth Editions

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”

It's certain that fine women eat A crazy salad with their meat.

William Butler Yeats
Crazy, Women, Meat
"A Prayer for my Daughter" l. 30 (1919)

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

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

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

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.

William Butler Yeats
Blood, World, Anarchy
"The Second Coming" l. 1 (1921)

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