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William Butler Yeats Quotes - Page 21

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Overcome the Empyrean; hurl Heaven and Earth out of their places, That in the same calamity Brother and brother, friend and friend, Family and family, City and city may contend.

Overcome the Empyrean; hurl Heaven and Earth out of their places, That in the same calamity Brother and brother, friend and friend, Family and family, City and city may contend.

William Butler Yeats
Brother, Struggle, Cities
William Butler Yeats (2012). “The Winding Stair and Other Poems: A Facsimile Edition”, p.31, Simon and Schuster

My curse on plays That have to be set up in fifty ways, On the day's war with every knave and dolt, Theater business, management of men.

William Butler Yeats
War, Drama, Men
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.75, Wordsworth Editions

The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.

William Butler Yeats
Mystery, Uncontrollable, Unsatisfied
"The Magi" l. 1, 6 (1914)

Between extremities Man runs his course; A brand, or flaming breath, Comes to destroy All those antinomies Of day and night.

William Butler Yeats
Running, Night, Men
William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.254, Simon and Schuster

I, too, await The hour of thy great wind of love and hate. When shall the stars be blown about the sky, Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die?

William Butler Yeats
Stars, Hate, Wind
William Butler Yeats (2013). “Early Poems”, p.54, Courier Corporation

In mockery I have set A powerful emblem up, And sing it rhyme upon rhyme In mockery of a time Half dead at the top.

William Butler Yeats
Powerful, Symbolism, Towers
William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.241, Simon and Schuster

How can I, that girl standing there, My attention fix On Roman or on Russian Or on Spanish politics?

William Butler Yeats
Love, Girl, Heart
William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.356, Simon and Schuster

somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

William Butler Yeats
Moving, Men, Bird
William Butler Yeats (2015). “A Vision: The Revised 1937 Edition: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats”, p.192, Simon and Schuster

Test every work of intellect or faith and everything that your own hands have wrought.

William Butler Yeats
Hands, Extravagance, Tests
William Butler Yeats (2011). “Selected Poems And Four Plays”, p.141, Simon and Schuster

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

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

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

You ask what I have found and far and wide I go, Nothing but Cromwell's house and Cromwell's murderous crew, The lovers and the dancers are beaten into the clay, And the tall men and the swordsmen and the horsemen where are they?

William Butler Yeats
Men, House, Dancer
William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.311, Simon and Schuster

Come near; I would, before my time to go, Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways: Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.

William Butler Yeats
Rose, Proud, Red
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.23, Wordsworth Editions

Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make

William Butler Yeats
Art, Nature, Byzantium
"Sailing to Byzantium" l. 25 (1928)

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

How could passion run so deep Had I never thought That the crime of being born Blackens all our lot?

William Butler Yeats
Running, Passion, Sin
William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.524, Hayes Barton Press

There are a few of the open-air spirits; the more domestic of their tribe gather within-doors, plentiful as swallows under southern eaves.

William Butler Yeats
Air, Doors, Southern
William Butler Yeats (2007). “The Celtic Twilight”, p.17, Library of Alexandria

And there's a score of duchesses, surpassing womankind, Or who have found a painter to make them so for pay And smooth out stain and blemish with the elegance of his mind: I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.

William Butler Yeats
Women, Phoenix, Mind
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.127, Wordsworth Editions

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

And God, the herdsman, goads them on behind.

William Butler Yeats
Time, Oxen, Behinds
Poems (1895) "The Countess Cathleen" act 4

Let the minor genius go his light way and enjoy his life - the great nature cannot so live, he is never really in holiday mood, even though he often plucks flowers by the wayside and ties them into knots and garlands like little children and lays out on a sunny morning.

William Butler Yeats
Morning, Children, Flower

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

He only can create the greatest imaginable beauty who has endured all imaginable pangs, for only when we have seen and foreseen what we dread shall we be rewarded by that dazzling unforeseen wing-footed wanderer.

William Butler Yeats
Beauty, Wings, Dread
William Butler Yeats (1998). “Mythologies”, p.332, Simon and Schuster

Poet and sculptor, do the work, / Nor let the modish painter shirk

William Butler Yeats
Poet, Shirk, Painter
William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.334, Simon and Schuster

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