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William Butler Yeats Quotes - Page 22

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

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'

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

Speech after long silence; it is right, All other lovers being estranged or dead . . . That we descant and yet again descant Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song: Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young We loved each other and were ignorant.

William Butler Yeats
Wisdom, Song, Art
William Butler Yeats (2011). “The Yeats Reader, Revised Edition: A Portable Compendium of Poetry, Drama, and Prose”, p.206, Simon and Schuster

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

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

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

Bodies of holy men and women exude Miraculous oil, odour of violet. But under heavy loads of trampled clay Lie bodies of the vampires full of blood; Their shrouds are bloody and their lips are wet.

William Butler Yeats
Truth, Lying, Men
William Butler Yeats (2010). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume I: The Poems: Revised Second Edition”, p.239, Simon and Schuster

How can they know Truth flourishes where the student's lamp has shone, And there alone, that have no solitude? So the crowd come they care not what may come. They have loud music, hope every day renewed And heartier loves; that lamp is from the tomb.

William Butler Yeats
Truth, Solitude, Lamps
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.156, Wordsworth Editions

Nor seek, for this is also sooth, To hunger fiercely after truth, Lest all thy toiling only breeds New dreams, new dreams; there is no truth Saving in thine own heart.

William Butler Yeats
Dream, Truth, Heart
William Butler Yeats (2015). “When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales”, p.142, Penguin

For what but eye and ear silence the mind With the minute particulars of mankind?

William Butler Yeats
Eye, Silence, Mind
William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.233, Hayes Barton Press

Where the world ends The mind is made unchanging, for it finds Miracle, ecstasy, the impossible hope, The flagstone under all, the fire of fires, The roots of the world.

William Butler Yeats
Fire, Roots, Miracle
William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.122, Hayes Barton Press

What if I bade you leave The cavern of the mind? There's better exercise In the sunlight and wind.

William Butler Yeats
Exercise, Wind, What If
William Butler Yeats (2001). “The Major Works”, p.162

Give to these children, new from the world, Rest far from men. Is anything better, anything better? Tell us it then.

William Butler Yeats
Life, Children, Men
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.30, Wordsworth Editions

Endure what life God gives and ask no longer span; Cease to remember the delights of youth, travel-wearied aged man; Delight becomes death-longing if all longing else be vain.

William Butler Yeats
Life, Men, Giving
William Butler Yeats (2010). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Vol II: The Plays”, p.431, Simon and Schuster

Surely among a rich man's flowering lawns, Amid the rustle of his planted hills, Life overflows without ambitious pains; And rains down life until the basin spills, And mounts more dizzy high the more it rains As though to choose whatever shape it wills.

William Butler Yeats
Life, Pain, Rain
William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.204, Simon and Schuster

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

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”

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

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

Why should I blame her that she filled my days With misery, or that she would of late Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways, Or hurled the little streets upon the great, Had they but courage equal to desire? What could have made her peaceful with a mind That nobleness made simple as a fire, With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind That is not natural in an age like this Being high and solitary and most stern? Why, what could she have done, being what she is? Was there another Troy for her to burn?

William Butler Yeats
Simple, Men, Fire
"No Second Troy" l. 11 (1910)

I would that there was nothing in the world But my beloved that night and day had perished, And all that is and all that is to be, All that is not the meeting of our lips.

William Butler Yeats
Night, World, Lips
William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.435, Simon and Schuster

I see a schoolboy when I think of him, With face and nose pressed to a sweet-shop window.

William Butler Yeats
Sweet, Thinking, Noses
'Ego Dominus Tuus' (referring to Keats)

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

Why should the imagination of a man Long past his prime remember things that are Emblematical of love and war?

William Butler Yeats
War, Past, Men
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.198, Wordsworth Editions

Books are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought - asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation.

William Butler Yeats
Book, Reading, Pride

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