William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeatswas an Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms. Yeats was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and, along with Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn, and others, founded the Abbey Theatre, where he served as its chief during its early years. In 1923, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth13 June 1865
CitySandymount, Ireland
CountryIreland
All that could run or leap or swim Whether in wood, water or cloud, Acclaiming, proclaiming, declaiming Him.
on the instant clamorous eaves, A climbing moon upon an empty sky, And all that lamentation of the leaves, Could but compose man's image and his cry.
The Muse is mute when public men Applaud a modern throne.
Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again! The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on.
Gaze no more in the bitter glass The demons, with their subtle guile, Lift up before us when they pass, Or only gaze a little while....
Maybe the bride-bed brings despair, For each an imagined image brings And finds a real image there....
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.
for never yet Has lover lived, but longed to wive Like them that are no more alive.
Come swish around my pretty punk And keep me dancing still That I may stay a sober man Although I drink my fill.
I broke my heart in two So hard I struck. What matter? for I know That out of rock, Out of a desolate source, Love leaps upon its course.
Your hooves have stamped at the black margin of the wood, Even where horrible green parrots call and swing. My works are all stamped down into the sultry mud.
My chair was nearest to the fire In every company That talked of love or politics, Ere Time transfigured me.
O sweet everlasting Voices, be still; Go to the guards of the heavenly fold And bid them wander obeying your will, Flame under flame, till Time be no more....
I--love's skein upon the ground, My body in the tomb-- Shall leap into the light lost In my mother's womb.