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
Out-worn heart, in a time out-worn, Come clear of the nets of wrong and right; Laugh, heart, again in the grey twilight, Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn.
O would, beloved, that you lay Under the dock-leaves in the ground, While lights were paling one by one.
... Let the cage bird and the cage bird mate and the wild bird mate in the wild.
There's keen delight in what we have: The rattle of pebbles on the shore Under the receding wave.
I know, although when looks meet I tremble to the bone, The more I leave the door unlatched The sooner love is gone....
Lionel Johnson comes the first to mind, That loved his learning better than mankind, Though courteous to the worst; much falling he Brooded upon sanctity....
Civilisation is hooped together, brought Under a rule, under the semblance of peace By manifold illusion....
I had a chair at every hearth, When no one turned to see, With 'Look at that old fellow there, 'And who may he be?
All men live in suffering I know as few can know, Whether they take the upper road Or stay content on the low....
Thought is a garment and the soul's a bride That cannot in that trash and tinsel hide: Hatred of God may bring the soul to God.
He Who is wrapped in purple robes, With planets in His care, Had pity on the least of things Asleep upon a chair.
I am haunted by numberless islands, many a Danaan shore, Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no more;Soon far from the rose and the lily and fret of the flames would we be, Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea!
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.
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.