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
I am content to live it all againAnd yet again, if it be life to pitchInto the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch,A blind man battering blind men.
I bear a burden that might well tryMen that do all by rule,And what can IThat am a wandering-witted foolBut pray to God that He easeMy great responsibilities?
Cast a cold eyeOn life, on deathHorseman, pass by!
Caught in that sensual music all neglect monuments of unaging intellect
I would be -- for no knowledge is worth a straw --Ignorant and wanton as the dawn.
I have certainly known more men destroyed by the desire to have a wife and child and to keep them in comfort than I have seen destroyed by drink and harlots
I have believed the best of every man. And find that to believe it is enough to make a bad man show him at his best, or even a good man swing his lantern higher.
No expectation fails there,No pleasing habit ends,No man grows old, no girl grows cold,But friends walk by friends.
No expectation fails there, No pleasing habit ends, No man grows old, no girl grows cold, But friends walk by friends.
Nothing but sweetness can remain when hearts are full of their own sweetness.
Poor men have grown to be rich men,And rich men grown to be poor again,And I am running to Paradise.
Only God, my dear,Could love you for yourself aloneAnd not your yellow hair.
Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say;Never to have drawn the breath of life, never to have looked into the eye of day;The second best's a gay goodnight and quickly turn away.
O love is the crooked thing,There is nobody wise enoughTo find out all that is in it.