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
You think it horrible that lust and rage Should dance attention upon my old age; They were not such a plague when I was young; What else have I to spur me into song?
On limestone quarried near the spot By his command these words are cut: Cast a cold eye On life, on death. Horseman, pass by!
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.
I am content to live it all again And yet again, if it be life to pitch Into the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch.
The mystical life is the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write. . . . I have always considered myself a voice of what I believe to be a greater renaissance - the revolt of the soul against the intellect.
My temptation is quiet. Here at life's end Neither loose imagination Nor the mill of the mind Consuming its rag and bone, Can make the truth known.
Be secret and exult, Because of all things known That is most difficult.
The falcon cannot hear the falconer
Hammer your thoughts into unity.
Not a man alive has so much luck that he can play with it.
The poet is a good citizen turned inside out.
Somewhere beyond the curtain Of distorting days Lives that lonely thing That shone before these eyes Targeted, trod like Spring.
The night can sweat with terror as before We pieced our thoughts into philosophy, And planned to bring the world under a rule, Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.
I have read somewhere that in the Emperor's palace at Byzantium was a tree made of gold and silver, and artificial birds that sang.