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
But stories that live longest Are sung above the glass, And Parnell loved his country And Parnell loved his lass.
I can forgive even that wrong of wrongs, Those undreamt accidents that have made me Seeing that Fame has perished this long while, Being but a part of ancient ceremony Notorious, till all my priceless things Are but a post the passing dogs defile.
Why should I seek for love or study it? It is of God and passes human wit; I study hatred with great diligence, For that's a passion in my own control, A sort of besom that can clear the soul Of everything that is not mind or sense.
I would that I were an old beggar Rolling a blind pearl eye, For he cannot see my lady Go gallivanting by.
Sweetheart, do not love too long: I loved long and long, And grew to be out of fashion Like an old song.
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.
I bear a burden that might well try Men that do all by rule, And what can I That am a wandering-witted fool But pray to God that He ease My great responsibilities?
I see a schoolboy when I think of him, With face and nose pressed to a sweet-shop window....
Because this age and the next age Engender in the ditch, No man can know a happy man From any passing wretch, If Folly link with Elegance No man knows which is which....
Though I have many words, What woman's satisfied, I am no longer faint Because at her side? O who could have foretold That the heart grows old?
Oh, Love is the crooked thing, there is nobody wise enough to find out all that is in it, for he will be thinking about love til the stars run away and the shadows eaten the moon..
Because the priest must have like every dog his day Or keep us all awake with baying at the moon, We and our dolls being but the world were best away.
I carry from my mother's womb a fanatic's heart.
Laughter not time destroyed my voice And put that crack in it, And when the moon's pot-bellied I get a laughing fit....