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
Surely among a rich man's flowering lawns,Amid the rustle of his planted hills,Life overflows without ambitious pains;And rains down life until the basin spills,And mounts more dizzy high the more it rainsAs though to choose whatever shape it wills. . . .
Civilization is hoped together, brought under a rule, under the semblance of peace by manifold illusion, but Man's life is thought, and he, despite his terror, cannot cease, ravening through century after century ravening, raging and uprooting, that
But where's the wild dog that has praised his fleas?
The land of fairy, where nobody gets old and godly and grave, where nobody gets old and crafty and wise, where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue.
The last stroke of midnight dies.All day in the one chairFrom dream to dream and rhyme to rhyme I have rangedIn rambling talk with an image of air:Vague memories, nothing but memories.
Their hearts are wild,As be the hearts of birds, till children come.
The intellect of man is forced to choose perfection of the life, or of the work, and if it take the second must refuse a heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.
I hear the wind a blowI hear the grass a grow,And all that I know, I know.But I will not speak, I will run away.
I hear the wind a blow I hear the grass a grow, And all that I know, I know. But I will not speak, I will run away.
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore. . . .I hear it in the deep heart's core.
I have no question:It is enough, I know what fixed the stationOf star and cloud.And knowing all, I cry. . . .
Once more the storm is howling, and half hidUnder this cradle-hood and coverlidMy child sleeps on.
If you believe in God,You are my soul's one friend.
Because I am mad about womenI am mad about the hills,"Said that wild old wicked manWho travels where God wills. . . .